Thursday, April 22, 2010

may you have a peaceful wedding

Today was quite the day. I made it to the big boss's staff meeting right on time (shockingly, since I left later than I should have and was sure I was going to be late), and managed to rock my 4" heels all day without breaking my ankle (although I did walk like a bound-foot Chinese concubine). I slogged quite productively all day, with a break for lunch with Gyre; it was good to catch up and tell him that I signed a lease on a place in Palo Alto, since our last two lunches I was alternating between quitting/moving to the woods and staying forever/buying a house. At least now I'm back to some sort of relatively sane middle ground, right?

I slogged some more after lunch, preparing for a one-on-one with the big boss, in which we briefly discussed my career. It would be easier to do something else if I didn't have it so good here; I love working for the big boss, I get to travel, I get a lot of insight into the business, I can basically set my own schedule, and my boss said today that if I start getting bored, we can just rewrite my job description. That is all basically an embarrassment of riches -- so I think some of my dissatisfaction right now is just with myself and the fact that I'm not writing quickly outside of work, but hopefully not having a commute will help with that.

Of course, the next two months aren't going to be good for getting into a writing routine; the big boss confirmed today that I'm going to Tokyo for a week in June, so I bought my tickets this afternoon. So I'm basically out of town four weeks in the next eight, and moving during one of those remaining weeks. Yay. I'm super psyched about going to Tokyo, though; I won't have a lot of time to sightsee since I'm going for a conference, but it will still be fun nonetheless.

I didn't leave the office until almost seven, and then I drove to the evil city to go to an event hosted by this organization that Vidya is part of. I only went because she needed to sell tickets to this thing, but it was good to hang out anyway. After the event, Adit, Vidya and I had "Adit's bachelor party" -- we were going to drink, but instead we ended up at the crepe place near Vidya's, which was pretty much the worst bachelor party that someone could have. It smelled like India (not in a good way), the avocado in my crepe was the same color as the mushrooms, and there was this incredibly loud, very obnoxious guy with an unclear relationship with the crepemaker (and of course was the only guy tonight to hit on me, not counting the homeless dude who told Adit he was a lucky man for getting to hang out with so many girls). So, congratulations on your wedding, Adit!

And now, I really must go to sleep, as I have to go to work by eight a.m. tomorrow. Goodnight!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations upon landing your new rental home. A couple of interesting stats. Moody's has determined the five best places for renting. They have created a p/r ratio wherein the price of the property is compared to one year's rental. The national average is 10.9 meaning that the typical home sells for 10.9 times annual rent. In Honolulu the ratio is 34.6, San Francisco 30.1, Bridegport Conn 28.3, Portland, Ore 26.1 and Seattle 25.8

Fiserv, a banking back room operator, divided the country into four regions and picked the best places to buy based upon anticipated two year appreciation. The three best are in the west with Tacoma at 16.4%; San Francisco at 13.7 and SanDiego at 12.6% The three best in the Midwest are Toledo, Dayton and Omaha. Omaha's projected appreciation over 2 years is 2%.

So San Francisco is second best for renting and second best for buying.

Slater

f...... said...

I giggled at your mention of the Chinese concubine/foot binding reference. My mom was always very proud share with us the factoid that "our people" in China - the Hakka - did not practice foot binding... apparently b.c. they needed the lady labor to help in the fields.