August 2010
3 posts
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I've moved. (Online.)
I enjoy Tumblr well enough, but - as of today - I’ve moved to Posterous.
Posterous is still a microblog, but it seems more supportive of using a microblog like a regular blog. Which is what I like to do. If I want to truly microblog, I’ll use Twitter, thank you very much.
Plus Posterous has integrated comments. Would comments (that aren’t confusing third-party add-ons) have...
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Mondays Are Days Too
My good friend Lauren - who writes this amazing blog about searching for love in NYC - just posted something I made 8 years ago on her blog. It’s a sign I made her in Freshmen Year to remind her not to hate on Mondays. (Yes, I know the picture is sideways. Life goes on.)
“Mondays are days too! Cuz you can’t go thru life hating 1/7 of every week!”
I look at Mondays...
Living in Fear
Dude, that absolutely sucks. That’s just lame. MAYBE I can see having a law about that. But $150!? That’s ridiculous. Start a petition!
jimisland:
I got pulled over today on my bicycle for listening to music. I looked it up and it’s going to be a $150 ticket. I’m trying to understand you LA…I really am. I’m riding my bike through heavy traffic and poorly paved roads, so I...
July 2010
3 posts
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Poppadecorn Shrimpies
Look. Approximately from when I was three until I was six, I was *obsessed* with the Muppets. (Ok, I still am.) So, man, has it made me joyful that the Muppets have made a comeback in a huge way on YouTube.
I’m sure you all know the absolutely phenomenal Bohemenian Rhapsody cover (or at least over 15 million people know it), but there have been some great other Muppet videos that they...
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Old Spice for the Win
Okay, so clearly the Old Spice commercials are some of the best on television. You know, the ones where the Old Spice Guy is riding a horse backwards? The ones where the Old Spice Guy is seducing your lady? Or is just simply awesome?
These are the kind of commercials that are worth playing even when you have a DVR. And this morning I discovered that it just got better. Old Spice just created...
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One Minute Rule: More Happiness
Recently, in the midst of a crazy (awesome) July, I moved into a new one bedroom apartment. Moving into my own place is something that deserves a post of its own, as it’s a major milestone in my Boston adventure. But this post isn’t about that. This is about something I’ve taken to heart during my unpacking phase that has increased my happiness: the one minute rule.
The one...
June 2010
2 posts
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Do you turn your phone off at night?
Each night, like the rest of the world, I go to bed. And each night, before shutting off the light, I make sure to shut off my cell phone.
(Nerdy note: I actually turn my iPhone to Airplane Mode. This is a feature that disables iPhones from receiving phone calls. Yes, I could just shut it off, but I also use my iPhone as my alarm, so I kinda need it on to wake up.)
Anyway, leaving your...
May 2010
5 posts
1 tag
“Begin at once to live and count each separate day as a separate life.”
– Seneca
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Keep Life Weird
When I was a kid, life could very easily be weird, unexpected, and very interesting. At least compared to life as a young adult.
I’d do spontaneous things, I’d embrace creativity, I’d dance or sing just because. When young, actions that are outside the norm are easily “forgivable” or “accepted”.
As we get older, there are more “rules” to...
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Why I Loved the LOST Finale
If you have never watched LOST (or haven’t seen the Finale yet), I implore you not to read this entry. It will ruin the journey of an epic show for you, as this post is full of spoilers. Onward…
I liked it. No, I loved it.
The word “LOST” appeared on screen for the final time, with a lighter note than the traditional “boom”. I knew I was emotionally...
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Kentucky Dreamin': Issues Facing Appalachian...
One of the many things I love about traveling is how it forces you to minimalize. No matter how big your bag, you can’t take every thing with you. I take pride in having once traveled Europe for a month, with absolutely everything I had with me in my backpack. Of course, traveling just means a short trip; you couldn’t possibly live with so little, right?
Wrong. That’s what...
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Kentucky: High School Style
As I mentioned in my post last Wednesday, I recently helped lead a youth group of 37 high schoolers to a small Appalachian town in Kentucky. The youth group spent a week building houses and doing other construction work for a local organization. Eight years ago, I was one of those high schoolers — a senior, in fact. Two years prior to that, I was a sophomore, traveling on the...
April 2010
4 posts
2 tags
Apple versus Adobe. Round 3. Fight!
I’m a little all over the place at the moment, and the aforementioned Kentucky series will resume later this weekend. For now though, enjoy a techie tangent.
Whether you know it or not, there is a long-standing feud between Apple and Adobe, which is why we can’t get Flash videos (think Hulu) to work on our fancy-schmancy iThings. Apple is pushing for an HTML5 standard, which...
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Country Roads, Take Me Home...
On Friday April 16, I departed to Appalachian Kentucky for eight days. I was helping to lead a high school youth group to build affordable housing. As I am constantly reminded, it’s an unusual way to spend vacation time….
I left behind internet, television, any semblance of reliable cell service, and embarked on a twenty-hour bus ride. I stepped outside the world of general luxury...
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Boston Baseball
Blame the beautiful weather, blame the fact that an extra hour (at least) of my day is taken up by a commute (I’ve got an office now!), or just blame baseball for the fact that I’ve been slacking with blogging.
I love baseball, and I have to say, I love it more when I’m in Boston. There’s something about this town that makes baseball truly more than just a game. I truly...
March 2010
4 posts
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On Buying a Car...
Ready to hear something you don’t often hear? I had an absolute blast buying my brand new car. I didn’t get swindled, was in control the whole time, and drove off in a brand new car that was over $1000 cheaper than what the dealer paid for it. (Over $2,000 cheaper than MSRP.)
It all began about a month ago, when the possibility of getting office space quickly became a reality....
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Boston Pride
One thing that is wonderful about Boston is the sense of pride and belonging. DC never felt that way.
Yes, there’s transition all around us, wherever we go. Sure, us people in our 20s are notoriously hard to pin down. And yup, Boston may be have about four billion colleges, with students constantly coming and going. But for all that, there’s something about Boston — some...
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Terms of Dating (or is it "Going out"?)
My friend recently wrote two scripts for a television show, just for fun. They are both hilarious, but one part stuck out…
KATE: Things not go well with the boyfriend? ALLISON: He’s not my boyfriend, Chloe called him that too. KATE: What would you call him then? ALLISON: We’re just going out. We’re not even dating. KATE: What’s the difference? ALLISON: Going out means we’re just...
February 2010
5 posts
1 tag
Crappy Weather Remedy: Taco Soup
Okay friends. It’s pouring rain in Boston. It’s snowed a gazillion feet in DC. It’s time for one of my favorite cold-weather recipes: Taco Soup. This is easy, painless and even a novice cook could make a feast from this. Here’s what you do…
Accrue the following:
1-1.5 lb ground beef (or turkey, or tofu, if you swing that way) 1 large onion (diced) 1 large...
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The Withdrawl of a Facebook Addict
Life without Twitter, Facebook, newsmedia and excessive web browsing has changed the way I spend time, both personally and at work. It’s been incredibly revealing, sometimes frustrating, and, overall, unexpectedly calming.
5 days into my media fast (and counting)…
Going cold turkey this past week, I realized I actually qualified as addicted to Facebook. Whenever I was waiting for...
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Goodbye Internet: 1 Week Media Fast
I work from home, and am pretty productive at it. But recently (namely, today), the Internet has been driving me a little crazy. I realized it around 3pm when I was surfing in Google Chrome and had about 20 tabs open in Firefox. At some point, I opened a new tab, stopped, and actually could not remember why I had gone to the web. I literally had no idea. Most sites were related to work in some...
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iPad? Not yet.
Leaving the name aside. We’ll get used to it eventually. I can even read it now without grimacing/smirking/thinking of my next joke.
Before we get to iPad, let’s go back in time to Summer 2007. I was about to start work at Apple in DC. But, believe it or not, I’m not your “typical” Apple fanboy. When I first learned iPhone was going to be launched that January,...
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Mad props to Amtrak
I’ve gone from New York to Boston four times since starting this job. I took Amtrak twice. I flew twice. Amtrak wins hands down. Here’s why.
On Amtrak, it’s one and done. I get to South Station and get on the train. That’s it.
Compare to: Getting to the Airport, getting my boarding pass, going through security, getting to the gate, waiting to board during the right...
January 2010
7 posts
2 tags
Working from Home
I work from my apartment. In my bedroom. At my desk. Every day. This is probably the single best conversation starter since “I work at Apple”.
I generally get three reactions:
“That must be awesome! You work in your pajamas right?”
“Oh wow, I’m so jealous. No commute!”
“Man, I could never do that. I’d get nothing done.”
...
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I forgot one thing...
In my rant last week about the Boston T compared to the DC Metro, I forgot to mention one critical thing. The Metro stays open until 3AM on weekends. The T closes at midnight every day.
In DC, I could happily go out on Friday and Saturday nights, have a damn good time, and make it back home to my own bed with ease.
But here in Boston! Oh goodness. God forbid you stay out after midnight on a...
Honored
I saw Avatar today. In IMAX. In 3D. Damn, was it an experience. The film was stunningly beautiful, well done, and all I could want from a blockbuster.
Walking away from it, my three-hour-film-partner (aka my amazing sister) commented that she never once was taken out of the story by the CGI. And there’s a lot of CGI.
She’s right. It all worked. We just watched a 3 hour movie...
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Escalefter!
I’m sorry, Boston, but the T hasn’t got a damn thing on the Metro.
Oh, Metro, how I miss thee. Let me count the ways….
1) The Metro actually goes out into the suburbs.
The T’s final stop is at Alewife in Cambridge. That’s a paltry 6 miles from the center of Downtown Boston (Chinatown). The Metro, on the other hand, goes out to Vienna, in Virginia. ...
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Swap Books!
I think it’s because it’s the New Year and everyone’s looking for new things, including books. But I have definitely talked about this at least twice just this weekend, so I thought that maybe the critical mass of people reading my blog (haha) would appreciate it.
I use a site called PaperBackSwap to get fresh books, in lieu of the usual suspects: Amazon.com, BN.com etc. The...
Weekends
One of the biggest differences between my life in DC and my life in Boston is one that has nothing to do with location. I no longer work retail, so I no longer work weekends. There’s something about having weekends off that I really love — and it’s not the sleeping in part. (When I worked retail, I always had two days off per week. If it was the sleeping in part; I had that.)
...
December 2009
13 posts
1 tag
“An American seeker: ‘If you follow any way, you will never get there; and...”
– Contemporary Zen mondo
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WatchMuppets on Jimmy Fallon, from last night!!!
I love that the Muppets are making a comeback.
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Don't Forsake Adventures
Today I went on a very small, but quite fulfilling, adventure. It made me think how settled we get, and how we forsake adventures for trips. Adventures are more fun, and, I think, important for a healthy life. Trips are rote.
The difference between trips and adventures? Well, we go on trips all the time. We go to the grocery store, we grab drinks at our favorite bar, we go hang out at our...
“Friends, people who stand by you when you’re hurt and who help you feel...”
– Stephen King
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“High expectation always precedes high achievement. You’re as small as...”
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Friends
In moving to a new place, I have often reflected on friendship. I love my friends, and many are a second family to me. (A family I truly get to choose.) My closest friends are from college and high school. Why is that?
I really think that it’s because experience makes friendship possible. There are plenty of people in the world that I could be friends with, but my experiential...
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Office Space (not the movie)
The whole world is changing. Well, okay, that’s a given. Everything is constantly changing. Hell, my atomic structure is changing as I transfer atoms from my fingers to the computer keyboard and back again. The sun gives way to the moon. Seasons change. No day is the same. But what strikes me is how our world is constantly becoming more interconnected, which is transforming where we...
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Getting in the spirit...
From the song “Thankful Heart” from The Muppet Christmas Carol:
Life is like a journey Who knows when it ends? Yes, and if you need to know the measure of a man you simply count his friends Stop and look around you The glory that you see Is born again each day, don’t let it slip away How precious life can be
Also, I can no longer see that movie without thinking that Batman is...
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Juiced
More than any consumable item that costs money, it loathes me to finish juice that I buy. Orange, apple, cranberry, it doesn’t matter. I have a barrier around finishing juice and buying more. When the container starts to get empty, I start talking myself out of having juice in favor of water. Maybe add a little lemon to the water, to class it up.
This is ironic, because I likely have...
November 2009
19 posts
1 tag
My Room
I was home over Thanksgiving, as many people were. Yet, I’m at this unique stage of my life where I still have a room at my parents’ house. I have a room there, but, except a few scattered summers, it hasn’t been my room in seven years.
I love my bedroom, and take great care to make it my own. It’s the one place, no matter what house or apartment I am living in, that is...
4 tags
Prime Rib Galore
Last Tuesday, I had one of the most ridiculous and amazing restaurant experiences in Boston yet. I went to an all-you-can-eat Prime Rib night at a steakhouse KO Prime in downtown Boston. It was only $30.
When I hear “steakhouse”, I expect smokey rooms, mooseheads on the wall and wood paneling. KO Prime is anything but that. It’s classy and upscale, modern decor and...
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Being Rich
Much of our lives focus on money.
It’s a big difference between adulthood and childhood: the responsibility of supporting yourself with your own income. Once that happens, we transition from adolesents to adults - according to human development people anyway.
Sometimes money is a stressor in life. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, it’s just there in the background as the...