Pocketful of Sunshine

Earlier this month I spent a brief weekend in Southern California. I just dropped in to visit my friends and then check in on my "little" cousin on my way to a conference in Arizona. The thing about my little cousin: he's not so little anymore. He just started grad school in Santa Barbara. He's creating quite a life for himself and it's been so cool watching him grow up.

I told him the story about what I did when he was born -- I don't think he had ever heard it. I was 13 when he was born and I was so excited to have a new cousin. I'm an only child and Aaron's big brother is a lot closer in age to me so I wasn't as excited when he was born when I was 3 (sorry Seth!). I made a poster to hang on our front door announcing that there was a new baby boy. I'm sure our neighbors wondered what my mother had done with her invisible baby.

I spent a long morning on this visit driving through LA, north up the Hollywood Freeway, to UCSB to see him. I had the windows down and the music turned way up. If I'd been in a convertible I could have pretended I was in an episode of The Hills. It was a gorgeous day and even though I spent 6 hours driving there and back for a 2 hour visit to see Aaron, it was worth every minute.

Once I got back to OC I took my two favorite little people out to dinner and to play video games at the mall (on a school night!). All in all a pretty awesome day.

Can you imagine going to school here?

No More Words

Everyone has words that drive them a little nuts -- the fingers on the chalkboard, if you will. For a lot of people it is "orientated" -- which most of us know as "oriented."

Mine is "webinar." Anytime someone wants me to sign them up for a webinar I want to tell them I have no idea what they are talking about.

I host a lot of online meetings and training sessions at work. We used to call them "WebEx's" but that's really a brand name like Kleenex or Q-tip. It is an online meeting/seminar/presentation/whatever. When did we get so lazy that we have to shorten everything?

It's Been A While

I've been away awhile. I've spent most of my free time the last few weeks either in an airplane or with my nose in a book, studying for accounting exams. I have lots to say and 10 half-written posts that will likely never see the light of day. I'm going to try to turn a few of them into complete thoughts and post them. It's odd that I've been so silent during this incredibly interesting time....