Bobbie

The Venetian

December 9, 2010December 18, 2010 BobbieLeave a comment

When travelling for work, you expect different things out of your hotel from what you would expect on a leisure trip. For example: I want my work hotel to have high-speed, wifi internet. I want it to have an iron, and aboard, without calling someone. I want it to have basic toiletries, I want it to have space to spread out. I want it to have wake up calls, a tv in the room, and access to coffee.

In a leisure room, I want luxury toiletries. I want an amazing view. I want the TV to have multiple channels, I want lots of extra pillows. I want an extra towel or two. I wouldn’t mind a sofa or sitting area.

Hello, Venetian: you have all of the above. Let’s start with the most awesome and relevant to the Bobbie: toiletries.

There are the basics: shampoo, conditioner, body lotion. Then there’s body wash. Oh and then there’s the amenities, which include Q-tips, a nail file, a cuticle pusher, and not only a shower cap but a SCRUNCHY to go with it.

A scrunchy. In a hotel. Wrapped in plastic. Like, “this is your scrunchy, you can use it, and if you don’t it remains in plastic, and don’t worry we have 80billion more in plastic just waiting”.

Then, there is the view: I can see the entire north end of Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Hilton, over the Wynn’s golf course, and up on to the mountains.

Then, there are the five (5) pillows that come on my bed. The sofa and separate sitting area. The three (3) flatscreen TV’s. There are the incredibly friendly and helpful hotel staff, there is the assiduous security, there is the overeager climate system (warning: if you want snow in your room, you can very nearly create it with the air conditioning. If you want a sauna, you can do that too).

I really love this hotel.

I’m here in Vegas on work. This means each morning I get up no later than 7 — often earlier, if I want to work out in their gym*, which is just slightly smaller than my expensive fancy gym back home and just as well stocked — and I’m in their meeting rooms until 5 or 6. Then I’m eating in their restaurants, decompressing in their bars, and back to my room to sleep. The entire experience is one where the only thing that is taxed is my liver and my working brain. This is good.

But every thing reaches a point of excess where it’s just too much, and you want to go home: I’m not there with the Venetian. I’m kinda there with Vegas. As I haven’t spent much time outside of my hotel, this makes zero sense, I know. But after work and work and work, and party and party and party, I’m just a little vegas’d out. I should’ve ridden the bull at Gilly’s last night.

*Gym: comprehensive weight room. Several cardio bikes, several treadmills, several stair-steppers. Full set of cardio weightlifting machines. Yoga/Pilates room. Spin class. Spa.

Drive

December 8, 2010 BobbieLeave a comment

There is a really, really good short video on “Drive”, aka, what drives people. What makes them want to succeed. And things not to try in that venue. You can get it here.

I have spent the last two days in Vegas surrounding various concepts of “drive”. How to drive money. How to drive production. How to drive traffic. How to drive employees. How to drive change, innovation, and how to drive drive itself. You name it, we have contingency plans to push it. We are a V8^2 machine, on racing fuel, listening to Metallica.

This evening’s party was at Gillys at Treasure Island. For those of you not familiar with Gilly’s it features bikini-and-chaps clad drink waitresses and a mechanical bull. And really, that about sums it up, doesn’t it?

Except yours truly decided to find something to do. Now when you’re at Work-Fun events, usually there’s a center of interest — sometimes it’s the “boss”, sometimes its the event itself, but this event was about release. And there was a mechanical bull.

I decided to work on my powers of persuasion. You see, I’m a geek. I was trained to ferret out information, issues, data, contingencies, anomalies. I was not trained to convince, addle, wheedle, or persuade. This is something that has, until recently, been merely a hobby.

I am proud to report I got someone up on the mechanical bull. The fact that he nearly broke his nose is not a point of pride… he is clearly more man than I … and I did NOT succeed in convincing my boss, my boss’ boss, or my boss’ boss’ bosses into doing it. Still: I got one up there.

After nearly two weeks straight of daily work, at 10-16 hour days, to get Plan out (and other initiatives), I find myself exhausted in Las Vegas. I have an incredible room — next post is a hotel review about The Venetian and It’s Inherent Awesomeness in One Thousand Words or Less — and supportive folks and I have no right to whine. I even have Discovery Channel on the telle.

And with that I’m going to it. It’s almost midnight, I have meetings in 8 hours. Whee!

Black Friday

November 27, 2010 Bobbie1 Comment

No, I didn’t go shopping. I worked. I worked yesterday too.

I’ll work tomorrow and Sunday. All of this is most unfortunate because I had a series of conference calls and email round-robins with folks as early as July, and yet no one figured out until about a week ago that *something* needed to be done, and apparently it’s me with a huge S on my chest, for “Super” or “Something” or “Silly”, because I’m doing it. By “it” I mean cramming about 7 days worth of work into a 3-day period.

In honor of this momentous occasion, and the fact that by virtue of working I completely missed the two things I was going to purchase on Black Friday (1, I’m in Arizona; 2, the online sales I was after were apparently on Eastern Standard Time and I just finished working for the day. It’s 11pm local), I give you optimism.

Or pessimism.

This all started with a fridge. I’m at my parents house in Scottsdale, Arizona, where they have two refrigerators. One in the kitchen, and one in an anteroom. This isn’t uncommon but what *is* is that both fridges are completely stocked. My mother could be Mormon if she wanted to be; the secondary fridge is stocked with flours and cereals and spare juice and all kinds of things. As we played Tetris to get the Thanksgiving leftovers put away, I remarked that most people’s fridges are only half-full.

Which started, in my head, all of the ways people look at things. I want you to know that between this and distributing a 10-figure sum I stayed up late last night with insomnia.

Optimist: the glass is half full.
Pessimist: the glass is half empty.
Realist: it’s a glass of water.
Engineer: the glass is too big for the water it contains.
Project Manager: we overspec’d the glass, just in case.
My counterpart in Europe: Over here, we say it differently, and we’ve been drinking longer.
My counterpart in Asia Pacific: Our glasses are a bit more engineered than yours, you may want to stick with yours.
QA Tester: hey, look, you told us to drink from it, but there is no use case for measuring how much water is in there.
UAT Tester: so, just the one glass, then?
End User: damn, it would’ve been great if the glass was pink.
Trader Joe’s Employee: you know, I have a glass just like this at home, and I like to fill it with…
My son’s Principal: I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the glass and its contents…
My son: well, you see, I tried to make the glass out of Legos, but it couldn’t hold enough water, which is why there’s only what you see there, and if IronMan/Tony Stark made it, it would have had this cool gun on it…
My stepmother: you should drink more water.
My mother: that glass should be filled with wine.
My dog: if the glass has water in it maybe she’ll go to the kitchen to put more water in it and bring me bacon.
My postmaster: Are you sure this is your glass? (In reference to the question marks I often get appearing on letters to not-necessarily-me-but-people-I-traffic-mail-for)
My stick-shift driving instructor: The important thing to note about the glass is how it sounds different as you drink from it.
My best friend: I’m with your mom on the wine thing.
My boyfriend: I’m with your best friend on that. Well, not *with* her, I mean honey, I’m really with you, and whatever you want is fine with me. It’s your glass and I support your choices.
My boss: Water, huh? You may want to switch that to coffee after this next meeting.
My skip level: Can I get a 3-or-4 slide deck, nothing big, with a complete analysis of the glass?
TSA Agent: put the glass on the belt, walk through here, and yes there may be less water by the time we’re done.
Alton Brown: Water is two hydrogens bonded to an oxygen at a 112 degree covalent bond angle, which explains why it boils/freezes/makes a good base/etc… blah blah blah science meets yummy food.
Virtuous Person at Work: is that all the water you’re drinking? I have this 128 ounce BHA free stainless bottle that I tote while riding the bus and bringing in my lunch when not riding my bike the 25 miles in.

and lastly, I give you my father:

Drink the goddamn glass of water already.

A Ballet of Another Sort

November 23, 2010 Bobbie1 Comment

I live on a 9% grade hill, which is nothing to sneeze at. I’ve biked up it, run up it, walked up it, sashayed, sauntered, and even, once, slunk up it. I can also drive up it, in the snow and ice, even.

Most unlike the unfortunate souls out there this evening.

It’s Snowpocalypse 2010 in Seattle and the Eastside, and here I am looking out my library picture window onto my main street. It’s a two lane road, with one going “up” and one going “down”, bike lanes on either side, generous sidewalk as well. It’s the main drag between the area arterial and most of the McMansions I live amongst.

You can tell who has AWD or knows how to drive in snow and ice: they go thundering on up (or down) the hill at the usual 25 (30, 35) mph. Then there are those who climb the hill…

…and brake. For no apparent reason.

Then they discover they can’t start again, and the melody of skidding, slipping tires fills the air. It’s not long before this is joined by the merry (!) honking of the horn of the person behind them who, instead of simply driving around them, also brakes. And is stuck.

Inevitably, one or more of the cars involved pull over in a sense of despair, put on their hazard lights, and trudge up the hill. A few are on their phones, making arrangements for someone to retrieve them (presumably) at the top of the hill. As they trudge off into the dark, I hear the familiar slithering sounds of the next round of tires.

The resultant detritus stands at six cars currently, 3 of which are minivans. As of this writing my driveway is not blocked but there are, of course, no guarantees.

Sigh. 7.

Getting it in Gear

November 16, 2010 Bobbie2 Comments

I have this list of things I think I really ought to learn to do, or should change in my habits. For example, some of the latter include an average of one “me” night per week, or healthier eating habits. The former include things like “learn to ski” and “learn to drive a stick shift”.

Today was my first driving lesson: stick shift. It was in a Subaru which was fancier than any other Subaru I’d been in, and the car itself had been driven to the arctic circle. It had a good deal more computers and junk in it one would expect of a Subaru.

It also had a stick. On the stick was a little diagram, like the three-man Henkel’s diagram, except this one had little numbers (1-5) and an R. We didn’t mess much with that. Instead, there is this other thing it had: a clutch. I can understand the physics of a clutch just fine.

Practical application, however, found me lacking. Safely nestled in the semi-empty parking area in the back of Bellevue Square, my instructor (hm, let’s call him G, to protect the innocent) had me, before starting the car, have my left foot fully extended to fully depress the clutch. Then, my right foot fully extended to depress the brake. Then, and only then, could I start the car. The image you should get here is of someone trying desperately to force their feet through the floorboards, white knuckling the wheel.

At this point, I should note, I hadn’t moved or done anything, except for starting the car.

With the car started, there was oration on how I would carefully lift my foot off of the brake, carefully put said foot (the right foot – Dexter) on the gas so as to get to 1,500 RPM, and then carefully remove my foot (left foot – Sinister) from the clutch, and roll forward.

This I did, but in no way shape or form was it elegant. It was a bit lurchy, although I didn’t stall the car there. I stalled it on the next go, and then at the turn I had to do, and then a third time. The total of stalls were about 3, the total of start/stop practices were roughly 12 (4 laps, 3 each) plus some extra little ones at the end. I learned many things, including:

Wearing high-heeled boots is not an intelligent driving choice when dealing with a stick.
That little wiggly thing people do with the stick actually has purpose.
You can tell if you are revving the car up too much because it sounds different.
You can tell if you are at the point where you will not stall because it sounds different.
Mall security will wait patiently behind you while you practice driving until your instructor waves them by, whereupon they will rev past you at 40 mph, to illustrate their point.
Thirty minutes go fast when you are clenching every muscle below your waist and at the end of your arms.

Lost and Found

November 15, 2010 Bobbie1 Comment

Having a nearly 8-year-old son means I have the karmic retribution my parents longed for when I was 8. Actually, more like when I was 9 and 10. I was 9 when I got glasses.

I left them everywhere.

Even at 9, I didn’t like the stigma that glasses came with (when you’re older they denote maturity and intelligence, when you’re younger they simply — or it seemed to me — equated to “outcast”). I can remember my dad getting nearly home and having to turn around the car and drive back to the school where I had to hunt for my glasses — and I remember to this day where they were: there was a low, curved, brick wall that encircled the larger recess area and I had left them there, on the top of the wall, in the sun. The “reactive tint” technology had just come out and, having baked in the sun for what must have been 2 or 3 hours, they looked like any normal pair of sunglasses. My parents had opted for this technology on glasses for a 9 year old not really because I was outside all that much — although I was, and it was California, after all — but because this “sunglass effect” was supposed to lighten the stigmatic load. I waited ten long years for contacts and was ever so happy when I got them.

I therefore “get it” that it is now my station as mom to contend with an endless stream of semi-lost and permanently lost items. In kindergarten, it was the good heavy winter coat (a Carhart one), in first grade more than one hoodie and two pairs of gloves were never to be found again. This year’s permanent lost item would appear to be the Harry Potter scarf I knitted for him, the loss of which he feels more than I do (which is saying something). I do not hesitate to point out there is a perfectly functional lost and found at his school; I also do not hesitate to point out that it is used by some children (and likely some morally flexible parents) as a trading game.

At the end of every month, the lost and found is weeded: any items not clearly marked with first and last name are taken to a charity in Guatemala. I don’t know what the winters are like in Guatemala but as the things typically lost are scarves, gloves, hats, and jackets, those kids should be set for inclement weather. My son had chosen that day to lose his grey “Hurley” hoodie — Hurley hoodies being what Costco sells and are quite ubiquitous in the local school system here. A quick inspection at home proved it wasn’t here, so I got in touch with the gal who does Lost and Found Donations and was granted an audience in her garage…

…where the BoyChild and I went through three 60 gallon bags of items collected from the Lost and Found at his school. This provided me two benefits: one, I realized mine wasn’t the only child who misplaced things, and two, I realized there were other parents who are apparently so wealthy they do not notice the absence of jackets, sweaters, lunch boxes, etc. Or not much.

The Hurley wasn’t there. Its distant cousin — same grey color, slightly different lining — was there, however, and we had picked it out by accident. Upon inspection though we determined it wasn’t the BoyChild’s, and then he announced that the zipper was broken. The Lost and Found lady was disappointed, and went to trash an otherwise perfectly good hoodie.

To which I interjected: I would take the hoodie, and repair the zipper, and the BoyChild would pay for the zipper as amends for losing *his* hoodie. Then we’d put the hoodie back into the Lost and Found, giving the original owner the opportunity to collect a now repaired hoodie (and hopefully pay it forward) or at least ensuring a functional piece of clothing in donation.

(At this point I should note that I had never replaced a zipper on a garment. I had never put a zipper into any new garment. I had managed to lead a life of garment creation based on buttons or elastic, which means no, I don’t do much in the way of making non-costume clothing).

Tonight the zipper was installed in said hoodie, and it looks I think quite well done. It goes back into the Lost and Found tomorrow, the BoyChild is out $3.67 (after tax), I have one less thing on my to-do plate, and now I can figure out if I want a zipper in my Chiffon Hoodie.

Yes: I was serious about that.

All Tharp, All The Time

November 12, 2010 Bobbie2 Comments

NB: I totally blogged about all of this last night, from my iPhone, at like 11pm. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to post, and so I am re-blogging, in a much less recent/scintillating fashion. Sorry about that.

I didn’t have time to write, as originally planned, during the intermissions. For one, each intermission was 20 minutes and that’s barely enough time to get up and walk the four paces to the orchestra (like, the people actually playing the music) and take pictures of them while they hustle around, then talk to Nancy, then go to the ladies’, then tweet and retweet, and then talk to Nancy some more, and take a few more pictures. I mean, come on — where are YOUR priorities?

Who’s Nancy? Nancy was the seating-guide-and-programme-handing-lady, and she is a real hoot. Nancy’s got two daughters — one in Portland is a GM for a hotel (I didn’t tell her who I work for) and the other in NYC doing stand up. Nancy recognized all of the regulars — she was able to tell them things like “this is a lot like that one program you saw that you got up and left after the intermission”. She was also full of information: an hour before each performance there is a presentation on what the show is about (kinda necessary with ballet), and afterwards you can talk to some of the dancers (I didn’t because it was too late for this turnip by then).

Wait! I’m supposed to be talking about the ballet, though, aren’t I? Ok:

First Performance: Opus 111, music by Brahms, with 12 dancers. There were three groups of four dancers, each of the four dancers (2 ladies, 2 gents) had matching dress, with slightly different colors than the other three groups. So if dance group 1 had purple tights with a brown top and an orange sash, then dance group 3 had brown tights with an orange top and a purple sash, etc. This is clumsy to write about; so here is a picture:

Pictures are awesome. At any rate, this piece was extremely… athletic. You can see from the photo that there is a lot of arm movement — more than the standard arms-up ballet moves you see — and that was consistent through the entire evening. For this one, though, there were a lot of deep squats, lunges, lifting of whole bodies with one arm, etc. As I was front row I was able to see all of the muscles functioning, and the little rivulets of sweat, and honestly? It works. It’s one thing to see a graceful dance, it’s another thing to see the technical skill that must be employed to do it and not have that sight diminish the gracefulness.

Then there was the intermission where I decided I am going to make myself a chiffon hoodie.

Then the second piece was Afternoon Ball. It features a scant 5 dancers, 3 are ruffians/urchins/smack addicts; 2 are fancy-dress ball-dancing. This was one of those performances where it would have been good to get the information on what I was supposed to see in it; I have no idea what the intent was, but here is my take: 3 rough-and-tumble people, living on the street, begging for money and having all of the dramas that that implies (drugs, odd allegiances, etc.). Dancing around them is this extremely well-to-do couple, always missing the urchins by just so much space, completely ignoring them (and ignored by the urchins). At the end, the lady and gent dance off, the girl urchin leaves with one guy, and we have one urchin left, in the cold, alone. And he freezes to death (the last dancer to come out is dressed all in resplendent, floor-length, twinkling white; an icy angel of death. As she puts her hand on his shoulder, the stage lights go completely out). It was BRUTAL. And amazing.

Here are the urchins:

With this done I went back to the ladies, chatted with Nancy, read some work email, and texted the male person to inform him that we would be possibly dragging him to a ballet next year.

Then I decided to actually read the programme, and the last piece “Waterbaby Bagatelles” included 7 music pieces. Number 5 of 7 was by Astor Piazzolla, who is probably the most famous tango musician in the world and certainly my father’s favorite. The seven pieces were very different — dramatic, heavy music; light, fluffy bits; crazy bits. The costuming ranged from what looked like those 1950’s water-dancing movies to what had to be nearly sprayed-on velour bodysuits (tops optional for men). Again, the costumer allowed us to see the amazing musculature of these folks.

I read somewhere that the dancers have an hour-long class on technique each day, and then another 6 to 8 hours of practice, every day. It shows in that unless you’re absolutely looking for it, you don’t see it.

Late to Class

November 11, 2010 Bobbie1 Comment

Everyone has that nightmare: it’s final exam day and you’re completely unprepared and possibly naked in class. Or you’re extremely late to class. Or unprepared in some other way. Or both.

Today I was.

And was again.

I was checking through the site of my nice fancy gym as to which class was available at the time I needed to go today — craziness abounded what with the car coming back from the shop — and discovered a good one about an hour from when I was checking. An hour later I found myself at the gym and went to the room where there is usually the pilates/sculpt kind of classes I go to. When I arrive they’re already in to the routine — there are scary looking poles and bars and barbells and pads and steps and stuff, but it’s all good I can do it. I found an empty spot, acquired equipment, laid down and did some wicked crunches for about 5 minutes…

…and class ended.

I had attended the wrong class.

I left that room and checked the other room that I’m less often going to and sure enough, there were ladies with pilates balls and mats doing interesting stretchy things, and they were 8 minutes into it. So not only was I late to class, but I was late to TWO classes, and completely unprepared. I did my 50 or so minutes, complete with odd twists and turns that make my butt feel (this evening) like it wants to fall off.

This was not as bad as the dream I have where it’s vertebrate histology and they tested us off of six slides on the projector — and actually, that happened in real life — but still. Quite embarrassing.

Score One for the New Girl

November 9, 2010 Bobbie2 Comments

OMG OMG OMG O YOU GUYS!

I was totally right.

The Group Power instructor (Group Power being the hold these large barbells and do things like lunges and squats and lifts and all that in time with the Bee Gees and Twisted Sister, I so kid you not) WAS A CHEERLEADER! I totally called it. No one can have that much fun with a large group of people doing something that most would find only circumstantially appropriate.

Oh, fine, thus endeth the cheerleader hate. (I wasn’t one in high school, could you tell?)

Also, this was my second Group Power class. And I doubled my weight (no, not what I weigh, but what I lifted and hoisted and “singled” and “doubled” and all that). I am feeling very very good. I know I will be feeling very very sore tomorrow, but we aren’t there yet.

In other news, my latest big unwieldy project at work hopes to deliver on Wednesday, the boy is wrapping up soccer this week, and I am going to the ballet (alone! and I’m glad!) on Thursday.

I think I’ll get strangers to take a picture of me there with my iPhone.