I've been a bad blogger lately, committing the sin of all online sins: not updating my website. But I've been so busy, I implore, working at my new job at Musician's Friend and going on trips and entertaining visitors and watching Project Runway...yeah yeah, I know, excuses, excuses. Is it enough to say that real life intervened? Here's a quick recap of my life over the last several weeks:
JULY 19th: Jeff and I leave for Oceanside, CA for a beach party cum networking event. Every year for the last three years, my good friend, Phil Terry, CEO of the awesome customer experience firm Creative Good, gets 200 of his nearest and dearest friends and business associates together for a shindig that lasts a few days. We yak and surf and sail and swim and kayak. Although we could've gotten to Oceanside from Ashland in one day, we decided to stay overnight in lovely Bakersfield. Bakersfield's not as bad as Council Bluffs, Iowa, but it's close.
Me, the workaholic in Bakersfield
Here I am with Phil's mom, Helen. She lives in Oceanside (hence the reason why the party is there).
Jeff and I at dinner with Helen. I'm hiding my face because I am not a fan of getting my picture taken. :p
Phil with Sarah, the head of e-commerce for BabyCenter.com, and her family.
Our skipper, Monty, and I sailing the Pacific.
Phil and his friend Jeff, a filmmaker in LA
July 23rd: Jeff & I drive back to Ashland via Carmel-by-the-Sea. We spend the night in a cute inn and have a n expensive meal. Carmel is beautiful, albeit a bit snooty. Martin who is in charge of usability at Sun Microsystems, had warned us of this the night before while he was expertly strumming Jeff's guitar at the hotel pool, but we gave it a shot anyway. It was nice, but I liked Oceanside better, tell you the truth. Jeff about killed me because I made him take Rte 1 all the way from Oceanside to Carmel. That is a really long, twisty drive. One of the only other times I'd been on Rte 1 was with David Wauters, my friend and employee at the time (who is now at Bare Necessities--hey, let's hear it for guys marketing women's lingerie!). He was forced to listen to me practice whistling for the several hours it took to go from Santa Barbara where we had a Commission Junction conference to San Francisco. He's a real trooper. Some Rte 1 pics...
July 30th: My parents, aunt and uncle visit me in Ashland to see how and where I'm living now that I'm no longer a New Yorker. Well, actually, I'm still a New Yorker, I just don't live in New York anymore. It was really nice to see them. Oregon is a lot further than New York from Ohio, so I suspect I'll be seeing my family a lot less now that I'm here. That's a shame because they're a pretty cool bunch. Here are a couple of pics of us at Crater Lake.
My uncle Herb, aunt Yung, mom & dad
My parents & I
August 9th: I watch Bradley get booted from Project Runway. That Cher outfit was really bad (and not in a good way)--the top looked like something from an Ed Wood movie or an episode of Flash Gordon. If only he could turn back time...
August 11th: I attend a going-away party at Musician's Friend's CEO's house (amazing home btw). Our EVP of Operations is moving on to a new job as President of MotoSports in Portland. I tell you this only because he is the only reason I ended up in Ashland. When I was interviewing for the job I have now at Musician's Friend, he looked at me, looked at my resume and said "Vassar? OH... [pause] you don't want to live in Medford...you'll want to be in Ashland." And being the impressionable person that I am, I accepted the job and promptly decided to move to Ashland, a town I'd never been to (let alone heard of), pretty much solely on his recommendation. Am I nuts or what. Don't answer that.
