Contains Caffeine

I thought Starbucks had free wireless internet everywhere.  I was wrong.  I’m in a Starbucks in San Jose right now, and it costs $10 an hour!   However, I found a nice unsecured network on the list that had just enough bars to get a decent connection.  Take that Starbucks!

I’m in San Jose right now with a couple hours to kill before I have to be at the airport.  I got in last night and was just here for a project meeting for the day.  It was pretty exhausting…I had to get involved in some pretty heated discussions which ended up in compromises on both sides.  Working on this project has been really stressful, and in general work is kicking my butt right now. On the bright side, we have a new person starting on my team this week as well as another back from mat leave, so I can offload a lot of my work.  I’m definitely looking forward to the long weekend.

I’m pretty psyched at how my Etsy sales are going, I’ve sold 4 pairs of earrings so far, which I think is pretty good since I’ve only listed 12 things total!  EBay announced some new fee structures for fixed priced listings, so I might throw a few up on there too and see how they fair.  I think I owe it to eBay to try out the new pricing since they do keep me gainfully and happily employed!

Lately I’ve been making a real effort to get to some of the things on my life’s to-do list.  Selling my jewelry was one of them, and it feels great to have started that.  Next is guitar lesssons….I used to enjoy playing, but never got very good.  I’ve got a lead on a teacher who is pretty cheap, so I’m gonna try a couple lessons and see how things go.

So that’s my updates…nothing earth-shattering, but a lot by my life’s standards.

Tags: General, Work by Mel
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For someone who is normally a homebody, I’ve been really busy lately.  

I got home from San Jose (eBay head office) about 1am Friday morning.  It was a great trip.  I got to meet lots of San Jose coworkers, but also got to hang with some Salt Lake and Vancouver co-workers who were there the same week.  A highlight of the trip was a night out in San Francisco.  We had dinner at a restaurant called The Stinking Rose, known for it’s all-garlic menu. Our great meal was served by a very entertaining waiter.  He was 76 and had the most animated personality, even by San Fransisco standards.  At the end of the night, he brought out a photo album and shared some pictures of him carrying the Olympic torch.  He was nominated to carry it based on his 40+ years volunteering as the Easter Bunny at 10 nearby hospitals every year.  He also showed us some pictures of the King of Jordon, who after eating dinner at the restaurant and hearing his story, invited him to Jordon for 3 weeks to stay in the royal estate.  I just did a Google search, and found a story about him.  I wish we could have stayed longer, because it seems we had just scratched the surface of this guy’s amazing life.  Thanks for the great hospitality Ray!  After that we took a quick walk down to Pier 39 and saw the sea lions, and then had dessert at Ghiradelli.

After not enough sleep, I had to catch up on all the work I missed during the week. A small emergency broke out in the afternoon when I was not in the office and I completely passed it off to someone else to deal with.  This is not something I normally do, but at some point you have to finish work for the day and just leave it until Monday.

Yesterday we attended the wedding of two good friends, Gord and Anya.  They’ve been together 9 years, and we weren’t sure Gord was ever going to go through with it.  They are a great couple, and it was a great wedding. 

After the cake cutting we had to get Loki home (we didn’t have a baby sitter), and then realized we had just enough time to get down-town and catch the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets at the media club.  Their old guitar player, Warren Banks, was in town from England for a couple weeks, and it was great to see him.

Tonight is Mother’s Day dinner with my mom and step-dad. Indian food, yum!

All of this social interaction has me totally exhausted.  Blogosaurus posted a great article about introverts which describes me very well.  I’m going to need a break from people for a while.

Tags: General by Mel
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