50 Things Before I'm 50....

I've decided to compose a list of fifty things I want to do before I turn 50...OMG THAT'S IN LESS THAN FIVE YEARS!!!!!!!!! WHEN DID I GET OLD!!!!AHHHHHHHH

Okay, calm down...cool it...I'm not fifty yet...I still have a few years to go...so here's my list;

1) Publish a book. My Book.
2) Buy a house.
3) Live on a houseboat.
4) Buy a working, drivable pickup truck. Preferably an old, beat up one. 'Cuz those are the ones I like.
5) Grow a vegetable garden.
6) Start a Business
7) Visit Argentina
8) Go to Spain
9) Go to Paris
10) See Vietnam
11) Whiten my teeth
12) Get in Fantastic Yoga Shape, losing at least two dress sizes
13) Make $500,000 a year in annual income
14) Live out in the country..or buy a place in the country
15) Have another baby (is that physically possible?)
16) Take my dogs to Carmel and stay for a whole week
17) Visit Hawaii
18) Apply for Canadian citizenship
19) Visit Canada
20) Get a degree in Horticulture
21) Go on a cruise
22) Go skiing (never been)
23) Take a train across America
24) Payoff a mortgage, ensuring financial security
25) Buy some stocks and manage them
26) Go to Alaska
27) Visit New York City
28) Visit Ireland
29) Visit Scotland
30) Travel to Wales
31) Guest Host a TV show
32) Create a film
33) Open a store
34) Visit New Mexico
35) Investigate buying a boat (requires going out on one...YES!)
36) Maintain a lovely manicure and pedicure for a year
37) Start drawing and painting again
38) Clean out and declutter to the point that I can fit all that I own into one SUV (not including some of my furniture)
39) Complete and maintain an organized filing system
40) Learn to Dance
41) Take Voice Lessons and learn to sing
42) Make a Will
43) Take Big G on a European vacation
44) Write a Screenplay
okay, last five...I better make them good!
45) Resolve my commitment-phobic issues and decide if I want to remain single and happy or married and ?
46) Visit New Mexico
47) Own a horse
48) Have enough assets so that I will feel financially secure for the next fifty or more years
49) Buy a house in the country with 2 acres of land
and
50) Spend as much time with my dogs as physically possible

Reasons I Haven't Blogged Lately...

1. My hard drive crashed...and burned. Had to take the ole laptop into a computer doctor who promptly said there was nothing wrong, other than the fact that I somehow had a hard drive crash, wiping out my whole operating system.

2. I've had to reinstall...everything. And I feel so overwhelmed about all the programs that I need to reinstall that I've turned procrastination into something HUGE...So far I've only reinstalled my Adobe pdf and have tons more to work on.

3. I need to recreate lost files. Not happy 'bout that.

4. I'm dogsitting. A really, really cute dog. He looks like a squirrel, only cuter. And he's really sweet. But he doesn't like to be left alone...which makes it a little hard to get stuff done.

5. Even decluttering and cleaning is starting to look better than job searching and working on my defunct and deficient computer. So far I've taken six huge trash bags of stuff to the Goodwill, along with various pieces of furniture.

6. My filing system (or lack thereof) has hit a wall. I've run out of carpet and must immediately address the piles of paper on my floor.

7. I am expecting house guests. This means I must clean.

8. My garden in the back has become overgrown...I have to fix the trellis and cut back some of the greenery. And I love my greenery. Bummer.

9. Still thinkin' about selling. The neighbors are putting there places on the market and I need to get my place in better shape so I can sell when and if I need to do so.

10. I've got to do my writing edits. Which means I need to reinstall Microsoft Word.

11. Exterior damage. I must bring it to the property manager's attention. Which means I need to write a letter. Which means I need to reinstall Microsoft Word.

12. Total exhaustion. Yes. I'm tired, cranky and feeling whiny. Probably not the best state of mind for blogging. Oh well.

Facebook is baaa-ad.....

I'm hearing a lot about the problems Facebook is having with this virus that's going around...

Click on a friend's link to a video and rumor has it that your computer will be destroyed. The hard drive will sizzle and die. There may even be sound effects as all of your documents curl up and die. At least that's what a friend posted on my account...with hysteria running throughout her post.

Don't think I'll be using Facebook too much...

Sort of reminds me of the census.

Apparently there is this fake letter going out telling everyone that they will be breaking the law if they don't fill out this questionaire. The only problem....the questionairre is a fake and crooks are gathering info on the foolish people who answer this letter.

But the news anchor reporting the story says it's hard to tell the difference between the fake census and the real one. This is compounded by the fact that the government is sending out census workers this weekend to gather data and the news anchor said that you have to be really, really careful to whom you talk with. Don't answer your door to just anybody.

Just makes me want to take the doorbell off my door and pull the covers over my head.

Daniel Pink

So I started reading Daniel Pink's newest book, Drive.

It's all about motivation and human behavior and it also is about how we best learn, and how we are most productive.

I think every educator should be required to read it although Daniel Pink says that the truth about performance and motivation is most often found in the classroom. I think that once was true, but with the trend towards improving schools, the archaic business school ideas and models are becoming entrenched in classrooms. We're moving backwards, folks.

Pink thinks (hey that rhymes!) that intrinsic motivation is the most long lasting, fulfilling and best for society and the individual. He thinks extrinsic motivation (not the kind of work or what you produce but how much you are paid, for example) is best in the short term but burns people out and is actually demotivating.

I think I agree with him.

But after reading the first half of his book, I happened to look on FastPencil.com. They had a posting a couple of days ago from Daniel Pink's blog. It was his 7 rules of writing.

So, I am passing that wisdom onto you.

http://www.danpink.com/archives/2010/03/7-rules-for-writing

Unnecessary Drama

Dealing with a whole lot of unnecessary drama lately.

A whole lotta people acting really, really silly.

Is the moon blue?

What's in the water?

Thank goodness I've got a lot of work to concentrate on. Writing, fixing the resume and the job fair. Plus I've got a few things on the horizon to investigate. Family events, a memorial service and taking the parents to the car shop.

Who knows! Maybe I'll be relocating to Hawaii. Wouldn't that be cool?

Now, wouldn't that be cool!

Beautiful Day

I tried to work on the job search today.

But Symantec gave me such a hard time. My Norton virus program kept asking for a product key, kept telling me to update...somehow things were turned off...it was so frustrating.

Even though I have over 160 days left of Symatec virus control, I went ahead and bought the Macafee virus protection and installed it. Much better, so far.

In honor of figuring this out, I rewarded myself with a trip to the San Carlos Thrift Center.

What a day! I found myself trying clothes on in the dressing room and the person before me left a pile of clothes...I was thrilled because 1) whoever she was, she was quite the fashionista, leaving a pile of designer duds and 2) they were all in my size! Even the shoes she left (which I bought, they were cute silver flats).

I ended up coming home with an Acrombie and Fitch cute little cotton crocheted top, a Free-the-people jacket, a Banana Republic jean skirt, an express little top (black, with little straps, very nice on). Oh! And a leopard print Chico's jacket (which looks very nice on the rack but is even nicer when I'm wearing it!), tons of Gap navy long sleeved tops and a Donna Karan dress. Oh! And I also bought Tomas earrings (sterling silver) for $3.

It was quite the celebration. Now I need to clear out my closet to make room for all my new duds.

Half Moon Bay Day

K, Big H, Leelu and I went to Half Moon Bay yesterday.

But not before I had a major meltdown, followed by an epiphany.

I woke up early (I'm getting up at 6 a.m. lately), walked to the local coffee shop, took the dogs on the trail...all this befoer 8:30 a.m.

Then I logged into my job search website. I decided to do a search on any and all jobs available in the state of California.

I found almost 300 pages of jobs (about 20 jobs per page). I was busy clicking and adding jobs to my job list when K came over to take us to Half Moon Bay.

I had a meltdown..."How am I going to get a job!"

"I'm selling everything and moving to a cabin in the woods!"

K's suggestion, another roommate, had me get so mad that I proceeded to have him sit there while I added even more jobs to my job wishlist.

An hour later, I had an epiphany...I'd fix my resume and apply to all these jobs--I think my resume is sinking my chances.

So, I put the job search on hold and we set out for the beach.

K really wanted to go to HMB the windy road route. I explained to him that Leelu gets carsick.

I don't think he believed me. Until Leelu threw up all over the front (and back) of his pants. In a very indiscreet place. He believes me now.

Despite this hiccup (and my having to listen to how I needed to leave the dogs at home--not happening), we had a really good time.

I was so tired when we got home that I immediately fell asleep with the t.v. on...waking up at 10 p.m. only to go back to sleep an hour later.

What a day! But a relief to get away from the job search and crazy house construction.

Not Even a Handsome Gentleman....

...can make this girl stop dancing!

Lulu Loves Pole Dancing

New Tech Meetup

For the past few years, I've been attending the New Tech Meetup at the DLA Piper building. It usually takes place on the first Tuesday of the month and it is always packed, with standing room only. I attended before it even took place at DLA and it has always been informative. The guy who runs the program, Vincent Lauria, is great! He really finds some awesome companies and runs the program well.

The meetings have the same format. The first hour is a presentation by new Internet companies. They speak for about 15 minutes or so, then are allowed questions and then it's on to the next company. Vincent moves them along quickly, and it is never boring.

I heard the venture capitalist speak about Twitter before it hit it big in these meetings awhile ago and I've also listened to some interesting young companies with a variety of different business scopes. The second hour is networking and, while I should stay and schmooze, I usually don't stay.

Yesterday, we heard from four companies, Superfeedr.com, www.notepal.com, 99designs.com and envolve.com. I've gotta say, I liked 99designs the best but that's because it is something I might actually use!

Superfeedr is company that charges subscribers to get all of their notifications and feedback in one centralized place. The guy who presented (Julien) spoke so fast that it was distracting and I think the company would've been better to have someone who spoke slower and explained how the company worked better. The elevator pitch for the company is as follows..."Real-time feed parsing in the cloud for web-developers."

The next company was Notepal and Duane Nason presented. Basically, this company is an online marketplace for buying and selling notes. While he showed up some notes that were being sold by a marketing professional (I think that's what she was), the value in this company is for students looking for notes for their college classes. At least that was what Vincent Lauria stated at the end of this presentation. I thought it was interesting and I also thought that if I ran the company, I'd think about linking in or doing some sort of marketing strategy related to RateMyProfessor.com

After that the company I was most interested in presented. 99designs.com is a company that works sort of like elance or odesk for graphic designers. Basically, a client posts a project up and graphic designers submit their work. Then the client picks the one they like the best. I wanted to ask Jason, the presenter, what was preventing the graphic designer from posting 20 designs, in order to try and improve chances of getting the job, but I didn't get the chance. I guess I'll just have to investigate the website.

The last presentation was by Envolve, with James and Andrew presenting. I didn't find this company as interesting...basically, it as just instant messaging in real time with the ability to translate chats. So, you could real time chat with someone in another country who didn't speak your language. They used Google to translate and I guess there could be situations where I used this program. They used the example of commenting on a blog site. But here's the thing, I rarely want to get into a conversation with someone on a blog site. I'll leave a comment, but I don't have time for a long drawn out conversation...especially about hockey-which was the example they used. What I did think was cool, was that they used 99designs to design their logo. And it was a great design!

Before wrapping everything up and going into the networking part of the evening, Vincent Lauria always allows people to come up and give a 5 second infomercial (but only if they are looking for work or looking for employees, not if they are selling anything). This part of the evening is worth staying for also.

Matt Mireless came and said he had a company called Speakertext (don't think they'd launched yet) and was looking for Speech Engineers. If you are a Speech Engineer, he wants you to email him at mattmireless@mattmireless.com.

Another guy (I think he said he was Norris Boothe) was from Gamebooth Media and wanted a Web Developer and a Designer. You can email him at NorrisBoothe@gamepro.com.

David Pollack is looking for tech cofounders for his company, Seeyu.com. You can email him at David@seeyu.com.

And lastly, someone from Gotweet, which is a CRM for twitter for big business, is hiring or something. I didn't quite catch it. So, if you're interested, I guess you could go to their websites.

After the presentations and infomercials, I took off. Which I heard was a good thing 'cuz someone complained on the NewTech Meetup website that at the end of the evening everyone makes a mad dash to speak to the presenters and the room, which already is overcrowded becomes bottlenecked.

I'm so glad I took the time to attend this meeting. I can't always do it, but I'm always happy when I'm able to make the meeting.