Festive Optics

A shot from Halloween. Rhonda and I attended a cocktail party at the rotunda at city hall in San Francisco, sponsored by the Executive MBA Council. This was the social event for the conference we attended that weekend. Sporting tiara's and Rhonda's red and purple boa, we were the only two out of the whole 400 person group in costume!

Home again

My super cool dad came through big time, and emailed this mp3 to me. One more change to the holiday cd mix playlist never hurt anybody.

Below: A peek inside my Entre Ed Forum experience. It was a modest conference so no fancy, flashy, in-line booths. A nice table with our books and brochures, and my lap top to demo the Electronic Worksheets and PowerPoint.



It was a nice conference. Small and focused, with many determined and passionate people--the entrepreneurs of tomorrow are in good hands!

Saturday in San Antonio

Wow, what a neat city! The people here seem very friendly and willing to point me in the direction of their many squashed-penny machines, and the downtown area is cute and filled to the brim with tacky souvenirs (is there any other kind?).



This is me, remembering the Alamo.


In HemisFair Park, I found The Tower of the Americas, a distant relative of the Space Needle. The park and tower were built for the 1968 World's Fair. Now, the gift shop is locked up. But from the top of the tower, I could see many parking lots and hotels, and a freeway. And buildings.



This giant head sculpture was near the entrance to HemisFair Park. Hooray for giant head sculptures!



Yes, I did come here to work. On that note, I'm off to the booth. Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Deep in the heart of Texas

Well, in a few hours I'll be on my way to San Antonio, Texas for the 22nd Annual Entrepreneurship Education Forum (this year's theme: Fiesta Entrepreneurship!). I've got high hopes for this conference; there are lots of sessions and events involving local entrepreneurs. It's good to mix up the learning, lectures, and product/materials examinations with real people and conversations about their experiences.

This will be my first out-of-town conference since I got my new digital camera, so expect plenty of action packed updates!

For the Love of Bowling. And Hats.

Do you ever think about what you would like your funeral to be like? How about your obituary? My friend, Miriam, posted a bulletin asking a bunch of her friends what song they would like to have played at their funerals. The answers ranged from sweet ("Perfect Day" by Lou Reed) to unavoidably cheesy ("Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen) to absolutely perfectly fitting ("Don't Stop Believing" by Journey).

Sure, I think about my obituary, my legacy, what I want to leave behind to my friends and family. In what way do I live my life so that the space created by my eventual passing will reflect the true meaning of me? I aspire to this obituary from yesterday's Palo Alto Daily News:

"Michael Fau, a native of Redwood City who lived there his entire life, has died at the age of 55. Born April 28, 1949, Fau loved bowling and hats."

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that I've lived in a number of places, and plan to live in many more, would never aspire to live in Redwood City, and intend to live well past the age of 55. But how simple. How eloquent. How meaningful and admirable and perfect. He loved bowling, and he loved hats.

Maybe I'll request that my obituary be a haiku.

Deborah Kaye has passed.
She loved her dogs and Scrabble.
We'll miss her muchly.

Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment, or How My Obsessive Quest For A Song By The Ramones Lead To Many, Many Pop-Ups.

It was last night. I was looking for a song on the internet, so I went to iTunes. I wanted to download The Ramones' cover of Palisades Park. But the song wasn't on iTunes. They had about 250 songs by The Ramones, so it seemed as though the entire discography was available, but no Palisades Park. I was darn near positive that the song was on the album Ramones Mania, because that was the only Ramones album I had in high school (being the greatest hits type of music listener that was at age 15), and I had remembered listing to this song in high school. But the absence of the song from the iTunes offerings caused me to think twice. Three times, actually. You see, I embraced iTunes and the Music Store so quickly and so fully that I now tend to trust iTunes before I trust my own memory. Sure, I remember listening to The Ramones sing Palisades Park with my old high school friend Gill. Sure, I remember the super quick beat behind the carnival-themed bridge between verses. Sure I do...don't I? Well, maybe I'm mistaken, if Apple doesn't have it how can it exist? Don't worry, I haven't fully resigned my soul and free will to the Man. I called Gill, who now lives in Boulder, Colorado (the centennial state), to verify the existence of this song; to sort of act as a witness that I wasn't an absolute fruit loop. So I was half right. The Ramones did indeed release a cover of Palisades Park, but it was on the album called Brain Drain, which, as luck would have it, is not included in iTunes' Ramones repertoire. So I wasn't going to be able to download the song, but at least I wasn't crazy!

By now, I was on a mission. Having proven the existence of the song, I would now own the song. I would find an mp3 of the song, pay for the song, and download it to my precious, still-new, cute little computer. But it had to be an mp3, or at least not a Real Audio file. I've been burned by Real; the songs I bought from them wreaked major havoc on my iTunes, iPod, and CD-burning lifestyle. Big time. So I googled and clicked on links googled some more, trying to find a site on which I could BUY the song. Yes, pay real American dollars (or at least enter my credit card number). I wasn't looking for file sharing for free music, I just wanted--nay, needed--this song.

And then I made a really bad decision.

I clicked my frenzied little way to a Russian mp3-selling website that claimed to have the song--my song. Of course, I didn't get the song there, but I did get a freaking ton of spyware, adware, datamining-ware, and crapware installed on my innocent little computer. It's taken me a good 3 or 4 hours, as well as the downloading and installing of an additional ad-ware busting application (Spybot S&D just couldn't get all of them!), but I think (I hope!) I've finally gotten rid of the last of the intrusive pop-up generating programs. Holy crap, what a mess I made. What a baaaaaaaaaaaad decision.

It's not simply about me being obsessive. I mean, sure that's part of it, but I have a genuine need for this song. This year, I'm, er, reappropriating my friend Julie's annual holiday gift-giving idea: I've created a mix CD to distribute to my family, friends and well-wishers. A very special, thoroughly thought-out, emotion-filled, and super fantastic mix CD! And it had a space reserved on it for Palisades Park, written by one Mr. Charles Barris--former host of The Gong Show, and author of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which became one of the best movies ever. You can plainly see why this song had to be included on the mix CD. But sadly, today was my deadline to stop futzing with the playlist and track order and start designing labels and jewel case inserts (last year's holiday mix CD lost out to laziness and procrastination).

Long story short: Obsessive quest. Bad decision. Lots of pop-ups.

I'll post the super fantastic holiday mix CD playlist here after I've given them out--don't want to ruin the surprise.

13 days...and counting

For those of you awaiting the DVD release of the first season of one of THE best TV shows ever made (no, not Sabrina, the Teenage Witch--although Melissa Joan Hart is right up there among my favorites, the series has yet to be released on DVD. But perhaps this is something we can change...), you'll be pleased to know that less than 2 weeks time must pass before Home Movies Season One ships. My paper chain grows shorter each day.



I love this shot. Me and my trusty LC-A, tinting the world pink. Or green. Or whichever color we dang well please. Just try and stop us! We'll smear peanut butter on your car windows.

Ah, the splendor: Globes of Snow

I'm running out of space for them on my desk, so this configuration may soon change, but here's a look at the current snow globe collection.



Of course, the prized Fargo globe.

If I could capture this scene, make it tiny and plastic, and put it in a snow globe, you know I would: Nanna gives Brian some tail.

Isn't it s a lovely office? Seaport Green to some, Maalox Green to others.

And that's all I have to say about that.

It's been a blog day's night

Wow, I can't believe I've let my blog go for this long! I could blame it on the fact that I've been getting over a cold for the last week. Or that I've been very busy at work. Or plenty of other things. But I won't, because I'm a responsibility taker. My blog-less week has been of my own doing--or rather, my own lack of doing.

But it's not like I've been doing nothing. The Planning Shop has been buzzing all week! We've been working on our editorial calendar, which can be excrutiating. We're a small group of people with huge ambitions, so the actual planning process is always tough. Tough and necessary. We always work our way through the process and come out of it stronger, more motivated and more focused that before. It's therapeutic.

I've also been preparing for 2 conferences that I'll be attending in the next couple of weeks. The Executive MBA Council is holding its 2004 annual conference in San Francisco this weekend, and Rhonda and I will be there. It's a fantastic opportunity to meet many of the professors who teach classes using our books, and to hear about their experiences first hand. Also, it gives me a great opportunity to do some market research: find out what's missing from our customers' curriculum, what they would like to see more of, things like that. I think it's really important to remember who your customers are, and to make the time to speak with them. Even more important: listen to them when they speak. If you're fortunate enough to have access to the people who support your company, and they're considerate enough to share their thoughts and opinions with you, the worst mistake you can make is to take that for granted. Attending entrepreneurship educators' conferences allows me to do my job well and to serve my customers in the most appropriate and effective manner. Plus, I get to travel. Next month, I'm headed to San Antonio, TX for the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education's annual forum. Oh, and there will some Alamo to be had, as well.

Rhonda knows all about the fringe travel benefits like the Alamo. When you spend a few days in a different city, you often get to see things like the Space Needle or the John Hancock Building...or an alligator. Sure, there may be time for sight-seeing in between speeches (if you're Rhonda) or educational sessions (if you're Deborah), but traveling is tough and tiring and time consuming. And sometimes you miss out wonderful things that happen back home. Rhonda experienced this loss first hand this past Monday when she was giving a keynote speech in Jackson, MS. Sure, she may have had the opportunity to visit The Eudora Welty House, but she missed out on the arrival and inaugural playing of my Ethel Merman Disco Album. Poor Rhonda!

Please keep Marge away from extreme temperatures and out of direct sunlight, don't cha know!

It's here, it's finally here! The Fargo snowglobe that I won in an eBay auction 2 weeks ago is here and sitting on my desk for all to enjoy. Well, at least for me to enjoy. And I'm pretty sure that Brian is enjoying it as well. You can read more about this particular obsession here.

A Day in the Life of The Planning Shop, Part 1

Who among us hasn't wondered what happens behind the scenes at The Planning Shop? To quench your collective thirst for knowledge, please enjoy the following photographic representation of a typical-ish day at The Planning Shop (granted, this was last week when the weather was still stellar.):



This is our beautiful building in downtown Palo Alto. The changing colors of the ivy is amazing; no picture could do it justice. Throughout the day, we get 2 kinds of visitors: the kind who bring boxes and take boxes away, and the kind who ask, "Is this the Chamber of Commerce?" It was once the Chamber of Commerce, but hasn't been for a while. This is now the Chamber of Commerce. Between the people asking for maps, the people thinking they're arriving at a meeting, and the random crazy person, sometimes it makes me want to keep the front door closed. But the sunlight and fresh air are totally worth the interruptions.



Hunter-gatherers, each and every one of us. At approximately 4:00 pm, everyday, one of us will walk the block and a half to Long's to procure chocolate and diet soda for everyone. Nanna likes to come along, of course, especially when the street is ripe with squirels. And lately, it's been super ripe.

I'll post part 2 eventually. I can't say when, but I can say with some amount of certainty that it will feature our fax machine, my snowglobe collection, the halloween decorations, and Arthur's famous pig-in-a-pencil-gripper sculpture. So don't touch that dial!

The last two weeks before daylight savings time ends

Well, after what seemed like a year-long summer in San Francisco, the yucky weather has arrived. It started raining today, and it isn't supposed to stop for at least a couple of weeks. Bleh! And come Halloween, there will be even less light in which we can attempt to enjoy being outside. Aw, nuts.

Of course, just as the it starts to rain, I got some pictures back from last weekend, during which we drove the new convertible across the Golden Gate Bridge and up into the hills by Stinson Beach. So now, as I glance out the window at the darkened and overcast sky, I can turn fondly to my blog for comforting images of dogs and people frolicking, and of massive landmarks shining in the sun against a brilliant blue sky...and you can, too!




Ah, the glory and majesty of the Golden Gate!



Ah, the glory and majesty of Ozzy's head sticking out of the convertible roof.

The new kid on the block

Mmmm, toasty...they got a pepper bar! (If you never saw that wonderful commercial, you can play it in this article. Wonderful.)

Safety Fashion

When Ozzy rides in the convertible, he needs to protect his poor little eyes from rocks and debris and what not. Hence the ultimate cuteness ahead:

I'm a travelin' man...er, lady...

Two of my best friends moved to Minneapolis, MN last month. Yes, I'm heartbroken. Yes, I'm so totally lonely. And yes, when I go visit them, you'd better beleive I'll be stopping here.

My alternate personality gets no respect

Two things have been bugging me all day. The first was learning that Rodney Dangerfield died yesterday (also, learning that he was born Jacob Cohen was mildly off-putting). The really strange thing, though, is that in this article about Mr. Dangerfield's passing, there's a quote from Teller of Penn & Teller. That's just not right.

The other thing that's been bugging me all day is the whole Chris Gaines thing. What was Garth Brooks thinking? I mean, come on now. A soul patch? Seriously.

One thing that so totally has not been bugging me today: "Has Been," William Shatner's new album. But it's been buggin the hell out of Rhonda, I tell you what!

Someone's in the kitchen

I don't cook much. I like to bake, but not so much with the cooking. That's why it was a super big deal when Leor and I cooked dinner last night for 5 members of our familes (his folks, my folks, and my brother Paul who was in town from Brooklyn to watch the A's lose.). Among other things, we cooked this Wasabi Chicken, oh my lord it was tasty. So if you're feeling kitchen happy, and you're looking for an excuse to open the sake you got as a housewarming gift nearly a year ago, this may be the recipe for you!

Screw the wizard; let's get frogurt

So we went to see Bill Gates give a talk at the Computer History Museum this afternoon. Except for that our invitations neglected to mention that instead of actually seeing Bill Gates, we would be sitting a room down the hall from where Bill Gates would be speaking, and we would be watching him on a TV monitor. A black and white monitor, with bad focus. Feh!

After unsuccessfully trying to convince one of the Microsoft secret service guys that we should be in the other room, the one that actually had Bill Gates in it, we went out to the parking lot and vandalized all of the Prowlers and Ferraris. Then we went for frogurt to pacify Arthur who was beginning to cry.

We're off to see the wizard...