I'll understand when I'm older

The Red Light Special is Only $100

2010-02-18T04:09:00.010+05:30

February is a bad, bad month for my 1995 Ford Taurus, as evidenced by last year's hit and run and windshield bashing and this accident four years ago. This year is no exception, which I discovered when I received by mail today this photo of me blatantly running a red light. Yep. You caught me, technology.

This feels a little like when you go on one of the "Xtreme" rides at an amusement park and they take your picture and try to sell it to you for egregious amounts of money. Only in this scenario, the ride is only extreme because you're voluntarily defying oncoming traffic in an attempt to get 20 feet ahead before you have to stop again for the next red light. Also, it's much more costly. This particular photo is $100 of amusement park fun!

Here's where I must declare my dissatisfaction with Chicago's growing camera enforcement program. Why? Because it destroys the very essence that makes Chicago driving -- nay -- Chicago CULTURE, what it is. You see, I'm not exaggerating when I say that at any given intersection in Chicago, when the light turns red you will see three- to five more vehicles slip on through. It's just what our fast-paced, angry, concrete-dwelling Chicagoan hearts do. We can't help it, see?

This photo, besides calling out the sincerity of my Chicagoan pride, what does it say? It sends this message, this awful, denigrating message that things are changing 'round here. That yes, even in this windy, crooked city someone out there thinks we can all become regular, law-abiding citizens. And they have taken it to the roads.

{siiiigh}

Ironically, I bought a bike today. Let's see your cameras catch my Schwinn, Chicago Dept. of Revenue! Well, I've paid my $100. My car, Treasure, should be good to go until next February (although March has also brought on its share of disaster), and if I can be grateful for one thing about Chicago's changing front on this Ash Wednesday, it is this: Maybe soon I'll be able to put ketchup on my hot dog and not receive death glares.

Why I should've mulled that gift over some more

2009-08-27T06:45:00.004+05:30

Last fall I bought Andy an XBox360 and gave myself personal pats on the back for being a winning girlfriend. What I didn't consider is the paranoia-inducing online integration of this splendid device, and how that gift would come to serve the same purpose as the man I regularly see "walking" in Hillsboro with his arms flailing, shouting marching orders to HIMSELF with a single outstretched finger, violently jutting outward to the rhythm of an unidentified but likely upbeat song on his ipod: it creeps me out.

Andy's recently gotten into playing Halo 3 while hooked in to XBox LIVE, which allows him to converse with other players from around the globe. Thankfully, he wears a headset to spare me the obscene ramblings of adolescent boys and 35-year-old basement-dwellers. But that also means I only hear what he says to his teammates, which means I'll be in the kitchen washing dishes when I'll hear this:

Andy: Watch out - there's a guy behind you! I can't get there in time!!!
Me: What?!?!
Andy: He's to your left! TO YOUR LEFT!!!
Me: [heart sinks to balls of feet, senses impending death, looks to the left, cries in rocking motion on floor]
Andy: Ha! Red team got him. Niiiiiiice.

If you've never been tested as to whether your response in life or death situations is fight or flight, this is a great way to do so. Let's just say that if you surprise me in my home, you may be the victim of flying culinary tools.

Other random gametime outbursts I hear from the other room include those that make me chuckle:
"Get in, get in, get in! Ugggghhh!"

Those that make me concernicus:
"Is anyone there? Who's there?"

... And those that sound just plain psychotic:
"We're going to die. We're all going to diiieee!!!"

Urban Nomadicism for Dummies

2009-07-14T09:41:00.009+05:30

A recently-starred item in my RSS feed is a post by young entrepreneur Ben Casnocha called "Urban Nomadicism: The Sources of Unhappiness for Serial Travelers". As an IT consultant who has spent eight of the past ten months cross-country commuting full time, I took an interest in it. I'd like to give some input that supports a lot of Ben's statements, but hopefully offers some additional food for thought.

In his analysis of the (un)happiness of "professional vagabonds," Ben calls out three main culprits (indented text is from his post):

Rootlessness

"Home" changes over the course of one's life. It starts at your place of birth. Half of Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace. For the other half, what you consider home evolves over the course of time. The most comfortable transition is when "home" goes from A to B with no interlude. You might grow up in San Francisco (home), then move to Los Angeles (SF still home for awhile), until one day you realize that "home" is LA. Boom. It switches. But if you grow up in San Francisco (home), then move to LA, then move to Chicago, then Beijing, then Sydney, at some point SF no longer feels like home, but nor do any of the other cities. Where is your hearth? Where do you go for nurturance and renewal?

I’m still not sure what to call home. A very regular conversation I have with friends I make in Portland goes like this:
A: So where are you from?
D: Originally I’m from Minnesota, but I live in Chicago now.
A: [pause, confusion] So … are you just visiting here then?
D: No, I’m here full time. But I LIVE live in Chicago. Where are you from?
A: I’m from ___________.
D: Oh, that’s great! I love it there!
A: You’ve been?
D: Well, I lived there for 4 months.
A: Wow, where else have you lived?
D: [pulls out world map] …
So yes, it’s confusing not knowing what to call home. But I’d like to argue that home can be more than one place. I find true renewal and nurturance at the three places I’ve lived the longest: Minnesota, Colorado and Chicago.

Shallowness of relationships

The best way to build intimacy in a relationship is to spend quality in-the-flesh time with each other. If you're always on the go, or never in the same place for more than a few years, intimacy can be hard to come by. It's hard to involve yourself in a long-term relationship if you're nomadic. It's true even for friendships. Thanks to technology it's rare that a friendship would ever move backwards in the absence of physical interaction -- maintenance is easy these days -- but technology can not accelerate intimacy in the way physicality does. It can even be hard to motivate yourself to invest in relationships as you think to yourself, "I'm leaving in six months anyway, what's the point in trying to find a best friend?" (People who have issues with intimacy of course will embrace this aspect of the traveler's life.)

I think this depends on the approach you take. Yes, there is a lot of truth to the statement that physical interaction beats virtual. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to kindle a friendship through digital means. I've met lots of people through Twitter and Meetup, but more on that in a bit.

Identity confusion

Where do I belong? Does the country name on my passport still accurately reflect my deepest national ties? How do I answer the question, "Where are you from?" If I'm living in a country where I am not a native speaker, will I ever be treated as a local?

In my mind this is fairly intertwined with rootlessness, so I’ll defer to my above response.

-----------------------------------------------------

I am often asked "how do you do it?" with regards to the state-to-state bunny hop, and the true concerns embedded in that question come straight from the list above. It could often be rephrased as simply “Are you actually happy?”. While I don’t believe that unhappiness is in the cards for everyone who chooses a life on the move, I do agree that if you don’t regularly assess your personal requirements for stable contentment, the travel bug will bite you sharply in the ass.

In no order other than how they came to mind, here are other factors that significantly contribute to the constant traveler’s lifestyle.

1. Personality. If you’ve got a penchant for nightly neighborhood BBQs and group movie nights, the traveling lifestyle might be more difficult for you. Conversely, frequent travel lends itself well to those less likely to be the life of the party because you’re surrounded by new ways to self-entertain all the time. When I spent a few months in Houston, the phrase “I’m in Texas” alone was enough to boggle and humor my mind for hours. That and the hair, God bless it.

Most, though, aren’t strictly people-persons or non-people-persons. I can socialize 'till the cows come home, but in reality I'm sort of an introvert. That surprises people, but I often prefer exploring on my own, be it an art museum or the tangled streets of a new city. I suppose the argument that brings is whether the more minor instances of joy from entertainment and exploration can actually constitute a deeper sense of happiness. At the risk of venturing in to gray-er and fuzzier territory, let’s keep looking at some other contributing factors.

2. Age. I’m 25 and female. Most of the people in line with me at airport security on Mondays at 4:30a.m. are 40- to 50-year-old men. There isn’t a whole lot of interaction between us, which I’ve come to accept. But whether it’s my “youth” or something else contributing to this feeling, I do wish we would take note of all the reasons to smile. Yes, it’s early. Yes, you’ve got a long day ahead (Mondays are the WORST when you’re flying West over time zones). I’ve always been excited to board a plane. But now that I board one every week, I feel sad to be one of the few who seems happy at the airport. How's that for irony? The people you’re sitting near may be fresh off their first time abroad, or maybe they just climbed Kilimanjaro. The amazing stories and energies to be found at airports are undoubtedly quashed to some degree by the worn-out, “don’t speak to me” expressions of us commuter drones.

Aside from the few hours spent actually in-transit, I believe age plays a role in how happy you can be as a full-time traveler. It’s practically second nature for me to go online to see what my options are for finding a social circle in a new place. Meetup.com allows me to find people I know I’d have fun with, and do things people my age do. If I’m backpacking alone, I’m likely at a hostel where finding a day trip buddy is a cinch. I can also update my status on Twitter and Facebook, and search my networks to see if anyone is in the area. Those tools have made a huge difference to my business travel experience. For example, a friend from college, with whom I’d been relatively out-of-touch, lives in Portland. I didn’t remember that until she responded to my post on Twitter. Now ~~I stalk her~~ we hang out regularly and have become close, great friends.
An older business traveler not likely to have such in-depth involvement in online social experiences won’t have the same ease in building a community wherever they may be. That’s changing, but for the majority of adults, online social interactions are still on the to-do list.

3. Relationship status. This one is obviously a biggie. Long-distance is hard, no doubt about it. It sucks to not be physically present with the one you love. But it also ups the quality of the time you do get to spend together. I wouldn’t say it balances out to an even trade; I would rather take my Andy with me wherever I go. But if there’s one thing you can do, it’s focus on the bright side of a long-distance relationship, which for me means exciting dates, a deeper appreciation for all Andy does to keep things in order while I’m away (the cats have survived!) and more doting on each other. ☺

I could go on and on, but oh, look! I’ve already done that! Without explanation, here’s a list of some other considerations:

Are you a first-timer? Or have you been running this track for years?
Where are you going? Are you jumping from country to country each week or do you have just one or two prime locations you split your time between? I commute between Chicago and Portland, and when I'm missing "home", I take a few minutes to step outside into the green, fresh air of the Northwest. My mood immediately changes when I can be grateful for getting to experience a different part of the country.
How involved are you in your hometown? Did you have to give up on an intramural beach volleyball league, church choir? Are you unable to take on leadership positions in groups you’re a part of?

Any of those are going to have an impact on the level of true happiness you can maintain if you're always on the go.

So, now that that’s off my chest, what do you think? I’m interested to hear what you have to say in the comments!

UNIQLO is a neat name for something completely obscure

2009-07-10T08:04:00.007+05:30

My favorite new calendar. I can't wait for them to come out with an electronic wall-calendar version of this. An electric t-shirt calendar version would be even sweeter.

For an extra-fun Friday night, simultaneously open this baby in five different windows.

*Thanks to my good friend the SuggestionBoxer! Is it cool that you request I post something new, and when I finally do it's something I stole from your blog? Sorry.

Note: There's some some fantastic music (Fantastic Plastic Machine feat. Gen Tamura) you can turn on by clicking in the lower right corner of the photo (above the date).

And after he brought me Earl Grey with zested orange peel

2009-05-28T08:18:00.002+05:30

There is this thing happening that's got me sort of weirded out, but also kind of in awe. I have friends (that's not the thing) having babies. Actual babies. As in, they are parents (aka 'rents). Of real. human. beings. Miniature ones, but people, nonetheless. I'm still getting over the fact that I am responsible for two furry creatures that require nothing more from me than the occasional scooping motion: scoop food into dish. pause. scoop poop out of other larger, sand-filled dish. repeat. And I'm not even home to do that 80% of the time, so I push it off onto my amazing boyfriend who lovingly takes on those responsibilities for mere ~~pennies~~ Xbox360 games.

That's terrible kitty-mothering at its best. However, I do still want to brag about my little guys, because one of them plays fetch. Yeah, that's right. Can your infant do that?! Notice I said "one of them." The other one doesn't do anything special. Seriously. Since I've already overstepped the bounds of pet obsession while simultaneously insulting babies, I'll go ahead and continue that trend by posting video of my cat playing fetch.

Update: Barley's fave toy is a hair binder (that's "hair tie" to all you non-Minnesotans). He hoards them somewhere when he gets them, but when he feels like playing fetch with one he will first drop it in his water dish and soak it before excitedly dropping it on or around one of us. Naturally, I assumed this was indicative of his lack of intelligence, but then I googled "cat drops toy in water" and holy lord! There are cats upon cats dousing their toys in water prior to playing with them. I can only assume they're pretending it's a blood-soaked fresh kill. Because wet elastic is what I would use, too. It takes a special kind of cat to reach that level of mediocrity.

#didimention

2009-05-08T20:04:00.006+05:30

Oftentimes the little factoids that could potentially bond us to our online buddies don't come into play because, really, who starts a conversation with "I've got six toes" or "I'm metallophobic (afraid of metal)".

But who knows who might relate to that? Without further ado, I present the #didimention tag.

Here are the "rules" (which you may or may not follow, depending on your level of twetiquette)
1. Be truthful. No "#didimention I am the president of the United States" when that title belongs to one person and one person only: Michelle Obama.
2. Use it, don't abuse it. No one needs to hear 500 things about you daily. Just like any other hashtag, use #didimention to spark conversation -- not the apocolypse -- among your followers/followees.
3. Be funny. Be surprising. Be heartfelt and passionate. But be nice.

Now on with your lives! Get ye back to Twitterville and spread the word!

... btw, I actually did have an irrational fear of metal until I was about 18. #didimention I've been shocked twice by electric fencing?

Happy Easter. My duck is dead.

2009-04-12T23:34:00.007+05:30

The duck story comes farther down the page. Have patience, friend.

Yeah, yeah - we all like chocolate. And it's even more exciting when molded into fun oval shapes and crammed into larger plastic oval shapes. And hidden from you. On second thought, let's just be grateful Easter comes but once a year.

Sarcasm aside, I do love a good Easter egg hunt*. But if your Spring tastes wander beyond jellybeans and sparkly marshmallows with ear-like protrusions, here are two non-edible items that will dazzle your olfactory senses into sweet, zingy anticipation for that wondrous season just around the corner: ~~BEACH BOSSABALL~~ SUMMER.

C.O. Bigelow Lemon & Pomegranate Body Cream** While acai has officially replaced pomegranate as the "in" fruit of the day, Pomegranate is still hangin' in there in this sweet and tangy scrumptiousness. Smooth like butta, just don't eat it.

C.O. Bigelow Lemon & Lime Body Tonic (Toning Citrus Formula) The label says to spritz this on after a bath to "refresh, brighten, and tone while delicately scenting the skin". I choose to forgo that suggestion and instead bathe entirely in it to heavily douse my skin in this invigorating tonic. To each his own. Anyone missing Bath & Body Works' Limelight scent (circa mid- to late-nineties ... R.I.P.) will find inklings of it in this spray. Go get it!

*Especially when it leads to a box full of adorable baby ducklings under the desk, which you then get to raise into full-grown ducks and bubble with child elation over having been gifted such an awesome pet, only to learn far too early the true beastly nature that is the circle of life when one-by-one each of those ducks is taken, strangled and eaten in the middle of the night by that asshole owl that happens to live in your backyard. True story. ONE. BY. ONE. RIP, Mountains. ***

**I'm not paid by anyone or anything to say this. Just payin' it forward, C.O. Bigelow. Payin' it forward ... Also, these products are available at Bath & Body Works and probably other places.

***That's two times I've had to wish something a peaceful afterlife. And on Easter! This holiday just gets suckier and suckier. Except Jesus is back now. Yay! Welcome to earth again! ... watch your back around the owls.

"Or-a-gone"

2009-03-30T10:21:00.007+05:30

Three weeks in Portland and I've already stopped pronouncing it "OR-A-GONE". And other fun stories about my initial jaunt into the Pacific Northwest.

This rain? Nonstop? I don't know how this is dealt with by law abiding citizens, but I am about 10 windshield wipes away from finding a way to clear the clouds here via some form of accellerated ozone depletion. If we all die, so be it - at least we'll be smiling from all that Vitamin D!

I pulled over to the side of the road last week because I saw a sign reading "Wolf Cubs". As in 100% ARCTIC. WOLF. BABIES. ... Adorable. And surprisingly legal to own as pets in Oregon, along with pretty much any other exotic or wild animal. It might have been the only thing technically legal about the man with the swastika tattoo selling the little munchkins.

While Andy and I walked along the beaches of Ecola State Park this weekend, I came across a message in a bottle. I'm not even kidding - it was a letter rolled up and corked into a Boylan's Creme Soda bottle, and it had washed up on shore. I opened it, and to my disappointment it wasn't from who I hoped. It was instead from Nik, and it began with this:

Dear Grandpa,
Today is your funeral ...

What followed was a heartwarming letter reliving happy memories and inside jokes, good times lost and the hard times that loss was bringing now. It made me think of my own grandpa, who I haven't seen since he died when I was in 5th grade. The bottle had begun to leak and smear the ink, so I'm letting it dry and will lend it back to the sea for someone else to find when I get the chance.

We also saw some stunning stick man warning signs, but that's for a whole new post (you think I'm kidding).

Oregon is a full service gas station state. I did not know such a place existed, but I have to say it's a little strange, and being a bit of a DIY freak, I don't really like tipping for something I've always done on my own. It's not like we're talking about replacing the engine here, we're talking about refilling the gas tank using the same buttons, card swipes and tubes we're all very familiar with (except you Oregonians, eh?). Am I being silly? Does everyone tip? Am I a miser if I don't? What else is full service here -- nightly tuck-ins? Now THAT would be awesome.

Portland's music scene is fantastic. Or so I've heard. But based on the local FM radio selections, I'm a little confused. There seem to be about 15 stations, and I'm pretty sure at least 7 of them are Christian. Just tonight I was flipping through and happened upon one of my faves from back when I was all about that friendly bearded hippie and I wonder what, exactly, I found so "awesome" about this song:

When the toast is burned and all the milk has turned and Captain Crunch is waving farewell

When the Big One finds you let this song remind you that they don't serve breakfast in hell

I don't know what it is about cereal allegories, but doesn't that just strike right where it hurts to achieve the intended lightning bolt of warning? No breakfast in Hell? WHAT?!?! Sweet Baby Jesus, call my hitman and cancel that "appointment" today - I can't imagine afterlife without my Wheaties.

---

Right now I'm listening to Lambchop's Kurt Wagner croon sweet nothings into my iTunes library and it's putting me into a peaceful Sunday calm. I'll take that over Satan-steals-Cheerios any day.

Fake it 'til you make it ... unless that's going to break it

2009-03-19T10:41:00.005+05:30

That title will appropriately be filed away under "Never write a self help book because people will quickly come to hate you". And I'm going with it anyway.

I got my first dose of "corporate life" in a foreign country, India, where acronyms flow like a river to the sea and the only thing that keeps these 2-to-45 letter "words" from becoming an entity unto themselves is the fact that there is no "i" in team - and acronyms? They just don't play well with others. That includes me.

I have always thought there is something winning about the phrase "fake it 'til you make it". Let me be clear that I don't mean to imply that credentials and skills aren't necessary. Here's how I see it: If you always say "I can't" to opportunities beyond your scope of knowledge (or SOK), you're saying no to the chance for a speed date with a skill set. Any language instructor will tell you that you'll learn faster and speak more confidently if you fully immerse yourself in both the language and the culture.

But in the business world, it's a bit different. When you're at a new job it is part of the drill to be so overwhelmed with information that your eyes begin to glaze over at the mention of another process or strategy, or the 10,000th introduction. I guess that's what I mean when I use "fake it". Because no one gets it exactly right the first time. I can't tell you how many times in the past two weeks I've sat in a training session going "holy moses, I think I get it!", only to walk out to my cubicle and go wait, what was that about? And in the meantime I've also forgotten how doorknobs work. But you give it time to sink in, and the concept will come back. You'll "make" it.

Acronyms, however, are a different ballgame. You can't "fake" that, and you shouldn't try. I mistook what I thought was an "Indian thing" for what is actually a corporate thing. A Frankenstein language of portmanteaus and unjustifiable letter-pairings - NO! - caboodlings, slathered together in a monstrous incongruity from all levels of every division, support group and project launch imaginable. AND YOU HAVE TO KNOW THEM ALL. Seriously. Just get it over with. Start an index. A gant chart. A Six Sigma Methodology for acronym documentation. Whatever. But don't glaze over those little buggers, or you're going to regret it when your boss comes screaming at you for not completing the DART, REFLM, tracker a la mode, etc. Bite the bullet and ask that it be spelled out - literally - when you have no idea what the iSPAWN division does (I Secretly Prance Around While Naked).

And good luck, friend. May the *GoFWo be with you.

*Gods of Fake Word-ology

Yo ho yo ho, a jetlagged life for me

2009-03-11T10:58:00.007+05:30

This month has brought with it a few firsts for me. I backed up my MacBook (I've had it for two years ... my bad). Andy and I moved to Wicker Park/Ukrainian Village in Chi-town, and I greedily consumed the world's best burrito at the frequently imitated but never duplicated La Pasadita, just two blocks away. Oh, I also began a 100% travel position with Intel in Portland, from which I write this post.

The project itself is a fantastic one, complete with pirates, magic beanstalks and social media campaigns. I have thus far found myself surrounded by bright, creative minds who are teaching me far more than they might realize. (If you're reading this, guys - thanks. I'm taking notes and plan to kick ass.) This opportunity is an exciting one for me, and challenging. I'll be frank about it: that makes me love it even more.

But some challenges are ... well, challenging. I'm back to hotel life again. As it is set up now, I'll be here for two weeks at a time and then head home for a weekend. Lather, rinse, repeat, month after month. I would be lying if I said that wasn't hard for me. There's Andy, who I'll miss like crazy and that goes without saying. There are the cats, who just might nuzzle Andy to death from lack of attention and play. There's the amazing new apartment and neighborhood I got to spend a whole two weeks in before being absent 75% of the time.

... and then there are the oft-denied upsides:

Without my constant requests for footrubs and HGTV/Food Network/MTV/History Channel marathons, Andy's grades will skyrocket, not that you can really improve much on a 4.0. (I still like to credit that to my working in Houston last semester).
If anyone gets a cat's ass to the face in the middle of the night, it ain't gonna be me!
Portland is beautiful. My work has granted me the chance to really experience great places, both abroad and around my own country. But even more rewarding are the connections I've made with the people in those locales, and believe me - many of them are FAR more traveled than I. That means I always have ample opportunity to learn about and from them, and it helps me keep my end-goals in clear focus.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. If you don't believe it, try it. If you dare.

If you're worried about the long-distance thing, or have the itch to go somewhere and try something new but are feeling that gut-wrenching fear of the unknown, here is my advice: Give yourself the benefit of pushing through that knot and give it a try. Just once. See how it feels on the other side of a tough decision, and then judge whether the grass is greener. Either way, you'll come out of it a more experienced human being, who, at the very least, can say you gave it a try.

And if you're looking for ideas, try Portland. I hear they've got ~~incredibly cool IT consultants looking for people to hang out with~~ tons of really tall trees.

A very accurate portrayal

2009-02-10T10:48:00.001+05:30

This nicely sums up the roles in my and Andy's relationship. Four years down the road and our minds still work so differently.

I love that about us!

clipped from xkcd.com

I'm An Idiot

Soon there will be rabid squirrels nesting in the engine.

2009-02-07T04:56:00.006+05:30

Some of you may recall a time when I was in a hit-and-run accident, and if you don't and you're a regular reader of this blog, you may want to see a doctor because that incident occured two days ago.

Today I have a whole new story involving my dear old Treasure. I really thought that cars aged like people, that they just get ornery and lose all sense of style, and hate the cold and anything involving more youthful, naive cars. But my '95 Taurus seems to be the exception. It's like he's a teenager again, and I fully suspect he has become involved in gang and/or mob activity. I expect tomorrow I'll be showing you video of his chalk outline, but as of today, here's this:

Bad Car-ma from Debbie Thiegs on Vimeo.

The kicker? After discovering the windshield I walked to the front of the car to find a ticket. What kind of cop sees a smashed-in windshield and thinks "I think my next step here is to charge her for expired license tabs." A great cop, that's what kind.

Magical

2009-02-06T01:38:00.005+05:30

In honor of my New Year's cake, I give you this:

Click it about a million times and you'll thank me when you need to distract a 4-year-old for an hour. Or unicorn-obsessed 25-year-olds. You know who you are.

*Thanks to cornify and Andrew Hyde!

My car never bodes well in February.

2009-02-04T04:00:00.004+05:30

I was involved in a hit and run today. I was on the receiving end, so not the good side ... unless of course you consider being the hittee and not the hitter the "good" side in the morally upstanding sense. But right now I'm seeing it in a violated sense, and that's not something I would consider good. But then again, after what I put the guy who hit me through, I doubt he'll be hit-and-running again anytime soon. I could also be totally, utterly wrong. But let us not dwell on the likely. Cool.

Oh, and fyi, in an attempt to lighten my own mood, I'm going to refer to this not as a "hit and run", but as a "hit 'n' run", or maybe even a "hit 'n' fun"? Because if I'm being a Debbie Upper here and not a Debbie Downer, I've got to look at the bright side. And the bright side of a hit 'n' fun is that you get to be part of a real live car chase. Commence the story.

I was driving down Montrose and went through a yellow light to the next intersection, which is really just another light in the middle of the same huge freaking intersection with room for two cars max, me being the second car. This guy in a decked out silver mini-sports car convertible behind me decides that rather than observe this calculable lack of room for another car he should just be an idiot and smash his car into mine. You know, so we can all fit in there in the middle of the intersection like a happy, cozy little car family. So he runs the red, crashes into me, and I'm like great, now I'm going to have to ~~kick this guy's ass~~ pull over and work this all out.

I notice he's got his blinker on so I turn right when the light turns green and begin to pull off to the side. This is when he slows down as though he's doing the same in one instant and in another he is flooring past me and zooms into the distance. Maybe I should have stayed put, taken down witness names (there were several present) and left it at that. But I did not do that, no. Oh, goodness, no. I put the pedal to the metal, high-tailed it after him and proceeded to chase a man around Chicago's north side for the next 10 minutes.

This guy, he pulled every trick in the book to try to ditch me. He attempted to cut me off by heading through several near-red lights, but could never time it just right. Then when a light turned green he would either A)not go right away, or B)Floor it and then slam on his breaks in an attempt to get me to crash into him. He wove. He actually DID pull over twice, and both times floored it shortly after I pulled up behind him. He made a U-turn in the middle of a busy street. I followed. It honestly felt like The Italian Job in a much more watered-down, "Yeah, I'm in a Taurus" way. Awesome. On top of that I laid on the horn like a circus-ready clown car and constantly signaled for him to pull over using full body flailing movements. ~~I looked completely crazy.~~ No one thought that was awkward.

Did I forget to mention that I Google-411ed the Chicago police during all of this? Yeah. Apparently the automated robotrons at Google DO NOT DETECT PANIC, and still manage to come up with a huge list of what you might mean when you say "POLICE, Chicago, Illinois".

Operator: I'm sorry, your request came up with too many options. What's your zipcode so we can narrow your results?
Me: 60625
Operator: ... Okay. We'll skip that part. Top 5 listings ...

I think I picked number four, which was the closest description to Chicago police I could decipher from the given options. But the phone, it just rang and rang, the whole time I'm trying to keep up with Mr. Hit'n'fun's shennanigans, and I finally just hung up. Next time I'm calling 911 without hesitation.

I am sad to say he finally lost me by cutting off a bus and wheeling to the right at a red light. I wasn't about to put myself or anyone else in danger for this guy. I did, of course, write down every detail I could, including a note about how horribly 90s this guy's sunglasses were. Iridescent sports shades with neon frames? Somebody arrest this guy for fashion homicide, OMG!

Here's the kicker: I'm not reporting it. There are a few reasons for this.
1) The damage he inflicted on my purty little Treasure is only an extension of damage already there from when this happened. Instead of having it fixed back then, I took a cash settlement from the insurance company, backpacked Europe with it, and have been driving with a cracked bumper ever since. So the insurance on the back bumper is null and void anyway. (Totally worth it, btw)

2) My tabs are 3 days expired. Yeah, yeah, that's not much of an argument, but can you imagine if after getting hit, losing a car chase, and dealing with filing reports with insurance and police, I am the one who gets in trouble?

3) It's way more stressful right now just thinking of having to deal with this than just letting it go and moving on. At the very least, I hope I make that guy think twice before screeching away from another accident scene. Do not piss off Debbie. She may be a Debbie Upper but she will throw DOWN. Or something. Screw it, I lost this one.

p.s. Right after I got home I bumped and shattered a ceramic pot of soil growing lavender, a plant that is ironically used to calm the nerves and bring on feelings of peaceful serenity.

Here's to a better tomorrow, folks. :) It could have been worse.

Quarter-Life Report

2009-02-03T01:45:00.020+05:30

It's been 2009 for about a month now. This time of year always finds me pondering life, maybe because my birthday is on the 10th of February. Every year someone inevitably asks "Feel any different?", and the past few years I have honestly said "not really". Why? I've done some amazing things that have had a huge impact on who I am. Not everyone can say they've boated through the jutting white rock coves of Cassis, snuggled with full-grown tigers in Thailand, or been barricaded into a Nature Reserve in the jungles of India for money. But at some point I began to define myself by all this stuff I was doing rather than what I was thinking or feeling.

And that's not very sustainable.

This past year has marked the first in many that I have spent a lot of time just sitting still with myself, and if I had to sum up the experience I would say this: IT SUCKED. But it may have been one of the most beneficial things I've ever done, this doing nothing. Here is what I learned:

Minds are not like bodies: If you feed them junk they won't grow fat.
... But they will get sluggish. Stop watching so much TV!!! I know - It's got a great storyline. It's the biggest show of the year. It's emotionally fulfilling. I can't tell you how many times I quashed a budding idea or great opportunity saying "I don't have the time," only to flip on the tube and watch the Bring It On series marathon on ABC Family. Because it is always on. EVERY. WEEKEND. The truth is not that you don't have time to do what you want to do. It's that you don't have your priorities set. So turn it off and set them.

One extracurricular a week can make a huge difference.
No, this isn't high school and you're not going to join the Model U.N. You're going to join something even better, out of the thousands of regular meetups and groups available to you for free. Try Meetup.com. I have learned to play Spades, built a healthy and fun community of social media groupies, and played board games at a bar, to name a few. And never have I come away thinking it wasn't well worth it.

Tap into others.
How many times a week do you sit silently next to someone you've never met (roughly six to ten for me)? What if you engaged in conversation with half of them? Know what they could tell you? Nope, but you will when you initiate a topic. I guarantee that more often than you think, you'll have a better day because of it. "Oh, but what if they think I'm weird? what if they are totally weird? What if they steal my kidney?!?" Screw kidneys. If these are your main concerns, you need more adventure anyways ... so go ahead and risk it.
*Shameless plug: If you give this a shot and take away something valuable (or possibly just hilarious), write it up and I'll post it over at StrangerSage.

Hang out with geeks.
There is nothing worse than a mental slump, and there are few things better to pull you out of one than full-blown, tape to the nose bridge, passionate geeks. They are everywhere (Hi! Right here!) and yes, they do want to talk to you about why they have invested five notebooks of thought into an elevator to space and how someday they are going to help make it happen.* Also, they usually like beer.

If the seeds sprouts, water it!
This is the most valuable thing I have begun to really act upon in the past year. VCs and investors will tell you there there is never a shortage of good ideas, but that problems arise from a lack of people willing or capable of digging in and making them real.
I recently tried to combat that personally and it has been no easy task -- but it IS rewarding. Sure, now I am constantly plotting and scheming, losing hours of sleep brainstorming and putting thoughts into motion. It's exhausting and energizing all at once ... and I can honestly say I am never bored anymore. No matter what or who is around me. Never.

... And that's just the beginning, folks.

I am writing this because A) I want to be held accountable for what I've posted here in the coming months, and B) the steps will help you taste the rainbow and not just stare at it. Skittles knows their stuff.

I am one short week from completing about a quarter of my own life. Later this year when I put out my very first quarterly self report, I want it to show consistent gains in all the right sectors: happiness, productivity, number of Thin Mints consumed ... But before then I look forward to the first time someone asks me if 25 feels different, because I can finally smile and say "Oh, yes. Absolutely."

*Boyfriend reference.

Life Lesson from a Cabby: Sleep with the Ghosts

2008-12-22T02:03:00.006+05:30

This post can also be found at StrangerSage.com.

Last night was cold in the Windy City. It was 3 a.m. and I was headed home from a holiday party in the back seat of a warm cab as it swerved and zipped down slick and snowy streets. Manning the wheel was Mir, a man from Hyderabad, India who was about to repeat a mantra I have heard and tried to live by for years. The gist is this: "Quit being such a pansy". Frank Hebert puts it more eloquently in his litany against fear, but we'll keep it simple.

What prompted a lecture from the cabby to the crybaby? I asked Mir, a man with 30 years driving experience who had weathered not only the snow-slicked streets of Chicago in an 18-wheeler, but also India's lawless, helter-skelter roadways, to "slow it down, please. I'm afraid of winter driving."

"Afraid?!" asked Mir as he barely missed the late-night drunkards trying to hail him down in the middle of the street, too inebriated to notice or care that the light atop the car wasn't lit. "Never let yourself be afraid. Never! It will stay with you until you die!"

Whoa, there, Cabby, let's not get too intense here -- I'm one eggnog short of a bad morning ahead. But on he went, after I explained that I had been crashed into a few times due to people losing control in bad weather. Admittedly, it is a fear that shakes me to the core, keeps me off the roads at the first sign of sleet, and elicits backseat driver behaviour that might be equated to what you would see if the Jonas Brothers announced to their fanbase they're all gay.

"Say there is a house, and it is full of demons." (Really, Mir? Okay, going with it ...) "I go into that house, and I sleep in it. I sleep with the ghosts, because I am the one with power. I am in control, next to God -- unless I let myself be afraid."

So it's a bit conflated, but I "got" it. Something about the way he said it made me realize how ridiculous I was being, and how -- even when we think we've embraced a tenet fully -- sometimes we need to do a little philosophical maintainence.

How Not to Deal with Strangers Who Think You're Involved with Their Husband

2008-11-22T00:15:00.001+05:30

It's a Saturday night, and since the two friends I have in Houston decided to go to a frat party in Austin for the weekend (you think I'm joking, being that I'm over two years out of college, right? But I'm not. Oh no, I am not.) I am decidedly bored enough to write a blog and expose myself as the loser that I am. That's a damn long sentence right there, especially for a grammar Nazi like me! Guess I'm getting pretty wild 'n' out tonight after all.

As I've mentioned before, I don't understand why hotels still offer wake-up calls. There's the alarm clock RIGHT THERE NEXT TO THE BED. And also, cell phones. Those do the trick right good. I wouldn't make such a stink about this except that due to extreme social isolation I've found myself wanting a good bed time story, the old fashioned way, and really, would that be such a risky trade in services? Out with the "Good morning, this is your wake-up call"s and in with the "Good Night Moon" readings, I say.

BUT I digress. The real focus of this entry is much more noble, as it involves false accusations and finding humor in others' tragedy. A grown-up bedtime story, if you will.

Once I got a text message that said:
"thanks 4 ruining marriage u homewrecking [explicit]!! I hope this [explicit] comes back around u when u least expect it." *Somewhere in there was an upside-down question mark, but I'm not sure it was relevant to the message ...

My initial response has me questioning my own innocence, because rather than say "erm, ya got the wrong number" I just said "Who is this?", which elicited the following:
"So ur sleepn with that many married men, you dont know who this is? Wow you really r a [explicit]."

Awesome, right? So rather than end it right then and there by trying to clear up the issue, I went ahead and got a little offended that I was being wrongly accused and responded with "You sure assume a lot ... Like that you've got the right number, for example."

I know, I know -- my bad. But THEN I did try to clear it up and explained (still in text) that the phone number was indeed new to me, and whoever she was trying to reach was not me, etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah. She didn't want to hear it. Creepily, she told me she knew where I lived and had my email address and a picture of me with my dad. She also cited me as an "ugly ass big-nosed brunette". I immediately called the cops. I'm kidding -- I'm not a brunette anymore, so I wasn't worried.

Over the next couple of days I received multiple phone calls from a variety of unrecognizable numbers, each time asking for a Tami or something. When I told them I wasn't her, there was this awkward pause and then they'd sort of maybe chuckle or something and go "Really? This isn't Tami?" And then I would have to explain the whole no-I'm-not-Tami-and-I-didn't-sleep-with-that-married-guy story all over again. I don't think they bought it.

Drama, drama, drama. What can I say? It's all part and parcel to the life of an IT consultant.

If my personal nonmusical lullaby didn't soften your heart, surely a few minutes of live streaming Shiba Inu puppies will do the trick. Sleep well, readers.

Oh REALLY? ... Did you partake in the MIRACLE of human flight, you noncontributing zero???

2008-10-30T18:16:00.005+05:30

Conan: Do you feel that we now ... take technology for granted?
Louis CK: Well yeah, 'cause now we live in an amazing, amazing world, and it's wasted on just the crappiest generation of just spoiled idiots that don't care. This is what people are like now: They got their phone and they're like "Uggghhh! It won't ..." GIVE IT A SECOND! It's going to SPACE!

It may be in jest, but he makes a great point and gives a little insight into how many in the generations before us must feel. Do we want to be "that generation"? I don't. I find myself constantly complaining about stuff like this. Maybe it's time to consider our lives now, and all that we have, with respect to a time when you had to turn that circle with the holes in it a whole 360 degrees just to dial a zero.

On a less serious note -- Enjoy the clip below of comedian Louis CK on The Conan O'Brian Show.

Avast ye! Will the scallywags at Google soon be feedin' the fish?

2008-09-17T18:38:00.007+05:30

A post on the Freakonomics blog yesterday discussed Google's new consideration to anchor supercomputers on barges at sea to lessen taxes and harness wave power. The question posed in the article focused on the obvious: Blimey! WHAT ABOUT PIRATES?!?!

Aye, it is feared that sea-faring, hornswaggling lads-o-doubloons will heave ho and pillage what private information they can from the massive amounts of data on board the supercomputer barges.

The scene this forms in my fanstastical and childish mind looks something like Jack Sparrow-esque characters running around stabbing servers with swords and shouting things like "Yaaaarrrrrr!!! Bring 'er alongside and find ye the terabytes! Ye need t' hack it, steal the booty, sell it t' China and scuttle th' barge! Gar, whar's me bottle o'rum?"

... But then that's just me.

In case this whole thing sounds a bit proposterous to you, below is the IMB Piracy Attack map for 2008. Good luck, Google -- and be wary the jolly roger.

(Click on the map to go to the actual webpage)

My Yearbook of Me

2008-09-16T01:51:00.009+05:30

And you can have a yearbook of you, too! Sites like this are what keep me on my computer into the wee hours of the morning.

www.yearbookyourself.com

*Note: The year 1980 is not shown above because it was a bad, bad, BAD year for hair.

Houston, we have a Debbie.

2008-09-12T04:36:00.004+05:30

I'm not going to make any "Debbie Does Dallas" reference jokes here because it's so old hat and inappropriate. Also because I've already used it here. And on my Facebook status. And in my head, all the time.

What I'm getting at is that I'll be moving to Houston for the next few months to start a new project (through my job, which, yes, I still have and has been paying me for some time now to do nothing. I could write a whole book on that alone but you'd all be so disquieted by the chapter called "Today I Watched a Saved By the Bell Marathon" that I'll save you the pangs of jealousy).

The project is with one of the big wig oil brutes and will involve lots of unnecessary SUV-driving and general gas consumption so as to at least quadruple the size of my carbon footprint, because, you know, everything is bigger in Texas and that's just the way it's gotta be.

Really what I'll be doing is top secret, and of course, super cool (as super cool as SAP databases can get). Honestly, I really am excited to do this and get back into global consulting via conference calls to India. I miss that curry.

I just typed "import antigravity"

2008-09-08T11:03:00.001+05:30

As someone who was pretty brand-spankin' new to programming not too long ago, I was only *slightly* intimidated when I was placed in the mainframes training stream at my job. That sh!% is ancient.

Now that I'm self-teaching Python, my sentiments are some what in line with the flying-man's below. Enjoy!

clipped from xkcd.com

Because Wednesday Nights Should Be This Fun

2008-08-14T10:04:00.003+05:30

Aside from catching up on 2 seasons of "Heroes," I spent tonight testing my skills. Find out how many of the 100 most common English words you can come up with in 5 minutes here:

The 100 Most Common English Words

I got 47! ... which is quite possibly average for a 5th grader. Who knows.

Because We Don't Give Him the Love He Deserves

2008-07-30T21:53:00.002+05:30

Why didn't this happen when I lived there? I mean, I could hardly stand not hearing the boot-stomping, brain twiddling hot beats of Snoop Dogg(y Daaaaaaaaawwwwwg).

Snoop Dogg Brings U.S. Hip-Hop to Bollywood

I would also like to point out how great it is that Thriller and Eric Clapton's Complete Clapton were among the top-selling albums in India this month. It's about time for Snoop to make some headway ...

Get with the TIMES, New Roman!!!

2008-07-26T00:05:00.002+05:30

A super-hero (Comic Sans: "The boldest of them all") saves the day when another font (Ransom) takes hostage CurlzMT and Courier at the font conference.

For anyone who designs, edits, or just generally appreciates the vast array of fonts out there, this video will be hilarious.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.