i went to a happy hour here tonight:



life is good!

it looks like all pro football 2k8 is gonna rock. i'm excited!

steve and i are really digging this secret diary of steve jobs.

i love gwen stefani after seeing her show last week.
here's why:



- she had a keytar player in her band
- aforementionned keytar player was from detroit!
- best breakdancers i've ever seen at a show: one guy did a windmill for about a full minute
- she called out not only her entire band by name and hometown, but also did that for all of her breakdancers (which is when the aforementionned windmill took place)
- awesome sense of style, including: excellent use of her initials logo by turning it into a very cool belt buckle and festive ska-ish black/white/red costume themes
- she came out into the audience (with big security dudes, of course) and kept swearing about how she loves san francisco
- she was smart enough to shout out to both san francisco and san jose
- she signed a fan's purse during the show and then dug into the fan's purse to see what else was in there (and then promptly signed the concert tee in there too)
- she sang a lullaby to kingston during her encore since she said he could hear every bit of the show from the tour bus
- she mentionned during the show that she'd been in my 'hood that day (south park) and loved it

i really enjoyed this article about some wild restrooms around the world.

of course, i really enjoyed the weekend too. too bad it's now over. :(

i have recently become addicted to facebook.
in related news, i love this cartoon from the onion:

such a great saturday here: nice weather and lots of fun plans. we went to the ad agency softball game today (which steve played in, and i cheered at), and the weather was sunny and beautiful!
and to make today more special, sharon asked me to be in her wedding. i'm so flattered! and so happy for her and don, of course!

i'm in NY tonight for work meetings this week. on the way here, i sat next to farmer john, whose movie the real dirt on farmer john, has won a ton of awards and looks really interesting. i felt pretty bad that i hadn't heard of it, but he didn't seem to mind. have any of you seen it?
we ended up sorta getting dinner (i got dinner and then we split a dessert). nice, wacky farmer guy. i wonder if we ever got his veggies in chicago...

we had an awesome weekend!
on friday night we went out with our new friend jeffrey (who we met through ann & andy) and had dinner at a peruvian restaurant, essencia. jeffrey's boyfriend works there and we had lovely service (of course!). the lamb was to die for, as were the orange madeleines. yummy!
we were supposed to go hiking on saturday with the U of M club in the presidio, but steve bailed on me. i still went, and it was a really beautiful lovely walk, which we ended by taking a little tour of the presidio wine caves, where some old army ammunition bunkers have been converted into a wine storage facility. then we had our friends melissa and david, and their adorable baby eli over for dinner. after that, we stopped by our friend chris's birthday party. unfortunately we were pooped after all of that activity, so we were kinda lame and didn't stay late.
today we went to see the giants play the As. neither of us is really into baseball, but you can't beat a sunny day game! afterward we got a casual dinner, followed by beard papa's creme puffs. yum!

wow! the special edition of vanity fair on africa looks amazing. check out the cover photos to see everyone that participated.

on a different note, i really want to buy poopoo paper. i know that everything is getting more and more digital (and my silly job is a testament to that), but i sooooo love stationary and the written word, and if it can be on paper made of poo, well, that's just plain neat.

greenland is in the news! crazy cool!

i'm sorry i've been so out-of-touch. i went to seattle for a week for work, and then we went to hawaii for two weeks. it pretty much ruled.
those of you that know me well know that i'm not good at chilling out. it's very hard for me not to be futzing around, and it's hard for me to disconnect from my office when i'm out.
i decided not to take my blackberry with me while we were out, and it was wonderful. there were business centers at a couple of the hotels that we were at, but i didn't check email AT ALL (soooo amazing for me!)
we were on the big island for about a week, then oahu for the weekend (in waikiki) and then on kauai for a week. we'd heard a ton about the "garden island" of kauai (apparently everyone in california loves kauai, and we heard from some folks on the island that what really keeps kauai green is californian's cash), so we knew to expect amazing scenery and lots to do. what we didn't expect was the lovely, uncrowded laid-back-ness of the big island. if you want to see our photos (which are not entirely organized at this point, but *close*), you can check them out here.

what we loved about the big island:
- we went snorkeling and to the top of a huge mountain (where it was under 40 degrees!) in the same day
- it's so clear on top of mauna kea that they have awesome observatories up there, and although we didn't get to visit any of them, we did get to look through a really fancy portable telescope and we saw all kinds of cool stuff, including an amazing view of saturn's rings
- we stayed in this amazing 'rainforest retreat' in the town of volcano, where we had our own little private pagoda-style house and a japanese soaking tub. ahhh...
- hawaii tropical botanical garden. i think we took about 100 photos here


what we loved about kauai:
- so much greenery!
- the canyons and mountains of the interior are so amazingly pristine! we helicoptered over them and saw waterfalls everywhere
- we hiked waimea canyon, which was crazy beautiful

there was so much that we wanted to do and didn't get to. there were about a dozen hikes that we didn't have time for, and many little reefs that we need to go back to snorkel around. i am already dreaming of my next vacation...

steve pointed this out: best headline ever.

i really enjoyed this Q&A with optimus prime, the star of the upcoming transformers movie. he's so famously reclusive!

it looks like we should all play in the dirt more, according to a british study which found that the treatment of mice with a ‘friendly’ bacteria, normally found in soil, altered behavior in a way similar to antidepressant drugs.

love it!

i also really enjoyed the "word of the day" theme this week from the email subscription service: words having vowels aeiou once and only once, and in order.

today's word was: annelidous (uh-NEL-uh-duhs), which is an adjective meaning "Of or relating to worms"

i guess that makes it a very dirt themed day.

____


on a very separate note, it was wonderful to see everyone when we were back in michigan this past weekend. i wish we made it back more often, because we do have such an awesome group of friends. we were happy and impressed at how many of you were able to come and partake of naan and yummy indian food goodness at shalimar, and it was especially nice for sharon & don to host a group afterward.

i had a really nice time with my family (both the paskys and the halls) and a special visit with my grandma. she is truly the world's best grandma, and we've stayed in touch via email, which is soooooo impressive (i hope i can adapt to new technology that well when i'm 80!). i also really liked talking with my 'sister' whitney. i've never had a sister before, so it's been nice to have one finally.

it was sad to see my childhood home. it's pretty beat up at this point, and it was empty except for a few scattered things that were being left behind for the buyers. they did leave a lovely note for "the previous owners of this house" that said that they love it, and i am hoping that someday i can stop by and meet them.

i've posted a few photos of the house on my flickr site, here.

hooray for debbie, who joins the rank of "mommies of two" (which is still an exclusive group among our friends):

matthew thomas was born on 4/11 -- the day after debbie's b-day, and he did so in style: debbie was watching a friends re-run where rachel gives birth.

nice!

hooray! the bang is happening in ann arbor while we're there. and (even better) it's a NINJA BANG! i shall have to ready my nunchuks!

this book always reminded my family of our little house:

it sounds crazy, but it's true: we went to the grand national rodeo tonight here in san francisco. it was at the cow palace, which is not only a great name for a venue, but also has the best logo font EVER.

what an emotional day! my childhood home, in quiet little willis, michigan, has been sold. it's been on the market for quite some time, since my dad moved to ohio and remarried. the real estate market in michigan has been dismal, so i hadn't really thought about it much.
i'm pretty sentimental, and so i'm a little tear-y. i was always embarrassed of that little house. it's teeny-tiny, and on a dirt road. i remember not wanting to have other people know it was my house: kids from school that i wanted to think i was cool, boys i had crushes on...
but when i was a little girl, and my best friend was the boy across the street, the backyard was a source of pride. i had a sandbox the size of a living room, and we had an open area the size of a ball-field, behind which there were fruit trees.
my dad had a big garden, and i remember it was my job growing up to pick vegetables for dinner. green beans and corn are still my favorites, and marigolds and cosmos will always remind me of the garden, since my dad planted them around the perimeter.
there were tiger lilies growing by mailbox at the side of the road. we had one row of daffodils in front of the house, and another along the side hedge. the bulbs were from my dad's older brother, who died when i was in 5th grade.
the house itself had many more memories, but i can't crystallize them into sentences right now. i loved the built-in drawers in the wall of my bedroom, and the way our refrigerator was nestled into the wall. i was horrified at how dorky the '70s patterned carpet was, and the orange countertops in the kitchen -- which had a built-in oven!
my brother's bedroom was so small that my dad built a loft, and since we had one bathroom with a mirror above the sink, my brother would come into my room before bedtime to use my makeup mirror to floss. "FLOSS PARTY!" he would announce.

...

i remember one day in college, when i found out that the power company had cut down a good portion of the branches on a majestic tree in our backyard. the tree had held our tire swing and treehouse. i felt robbed and betrayed.

i had much more emotional warning about tonight, but i'm much sadder. i have always been a bit of a sap, and i guess i should have known i'd be crying as i write this. i'm not embarrassed, though. i remember accompanying my friends erin & ian to their childhood home for their final visit, and it gives me great comfort right now to know that i'm not alone: the sadness i feel now is a measure of a happy childhood.