SYP Says

How Embarrassing (and Other Important Business)

Well, this is embarrassing. I haven't posted on this blog since last July! Quite a bit has happened since then, not least of which is that I have a new job. I now work at Oracle, helping lead product strategy for Oracle Commerce, the leading enterprise e-commerce solution.

As such, I am duly obligated to make the following statement.  

 

WARNING!!! 

The views expressed on this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle. 

Now that's done. :)

On to other important business.

I recently changed the look of things around here. It had gotten unruly and a bit of house cleaning was in order. I know it looks more serious, but hey, I had to grow up sometime. Besides, I plan on changing the header graphic fairly often (always NYC-related, natch, and using one of my own photos so as not to disturb the copyright gods). 

[Aside] Oh, and may I say, it is indeed great to be back in the best city in the world. This previously displaced New Yorker is once again feeling whole.

SYP Says started back in 2006 as a blog about a New Yorker moving to Ashland, Oregon and along the way, it was mentioned in The Wall Street Journal and US News and World Report; played a key part in getting over 200,000 people to wish Darwin a Happy 200th Birthday, and evolved into a music blog, plus some random musings (my most popular post which has over 5,000 views is about a song from the film, Pretty in Pink).

I clearly can no longer keep up with a weekly best new song post. You may not know this, but back when I was doing those posts, I was listening to an insane amount of new music. I still listen to new stuff, but not at all at the same pace. So instead, I'm hoping to do a Favorite Song of the Week that isn't necessarily from this year. Can I do it? We'll see...

Lastly, my time is a bit divided these days, due to my obsession with cooking. I've always had it, but it has become a more public endeavor. I launched a new blog recently on Tumblr, called Ras El Hanout Me, a nod to the Moroccan King of Spices. Yes, I could have called it SYP Eats...I may still, but not yet.

Many of the recipes I posted on this blog are there, as well as many others. And I have some foodie photos on Instagram.

Thank you for popping in, reading, and commenting over the last seven years, even when I was on hiatus. I promise to be better from now on.

 

 

 

 

Graffiti in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

I just started a new little project over on Tumblr called GraffitiBurg. Once a week, I'll post a photo of graffiti from my neighborhood in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I'll still post here from time to time (and hopefully more often than I have been), but not about graffiti. :)

Check out my first graffiti pic!

It really is the little things.

I haven't written a "real" post on my blog in quite a while. I could give you a whole host of excuses about how busy I am, but the truth is that I just fell out of the writing groove.

Today, though, I want you to share in my joy.

I'm a member of a closed group on Facebook for film lovers--not the "Oh, I've watched Einsenstein's The Battleship Potemkin twenty times and that scene with the baby carriage falling down the Odessa steps is *da bomb* kind of film lover (although I actually may be one of those annoying people...sorry) and certainly not the "Have you seen Little Fockers yet? Isn't DeNiro HI-LARIOUS???" type.  No, this is just a diverse group of friendly, witty people who love watching movies and having fun discussing them in an intelligent way.

Online communities really only thrive when individual members participate and engage regularly. We have a weekly quiz in which one of the members picks a single frame from a movie, posts it in our group, and we all try to guess which movie it's from. Believe me, these aren't easy. Past frames have been from films as diverse as Tati's Playtime to Lynch's Eraserhead. (Yeah, I know, the quiz owner does seem to have a bit of a happily cruel streak, doesn't he? Hee hee.)

For over three months, we've been playing this game and I have NEVER gotten one right, let alone won. Even frames from movies I love, like Brazil, have totally eluded me. Guess my brain just doesn't work that way. After I've seen a film, I look back and remember the experience of it, not individual frames or even quotes.

Today, he posted this image and gave the decade (1970s).

The European license plate was a clue, but that was pretty much it. And the tractor really threw me off. One of our members threw out French Connection which was my first thought too, but that wasn't it. Once he said that though, I was convinced it was a thriller of some kind. I guessed a couple more and then decided to just throw out as many thrillers from the 1970s as I could. Three was indeed the charm. I finally hit on Straw Dogs, Peckinpah's controversial thriller from 1971 starring Dustin Hoffman.

I cannot tell you how excited I was when he told me I got it right. I mean seriously. I fist-pumped. I danced. I jigged. I blurted out a big "WOOHOO" which made my cat hide under the bed. I was so thrilled, I took this pic of myself and shared it with my film friends.

Basically, I was happy. Sometimes it doesn't take much. And you know what? It really shouldn't. Do a little something to make yourself happy today. Thank me for it later. Just something small will do.

Craig Charles makes our marriage official.

My marriage is official -- Craig Charles of The Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show on BBC6 Music gave our marriage a shout-out (at 18:30) on his radio show today. W00T!

The song is Double Exposure — Everyman

Marriage Shout-Out on Craig Charles 8|28|10 BBC6 Music

How to have a cheap wedding.

Want to know how to have a very inexpensive wedding? Do what I did.

1) Decide three days before your wedding date that you actually are going to get married. This means you naturally avoid many of the things that drive a wedding's cost sky-high, plus you avoid all planning headaches--months of annoying conversations about which flowers you want, what kind of invitations to send, whether the tablecloths should be ecru or alabaster, what crappy food you'll be overpaying for, and how far away to seat your in-laws from one another.

2) No guests.

3) Get your rings someplace cool, but cheap. I went to Little India in LA and got two cool silver rings at an Indian jewelry store for $50.

4) Wear clothes you like and already own. 

5) Get married in Vegas. If you fill out the marriage license online, when you get to the Vegas marriage license bureau, you'll get to be in the Express queue and all you'll have to do is sign a couple of papers and pay $60. The online form takes less than five minutes to fill out and the Express window took about about ten minutes (we had just one couple ahead of us, while the regular line had ten couples).

6) Do the Vegas drive-thru window--the cheapest package was $40. I chose the awesomely cheesy and fabulous Tunnel of Love at the Little White Chapel where Elvis got married. You literally drive through the Tunnel of Love decorated with angels, pull up to a window, and do the deed. I never even got out of the car (well, except for taking a picture of the Elvis sign and the adult bookstore across the street). They were nice, efficient, and we had a blast. Highly recommended.

TOTAL COST: $190, including tipping the pastor. 

Sure, I'm not including the cost of dinner that night or the hotel room or the gas to drive to Vegas from LA, but the point is, you don't need to spend many thousands of dollars to show your mate you love them and make your wedding memorable.

Getting married was a big deal for me and maybe not for the reason you think. As a child, I never dreamt about what my wedding would be like. For almost my entire life, I succeeded in avoiding it. I didn't want it. I said I wouldn't do it.  So for the last twenty years, I've been with the same person, but not "official." You know, sort of like Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn.

When I told my mom I was finally getting married on my 20-year anniversary of being with my "significant other," she told me that being with someone for a long time (like she was before she got married) was being committed 99%, but being married added that extra 1%. I think she's right. Here's the happy couple.

 

More pictures of my Vegas wedding are on Facebook here.

My very awesome PennySaverUSA.com team at work made a fun video about my PennySaver wedding here. Check it out. They rock.

Chris Kattan as Emily Dickinson?

I won a Kindle recently at a conference and have been having a blast with it. In the last month, I've read Dostoevsky's The Double, Lee Child's latest Jack Reacher novel, Robert Young Pelton's Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror, Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, and just started Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick.

The Kindle has a screensaver and while it no doubt has many images to display, mine seems to especially love this picture (supposedly) of Emily Dickinson. Tell me though--doesn't Emily Dickinson look suspiciously like Chris Kattan in ruffles??

 

What to consider when making a job switch.

A former employee of mine recently contacted me for advice about an opportunity he was considering. Some old contacts of his from a previous job were hiring at a company that isn't profitable. He trusted his former colleagues, but wasn't so sure about the company himself, so he wanted to know how to approach an opportunity where he knew the current overall picture was tough, but (supposedly) getting better, and whether I would leave the comforts of a stable environment to test the waters with a company like this one.

I've been getting this question quite a bit lately. The economy is starting to pick up a little and more people are hiring, so I thought it might be helpful to share the brief email advice I gave him. It's pretty basic stuff, but sometimes you need to hear what you already know from someone other than yourself. :) 

You can also check out My Top 10 Job Search Tips--they were featured in US World News Report Online!

-------

Here was my verbatim email response. Hope it helps those of you considering a job switch right now.

Hi: There are some key questions I would ask and they are basically in two "buckets"--personal and business:

Personal
* What do you gain by making the switch -- what more do you learn, how does it progress your skillset or get you closer to your career goals, does it improve your home/work balance, etc -- regardless of whether or not the company succeeds (meaning these are things you would be able to take with you or at least enjoy if it fails).

* Are you well-prepared (financially, emotionally) for if it fails or you get laid off soon after you are hired? 

* If it succeeds, what is enough upside for you that would balance the risk you are taking in making the move?

* What is really attracting you to this opportunity--is it the opportunity itself or is it just that it is different and you are bored where you are? If the latter, is there something you could do where you are that would make it worth sticking around? And if the answer is no, is this the right opp or just the one you happen to know about? Because if you are really ready to go, it may be in your best interest to look at all available options, not just this one.

* Setting aside the fact that you know some people there and have worked with them, does the company *feel* right to you otherwise in terms of a fit?  Would you be working with people you respect and can learn from or just people you happen to like and know?

Business
* Who is funding the business, for how long, and do the investors have a record of funding successful businesses?

* How old is the business, how often has the business needed funding (ie what is their burn rate) and does their growth rate in head count and in other overhead areas make sense with the revenue and profit increase they are expecting?

* Do you understand why the business isn't profitable and how they plan to get to profitability?

* Does their business strategy make sense to you and do you believe in it?

* Do they have a history of making good choices and of making the numbers and/or goals they have set? When they haven't, do you understand why not?

* How big a market is it and how crowded? What is the competitive space for their offerings and how are they differentiating? Are they gaining customers or losing them? Etc.

Two of the most important things I can recommend overall in making this choice is to:
a) Know yourself and what you are really good at and match that against what you think you are really looking for in your next move. How does this match up? Make sure you are making the switch for the right reasons.

b) Play out the most likely scenarios and at least a few of the least likely ones so that you feel confident you are making a well-informed choice. You can't predict the future, but you can imagine the different ways things might play out and how you might respond in those situations, and then decide how much of a risk you are willing to take.

You know me--I am always up for taking a (smart) risk--but it is a big decision to switch jobs, especially in this economy, and now you have a family to take care of. At the end of the day, you've got to do what I call the smell test, meaning does it smell right to you--another way of saying you need to gut-test it. My own personal smell test involves gauging how excited my brain gets about a business. This means does the business challenge inspire me and trigger my brain to come up with lots of new and different ideas that I want to go and get done? If not, I know that no matter how much someone pays me or how sexy the business is, I will not be at my best. I might still do a great job relatively speaking, but I won't be really engaged like I could...and should be. You've got to find your own equivalent of a smell test and check this against that. Hope this helps. xo SYP

Blue Moon New Year's Eve: 2010 To Begin With Extra Full Moon

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

LOS ANGELES — Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve. Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue – the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Ukraine's Got Talent's Kseniya Simonova sand paints German invasion in WWII

Thanks to my mum for emailing it to me. Note: The video is 8 minutes long.

Marvy Le Pen and Twin Ring Notebooks: Good pens and paper

Twin Ring Notebooks and Marvy Le Pen are my most favorite notebooks and pens ever.

They are both from Japan.

Twin Rings have perfect perforation, are slim and lightweight, come in cute colors, the paper is smooth, and the rings are tightly coiled and don't snag or get all bent out of shape. 

Marvy Le Pens have a micro fine 0.3mm tip and pocket clip. They come in countless lovely and unique colors from brown and burgundy to oriental blue and periwinkle to teal and olive and I just adore the way they look and write.

They are a perfect combination. The pen clip just fits in the ring and the pair are light enough to carry in my purse.

You'd think that with most of my work being online, I wouldn't have much use for writing longhand, but I do.

I take notes in meetings, and doodle or diagram to get my brain working on an idea. Honestly, sometimes I just think better when I write on a real piece of paper with real ink.

I care enough about writing that I'm picky and Twin Rings and Marvy Le Pens are my weapons of choice.

I first got hooked on these thanks to the adorable store, Prize, in Ashland, Oregon.

Now I've found the notebooks online at the also adorable Tokyo Pen Shop which has free shipping on orders over $25 or more. A month or so ago, I realized that I was on my last Twin Ring (horrors!!) and Kimberly and Frank Broz, the co-founders of Tokyo Pen Shop, shipped me several post-haste. They don't sell Marvy Le Pens yet, but are considering it. I hope they do, so I can just buy both from the same place. Fingers crossed! Until then, I'll buy mine from ArtStuff.net.

All that said, one of the main reasons I love Twin Rings so much is the inspirational message that's embossed on the front of every notebook. It says,

Most Advanced Quality
Gives Best Writing Features
& Gives Satisfaction to You

I couldn't have written it better myself! :)