Month of March, 2005

Pictures from California

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I've finally gotten around to putting up pictures from my California trip. I had to go to San Diego for a conference for work. Mom and Dad decided to go with me for the weekend before the conference so we could see my aunt. The highlight of the trip was definitely seeing Aunt Jennie and meeting Nora, my second cousing, and Mark, Nora's husband, for the first time. Oh yeah, getting my picture with pirates was pretty cool too.

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Anonymous

A reoccurring theme has arisen in my little corner of the Internet. It seems that a number of my friends have moved from having blogs with their real names attached to anonymous blogs. It's certainly an interesting trend. I suppose people are doing it to protect their career or just to have some freedom. Anything else?

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Sushi

Sergio taught me how to make sushi on Friday night. It was just as good to eat as it was to look at. I've been wanting to learn for forever. This was a dream come true.

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Spell with Flickr

Thanks, Karen, for the link.

California

I'm travelling again. This weekend I'm in California with Mom and Dad. Then I'll be attending a conference for work Monday through Wednesday. We flew into San Diego and drove north. We spent the day in San Juan Capistrano where they were having a swallows festival. We watched a parade, ate California cuisine, and toured the Mission. It was a fantastic day considering we had nothing planned when we stepped off the plane.

Now we're in Irvine for the night where we'll probably be eating and shopping. Tomorrow we head to Hemet to visit my great aunt Jennie. Maybe we stop at a couple wineries afterwards. It's rainy in California (rain seems to be following me around these days), but the sun peeked out for a little bit this afternoon and it's gorgeous. Plus the rain makes everything very lush so we're enjoying the landscape. Mostly I'm having a great time hanging out with my parents and laughing a lot. This is truly the life.

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20x2 Art for Sale

MichaelBuffington created a painting for 20x2 and now he's auctioning it on eBay. Check out Michael's post about it and watch the 20x2 piece.

Birthday

Last Friday was my birthday, but the family just celebrated tonight. Mom made pasta with clam sauce. It was heavenly! She even bought a cake. We had a nice time together; though I wish Karen and Jason could have been there.

Here's the card Mom and Dad got for me. Inside it said, "Demand whatever you want for your birthday."

The inside joke is that quite a few years ago, I was caught standing at the refrigerator spraying whip cream into my mouth!

So, Kristen decided she would do the honors for my birthday!

My family is the best in the whole world. We sure have a good time together!

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Graduation Party

Mark your calendars! I've finally nailed down the date for my graudation party!

When: Saturday, June 4 at 6pm
Where: Caves Lounge in Arlington, TX

This is an open invitation to anyone who knows me and wants to come celebrate my graudation. It'll be a time to rejoice that all of the hard work for the past 2 1/2 years has finally paid off and I get to wear three little letters (MBA) for the rest of my life! (I'm considering having them tatooed on my knuckles.)

As many of you know, Caves Lounge is my favorite bar. It's very special for me to get to have my party there. Thanks to Leska & Tommy for making this happen! The party is planned for the back patio so keep your fingers crossed for good weather. If it turns bad, we'll move inside. There will be plenty of food and drink! Live music will be provided by Dirty Girls Social Club.

For you out-of-town friends, let me know if you need help making arrangements. You're welcome to stay at LucciHouse if you don't mind sleeping on a couch or the floor. The more the merrier!

SXSW Photos

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Post SXSW

South by Southwest Interactive is kinda like summer camp for geeks. Well, if summer camp included lots of drinking, of course. Just like when I used to come back from summer camp and hated my normal life, I’ve come back from SXSW and am depressed about real life. Why can’t my daily life include hanging out with friends who live all over the country, watching performance art, eating good food, making new friends, lots of flirting, excessive drinking, staying up too late, and sleeping in? Why can’t my daily conversations always be about web projects, pranks, travel, relationships, blogs, Google, Internet celebrities, dvorak versus qwerty, and food? Because then my life would be perfect and no one has a perfect life.

I had a great time in Austin for SXSW. This year I didn’t attend the actual conference, which made my time in Austin just like vacation. It was so good to have a break from work and school. I drove down Saturday night in anticipation of picking up Cameron from the airport. Unfortunately, he got stuck in Kentucky due to bad weather. So I forged on ahead knowing that I would see Cameron in the morning. Saturday night I met a bunch of people on the outside patio at the Blind Pig. The weather was absolutely incredible as was the company. Blind Pig started getting crowded so we moved to Paradise, but for some reason I never went in. Instead, we walked down the street to a dance club. Waiting in line there made some of us figure out that we didn’t want to go in, so we headed back to Matt, Julie, Amanda, and Andrew’s hotel room. (After swinging by my car to get some g&t.) The rest of the night was slightly blurry which I’m sure was in direct relation to the amount of gin I was drinking (and wasn’t slight). I remember sitting by the pool for a bit until we were told it was closed. Then heading back to Leonard & Ryan’s room for a few more hours. It was super fun and I feel bad for anyone else staying at that hotel, because I know we must have been loud.

People I saw on Saturday:
Jefe, Kristin, Kevin, Mark, Leia, Amanda, Matt, Julie, AndrewJThomas, Ryan Gantz, Alison, Ryan N, Erik Benson, M-D, Josh, Jessa, Connie, Ru, Ryan C, Leonard

People I met on Saturday:
MichaelBuffington, Star, Ian

Sunday morning I picked up Cam at the airport and went directly to eat lunch at Shady Grove, one of my favorite places in Austin. We waited forever for an outside table, but it was too beautiful to sit inside. (The high for the day was 80 degrees.) It was fun catching up since we hadn’t seen each other since last year at SXSW. Then Cameron went to the conference to hear the keynote and I went to the hotel pool. After a long nap, I met up with Cameron, Michael, and Jude. We started out with a ton of people at Hotel San Jose, which has a gorgeous courtyard. Dinner was down the street at an awesome Tex-Mex place with Michael, Cameron, Jude, Shannon, and Ze. Waiting for dinner I ran into Jane! When we finally sat down at a table, I realized that Ze was the guy with the amazing jumping cat, who I was disappointed to learn is no longer jumping so high. After dinner it was back to Hotel San Jose where I buried myself under the heater(because it got really chilly) and chatted with Jude. We stopped back at the hotel room for a couple drinks then it was on to Paradise where I saw everyone else I wanted to see.

People I saw on Sunday:
Kevin Smokler, Photo Matt, Brad Graham, Min Jung, Dan, James, Jane

People I met on Sunday:
Jude, Shannon, Ze Frank, Sam, Josh, Andrew Huff

Monday morning I sent a few email from bed and relaxed. Then Cameron and I had lunch at Moonshine, quickly becoming my favorite restaurant in Austin. If you go, you MUST try the corndog shrimp. Lunch was followed by coffee at the Hilton, where I ran into Carly and Ezra. Ironically that was the same place I ran into Carly last year when I first learned she was pregnant with Ezra. It was an amazing-the-world-has-come-full-circle kind of moment. Cameron went off to the conference and his panel. I went back to the hotel. While I was contemplating a nap, Mel called back and we met for coffee. It was really cool to just hang out with him for a few hours. Mel dropped me off at the convention center where I met up with a group heading over to Tambeleo for 20x2. I really enjoyed the show and the socializing. Like Cameron said, that's totally my event and the reason I stayed in town on Monday. After 20x2, Cameron and Michael introduced me to The Boiling Pot. Then we hit the Side Bar, which was far too crowded and slightly annoying, so I went back to the hotel. It was time to pack and sleep.

People I saw on Monday:
Shane Bartell, Alex, Michael Brown, Tina

People I met on Monday:
David Galbraith

At 5am Tuesday morning, I woke up and got ready for work. Cameron, poor thing, woke up enough to give me a hug goodbye. Then I drove the three hours back to Dallas and walked into a really, really crappy day at work. But I guess that's always how these things go. After a couple of incredible days, coming back to work always sucks. The weekend was fabulous and I'm already promising myself that I'll go for the entire conference experience next year (when I'm not in grad school anymore!). My only regret is there were a couple people I wanted to see but didn't - Stephan Seagraves, a blogger from Lubbock and Jon Sanchez, a friend of mine that lives in Austin.

Pictures will be up soon.

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Austin

I'm having a blast in Austin this weekend. Last night I got to see many of my friends from other places and met a few new people. Andrew took this picture with his new Sidekick2...I need to get one of those. Got to hang out with Cameron today and then took a two hour long nap. I think I'm ready for another night out.

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SXSW

I'm back in Texas after a really nice trip to Arizona. I've been home for a couple days but too busy to do much other than laundry. Right now I'm in class (only 7 more Saturday morning classes!) and later in the afternoon I'm going to Austin for SXSW. I'm taking Monday off of work in order to stay for 20x2. I hope to get some real relaxation in over the weekend. It's going to be really great.

Texas Highways

Texas is set to supersize highways.

An interesting article about a new proposed highway to run parallel to I-35 about 30 to 50 miles east of where it is now. I think Texas needs this. Anything that would make the north-south drive across Texas faster and safer is a great idea. I hope they put in train tracks too!

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The News

You've probably been wondering where I am and what I've been up to. Yeah, I've been a bit quiet these days. I've had lots on my mind but haven't felt like sharing it. I suppose it's part of the funk everyone has been in. Today I feel completely out of the funk because I enjoyed an incredibly sunny and beautiful afternoon. The sun and a cool breeze always brings out the best in me.

I got to enjoy such a beautiful day because I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona. Once again, I'm reminded that I love the desert. I'm here for training, which is always good since I like learning new stuff. I came in on Saturday and Mom and Dad came with me. We planned on enjoying a warm, sunny weekend, but unfortunately it rained here. Luckily today's weather made up for it. We had a great time kicking around together and got to know the area quite well. It was really nice to spend so much time with my parents and to spend the weekend relaxing.

Last week was busy at work. Basically it was the final piece of a project that I've been working on for the last 6 to 8 weeks. Everything went as planned and was, in my opinion, a success. By the end of the week, I felt a huge sense of relief. I finally accomplished the goal I was given weeks earlier. It's so encouraging to finally have something positive after a lot of weeks of hard work.

There's also good news about my dating life. I went out last week with Sergio. He took me to a lovely dinner at Piccolo Mondo, a very nice Italian restaurant in Arlington. Went spent the rest of the evening sitting on the couch at my house getting to know each other. Sergio is a chef at my favorite sushi restaurant so it's fun to get to know him outside of that environment. We already have plans to go out again when I get back from Arizona.

Amazing what a good mood I'm in when I've got sunny weather, goals achieved at work, and a date with someone new!

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Dog Love 2

Karen wrote, "Sophie felt left out because Benny got to send you an email and she didn't. So here is Sophie Love for you direct from Germany!!"

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Dog Love

You know, there's nothing quite like animal love. They love so unconditionally. Mia's Benny sent me some love when I was feeling down last week. It totally made me feel better.

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