On Thursday, 5pm, rolls around and I am off the clock. I shut down my laptop to leave and am immediately caught by the "I have a quick five minute question about XYZ." I chuckled to my boss and playfully respond, "As of about 30 seconds ago that just became your problem. I'll see you in two weeks." Unfortunately, I work in a world where the boundaries between your work life and your social life are very blurred. I spend a lot of my evenings and weekends doing work, but I am also on instant messenger most of the day. Though really, in the balance of things, they get more out of me than I am able to steal back.
Still, it is because of this blurring that after 5pm passed and I was officially on vacation, that I spent three hours that even on conference calls with India, all the while frantically running laundry and packing bags. I had been unable to get anything done yet that week as we had partners in from out of town for all day sessions and one my employees had decided to give notice and was demanding a social outing since he would be gone by the time I got back from vacation. And still, it is because of this blurring that even the next morning a coworker picked me up so she could drive me to airport and get another 45 minutes of questions in and then I spent nearly two hours at the airport, draining the precious batteries of my iPhone, while on even more conference calls.
I sat down on the airplane, closed my eyes and just let the world melt out of my mind. I have a new theory that you can deduce a lot from someone by whether they choose to sit in a window or aisle seat. The window seat is generally better, unless you need to use the restroom and thus must access the person in the aisle seat to let you out. So I think a primary motivator in seat selection is whether you have a higher value on your own comfort or on not disturbing others. Or neither. I'm just saying.
Sitting next to me for the first leg of my flight from San Francisco to Tokyo is a nice young lady named Jenna who is only seventeen and flying out all by herself to Japan to meet up with her father. Her parent's are divorced and her father is spending six to twelve months on business. See is slightly freaked out when she realizes that she does not have a boarding pass for her connecting flight in Japan, but seasoned traveler that I am, I explain how if she is switching to domestic she probably just needs to check in when we get there.
I pass the time on the flights listening to Moby Dick and reading Watchman. I have the timings for India travel down on the sleep, eat, wake, drugs, etc. scale of things but this trip to Taiwan is a little tricky. Leaving San Francisco at 1pm PST and arriving in Taiwan at 6am PST. I decide my best bet is to sleep as much as I can from 1pm - 10pm and then stay awake the rest of the time. That is what I am doing right now, on the plane, somewhat exhausted.
Geeking Out (02/24/2009)
I don't hate sports, I just have zero interest in them. - John Hodgman
A group of people from a partner company flew into town for the week to "button up" a proposal we've been working on. While introducing myself to the team, I still don't know what title I'm suppose to give for myself. Today I used "Solutions Catalyst" as my title. Mostly, I think I am happy with it.
After the all-day workshop we went out to dinner, as was the fashion at the time, and chatted about our personal lives. The partner lead was a former pole vaulter. He was en-route to the 2004 Olympics when a hamstring injury knocked him out. A few glasses of wine in him, and he went crazy on Olympic pole vauting.
There is a state you can achieve with someone, where they just start talking about something they are incredibly passionate about with a reckless abandon. They explain why why they love it so much and you can feel the zeal pouring out from them infectiously. He hit that state with pole vaulting going into detail on the speeds, the grips on the pole, the weights of the pole and the physics of the run. He went so far as to start writing down physics equations on the restaurant napkin. He knew, off the top of his, ridiculous details on the world record holder: length of pole, weight of pole, grip on pole, launch off pole. It was compelling.
Everyone has this in them. Everyone has at least one thing in their life where they can just go over-the-top "I love this and don't know why everyone else doesn't think this is awesome!" Frankly speaking, it's one of the things I look for on dates (please don't tell anyone I might go on a date with). I try and find that thing that makes them "geek out." People generally know about it; people generally know that there are things they are far more interested in than the average American and they feel self-conscious about going to crazy, because they know most people will be bored.
I am not bored by this. I am excited, not necessarily about what they are talking about, but about how it is so amazing to them. I have seen people geek out on knitting. I have seen people geek out on desserts. I have seen people geek out on lipstick brands. I have seen people geek out on fresh water consumption. Every single time I see, it makes me happy.
(Note: This does not apply to sports or cars. I have no interest in those.)
Just the Little Deeds (02/22/2009)
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions - Margaret Thatcher
We sat, sip sip on the coffee, talking about all the bits and pieces of life, working on the art of conversation. Then, on the wander home, we saw a wallet sitting on the ground. Flipping it open we it had three things in it: $10, a driver’s license and a social security card. Perfect for identity theft, except the owner was a minor and probably wouldn’t have had a very good credit rating.
The address on the license wasn’t showing up on the Google maps on my phone. Strange, wasn’t it? So we trecked our way back to her computer and tried Map Quest; that’s a good one, too. It didn’t find the address, but it found the road somewhat nearby. Still a fairly long walk away so we jumped into the car, found the extremely newly built apartment complex, returned the wallet at the leasing office, and headed home feeling proud of ourselves. Hope the kid pays it forward.
Happy Valentines Day (02/15/2009)
So I don't really get this whole video making thing... and I don't really know how to embed in RSS, so if you don't see a video, you Watch It Here!
Sorry. We're Closed. (02/08/2009)
Women. You can't live with 'em. Pass the beernuts. - Norm Peterson (Cheers)
So sad! I have a Cheers refrigerator magnet and bottle opener that finally broke on me. When I was traveling around the country for my first job out of school, anytime I would be stationed somewhere for a few months I would make sure to get a refrigerator magnet from the city. I would stick a piece of tape on the back to say when I was there and what for.
The Cheers magnet says, "Jan/2001 - Mar/2001. Cambridge, Mass." It was my very first extended business trip. I went as a bright-eyed little boy, calling all of my friends and relatives and saying, "I am going to be near Boston for three months!" Little did I know, I would spend the next few years of my life doing extended trip after extended trip, collecting more and more magnets on the refrigerator.
It's been almost five years since I've done a business trip lasting more than two weeks. Though I've had a couple tough trips to India, overall, this little home-loving bug is quite content.
Good Morning (02/01/2009)
I don't set the alarm to get up. I get up when I feel like it. - Patricia Highsmith
I had the same alarm clock since I was in sixth grade or so. It has suited me extremely well over the years. A few years ago the radio portion of the alarm stopped working. It was a sad day, but I happily graduated on to using my iPod as my wake up call. I created this 30-minute sound track in Garage Band where the first twenty-five minutes was a gradually increasing sound of bells followed five minutes of really annoying loud alarm sounds. It was a really pleasant way to wake up.
Then my iPod died on me. So it goes. I had acquired my iPhone by this point, but the problem here is that the iPhone doesn't actually have the ability to start playing a playlist at a preset time. Seriously? Seriously. Anyway, I've graduated to the habit where every night I check my calendar on my iPhone to figure out when my first meeting is tomorrow and set my iPhone alarm to wake me up appropriately. I'm still hoping that there will eventually be a software update or app that can fix this, but until then, I live.
One of my awesome Christmas presents this year was a new bedside alarm clock. It picks up the NIST radio signal and syncs to atomic time. That's right! It's time is set by robots! In addition it has a friggin' laser! It shoots it onto my ceiling telling me the time. The minor problem with this is that I can easily read the time without my glasses so as I lie awake with insomnia throughout the night staring at the ceiling the ceiling tells me the time.
Unfortunately it also has a thermostat on it. You know, because when your alarm wakes you up in the morning and you're already pissed about the fact that it's way too early the be awake, the only other thing you don't want to know is exactly how friggin' cold it is directly outside your comforter. Still, as long as it doesn't project the temperature onto the ceiling with a laser, I can forgive it.
