forty-nine square miles

2008 in Review

2009-01-13T12:39:00.000-08:00

I doubt we have any readers left, but I decided this morning that I wanted to do a very late "Christmas Letter" like some of my friends did about a month ago: a recap of the year and a look at what lies ahead.

2007 was a busy year! When I think back briefly, I mostly remember a lot of hard work and time spent on the 101 and 280 commuting from San Francisco to Mountain View 5 days a week.

But my memory is glossing over the many, many highlights and so I want to enumerate them here lest my memory degrade further over time.

Achievements:
- Brad landed a new job in the food industry, something he'd been seeking for a while
- Brad and I completed the Nike Women's Half Marathon on October 19, 2008
- I was part of a 4 person team to launch a publicly-facing microsite to help content partners understand various opportunities to distribute their content on Google, some of my first work which was clearly public-facing work since I joined Google in July 2007. [link]
- Brad and I were 2 votes of millions to elect Barack Obama!

Countries Visited:
- I visited Zurich, Luzern, and London during business travel in June and can't wait to get back to Switzerland
- Brad and I visited the Caribbean islands Aruba and Curaçao in August, basking in the sun, eating great Dutch food, and admiring salsa dancers
- Brad and I, along with 6 dear friends, visited Cabo san Lucas for Thanksgiving - 3 days of pure relaxation

Top Concerts:
- SXSW 2008: fell in love with Le Loup, then saw them in SF, and then they fell apart
- Radiohead (!!) at the Outside Lands Festival
- Flight of the Conchords at Google I/O

Extra-curricular:
- Wine tasting in Sonoma 2-3 times
- Bought a keyboard, received great music books for Christmas
- Made beer, canned fruit and veg, and a bit of gardening
- Picked up samba dance

More to come, but not a bad start. Oh yeah, and:

Major Life Changes:
- Got engaged on 12/22/08!

New Photos

2008-06-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

Just back from a good, long visit to Texas. Was in Amarillo for a few days and then in Arlington for about a week. New photos here.

Me and the new car!

2008-04-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

Great butt, huh?

The new car!

2008-04-08T08:41:00.000-07:00

Where to Begin?

2008-04-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

So it's been quite some time since either of us has posted. Brad's been busy with this other blog of his, and I've just been... busy. As such, I don't expect this post will get much readership but I thought I'd post all the same.

I've spent the past 8 months adjusting to a few things:
- Working 5+ days a week, as opposed to my blissful 2 years of grad school which, while busy, provided a lot more flexibility than the standard full-time j-o-b.
- Working in Mountain View, which entails about 2-2.5 hours on the road per day. I'm very lucky that I have a shuttle to take me there and back, but the result is that I see less of my fair city than I used to.
- Working in a very high-performance environment of crazy smart people. It's energizing and enriching, and it's also exhausting!

I've been sort of in lock-down mode, focusing on adjusting to work since I started, but I'm trying to achieve a better level of balance now. I miss my friends and I need to pursue other outlets to keep myself from being too one-dimensional. Hopefully I'll make some progress there soon.

Some highlights since October:
- A great Thanksgiving with our friends here in San Francisco. Karaoke might be a new T-giving tradition.
- A great Christmas with family and friends back in Texas, including discovery of my favorite new Arlingfun eatery, Olenjacks.
- A raucous weekend trip to LA with L&L to see Miss Zog!
- A weekend trip to Seattle with Mio to see Lex and a surprise appearance by Gabs!
- SXSW 2008 and some good hang-out time with my darling sister Jillbo.
- Visits from Beth and Angela and Kathryn!
- As of yesterday, I'm the owner of a brand new car - my first ever! I apparently get the car tomorrow. We still have Bjorn though, don't worry. After he was offered a paltry $700 we vowed to drive him into the ground. We love our Swedish beast, particularly now that we're not dependent on him for, you know, reliable transportation.

Photographic evidence of Beth and Ang's recent visit:

Brad is a Speed Demon

2007-10-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

So Brad wouldn't want to brag. He wouldn't want to tell you that he finished first place among men, and fourth place over all, in the Nike Women's Half Marathon. But here's proof:

Even more amazing is that he managed to do this while simultaneously sleeping in until 9 yesterday, when the race started at 7. He ran it in his sleep.

Actually, we sold our race bibs to some more dedicated and athletic individuals, as we haven't been training. And of all the people to buy our bibs, one of them was apparently the kind of guy who runs about a 06:30 mile. So now when people Google Brad's name, they're going to be really impressed. Particularly when he mentions that he doesn't really train much.

Way to go Brad, way to go.

Yard work

2007-10-16T15:49:00.001-07:00

We did some gardening. April planted lots of fleurs, and I made a yard!

I took some pictures of it. First I had to clear off mulch, then tear up the moisture barrier tarps underneath, then clear out the weed roots, then till the dirt and get rid of the rocks and glass and nails (really), then rake it and mix in new topsoil, then plop down some grass.

Whew! Lookie:

Rare postings

2007-09-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, we're both still alive. No, we're not posting that much these days.

But things are good. Things, however, just got a whole lot better because of this:

I have not chortled so heartily in ages. And I therefore share the joy with you, dear readers.

First week of work

2007-08-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

So it's early in my new job, only two days under my belt, and I suspect that there will be many days when I roll my eyes at these early impressions. I may even need to come back to this at times as a personal reminder the impending long hours and stress are worth it. So caveats stated,

It's Awesome!! Great, great people who are open and seem excited to welcome newbies in, a project that is very exciting (daunting too), great managers, and the perks yes the perks. I'm much happier than I expected to be.

Tonight will be my first night to do anything after work but go home and veg in front of the tube. I'm a little tired this morning after 3 6:15 wake-ups in a row, but the transition from bum to contributing member of society has been easier than I thought.

Love from the 101...
A
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It's Really Over/We've Only Just Begun

2007-07-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow I start my new job, a whole new lifestyle with a daily hour-each-way commute and a paycheck to boot. I'm really excited, which is a relief because the realization that business school is Really Over has hit me in the past few days and weeks. Although graduation was on May 20, I've had the chance to spend this summer hanging out with my wonderful friends from school (as well as some from past jobs, college, my family, etc.!) and travel the world. I've also gotten to enjoy everything the bay area has to offer since I returned to San Francisco a month ago.

Brad and I have had the time to get settled into our new place and I feel ready to start work. The past two years have been really amazing, and I'm sure that the next two will be amazing as well. I'm getting to work for a company that does amazing things and I'm getting to do it all here in this place that I've grown to love very deeply. Life could be a whole lot worse.

I was feeling a little jittery this morning (despite Brad's heroic attempts to make today stress-free) and I just had to get outdoors. We headed out to Portola Redwoods State Park for a 5-mile hike and it was really good to just get away from everything before going back to an office environment tomorrow. I think I'll be using my weekends for a lot more outdoor activities now that I'm not spoiled with the opportunity to do so during the week.

A few pics from today and then I'm heading to bed soon. 6am is going to feel very, very early to me. More pictures at right - just follow the Flickr badge.

A Glorious July

2007-07-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

So what does one do with a bunch of free time, a new apartment, and no income? Less than you'd expect, but I have gotten in one more surfing lesson:

And some silliness at Flipcup V:

And some home improvement, some self-improvement, and a lot of sleep. I can't really complain. Do I feel totally ready to go back to work? Of course not. But I am excited about where I'm headed which helps ease the pain of leaving blissful unemployment behind. Sadly, one of my good friends here is moving to LA next week, which will be a great loss to the city of San Francisco. Fortunately a few of us will be making trips down south to visit her from time to time. Perhaps my first partner will be located in LA? Probably unlikely but a girl can dream...

Off to get all the final slacking out of my system. Until then...

Things I love about our new apartment!

2007-07-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

Let me count the ways:

- The washer and dryer. I forgot how much I hate folding clothes, but at least I can do it at my leisure.
- The fact that the place is big enough that I can't hear my laptop's speakers from the bedroom. It's actually sort of a problem, but a good problem to have.
- The kitchen. Being able to walk around and around the island. Being able to have more than 1.5 people in the kitchen at a time.
- The views! Sunrise is beautiful with the sun shining on the Bay, in the evening we can see sunset roll across the city (even though we can't see the sun after about 6:30pm because we're on the east side of a hill), and at night we get great City Lights views.
- The bathroom. More than 1 person can fit in it. I realize it's a rare occasion that you'd want more than 1 person in a bathroom, but it's a nice luxury.
- The quiet. It's really quiet here. Quiet enough that I can hear if our landlord is spraying weed killer on the lawn at 8am.

Right now I'm jamming to the soundtrack for British film "Starter for 10" that I saw on the plane ride back from London. It's really great. I recommend it.

Move in Progress

2007-07-08T15:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we probably completed 70%+ of our move. We moved all of the big stuff thanks to help from our friends (THANKS Rolly, S, L&L!) and now we're working on the some of the (more annoying) small stuff. The new place looks great - even better with our stuff in it! (Which is usually NOT the case when I move into places.) The sun finally came out in earnest today, giving us a full view of the bay.

Last night a few friends came and helped us break in the place with some karaoke and silliness. It was so great to feel like we could be as loud as we wanted without bothering anyone else.*

Here's a view of our patio and there are more pictures at right. I forgot to grab a photo of the basement with laundry, storage, and a "wine cellar". :)

Moving day is here

2007-07-07T09:14:00.000-07:00

So it's raining (okay, misting) and our apartment is a mess! Wish us luck moving!

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View from new living room window

2007-07-06T17:28:00.001-07:00

It's so quiet in our new place that all I can hear is the hum of the refrigerator, the sound of the washing machine (which thank goodness is downstairs because I swear the vibrate my inner ear if my ear is facing them and on the same level... Is that weird?) and the sound of wind through trees. Seriously.

No 37 bus, no sirens, no traffic, no neighbors. Yippee!

Happy 4th of July from Golden Gate!

2007-07-04T18:38:00.001-07:00

Hiking in Muir Woods

2007-07-01T17:30:00.001-07:00

Brad's glamour shot in the woods!

2007-07-01T17:29:00.001-07:00

Home Again, Home Again

2007-06-25T22:32:00.001-07:00

I'm back in SF. It's good to be home!

Photos!

2007-06-20T14:53:00.000-07:00

Ah the sweet, warm air of Arlington, TX. I'm back stateside now and feeling refreshed after 3 weeks of travel. I now have 38 days of slacking before I start work. And I aim to make the most of them. And by 'the most', I mostly mean relax, and get my life in order. It's kind of a mess, so that will probably take 35 of the 38 days. :)

Photos are now posted. I'm going to be messing around with them but take a peek at right! Here are some of my favorites:

Santorini!

Sunset at Oia (I misspelled that earlier - oops!)

Danielle and I in Prague

Jill and I in London

I miss SF!

2007-06-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

And you. The faithful readers of this blog. Let's meet up at Casanova on Tuesday at 8pm. I will surely need a cocktail by then!

Perhaps I'll wear some of my latest purchases from TopShop or my new love, Primark. It's sort of like Forever 21 but British and fab!

Jill and I leave in about 13 hours and that brings my Euro tour to an end. It's been an amazing experience and a great chance to clear my head of the busyness of the past two years. Now I have a month+ before I start my job but there is a lot to sort out before then. If you're in SF, I can't wait to catch up!

xoxo!
April

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The Underwood Girls at The Globe!

2007-06-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

Jill in Oxford!

2007-06-18T04:35:00.001-07:00

Slough

2007-06-18T02:36:00.000-07:00

So we're in Slough on our train to Oxford. I believe this is where The Office (the British version, of course) takes place.

*insert muppet theme song*

Hallo David Brent!
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London Calling

2007-06-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night, Danielle and I arrived in London. Kind of late. We took the Gatwick Express to Victoria Station, then got a little lost on the Tube, got checked into our hostel, then started the '6 minute' walk to our building.

And then got a little lost. The map made it appear that our hostel was *in* a park. Odd. So we walked around for a bit and finally resolved to ask someone for help. And around the corner walks my friend Helen who studied at Haas last fall on exchange from London Business School!! What are the odds?? So she helped out and I've been hanging out with her since.

Jill got into town yesterday and and we've been having a blast. We've already perused Top Shop - ran into it on accident, I promise, swung through Harrod's, walked through Hyde Park, visited a Dali exhibit at the Tate Modern, and eaten a Doner kebab. Tomorrow we hope to see a show.

It's a dramatically different schedule on this part of the trip - early to bed, early to rise - which suits London just fine.

Happy father's day, Dad!

Cheerio, folks!

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Budapest Recap

2007-06-14T05:25:00.000-07:00

So Budapest turned out to be quite charming after a somewhat rocky introduction on Monday night. Tuesday we went through the Buda Labyrinth, a somewhat canned but still entertaining museum of sorts inside some of the natural caves on the hill in Buda.

Yesterday's highlight was visiting the baths at City Park, where we enjoyed the supposedly theesputic effects of the mineral waters, dry saunas, and outdoor pools all enclosed in a Hapsburg-era building. Both nights we attempted to get out into the social scene which draws other Europeans to visit, but it was a Monday and Tuesday after all, and the social scene didn't seem to be there.

Budapest is a working city, which is a stark contrast to Prague, that feels like a large, beautiful tourist attraction. The mark of communism and now socialism is here, with museums for every profession from Postal Service to Police to Catering. We didn't make it to any of those - perhaps next time!

Now we're off to London where Jill will meet me tomorrow and Danielle will head back to Chicago. Chapter 2 of my trip is almost over!
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Arrived in Hungary

2007-06-12T00:34:00.001-07:00

Hi Folks,

After four hours in Vienna and a brief trip to Slovakia (oops), we have arrived in Budapest.

I'm growing increasingly nervous about the bill I'm going to get after using my Blackberry over here - on the one hand, I have unlimited data through my carrier so it shouldn't matter, and on the other hand, I found some info online which makes me think it may be a lot more than I expected. So my posts are going to be come fewer and further between than they have been - apologies in advance. Danielle and I are in Budapest until Thursday and then I'm in London for the rest of my trip. I'll catch you up to date when I return.

xo,
April

The view from the tower at Stephenplatz

2007-06-11T12:50:00.001-07:00

Vienna, Austria

The Charles Bridge at night

2007-06-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on Prague

2007-06-10T03:05:00.000-07:00

So we've done a decent job of seeing the sights in Prague. We toured the Prague Castle, watched a midday classical music concert in a many centuries-old palace, visited an amazing beer garden at night that overlooks the city, crossed the Charles Bridge many times, and took in some of the night life.

An older man on one of our trains said that there's a saying that there are no Czechs left in Prague. And while we haven't met a large number of Americans, Brits, or Aussies (surely a few but not as many as in Greece!), we have certainly heard more German, French, and other European languages than we've heard Czech. What's odd though is that most signage, audio announcements, etc. are only provided in Czech. So the city seems still very much preserved for its people, but its people don't seem to be here.

The strange juxtaposition of baroque architecture, with patriarchs, cherubs, and even ghouls hanging off of amazing cathedrals and palaces, with the casinos, KFCs (not kidding), and bars makes for a uniquely Prague experience.
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Prague old town square at night

2007-06-09T14:27:00.001-07:00

The vlatva river at dusk

2007-06-09T14:04:00.001-07:00

Rooftops!

2007-06-08T03:09:00.000-07:00

View from Prague Castle

2007-06-08T03:04:00.001-07:00

Prague!

2007-06-08T02:05:00.000-07:00

So after many hours of transit, some public transportation snafus, and the pleasure of helping a drunk 20 year old in the bunk below me find a trash can to puke, we're here!

It's very, very central European here.
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Sleeping in Athens

2007-06-07T01:44:00.000-07:00

The past week caught up with me last night and I ended up spending the majority of my time in Athens asleep. We walked around the old town, the Plaka, ate dinner at a small joint with great moussaka, and went to bed. This morning I briefly walked through a nearby strip of newer commercial shops, and then boarded the metro toward the airport. The only real conclusion I could draw is that women here like shoes as much or more than American women, as evidenced by the many shoe stores with shoes and their prices spread out in the windows.

I had a camera snafu on Tuesday night and have sadly been unable to take photos since then. I'll get some photos from friends but it's a real bummer. I'll have to come back to Athens with more time and a working camera!

Today I fly to London, meet Danielle, and fly to Prague this evening. Hooray!
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A peek at Athens

2007-06-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

So Lex and I took the ferry back to Athens today. It was sad to see our week in Greece come to an end but the late nights on the 'party island' of Ios were wearing down us old folk anyway. It was an amazing, relaxing, and riotous week. I wish I had made it to Crete with my friends (they went when I was still in Texas) as I think it would have provided a more authentic Greek experience. I loved my time on Santorini and Ios, but at times I felt like I was in Australia, the UK, or the US because English was the predominant language and most of the employees were from those countries.

Exhausted and lex has an early flight so more later...
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The cathedral in Chora

2007-06-05T10:02:00.001-07:00

View from Ios

2007-06-05T08:06:00.001-07:00

It's hard to see this - the photo doesn't do it justice.

Ios

2007-06-03T07:37:00.000-07:00

So I failed to mention yesterday that we went on a full day your of santorini, including hiking to the top of the volcano whose explosion formed the handful of islands nearby. We also visited hot springs where we swam in the sea and covered ourselves with natural mud.

We rushed back to the hotel to meet two more friends who had just arrived, and all 8 of us headed to dinner in Ia where we watched an amazing sunset (can't wait to share my pics)! We had wonderful food at a restaurant called Scala and enjoyed wine and way too many laughs while looking out over the caldera. Then it took over an hour to get a taxi which was a bummer - in fact, transportation proved to be a pretty exhausting experience in santorini - but eventually we made it back to the town of Fira and our hotel.

Today we took the short ferry to Ios and have spent the day on the beach. Tomorrow we're going on a kayak tour of the island. I'll be here until Wednesday.
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On a beach on ios!

2007-06-03T07:29:00.001-07:00

Lex and I rolling in business class!

2007-06-03T01:59:00.001-07:00

Santorini

2007-06-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

I've been on the island of santorini for the past two days. Day one a few of us went down to Black Beach and enjoyed food, wine, and sand. After that we had some great dinner at a restaurant called Nicholas and sampled the night life.

Lots of younger folks here and transportation around the island is tough. Still, the water is beautiful, the location is rich in history.
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View from ferry!

2007-05-31T23:37:00.001-07:00

Hello from the Mediterranean!

2007-05-31T22:54:00.000-07:00

So the first 36ish hours of travel have been great. Some bad weather in Dallas bumped me to a later direct flight on Wednesday which gave me more time with my mom and sister in arlingfun.

I took off at 6pm from Dallas, arriving in London's Gatwick Airport at just after 9am. My friends Kelly and Gabs arrived a few hours later and we were able to have some lunch before the arduous boarding process for easyJet to Athens.

It was my first time on easyJet, sort of the European Southwest Airlines, and it was pretty good in my book. The seats don't recline, but I guess that's worth the savings.

We arrived in Athens at around 8:30pm and boarded a bus to the port town of Piraeus. It took about an hour to get there and some things looked strangely familiar - car dealerships, furniture stores - but the Greek alphabet was enough to remind us we were in Greece.

It took a while for us to locate the Hotel Ideal but we finally found it (the directions suggested to turn left after a church, and to no surprise, there are a lot of churches in Greece).

We were hungry and tired but I was excited at my first night of traveling and so we stopped into a local joint for food. The menu seemed to offer only cheese, salad, ouzo, wine, and beer. The cook and owner was a really nice woman who seemed to speak every language but English. I discovered that my broken Spanish was the most common ground between us (who knew my Spanish was better than my french?) and we ended up with a lovely tomato, cucumber, and feta salad, a beer, and two bottles of water. Not bad given the significant language barrier.

This morning we boarded the ferry to the island of santorini, and we'll get there in about an hour. How is there mobile service in the middle of the sea?! I don't know, but i'm glad. No way to provide photos yet. More later...
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Getting Ready for Vacation!

2007-05-26T15:17:00.001-07:00

I made a little Google My Map of my upcoming European adventure featuring Lex, Mio, Jo, Gabs, Kelly, Danielle, and my sister Jill!

Check it out here.

Tomorrow my sister becomes an alumna of the great M.B. Lamar High School. Way to go Jill! Off to bigger and better things. I'm so proud of her for everything she's accomplished and so excited to see her off at UT! But in the meantime, she and I have traveling to do...

Haas Haas Haas!

2007-05-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

One of the Evening-Weekend MBAs who gave a speech yesterday at commencement gave a great musical performance. It's hard to hear, but you can see the Berkeley spirit coming through. :)

MBA - Check!

2007-05-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Brad below for the very kind post. Yesterday was a pretty monumental day in my educational and personal lives and I'm still sorting out how I feel about all of it. The last two years have changed me in a variety of ways, some of which I probably still don't recognize. I worked my butt off - much harder than I even thought I could. I also made some amazing friends, and in particular, met some of the most inspiring and confident women on the planet. I feel humbled, fortunate, and more loved than ever.

I pushed myself to the limits, and at times, Brad really had to bear the brunt. As I told him yesterday, I couldn't have done all of this without him. He helped me put together slideshows for things like the C4C Auction, designed a logo for a club I'm no longer even a part of, printed out DVD labels, picked me up from the airport, made me coffee - you name it. Brad deserves an honorary MBA himself (although I suspect he'll be getting his own official MBA sometime too).

I remember getting involved with putting on a fundraiser right after the Katrina hurricane back in September 2005. I was still a little surprised by the fact that I was a member of a class of such accomplished, experienced, and diverse people. I was intimidated. I didn't feel comfortable asking of things from people, and I overanalyzed every interaction. Some of the very people who I felt were out of my league are now dear friends of mine, and the award I got yesterday shows me that they think a lot of me too. It's all happened quickly and at times it seems "normal", but this has really been an amazing experience that has changed my future for the better.

I did a lot of things I hoped for out of my MBA, like classes, an internship at Apple, and winning a case competition. But there were other things that surprised me:

- Surfing! I'm afraid of the ocean, but I tried surfing for the first time last week and it was amazing.
- Taking 90 women to wine country for a day of fun.
- Taking 240 classmates to Vegas, a baseball game, banquets, parties, etc - the opportunity to help plan big events for our entire class has been both challenging and rewarding.
- Writing 2 cases which will be used at Haas for years to come.
- Questioning speakers who are worth millions and whose names are well known in technology and digital media.
- Running a half marathon. I know I won't shut up about this, but I really surprised myself.
- Finding friends who are just as crass as me but twice as smart. :)
- Creating a life for myself here in the Bay Area where I plan to spend a long, long time.

And for those of you who weren't in school with me, I know I've been a little distant and hard to reach. I'm sorry for that, but it was the nature of the beast. I hope you'll have me back now that I'm all done.

Now I get to relax. I'm off to Texas this weekend, then I'm off to Greece, Prague, Budapest with friends, and somewhere else with my sister that's a surprise! I've never really taken 3 weeks off before and I can't wait. And then I'm back to SF to take a look at life now and get started with my full-time job. The future looks bright, but for now, I'm just going to try to enjoy the present.

Love,
April

Someone named April has news

2007-05-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

She might not brag adequately about herself, so I'll get a head-start and do it for her.

Yesterday, at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, before thousands of people gathered in the stands, April and the rest of her class graduated from the Haas School of Business with a Masters degree in Business Administration. She, along with four other students from the class, was specially honored by her classmates with a service award, which allowed her to watch the ceremony from a seat on the stage.

There are a couple hundred people in the full-time program, and the program has been ranked the third most difficult business school program into which to be admitted. Haas is one of the top 5 business schools in the country. And April was on stage at the graduation ceremony. This is a big deal.

Accomplishments like this are rare, and deserve to be recognized. So I'd like to honor April on this little blog, despite its low (but valued) readership, and to congratulate her for being such a commendable person, with an uncommonly strong will and dedication.

Life is full of uncertainty and change. But there is at least one thing for me that is certain and that will not change -- I have deep and profound respect for April for this accomplishment. She deserves a lot of praise, and I know that she will continue to do great things.

Bravo, April.

I did it!

2007-05-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

So I completed my first half marathon. Results are posted here.

It was great - I really enjoyed it and felt good during the run. Even with a head cold. I can't wait until my next one. I didn't feel so hot afterward, but it's a small price to pay. I'll post some pictures once they come my way.

Now I'm down to just a few final projects and this MBA is nearly DONE.

More to follow...

Avenue of the Giants

2007-05-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

So in about an hour I'm heading up to Phillipsville, CA (map) for my race tomorrow morning. In addition to having not run but twice for the past few weeks, I'm also bringing a nasty head cold with me to the race. Bummer. There's a possibility I will only be running a 10K. I've never run a 10K before though, so that's certainly not a failure in my mind.

I should have a great view while I'm running: this is a picture from the area where the race is taking place:

The race comes at a somewhat inconvenient time, with a major project, a final, and other papers due next week. I hope I graduate. :)

This time next week, I will be in Vegas at The Wynn with my classmates. Like 100+ of them. Haas is taking the strip by storm.

Please keep my car, Bjorn in your thoughts. He is at the doctor right now and might need some serious work done. He's scared, and as a parent, I'm scared too. Let's hope he's just dehydrated or something.

New Photos

2007-04-30T00:14:00.000-07:00

I just added some new photos from my LA trip with DMEC, SXSW in Austin, spring break in Cabo San Lucas, my recent birthday, etc.

So I have 8 days of class left (well, 3, but over a period of 8 days). Then one final and then it's all sorts of fun between now and the end of July when I start work. My plans include:

- Las Vegas with my class on May 11 and 12
- A ton of parties and banquets as part of the "Dis-orientation Week" I'm helping plan for my class
- My own graduation on May 20
- My sister's graduation from Lamar HS in Arlington on May 27!
- A trip to Europe including Greece, hopefully Prague and maybe Budapest
- Another visit back through A-town on my way home to San Francisco by the end of June
- Hopefully a road trip up and down the California coast to check out beaches in July
- A new fabulous apartment (not yet found)
- Getting settled in the "real world" again
- Start work on July 30!

So it's going to be a great couple of months. I'll try to post here!

Check This Out!

2007-04-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

My friend Renee has published her 15-minute movie that is taken verbatim from her 7th grade diary. It details her fantasies about Eddie Vedder, and it's hilarious.

Check it out, in 2 parts:

Go Renee!

Checking Back In

2007-04-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

I know it's been quite some time since my last post (thanks to Brad for covering the Cabo post). It's been a really crazy few months, for reasons that many of our readers will understand. (When you have 4 readers, and you see them all on a weekly basis, then there are few surprises. Ha.)

But I have been doing some really, really important stuff. Like this:

That's me in the 3rd spot in the pyramid on the right side. Then I go out of frame for a good portion of the video. My "cheer squad" and I performed yesterday in Palo Alto at the annual Challenge for Charity Sports Weekend.

I also turned 27, which was celebrated with great friends, a lot of food and drink, and fake mustaches.

I graduate in 28 days (this time a month from now, I'll be DONE!) which means I'm probably going back into a hole for a while to finish final projects, put together an amazing Disorientation Week for the Haas Class of '07, and get ready to travel in Europe for most of June.

Cabo no se vende

2007-04-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

Reporting in after a lovely week in Cabo San Lucas. The whole place is my BFF.

I can't lay enough praise upon Casa Rincon, the huge house that we rented for 7 people, which included a big kitchen, outdoor bar and barbecue, and a small pool that wasn't too small for some surprisingly competitive games that involved inner tube racing, water basketball using water bottles and an inner tube, and various other Tecate-fueled silliness.

And for 6 days, we had an incredible view of the ocean, and of the impressive rocky cliffs of No Se Vende. (It has a real name, like Land's End or something, but when the group made our single trip to the city of San Lucas, we spotted a big sign protesting the sale of land in the area that said 'No Se Vende'. And so obviously, this became its name.)

Photos from our actual trip will show up in the photostream soon enough, but in the meantime, here are some snaps from the house:

All in all, this was possibly one of the best vacations I've ever had. Day after day with nothing planned, but boredom was nowhere to be found. I wanna improve my Spanish and go back as soon as possible.

The Future is Near

2007-03-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

Apologies for my silence. It's been a wild couple of months. Only 13 daysof graduate school left. (Of course that's because I have class only 2 days/week + spring break coming up.)

I'm heading to one of my favorite cities in the world this week, Austin, TX (future home of my sweet sister!).

I start work 5 months from tomorrow but there is plenty to look forward to in the meantime. I have a feeling I'm going to be working hard so I'm determined to have fun between now and then. Having fun like it's my job.

Will post some pictures from SXSW. Hope all are well!

A long weekend

2007-02-26T11:04:00.000-08:00

I just returned last night from a weekend in Manchester.

In the United Kingdom.

Five THOUSAND miles away from here.

And why did I do such a silly thing? For a bachelor party for my friend Mikey, who lives in Texas still, but who is from the UK and whose 20 closest friends in England decided to throw a three-day "stag do" for him. The whole trip was a bit of a blur, but I had a great time. Very few intelligent observations, except for the following:

Boddingtons really does taste better in its home town.
People in Northern England are much more approachable and friendly than in London.
Rugby on television is pretty fun to watch with a huge crowd of interested fans, even if England lost.
American Airlines has apparently lost their will to live, as evidenced by their awful customer service, their vending machine-quality Franken-food, and their chronically malfunctioning aircraft.
BMI is a charmingly wonderful airline, with smiling happy people, good food, cleaner planes and nice in-flight entertainment, and even an in-flight safety video that was interesting to watch. I learned this by being re-assigned to them after American Airlines cancelled my homeward flight.)

I left San Francisco on Thursday morning and arrived back on Sunday night, so it was pretty much a whirlwind of drinking, sleeping, and..well..that's about it. I spent a couple of hours outside exploring the city on my first day (and found Manchester's answer to the Ferry Building, the Manchester Markets, where I had the pleasure of enjoying a Bowland Sausage sandwich, possibly the only natural and non-fried food of my entire trip), but the rest of the time was consumed by the revelry of listening to regional comedians, watching rugby, playing bizarre drinking games, and generally having a 'right corker' of a time.

Man I'm tired.

Daydreaming for the summer

2007-02-23T11:52:00.001-08:00

Greece in a nutshell
Originally uploaded by Michal.S.

Here's to hoping that my summer trip looks like this!

February Update

2007-02-23T11:43:00.000-08:00

So let's see. Since the last time I checked in, a variety of things have happened.

- I completed another 5K and have continued training for a half marathon.
- I've planned some upcoming trips, including LA, SXSW in Austin, Cabo for Spring Break, and Europe (starting with Greece!) after graduation. It's going to be a busy but very fun summer.
- Okay, that's about it. It's a pretty easy going semester.

I'm one of the MCs this year for the charity auction I helped plan last year so now I have to go get myself a Carnival-style outfit. I hope I get to wear a headdress.

Sparrows Can Speak!

2007-02-16T13:29:00.000-08:00

Today is a ridiculously nice day in San Francisco - the sun is shining, it's about 60 degrees in the shade, and we're on the cusp of a three-day weekend. I decided to take advantage of my downtown lunch break and sit in Union Square to enjoy the afternoon.

So I was munching away at my Boxed Foods Company turkey and artichoke panini (which is another thing of beauty in itself) and opened up my bag of accompanying potato chips. I fumbled the opening a little, and lost track of one chip, which tumbled onto the grass in front of my feet.

An opportunistic sparrow hopped over to inspect the morsel, but he was too shy to get near it, as there was a giant Brad looming just a little too close for comfort. Being the gentle and charitable giant that I am, I leaned over and flicked the chip in his direction. My tiny feathered friend immediately clasped the salty prize in his little beak and launched up and far away, presumably to find a way to eat the silly thing.

I was two more bites into my sandwich when I looked up to see that not one, but five sparrows had installed themselves at my feet, each one pecking cutely around in hopes that I would drop another Kettle chip. I did not oblige the little winged freeloaders (teach a man to fish, etc., you know) but I did leave the Square with a lesson, which I will share with you -- sparrows are not just cute, but also cunning little bastards.

A Party in Every Port

2007-01-31T10:05:00.000-08:00

So last weekend was a banner weekend for me. Two great cities, parties in each - all in about 72 hours.

I started on Thursday night in Park City, Utah at the annual Sundance Film Festival. I was there mostly to experience the atmosphere, while many of my classmates who organized the trip were there with a deep interest in film and the industry. I saw two films: The Pool and Save Me. I enjoyed both of them. The Pool had a moving story and compelling scenery from a smallish city in India; and Save Me had great dialogue in a moving, sometimes funny, and sometimes heartbreaking story of men who were in a program intended to make them "un-gay". I'm sure that Save Me will run in San Francisco so I'd encourage anyone to check it out.

We were in Park City for the final weekend of the festival, so star sightings were few and far between. Queen Latifah seemed to be everywhere we went, and some of my classmates spotted others as well. I didn't ski, and was only in town for about 40 hours, but it was still a lot of fun to get away from the big city for a few days.

And speaking of big cities, I flew from Park City to Vegas on Saturday for a friend's 30th birthday blowout. We headed down to Pure, a hot club that sees the likes of Justin Timberlake and other celebs. Although JT was not bringing sexy back to Pure that night, we did see Mr. Mario Lopez. Who's that, you ask? Perhaps this will jog your memory:

Mario was in town as the host of some pageant last weekend, and his looks have improved dramatically since his run on Saved by the Bell.

After a big night out at the club, and an even bigger buffet lunch at The Mirage, we were back on a plane to San Francisco. Everyone needs to have a rock star weekend now and then, and I think I'm all caught up for a few months.

I'm going to sit still in San Francisco for the next month or so - I have to save myself for March when I'll be spreading my love to the great southwest, incluing trips to LA, Austin, and Ensenada, Baja. I could be a second semester-second year MBA forever...

Tough Week

2007-01-19T17:42:00.000-08:00

So with the holiday on Monday, I only had class on Wednesday this week. Which meant that my week was otherwise free from significant responsibilities, appointments, etc. It was glorious. I will get used to this.

Building a house

2007-01-18T13:16:00.000-08:00

2007 continues to go well. While April was off carousing in Chicago with Danielle, I was up on a roof in the Outer Mission banging a hammer around and endangering myself at great heights.

This was the first time I've ever worked with Habitat for Humanity, but I was pretty impressed with how much fun I had, so I'll definitely be doing it again. It's great to be outdoors, learning a thing or two about how the top of a house goes together (beams, plywood, gypsum board, Tyvek, siding...not sure what happens after that; that's for the next group of volunteers to figure out), and actually contributing to a good cause. And my fellow volunteers were all good and interesting people - who knew?

Here's me, doing a bad impersonation of a day laborer:

New things in 2007

2007-01-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

So I found a really cool website today that just launched called Geni. It's a genealogy site where you enter in your family tree, including siblings, parents, cousins, etc, with birthdates and locations. You can only see other people in your tree, but eventually, it could grow to such a complexity that the human population is shown as a massive interconnected genetic network, like a giant game of The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon for the whole world....

I'm surprised that nobody thought of this before, with such a simple interface. The inner librarian in me wants to go fill in my entire lineage as completely as possible. Spread the word - it's like social networking for dead people, and the more people who fill in their details, the more complete a picture we'll have of how everyone is related. Pretty cool stuff. - go sign up!

Back to School, Back to School

2007-01-16T14:14:00.000-08:00

So the semester started today. My last semester. Ever. (I think?) The great part about today being the first day of the semester is that I don't have class. In fact, I only have class 2 days a week. Muahahaha. Times are good.

The weekend in Danielle was a riot and I think the best visit I've had to Chicago (despite the snow). It's good to be back home though and I'm excited that many of my school friends have returned from their wild adventures to Asia, the South Pacific, Europe - you name it. I returned from jury duty. Hey, to each his own.

I decided not to work at all this spring, and that will be a new experience for me. Already I find myself a little intimidated by all this free time. I feel like I need to accomplish big things with it, to make it worthwhile. I need to start some projects. Knitting, running a 10K, whatever to give me some goals around which to organize my free time. I'm so neurotic.

One goal is to spend less time on the computer, which is tough because it contradicts my goal to blog more. It's all a work in progress.

Off to do... nothing.

Chicago Update

2007-01-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

So I'm here in Chicago this weekend and having a total blast. Danielle and I have sampled the best food, drinks, and shoes that the Second City has to offer. It's supposed to start snowing tonight, so send warm thoughts our way. If not for us, do it for Danielle's new boots' sake.

I've been to Chicago 4 or 5 times, but this visit has already been my best. Why, you might ask?

Let me count the ways:

My new favorite shoe store, Niche
A very spicy bloody mary at Flo this morning for brunch
The Chaco Taco
All of the fun themed bars here. San Francisco, take some cues from Chicago: more bars with themes would be fantastic. Thanks.

So back out for another night of fun and debauchery. Pictures to follow on Monday.

The Jesus Phone

2007-01-10T14:23:00.000-08:00

Went to MacWorld this morning, and honestly, the phone was set up like the Hope Diamond or the Holy Grail. Encased in glass, slowly rotating, with an Apple employee and a security guard manning each of the phones, you'd think the appeal would be low. But people were pressed up against the stand, taking photos, staring, gasping. Like a religious experience. Too bad it will be 6+ months before any of us poor saps get our hands on it.

In other news, I had lunch today at the Google campus with some of the '06 grads from my program, and things seem to be really great down there. I abstained from gorging myself (might as well put off the Google 20 as long as possible...) and had a great salad and half of a Google special-edition It's It ice cream sandwich. These things are a Bay Area tradition, but Google had a natural, locally-sourced, trans-fat-free version made. It was tasty. Must restrain from those in the future.

I saw the movie "Running with Scissors" last night and I have to say it was depressing. A good movie, well-done, but I don't know that I'd see it again.

Tonight I'm going to 24 Hour Fitness for two classes that make me giggle: 24Tease, which is a strip-tease workout (I have no idea what that looks like), and Hip Hop. Teehee. I'm going to make an ass of myself.

Apple Computer, inc. No More

2007-01-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

So do you change your resume when a former employer changes its name? It's interesting that they changed their company name, and didn't change the more obvious misnomer: iTunes. iTunes, which sells movies, games, TV shows, and can be used to distribute really any type of content. The keynote this morning was fun to follow, and I'm headed down to the MacWorld Expo tomorrow morning.

I would love to get my hands on one of these:

Unfortunately, I'm in a 2-year service contract with T-Mobile. Yikes. But maybe my new employer will get me one of those puppies? I hear it has Google! Maps...

The Good Life

2007-01-08T11:34:00.000-08:00

I have to say, it feels great to have some options in front of me. No decisions yet, but I know that I'm going to learn a lot whichever way I go. And it's kind of nice that all of this has happened over the break. I am missing the input I'd get from a lot of my school friends, but mulling it over with a smaller group of people has allowed me to avoid stressing myself out over it. I'm going to be talking to some people at each company over the next few days and hopefully that will give me a better idea of which way to go.

8 days into the new year and my health kick is still under way. It doesn't hurt that I'm going to Baja in 3 months and there are likely to be photos taken during the trip. This morning I went swimming (laps) for the first time in .... oh .... 15 years. That's right, I think my last swimming workout was the summer between 5th and 6th grade when I made the decision to forego swim team to focus on gymnastics. Now I come from a family of swimmers. My cousins were great at swimming, won medals, got college scholarships, and now coach. I also have a swimmer body - broad shoulders, strong legs. So I figured I could just hop back in the pool 15 years later with no trouble.

Apparently swimming is an exercise, and a hard one at that. My 11 year old body might not have noticed that, but my 26 year old body does. I can barely do a crawl stroke, so I had to stick to a lot of breast stroke and some kicking on my back. I only completed 9 laps. So I don't think I'm quite ready for masters as I had hoped, and in fact, I probably ought to take a class. I need equipment: apparently goggles and caps are there for a reason. Who knew. It was fun though. With the Berkeley hills behind me, the tower to the right, and blue skies above, it was a great way to start the day.

And then my friend sent me this article, and it makes me wonder if I should stick with swimming. I've been enjoying running, but my ankle is killing me at night. I don't know if it's related to the running, but I'm sure it's not good to continue running on it like that. I still would like to do a half marathon, but perhaps I should think about whether or not it's the right sport for my body longer term.

In other news, I'm heading to Chicago to see my darling friend Danielle this weekend. I can't wait to see her. I can't wait to have some fun days out in Chicago. In fact, the only thing I'm not excited about is this:

But it will be worth it. And I bet that Chicago has some cocktails to keep me warm...

Good News, and A Commitment...

2007-01-04T12:39:00.000-08:00

So I got it! The Job Offer (TJO). Wow, I didn't realize it would feel this good, this relieving, this exciting. That said, I don't know what I'm going to do. Because right before TJO came along, This Other Really Great Opportunity (TORGO) came along. So now I have some detective work and a lot of thinking to do over the next few weeks. It's a big decisions. Some pros/cons off the top of my head:

TJO
- Work for a company that has and will continue to change the world.
- Work with partners, maybe travel some as well!
- Work at a place where the employees are really happy to be there.
- Get an experience that may not come back around.
- Lots of unique perks but an inconvenient commute.

TORGO
- Be a bigger fishy in a smaller pond.
- Work with products that matter a lot to the people who use them.
- Learn a completely new industry.
- Work for a boss who is highly regarded by someone I highly regard.
- Short commute, possibility for a better work/life balance.

So yikes, this is a tough one. I don't have all the information yet, but it's hard not to start swinging in one direction. Will post the final decision when I make it!

And for that commitment... I'm going to try to start writing more often. The problem with writing often is that it's probably at times going to be a little boring. I'll do my best to make it interesting.

So far, so good, Mr. 2007. Keep up the good work.

Brave New Year

2007-01-02T23:04:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, folks!

Well I for one was pretty happy to see 2006 wrap up. A lot of great things happened in 2006, but it was just too busy. And there was a bad feeling in the air. But 2007 feels better already.

Brad and I cooked a big southern meal full of good luck (black-eyed peas, cabbage, and cornbread) to kick off the new year. We headed out to Ocean Beach and stumbled across a yellow rose. A little Texas here in SF.

DSCN2839.JPG
Originally uploaded by aunder.

A yellow rose on Ocean Beach on 1/1/07 - a little good luck from Texas?

Lots of great things ahead in 2007:

- Jill will graduate from high school!
- I will graduate with my masters!
- Weddings, Vacations, lots of plans
- I plan to run a half marathon

I said it out loud, so now I have to do it? Oops. We'll see how this goes!

Love and Happy New Year,
A

The Bradgeist for 2006

2006-12-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

And, as occasional contributor here on the bloggy blog, I feel compelled to share my own zeitgeist for 2006...I'm the most negligent poster this year, so I'm making a vain last-minute effort to remedy my absence, or else our fine readers will assume that California has suffered a Bradless year, which is entirely untrue!

The good

I finally got my wish for a downtown job and a train commute.
We joined a gym, and actually started using it.
I got to visit England again, along with the extra unprecedented bonus of an April.
I brewed beer for the first (and certainly not the last) time.
I got to visit wine country a little more, and can attest that it is good.
I ran around outside on purpose a lot, including once for an organized 5k event. Who knew I had one of those active people trapped inside me?
Kerri and Shaun moved here! Hooray!
I got to visit friends in Philadelphia and New York.
Several friendships in San Francisco got even better.
Haas parties

The bad

The Great Radiator Explosion of 2006.
The apartment, despite attempts to change it, remained cramped and tiny.

The ugly

Haas hangovers. Ouchie.

So, 2006 had some good stuff in it. And 2007 has some potential to be better, full of new experiences and more friends and fun. I can hardly believe it, but we'll already be celebrating our second year in California this May - wow.

2006: April's Zeitgeist

2006-12-18T18:09:00.000-08:00

Finally I'm able to come up for air. Yikes. So what a year it's been - the ups the downs, the work (oh the work!), and a lot of fun too.

Thumbs up:
- Getting to run some fun stuff at Haas. That was a lot of fun.
- Speaking of running, I ran over 70 miles in 2006. And I didn't start until the fall, so I expect to see many more in '07.
- Making some really great new friends.
- Having lots of friends and family out to visit.
- The parties, and the laughs, and the immaturity. That never gets old.

Thumbs down:
- My internship. Boooo.
- Still in the same apartment that I wanted to get out of in '05.
- Found my limits in terms of workload. Good to know, I guess, but I wish I'd taken on a bit less.
- It's been too long since I've spent any real time with a lot of my old friends. Must correct that.

Gobble Gobble

2006-11-25T15:07:00.000-08:00

So we hosted our first Thanksgiving ever this year. It was a big success although of course we missed the folks back in Tejas. When you're about to make a full dinner for 6 people, and you've never had more than 4 total in the house, you realize the short-comings of your abode.

Including:
- We don't own more than 4 plates of the same type
- We own 5 butter knives
- We don't own a gravy boat, or any suitable serving dish for canned cranberry sauce
- We don't own a microwave, a fact that made us proud until our guests wish to warm up their leftovers
- Our dining chairs were heavily stained from when our radiator turned our apartment into a steam room last January and looked disgusting

So we couldn't do much about the first 4, but we did recover our chairs.

Before:

After:

And although we failed to take any pictures of our food, we did take pictures of the guests:

Dirty Vegas

2006-11-13T22:38:00.000-08:00

Just coming off a weekend of excess in Vegas. I think I'm never eating/drinking/gambling again. Until next time. It was a blast - great to see folks from Tejas, Michigan, and California as well.
Check out the photos at right.

I can't believe it's already time to think about CHRISTMAS. Honestly??! Brad and I will be hunkering down in San Francisco this Thanksgiving. We'll miss being in Texas like we usually would be, but it will be good for me to get some work done. I feel like I have about 15 projects due in the next 6 weeks.

At Long Last!

2006-11-08T08:03:00.000-08:00

Finally, finally, the Dems are back in power. I'm spent most of my voting life losing, so this is quite an improvement.

I don't know if you guys were watching the coverage last night, but I love the transparency of the Republican spin machine. Every single cronie that came on the screen said something like Tom DeLay's latest comment: "Democrats didn't win, the Republicans lost." Ah yes - I get it - the Democrats won, but they didn't actually win. They just didn't lose.

Other comments I heard were that "this wasn't a vote for Democrats, it was a vote against Iraq." Got it - so the Democrats only lost because of a teensy-weensy little loophole called the War in Iraq. Gosh, we Democrats must be SO HAPPY about that war because it allowed us to win in this little game of checkers. Because otherwise, we surely would have lost! Because we don't have our own agenda, our own issues. RIGHT.

It's a great feeling to win, but I have to say - the political process in this country disgusts me. I believe that kids were taught around the 4th grade to be good sports when they lose. I think the Democrats should stop being such good winners - just because we're back in power doesn't mean we should take this spin gracefully.

>play 2006: Tickets on sale!

2006-10-30T18:34:00.000-08:00

So one of the things that has been keeping me busy this year is helping to plan the second annual >play conference. We have a great conference lined up and tickets are now on sale. If you're in the Bay Area, and if you're into blogs like TechCrunch or GigaOM or you follow firms like Adaptive Path or, ahem, Google, then this is your conference. All of those folks will be there - so you should be too!

A day in the Mission

2006-10-11T19:31:00.001-07:00

So I tried out a new site, wayfaring.com. You can create tours on a Google map, and they have a decent interface by which to do so. Will be interesting to see if this gets a user base. Could be great for sharing running routes. Here's my route which details some of my favorite spots in the Mission:

Puppy dogs and cupcakes

2006-10-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right. It's the important stuff like puppies and dessert that drives me out of my bloggy hermitage to share with the world.

April and I were settling in to watch the Texas-OU game at Jack's Elixir in the Mission, and had just put the finishing dashes of Old Bay on our creations from their Make-Your-Own Bloody Mary Bar, when someone walked in with a tiny four-legger on the end of a leash that made us stop and gasp. My theory is that this puppy must have been genetically engineered as part of a secret government plan to neutralize terrorists with unnaturally high levels of cuteness.

I like Jack Russell terriers; in fact, I imagine that if I were a dog, my temperment would make me a good candidate to be one. So I've seen my share of JRs, and hold them in high esteem. But I was wholly unprepared for this particular specimen, who appeared to be a Jack Russell with the best parts of a Chihuahua thrown in, so that the Twee dial got turned all the way up to 11. He had pointy ears and too much energy and a devoted interest in getting as much attention as possible from all of the bar patrons.

I did a little Googling, to check the hypothesis about a possible Jack Russell - Chihuahua mix, and I am proud to say that I found out what he is. He's a Jackhuahua. For reals. Holy crap I want one now. Check out what they look like here.

And then there's the cupcake part. I found a site called Smitten Kitchen that's started to consume my time like a ravenous beastie. I'm almost reluctant to share this site, because I have a feeling I'll be stealing recipes from it like a bandit, and won't be able to claim them as my own inventions. But the world can't wait...this is good stuff. It's some serious food porn -- the cupcakes are making bedroom eyes at me, and I'm starting to blush... I mean, I've never seen frosting like that in real life...golly.

And this artichoke panzanella - I'm sure it's breaking some kind of obscenity law...I mean wow.

San Francisco Just Got Better!

2006-10-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

So our friends Kerri and Shaun just got to San Francisco this weekend. Very, very exciting. We get to relive the fun (and the stress!) associated with getting a new apartment, etc. Fingers crossed for them that something fabulous and underpriced pops up soon!

WELCOME KERRI AND SHAUN!

April April Bo Bapril, Banana Fanna Fo Fapril

2006-09-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

So the results are out for the banana chase: I came in 72 out of 91 in my division. Keep in mind that some of my competitors were handicapped by the fact that they were pushing strollers. I also forgot to mention that a 9-year old pulled ahead of me just before the finish line. You know, a girl about half my height. That's encouraging!

Considering our late start and our sluggish demeanor that morning, I'm just glad we went. We're going to sign up for another 5K soon - I think I want to get good (faster) at the 5K before going for any longer distances.

Proof we did it (horrible photos but they're important for documentation purposes):

Some exciting events coming up in the next few weeks:

The Haas Women in Leadership Fall Retreat. One of my best friends and I are organizing it. Will be a riot! September 30

TX-OU Game: What time is it??, October 7

Kerri and Shaun are moving here in October!!

Berkeley Digital Media and Entertainment Club >play conference - I'm helping to organize and it's going to be amazing. November 18

Those are just a few of the events keeping me very busy these days. I'm busy, but I feel like I'm accomplishing a lot and making the most of my 2nd year (although I am writing this blog post from class, so perhaps not fully...)

Don't Try This at Home

2006-09-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

So we ran our first 5K ever today. We've been training for it, considering that running is completely foreign to both of us, and we were pretty excited about this step towards healthful living.

So yesterday, in preparation, we managed to end up having waaaay too much fun. And then we barely peeled ourselves out of bed and showed up for the race late (we heard the gun go off as we walked up). So while we're happy we finished it, we certainly learned some lessons for our next 5K: namely, to keep it under control the day beforehand. Ouch.

september already??

2006-09-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

So let's see:

I finished my internship on August 18, and immediately jumped back into school. I'm feeling more excited about the academic part of my schedule than I have in a long time. I'm taking some really interesting classes this fall, including classes on nanotechnology, new product development, and open source. Geeky stuff, which I love.

Brad and I headed up to Oregon last weekend which was a lot of fun. It was the first time we had spent the night away from San Francisco since March! A vacation was much needed. We have a lot of potential trips coming up in the next year, and it's nice to get out of the city from time to time. There are a million things to do here, and sometimes it's nice to just get away from the busyness.

We have also started running (no, really!) which I'm really enjoying. I have to say, the Nike+iPod Sport Kit is like crack. The instant gratification of uploading my run onto nikeplus.com is enough to keep me running. I also have been running to the same playlist every time, so even though I'm not looking at the time or my distance, I know when I've run longer than I ever have before. It's fun. Brad and I are running the Banana Chase 5K next weekend in Golden Gate Park. For every banana you beat, you get entered in a drawing. Now we're talking. These are the sort of childish antics I require to be motivated to get out and run. Whatever it takes I suppose...

Also, next weekend, Brad and I will get to watch the So You Think You Can Dance? tour!! How exciting. We need to get huge I HEART BENJI posters before then. It's going to be really cheesy and fabulous.

But in the meantime, there is a bigger issue: Texas v. Ohio State tomorrow at 5pm PST. I am nervous. I do not want to see our unbeaten streak end so soon. And at DKR no less. So fingers crossed, all. Texas, Texas!

Summer Winding Down

2006-08-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

So I want to apologize for not writing all summer. It hasn't been for lack of things to say, just time to write them. The past 10 1/2 weeks have been full of ups and downs. I won't say too much about my summer job here but I will say it hasn't been all I hoped for.

Brad has been taking a Design class, and then we've been lucky to have a lot of visitors and plenty of activities to keep our evenings and weekends very full.

Last Sunday, I took a road cycling class at REI. It was a blast. I'm still sore. The class was for women only, and the online description didn't specify the length of the course. We got some instruction in the beginning and then we set out for a 28-mile ride. I never would have known I could ride 28 miles before Sunday, but it was a very satisfying way to spend my Sunday.

Brad and I also finally got to see our friends Gary and Sara up in San Rafael this weekend. There was talk of us trying to do some camping together. So who knows - perhaps I will find the outdoorswoman in me yet. I guess it's never too late!

I have 8.75 days left at my job (but who's counting?) and then it's back to the second year of school. This fall, I will have a full class load and will also be a GSI (Graduate Student Instructor) in Speech. Things will be very busy through November, and then I'm hoping I will be able to relax and enjoy the ride a bit more. This time next year I will be starting my full-time position (somewhere). Before then, I hope to: travel, get in better shape, spend some time thinking about where I see myself career-wise, and enjoy the great friends I am lucky to have. Onward and upward, hooray.

happy fourth!

2006-07-04T21:11:00.000-07:00

Just wrapping up a fabulous week with my sister here in SF. See pictures at right.

I'm about halfway through my internship and fall will be here before we know it! I don't know if I'm excited or dreadful about getting back into the swing of the busy school schedule. I'll just try to savor it since the next year will fly by.

Apologies for the sparse posts but it's very busy!

mean green machine

2006-06-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

What a great week! On Monday and Tuesday, Brad and I got to enjoy a short visit from his parents. There was a lot of eating, and I spent most of the two days in a food coma. It was great to see them and we look forward to more visits in the future.

Then after one day of rest, Kerri and Shaun came in for a completely different type of trip. Well, actually, there was eating, and drinking, so I suppose there were some common themes between the two visits. This one also flew by too quickly and Brad and I are still shocked that our three days of fun are over!

We had a great time showing them around, particularly since Shaun had not been out here before. For Shaun, Danielle, and anyone else who makes their first visit to the state of California to see us, it's such a reminder that this is a huge state with so much to see. Even making it out of the city of San Francisco is hard, and then there's Tahoe, Yosemite, all of that Southern California stuff, Shasta, and so on and so on. So I think that means that anyone who still reads this needs to move out here as soon as possible so that we can all get started on checking off the many places to see on our list.

Also, it should be noted that the cable car was mysteriously shut down after our visitors this week, so I can only assume that it was our visitors' fault. Way to go, guys.

So many photos over on flickr (click on the right), but here are some highlights.

Brad + Parents at Ocean Beach:

Ocean Beach at Sunset:

Kerri + Shaun at Pacifica:

The gang (+ Greenie) out in the city:

isn't that special?

2006-06-06T17:31:00.000-07:00

So it's my birthday today. 27 years. And my birthday is apparently special to some other people as well. Hmm...

http://www.nationaldayofslayer.org/

Brad

family visit

2006-05-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

Brad and I just finished a fantastic week of showing family around the city. Every time someone comes to visit, we end up seeing things we hadn't before. This week, Brad got to see Alcatraz for the first time, and my Mom and saw the de Young Arts & Crafts exhibit. I hadn't gone to any actual exhibits since the de Young reopened last October, and it was really amazing. My favorite part was visiting the top of the de Young tower which has panoramic views of San Francisco from Golden Gate Park where the museum is located. We also ate some great food and enjoyed the beautiful weather we got this week. Although my uncle Mark was disappointed that he didn't get to see any of the typical fog, I was happy to bask in the sunshine.

A little photographic evidence of the visit:

Today Brad and I headed out for a hike at Glen Canyon Park. Once again, Brad and my ambition to get out and do something active was rewarded with dreadful allergies. I think it's about time for a gym membership because the great outdoors is really kicking me around right now. Ouch.

We have a lot of other exciting visitors coming through and which will be a blast. One of the great benefits of living in a world-class city: people come to us!! In June, we have Brad's parents and Kerri and Shaun lined up; in July, we have the unmatched Jillian, and Danny and Leah hailing all the way from H-Town. We're still taking reservations so book now! :)

I start work on Tuesday and I'm sooooo excited. Is that geeky? Oh well.

SCHOOOOOOOL'S OUT! FOR! THE SUMMA!

2006-05-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a year. It's hard to believe it's been a year since we first arrived in California! It's been an amazing year, with lots of change, which is good but inevitably stressful. We're still getting settled in here and now more change is on its way - I start my internship on Tuesday, May 30, we're looking for a bigger apartment (but we're patient enough to wait for the right place this time), and I'll be starting my second year of Haas this fall.

I would like to post here more, and I'm going to try to make it happen over the summer. I won't really be able to talk about my job on here, but I can say that I'm incredibly excited to get started. Not as excited about the commute, but excited about the job.

Happy summer, everyone!

End-of-year Party!!

2006-05-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

DSCN2200.JPG
Originally uploaded by aunder.

So the first year of MBA is DONE! It was hard, but it was a lot of fun. And what lovely ladies I met!! I don't miss class or projects, but I do miss all of my friends who are off in foreign countries until June. We had a great party last Thursday night when ended the year on a very good note. Now it's all about the Class of '07!!

Capitola, CA 05/18/06

2006-05-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

DSCN2209.JPG
Originally uploaded by aunder.

Zog and Lilia and I headed down to the beach yesterday and had a total blast. Slight sunburn, but nothing that I'll regret when I'm 50. I had never been to Capitola and I must say - it was a pleasant little beach town. I expect I will go back.

two diamond shop

2006-05-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

So in addition to my school work, searching for the perfect new apartment (keep your fingers crossed for us on that one), and enjoying the recent good weather we've been having in SF, Brad and I have been busy with one other thing.

Last summer we started a shop on cafepress.com, a site that allows you to upload designs for apparel and other products which then can be ordered by customers. We get a commission each time someone buys one of our products. Well we set up the site last summer and then didn't do much with it until we noticed that we had sold a few shirts. We were pretty excited to think that someone in London, Chicago, or New York might be sporting our Boutros Boutros Ghali shirt. So recently we've really started taking it more seriously, with Brad adding a new design or two each week, and with me focusing on doing some limited advertising and promotion online.

So while we're still very much just getting started, we'd love for you to check out our site: twodiamondshop.com. We're hoping to make vast improvements (particularly over the summer when we're less busy) in both product selection and the look of the site, but we're using this as a sort of entrepreneurial experiment for us.

Just this week we finally ordered some of our own product and we were ecstatic to see that they actually look pretty good in person:

Also, send us good karma on that apartment thing. The place is gorgeous.

Wrapping Up!

2006-04-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

So I'm losing a little willpower right now. I'm just so tired of being so busy. I haven't had a night to think "What should I do with myself tonight?" in ages. I know -- it's a good problem to have. But it's tiring.

That said, my life has been full of great friends and lots of fun events lately. Brad and my dearest friends at school threw me a birthday party last weekend which was a blast. This cake is now long-gone, but it was tasty when it was here:

Last weekend we finally got to go on the party bus that was auctioned off back in February. And let me tell you, Peter and his bus are fantastic. One of my favorite nights this year. Until you've danced up and down Nob Hill on this bus, you haven't lived!

Two more weeks in the semester and then I'm off to my internship this summer! I can't wait.

happy birthday, 49squaremiles!

2006-04-09T15:05:00.000-07:00

I just realized that we missed our blog's first birthday. Congratulations 49squaremiles! Oh the tales you've told. Perhaps you need a new template to mark the occasion. But perhaps I'm procrastinating?

pounds of pounds!

2006-04-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

So we’re back from our spring break trip to England, with our heads full of new images and our wallets full of…air! Hooray for spending pounds and pounds of pounds and pounds!

We did our fair share of shopping and pubbing and riding around on the Underground. For me, it was really cool to be back on the same streets as I was three years ago during my brief attempt to make like a Londoner after college. And from all reports, I think April had a blast as well…and judging from her escapades, fishnet socks will emerge on the West Coast as the next Big Thing, if only from the sheer volume of them April imported in her suitcase. You heard it here first.

Our first night, we took the Underground from Heathrow Station all the way into the City, where we checked into our rathole. I don’t need to elaborate much on that one; I’ll just say that the gentleman working the front desk of the Eden Court was very nice, but customer services can only do so much when the rooms are the size of minivans and the guest in the room down the hall sounds like he’s dying of whooping cough.

But we had enough energy to get into the center of the City, so we hopped the Tube and headed to…the Texas Embassy Cantina. Yes, our first tourist act in Blighty was to make a beeline to the only place in town with half a chance of having the Texas basketball game on satellite. We rushed in through the saloon doors, past the Texas historical marker and the old license plates and country radio bumper stickers, and sidled up to the bar, where there was….no TV at all.
So we got an Anglo margarita (which surprisingly wasn’t too shabby), and a beer and got the game updates (needless to say, not the kind of updates we wanted to hear) via some 35-cent text messages, and then took about 25 steps from Texas…into London.

Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square were a short walk away, so we went for the full-on sensory explosion to start the trip off right. The bright neon and crowds were in full swing at 11:30, because the UK has finally joined the rest of the world in realizing that people like to stay out at bars past 11pm….and it was some top-quality people watching, serving as good fashion research for the rest of our trip.

Now considering that this was Saturday night, and neither of us had been asleep in a bed since the Thursday night before, 8 time zones away, we were quickly struck by an urge to get some shut-eye. So we returned to complete our sentence at the Eden Court, where we were serenaded by several hours of charming wheezing and coughing through papier-mache walls.

But morning finally came, and I walked down to speak to the hotel manager about moving us into a better room. He cheerfully informed me that he could give us a key to our new room right away, but that the room hadn’t actually been cleaned yet. Not to worry, he assured us, we could move our bags into the new room and when we returned, everything would be in order.

This seemed a little unorthodox to me, but he seemed so pleased to be able to accommodate us, so I took the key and returned upstairs. It appeared that our new room was on the same floor as our old one, so at least we wouldn’t be lugging our bags around too much! So far so good…

I looked down at the new key, and looked up at the door to our hotel room. I looked immediately to the right, and saw the door to….our new hotel room. Right. Next. Door.

I turned the door handle. I peeked inside with one eye covered for fear of seeing the body of the mysterious cougher, sprawled across the bed in some wizened state of rigor mortis. Luckily, there were no corpses, but it wasn’t Egyptian cotton linens and pillow mints either. The stench of four packets worth of cigarette smoke wafted in on the breeze from the open window to the door, past the empty bottle of wine sitting on the bed-side table in the coffin-sized room. Lovely.

We made our way to Knightsbridge after this encounter, and visited the Claverley, where I worked during my aforementioned stint a few years ago. While April was taking the obligatory ‘look at me here again’ photo of me on the doorstep of the place, my friend Danny appeared from within and greeted us both with big hugs and welcomes. It took about 4 minutes for us to share the tale of the Eden Court and for Danny to come to our rescue and offer us the comfort of clean and hospitable lodging, complete with English breakfast every morning. Our day, and our trip, was saved!

-to be continued!

home again home again jiggity-jig

2006-04-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

So we're back! We ended up skipping Paris to see more near London (and to avoid any sort of mess related to the protests and strikes taking place in Paris right now). We had a blast, and will post more soon about our trip.

In the meantime, I've uploaded some of our best photos from the trip here.

Enjoy!

L-Town

2006-03-27T06:44:00.000-08:00

So after the longest flight ever, we're here.

We'll have to post some of our photos later, because our internet cafe is way too complicated for doing things like posting photos.

Highlights of the trip to date include:

April discovered her new favorite store (and yes Jill, we got you some things)
We visited Dionysus, Brad's favorite kebab shop. It was really good. They don't have their own website.
We ditched our disappointing, pestulant hotel in favor of Brad's old workplace, The Claverley. Ummm, The Claverley is soooo much better.

Unfortunately, the time is flying by. And Top Shop has more things that we need to buy. So -- see ya later.

-- Brad and April --

my father, the criminal

2006-03-23T15:11:00.000-08:00

This is one of the funniest things that has ever happened to Amarillo, and to my family.

And in case you're wondering, no, we don't have a 6'x6' model of Amarillo in our house. Because if we did, you would all know about it. Bigtime.

An Open Letter to the City of Austin

2006-03-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

To the City of Austin,

Oh Austin, how I love you. I'm sorry we've been out of touch. And I don't mean to visit you only when you throw a huge party.The thing is, sometimes I forget how much we have in common because of the company you keep. It's really too bad you like to hang around those other cities, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. I mean, I can understand what you see in them. They're nice guys. But you -- you are so much more. A diamond in the rough. An oasis. And what a good cook you are!
Anyway, I just wanted to thank you again for your hospitality and for treating me like a friend even after all these years of separation. Take care, and I'll try to make it back to see you next year.

Love,
April

austin texas, baby!

2006-03-18T09:33:00.000-08:00

So four of my classmates and I headed down to Austin late Wednesday to represent Haas and DMEC at the MBA Open MIC case challenge. And the good news is... we won!

After sifnificant delrium resulting from a lack of sleep, we pulled through and took home a big fat novelty check. Woohoo! Last night it was time for celebration and we caught some good SXSW shows.

No time to waste though -- we have about 24 more hours in Austin so I'm off to live it up!