Cross-Dressing Weekend!

Aw come on folks, it was Pride weekend in SF. No, we did not cross-dress for our birthday party (although now that I think about it, that could have been fun...). We had a pile o' people and a jolly good time and a very cute cake on Saturday.

Sunday I went into the city to have brunch with the Dads and watch a matinee of San Francisco Opera's production of Der Rosenkavalier. It was fantastic. Three sopranos singing some beautifully lyric music by Strauss. Just lovely. One of the leads is a classic "trouser role" where a woman dresses and plays the part of a man - in this case, Octavian, the young lover. Even more amusing, Octavian cross-dresses as a serving-maid to dupe the annoying clod Baron von Ochs.

All of this as punctuation to Pride weekend. It was amusing to visit the opera mezzanine (where many folks go during intermissions for a smoke or breath of fresh air) and see all the attendees using their opera glasses to gawk at the heaving throngs of Pride dancers - still going strong into the afternoon, the heavy OON-cha OON-cha OON-cha bass beats only barely masked by the opera house's stone walls.

I was a bit depressed by the opera, as it's all about how the "older" woman realizes she must make way for young love. Not a great weekend for me to be hearing about how the 30-something-year-old woman was feeling "old". Not even if it WAS beautifully sung.

This Thursday: Don Giovanni, Dad's favorite. I've never seen it before.

Reaping the slow of mind

I can't make this stuff up:

Just got an envelope from the bank that has the mortgage on our home (and who recently sent us a notice announcing a rate increase to 8.75%) containing an offer to invest $10,000 or more into a CD paying a whopping 5.05%.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, my dear fellow?

If I wanted to make 8.75%, and I had $10,000 available, I would INVEST IT AGAINST PRINCIPAL, you vampiric maggots.

Full marks for cojones, though. Next time, include the CD promo in the SAME ENVELOPE as the mortgage rate increase. Half the postage, double the irony.

Although, for comedy purposes, I would love to know the quantity (and home phone numbers! I need more gullible friends!) of all the mortgage customers who took them up on this lose-lose deal.

I mean, come on, what kind of intelligence test IS this? I can understand keeping some cash in an interest-bearing checking account or something for emergencies while you pay your mortgage, but a FREAKING CD?? You can't even touch that dough for a YEAR or more. So why in nether Hell would you invest in a 5.05% CD when everyone in the country is looking down the business end of a 6+% mortgage?

Sheesh.

/rant off
/for now...

Boss Week!

This has been a tough week. If I may indulge in some whining:

• Exhausted. Too much travel.
  
• Infected. Got a tetanus booster Tuesday.
  
• Stressed. A few major projects, meetings, and high visibility. This week.
  
• Depressed. Personal stuff. K and I are fine, it's other stuff.
  
• Still exhausted. Went straight home and into bed the past 2 days.
  
• In pain. Damn that tetanus shot hurts!
  
• Annoyed. Woke up this morning and found our phone doesn't work.
  

On the flip side, I hear that my bro and fam have moved into their sweet new digs in NYC. Hooray! And we're celebrating our joint birthday party tomorrow. Double Hooray! Did I mention it's my birthday tomorrow? I'd almost forgotten. Here's a shout out to Mom - thanks Mom!

Here's to nowhere to go but up! And now for a quick nap...

Winds of Change

K and I saw a few friends this weekend who are moving out of the area. *sniff*

Two are a couple who are moving to Baltimore for his job. D had a horrendously long slog getting his various impressive (at least to me) degrees, and this is a huge reward for him. (Yes, even Baltimore!) I am very very happy to see how happy he is, and very very sad to see the two of them move away. S was a theater co-conspirator in Ye Olde College Dayz, so it's been a treat (understatement) to have her nearby. If anyone has managed to teach me a smidgen of manners, it's her. (Sorry Mom, you never stressed the value of thank you notes.)

The other person leaving town is my stalwart baseball buddy, the Q. He's finished his giant-brain degree at that other school, and is headed to some town in the Midwest that I've never been to. I hear it's a cool place though. He'll need mukluks. Again, I'm very excited for his career, and very personally, selfishly sad he's leaving.

Even some local-area friends (with a totally adorable newborn) are moving house across the bay.

Change is hard!

We'll just have to steal some left-behind friends, those people we've met for years at mutual gatherings and thought, "Hey, they're cool, we should hang out sometime." It's worked for us before, and it's a nice way to build a circle of friends. Makes explaining how you met a little hard though. "Well, we know the same couple who don't live here anymore..."

Safe travels to all. Send email and links to photos!

Sprouts-ville

One of the tourist attractions in Brussels is the Manneken Pis, or the fountain with a little boy peeing. Notice I didn't say "big attraction" (you'll have to click on the pic to actually see him). Anyway, the Bruxelleois are inclined to dress the poor guy up for any of a number of events, so I was amused to notice the very practical ladder chained up in plain view to the right of the tourist-swarmed fountain. You can see the feet sticking out below and to the right of the urn. I noticed it while I was looking for the "CAMERA SECURITY!" indicated by two signs on the wall. Couldn't find a camera. They must be pretty secure.

I came back to my hotel early today to rest and, later, work. Turned into a nice day so I opened the window and set up shop. Not such a bad location, really.

There's always a first time

Can you guess where I was yesterday?

Stupid tourists were blocking the front, so the backwards picture was much more accessible. (This is a reverse of that one. Thanks, Photoshop!) Unfortunately, sometime before or after I took this photo, my wallet disappeared. I say "disappeared" because I can't honestly say I know it was stolen, and given I very jet-lagged at the time, there's a non-zero chance I unintentionally made someone's day (there was about $100 USD in my wallet, not to mention 3 credit cards and my California driver's license). Welcome to Teh Suck.

The folks at my hotel were fantastic, and encouraged me to check my bags again before sounding the alarm. Once I confirmed it was gone, they called Amex for me, helped me figure out how to pay for the room, and showed me how to get to the police station to file a report. Very nice folks.

After an initial panic, it broke down like this: my bank would re-issue me a one-time, temporary card within 4 business days. Amex would re-issue me my card from an Amex office, same-day. I had enough USD to convert to Euro to get a train ticket to Brussels so I could work on Monday. The only hitch was that there wasn't an Amex office in Amsterdam, or I might've gotten that sooner. All in all, not bad -- K could've wired me cash if it got really desperate, and my very lovely colleagues were all willing to loan me cash until I got things straightened out. Room service, here I come.

The good news: I had a nice hotel room with internet access, and took a very nice bath. My friend D cheered me up (in chat) with stories of his misadventure in Denmark, when he and his girlfriend lost their rental car keys on the beach and the super high-tech Volvo locked itself down so they got to retrieve their belongings through the window and crash with a local beach entrepreneur for the night. I was doing pretty well by comparison.

Unfortunately the most I saw of Amsterdam was on the tram on the way to the train station. I think between the beer, museums, and nice walks, K and I could have a really nice week there. We'll definitely bring safely belts though. No purse for me!

Can you see why Amsterdam really reminded me (visually) of Cambridge, Mass? I knew you could.

Oh - in all my years of traveling, this is the first time I've lost my wallet. Feh!

How not to get hired

I participated in a job interview and review today where we opted to pass on a candidate for the sole reason that he was too negative.

He had worked at a company that was, by all standards, dysfunctional (and is now shut down). He worked on a project that has been poorly received in the marketplace. He took on a wide variety of tasks on that project and completed them effectively.

Here is how he presented that history: he worked with idiots, his project sucked, and he kept adding taks to his plate because his coworkers were unwilling to do unattractive (though necessary) jobs.

When asked directly what he would have changed about the company or the project, he had no ready answer. He really had to think, and even then his answers were composed entirely of "not do this" and "fix that" and "correct this person's mistake." None of his answers were positive or actionable, such as "do this" or "add that" or "redo my work in this superior way."

We tested him thoroughly, as we do all candidates. He complained several times, to several different people, about the amount of work required to complete our tests (even mentioning more than once that he should be paid to do that much work).

Here are some examples of how he could have experienced exactly the same set of circumstances, and been exactly as honest, and also been positive (and likely have been hired):

"My last project could have been successful if we had..."

"I did my best to help the team get everything done, whatever it took."

"Your tests are very thorough. You must have highly qualified staff!"

When faced with tough times, the successful and inspiring and desirable approach is: Take on what you can handle. Encourage your teammates and seek ways to meet goals while keeping everyone sane. After the tough times are over, use hindsight to look at the situation anew and figure out ways it could have been made easier or been handled more effectively. Focus on what people did right and how to do more of that.

Being negative doesn't just make the hard times harder. It can directly prevent you from getting into a better situation (as it did in this case), because people want to work with positive, supportive, solution-oriented, learning coworkers.

The Venice of the North

I'm hanging out in Bruges, Belgium for a few days, World Historical Site and cute little town. Medieval architecture, horse-drawn carriages, and cobblestones abound.

Did you know that the standard side-dish for most main courses in Belgium is fries? Life is good.




I've mentioned before that my ideal America is one where gas is as expensive as it is in Europe, and the additional cost pays for public transportation. (Spare the Air days are another fantasy come true -- free transportation!) Imagine the advertising possibilities!