bicoastalbri

Wow!

It's been a long long time since I have done any of this here blogging. Hope all is well in the respective worlds of my loyal (and numerous) fans.

A bunch of stuff has happened since my last entry. Here are the highlights:

• Started the new job
• Started the MBA program - one semester in the bag
  
• Forgot to start training for the Marathon (though I did watch it whiz by)
• Got a new (old) room-mate.
  

I won't go into boring details now about the above. And I didn't actually 'forget' per-say to train for the marathon. Instead I decided to gain like 20 pounds, and engage in some serious lying about. This was almost as productive.

Seriously though, the last few months have been pretty insanely busy. I usually end up spending my non-work and non-school time either at the bar with my b-school friends or with Alison. Though there was an unfortunate incident with a show called 'The Wire' that ate up a solid bit of time as well. There's a big problem in my mind about having a totally addictive personality and coming into a great show 4 seasons after it starts. I found myself gaining 'access' to a whole season's worth of 'the Wire' at a time. Sometimes I'd have 2 seasons' worth. How did I do this? Netflix? They must have them for rent. Or they might be floating around the internet somewhere. But of course I wouldn't admit to downloading them, cause that might be considered illegal. However I got them, lets just say that Alison wasn't the happiest about the fact that I would watch the show for 4-5 hours. Per night. But only on weeknights. On weekends, I was good for a serious 8-10.

In any case, I finally broke my addiction. In other words, I ran out of episodes to watch. Same thing.

The other piece of big news - the new roommate. Turns out that my brother's roommate from San Francisco (Eric aka EZ) moved to NYC and needed a place to stay. I had an extra room, and he needed one, so it was perfect. EZ has definitely made a positive addition to the household. We no longer have random crap from 17 ex-roommates. We now only have the random crap from the three of us. My only condition was that we keep the fabulous green wall.

Some might argue the merit of a house with a blindingly bright green neon wall. Not this kid. At least not after Alison made such a big deal about how mush she despised it. Now it is staying for ever and ever. That wall will remain through a nuclear attack, if I have anything to say in the matter.

We even celebrated the wall in an amazing 'green' party. We told people that the green was all about the fact that we switched the apartment to all green power. I know the truth. It's all wall, all the time.

That's probably enough rambling for now. Merry Christmas and happy New Years to you and all of yours.

I'm just kicking around the house, enjoying my last few days of idleness. On Monday I opted for a 2 hour nap, as opposed to my now standard 1 hour nap. Why, you might ask? Because I could. Naps rule.

Here's the great thing about my friend Siobhan. I say "let's" go for a hike / bike ride. Siobhan responds in the affirmative. And she does a bunch of research. And she agrees to drive. She came up with this bike ride in upstate-ish NY:

http://www.roberts-1.com/bikehudson/r/east/quaker_ridge/index.htm

She even knew my slacker tendancies, and printed up a helpful set of directions for me.

I have to admit, that when I first read through the details, I wasn't so sure I'd be able to do it. 45 miles duration, with 3300' worth of climbing. But she goaded me into it. And I am glad she did. It was an epic journey, worthy of a tale-telling by Homer. Let's just say we battled hunger, sun, hills, bugs, sweat, half-inflated tires, mostly right (but sometimes wrong) maps, and various other scary things. Like the bar afterwards. It was full of people who didn't appreciate the non-smoking law that our gracious governor and "his thugs in Albany" had imposed on the public. Or at least that's what a sign proclaimed in the bar. But the food was good. And I *really* like my bike. It is wicked fast. Siobhan did an amazing job picking the ride. I couldn't believe that we were only an hour outside of NYC. Lush rolling green hills, itty-bity little towns. Mega buck mansions (makes me want to become a hedge-fund manager and move to the great state of CT - not really, but their houses were really really nice).

Oh, in other news. I officially started the road to my MBA today. I had to shell out $1000 to "hold my place in the class of 2006". I have a feeling that I'll be shelling out dough quite a lot in the next 2-3 years. In fact, Iif I want to "register", I will need to fork over another 5-10k in the next two weeks.

I start the new job on Monday. Until then, more naps, more messing about.

So a month or so ago, I had 3 major things hanging over my head.

1. The job. As I mentioned before, this has been taken care of. New job accepted, check.

2. The marathon. I've applied to the NYC marathon twice now, and have been rejected twice. I think there are something like 35,000 slots and 80,000 applicants. It turns out that when you get rejected three times, you are guaranteed entry on the 4th. My plan was to secure a solid 3rd rejection, and run it next year.

So I applied with exactly 10 minutes left in the registration period.

And I got in. ooops. Now I have to start training or something...

3. B-skool. My loyal blog readers will also know that I applied for NYU's part time MBA program a while ago. This was another application that went right up to the wire in terms of deadlines.

If the title of this blog has not already indicated - I got in to that too. I have to register in the next couple of weeks for any classes that I'll take in the fall.

Triple yikes. Big change coming up for the squibbster...

In other news, had a great dinner with some SF folks last night. Johnie Ryan, Erik Pugner, The Rypinskis, Mohammed, and Nathan. I am still in SF now (for another 3 hours or so). In other other news, I had a reunion with the pacific ocean as well. I spent 4+ hours in Santa Cruz's ocean, attempting to surf. And "surf" I did. A shocking number of times. Long boards are totally the way to go for newbies like myself. Though I've been in the water a bunch of times on a boogie board, for whatever reason, I've not been confident enough to try the real thing since my trip to Costa Rica in 2001. I'm now eager to get another taste...

So the new job is now a reality. I've officially accepted the offer for the new gig. In fact, I've officially spent my last day at Tacit.

It felt a little weird. I was the first employee there. Now we (they - it always takes me a long time to transition from a "we" to a "they" in both my words and thoughts. I'm never quite sure why that is...) have like 30 people in 3 countries. It's nice to see them all growed up and stuff.

So I am excited about the new thing. I'm moving from the world of engineering over to the "dark" side. I'll be an account manager in the banking world. Totally new gig. Of course I have a little of the "WTF" am I doing creeping in as well, but that's par for the course with any big change. I definitely noticed significantly less "WTF" this time...

On another note, I am in San Francisco now. Staying w/ my little bro. I am going back to New York on Wed. Interestingly enough, I have a couple weeks off, and I am mostly looking forward to hanging out in my pad in NYC. I've been on the road a *lot* lately.

Highlights from the road:

- 4 days of insane off-road race car driving in Baja. How insane was it? My group *shredded* two tires and a dude broke his back driving. Not to worry though cause dude was old. Seriously, it was crazy crazy fun. A guy did fracture a vertebrae. And he was old. Not that there is anything wrong with being old.

- 5 days in Montreal for the Jazz fest.

- 1 day in NYC for fireworks (freaking AMAZING)

- 1 week in SF / Sacramento (to see the mom and the grand-pops) / Placerville (to see the grand-pops other side) / Fairfield (to see pops)

Also - Hotel Squibb has been in full effect for the past month. House guests in the last 3 weeks have included:

- Mohammed (from West-side)
- Ali (from West side)
- Stephane (former roomie, from Europe)
- Scott (recently former boss, staying in my place as I swing through the west side)

Anyway I mostly wanted to get another post out because Erik Pugner informed me yesterday that my last post was depressing. In all fairness, it was.

So my application is in. We'll see what happens.

In other news, here's a piece of advice:
Watch United 93, but don't do it if you are flying across country the next day.

I saw it last night (essay procrastination, take 1000). I am flying to SF today. That flight left EWR (Newark) for SFO. At least I am flying out of JFK instead...

So this was two sunday's in a row that I stumbled around the streets of NYC in a stupified daze. Looking back now, I am surprised at how surprised I was at my own reaction. It basically took me right back to the 9/11/2001. I don't know what else I expected. I think native New Yorkers are much quicker on that particular uptake than I was. Most people that I know who lived here when it happened refuse to see the movie. I can't imagine wanting to either, had I lived here then. As it was, the effect on me was pretty profound, and I lived 3,000 miles away at the time.

I also find it interesting that I was completely sucked into the movie, even though I of course knew exactly what was going to happen. All and all, I'd recommend it. But before you see it, ask yourself if you are ready to relive how you felt that day.

I know, I know. Two posts in one day! Procrastination in full effect, yo.

So one of the essays for NYU requires me to submit a "creative" description of myself. My strategy is to have a short essay, combined with a link to my travel blog, combined with a short selection of Haiku.

What do you guys think of the following? Do they sort of describe me?
( I just made them all up, so still a bit rough):

So I am sitting at the office, "working" on essays for the MBA application. If I get accepted, I am going to have to work on this severe ADD that I've built up...

So a quick anecdote, then back to the grindstone for me:

So knowing that I had an afternoon full of slaving away at the essay writing machine, I opted for the extra large coffee this morning at the bagel place, on the way into the office. The only problem with that choice is the after effect: the immediate need to "take care of business" as the (in)famous Chow would say.

No problem for me, cause business could be taken care of at the office. Matters became urgent, and the pace of stride increased. After what seemed an eternity, my destination was finally in sight. I got in, and was dismayed by what I saw: A notice proudly proclaiming that the water was turned off in the entire building today. Jesus.

So I head over to the Buck - Starbuck's, cause you can usually sneak in to the throne room without buying anything. The last thing I needed at that point was more caffeine. After waiting for at least 5 entire eternities, access was mine. Score. Score one throneroom with zero TP. No paper products of any sort. No paper towels (hand dryer), no newspapers (we are talking that kind of urgency now). Nothing. Of course the Buck didn't have any other thronerooms to visit. And without getting to graphic, the type of business I had to take care definitely required paper.
I then head over to ABP (Au Bon Pain). I get confronted with a larger-than-life "you must be a customer to use these premises, sorry for the inconvenience" sign. I loved the "sorry" bit. At least there were two doors to choose from this time. I think that both doors somehow knew that I had no intention of spending any money, cause all access was denied. Locked on all accounts.

At this point, I had to wonder what happens to a flushed toilet when the water is turned off. I decided it was high time to find out. Back to the office I went.

I didn't get to find out. Turns out that the sign lied. The water was on the whole time.

See what kind of stuff comes out when I am procrastinating?

So Sam is coming down tomorrow night to help celebrate Siobhan's recent graduation from Stern (MBA school). I think we are consuming massive quantities of meat in honor of her dad, who is apparently quite the carnivore. Of the Irish sort. Not that he eats Irish people - he is Irish people.

In any case, Congrats Siobhan!!

Speaking of Stern, it turns out that now I am applying to the part time program there for next Sept. I might hold off on it if I end up getting the new job, we'll see. I've basically decided that I can't continue putting my plans on hold while the verdict is still out.

Funny story: I've been waffling back and forth on this for a while now with the deadline rapidly approaching. I had started the recommender request with one of the gals I work with. Due to a slightly confusing UI, I thought the request for recommendation was in a "pending" state, meaning I had to do something to actually send it. Turns out that it was sent, and now the recommendation is done. Now all I have to do is find another recommender who is willing to bust out a recommendation this week (which was surprisingly easy), and bust out an application - probably won't be as easy...

Wish me luck.