belated

Somebody bought me this (which is awesome!) - I assume for my birthday a few weeks ago, but it came from a 3rd party book vendor, and had no note. I think it might have been Emily, who thought it would come in the same shipment as the awesome dvd she sent me. But I could be wrong?

stranded in las vegas

It was the most hilarious weekend in Las Vegas, and despite the fact that I generally hate Las Vegas and that nothing went according to plan, I had a good time and was totally content to have come for my friend's birthday.

We were pleased with ourselves to have booked a return flight for 1:30 pm on Sunday, unlike the last time I was here when we made the mistake of thinking an extra Sunday night in Las Vegas would be anything but the most painful and unpleasant idea ever.

And even more pleased with having arrived at the airport right on time, and checked luggage because my friend had received a bottle of illegal 7-year aged Havana Club purchased in the Cayman Islands for her birthday and I talked her out of abandoning it. And ecstatic that my friend had been given United Premiere Associate status by her boyfriend and expedited our check-in.

When our flight was delayed an hour, we thought no big deal, and flipped through magazines before boarding the plane. Upon boarding, they gave us vouchers for some kind of compensation for our inconvenience. This seemed extremely generous for an hour delay, and as my friend checked the compensation options on her blackberry, which included a $25 voucher or 3000 miles, they announced inspection of a mechanical issue.

The flight attendants entertained us by playing the guess our combined age game for a free drink, and promised us beverages (and potable water) would arrive soon. When they shut down the plane to reboot the computer system (a "control-alt-delete" for the plane), we laughed while sitting in the dark because opening the windows would have made the aircraft unbearably hot.

We still didn't mind when we de-planed and went to get my friend a burger. I had 12 messages on my mobile from United telling me of my changed flight status, and the last one said we would be taking off in 20 minutes. We stood in line at what looked like a good restaurant, but when it was taking forever, we decided to just get burger king (BK veggie...mmmmm). When we arrived back at the gate, they said we would have more information in 20 minutes. As we consumed our unnecessarily fast food, it was announced that our flight was canceled, that no other aircraft could be obtained, and that it was unlikely we could find any other flights out that day.

We left the gate, went back to the Premiere line (thankfully, not only was I with my hilarious friend rather than traveling alone, my friend also had Premiere status, and we did not have to wait in the horrible long line with the angry, angry other passengers), and waited while we were booked on the first available morning flight, which was just before noon. They put us up at the Hampton Inn, which was halfway decent, and we sat by the by now shaded pool in the blow-dryer wind and recounted everything hilarious that had happened until now. We went out to eat, and for a drink, and I came back exhausted past 1:00 and asked the hotel desk agent where I could get on the internet. She said they had nothing.

My friend had joked that the only thing that could go worse would be a fire alarm going off in the middle of the night. I failed to see the humor when it actually happened at 6:00 in the morning, when after 4 hours of sleep I couldn't get back to sleep and spent 45 minutes trying to teach myself to use my friend's blackberry and connect to my work e-mail (so that I could inform my department of my situation, and subject myself to endless ridicule), and every site worked except gmail and my work e-mail, even after I played with the browser and connection options. Finally, after realizing I would never fall back asleep, I went downstairs, prepared to leave the hotel in search of internet.

I went down to the front desk to ask where I should go for internet, and the guy says, "Down the hall and to the left." When I explain to him that his colleague last night told me there was no internet, he said last night was a bad night. I asked if I just put in my credit card. "No, it's free."
Ah, the cherry on top.

I will be so happy when I get the hell out of here. I am fighting off what might be a cold, or what might be just the Las Vegas. Despite our planning, the Las Vegas wanted us to stay through Sunday night, and there was nothing we could do about it.

City is way too small

We were waiting in the will call line for City Arts and Lectures, my boyfriend of now two months telling me about the restaurant he's taking me to for my birthday next month but won't tell me the name of, and I'm asking whether I should dress up, and could I wear the dress I'm wearing, something stupid, and we're being obnoxiously affectionate, when I hear my name from behind me.

Right behind us in line is my ex-boyfriend, who I haven't seen since the day we broke up, and spoke up right then either because he just realized it was me when he recognized my loud voice talking about wearing my dress to a friend's holiday party, or because he didn't want to watch him put his hand on my hip anymore.

The poor guy looks really uncomfortable, and I default to overly enthusiastic -

"HI! How ARE you!" and introduce them, as they eye each other carefully. He's by himself, so I start to worry that he's attending this event by himself and seeing me on a date, which is beyond uncomfortable, so I ask,
"Are you...meeting anyone here?"
"Yeah, I'm meeting this girl who I've been...dating...for a while... We should have lunch sometime..."
"Definitely! ... Wow, it's so funny to run into you here."
"Yeah, awkward."
"Eh, it's not so bad."
"Uh, I'm going to go to the back of the line..."
"It's fiiiiiiine," I say, to which he smiles uncomfortably and again says,
"I'm going to go...back there..."

I tell my boyfriend I am really curious to see who my former boyfriend is dating, and try to glance back but can't get a look. I tell him I bet she's blonde, with big boobs, and laugh out loud.
He gets a look when we're sitting down and says she's pretty cute and blonde but not his type.

This is the sort of thing that always happens to me.

it was supposed to rain

but instead it was 70 and sunny in Seattle, tacking on a perfect evening of walking along the water and back through bell town onto my already perfect 3-day weekend. I totally lead a charmed life.

o'hare-y situation (sorry, i couldn't help it)

A week and a half of crashing industry/trade show parties, a blind date, going out after the Analytics summit, going out, Passover, going out, staying up way too late, and a business trip to Chicago (and a deep-dish and beer overdose), and I am tired out. So being stuck delayed at O'Hare isn't the worst thing in the world (though getting in at like 2 am probably will be) - I paid for internet and am getting a chance to catch up on stuff. And (after serious poaching) I even managed to grab an outlet to plug in!

It's a zoo here, with every flight delayed (because of some drizzle). But my friend who saw me online asked me what my flight number was, and proceeded to upgrade me to first class with his apparently abundant frequent flyer miles and said,"I've been stuck there

and it is always better to recline your seat and get dinner served to you on the plane with a glass of wine when you're done"

He's done this before, a couple years back - it's like the nicest thing ever, like having a wish you didn't know you had granted by the airplane genie.

birthday olympics

The thing about costume parties is that regardless of the company, the costumes always set the tone of the night.

I attended a theme-party for my friend's birthday last night - she wanted us to dress as olympic athletes. I was a rhythmic gymnast. I planned to wear warm-ups all night (like the rhythmic gymnast getting ready for a performance), but it was uncharacteristically like 80 degrees at night. So I was that girl. I was powerless against the costume. Even with the reasonable subtext going in my head, I still posed for costume-appropriate photographs I hope will never surface.

The rest of the night spiraled out control accordingly - in the manner of being completely aware of the ridiculous situation but being powerless to stop it. The costumes just won.

We ended up at Steps of Rome at 2 am for pizza. After dinner I asked my friend if she wanted a candle and singing, or if it would embarrass her - she said she wouldn't mind a candle. I told the waiter it was my friend's birthday and could he put a candle in something. Of course! he says.

So apparently at Steps of Rome when it's a girl's birthday they finish singing happy birthday and the two waiters perform intense lapdances on the birthday girl. She took it like a champ - even we were blushing. When it was all over another friend at the table said, "yeah, didn't you know they did that here?"

But really, when you're in a leotard and sweats out in North Beach in the middle of the night, there's really no other reasonable expectation.

I love Seattle again

I love Seattle when the sun comes out and the water out of the office windows sparkles, even though it's still freezing - there is actual visibility, and you can see the snow-covered mountains past the bright blue water, and it actually starts to make sense why people live there. That and the phenomenal coffee and amazing fish that I ate at all but one of my meals.

Now that I love my job, even when it's dysfunctional or ridiculous, going up to the Seattle office is so great! I ran from meeting to meeting to random meeting I booked to talk about things only vaguely implied indirectly in my job description, and loved every geeky minute. Last time I came up the New York girls were there, but this time I was solo, and the only female in the group besides the very quiet, married Chinese lady in QA and a new girl who had just started that day.

Two of the three single men in the group (both of whom have in the past made awkward advances towards me still short of needing to involve HR) continued their usual awkward but harmless overtures, which further lead me to believe that they must have a hard time meeting women outside of work.

The one who told me back at the Holiday party that he had been attracted to me since he took part in interviewing me for my position sent me the 6 pm non sequitur one-line e-mail asking me out that night:
Want to go for some wine and tapas in Capitol Hill?
Followed by a pasted excerpt from a CitySearch review for the place he proposed. I declined, saying that I already had plans with my SF coworker who was also in Seattle for the week (yay, thanks A!). It's a delicate balance, keeping things friendly enough so that working together is efficient, but not being too friendly because I wouldn't want to give him the impression that it would be anything but blatantly inappropriate for anything to happen between me and an almost-40 , divorced coworker and father of a 3-year-old, who I work with closely.

The other one, a never-married 35-year-old who constantly takes friendly touching to a barely-appropriate-for-the-workplace extreme, constantly came by my desk, poking my arm with his finger, poking his head over my shoulder, patting me on the shoulder barely in context. Since he does this with all of the girls in the group in their early-20s, I don't take this as seriously, but it is still constantly skirting the line where I think I should say something - but in that event, there goes the effective/efficient working relationship.

Today as I was leaving he insisted that I come say goodbye - so I go to his row and say goodbye from 10 feet away, with a bag on each arm as shields from his attempts to hug me.
"Oh, I see how it is," he said.
"What?" I say, with body language turning to walk away.
"Come on, give me a hug," he says, while walking towards me with his arms outstretched - made less awkward only by the fact that the others in his row had thankfully left.
"But we're at work - I don't hug anyone else at work."
He already has his arms around my shoulders, hugging me over my useless shields of laptop bag and handbag. I leave my arms at my sides. In the 9 modules of HR-mandated sexual harassment training, there was no module that would have helped with this scenario.

Other than avoiding incidents of borderline sexual harassment and not-yet-necessary confrontation thereof, I went to a Marines game with a few guys from work. And on the way I completely randomly ran into Cameron, who I knew back in San Jose! Wow - Seattle is so small. He briefly joined me and my coworkers, who included the inappropriate-touching guy, a newer developer who is super cool (recruited by his girlfriend at our company), my manager (who has deadpan humor down better than anyone I've ever met), and the new guy on the team who moved out from London, who is so fabulously charming, cute, impeccably dressed, witty and sweet that I had to make great efforts not to flirt with him excessively, because my manager was right there and that is just awkward (luckily Facebook tells me he is in a relationship. You Facebook naysayers clearly don't recognize the value of this).

After the game I went with the new developer to meet up with his friends at Linda's in Capitol Hill, and he and his friends were so much fun! We stayed out way too late and I barely squeezed in 5 hours of sleep, so I was miserable, tore-up-looking and overcaffeinated-bug-eyed all day. As I'm refilling my cup of coffee in the kitchen, the British guy comes over to the coffee machine.

"I got half-decaf this morning - what a mistake!" I said.
He starts to tell me something about how coffee is good for you, and I say, "Antioxidants!" because I totally read that article.
"But it's also good for your brain," he said.
"Oh, really?"
And he starts to launch into some unintelligible explanation of some scientific study about the brain and caffeine that I can't follow because I'm too busy being tired and trying not to flirt with him in the kitchen, until he can tell I look skeptical (confused) and am not following him.
"I'll send you the article," he says.

Five minutes later I get an e-mail from him, with a link to a BBC article in the subject line, and in the body:
"Just to show I wasn’t just making it up ;)."

The greatest part of the article is where it says "Other studies have shown that high levels of cholesterol in the blood can make this barrier "leaky"."

I respond, "I’m fairly certain my fatigue is due to staying up late and drinking, rather than a leaky protein layer."

He replies, "Sounds like you need to hang out with the British at the summit in San Francisco and build up your tolerance levels.. We’ll be sure to cure any future onset of fatigue."

Sounds like I'm in for a world of trouble.