running in the rain

Stress doesn't know if it's sunny or pouring rain outside. So what do you do to relieve it when it's raining? You don the waterproof gear and run in the rain. I haven't run in the rain since my marathon and that was residual morning dew. In my mind, rain usually delays any sort of exercise. Snoozing seems more appropriate than becoming drenched.

It was misting at the onset of my run, and increasingly became heavier. I'm sure people thought I was crazy, just as I think people are insane for running in the middle of a hot day. My concerns were put to rest as my path crossed another rain runner. We exchanged smiles and continued pounding the pavement. Was she running to relieve stress, too?

I came home drenched, my shoes and socks were sopping wet. After popping some vitamin C and enjoying a warm bath, I sit bundled up and a little bit relieved of stress.

doing without

I had another breakdown a couple of weeks ago. After talking with friends, I calmed down. Their suggestion was to watch a movie. I watched Out of Africa. I know, not a brilliant choice for a movie given the situation, and although it was sad, it was what I needed.

No, I don't have anything as romantic as a farm in Africa or a boyfriend who does safari work, but what I do have is a life in Los Angeles, a life that I love and a life that I've worked hard to achieve. As I pack up each box and gauge whether or not things have enough meaning for me to take with me, I'm reminded of a line in the movie: If we are tested at all, it is for patience or doing without.

Doing without. I'm conflicted between things I've acquired and mementos I cherish. Life is not about material things, I know that, but I hope these things that I'm selling or giving away bring as much joy to their future owners as much they have brought to me. My little apt will have another tenant and probably more than I can imagine. I hope that the five years I occupied it are some of the more memorable ones. There are little stories captured in the details which remind me that there were others before me: the Mezuzah at the entry door, the carving in the back of my closet, or the security system that I never activated.

I had an apartment in Los Angeles at the foot of the Hollywood Hills. Santa Monica Blvd runs across these lowlands, two blocks to the north, and the apartment lay at an altitude of over 200 feet. In the day-time you feel the warmth of the sun from every direction, but the early mornings and evenings were filled with a cool breeze, and the nights were cold.

I'm not sure where this next journey will take me: the earth was made round so we would not see too far down the road.

willy-nilly

When I have an idea everyone says that it's wonderful and they've never heard of anything like it before: yada, yada, yada. I start working on it and it never fails, another idea pops into my head. I have a journal filled with ideas, because I want to document all my thoughts on it before I forget. At some point, I have to revisit these other ideas. For now I just need to focus on the four that are on my plate. Some are more tempting than others to pursue, but I must restrain myself.

Right now, I need to be focusing on my websites. But no, now my willy-nilly mind is off hitting on this newcomer. Now I'll have to spend at least an hour jotting down the main ideas.

"Next Year" 2009 NFL Predictions

The mantra of many sport fans is "Next Year."
Here are my predictions for the 2009 Season!! woooohoooo!!!

AFC East
1. New England Patriots
2. Miami Dolphins
3. Buffalo Bills
4. New York Jets

AFC North
1. Baltimore Ravens
2. Pittsburgh Steelers
3. Cleveland Browns
4. Cincinnati Bengals

AFC South
1. Indianapolis Colts
2. Houston Texans
3. Tennessee Titans
4. Jacksonville Jaguars

AFC West
1. San Diego Chargers
2. Denver Broncos
3. Kansas City Chiefs
4. Oakland Raiders

NFC East
1. New York Giants
2. Philadelphia Eagles
3. Dallas Cowboys
4. Washington Redskins

NFC North
1. Minnesota Vikings
2. Green Bay Packers
3. Chicago Bears
4. Detroit Lions

NFC South
1. New Orleans Saints
2. Atlanta Falcons
3. Carolina Panthers
4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

NFC West
1. Arizona Cardinals
2. San Francisco 49ers
3. Seattle Seahawks
4. St. Louis Rams

AFC Seeds
1. New England Patriots
2. Baltimore Ravens
3. Indianapolis Colts
4. San Diego Chargers
5. Pittsburgh Steelers
6. Denver Broncos

AFC Wild Card: Denver Broncos defeat Indianapolis Colts. Pittsburgh Steelers defeat San Diego Chargers

AFC Divisional: Denver Broncos defeat New England Patriots. Baltimore Ravens defeat Pittsburgh Steelers.

AFC Championship: Denver Broncos defeat Baltimore Ravens.

NFC Seeds
1. New York Giants
2. Minnesota Vikings
3. New Orleans Saints
4. Arizona Cardinals
5. Philadelphia Eagles
6. Green Bay Packers

NFC Wild Card: New Orleans Saints defeat Green Bay Packers. Arizona Cardinals defeat Philadelphia Eagles.

NFC Divisional: New York Giants defeat New Orleans Saints. Arizona Cardinals defeat Minnesota Vikings.

NFC Championship: New York Giants defeat Arizona Cardinals.

Super Bowl XLIV Miami, Florida on February 7, 2010: Denver Broncos defeat New York Giants 34-31.

I know it's a rebuilding year for the Broncos, but I have to pick them.
(Jon, I know you'll love this match up. If it happens we're going to Miami. hahaha)

Personas

Personas is a new project by the Sociable Media Group from MIT Media Lab and is currently showing at the MIT Museum and online.

It uses sophisticated natural language processing (PDF link) and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

To create a 'portrait,' you enter your first and last name. The site searches the web for content related to you. The animation of the search process is well-designed, but some of the content is not relevant. I do like the "A roystering noisy university engagement she had made no small ... worn by his with my lord obnoxious printers and a man of the admirable Prudence Brady and it only shows how..." WHAT? shows how....what? ahhhhh, oh well. It reads as if it's mad libs on crack. I must find this website.:) I'm not sure how many Prudence Brady's are out there or for that matter Prue Brady's (I usually never have a problem registering an account with my name). I imagine if you have a more common name your persona would be a combination of a few different people. The project creators acknowledge this in the description of their philosophy:

In a world where fortunes are sought through data-mining vast information repositories, the computer is our indispensable but far from infallible assistant. Personas demonstrates the computer’s uncanny insights and its inadvertent errors, such as the mischaracterizations caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name. It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories, and computational methods of condensing our digital traces are opaque and socially ignorant.

Try your own web content portrait at Personas.

JOB OPP: How do you stay connected? Paid interviews (San Francisco)

For my SF Bay friends:

via SF Craigslist

How do you stay connected? Paid interviews (San Francisco)

Reply to: dorinda@ideo.com
Date: 2009-07-08, 2:15PM PDT

International design firm IDEO (www.ideo.com) is seeking people to talk about CONNECTING with others in small groups or one-on-one. All interviews will take place in the Bay Area the week of July 13th and July 20th . These in-home interviews will be 90 minutes and the compensation is $150.

For some of the interviews we would like to meet both of you and your partner/friends/children/mentor.

Type of people we seek:
* You and your spouse have been married for over 15 years
* You are in high school and belong to a small and very close group of friends
* You are part of AA and have a good relationship with your sponsor (we would like to meet you both!)
* You are a pre-school teacher
* You are a busy working parent of small children who has to coordinate many schedules
* Your family is located all around the globe but stay connected through multiple communication channels
* You are in a long distance relationship and have been for the past 2+ years
* You are an experienced marriage counselor
* You own or are a follower of a meal cart that updates its location on Twitter
* You are part of a program developer group that also meets live
* You are an unusual user of Twitter, Facebook, iPhone, or Skype (you define “unusual”)
* You are a heavy user video conferencing systems
* You organize/host small meetup.com group meetings
* Your job highly depends on informants (investigative reporter, corporate/private/police detective, paparazzo, etc)
* Your job often relies on precise silent/gestural communication (police, military, hearing impaired communicator, airport ground controller, etc)
* You were part of a group that organized a real world event via Twitter
* You are an active member of a church or support group
* You are a sports team coach

If you are interested, please describe which of the above scenarios may apply to you and why. In addition, tell us a bit more about yourself and answer the questions below.
1. Name
2. Address
3. Age
4. Occupation
5. Phone Number
6. Marital status
7. Ethnicity
8. How many children do you have and what are their ages?
9. Tell us in detail how you fit into the above criteria (the more detailed you are the better we can understand how you fit into our study)


10. What are the different means of communication you have/use to stay connected to people and information that are important to you? (calendars, google groups, social networks, e-mail, in-person meetings, over lunch, etc)


11. What is the best day/time to meet on the week of July 13th – July 20th?

Thanks in advance,
Dorinda
dorinda@ideo.com

• Location: San Francisco
• Compensation: $150
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

my afternoons with ellen

The one pleasure I get from working at home (being unemployed) is watching Ellen. She recently had a bathroom concert series, and here she joins Jennifer Hudson to sing And I Am Telling You.

Awesome.

Review: New Facebook-Change is Good

Since I’m unemployed, I’ve joined more social networking sites and have had time to explore them. A few years ago, it was Friendster and then Myspace (MS). When Facebook (FB) allowed non-college students to join, it surged to the top of my list. Where MS lost me was in the user design: graphics, blinking banners, music plays when you open someone’s profile. A bunch of items clogging up the information super highway. FB simplified that, but still allowed for user tailoring by allowing apps (applications). I then used MS for music information only, along with last.fm. But, now, I love Twitter. As I dive deeper into Twitter, oh, it’s so beautiful in it’s simplicity. And Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of FB) knows this. He tried to buy Twitter. Notice that the "is" was taken off of the status update field and replaced with "what's on your mind?"

Twitter is simple status updates, known as tweets. You can tweet pictures, but it only shows them as a link, you can retweet (RT), reply to someone (@username) and add hash tags (#review). The only thing is trying to convince people to join, which was also the case when I joined FB. :)

Concerning the new FB design, I like it. I’ve waited a few days to really sink my social networking fingers into it, but there are some good things there. Twitter was the next thing to come, and maybe still is. FB had to adapt, or it would be left in the dust like MS and Friendster. Change is good, but it always comes with some opposition.

First of all you should have friends categorized into groups. They won’t know how you group them unless you blog about it like me. I have home (friends from my hometown), unm (undergraduate friends), places I’ve worked, etc. News feed, it’s like the live feed from the old FB, but it’s genius. You can look at the default news feed or click on the groupings of friends to see what they’re doing. You can hide friends. Yes, if someone sends out a bunch of gifts, it dominates the news, but hey they’re generous. Don’t worry in an hour they will no longer be in the news feed. You didn’t get a gift? Maybe you need to send one. hahaha All kidding aside, I think I’ve found the solution to this. I spent some time going through my application settings and changing if it was posted or not. But you can also click on inbox==> notifications tab ==> applications you've authorized.

I love the new and improved news feed. Recent photos are on the same page, not a separate tab. If some one is not very active on FB, then they’re not going to show up. If they’re a close friend, who is lost in the activity of other friends who embellish in social networking, add them to a group. Then you will always see their updates. I think if someone has their privacy settings to not show anything they’re doing on FB, I don’t understand why they’re on. It comes back to that question about superpowers, “If you had the ability to fly or to be invisible, which would you choose?” Flying, because invisibility allows people to have voyeuristic capability…kinda strange. I didn’t join a social networking site to be left alone. :) hahaha

I for, one, love seeing what you’re doing and looking at your cute pictures of your kids/family. If you take a quiz, well, I know a little more about you. I apologize if I have dominated your news feed, and I take no offense if you hide me. :) I hope you enjoy reading what I'm doing or what is on my mind. :)

This post is getting longer than I thought. I still have some items/recommendations for FB settings. My friends say I should have a tutorial course for using networking sites.

Simple recommendations:
In FB, look at Application settings and Settings on your profile page:

Other recommendations:
Use Google Reader, flickr and Twitter. Digg and last.fm are kinda cool, too. AND Import your activity into FB. That may be asking too much. :)

MM 2009: Mr. President, you can suck it. :)

Yes, I voted for Barack Obama and he has my full support politically, but in sports we are on opposite sides of the table. He was not very kind to the Pac-10 or UCLA, he picked VCU over UCLA. (wtf?) And yes, we only won by one point, but a win is a win. In this game it grants you the right to proceed to the next round. So after day one, this is how the brackets look:
and where is Obama? oh, at the bottom. JK hahaha (I entered Obama's picks) The UCLA defense screwed everyone. I'm telling you, this year has not been consistent for anyone. This is the facebook bracket:
Between the Brackets on facebook (CBS Sports) and ESPN, I prefer the ESPN bracket. It's easier to see everyone's stats and picks. This year they have real time scoring on the bracket, very awesome. I wish they had the commenting capability as facebook, but ..oh well. The commenting on ESPN is clunky. I love that you can see how you fair overall. I don't have many upsets picked for today, but I always welcome a 16 over 1 upset. :) I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR!!!

Wordle

I spent part of today playing with Wordle, I used my other blog Spectagirl 365 for the data. Wordle creates word clouds from text, blogs, or websites and allows you to change the font, colors, layout, and other elements.

TAL: Bad Bank

This post is difficult to write. This American Life (TAL), whom I have recommended that you add to your podcasts, recently reported on the economic crisis and the banks. I correct myself, they are the ones who brought the two brilliant reports on the current economic crisis: Giant Pool of Money and Another Frightening Show About The Economy. A couple of weeks ago NPR collaborated with TAL for Bad Bank. Click on "Full Episode"

It's difficult to write, because I don't have a mortgage nor did I vote for George W. Bush, but I'm out of work, and I'm pissed. It actually took me a while to listen to this episode, as well as the following episode Human Resources, but the program is brilliant. I recently met another person who was unemployed and we unloaded our frustrations to each other, and this episode was our connection (other than both being unemployed) Thank you, TAL.

Jon Stewart vs Jim Cramer

Since being laid off I've come to miss certain shows: The Daily Show and Sports Center being two of them. At my gym I'm able to catch SC. I've only caught Mad Money, because my gym switches from SportsCenter to CNBC. There is no audio, they only have the closed caption running. This show is nothing, but camera tomfoolery. I think I counted a minimum of four cameras and it's filmed similar to Iron Chef crossed with Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Zoom in and zoom out, cut to camera 1, camera 2, camera 3 all in 30 seconds...talk about mass media as a distraction and manipulation of the masses...



"I want the Jim Cramer on CNBC to protect me from that Jim Cramer"

"You can draw a straight line from [your] shenanigans to the stuff that was being pulled at Bear to AIG and this weird Wall Street side bet… you knew what the banks were doing, so as to pretend that this was a once in a lifetime tsunami that no one could have predicted was at best ingenuous and at worst was criminal."