I’m genuinely too tired (no one slept last night), and too busy (the list grows, it never shrinks) to be able to add anything as today’s blog post 🙁
Author: Melih O.
This week in review
A long, crazy, week. The end of lots of things, and the beginning of some really great ones. This week in review…
Working on a cross Comms project means a lot of morning meetings. Holy smokes that takes coordination. Phone charged. Awake. Kids taken care of. Into the meeting. Mentally present, and not distracted. Whew… it’s just going to keep getting crazier. I can tell.
Monday was St. Patrick’s day, and that ended up being a great day. Trey was in town. We got dinner at Nopalito. I headed out to see Mike’s band play. Good, good night.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Micky’s travels were finally done. I mean finally, thank God, they were done! She’ll be home for a while now which is good for me. Definitely good for the kids too. She’s done traveling because her commercials are out! If you haven’t seen them, check it out on Trulia’s YouTube channel.
When the weekend arrived, we family bonded. It was really excellent. Sunday we celebrated Rahul’s first birthday. Here are some videos of us on the slides at the carousel playground. What a great weekend it was!
Amelia goes safari-style
We’re at the Boat Playground today (45th & Lincoln) hanging out with Mat, Mary, and Baby Reece. It’s quite fun to just jaunt around the Sunset with folks. We can pretty much walk anywhere (as long as it’s a San Francisco crowd) because nothing is more than a mile away.
So off we went to the beach, but all of the babies fell asleep 🙂
We ended up going to Trouble Coffee (cool spot, with a wacky staff), and then headed to the Boat Playground when the babies woke up.
Everyone was doing their thing – Reece was eating (or maybe the Eltings had just left), Luka was flirting with older women in the sand, and Amelia went off into the grassy bit in the back.
Then all of a sudden, Micky screams, “What’s Amelia doing? Quick. Stop her!”
I was stuck with Luka in a high up place, and off Micky ran. When we all got back together I found out that she’d pulled her pants down, squatted in the grass, and successfully peed. She then (since there are no bathrooms there) did it again right before we left (but this time in a less obvious spot).
What a rock star she is!
We went and had pizza for dinner, and then took the train home.
Great family (& friends) day 🙂
Tired, and run out
Man I needed this week to end.
Babies aren’t sleeping. Work is non-stop. Even hanging out with friends feels like this epic trade off between staying in touch, and falling further behind.
I’m just looking forward to 2 days with the babies, and getting to hit the reset button.
Now here’s to 8 hours of sleep :-/
This year’s NCAA tourney is dead to me
On Tuesday, I was really excited about NC State’s chances in the NCAA tournament.
This is one of my favorite times of year. I used to watch a ton of basketball, and spend hours staring at my brackets as they turned more and more red. Even with all of the crap my family throws at each other, the NCAA tournament was the one thing that kept us together. And, last year or the year before, I finally won!
Not this year.
Not when those kids couldn’t hit a damn free throw to save their lives.
Not when I’m sitting on the West Coast without a single person giving a damn about the games. It’s so hard to get into it on your own. 5 people signed up for the office pool :-/
I swore I wasn’t going to let 18 year old kids bug me this much. College sports is an epic case of exploitation and obsession. But Tuesday left me feeling so damn good, and tonight I can’t even open ESPN to check the scores because I’m so damn depressed.
Oh well, there’s always next year 🙁
Storytelling as a skill
I met with a cool cat today for some coffee. We were introduced by Jason (check out this post), and talked about being a PM, what that means, how to represent oneself well on a resume, and the like.
I told him about a role we’re looking for that involves a lot of storytelling, and it made me realize how hard it is to represent storytelling as a thing on a resume.
I remember last year when I was hiring the first two folks that I found how I’d talk to pretty much every resume that came through just to get a read on whether I liked the person or not. I think the reason was as simple as I had no idea what to look for in a resume.
Since, I’ve realized that the value of a resume is mainly in understanding how people see themselves. When you challenge someone on a role that is labeled as Project Manager applying for a Product Manager job, then they can immediately bring up points that had nothing to do with moving a ticket between working and complete. And yet, they took a job called Project Manager, and didn’t think about the label that that put on them.
Byrne told me once that the role at TokBox let him re-establish how he marketed himself for the future. That’s a really forward looking approach to taking a step back, and then being able to jump into a gig knowing what you’re hoping it does for you.
In that regard, titles are really important regardless of what other folks in Silicon Valley may say. It has nothing to do with who you are, and yet everything to do with who you could end up being.
So back to the point – whether your resume says it or not, if you’re a great storyteller, who can speak developer, and help folks fall in love with a real-time communication platform, then let me know.
In search of storytellers 🙂
A day of winners and losers
Big sports day today. One big win, and one big loss.
Game 1: Galatasary 0 – Chelsea 2
Galatasaray were not the story for this game. It was all about Didier Drogba returning to Stamford Bridge. And he played awfully. And the whole team was awful as well. It was a really shit game, and it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
Why put up a second half like you did in Istanbul to play like this in London? Just give up early so we can enjoy a goal fest. It was really awful. I was ashamed to dress Luka in Galatasaray colors after the game. Until there’s a reason to change, he’s now a Besiktas kid.
Game 2: N.C. State 74 – Xavier 59
And then came the good game!
We just dominated. There was a period in the 2nd half where Xavier made a run, but we took care of business, and that was that. I think this team could do some really amazing things. I’ve picked them to go all the way in my family bracket. I’ve got an ’83 like feeling.
Go Pack!
St. Patrick’s Day antics!
I came home at midnight. The babysitter headed out. This post is Monday’s post, but it’s written in the future because… we had a lot of St. Patrick’s Day fun today 🙂
This morning I totally forgot it was St. Patrick’s Day. No matter. I took the kids to school without green, and I showed up without green at the office. It was particularly bad since I sent out an email imploring folks to wear green to celebrate. Oops!
Sierra ordered corn beef sandwiches and Guinness beer for lunch. Very stereotypical of us!
Mike saved me with a Celtic shirt, and so the day wasn’t too much of a disaster 🙂
Trey is in town, and he came over to see the house. I took him out to dinner at Nopalito. Holy smokes EVERYTHING was spicy. AND I saw a huge rat in their back patio area… I think :-/
I’d definitely go back though 🙂
Trey had been up all day, and so I got him back to his hotel, and headed up to Maggie McGrary’s to see Mike’s band play. I hung out with Jelena, and had a blast. I even had a Magner’s Cider! I really love that stuff. It’s just fancy apple juice after all 🙂
For this old fogey/dad who never gets out, it was an awesome night.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
This week in review
Not a lot of sleep. Micky being in NYC fills the whole house with weird creaks, and this strange sensation that every noise is someone out to get me (or maybe I’ve watched too much Burn Notice…).
The week ended well, and the weekend was even better. Saturday was good family bonding. Sunday was good bonding with the Green family. It’s really fun to just let the kids go wild in the backyard or in the park. It’s also really interesting to see different kids blooming and becoming people across their very short lifetimes.
The magic of today may actually have been NC State getting into the NCAA tournament. I’m picking them to go all the way baby! I love this time of year just for that. Let’s see if there’s magic to this team (feels like an ’83 kind of year).
On to the next one 🙂
The tax man wins again :-(
I just dropped off the check to our CPA to pay for his services. I really like the guy, but the results have been a bit brutal lately. Getting smart about finances and money management has been hard for us.
We’ve nailed budgets in Mint (what an awesome tool. I really wish they’d hired me sometimes).
We’re finally saving again post house acquisition.
But man oh man I don’t understand taxes at all, and I don’t get how to optimize for them. I really wish there was a dummies guide to living in Silicon Valley, getting Silicon Valley wages, and still feeling like the tax code isn’t screwing you. I guess the title is too long to fit onto the cover of the book though :-p
Eric stepped in and gave us a low down of what to do this year… which is really nice, but we learned the lesson two years too late.
Oh man this growing up thing can suck.