I read other people’s blogs and have a good set of friends I try to keep current with through their blogs, twitters and what not. Here is a great blog entry from Tracy that captures her love and dedication to running.
You know, it was a good day for me to be back to work but the real joyful moments of the day included:
Oh yeah 
First day back… sabbatical is over.
It is pretty interesting to me that I haven’t taken more than a few days off here and there in the last 3 years and I was just able to take 6 weeks out. It is an awesome team around me (PD, QA, PjM and PM all rock!) and looking in from the outside was a great reminder that we have a great base that doesn’t depend on one person showing up.
Please… don’t get me wrong. I have no lack of ego and I know what I bring to the team but it was cool to see the team, especially my PM team, rock it.
Anyway, the point is that this was day one back. It was a nice and relaxed day with time to catch up with friends I haven’t seen in more than a month. Ah, and lunch and coffee breaks with friends!
And to cap it off I got to catch up with Geis after work. Good living.
Oh! And I ran into Nathan this morning at Starbucks and he let me see his iPhone. It really is beautiful and the thing just looks like the commercial. Yes, I know all the negatives and why it wouldn’t be a good replacement for my blackberry but dang… it is pretty.
Seriously, I’m watching the show “Age of Love” and I would love to see this guy’s watch start beeping like crazy and then have Amanda ask, “what’s that?” only to have him answer, “That’s my crazy Geiger counter and you are pushing out massive crazy radiation!” Yes, I’d love that and I’d buy several “Age of Love” branded versions of that watch for all my nephews.
I’m just saying… you go on a reality TV show about finding a 30-ish dude a woman and all the women on either side of you in the line up are smoking hot and you go to tears every time he looks at one of them? Oh yeah, boiled bunny time!
Wow… hold the presses. This guy is asking to be stabbed. He just answered Amanda’s concern about him kissing multiple girls by saying, “you’re the one and only girl I’ve kissed kissed.”
Her reply? “I totally believe him. If he told me the sky was purple then I’d believe it is purple.
The Bachelor (any of them) has nothing on this guy.
I don’t know… I’ve only known Hima for 9 months but I have to think she would love this blanket. Granted, when we were in Santa Barbara I saw a pair of silly flip flops that I thought she might find funny.
We had a pretty relaxed 4th including a cookout for lunch. I got a bottle of wine for the holiday and opened it for lunch. My oldest nephew said, “you have to put the top back on your drink” so I explained about letting wine breathe. At dinner that night he looked across the room, saw the cork in the bottle, and asked my mom, “I thought wine was supposed to breathe?”
He’s a sharp kid and picks up quite a bit. Now we’re just counting the days till this gets recounted as part of a school show and tell.
Everyone wants kids and puppies to like them and for me a visit to the family is a good example. When I get there I watch to see how long it takes the nephews to warm up to me.
We were waiting at the Desert Inn and my brother and his family came in. My younger nephew warmed up to me immediately but the older always takes a while longer. This is especially true since I grew my hair out. As he said the last time I was home, “you have long hair… you’re not supposed to have long hair.”
Before long both were warmed up to me and we had a good visit.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List show but I love her. Yes, it is “adult language” and topics so those of you who don’t like that would really not like this show or her act in general. But if you have a chance, this episode where she prepares to go on a Rosie O’Donnell cruise is very touching.
Her parents have been a big part of her D-List show and in this episode, it feels odd to call it that when it is so raw and personal but it is reality TV, her father passes away. He was a funny funny guy and reminds me a bit of my grandfather with his say what comes to mind approach and his upbeat personality. Even when he passed he asked to have golf on the TV and to have control. The thing that is so hard is watching Kathy deal with it on camera. The performer side of her has to go on but the pain is just so real.
I’ll be honest… I’m heading to see my grandfather tomorrow and this is one of my worst fears. What’s going to happen on the day I get that call? He’s had a great run (he’s ~94 yrs old) but if I could trade 20 years of my life to have him for another 20 it wouldn’t even be a question (as long as it didn’t require surgery… you know, I’d want that pill that takes from one and gives to another… 
).
As a side note- I lived with my grandfather for 10 years after college when I was spiriling out of control, had no idea what to do, and no real aspirations. He was there for me and we became really close over the years. I was lucky to have that kind of time where before I thought it was great to see him for a bit each summer and maybe at Christmas. It became so normal to have him around that when Alice and I bought a house we picked one about 7 miles East from her folks and 7 miles West from my grandfather. It was really cool for me as an “adult” to have that sense of family all around. Sunday dinners with her folks at our place and weekly dinners and all the holidays with grandfather.
Anyway- I hate the whole topic of mortality. I don’t want to think ahead to any of this but it is a reality. But, I’ll just make sure and tell people I love them and never leave with unsettled issues.
I also need to try and do more than just focus on work. Yes, I want to work hard and I know that makes my family proud to see what I do but in the end, the job will just have been a job. They give vacation time for a reason and I need to take advantage fo that to get back home and see the family and to see my nephews grow up!
The 1k connections on LinkedIn and all the friends on Facebook won’t buy you another minute. (But if you want to add me to either network I’d be happy to accept the link!)
I love new toys and I hate V1’s… so I’m always torn when new things come out. When the Xbox 360 came out I waited about a month and then bought one on eBay and picked it up on Thanksgiving (I used a gift certificate I got as an award to make me feel better about the price paid). But as much as I want an iPhone I can’t justify it. I know… I know.. I’m not one of those people that needs to “need” something to get it but there are three or four things I hate spending money on. Cell phones and internet access are squarely in that category. On top of that I just upgraded my blackberry which I actually need for work so I can’t trade up to something that isn’t better than the blackberry in the ways I need it for work.
Anyway- here’s a great “morning after” review that does an awesome job of detailing the negatives of the iPhone but also shows how little they matter if you have the device lust like so many of us do. The nice part (for my piece of mind) is that the author agrees with me about the iPhone not serving as a replacement if you’re a heavy blackberry writer.
http://scobleizer.com/2007/06/30/the-morning-after/
Joon-soo: Even though you haven’t told me you got one I’m assuming you’ll let me try your iPhone the next time I see you.