A Sack of Seattle

Back from vacation

Sorry for my unannounced absence, I hope you figured out that I was on vacation. I'm back and digging out of email back log....plan on writing more this week as I get back in the swing of blogging and working.   Hope you had a nice holiday.

Random facts of the day

• 9% of the US population visit a starbucks once a month
• twitter's shortcode is the most used shortcode in the US. that's a telling piece of data.
• 10 days before my mother's birthday
• 20 days of school left for my daughter and son (they pointed that out to me this morning)

wrong day, wrong floor

I just got back from the conference. Turns out I was a day early. The guard made me feel better by telling me there had been about 6 people who came too early. It felt a little like getting off the wrong floor on the elevator. You know the feeling -- You're traveling to the lobby, the elevator stops, you walk out and realize you're on floor 3. Oops.

Tuesday is theft day at our offices

I came into the office today and there were 2 police cars parked out in front. I thought this can't be good. It turns out our office building was broken into last night.  All the laptops and projectors were stolen. All the desktops were NOT taken. Guess it's an argument for desktops -- they're harder to walk out the door with and turn into cash!  The cops are in here taking fingerprints. Reminder to everyone to backup and leave as much in the cloud as possible. Bummer way to start the day.

First day back

I'm back from my month off!  I had a great time. The best part of the month off was the different relationship with time. For the past 20 years, I've been running my life with appointments and responsibilities -- both personal and professional. For the last month, I completely stepped away from that and had little to no appointments and little to no responsibilities. The resulting sense of freedom was refreshing and revitalizing. I'm excited to be back in Seattle and at work. I'm also happy to see my family again!

My jawbone is missing

Jawbones. You know the cool blue tooth headsets that actually work and may prevent you from getting brain tumors from your cell phone (they don't promise this value prop -- I've just assigned it to them). I love these devices and so do many other people. My problem is I can't seem to keep track of them. I'm on my third one and I can't find it. If you find it, please return it to my desk. Thanks.

My lunch card is filled for now

Thank you to all those who offered to accept my lunch offer. I got about 20 to 25 responses. What I'm going to do is put all the names in a hat and pick 5 -- and then schedule those lunches out over the course of the next 90 days. I say 90 days because I expect to be able to do 2 in June, I'm gone in July, and then I'll do 3 in Aug.

The people that I don't get to have lunch with -- I invite you to Open Coffee's on Tuesday at Louisa's Cafe on Eastlake Ave. E. I'm there most Tuesday (but I won't be there in July either!)

Lunch with a younger generation: I'm buying

I had lunch yesterday with a junior in college. The student, named Jeff Widmer, is an impressive, thoughtful young guy trying to figure out his path in life. He's taken it upon himself to contact people older than him and ask them to lunch and listen to see what he can learn. It's a simple gesture -- and not many people do, which makes it incredibly effective.
I've decided to follow Jeff's lead. I'd like to talk to more recent graduates: so if you are reading this post, live in or travel to Seattle, are in your twenties, and want a free lunch, I'd like to treat you the first 5 people to respond to this post to a free lunch. I promise not to bore you. I'm interested in learning your perspective on life, politics, technology, relationships, etc.  After I do the 20 something generation, I'll probably turn to some people in a later stage of life.  I'm looking forward to it!

Question of the day

What's the elephant in the room of your life?

Party Foul

This past weekend I was in San Diego for a friend's bachelor party. It is the last of my single college friends to get married. One of the nights, a group of 10 guys went to a nice restaurant in downtown San Diego. We had reserved a private room at Osetra. The food was good and the conversation engaging. There were no naked women or excessive shots of Tequila. Bachelor parties have apparently tamed with age. Unbeknownst to me, one of the guys ordered a few $500+ dollar bottle of wine. A few of the people did not have any of the wine. When the bill for the evening came it was over about $3,000.  The bill was paid for by one guy and we all planned to pay our share later.  As one of my friends at the dinner pointed out to me-- this guy committed a party foul -- if you're going to order a $500 bottle of wine, you should pay for it rather than have it go into the shared bill.