Economy Update

First off, I have no news on how the general economy is doing, but I do have news about how the economic climate impacts me personally. Monday, the staff at my company was asked to shift to 3/5 pay and hours. That's right, way more free time and way less pay.

Awesome.

The staff avoided layoffs (for now), which had me super giddy in the immediate aftermath. But then I started realizing what a cut that size actually means.

I've been oscillating between feeling incredibly bummed out by this and energized by all the next steps that flow logically for this change. But one step in front of the other.

On a lighter note, I freaking love that on 3-9-09 The New Late Night with Jimmy Fallon spent like a full 10 minute segment geeking out over the new (yet to be released) Palm Pre phone.

I think Fallon would be smart to play up the tech geek angle. It suits him and will endear him in the hearts of geek peeps of America. Loyal folks.

Beijing: Hutongs and Fire Cupping

I was in Beijing for 5 days, at the end of the 12 day trip. It was great to have time to slow down a bit and take in the city.

The food was amazing the entire time. But I think a few of the best meals of the trip were in Beijing. The picture below is of one of our favorite street foods. It is a crepe with a scrambled egg scallions, cilantro and this very light crispy fried thing in the middle, all folded up together.


The last night Celia and I were there, after Aaron and Alex had gone home, we had hot pot. The bright red half is spicy tomato broth. The other side inferno hot, of course (thus the 'hot' in hot pot), with chillies and oil. Both are bubbling at a rolling boil right on your table. You pick a bunch of different ingredients and put them into the mixtures. AMAZING!

We also got a chance to do some real shopping when we were there. We went to an area that Celia called the Hipster Hutong. Hutongs are these series of exceedingly narrow alleys built by the Mongols. They are rapidly being torn down and their inhabitants moved to high-rise apartments in the suburbs. The Hipster Hutong is full of neat, artsy, little shops and bars filled with expats and locals smoking cigarettes. Because it has so many profitable businesses in it this Huton isn't in any danger of the wrecking ball.

This picture was a delightful example of Chairman Mao kitsch at a bar full of Chinese young people.

The day that we visited the Hipster Hutong Alex's neck and back had were so sore he could hardly move. Celia tried to help, but he needed something a bit more.


It just so happened that there was a massage and acupuncture place right in the Hipster Hutong. Full service!

While we waited in their cozy lobby for Alex to be cured, Aaron, Celia and I browsed the menu of their services. We'd previously had a discussion about fire cupping.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_cupping

We were super curious what the whole thing was supposed to do and be all about. We didn't have wikipedia at our disposal and it was cheap so we decided to try it.



This was taken the same night we got it done, 2-14, and the bruises only went away last week. Yikes. It did make me feel relaxed and energized immediately after, but I would not get it done again.

Sappy travel story conclusion: bruises fade but the memories of my trip will last a lifetime.

In the weeks since China

On February 18th I returned from an absolutely unbelievable, stupendous, eye-opening vacation to China. I have lots of stories about the trip, but so much has happened since that stories will have to wait.

I cut my hair.




I'm psyched about my hair. But even that can't distract me from general business pessimism.

For months now, I've heard a million times a day in a million different ways that the economy is going to slumping/depressing/collapsing/stalling/freezing/tightening. I've had nothing to call this mess, yet a mess never the less.

I knew things at my work had been slow, but we had a plan. I'd been a busy little bee in the plan. Then, last week, they told us that things were worse than we had thought. They let us know that some thing drastic needs to change and fast or the company will go under. Layoffs are the most likely option. Yikes bikes.

I expect that next week will bring more answers. For now I'm doing all I can. Taking things step by step.

Okay. I got that out of my system. Soon, stories from China.

Tintin

I was absolutely obsessed with Tintin as a kid. My dad started reading them to me when I was 5 or 6. I remember bring copies of Tintin to more than one 1st grade show and tell and insisting they weren't comic books. They were books with pictures!

Tintin and his friends went places that were both real and a fantasy to me (The Blue Lotus was in China and Japan, The Broken Ear was in South America, The Cigars of the Pharaoh was in Egypt, Prisoners of the Sun was in Peru, etc.).


The fact that Tintin was a roving boy reporter of indefinite age traveling the globe with his talking dog, snowy and his friend, the crusty, Captain Haddock, never seemed the least bit odd to me. His adventures were thrilling to me. My dad would read them to me at night before I went to bed. Then I would look at them over and over, memorizing the pictures long before I could read any of the words. I brought them with me everywhere and my copies showed their wear (remember finding a corn flake in on once from a hurried breakfast, reading at the table or in the car).

Like lots of things we love innocently as little kids, reading Tintin now is a lot more complicated. I had no idea that it had originally been published in French in 1929 or that it was translated into over 50 languages. All I knew was that my dad had read them as a kid. He liked that there were fast cars, realistic motorcycles and adventures at sea. I liked the colorful pictures, exotic locations and cute doggy side-kick. But reading them now I can't help but feel conflicted about the colonialist racism that pervades Tintin's travels (Tintin in the Congo is a particularly creepy example. I didn't actually have it when I was little, since its offensive depiction of the Congolese is so blatant that it wasn't widely available. But I tracked it down in High School and had no idea what to think).

But like a lot of things it can be understood as something out of its own time, while not excusing its flaws.

All this is why I'm cautiously optimistic about the up-coming Tintin movie. Jamie Bell from Billy Elliot will play Tintin; Daniel Craig will be playing the villain. The first and, theoretical, second films will be directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson. The first movie will be based on The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn.


It tells the story of how Tintin meets Captain Hadock for the first time. Hadock is a down on his luck, alcoholic, former ship captain. They end up discovering that an ancestor of the Captain left maps hidden in replicas of his ship, which lead to his hidden treasure. They don't end up setting off to get the treasure until the next book, making the sequal a resonable idea. The movie is due out in 2010 and is filming now. I am a geek for this stuff so I have high expectations. Everything about the movie seems very promising, but we will have to see how it turns out.

The Fuchsia And A Cool SIte I found

Fuchsia by CallMeNora

So ever since I went back to having brown hair I've been kind of obsessed with colors I couldn't really wear when I was a redhead. Thus the fuchsia collage you see.

As much as I love fuchsia, I'm actually more excited about the web site that I used to put this collage together. A few days ago I read about polyvore.com about on some blog. I had just written my last post and was filled with enthusiasm about my resolutions when I found this site. I immediately thought about using it for this blog. Here is how the site describes itself says:

Polyvore is a free, easy-to-use web-based application for mixing and matching images from anywhere on the web. Polyvore lets you create sets composed of individual images using an easy to use, drag and drop editor. After you have created a set, you can publish and share it with your friends and the Polyvore community.

To me, it is an easy way to import and save images I come across while looking at blogs or shopping. As I have played with the site's tools I realized it really was easy to use and if it was easy for me maybe it would be easy to just about anyone. I should also mention that I've spent months looking at collages that focus group participants did as homework before coming to speak with us. Organizing, labeling, and analyzing all of these collages! If they'd already been done on the internet, wouldn't it be easier if some/all of those collages were electronic? So I'll show it to the folks at work and see if we could learn anything or use it. Sometimes I can be such a work geek.

New Year's Resolutions

It is that time of year again: New Year's Resolution time. I've been asked if I'm making any this year. The quick and dirty answer is no. But, as always, the truth is a bit more complicated.

I don't believe in them. Invariably, people's resolutions seem to be vague and self loathing ("I will lose weight," "I will spend less money" etc). In fact, in my random internet wanderings I discovered that our government has a page on its official site devoted to common resolutions, which illustrates my point perfectly.

http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/New_Years_Resolutions.shtml

I'm all for self improvement, but most resolutions seem way too broad with any concrete steps that might actually help the person accomplish their goal.

So, rather than make a trite and disingenuous resolution, this year I will be declaring the following intentions:

-Sing Everyday. While I am not a serious crooner, singing taps into all sorts of positive little kid memories. Whenever we'd drive anywhere with my dad, my sister and I would sing things like "This land is your land," do rounds of "Row row row your boat," and the sea shanty version of "The itsy bitsy spider" (which might sound weird to you but it actually translates perfectly to a work song appropriate for hoisting sails or an anchor to). I've already made my first volume of the commuting sing-a-long mix of songs I know the words to, there will be more to come. Also, Karaoke will factor in this plan.

-Read Everyday. Now this is something I'm already kind of doing. But now I've decided that I have to read something that is not on the internet at least once a day. There are things that I simply need to unplug to experience. The first book of 2009 is "Freak: The pig-faced lady of Manchester square & other medical marvels" by Jan Bondeson, which is a medical, historical and cultural look at freaks through the ages. Very rad and starting my new year just right.


-Blog More. Now this one is certainly vague, but I've made peace with it since I was railing against vague resolutions and this is an intention. I think this is a neat forum that I'm not fully taking advantage of to express my creative juices. This has the added benefit of being writing practice that I need if I am ever going to advance my career goals.

I feel this list of intentions is both realistic and will help me have an implausibly fabulous 2009. I admit to being freaked out about the dire state of: the economy, our country's moral standing in the eyes of the rest of the world, our many alliances and military engagements, the environment, etc. But there isn't a whole lot I can do about any of that, so I might as well turn up the music and sing as loud as I can.

Happy New Year!!!!!!

G1 - Reflections On My Google Life

Oh wow. I got a T-Mobile G1 cell phone for work. Best thing ever. I've never been much of a gadget person, but this transcends mere gizmo worship. This is the last piece of my google life. What started as searching the internet, soon spread to a gmail account, then a igoogle homepage, and finally google reader for all my feeds.


Now this little phone integrates all these things plus my work email, with the convenience of a touch screen and a full keyboard. Perma-connection to everything electronic I love.

I know it must sound like I'm preaching the gospel of google, but I don't care. I give credit where credit is due. I've only had it a few days and I can't imagine not having it.


Dare I say that this could be an iPhone killer? Though it hurts me to say it as a Mac user it might be true. I've really only had the phone since Friday, so I have to wait to see if it really has staying power.


I think beyond just the spiffy functionality, the G1's applications really make the whole phone into an extension of the users lifestyle. I was talking with my co-worker Amy, who also just got the phone. Amy and I are in completely different life stages but love the G1. Her two small kids are curious about her cell phones and technology but hard on it, mashing buttons and putting things in their mouthes. So she has what she called "toddler apps." One is this visualizer that responds to the kids touching the buttons and the touch screen by producing dynamic colors and shapes, much to the kids' delight. The other toddle app that Amy told me about turns the G1 into a baby monitor that automatically call another phone number (like your home phone number) when the baby's noises reach a certain loudness. Pretty clever, but not the apps for me.

Here are few of the apps that have caught my attention thus far.


This one is called Bartender and has an encyclopedia of drink recipes at your finger tips at all times. You can search the list and mark your favorites for next time. Bonus, I finally learned what is in a Gimlet.


The next app is pretty practical but satisfies my yearning to both make lists and cross the items off in a satisfying fashion when I have completed the task. I have actually written things on lists that I have already done so that I could cross it off. The thrill of checking something off my list has actually kept me away from other list sites like Don't Forget The Milk. This is way better.

The next app is called MyCloset. It allows you to take pictures of your clothes with the G1's camera and use the pictures to coordinate complete ensembles. This one totally reminds my of Cher's closet from Clueless and, as a result, satisfies the awkward 11 year old in me.


I haven't had time to log all my clothes (you can do tops, bottoms, outer wear, other, shoes and accessories!) but it is already so fun. I've already been inspired to try some different combinations .
My apps suit my work self and my fun self. They work perfectly to aid me in my young professional life. Sigh. I love it so. I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface with this device. I'm sure there will be more about G1 here soon.