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Ctl + Alt + Del

As many of you often point out, yes, I do work for Microsoft. And yes, from time to time out software will lock up your computer. And yes, this sometimes requires you to restart the computer to solve the problem. Ctl + Alt + Del resets the software.

When we last talked (or when I last dictated my life to you via a diary entry), I was once again contemplating the meaning of life and racking my brain with difficult decisions, including my locale of living and primary job responsibilities. I decided to do a little Ctl + Alt + Del. Reset. Start Over. Re-boot. I turned off my over-analytical brain and just waited to see if the software would re-start and my frozen browser would load.

And it just sorta did.

My director walked me through a job opportunity that would allow me to stay in Chicago and continue managing people. While pondering this, the job that I was really interested in as a product manager for the Latin-American market (that would involve 25% travel time there and would require me to live in Bellevue, WA), was put on hold by HR. I therefore only really had one option, so without even thinking about it – I just did it. Coincidentally, the day after I told my director that I was staying in Chicago and going to take the job, the other job became available. I wasn’t sad, indicating that I made the right choice.

Next up was an apartment. I renewed my lease for an additional month and started viewing apartments. After a long day of seeing places, I had one last apartment that had just come up that day on Craigslist. Since I was back-to-back seeing apartments, I didn’t even map the address before I dictated it to the cab driver. When we stopped at the building, I laughed out loud (literally, not lol) when I realized it was the same building where the Pfaff’s live. We now call the building the dorm, and I can channel my college days by wearing my pajama’s down the stairs to watch 30 rock and ruin our lungs.

In addition to hiring movers, my move was made almost effortless because I have so many wonderful friends. Megan, Ryan, Erin, and Zak helped me unpack my apartment in a record 3 hours, while Erin encouraged me (aka threw away) to minimize my belongings. After my crazy foreign maintenance guy illegally turned on my gas, I was up and rocking in my new, cozy, exposed brick wall apartment.

A new hindrance brought on by the move was the commute, which was part of my reason for moving out of Wicker Park in the first place. Moving back meant I was opening up to the idea of buying a car. After hours of searching on websites for the perfect car, I posted a quick quiz on Facebook to my closest 621 friends. Zak came through, recommending an Acura RDX. I narrowed my search to two cars, emailed them to my father – and walla – he found one. Right price, beautiful car, and I wrote a check over Thanksgiving. Parking at my new apartment is so easy, and I love being able to drive anywhere I want, including work.

As part of the reset, I decided to cancel my online dating account. When I logged on to cancel, someone that I had previously emailed with noticed and reached back out to me. Yes, I was up for a drink and gave him my number. After texting a couple of days, we agreed to meet at Guthrie's at 7pm.

At 7:05pm, a group of people at the other side of the bar that I was talking to asked if I was being stood up, as I had been there for about 20 minutes “waiting for someone”. At 7:30pm, I was calling my 9th friend to plead that they come out and help me drown my “I’ve been stood up” sorrows. Luckily, there was someone already at the bar interested in helping. It was then that a fellow sitting by me at the bar offered to buy me a drink upon overhearing that I had been stood up by the group of folks that had previously inquired. His name is Jeff, and I have butterflies every time we hang out. It’s only been three weeks, but I feel like I’ve known him so much longer.

I did not plan to discontinue blogging while resetting, but it did happen. I felt like this was turning into a diary, and not in the “keeping people up-to-date on my life” kinda way, but more in a “airing my emotional baggage” kinda way. As the final part of the reset, I think it is time to announce a blogging retirement. Not in an official, locking up shop kinda way, but more in an evolution kinda way. I’m sure I will blog again, but not in the same way or format. More to come, and I will update you here when that happens.

Ctl + Alt + Del is not a guarantee that your problem will be solved. Often it refreshes the software, but masks the issue until it rear’s it’s ugly head again. This time around though, I am okay with throwing the computer out the window. Going back to the basics of focusing on myself and the people around me that make life fun. Limited travel, work stays at work and during work hours, cooking, watching movies, music shows, and lazy days on the couch.

Being normal. And not how society defines normal, but how I do.

Home.

After six week of living in Seattle, I arrived home on Sunday to Chicago. Seattle really consisted of lots of drinking at the Irish bar under my corporate housing, lots of informationals to find a new job, and lots of beautiful sites and weather.

The Irish drinking and eating caused me to gain 5 lbs, but also gained me some good friends, good times, and my name on a plaque on the wall. They had a contest involving drinking 100 drinks in exchange for the plaque, t-shirt, and jacket – which I fully embraced and conquered in four weeks.

The informationals resulted in a lot of people asking me to move to Seattle. If I want to stay at my company and continue to climb the corporate ladder, Seattle needs to be in my future. This has obviously caused a lot of emotional thinking and debating, especially since almost all of my friends live in the midwest or on the east coast. “Home is where the heart is” comes to mind…

The beautiful sites and weather were breathtaking. It didn’t rain much, and when it did it was a drizzle that periodically came and went. Another cheesy quote that comes to mind though is “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to here it, does it really make a noise?” I went to Mt Rainier and Hurricane Ridge, which was gorgeous and I got great photo’s, but it was sad that no one was there to enjoy it with me.

So add all of those experiences up and I had a drunk, fun, lonely at times, and job confusing six weeks. It is good to be home, but my return to Chicago on Sunday has also been accompanied by job ambiguity and the end of my lease. The entire experience in Seattle, combined with what was awaiting me at home has left me completely confused about what I need to do next.

A quote from one of my wisest friends keeps entering into my head, “You just need to do what will make YOU happy.” Unfortunately, I have always answered that question by saying that my friends make me happy, since they are my family. While that may still be true, I have to stop making decisions based on where my friends are and what they are doing.

Okay, so I buy it. But, now what? I guess just hunker down, get drunk, and try to focus on doing things that I like to do. Hopefully it will just come to me…

Face Lift

Well, it’s pretty obvious when you come to the blog website – we have upgraded. I was getting really sick of the dots, although artful and trendy, and the “travel” template caught my eye. Not really my first choice, but indicative of my life – since I spend the majority of it in a plane. The fact that I have not yet achieved the mile-high club is really still a shock.

Other than my plea for guys with super large penis’ to get plastic surgery, do you wanna know what else is going under the knife? My career plan.

Part of me being in Seattle is for me to network and learn about new opportunities for my career growth. After a profound networking session last night with one of my 1,342 mentors (my company is a bit ridiculous about career planning), I finally have a plan in place.

1. Stay at my company. It’s super cool to work at with phenomenal benefits. And, they love me, so it is really easy to be me. Since I am getting potentially laid off in the next quarter, I really need to get on top of this one.

2. Industry focus is direct to consumer technology products or direct to advertiser products.

3. Get a well-rounded set of skills to move up the corporate ladder to Director.

4. Once Director, pursue International opportunities to continue to round out skills to move up to General Manager.

That is a very, very simple way to describe my long term action plan. However, my motto for career planning is also “plan first but flow loose” – so that even though I do have a plan, you never know when the right opportunity is going to put a kink in your plan.

For those of you waiting with baited breath to find out where I will be living, sorry, no updates there just yet. I do have three buckets of potential – International, Seattle, and Chicago. The ranking of those changes every day, but after last nights information – Chicago is in the running, followed by Seattle, and ending with International.

Fine Print Apology: I apologize for anyone that was offended by my last blog entry where I repeated talked about penis size. It is pretty obvious what category of penis size you (or if you are female your current lover/boyfriend) fall into if you are complaining about it.

How Do You Hang?

Whenever a group of ladies gets together, especially when there is a single gal in the group, there is a discussion about size. The size of their pole, banana, enchilada, whatever you choose to call it. Penis.

The topic of conversation this weekend was guys that are too large. And yes, there is such a thing. All of the ladies I talked to had at one point dated a guy that was too large. The line is drawn when sex starts becoming difficult or uncomfortable and when BJs are completely out the window. As Snooki on the infamous Jersey Shore says “It’s like putting a watermelon into a pinhole.”

I experienced such a situation recently in Seattle. I actually snuck out of a guys apartment in the morning because I just knew that there was no way we could date, his lizard was just way too long. He has since stalked me and found me on Facebook, although he didn’t know my last name, and has been constantly asking me out on dates. I wonder if you can get plastic surgery on a love muscle to make it smaller – like a nose job for down below.

I honestly feel very sorry for guys that have either of the extremes – too small or too long of a pork sword. Some ladies say it doesn’t matter as long as they know how to use it – but there are some things you just can’t work around.

Seattle: Week 1

After my whirlwind month of July drinking, my body was extremely upset with me. My shoulder hurt and I was exhausted. It started to show, the first day I got to Seattle. My throat was a little scratchy, and sure enough – I got sick. I blamed it on having to sleep with the windows open (they don’t have AC here), but it was probably my body proving to me that I needed to go to sleep at 8pm and sleep 12 hours every night.

After a long week of going to bed early, I was feeling much better on Friday, just in time for the weekend. It was a beautiful day in Seattle, and my college roommate Kdawg texted me that she was at the beach. I met up with her and two of her friends and we demolished three bottles of wine while watching the sunset.

I met up with my friend Cork and his girlfriend, who were on a pub crawl raising money for her breast cancer walk. It was called Boozin’ for Boobies and we had a ton of buttons and funny stickers to sell. I met a boy at one of the bars and ended up with my first Seattle hook-up, one that ended with me sneaking out at 8am to find my way home.

At noon, I was still a bit hung-over but I had a BBQ to attend at the beach. It was a great time, and we followed it up at a local watering hole called the Water Wheel, which turned into a full on sing-a-thon.

The next day I could’ve slept all day, but the lack of AC made me wake up earlier than usual. I decided to take advantage of the day and head out to Mt Rainier National Park. One thing you should know if you ever go there, the signs are a bit misleading. There isn’t a sign that tells you – “park entrance”, so you have to know exactly what the names of the entrances are, or else you will drive for 2 extra hours, waste all your gas, and almost get stranded without cell service in the middle of nowhere. Just sayin’, in case you go.

Once I determined where the damn entrance was, it was gorgeous. There are a ton of different hikes you can go on, and they all have great mountain views.

Other than the fact that I was constantly chased by bugs during the hike, and consequently anyone who saw me hiking probably thought I had hiking turrets, it was a beautiful day.

Work is a killer, I am working on a pretty ambitious project for the next five weeks. I am optimistic that it will turn out well. What I am a little more questionable about is my future, as we are getting closer and closer to the October timeframe where the job will end. I need to make a decision and find out what I want to do next, especially if that “next” doesn’t happen to be in Chicago.

Rockstar Status Confirmed

As I sit on my flight to Seattle to live there for 6 weeks, I ponder on how I survived the last three weeks. Technically, I have a rotator cuff injury, so I did come out a little scathed.

Feeling tired and exhausted? Just check out what I’ve been up to.

• July 14: Saw the Swell Season (from the movie Once!) at Ravinia
• July 15: Blind date with dork from Match
• July 16: Cubs game for Julie’s birthday; Rebecca and Mel in town
• July 17: Beach volleyball during the day, Julie’s 30th bday party at night
• July 18: Pitchfork Music festival all day
• July 19: 8am flight to Atlanta for Microsoft’s Global Conference
• July 20: 8am all day meeting, followed by a party in Olympic Park. Ended the night with a 50 person party at a bar in Atlanta, followed by closing down the Hotel Palomar bar with bottle service (2:30am).
• July 21: 8am all day meeting at Phillips Arena (I showed up at 10ish), followed by a party at a private bar and closing down the Hotel Palomar bar with bottle service. Ended the night with a hotel room party and mini-bar (5am).
• July 22: 8am all day meeting followed by huge party with a DJ and live band karaoke. Hit up a gay bar in Atlanta for dancing, and closed down the Hotel Palomar bar with bottle service (3am).
• July 23: Skipped the morning meetings, and showed up at 11am to Phillips Arena. Private concert by the Black Eyed Peas in Olympic Park, followed by a hotel room party with 40 ppl and a ton of booze. Got kicked out of two hotel rooms and ended up partying in the hotel gym. (4am).
• July 24: 9am flight home that was delayed three hours, and immediately upon landing ran home to change into a bathing suit for Kelly’s bachelorette party. Met at the dock at 3pm, and then back at Kelly’s at 8pm for drinking and dancing. Ended the night at a late night bar and the Small Bar bartenders apartment (5am).
• July 25: Brunch with a friend who was in town, followed by cleaning my apartment and dinner with my parents.
• July 26: Lunch with my parents
• July 27: Work offsite followed by happy hour at Navy Pier and late night drinking at the Gage (1am).
• July 28: Work offsite followed by happy hour at Castaways and late night drinking at Weeds Tavern (3am). Pack for vacation!
• July 29: 8am flight to Knoxville, rented a house in Gatlinburg for vacation. Shoulder started to hurt.
• July 30: Took shots of 5 hour energy at dinner so that we could be awesome and play flip cup/beer pong hybrid game.
• July 31: Got incredibly intoxicated and blacked out.
• Aug 1: Did not go hiking (one of my goals of the vacation) because I was so hungover.
• Aug 2: Flight home to Chicago.
• Aug 4: Dinner and drinks with Shauna, Cookie, and Jessie followed by a concert at the Empty Bottle.
• Aug 6: Went to chiropractor and discovered I have a rotator cuff issues. Board games and drinks with friends in town from Cincinnati.
• Aug 7: Cubs game at 12pm, followed by cooking out for Mofo’s birthday and her 30th birthday party at Five Star. Ended the night at Nick’s, where I apparently picked up a boy since I woke up at his apartment.
• Aug 8: Pack! 6pm Flight to Seattle, where I am going to live for 6 weeks.

That was exhausting, just typing. In addition to the rotator cuff injury, I also had a time period where my eye was constantly twitching from lack of sleep and drinking too much energy drink.

I will fill you in on the fun details and include pics later!