We last left Thelma and Louise, er, Me and Jess in West Virginia.
West Virginia did not last long. We found ourselved in Ohio. Or rather, the GPS, nicknamed, "Bitch", directed us to Ohio. In any case, we were in Ohio. We knew we were somewhere behind a @the_turtle. We decided it was time to stop for food. This time at the lovely Ruby Tuesday in Somewhere, Ohio. Oddly enough, sitting in the parking lot...the Turtle. We went in for some dinner. And were met with ... ZOMBIES!
Okay, not exactly. We were seated at a lovely table overlooking the gas station, sandwiched between two families with small children. Now, Jess and I both have small children. So we aren't opposed to the little buggers. These were some fine examples. On my left, may I present Zombie child. Approximately two years old, the girl had a pacifier in her mouth the entire meal. She was well behaved and sat coloring for the duration of their visit. Oh yeah, and going "ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" the ENTIRE MEAL.
On my right, I present The Extended Family. Seemed like many families had gathered together. Split over a couple of tables. Lots of adults, presumably happy to see eachother and catch up. And Mac n Cheese Boy. He had his dinner all over his hands. How do I know this? Because he repeatedly got up from the table and came over to me and grabbed my shirt. Extended Family didn't seem to notice or care about Mac n Cheese Boy, he was free to roam as he pleased. Extended Family then harrassed the poor waitress wanting their bill split into 65.3 different receipts.
But I digress.
"Living on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi hit the playlist. In which I attempt to "Baby Take My Hand" and Jess dissed me. She says she was tired. Whatever. Oh speaking of tired. I fell asleep soon thereafter (at least judging by the lack of tweets). Jess was getting tired, so pulled off to the only hotel she could see...
The Econolodge.
Okay, fine by me. I'm laid back. I was asleep. If the driver says she is tired and we need to stop, then we need to stop. It's Econolodge. By the highway. How bad could it be?
Cut to "check in". Here's a travel tip: When registration has bullet proof glass, you MAY not want to stay there. We joked about paying by the hour. Ha ha. Ha. *ahem*.
After paying and receiving our room key, we walked out to the car, to see two "gentlemen" talking to the police. Always a welcome sight. Jess made a remark about finding a dead hooker in our room. At which point, I said, "I'd rather find a dead hooker than get broken into." Thinking a dead hooker is probably a one-off event, as opposed to a break in. The police had left and Jess and I carried every single item out of the car and into our rooms. I think we both secretly feared we would wake up in the morning to find Jenna gone. Touching as little as possible in the room, we went to sleep.
7 states in 15 hours.
Will Jenna be there in the morning? Will we find a dead hooker? Stay tuned for the next installment...
Career Refactor
Fri, Feb 10th 2012 9:56a Kathy Brown Goodbyes are always difficult. I’ve worked at my current company for more than twelve years. I’ve gained many friends and much knowledge. But like any good code, we should all get refactored once in a while.
I am pleased to announce I will be starting a new position at PSC Group in a couple of weeks. I’m excited to meet new people and learn new things with PSC. I am looking forward to joining the team and jumping into this new opportunity. [read] Keywords:
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The Curse of The Bathroom Light Fixture
Thu, Feb 2nd 2012 8:24p Kathy Brown This, my friends, is a tale of woe and despair. A story about a woman and her nemesis, the dreaded bathroom light fixture.
It all began simple enough, as these tales often do. The woman bought a house. A house which may or may not have been built by monkeys. At the very least it was built by incompetent morons and then owned by even more incompetent morons. The woman spent many many hours fixing up the house (you can read some of her earlier frustrations here). It was finally time t [read] Keywords:
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Did You Use Business Cards at Lotusphere?
Thu, Jan 26th 2012 9:15a Kathy Brown It occurred to me that I forgot to even bring business cards with me to Lotusphere. While I met several new people, we seemed to exchange Twitter IDs more than anything else, and usually on our mobile devices. Occasionally I entered a new email address or phone number.
Only once during the conference, was I asked for an actual business card. I took one of theirs and wrote on the back of it.
Did you use business cards at Lotusphere? Or are they becoming a thing of the past? Did you use [read] Keywords: lotusphere
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I Got You Babe
Sun, Jan 22nd 2012 10:59a Kathy Brown It’s official. Lotusphere 2012 is over. I’m sitting in the airport, reading tweets of others traveling home, writing my own tweets. Reading wrap up blog posts, and writing my own.
I’m sad. Those of you who have never been wonder how I can be sad about leaving a tech conference, but it is so much more than that. It is much more like an amazing family reunion, where I also happen to learn a ton of stuff.
Some of the highlights (because I couldn’t possibly write about all o [read] Keywords: admin
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Saturday the 14th
Sat, Jan 14th 2012 2:12p Kathy Brown It’s Friday, the 13th. It was Friday the 13th when I drafted this blog post and forgot to post it. What better way to enjoy than to watch episode 13 of BlackBerry Today! [read] Keywords: blackberry
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Essential Geek Travel Gadgets
Thu, Jan 12th 2012 9:24a Kathy Brown I’ve written about some Geek Gadgets here before (under the tag “Gadget Glee”, but after a recent Twitter conversation about what to bring to Lotusphere, I’ve decided to round up all the travel gadgets in one post.
My number one favorite and essential geek travel gadget is a portable charger. I wrote about this one in particular, but I also have this one:
That’s the FatCat charger (and yes that is an Amazon affiliate link), which seems to charge a little more tha [read] Keywords: lotusphere
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Lotusphere is Almost Here!
Thu, Jan 5th 2012 9:12a Kathy Brown Lotusphere is just over a week away. Are you ready?
I’ve downloaded the Lotusphere Sessions App for BlackBerry, and the updated the Lotusphere Sessions App for iPad. Thank you to Gab, Tim, Ben and anyone else that works on those applications and the data!
I’ve updated my profile on http://www.socialbizonline.com/.
I’ve added my sessions to my calendar:
One Application To Rule Them All – Tuesday 11:15-12:15 in DL S Hemisphere I
Collaboration, Party of One: When YouR [read] Keywords: admin
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How To Do Things You Thought You Couldn’t
Wed, Jan 4th 2012 12:12p Kathy Brown I’m certainly not the first person to blog about ifttt.com. And I won’t be the last, because it’s really really cool.
The premise: If This Then That. If (something happens) then (do something). The site has loads of “channels” to pick from to create a “task” and a “recipe”. I’d read some people had found it useful, but nothing popped out at me as useful to me, until today.
I like to post pictures to Flickr, however Flickr has no [read] Keywords: blackberry
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Learning is a Spiral
Tue, Jan 3rd 2012 8:34p Kathy Brown I love to learn new things. Everyone has their own way of learning and I’ve never really settled on one particular way. Some things you have to learn by doing. Some things you can learn from a book, others with a teacher. Some things have to be seen.
The one thing I have learned regardless of the method is that learning is a spiral. Or a snail shell. This is likely when you wonder if I’ve lost it, but stick with me for a second.
Imagine you are a tenth of a mile away fro [read] Keywords:
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Happy Running New Year
Sun, Jan 1st 2012 10:44a Kathy Brown It’s the new year, and I’ve got some new running goals. First up, I had to update my running log. I’ve been running a lot on the treadmill, which means manual entry (rather than auto-entry from my Garmin). Today will make 2 years and 7 months on the streak. Crazy and I never thought I would go this long.
The treadmill is great because it allows me to run any time in any weather. But, it also makes me very lazy. I don’t actually like running on the treadmill, s [read] Keywords:
