NonStick World: Pam Kong's Weblog

I was at Barnes and Noble this weekend. As I walked through the door, I was greeted by a display of books on diet and health with You on a Diet, front and center. As I waited in line to pay for my purchases, a Chinese cookbook for my neighbor who helped get the 300lb treadmill into our basement, another display for diet books. Hmmm. It must be resolution time.

Here it goes:

1) Be a better listener. One my challenges highlighted when I read this book.

2) Get 2-pack abs and a Jessica Biel butt. ThinGuy tells me it's all in the hamstring.

That's it.

My husband and I went to see Charlie Wilson's War tonight. I picked the Regal Theater at Jack London Square in Oakland. Big mistake for an 8pm show.

This clearly disturbed person started harassing those of us waiting in line for tickets. He started getting himself all worked up and spit on the girl at the front of the line. It was at this point that the security guard finally came outside to chase the guy away. I don't know where the security guard was that it took him so long to show.

The thing that killed me was that the people in line started talking smack after the disturbed guy left. Granted they would have been asking for unknown consequences if they had confronted him. But what use is this "courage" after the fact? I am a coward and freely admit it. I was not going to stick my neck out to protect the girl whose boyfriend just stood there. But I am also not going to pretend, after the threat was gone, that I would have done something.

BTW - Charlie Wilson's War is totally worth seeing. Even at $10/person and $16 for popcorn and drinks.

Whenever I am traveling I always research new phones and ways to make my mobile lifestyle more effective and efficient. For instance, my contract with Sprint will be up soon and I am trying decide between AT&T and Verizon based on the iPhone and Voyager, respectively. I become obsessed with the idea of on-the-road, mobile productivity. Email, text, blogging (can you blog from your phone?).

Then I get home. And I get a reality check. I work from home. The mobility I need to accommodate is walking from my office to my kitchen and back. When I am out of the house, I am usually in my car, driving to pick up my kid from school. When I am in line at Target or the market, I usually have my kid in tow. I already had to teach my kid how to use the speed dial on my phone so she would stop calling my co-workers. Putting SesameStreet.com on my new phone will make my kid more mobile-efficient, but not me.

So, back to my dilemma. Is it worthwhile to pay $300-$400 for a phone that will make me feel more connected when on travel the once a month or every couple of months?

I sometimes Google my exes to see if they were nominated for the noble prize or committed heinous crimes or blog on sun.com. I do not do it frequently. Only when I can't sleep, but am too tired to work. I have not found one yet.

Last night, one of those sleepless, but tired nights, I was tooling around in Facebook. I was inducted by my brother-in-law a couple of months ago and have since built my community by connecting with those I speak to regularly and those I have not seen or heard from in years. I searched for my friend, Marc, as I know he is on Facebook, when *light bulb comes on* I figure I can search for my exes. And I found one. Egad. Not sure if it is him. Picture is kinda small.

What do you do with this information? Contact them? Heck no. I always thought they ceased to exist once they were out of our lives. Kind of like Cocoa Puffs because you don't watch the shows that advertise it. So, I guess you just be happy (or not) that they are not dead.

Now here is the scary question. Do they Google me or search for me on Facebook? And what would they find? Maybe I shouldn't post this entry...

Heard on the news today that the eatery employees will be striking for 2 days during peak holiday travel season. So you'll need to bring your own lunches, unless peanuts are enough to tie you over.

I was listening to NPR this morning (about the only thing I miss about commuting to work) and they were talking about this internet site that is being used as an education tool and a means to bring awareness to hunger.

You pick the from a list of four words the synonym for the word displayed. For every word you get right, 20 grains of rice will be donated through the UN for hunger relief. Doesn't seem like a lot, but they have donated about 9B grains since inception.

I got to level 41. BTW - Procelyte means convert, not smell.

Check it out. You better the world and yourself. Well, your vocabulary, anyway.

http://freerice.com

Day 3 was as productive as Days 1 and 2. We heard more about the practices and industries and how they enable/supprt Global Business. All in all, I must say that this trip has been very enlightening and worthwhile.

Most people left today, for those of us who stayed, we went to a local theme restaurant, The Magic Time Machine.

Wonder Woman was our waitress. Here with Ted and Josh.

These are my new friends, Saundra and Julia. Julia organized everything for the 3 day event.

Anthony is a big fan of Super Girl.

We are on day 2 of a 3 day meeting in Dallas. The purpose is to bring together representatives from the GEMs, practices and industries to brainstorm new ideas for the Global Enablement programs we own.

This afternoon, we are holding breakout sessions to focus on the different areas. We asked the participants to write on sticky notes issues/questions they see in these areas and we would use them in our discussions in the break outs.

There are 3 breakout sessions. These are the stickies for the other two.

These are for my process. This will be fun.

At night, we went to this revolving bar/restaurant in the Hyatt Ball. Our waiter was the most depressing guy. He kept telling us how it was the second to last night the bar and restaurant would be open because the Hyatt sold the space to Wolfgang Puck for a new restaurant and meeting space and how 70 people were out of a job in two days. I guess we were there just in time to experience the landmark before the change.

At the restaurant

On the observation deck. It was really windy.

Obligatory team picture that our waiter helped us take. He lightened up enough to be bearable toward the end.

Per tradition, our team went out last night as it was the last day of our team meeting. My boss loves the Old Pro in Palo Alto, so we always start there and end up at Rudy's when the Old Pro shuts down. Last night we went to Rudy's earlier than usual as we wanted to dance.

At Rudy's, I made friends with these girls so that we could use the back of their chairs as coat racks. They asked me what school I went to. School? I have not been in school in eons. Turns out these girls were 25. Young, just like the rest of the people there. Felt kinda old amongst all these college kids. Which brings me to the question, can you be a cougar at 33? Not that I am one, just wanted to know.

The guys I was with thought it was so weird that after knowing each other for 5 seconds, me and these girls would have already exchanged info about what school we attend and how old we were. I suppose it could be, but girls just share. Especially when they don't feel threatened.

So, I spent the evening pretending to be young and single. Good thing I am neither. I don't think I can regularly wake up to aching feet and a headache.

I just set up my Twitter account per Skrocki's suggestion. Now I need to figure out how this thing works.

P.S. Good idea on providing twitter id: nonstick. Thx, Skrocki.

I have been in week-long meetings for the last 3 weeks. The first week was IBIS STO D4 bootcamp. The second week was the Business Impact Analysis for IBIS STO D4. This week was the Passport Process Sun Shot. I am exhausted and all meeting'ed out.

I am currently taking a break from wading through my email and action items, resisting the urge to ditch it all and start my weekend early. Compelling factors are a) that all this will still be here on Monday and b) my boss is in town and knows I am working today.

I am watching way too much "What Not to Wear". I am in a week long meeting and all I can paying attention to is what people are wearing and how their clothes fit.

I am in Dallas for a 3 day meeting for our Global Enablement programs. The intent is for people to walk away with a cursory understanding of what programs are available that help grow business internationally. The participants are from all over the globe. We have 12 of the 15 GEMs represented, 2 of the 3 industries, and all 4 practices. It's really cool meeting in person the folks I have worked with for so long.

The piece I own is the Top Account MRP process - used to determine the goals and coverage for our larger accounts. The other programs my group owns are Global Business - used to incent reps and GEMs to drive global business and Exec Sponsor - program to assign Exec Sponsors to our larger accounts and ensure good relationship.

It's events like these and the people I meet here that make Sun a great place to work. Everyone here participates. We argue and no one takes it personal. It's great.

Day 1 was all about introducing/refreshing the audience to the programs we own in preparation for break out sessions tomorrow.

We will be heading to Salt Grass fro steak tonight. Apparently, we are in Texas so we have to have steak.

I am on a business trip in Dallas this week. I am beginning to get used to the toll parkway thing. My first time through, I expected a person collecting toll. Unfortunately, I was on the exact change lane, overshot the bucket and could not back up.

My second time through, I was ready. I had a dollar bill in hand. Dammit. It says coins only. I threw my dollar bill in and it made it, but it did not register.

Now I carry a bunch of coins in the cup holder of my rental car. I still have to slow down to toss the coins, to the dismay of the drivers behind me, but I am not setting off the red light and buzzer anymore.

I just tried out the new shoe site owned by Gap, PiperLime. My usual online shoe shopping is done through Zappos. So I wanted to compare them.

Both have a no questions asked return policy. Both have free purchase and return shipping. PiperLime has cuter shoes, but Zappos has a wider selection. So far, it's a draw.

Time to Fulfillment - I ordered shoes from both Zappos and PiperLime on Fri, Oct 26. The Zappos order, I got yesterday, Mon, Oct 29. According to PiperLime, I should be receiving their order by tomorrow.

Time to Return - I tried on the shoes from Zappos, decided to keep one pair and return the other. I just went online, told them what I wanted to return, and printed the return slip and UPS label. I slapped the UPS label on the box and dropped off the box at the UPS store. I expect to receive an email confirming they received it and are crediting my credit card. No muss, no fuss.

Since I haven't gotten my PiperLime order yet and decided what I want to keep, I will have to post an update when it happens.

UPDATE: I got my PiperLime order today. Two of the three shoes fit. Now I have to choose between the two red pairs. Presentation is really nice. Each shoe box is wrapped with brown tissue paper held with the PiperLime logo. The invoice and return UPS label are in this nice green envelope. I don't know how much the nice presentation increases my cost. There is a deadline to return the shoes, 12/26, while Zappos allows me up to a year to return orders. Overall, no hassle returns and cute shoes...I will have to try PiperLime again. Especially since my purchases count toward BananaCard points.