I want my work to be fun and for my fun to never be work.

While it may sound short and simple and perhaps a bit random, if you know me then you know this is a pretty good assessment of how I try to live. My favorite thing is spending time with amazing people. Because this is what interests me I try to pick jobs that put me in groups of smart people trying to do good things and then I try to get as much enjoyment as I can from the situations that follow.

Was at dinner last night and was learning about a new friend when we finally hit the intersection of “Where did you go to undergrad?” and “Holy crap, you’re that much younger than me?!?” when I realized we had a friend in common from his undergrad and my FairMarket family. She is on my favorite people list (oh yes, there is a list) and I don’t think they know know each other but that we’re sitting in San Jose drinking wine without any sense of previous commonality and all of a sudden we have a point in our unique pasts that crosses is pretty interesting to me.

PS- why does my hosting provide have a blog config that still prevents me from using embeds? This + my inability to influence NS and layouts may actually drive me away from this hosting provider.

A couple things I do want to point out:

• This is currency issued in conjunction with Liberia? I guess they don’t have a cool domain to sell like .tv and pseudo-currency is the best they can do.
• The web form to order is asking for credit cards on an http page? I see they’re using an https post but I’m always teaching users to avoid security they can’t see / verify.

The BBB doesn’t have any confirmed details on National Collector’s Mint, the company selling the commemorative, but you can read what they do have in this BBB report.

I feel like asking Adam Nash to give me his opinion on this stuff… I bet he either would have a ton to say or that he would just say, “Don’t be stupid” and leave it at that.

We’ll do a little toast for you guys this Wednesday and maybe we’ll have a pink theme or something to match Carol’s colors.

2 people at the office commented on it- one who had previously complimented my longer look and one that liked the shorter look from the facebook profile. Funny the things people notice. I understand that I looked a bit bushy and out of control but being that I never look at myself (which my friend Yuval attributes to an odd form of self esteem) I can’t tell if it looks different to other folks.

On one hand I can see this from the business side… smart to use such a stunt event to encourage use of this feature. On the other I hate having to give up personal usage stats (even though I understand it allows for better targeting / recommendations). But ultimately I assume Tivo is logging everything and my privacy is a myth anyway.

Case in point… yesterday was full of stress over an impending release and a bunch of dropped balls. Still… I was able to work from home, attended several conf calls, and still managed to squeeze in Korean BBQ for lunch where I burned myself on the pot while watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on my shiny new iPhone. Rough life, right?

So, at one point I was looking for a little humor and a sense that I’m not alone in this big world of Product Management pain. What did I do? Why, I googled “day in the life of a product manager” and came across more than a few gems. Check out this post from “The Cranky Product Manager” and you’ll see the kind of mood I was in.

The nice thing was how the day ended. Release issues (the most important ones anyway) are nearly resolved with a light at the end of the tunnel and I was able to go to Gary Dillabough’s going away party at eBay and see many of my favorite old time eBay folks.

Note for Hima and Ramya- I think I’m actually a hugger after all. Never fear- your protected status is still in place.

It was quite comforting in a way I really really needed yesterday to see good folks and wish Gary well. Two notes to Gary…

1. Thanks for telling the FAIM acquisition story. Even thought it hurts on some grand spiritual level for me to think about how close we were to being a Web 1.0 success story with your parting the number of people that even remember FAIM dropped to about what I can count on two hands and the number of execs who know it dropped to 2. I’m sure in 6 months they’ll rebuild the large merchant strategy and not even realize what they’ve missed out on.
2. Keep me in mind in your future projects. I’d happily clean your pool.

In case you never heard about the “last lecture” project- it was a series of lecture about what would you talk about if you had only one last lecture to do.
Many interesting lectures came out of it but Randy Pausch’s lecture became a must hear for everyone out there.

“On September 18, 2007, computer science professor Randy Pausch stepped in front of an audience of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University to deliver a last lecture called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” With slides of his CT scans beaming out to the audience, Randy told his audience about the cancer that is devouring his pancreas and that will claim his life in a matter of months. On the stage that day, Randy was youthful, energetic, handsome, often cheerfully, darkly funny. He seemed invincible. But this was a brief moment, as he himself acknowledged.”

Randy’s lecture has become a phenomenon, celebrating the dreams we all strive to make realities. And now, in his book based on the now-famous lecture, Randy goes even deeper to inspire us all.
http://www.thelastlecture.com/
http://www.cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.html

Watch the lecture:
Short version (11min) : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8577255250907450469
Full lecture (1:16 hr): http://youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Randy just passed away after a long fight with cancer. We wish his family the best in this tough time and hope they can take some comfort in how he lived and inspired people.