Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Baguettes for Boobies
Team Walk & Roll
Monday, March 29, 2010
Rain, rain, go away
Monday, March 15, 2010
Easter Brunch & Pie Swap
It's almost spring time! Woohoo! [I'm so sick of drabby winter - hence, the overtly cheerful colors of this image] And with that comes...
"Yen's Quarterly Give-Back" <--- I just made that up :)
We got such a warm reception from the cookies we donated last winter, a friend suggested we do PIES this time around! Yep, a perfect excuse to whip out that KitchenAid mixer and apron you never use!
Bake a pie (or two) - we'll cut one of your pies into slices to swap and taste amongst each other and we'll donate your other [whole] pie to the Portland Rescue Mission for distribution to the homeless on Easter Day! Bake it, buy it (peel off the Costco / Safeway label), steal it, I don't care! Sweet or savory! I'll provide the bubbly but I'll also have tea, coffee, juice, etc. Oh and an Easter egg hunt! Just come veg out, let the kids run amuck, relax and feel good about giving back! It's just a reason for us to hang out!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Golden Hour
The company is highly virtual, with our American CEO & Founder based in Dublin, Ireland and a good amount of our [web] developers dispersed everywhere between Portland to Pittsburgh and even Paris. HQ is (or rather, soon-to-be “was”) in sunny Santa Barbara, an absolutely majestic pocket of Central California, with mildly warm temperatures year-round, a Mediterranean-like ambiance, and structures covered with red-orange tile roofs - the elemental trademark of a beach town; even the gas stations and McDonalds had tile roofs - how charmingly way-out is that!? I got to fly down this past week to stra-tee-ger-ize and meet a few people from the team. My accommodations were apparently around the corner from the beach, but with so much to cover in two short days, I didn't expect to see much of Santa Barbara.
However, my new and awesome team had something else in mind. After enjoying dinner al fresco (my faaave) (in March!!!) in the courtyard of Argentinian restaurant Cafe Buenos Aires', my unassuming colleagues decided to use me (the newbie) as an excuse to re-live their old college days by taking me out for a night on the town to some of the most renowned watering holes around Santa Barbara's main strip, State Street. We checked out James Joyce, Wildcat Lounge, Elsie's, The Neighborhood Bar, and The Cliff Room among others ;)
Already content with what was accomplished in such little time, I prepared myself for the flight home the next day after another day-long meeting when Francisco Torres* and Tropicana Lily* decided I could not leave Santa Barbara without seeing the beach! Yes, photo opp! How could I say No? En route to the airport, we stopped by their beloved alma mater, University of California Santa Barbara. Situated on cliffs above the Pacific Ocean, I learned that UCSB is listed as one of the top schools in the world and considered a "public" ivy league, according to Newsweek. That coupled with some of the highest public university rankings for students to get rich (upon graduation) and one of the few in the U.S. that has its own beach (check out the students surfing after class), I imagine it as paradise, not school. The last stop of my trip was at neighboring college town Isla Vista (and made up my mind that I'm going to name my daughter Isla; not sure how Michael feels about that yet :P but it reminds me of pearly elegant bliss in paradise), which because of its appeal, also happens to be the most densely populated square mile west of the Mississippi. "You know how you watch those movies about crazy college parties?" Francisco Torres says to me, " Well, it's like that here, except 10 times better."
So I didn't get to see Oprah's mansion in Montecito and I didn't have time to wine taste in the surrounding vineyards (though they tell me me it doesn't compare to our Willamette Valley), but I did feel that wonderful nostalgia of my years in Cali as a young kid when I saw the palm trees and smelled the eucalyptus leaves (I use to sit by those trees all the time as a kid, peel off the bark and pretend to build fires when playing house as a 6 year old)! I got to smell the oh-so-sweet Santa Barbara air (barring that skunk/weed smell, which actually could pass as "good" - that's how sweet the air was) and take pictures during "Golden Hour." Most importantly of all though, I got to bond with everyone! I’d been working at home the past week and was starting to feel ever-so slightly isolated, but as we went back to our respective homes in Newport Beach, Seattle and of course Portland, I felt a total sense of camaraderie. Tomorrow, I start work in the office and look forward to showing my compadres what Portland is made of when it's their turn to come visit!