My run in with the po-po

One little detail I left out from my trip.....

I got pulled over by the po-po! It was actually pretty ridiculous and how the police decide that we needed to be stopped when there were tons of underaged kids walking around with open containers just a couple blocks away is beyond me but.... let me tell you how it all went down.

Some old classmates and I decided that we had to go to this great restaurant in town, that has since been acclaimed by Gourmet magazine as one of the 50 best restaurants in the country. So, after a day of walking around campus and shopping on the main drag, we met up at the restaurant for a great dinner. It was relatively early so we were able to get a table for 6 with no problem. We drank mango/lemongrass and lychee martinis and ate on tea-smoked salmon bento boxes, sweet potato samosas and lamb. Yum!

Then, when it was time for us to leave, I offered to drive everyone to their cars that were a mile or two across campus. So we all piled into my car to head back. Now, my car is roomy but not that roomy for 6 full grown adults and only 2 could sit in the front, so the married couple "sacrificed" and one sat on the others lap.

I was driving carefully, obeying all traffic laws and all of a sudden I saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror so I pulled over. This cop walked up to my window and asked for my license and registration and went back to his car. Now, while he was checking my "record" we noticed that 2 other cars pulled up and that one cop was standing by the back door with his hand on his revolver in the holster. I mean, come on! This is a group of 30-something MBAs who just spent $400 on dinner. What are we going to do???

The cop came back and said that the reason that he had pulled me over is because I had a "gazillion" people (his words, not mine) in the car. I told him that I was just taking them back to their cars at the business school and was becoming keenly aware that I probably had about 7-10 years on this guy. The other cop came over and asked if this was "a bet." What kind of bet would that be??

Anyway, he obviously let me go with a warning and a feeling of contempt at what a waste of tax dollars that was.....

Spur of the moment trip...

Okay... I am so behind on my blogging we are just going to pretend that these posted on the dates they say they did.... (and that I am not typing without my right index finger that I just hurt in the garage door -- you will just have to read ahead to find out about that!)

Anyway.....

This past Friday, I got a call at about 11am from some good friends of mine from grad school. You see this past weekend was homecoming and my class's 5 year reunion. I had been toying with the idea of going but hadn't really committed to anything. But when I got the call, and realized that I hadn't seen some of these folks in 5 years, I started thinking......why not?? A couple friends said that I could stay with them and it is not like I had a job to be stuck at on a friday afternoon. So, I arranged for someplace for the dog to stay and was on the road in about 3 hours!

Six and a half hours later I was pulling into a parking space to meet folks at an infamous local bar in the town I went to grad school in. Whew!

I actually didn't go to any of the official events or the football game but got to see and hang out with some really great folks and go to dinner at my favorite restaurant there, which has since been recognized by Gourmet magazine. Now, I remember why I liked grad school so much!

Oh, the other thing, it seems that aside from working, my classmates have also spent the time having kids! The majority of them seem to have two which makes me feel like I have been really unproductive....

The flip flop dilemma

I have developed a silver flip flop obsession..... Probably because they match my toes and just seem a color that seems less casual than other flip flops. (See!)

However, I have run into an issue. My favorite (and only) pair of silver flip flops seems to be breaking and I can't find a replacement pair because they are out of season and the company isn't making them right now, or the place I buy them from isn't selling them. So I decided to look for alternatives. It is better to have a back up pair anyway!

I looked at tons of pairs and I don't like any of them as much as the pair I had but I decided to try a pair in an effort to be openminded. And since Zappos.com has free next day shipping, I didn't have to wait long.

Here were my choices:

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Initially, I was just going to go with number 2 but they are so casual and completely flat. I do like the thin profile of the straps though. Number 3, forget about it! So shiny and pink! Yuck! I didn't love number 1 but when I tried them on, they were sooooo comfortable, and they have this little arch support thing so I am willing to overlook the green accents.

So now I have 2 new pairs of silver flip flops but i still like the old ones the best so I think I am going to try to get them fixed!

Don't be shy!

So, when all this stuff was first brewing with my job, I wasn't really talking about it with anyone except close friends. But since it has become official, and the news publicized, I have readily been talking about the layoff when asked. And I have been getting help from the most unlikely sources....

I had mentioned my situation at the place where I take my dog for daycare and the owner asked me to send him my resume. "I am always hearing about things," he said. What the heck!

Also, my aunt called me the other night and said that one person she talked to asked that she send me their contact info and another, who I met before, asked about me when he heard about the news at my company and said that he might be able to find something for me to do at least temporarily at his company if need be....

You never know where help might come from. You just have to leave no stone unturned. You never know where it will lead...

Job search chronicles, Days 8-9

I am balancing guilts right now.... procrastinators guilt, shoppers guilt, emotional eaters guilt..... all my bad habits are manifesting themselves these days. At least I am exercising! I have managed not to do very much on the job search the past two days and I am feeling a little bad about that. Yesterday was spent working on real estate stuff --trying to work on this business with my investment property, so I guess I can't feel too bad about that. That does have a financial payoff. But today....... after meeting with my former co-workers for the second job searchers breakfast, I decided to head over the the mall. You see, to this point, my laptop has been set up downstairs in front of a big TV. This is because 1) when I was working, it was primarily used for recreation and 2) I couldn't get very good wi-fi signal in my office upstairs (I think there are some old concrete walls lined with wire mesh or something that interferes with the signal) I recently bought these wireless repeaters to hopefully extend the reach of the signal into the office but have not really tested it extensively. So I decided that I need to move my butt into my office so that I can have a space where I can have distinct, dedicated job search time, without a TV or Tivo to distract me. Which brings me to my shoppers guilt.....


A couple weeks ago, I was looking in the Pottery Barn catalog that they so sneakily sent to my house, and I saw this really cool charging station. It basically have a drawer with a shelf on top and in the back are holes that you can thread the charging cords through. Then, in the back, you plug them in to an internal surgeprotector thing and the cord of the surge protector comes out of a hole in the back panel and it plugged into the wall. I said to myself "I need that! That is cool!"

It comes in black which is the color I like.

And then I noticed that it is a part of a collection that has a matching desk. Another thing about my office is that the filing is over flowing. Partially because I don't do it often, but also because my filing cabinet has seen better days. It got beaten up in one of my moves. Also, the door on my desk has become misaligned and doesn't close anymore. It is one of those inexpensive, vinyl coated, pressboard desks but it has served it's purpose for a few years. But now, I think I have outgrown it. So I was considering getting a grown-up real desk to spruce up my work space and solve a few space problems.



So, after breakfast, I decided to head over to the Pottery Barn store to see if they had one of the desks in the store that I could see..... they did..... And I liked it.... A lot.... I thought that it might be the kind of thing that would have to be delivered so I asked the sales lady what the benefit was to me to get it from the store. Well, they load the stuff in your car and you have NO shipping cost, which would be 10% of the purchase price. Um yeah, I would say that is definitely a benefit. I also had this girt card that some old co-workers had given me over a year ago when I was changing jobs and bought my new house so it could help defray the cost a little. So I bought it. It will help me be more productive, right? Turns out after I bought everything, the sales lady told me that one of the end pieces was actually not in stock so they would have to get it shipped to the store for me to pick up in about a week so I won't be able to set it all up until then :-( So then, after I was leaving the store, I felt guilty, not so much because of the money I spent (only partially) but because I spent most of my afternoon shopping for this thing. (Oh, did I also forgot to mention that I stopped at Williams-Sonoma on my way out!...) I will admit though, that I am a bit of an emotional shopper, something that I probably shouldn't be doing much of since I don't have a job!

Also, the past couple days I have been eating in a very balanced way. Well, Monday started pretty good. I have leftovers from my dinner on Sunday for lunch but from the evening on it has been the pits.... I had guacamole and chips and apple pie (and drinks at the show) for dinner, a late night snack of scrambled eggs with smoked turkey and cheddar cheese when I got back from the show, yogurt with granola and honey for breakfast today and apple pie for lunch/snack. Not a good thing and I have healthy things in the house because I just went grocery shopping....

Okay well, enough beating myself up. Knowing is half the battle, right? Tomorrow is another day and an opportunity to refocus!

A little slice of hip hop heaven...

Last night, I went to go see Q-Tip and Common in concert. Hey, there has to be some benefit to being out of work! I can easily go to concerts on a Monday night now!

It was great! Although the clarity of the acoustics could have been a little better, they both put on a great show! I wish Q-Tip's set was a little longer but Common assembled a great collection of old hits and all the good songs from his current album.

The venue was general admission and the floor is standing only but we found a great little spot at the end of the side bar that stayed unobstructed because it was by the stage door and the VIP seating. No worries about someone really tall standing in front of you or being knocked into by people. And, we could order drinks whenever we wanted and had the bar to lean on. It was a GREAT concert!

A sumptuous feast!

So this weekend I got inspired to cook!....

And I went to good ol' Whole Foods to get some provisions (and get rid of a lot of my money!) But I came out with some really great and delicious stuff! Of course, I went to the regular store for the basic stuff.

So after I got home from grocery shopping on Saturday, I made myself a great dinner that I think I will have to add to my regular repetoire of special occasion meals. I took this thick NY strip and seasoned it with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper. I cooked it and also blanched some asparagus. Then I made this balsamic cherry reduction and drizzled it over both. The result was YUMMY!

Then Sunday was the big cooming day! I made, what one friend of mine lovingly refers to as "brazzle" (don't ask me why, I honestly don't know and I am not sure he does either!), which to most other folks is Olive oil poached halibut. Some may remember that I have talked about this dish before. It occurs to me that I should probably explain it a little. You basically cook the halibut in enough olive oil to completely cover the fish (a lot of olive oil, I know, but so worth it!) at a temperature of about 200 degrees or just warm/cool enough to dip your finger in and place a dot on the back of your hand and it be pleasantly warm. You cook the fish for about 10-12 minutes. Because of how it is cooked and at what temperature, the fish is not oily at all (hard to believe, huh?) and the fish a flavorful and light.

This time I placed it on bed of creamed leeks and spinach accompanied by an heirloom tomato goat cheese pasta and some asparagus in a lime vinegrette.

Then for dessert I made an apple pie with a crumb topping with some homemade whipped vanilla cream and garnished it with some amaretto caramel sauce that I made on a previous occasion.

The weekend....

So the thing that happens when you dont have someplace to be every day during the week is that the weekend loses a little bit of its significance. TGIF? The only real difference is that there are more people off with you and you dont have to work to avoid rush hour traffic.

Job search chronicles, Days 4-5

Day 4

I decided that I needed to unpack and try to straighten up my house, which looked like a hurricane hit it. I spent all morning unpacking, cleaning up my room, doing laundry and cleaning dishes. But in the afternoon, I had, what could only be described as a little anxiety attack because I hadn't done anything with the job search that day. It was really strange....I started to feel really uneasy and my heart started beating really fast. But then I talked myself down and it passed.

I am paying attetion to my procrastination practices and coping mechanisms. I will be honest, when I was a kid, I was really shy, starting from about 3rd or 4th grade and I still have some closet introvert tendencies. A lot of people would probably be very surprised to hear this, especially those who have met me in the past 10 years because I make a conscious effort to not be so. And, it is easier to be more extroverted and outgoing as I have become more and more confident in myself and my accomplishments. But a situation like a job search can really tap into these latent tendencies if you let them. So I need to make sure that I do a certain amount of job search stuff every day and not get distracted by the other (non-money making) things that I get distracted by.

When I was still working, I committed to run in a corporate sponsored 5k run so I spent the afternoon trying to update my Shuffle so I could take it with me on the run. But it had been cloudy all day and started to rain. I could not find any rain day information anywhere and since partial thunderstorms were forecasted for the rest of the evening, I decided to not go. Of course, after I changed clothes and made other plans, it had dried up completely. :-(

Day 5

I was Job Search Johnson! I spent just about all day looking at job listings, sending emails, looking in LinkedIn etc... I applied to 3 jobs and talked to a friend I know at one of the them. He said that he will talk to HR about me and put in the good word for me.

When looking through the LinkedIn network of the recruiter I met this week, I saw the information for a guy who works for a company that I had no idea had an office here. While looking at the company's website, I saw that there were a couple jobs there that I might be qualified for. I typed up an introduction email and asked the recruiter to forward it to him. I also applied for one of the jobs. Hopefully, I can catch up with the man this upcoming week for an informational inteview. I also discovered that a man, who I was familiar with from my previous company, now works as a VP at one of the companies I am looking at for a new job. We actually have 7 contacts in common on LinkedIn but I am trying to figure out who is the best person to forward an introduction to him. Some folks who I think might have a closer connection to him, I don't have such a close connection to so I will have to work on this. One of our common connections is a former boss of mine and I already have some emails out to her so based on her response, I might ask her to forward an introduction.

Then, one of my old co-workers called me to meet with some other folks in the company for drinks. So I went! The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed some drinks, wings and blue cheese chips on the patio, while I got to hear about all the changes that have gone on in the past 2 weeks since I have been gone. I am still thinking that I am probably better off to be in the position I am in (except for the regular paycheck.) because there is no guarantee what will happen in the next few months. There may be more cuts, the severance packages might not be as nice... who knows....

The Job search chronicles, Day 1-3

So I have decided to add a regular installment to my blog about my job search as 1) a way to keep myself honest and focused and 2) because hopefully, in all of this, I can provide some useful information to someone out there who is or may be in the future in the same position soon...

So here it goes.....

I told myself that my vacation would be a great way for me to clear my head and then I would hit the ground running when I got back. Well, it didn't really happen that way....

Day 1
Day 1, I got so overwhelmed by all the stuff I had to do, job search, cleaning my house, unpacking that I got tired and decided to take a nap! Luckily, I had agreed to help my admissions director from my business school at a recruiting event so I had something to get me out of the house!

Day 2
One of my former co-workers had this great idea that a bunch of us should get together once a week for breakfast to talk about how we have been, share contacts, keep each other from being lonely/depressed/going crazy... We are meeting at this funky little place with free wi-fi... So we had our first breakfast meeting and one of use already has a job. She is starting on Monday which is really great for her.

We actually ended up staying longer than I expected so I had to run home to change for an orientation session with this company that is providing job transition and training services. It was pretty general -- they have a bunch of other classes to sign up for to help you with resume editing, interviewing skills, networking etc and a computer lab and job bank listing. It will probably be a good resource -- and another reason to get myself out of the house, motivated in my job search and around people.

One thing that the woman told us was to make sure that we stick with our regular routine, not to stop doing things that you would normally do which I can see could be a very important thing. When you don't have a set schedule anymore it is important to keep some sort of routine going so that you don't just sit around like a lump on a log. One thing that is routine that I am not doing so well at is getting up at my normal time. Some of this is probably because I am still adjusting to the time difference from my trip but some of it is also that it is one of those actual benefits of not having a job.... to be able to sleep late! My dog is not too good about letting me do this though. I manage to wake up, let her out and then go back to sleep for as long as I can.

That afternoon I decided to go to the Tuesday step class that my regular step teacher (who I love!) teaches at another location. I normally go to her Monday and Wednesday classes but since I hadn't been in 2 weeks I decided not to wait until Wednesday to get back in the swing of things. It is an advanced only class and it was really great and fast paced. I always love going to her classes because the music is good, the choreography is fun, she is really enthusiastic and kicks our butts!

Day 3
I met a friend at the gym this morning for a moderately vigorous weight training session. I figure if I am going to be out of a job, I shouldn't be out of shape too. If I dont have to go to a job everyday then I can at least go to the gym!

Then, in the afternoon, I met with a woman I had been referred to at a recruiting/executive search firm. We had a really good meeting and I also got to meet the managing partner (who I still owe an email....) She emphasized the importance of using LinkedIn for networking and told me to send her an invite to join my network so that I could then look at the companies in her contacts and see which ones interested me. She also told me how important it was to make sure that my profile is up to date. While I actually got my last job because a recruiter saw my resume on Monster (yes, it actually does happen!), she said that she and other recruiters now more often do candidate searches in LinkedIn. She also recommended the site The Ladders, a job search site that specializes in middle management and above jobs. It is actually a subscription job search service but she says that she often finds better candidates
on the site, probably because you have to pay for it. They do offer a 30 day free trial however.

Then, since it was late, I skipped going home and headed back over to the gym for my regular Weds step class. I was a little early so I hung out in the coffee shop nearby, checking my email. There I actually ran into a woman who I am friendly with from my step class. We used to live in the same building and I would see her at the gym all the time. Well, she has been out of work for a number of months now and has been having quite a lot of difficulty finding a new job, especially since she needs sponsorship to work in the US because she is a Canadian citizen. Turns out that she was meeting a friend there who lives one street over from me. So, I got to meet a new neighbor.

I was all pscyched up for another great step class but to our dissapointment, there was a sub... :-( This guy who is much slower and not as interesting. I hung in for as long as I could but was getting bored so, since this was my second time in the gym for the day, I left early..