putting the knit in shizknitz

Last week I finished my first set of finals. This past week was the beginning of a new session. I never thought that I could have been any busier than I was 2 weeks ago. I was wrong.

But let’s talk about fun stuff. Like our group trip to Vegas last weekend. Vegas is like Disneyland for adults. Lots of fun shops and drinks all around. Heck, you can even walk with your drink around town. There’s something so strangely liberating about it all. We spent Friday night at Pure, and Saturday night watching the Twelve Girls Band at Alladin. Bellagio of course had their beautiful fall display up of apples, pumpkins and this huge tree collage that was constructed like a chia pet. It is all this moss stuff that had seeds planted, and is constantly watered. They have 3 full time gardeners for just that one display.

What makes a successful purchase? It’s all about the experience.

A few weeks ago I ordered a Matt and Nat purse where the shipping has gone seriously awry. As much as I want the purse, I’m ready to cancel the order. The entire shopping experience has gone wrong.

I would like to present to you Moonsus. The sexiest laptop bag for women. This is like 600 count sateen bed sheets. This is like staying at The Hotel in Vegas. This is like Dulce de leche ice cream and cheesecake in one sitting. This is the most delicious carrier of your laptop, and much more.

The Capriccio Notebook Backpack by Moonsus. Online shopping has redeemed itself. I spied this on Thursday night and by Friday it was ordered (hey, I was trying to procrastinate that OB paper as much as possible). It arrived today. Hurrah for UPS!

The fun was just beginning. It arrived in a box within a box, nicely padded with peanuts. The innerbox was filled with their monogrammed tissue paper and the laptop bag itself. I also got a free matching makeup bag for answering a survey. All of the zipper holders and metal clasps were still wrapped, and a protective cloth bag (yes, a bag for a bag) was included as well. I put my Thinkpad X40 in it for a split second to realize that I have room for much, much more. The thrill of opening, unwrapping, and the care they had taken to get it to me in tip-top shape was obvious, and very much appreciated.

Who else does this? Apple makes the entire package an experience. In fact, the Apple stores are a special experience as well. Opening, unwrapping the Apple packaging is very clean, beautiful and appealing to the eyes and senses. As good as your product may be, the brand can be easily destroyed by cheesy packaging or careless thoughts in wrapping. Just as you would wear a suit to an interview, wouldn’t you want your products to make a great first impression?

its not the number of red vines I had for breakfast this morning, nor the number of mints I ate while writing my paper and its certainly not how much I spent at Titos in the last month. I ran my first 13 miles today with the Leggers.

Well, published schedule mentioned that it was only 12 miles, but at the end my Polar watch indicated we were closer to 13. Including a potty break and 4 water breaks at 2 hr 20 min, we were under a 11 minute pace. Every other week is a longer run, and although the schedule starts to vary as time progresses, basically 2 miles is added to the former distance. In-between thoes weeks are half distances (next week’s run which I’ll miss is only 6 miles). ONLY 6 miles. It wasn’t too long ago that was a distance I could only dream of. 5 more months until the LA Marathon.

My first round of finals, 2 down, 2 more classes to go. I’ve been fighting a cold all week, and of course a few days ago when I was trying to get to Rite Aid for some Dayquil, some fire trucks passed me by. They were going to my Rite-Aid. Yes, it was on fire.

I thought I was going to be sick yesterday when I showed up to campus in my suit, for double duty presentation and final exam in accounting. This morning was easier, you’re halfway through the exam when you realize you’re already in the midst of the exam. She promised that today’s case stuy would be 2 hours, and give us 4 hours max. Half way through I realized I was running out of time and I took the entire 4 hours (I could have gone on for 2 more if I had the time) and wrote up 6 full, single spaced pages. At least they provided breakfast this morning for the students (OJ, bagels, donuts), that was quite nice.

Afterwards, I decided to take a nice stroll on the beach on the way home. I haven’t been getting my runs in since I haven’t been feeling well. I have a 12 mile-er this weekend with the LA Leggers, so I needed some form of exercise. I ended up getting all sandy and wet, just in time for T to call to get together for a late lunch.

I’m still sniffling, sneezing, stuffy head and next up is finalizing my Econ paper (my portion of it anyways).

They might repair it for free, if you qualify.

Remember my camera problem? Looks like I’m getting it repaired!

Here’s the problem…

What I want is good, quality TV… such as my favorite night - Sunday on ABC (DH and Grey’s Anatomy). What I need is more time… a little hard considering there’s always reading due for OB the next morning.

A solution? You bet. Leave it to T to whip something up to surprise me with.

My very own fivo (Tivo with a F) he setup, its absolutely amazing. We don’t have cable (sheesh if I don’t have time to watch air channels, can you imagine if I had HGTV?) but this thing pulls in a menu and ability to record, just like on a Tivo. You can also set it up to skip commercials, and listen to online radio stations!

I just watched last Sunday’s Desperate Housewives. Life is good

on the 16 year old car radio installer named Nick at my local Best Buy. Alright, don’t get all excited, not in the Desperate Housewives way, but he was so sweet, smart, and SO helpful… and yes, cute in that “back when I was 16….” type way.

Alright, so the Monster iCruze I purchased and had installed a few months ago decided to die last week. This is a slight problem, since my commute is a round trip 90 - 110 min everyday, 4 times a week, with no radio reception about 25% of the time. The thing was no cheapie - the unit was $250, the cable another $30 and $40 for installation. I called last week and they said to come in and they would check it out. Luckily, I got Nick today. He took a look at it, and remembered that there was a recall on the unit. He sent me back into the store with the dead unit, and they gave me a iPod2Car which at $200 had everything included. They gave me store credit for the $87 and sent me on my way. Nick had it installed within the next 15 minutes.

This iPod2Car thing is AWESOME. Unlike the Monster one, you can navigate through your songs using your iPod (and you can see the song title, artist, etc). And so far, I haven’t heard the “skipping” I used to hear in the first 5 sec when fwding through songs. And at a price tag of $200, what a steal.

Oh yes, and if you can, ask for Nick.

The new Trader Joe’s twice baked cookies, in butterscotch flavor. You can’t eat them plain, they MUST be soaked in milk. I’m not even a cookie dipper type, but there’s something VERY SPECIAL about this combination.

Two weeks. 14 days. 336 hours. Here is my laundry list of deliverables:

1. 8 page personal insight leadership paper for Org Behavior.
2. 1 group project on Outsourcing to India: my portion is 3 pages written, a 5 minute presentation.
3. 1 group project on Qwest Communications and how they were very, very naughty. My portion is a few written pages and a 5 minute presentation. Huge props to Caleb for all his help!
4. 1 final in Accounting
5. 1 paper analyzing the financial reports of 3 companies over a 10 year period.
6. 2 IT analysis papers. 1 IT Analysis paper
7. 1 IT final
8. Plan our trip to Stanford for NetImpact and to Vegas after finals

This is in addition to the regular reading, group meetings, quizzes, etc.

Reminder to self: Smile and breathe

I apparently missed this latest internet thing when it came out last fall… altho I never knew about the “buttcrack” guy either…

Gary Brolsma Fan Club Site (and some great spoof videos)
Japanese phonetic translation

BTW the song is by a Moldovan group called O-Zone and the song’s real title is “Dragostea din Tei”. Yes, you can find about 12 different versions of the song on iTunes.

T sent this to me last night, and ever since I’ve been “maiyahii! maihahoo! maiyahaa! maiyaHAHA”-ing it. Damn. Altogether now… “noma noma yay, noma noma noma yay!”