Not Hot

My sister has a friend named Harmony. I have never met Harmony but I think she might be the coolest person in the world. Besides the fact that she is a wickedly talented photographer (check out her website: Harmony J Photography) she always has the greatest ideas for her blogs. I'm in the process of trying to put together a blog about Christmas, but I thought this one might hold you over...

Harmony created a list of Hots and Nots...so here is my list:

HOT: My new vacuum cleaner

NOT: Lady Gaga. One of my co-workers is obsessed with her. I am so tired of hearing about her and the girl at the concert that threw up on stage as a part of the act and how cool she is. I can't stand her. She's weird and she dresses weird and the only talent she has is being weird. If that is enough to make you famous, I can be better known than Madonna.

HOT: My sister's cooking. She makes the best dinners...I love going to her house and having home cooked meals. Yum!

NOT: Best Buy telling me I would have my iPod back in 4 days...then a week later, telling me it will be a little longer...

Apple?

HOT: Books. I have about 50 that I want to read right now...just wish I had the time.

NOT: Leggings over a big butt. Ladies, please just don't. Men, an even bigger no.

Will that hold you over?

Holiday Wrap Up

This week, was pretty great actually.  Monday, I worked for 18 hours but I decided not to come in Tuesday until 9 so I wasn't all that exhausted...Tuesday, we were taken to see Kooza at the Santa Monica Peir.  It was absolutely amazing.  It was part theatre, part circus, part comedy show....

There were contortionists:

People balancing on balls who were being held by other people balancing on balls:

A dude wearing a thong and doing handstands on 14 stacked chairs:

Four guys on a tightrope:

A trapeze artist:

Two guys on a big steel wheel thing that turns and they jump off of it and cause your heart to leap into your throat:

In addition to these amazing acts,  there were several characters who were absolutely hilarious and spent their time making the audience laugh...and they were seriously funny...not, "oh geez, I'll laugh to be polite."  At one point, they made an audience member's chair shoot up into the air...completely unexpectedly.  She was laughing so hard I thought she was going to fall off the chair.  It was a fabulous night and something I would recommend anyone to do...

Wednesday, I spent the night running errands.  We had a holiday party on Thursday and I had offered to bring lasagna, not thinking about it logistically.  I tried to make the lasagna in the crock-pot, but when I got home to grab it on Thursday evening, IT was completely burned and gross.  So I freaked out, thinking "what can I bring?!" and quickly made a huge pot of spaghetti.  Even so, I was 2 hours late to the party...when I walked in, the VP of the digital team quickly took me under his wing and told me that he wishes he had known because he would have told me to forget the food and just come to the party.  He told me multiple times that night that I didn't need to be stressed around the people on that team ever.  He was super nice.  We had a white elephant exchange at the party...I gave a Snuggie for dogs in hot pink:

It was the hit of the party.  In return, I recieved a CD from Susan Boyle, the woman who took over Britain's Got Talent...for anyone who hasn't watched this, please do...one of the best feel good clips of the year.  The clip is here:

Susan Boyle Dreams a Dream

So anyway, I got her CD and a $15 gift card to Starbucks...both pretty sweet.  Even funnier and keeping with the Snuggie theme, on Friday, our rep from Amazon brought us all Snuggies with the Amazon logo on them.  I always laughed that I would never buy a Snuggie, but it is one of the coolest things I own now.  Remember, it's the blanket with sleeves!!!!

Tis the Season for Giving...

It's almost Christmas!  One of the greatest things about my job is that we are completely spoiled at Christmas.  Our reps like to thank us for our business, so they take us out, buy us expensive gifts, and generally bribe us to give them business again in the new year.  In DC, we got a lot of food...I think I got 5 giftcards to Starbucks last year...but also crazy amounts of gift baskets with fancy candies and cookies in them...it was kinda boring because I am the type of person who prefers Hershey chocolate over Godiva anyday.

So this year, I wasn't really expecting anything and to be honest, the holiday season really snuck up on me.  This past week, in addition to an insane workload, we were taken out every night.  More on how I handled that later.

Monday, our friends from Google took us to dinner at Bouchon in Beverly Hills.  We were picked up in black town cars at the office and driven to Beverly Hills.  Bouchon is the newest restaurant from celebrity chef Thomas Keller.  I have absolutely no idea who Thomas Keller is, but supposedly he's kinda a big deal.  They took us to a private room where we were given a 4 course pre-set menu chosen by Thomas Keller himself.  To be honest, the food was weird.  The appetizer was escargot, hummus, some kind of cheese puff, and a couple of other little munchy things.  Then we had a choice of butternut squash soup or salad with apples and walnuts with a walnut vinaigrette.  I chose the salad, but it turns out that the salad wasn't with regular lettuce, it was with some kind of oniony tasting thick stalk thing and clovers...really?  Clovers?  I really enjoyed the apples and walnuts though...and the vinaigrette was delish.  Dinner was either steak or salmon.  I chose the steak because we all know how much I love seafood.  The steak was covered in a paste of finely chopped onions and it was kinda tough, so didn't enjoy it.  Dessert was pretty amazing though, chocolate mouse or lemon tart...guess which one I chose.  Thomas Keller has a few cookbooks out so our reps "raffled" off 3 cookbooks and Thomas Keller was going to autograph them for the winners.  Then they gave us cookbook holders with the Google logo on it.  So not only do I love Gmail, Google, Blogger, and Google Wave, now I have a Google cookbook holder.  Is there anything Google cannot do?  While we were there, it was rumored that Star Jones and Don Johnson were there.  Yay.  I'm not really sure why, but we were invited on a tour of the kitchen.  It was a kitchen!  Very very clean which was impressive...

Everyone in the kitchen of Bouchon: Bart, Me, Chris, Courtney, Stacey, Andy, Bryan, Alyssa, Danielle, Mike, Elizabeth, and two chefs

Tuesday night I did not want to go out.  I was exhausted and in a really bad mood and just wanted to go home and climb into bed, but I went out anyway.  I am so so glad I did.  Our Conde Nast reps took us to Cut, Wolfgang Puck's restaurant which is located in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (where Pretty Woman was filmed).  Everyone got there at 7ish and I didn't roll in until 9 (I was still working) but the appetizers were just being delivered, so it was perfect timing.  Supposedly, Wolfgang came to the table and recommended a certain kind of steak on the menu, but I didn't see him because I was so late.  I looked at the menu and had to hide my shock.  A 6 oz filet ranged in price from $65 to $135.  This of course, did not include sides, appetizers, drinks, dessert....So I chose the steak that Wolfgang suggested which was $85.  I still can't believe that...and $85 steak...who does that?  The steak was absolutely phenomenal.  It was very honestly a melt in your mouth wonderful yummy amazing meal.  I was so stuffed when I left, I could barely walk.  Anyway, the first part of the meal...the appetizers came out and much to my surprise, there was a plate with two vertebrae on it.  What?  Supposedly, bone marrow is a delicacy.  Everyone was talking about how it tastes like melted butter so I tried it...no thank you.  I don't think I could get it out of my head that I was eating bone marrow.

Bone Marrow with mushroom stuff on the side...um, I'm good, thanks...

The steak and sides were amazing and they gave us dessert "on the house."  I loved everything about this place...it was just that good...I would gladly go back even though it's so expensive....

Wednesday night, I opted out of the "festivities."  There were about 15 parties going on.  I was so tired that I went home, got some stuff done that I needed to get done and went to bed by midnight.  Thursday during the day, I heard all day about how out of control people were because they were so drunk, and so and so passed out at this place, and remember how so and so fell?  And wow, we are all so hungover/still drunk that it's amazing we're at work today...I was told that they are going to teach me how to party...I responded in kind that I did that kind of partying in college when I could sleep in the next day and wasn't around people who would be deciding whether or not I get a raise.

Thursday night, my team was taken out by our reps at Facebook, but I don't think I was invited (even though everyone insists I was, I didn't see the invite come through) so I had already made plans to go to trivia...I didn't end up going to trivia because I didn't end up leaving work until around 9, but it was still earlier than an 11:00 night had I gone out.

Friday we had a company wide "Holiday Adventure."  I had to do some work before we left, so I came in at 7am.  Everyone was grumbling about the adventure because they would not tell us what we were doing...they just told us to wear good walking shoes and to be prepared to stand around a lot.  We all immediately thought either Disney Land, Six Flags, or Universal Studios.  The problem is that it recently has gotten very cold (okay, 40's, that's cold for here) and it has been raining a lot lately.  Friday, it rained all day long so we were anticipating standing outside in the cold rain to go on rides that wouldn't run because they typically don't run in the rain....Turns out, we were completely off.  Everyone was put into teams of 5 and we were given a packet that we weren't allowed to open until we got on the bus.  When we opened the packet, we found out that we were going to go on a scavenger hunt at the Grammy museum.

I didn't know anyone on my team, but we worked really well together and came in 6th place.  After the scavenger hunt, they took us to a Mexican restaurant, gave us 2 drink tickets and gave us a really good meal...I didn't order alcohol, but supposedly the margaritas had about 3 shots of tequila in them, so people were feeling good.  My team sat together for lunch and while other people were mingling, we all just stayed put and talked.  On the way back to the office, the big boss said "Oh, by the way, we're done for the day.  Everyone needs to go home."  I knew we had a lot of work to do, so I went back up to the office, but my department manager told us to go home and have a good weekend.  I had been planning to work this weekend too but she told us that it wasn't necessary...awesome!  So Friday I got home at 4, I am going into the office tomorrow, but it's nothing compared to what I was preparing myself for.

This coming week, we're going to see Cirque du Soleil in Santa Monica and we have a team holiday party on Thursday...I'll let you know how it goes in my post next week!!

Working forever

This week was lots of work...I worked until 9 or later every night but Tuesday when I went to trivia.  We are super busy right now with a huge campaign that's going on...you've probably seen the ads as you've been watching TV or perusing the internet, but then again, it's a geographically targeted campaign so maybe not.  Oh sorry, according to the new FTC laws, I have to disclose that I WORK FOR SONY ELECTRONICS, I AM NOT PROMOTING ANY CONTENT FOR SONY ELECTRONICS WITHOUT DISCLOSING THAT I WORK FOR SONY ELECTRONICS.  Ugh, wish I could send the FTC whatever comes out of this copy machine...

I've been getting frustrated with work but I think that I have a handle on a plan to make things less stressful for myself.  I discussed it with my boss today and we're going to work on implementing my coping techniques?  Maybe my organizational points...anyway, we're working on it which makes me feel better.  


I'm almost completely better.  I still have a bad cough and am completely drained but I don't generally feel crappy.  I finally cleaned my apartment, like super cleaned my apartment last night.  I hadn't cleaned, with the exception of doing dishes since I got sick...I just haven't had time.  Now the only thing I'm overwhelmed with is my laundry.  I went to do it last night but the elevator in my apartment building wasn't working and I certainly wasn't lugging a laundry basket up and down 9 flights of stairs.  I did register to vote in California last night, even though I haven't officially established residency in the state yet.  Hmmmm...


The reason I didn't do laundry/clean last week is because I was at my sister's house for Thanksgiving.  Her awesome neighbors invited us over for dinner on Thanksgiving.  It was slightly chaotic with 15 kids running around, but they were all very well behaved.  It definitely was a great form of birth control though...I'm absolutely not at that stage of my life yet, to be married, having children, having to be home to work around a kid's schedule.  I like being able to run out at 1 in the morning if I want to or going out to nice dinners (through work, but still).  If I had a kid, it would take a lot more energy for me to be a good parent than I'm willing to dedicate at this time.  However, I'm not worried about it.  If I find someone to settle down with and IF we decide to have kids, I know that it will be at the right time when that doesn't seem like such a big deal.  Right now, I don't even think I can handle a dog...I don't want to be married or in a serious relationship at this point, having to answer to someone else.  I like being selfish with my time right now.  I'm just coming into my own, so I want to enjoy that and when it's time for me to settle down with a man and a puppy or kid, it won't seem like so much of a sacrifice.  


I'll tell you what though, this kid is super cute:

Her mother decided to torture her to take photos.  Reagan wanted nothing to do with this hat and she took it off almost as soon as it was plopped on her head...Smart kid.

Kerry's friends are super nice and I'm really happy that she has that support system.  Her neighbors bring her leftovers for dinner and they hang out together a lot.  In some cases, I think having children and leaving your kids with a babysitter to hang out with your friends is inappropriate, but in Kerry's case, they often bring their kids with them.  Kerry asked her friend Karen to come over and Karen brought her 3 children who played with Reagan and we all had dinner together.  It was great.  Kerry's neighbors get their kids together and even on Thanksgiving, the kids were all playing wonderfully together...It was really nice, and I think a perfect and appropriate way for the adults to have adult company and the kids to have kid fun.

The Lang/Bosworth girls on Thanksgiving

We also put up Kerry's Christmas tree, well, Kerry put up her Christmas tree and I did a cross stitch and Reagan tangled up the lights.  Kerry invited her friends, the Roes, over to help decorate. 

We also took Reagan to see Santa.  Reagan does not like men.  It's kinda funny.  I'm sure her daddy will be happy if this keeps up, but she is very afraid of men right now.  Their neighbor, Dan is a very nice man, but Reagan will not go anywhere near him.  It amuses me because Kerry and I read the blog of a guy who lost his wife 24 hours after his daughter was born.  His daughter refuses to go to women.  It's an interesting observation that each child (Maddy is a month older than Reagan) prefers the gender of the parent whom they are around the most.  Anyway, we took Reagan to see Santa at the Hanford Mall and she buried her little face into her mommy's neck and would not go with him.  I told Kerry that having a picture of an 18 month old Reagan screaming on Santa's lap could be amusing and something we look back on and laugh, but Kerry didn't want to traumatize her kid...I don't know why, so many people do it: (maybe this is why I should not be a mom yet...)

Anyway, this is what Reagan's Santa visit looked like:

Other than Kerry making some really yummy food (she's a very good cook), that was really our time in Hanford.  Kerry and I watched either Criminal Minds or House Hunters every night, but it was perfect for me to get over my illness, well, that and the vicodin and codine that they gave me.  :o)

This past week, I had a first...I went to trivia for the first time.  When I first moved out here, I found a group online that goes to trivia in Woodland Hills, which is about an hour north of where I live/work.  It's been really tough to get there because of work events and just work in general.  I did meet up with 3 of them to go bowling on a Friday, but so far hadn't made it to trivia.  Tuesday was just one of those days and I decided that I could use a couple of drinks and some fun, so I took the trek.  It's not too bad getting out there, I just have to leave by 7 to go.  Anyway, long story short, I had an amazing time.  

The group is comprised of 8 people, mostly women but 2 men as well.  Five of us are from the east coast, 2 from Rhode Island, 2 from PA and then me.  The 5 people are also recent transplants, so I feel very comfortable with them.  There's definitely a different mindset between east coast and west coast people, and most of these people are still very east coast minded so I feel at ease with them...anyway, we came in first place and took home the prize, a $30 gift certificate to the pub we were in.  It will be good to put towards the bill next week!  I did get a parking ticket though...in the month I've been here, I already owe the state of California almost $400 just in traffic violations, that doesn't include getting my registration/address switched over....not happy.  I'm going to contest the parking ticket though...there were no signs or red curbs...


This week is going to be work busy again, but we're going to 2 dinners and on a company "holiday adventure" so I'll have lots to write about next week!

Sooo Sick

This week I got to experience my California first...I got the flu.  It's completely frustrating because I got the flu over New Year's last year and ended up spending New Year's Eve in bed, by myself.  Then, as I was moving, I had a bug and was running a fever for most of the time I was packing.  Then, not even a month later, I got a raging case of the flu.  I blame one of my co-workers who ended up going to the hospital because her fever was so high, and then coming into work the next day because she had so much to do that just couldn't be delegated.  I now have exactly what she had.  And I'm sick as a dog.  :(

It started Wednesday with a feeling of ickyness.  Thursday I had the cough.  Friday I stayed home and went to the doctor.  It was a clinic in the ghetto somewhere, and I walked in and was the only person for blocks who didn't speak Spanish as a first language.  The doctor came in, talked to me for literally 2 minutes, listened to my lungs and told me it was a respiratory infection, gave me a shot in my butt that he said would make me feel better in 2 hours and gave me an antibiotic.  That night, I started to feel achy and my cough got worse.  The shot made my joints start to hurt and needless to say, I was not feeling better.  Saturday, I started running the high fever. I ended up going to the store to get a thermometer and tylenol...for the past 36 hours, my fever has ranged from 100.5-104.7...finally about an hour ago, it broke and I am officially at a 99.8 which is a vast improvement but I still feel like death warmed over, so I'm going back to my couch/bed and I'm going to rest up, try to get better so that I can actually enjoy a holiday with my family this week...

Boring life

I really don't have anything to share this week.  Life has been boring.  Work, come home, sleep, then work again.  Went bowling with my co-workers and then to Beso, Eva Longoria's restaurant last week.  Bowling was fun, Beso was eh...I wasn't impressed with the food.  Friday I went bowling with the trivia group I signed up for.  This weekend I ran errands.  I only have one picture...It's of my co-workers at Beso.

From Left to Right: Bryan (my boss), Amy (the rep who took us out), Andy, Daniella, Me, Karen, Stacey, Elizabeth and Courtney

Long Week

It's been a very long week.  We're still working on our launch, but I feel like I'm getting more comfortable with the programs and processes.  Although I'm not completely comfortable with anything yet.

The big event of this week is that I went to a pub crawl sponsored by TMZ.  They got us a double decker bus and paid for everyone to basically get completely wasted.  I took the photos off of my boss's facebook page, so I'm sorry that they aren't up to my usual standards.  :)

The Bus

Everyone On the Bus

I got on the bus and one of the guys looked at me and told me I looked familiar.  He asked where I went to high school and when I was like "too far away" he pressed more.  Turns out, he went to Fallston High School (one of my high school's biggest rivals) and we went to middle school together.  We were in the same class even.  It was so bizarre.  He's the guy above in the light blue shirt and the grey golf hat.

The night was weird and I think I'll be skipping out on any future pub crawls.

We have many more events coming up this week, next week and through January.  I think I'm going to a movie premiere this week but I can't quite remember.  I just have to figure out a good life/work balance.  I'm working on making some outside of work friends but that's more difficult than one might think  I'm actually getting pretty homesick and just really want to call up one of my friends and say "hey, let's go out and get a drink" or "let's go to a movie."  Since I get so nervous and uncomfortable around new people and it's only new people out here, I'm in a constant state of nervousness, but I know that I can't stick my head in the sand and that I'm the only person who can change that.  I'm going to a meeting tomorrow evening and I've been told that that kind of meeting is a good place to find friends.  I'll keep you all updated!

 

Everybody's Working for the Weekend!

I jumped into my new job on a Monday.  It started with me meeting my team who brought me breakfast, then meeting with HR, then meeting with just about everyone else.  My team was/is in the middle of a huge launch so I was kinda thrown into the mix...My team is super cool.

Starting from the top, Stacy is our assistant media director and the "team lead."  She is in her early 30's, late 20's and is really nice.  She knows a lot about the client, company, LA in general.  She's really nice and super positive.  Elizabeth is the other assistant media director is from Bethesda, also late 20's or early 30's.  Karen is our Campaign Optimization Specialist.  I think she and I are actually a lot alike.  She's in her late 20's.  Under Karen is Bryan (my boss) and Courtney.  Courtney is in her mid 20's and is from Hawaii.  She speaks in Pidgin a lot...the other day she said "Dat pow brah?" meaning "Is that finished?"  She had to translate to everyone.  It was pretty funny.  Under her is Andy.  He's 23, from Kansas City and really into pop culture.  He goes out every night and knows everything about Lady Gaga, The Real Housewives of New York...My boss's name is Bryan.  He's from Houston and is super cool.  He is very positive and never seems to get flustered.  I'm not sure if it's the West Coast or if it's Bryan, but he has the mentality that we are only two people and can't do everything in one day.

I started work in the middle of a huge campaign launch so I was kinda thrown in and told "do this, we'll explain it later."  This coming week should be a little easier, but we've been working extremely long hours.  Luckily I get paid overtime!

My first week at UM, we were invited to Mastro's, a steakhouse, in Beverly Hills.  The Washington Post took us, coincidentally.  This place was like a Ruth's Chris...I had a filet and it cost $36.  It was wonderful food and it was a great introduction to LA.

 I have to say that Los Angeles has many more perks than DC did.  So far I've been invited (for free) to the dinner with the Washington Post, a party at the Forever Hollywood Cemetery hosted by MySpace, the official opening night of "This Is It", the Michael Jackson movie, Cirque du Soleli's Kooza in Santa Monica in December, a screening of the movie 2012, a bar crawl in Hollywood by TMZ, a dinner someplace fancy by Sports Illustrated...and I've only been there for 2 weeks!!  It's unbelievable!!

Also last week, my boxes were delivered.  I got everything unpacked last weekend.  There were MAJOR issues with the movers, so for everyone reading, do not use America Vanline (based out of Owings Mills) for your next move or you might have a 300 pound Russian dude coming after you.  I may or may not have a hit out on me by the Russian Mob.  Just sayin...

Like I said everything was unpacked last weekend...What took me a week to pack took me 2 days to unpack.  That's pretty cool.

Kitchen looking to the window

Kitchen from the window looking back

Table and Pictures

New microwave!!

Looking out towards the windows, Main Room

Computer Corner

My bed and dresser, looking back towards the front door

My closet (behind the mirrors) and blue chair

Dressing room (the back wall is a mirror, it isn't that cluttered!

Bathroom

Entry Way

I don't have all of my pictures hung yet, I need to find a man to help.  I'm pretty sure the walls are brick with drywall overtop because the nails/screws won't go in all the way.  My neighbors aren't bad, but my monkey welcome mat was stolen and the neighbor to the right of me plays club music pretty loudly during the day.  I'm pretty mad about the floor mat, but what can I do?  The club music is only during the day, so even that doesn't bother me.  Everyone I've met in the elevator seems really nice so far.

My work building is really cool.  The other people in the building are OWN (the Oprah Winfrey Network), Fuzzy Door Productions (Seth MacFarlane, the creater of Family Guy and American Dad's company).  Across the street is the E! Network and Ryan Seacrest broadcasts a show that overlooks the courtyard in between our buildings.

The sign for my office building

My building from across the street

This weekend, I went up to Hanford to hang out with Kerry and Reagan for Halloween.  I wore my awesome Bumblebee costume that I could barely sit down in.  Reagan was a peanut because Kerry calls her "Peanut".  I left Saturday morning and got there around noon.  We immediately started carving pumpkins.  Reagan was less than thrilled with the orange goop on the inside, so she quickly found other ways to keep herself entertained.

She was curious about the big orange things, but didn't want to play with us...

Ewwwww!!!!

Our finished product

Reagan took a nap and Kerry and I hung out.  Finally, we all got dressed and Reagan and Kerry went trick or treating while I stayed home to hand out candy.  Reagan seemed to love trick or treating.

Reagan came to her own door to trick or treat

She liked counting her candy

In, Out, In, Out...

Bee and Peanut!

I know I'm shamelessly exploiting my niece here, but HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!