Scary Fast, and Green Too!

Innovation: The act of introducing something new.

I think there is plenty of innovation happening at Yahoo!, but it's always worthwhile to take a look outside of your industry for inspiration. Today, some of that was brought to our front door, via a speaker series held on campus. Tesla Motors is a start-up company based here in the Bay Area, but rather than building the latest internet widget, they build cars. But not any cars, mind you-- very, very fast cars that oh-yea-by-the-way, also are electric. The CEO of the company and some of the staff members came into Yahoo! today to talk about their work in progress and allow those of us who are car geeks to marvel at what they have created, and also get the chance to take a look at one of the 10 prototype cars that have been built so far.

It sure looks like a modern day sports car, with many Lotus/British references, but still maintaining a unique look. It is run by a battery that sits in the trunk (that's the white box in the pic to the left here) that is smaller than a car battery, and that is all there is for power. It can do 0-60 mph in 4 seconds, faster than pretty much every sports car out there, including big names like the Corvette and Porsche 911. It has a range of up to 250 miles on one charge, well enough to get around town and for all but the longest commutes. Simply plug it in when you get home, and the next morning, its ready to go- it gets the equivalent of 135 mpg (!) and costs a penny per mile to operate. Amazing stuff, despite the accompanying $100k price tag.

The inspiration for all of this? The desire to want to be environmentally conscious while also wanting to actually enjoy driving that car have thus far been totally separate. Yes, we can all marvel at how nifty the Toyota Prius looks and that it gets 50+ mpg, but by pretty much all accounts, its about as fun to drive as a Corolla. And while all of the sports cars out there are no doubt fun to drive, the sub-teen mpg is hard to swallow for any environmentally-conscious car enthusiast. Thus, the Tesla Roadster.

Obviously there are hundreds of innovations in the design, build and engineering of this car. However as a person who likes to drive cars fast but also would like to be as socially responsible as possible, this car creates a new niche and potentially a new market altogether. Tesla still faces many hurdles to see if it will ultimately work in the marketplace. They won't even ship their first car until next year, and have ambitious plans for a sedan to follow in 2009/2010.

But the innovation of introducing something so immediately understandable yet at the same time so new, to me, is the real revelation of the Tesla. Motor on!

** Read more about the Tesla on their official site

You Gotta Have a Plan.... Or Do You?

Christian and I go back and forth a lot about planning. He is an uber-planner; me, not so much. I prefer to let things happen organically—when things happen you didn’t expect, that makes it even better to me. I’ve been able to get through life so far pretty well this way, but being married to someone who feels the opposite, this has at time caused “strain” on us. With him being gone this fall, I’ve really managed to keep myself busy with lots of plans, so perhaps I’m not as organic as I think. We’ve had a few longer-ranging plans come from when he and I take trips together (ie, the "Bermuda Plan" called for settling down a bit with a dog/SUV/computer, the "Idaho Plan" called for C going to grad school in CA and the "Africa Plan" calls for kids in the next 5 years…) but other than that, I don’t know how much long term planning I really do.

I was lucky enough last week to be invited to attend a lunch with Jerry Yang, one of the original founders of Yahoo! He’s been pretty much a celebrity since he and David Filo famously created the company in trailers on the Stanford campus, on the covers of many, many magazines, and worth well over (yes, say it like Dr Evil), 1 BILLION dollars. The employees of Yahoo! are known as Yahoos, and his title is Chief Yahoo.

So after the company started growing so fast and he stopped knowing everyone’s names, he started this program called “Chat and Chow”, where two dozen or so people get invited to come and have lunch with him in one of the classrooms on campus. We were informed in the email invite that the format is intended to be very open and casual, but you never know how these things are going to go. How many times have all of us been to “informal” events with company leaders that are little more than meet and greets where afterwards mgmt crosses “Employee Engagement” off the to-do list until next quarter.

Happily, it ended up being a really interesting session. There were about 20 people there, all from the UED (User Experience & Design) team, from varying levels of background and experience. The session started with each person saying who they were, what they did, how long they have been with Y!, a cool innovation that they’ve seen at Y! or outside, and a question for Jerry.

It was a neat way to start off the meeting, as the wildly varying degree of innovations that each person saw was really cool. It ranged from a baby book to the Yahoo! Answers product to a new screwdriver design. The questions were also interesting—many centered around the new brand advertising Yahoo! launched this week (see the adverts here—I like the HOUSE one, but the car one is pretty lame to me) to how the different orgs in the company could be more nimble to enabling an environment that encourages more innovation.

Jerry proved to be as humble and down to earth as the press reports him to be. He was almost an awkward speaker, looking at the floor a lot, but still had a lot of good insights to share and was very open with us. He talked about the organizational difficulties of comparing ourselves to start-ups, which are often competitors in certain areas, how the UED organization needs to continue to be stronger, and other interesting tidbits from someone with his level of access. The session was fairly interactive, mostly engaging, and I think most of the group enjoyed it.

He actually closed the session with my question – “Where do you see Y! in 5 years, and how accurate were you in your predicition about what we’d be doing 5 years ago now?” He chuckled and said “not really that close” and went on to talk about the rapid acceleration of social media and other factors that didn’t seem as close in 2001. He postulated a bit about life for Yahoo in 2011 and some things we should focus on, but openly said that even with the maturing of the internet space, its still really hard to know.

So what does all this mean? Is it better to develop a plan and stick to it? Or is it better to just figure it out as you go? I think, as with most things, the right answer is somewhere in the middle. It's important to have an idea of where you want to be, but also be flexible enough to adjust as things happen in life and business. Not a bad message to take away from meeting with one of the biggest celebrities in Silicon Valley.

Mr Fix It

So I am going to admit to something that no man ever wants to: I am very unable to build anything. From the most simple of constructions (putting together a TV stand) and household items like changing a light fixture, I have difficulty even thinking about this stuff, much less actually trying to do it. As Christian says, when we think about renovations, we don’t pick up a hammer, we pick up the phone... for a contractor. Despite being the son of the owner of a construction company, I just never picked any of that up. Call it the fabulous gene, if you will.

And even though I am a software designer, I have largely remained blissfully naïve about anything to do with hardware. Christian was sweet enough to set up our computer when we got it a few years ago, as with each ensuing move we’ve had. Routers? Motherboards? Video cards? Huh?

All that came to a screeching halt over the few days. Our home PC was on the fritz and with Christian away all fall, it was up to me to get it fixed or be without the internet at home. As with anyone else, the fear of not being able to download music, check my email, pay my bills, and, um, oogle at Big Muscle each night was clearly the driver here to get it fixed.

The issue seemed to be something similar to an issue we had before, where the monitor would not go out of power save mode, so I was hoping it might be a simple fix. Well, after an hour of screwing around myself, then checking the online FAQs for about 30 minutes, chatting with an agent from Gateway for another hour, and then a 15 min call that cost $3/min, my cadre of support folks and I seemed to locate the problem- the power source in the PC was blown. The agent told me they were easy to replace, I could go to Best Buy the next day and be all set. I asked him again if it was easy to do and he said it should take about 10 minutes. “Ok, maybe I can do this”, I say to myself uneasily.

So the next night I sit down and open the box of the power supply, hoping there are very explicit instructions. Instead, try a sheet that basically said “see your computer’s instructions”, which of course were lost in the ether of many moves. I was able to find some instructions online and despite a few setbacks that most people would probably breeze through, about an hour later, I had the new power supply installed in the PC—yes!

Not so fast. When I booted up, it worked, but the monitor still did not come on—ugh! So back on the chat site I go, not wanting to pay another $30 to have to find my answer. Again, after about an hour of back and forth, the agent tells me the video card is blown as well, and I need to replace that as well. Um, are those easy to install also?

So after another trip to Best Buy, I feel ready to go again. My video card was in the motherboard, so I had to spend another 30 min chatting to make sure nothing special was required. Let her rip, says the agent, so I try it and about 30 min later, seem ready to go. I boot it up, but nothing. So I open it again, making sure all of the connections are good. Another 10 min go by, and I try it again.

And OH MY GOD, it worked! I literally danced around the apartment for about 10 minutes, Hobbes must have thought I was crazy. I actually did it. Another roadblock would be ahead, as I wanted to back up all of our photos and music in anticipation of getting a new computer (a Mac—hurrah!) and the power source for the external hard drive was nowhere to be found. A little crafty thinking later, I realized the plug for our iPod alarm clock looked to be the same size, and sure enough, it was. A few hours later, everything was backed up and in the next few weeks, I should be getting the new Mac!!

Patience, persistence, and a little ingenuity helped me get through this mess and now the PC is back online. So am I ready to try and start building things? Not exactly. But it feels good to know that if I tried, I probably could.

Of Mushrooms and Princesses

I've never been much of a gamer, but I have loved the Nintendo series of Mario games pretty much from the start. The original Nintendo was released in the fall of 1985 and my brothers and I begged my parents to get it for Christmas, but they insisted that the system and games ($30/game!!) were just too expensive. So it became one of the best days EVER when that Christmas morning, "Santa Claus" delivered a sparkling new Nintendo system and the game that came with it, as we all now know, was Super Mario Bros.

It was a mad scramble to get it hooked up the TV in the family room and thus began the many, many, many, MANY hours I would spend playing this game and its subsequent sequels. Among my favorites were Super Mario Bros 3, where Mario could gain the raccoon tail to knock out his opponents, and of course, Super Mario Kart, where Mario raced against some of his classic opponents in a knock around go-kart style that included the ability to knock off others with heat-seeking mushrooms and banana peels. And of course, Mario's cause was always the noble one-- to flatten the evil dragons in quest to rescue the princess!

After college though, despite the newer releases on Nintendo 64, Game Cube, etc., Mario seemed to leave my life. Until last month, when I was home visiting. I was headed to bed after a nice visit with my mom. I walked by the kids game room, where my 15-year old nephew (Tyler) has all the latest games like Xbox 360, Playstation 24, and Portable Whatever-they-are-calling-it-these-days. But much to my surprise, I heard a very familiar tune coming from the room, so I poked my head in and EUREKA, they are playing the original Super Mario Bros on an original Nintendo machine that he found in the garage of my parents house. Somehow, after all these years, the system and game were still working and my nephew and his friend were playing it in all its glory. Tyler, he who spends many hours playing the latest games with people he doesn't know on the internet, with the infinite layers these games have, said the simplicity of the game intrigued, and frankly, vexed him. I promptly said "Move over kids, let the old timer show you how its done!". And despite the fact that I haven't played the game in well over 10 years, I somehow was able to remember where the secret warp zones and extra coins where! The next day, I told my brother Joe about it, who used to hang out in my room and watch me play, and it was game on like 1986 all over again.

The other instance came this week when my colleague Leslie mentioned she recently received a GameBoy DS for a gift. (that's DS, as in Double Screen, to the uniformed like me) She had the Mario Kart game and I asked if I could play for a bit. I did, and said it was fun, and she told me that I should buy one too so we could play against each other! I was tempted..... But what really pushed me over the edge was yesterday she brought in the Super Mario Bros game for the system. I thought I would play for a few min like I did with the other game, but over an hour and completing 2 worlds later, I was hooked. Its an updating of the game with some fun twists (there's a BIG mushroom which allows you to smash everything on the screen and also a tiny mushroom which allows you to go places you couldn't otherwise, etc etc) but still the same over simplistic yet oddly engrossing set-up-- smash mushrooms, collect coins, save princess.

As it should be.

** For anyone who is into this like me, check out details on the new Wii from Nintendo. Looks prety awesome to me...

Effort

Effort: The use of physical or mental energy to do something.

To me, effort is one of the biggest currencies people have out there. I mean, it takes effort to keep a good relationship, be it with your significant other, or friends. It takes effort to do a good job at work. It takes effort to know what you want and go after it. It's something that we all have the ability to do, but only some really make the effort to do.

So I'd like to share some examples of efforts my friends have made recently that have touched me:

• Brian and I used to live just blocks apart and work one floor apart, but its taken some extraordinary effort on his part to really make us the great friends we've become. After we moved to SF and he moved to Frankfurt, Germany, he took the time to come the whole way here for a long weekend in the Fall of 2004. It it ended up one of those incredible bonding weekends where we talked about all kinds of things we never had before and learned that we had way more in common than previously thought. He's made the effort to come here at 5 times since then, including this past weekend, and ever time he visits, it's always a blast, and I always feel closer with him after he leaves. I know it takes a tremendous amount of effort to come the whole way here, and I really appreciate it.

• Our good pal Lee also come from DC to visit for a weekend last month. Surprisingly, this was his first visit to the Bay Area, and he made the most of it. He borrowed the MINI to drive up the coast as he experienced the stunning scenery of Point Reyes and Muir Woods. He had asked if he could use his iPod while in the MINI, but I sadly reported that I didn't have any connections for the car. It was a brief conversation; I told him I tons of CDs he could borrow and left it at that. So what do I receive in the mail a week later? A hook-up for the iPod that uses that radio rather than the tape player, so now the MINI is all set up for iPod motoring! Of course I didn't expect any kind of gift for hosting him. But he took the effort to not only give me something I will make frequent use of, but something I didn't even know I wanted.

• While we were in Africa last month, Todd stayed at our place for some of the time to look after it and make use of our laundry and cars. We were glad to have someone stay there since we were gone so long and he even picked us up at the airport on time. But there were a few extra "effort" touches when we got home that demonstrates what a classy guy he is. He took the time to wash the car and have our place spotless while we were gone, which was great. Beyond that, we found a vase full of flowers and a nice note thanking us for always making him feel at home. While those gestures didn't take nearly as much effort as the cleanings did, they are they ones that touched me more.

So sometimes it's the big things, and sometimes it's the small. I feel pretty lucky to have such thoughtful friends and I can only try and make the effort to let them know how much I appreciate it.

Movement

** Note to readers-- I'm back online and will be posting much more frequently now, so leave a message and let me know you are still out there! Thanks for stopping by.

I hear a lot about "the gay movement", particularly from the wackos on the far Right fringe, and I wonder what that is. Even as a somewhat-politically minded gay person, I'm not sure I could define what it is. Is it as general as trying to secure equal rights as others? Is it focusing too much on marriage rights? Not enough on what the heck LGBTQQY is? Is it about securing hate crimes legislation? Or maybe just what happens in the gay clubs around the world each Saturday night?

I don't know about that, but I got two really nice reminders of progress while visiting my family in Pennsylvania last weekend. The first came from my mom at funeral for an older family member. After the service in the graveyard, we saw an old family friend who I had not seen since I was very small. She first introduced my brother and his wife, and in then turned to me and Christian. I cringed for a moment in fear of the dreaded "friend" label, but in her next breath, introduced me and "my partner" Christian. This was the first time I could ever remember her using that term for Christian. It may not be a big deal to some, but for my mom to get over the "friend" label hump felt like really good progress to me.

The other, more surprising one, came later that night. I was playing video games (the original Nintendo, playing "Super Mario Bros", another entry forthcoming about that...) with my 15 yr-old nephew (Tyler) and his best friend, Jeff. Christian and I have been together for 8 years and he's been around my family extensively since then. I never really had "the talk" about Christian's and my relationship with my nephew, esp since C has been around for almost as long as he can remember, and I figured that was really up to my sister, his mom. So I was explaining to them about driving down from New York, since I flew in there (about a 4-hour drive from home) the night before since Christian is spending all fall there for training for his new job. After I said that, Jeff says to me with all of the possible sincerity a 15-yr old boy can muster, "But will you guys be able to see each other?".

I was immensely touched and blown away by the fact that the first question a high school kid in the small town that I grew up in was to show genuine concern that Christian and I would be able to see each other over the 4 months that we'll be separated. I smiled and told him that I would be spending a few weeks over the fall working from the Y! offices in New York, and that we were hoping the time would go by quickly until Christian came back to SF. When I was his age, I couldn't even fathom the word "gay", much less what a gay relationship looked like, much less to show concern for someone I barely knew in a relationship like that.

Is that the kind of "gay movement" that will keep Pat Robertson up at night? Maybe not. But it sure felt like moving ahead to me.

Pics My Mom Probably Wouldn't Want to See

We're back from Africa and as predicted, it was the trip of a lifetime! I'll have more anecdotes and photos from the trip later this week, but these two pictures are from the more adventorous side. The one on the left from the Zambezi River, where miraculously, we did not flip the boat on that rapid! Christian's arms are in the top left of the frame hanging on for dear life and the rest of us in the boat are covered in water-- it's a tremendous shot. The other is from the "gorge swing", also in Zambia, where we stepped off a cliff, free fell for a few seconds, and then swung back and forth in the gorge. After looking at the pics, we concluded these were probably ones that our collective Moms would rather not see....

Moment In Time

Christian and I are set to go on our trip of a lifetime to Southern Africa-including stops in Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique and of course South Africa over the next 3 weeks. It should be absolutely amazing and I hope to be able to make a few postings from the trip, but I'm not sure of what internet access will be like in places like the Okavango Delta and Victoria Falls, so I will do the best I can.

Before C started school, we hoped to do some sort of trip like this, but I started so quickly at Yahoo!, that didn't quite work. So now its our turn, and we're celebrating C's graduation, our recent 5-year anniversary and this special moment in time before C heads back to the workforce. As Brenda told us when we got married, people don't stop enough in life to celebrate special moments, so this is what we are trying to do, and who knows what is ahead of us? Things like safaris, rafting and shark diving are on the to-do list but as past travels have shown, its always the unexpected that proves the most memorable. Will it be a stunning view from an oceanside cafe like in Mexico? Or the cows and cemetary game as we crossed the expanses of Costa Rica? I can't wait to find out.

Stay tuned!

Part of Something Better

One of the things I have always admired about Christian is his commitment to volunteering. Pretty much since I’ve known him, he’s always been involved in some kind of efforts that benefits someone outside of him and his work. This came pretty directly from his mom, who taught him from early on that this type of involvement was important, and Christian has made very good on it, from his involvement with Make a Wish to more recently the Point Foundation.

For some reason, I missed this lesson when I was younger. Its not that my parents aren’t civic-minded (my Mom’s month in New Orleans after the Katrina disaster is a good illustration of that), but for one reason or another, it just never really came up when we were kids. So when I became a grown-up and married Christian, I always admired his conviction with volunteering, but struggled with how to get do something myself.

I’m proud to say I’ve found something pretty cool. I wrote earlier about Yahoo! Pride, an employee group that caters to the LGBT (that’s lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender for the folks at home) audience, and how I helped to program the a new music station called Gay Club Mix. That was neat, but my involvement was pretty minimal. After that launched, Brady, the leader of the group, Brian, a fabulous MBA intern who helped prove the worth of the GLBT audience to Yahoo! during his internship and will be joining Yahoo! this fall, and I wondered how we could really get Yahoo! to get behind the community in a much more visible way. We ended up with the idea of a promotional page for Gay Pride, and I’m proud to say that it launched today. I provided the conceptual design and wireframes, basically figuring out what was going to go on the page and where. From there, I handed my design off to Brian and Ernie, a set of 2 amazingly talented guys who provided the visual design (the color, fonts, and images) and the web development (actually building the whole thing), and I continued to act as the art director. I’m immensely proud of the result, and you can see it at http://events.yahoo.com/pride06/.

Brian, Brady and I agreed from the start that we would try and leverage as many of the community elements as possible from across Yahoo! and to design it in a way that would be relatively easy to implement. After all, this was a volunteer effort for the 3 of us and anone else who would get involved, above and beyond our normal daily responsibilities! Highlights include exposing community pictures of Pride from Flickr, the wildly popular photo sharing site Yahoo! acquired last summer and Pride events from upcoming.org, where users can share events with the community. Brian’s visual design, with the avatars in the header and the use of playful color throughout the page is really fantastic, and it’s all built in the latest coding technology, meaning its very light and flexible. When we found out that Travelocity was going to be a sponsor, it was icing on the cake.

So it launched early this morning and we're getting a lot of positive feedback internally, from people as high as the Chief Marketing Officer. It's a great feeling to combine two thing I love-- design and the gay community-- with something I've been wanting to do-- volunteering. We hope this is just the start of marketing to the LGBT community at Y! and I can't wait to find something like this again.

Love is in the Air

There's just something fantastic about love. In the past two days, I've been able to experience or witness some different stages of it, make me appreciate it even more.

Friday night, Christian and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. We were treated to an extra special early present last weekend when we attended the wedding of our good friends from DC, Curtis and Ryan. These guys are one of those couples who just make you happy to be around, and the wedding was a pure reflection of that. The outpouring of love and support each of their families provided, including such wonders as each of their moms walking them down the aisle together and Curtis' sister giving one of the toasts, was remarkable. Additionally, getting to celebrate this occasion with all of our best friends from DC was great as well, feeling the love from a circle of people who, despite some of us who have moved away, will probably always be the best group of friends we will ever have. And lastly, as and icing on the cake surprise for us, Brenda Grisham, the woman who conducted our ceremony 5 years back, was the person they had selected to do their wedding. We had not seen her since our own special night and it was a real treat to catch up with her and marvel in all the amazing things that have happened since we got married. (that's us with her)

Friday night was the actual day of our engagement and we went out to dinner at a place called Palamino, in downtown SF. The night before our wedding, we treated our families and best ladies to a dinner at the Palamino in DC, so the restaurant has special meaning to us. We told the waitress when we sat down that we were celebrating our 5th anniversary, and she told us that she had already had 2 other anniversaries and an engagement that night! We don't usually go out to dinner with just us, so it was a nice time to reflect on our 5 years and talk about what we hope will happen over the next 5. It was a warm night in the city, so after that, we strolled along the Emarcadero along the SF Bay and took in the all of the lights of the bridge and the buildings in the city. But by far, the highlight of the night was what we spent most of the dinner talking about-- naming the two kids we hope to have by the next big anniversary. I look forward to telling them lovingly someday how and when we figured out what their names will be.

And lastly, we spent a deliriously tender evening on Saturday night with our gang here in San Francisco. The setting was Supper Club, which puts cocktails, a 5-course fancy dinner, beds, and performance art into a blender, mixes up, and serves for utter enjoyment. There were 12 of us, set up over 3 beds where you could literally lay, and the best thing about it was how you could move around and talk to each person in the group. With us were two of our best SF friends, Maria (in the white) and Titus (in the black) both who had relatively new boyfriends visiting from out of town, and both in the mad theros of newfound love. What a fantastic thing to observe, and over the course of the 3 or so hours we were there, feel a part of. The hanging on every word said, the passionate gazes, and the hoping of the best for the future were all there, and I couldn't be happier for both of them. As I told Maria, although the intensity of that time doesn't always stay, the underlying passion can and should, and I feel fortunate enough to be in a relationship where it does. Moreover, getting to spend time with all of my favorite people here in our new home for a night was just what the doctor ordered to cure me of any home sickness after last weekend.

So although its not quite springtime anymore and I'm still trying to get used to these cold SF summers, I really feel like love is in the air. And what a beautiful thing it is.

How Sweet It Is

I never have to question what a fantastic relationship I have with Christian, but sometimes he catches me by surprise and makes me love him even more. We moved about two months ago and I had been itching to have a party, so with my birthday last week, we agreed to have a housewarming/birthday party this past weekend at our place. We have been very busy decorating/buying new stuff for the place and I was looking forward to having our friends over. We used to have parties all the time when we lived in Washington and I have missed the entertaining. Christian decided to make some white-wine sangria, Dana made some delicious crostinis, and the we had a ton of beer and liquor waiting for the crowd to arrive.

The party was going along very well when Christian called me into the living room and I knew what was coming. I had almost told him not to get me a cake because 1, I donÂ’t really like cake, and 2, this was really more of a housewarming party than a birthday party anyway. I mean, I turned 32, its not like its that big of a deal or anything. So what does he do? He presents me with a cake that he had made from a picture that was taken the first day I got my MINI convertible. We were staying with his sister out in Marin, right across the Golden Gate bridge, and after I had given each of the family members the obligatory ride, I went out for a cruise by myself.

After a delightfully curvy drive around the perimeter of the area, I drove into Tiburon, which is directly across the bay from San Francisco and has views of the GG Bridge as well. I was busy snapping pictures of ‘Coop’, as we named the car, when a passerby car drove by the small parking lot I was in, slammed on the brakes, hit reverse, and quickly joined me in the parking lot. The driver and his wife got out of his car and just had to know what the car was (my shipment was just the 2nd of the convertibles into the US, so it was still pretty new at the time), and that they loved the color, etc, etc. I thought driving with the top down across the GG Bridge was cool enough on my first day of owning this car, and then I get to have random strangers oogle all over it! Well, they offered to snap a pic of me with the car and the bridge in the background, and this picture was the one that Christian used as the basis for the icing on my 32nd birthday cake.

So in addition to thoroughly enjoying the company of all of the people who came out to celebrate with us, I also got to revel in the happy memory of the first day that I got a car I had anticipated getting for almost 3 years. While he also got me a fantastic present (the new SLVR phone with iTunes!) I bet it will be this cake that I remember when I reflect on my 32nd. Happy birthday, indeed.

Powder Hounds

My friend Todd gave me a card for my birthday some years ago that had a picture of an old woman skipping across wet pavement on sidewalk that read 'Ever notice how 'what the hell' is usually the right decision?' That has stuck with me for some time, and certainly rang true this past weekend.

I wrote an earlier entry about learning to snowboard and how, although it's been challenging, its been fun to learn something new. Well, this weekend, my good friend Maria and I took off for Tahoe, hoping to get one last good weekend in, and since she is a skier, I would also get to ski at least once this season. Saturday brought heavy winds and only two lifts open on the mountain and as we went to buy lift tickets, people who came down once and said it was horrible conditions. We sadly decided to pass on skiing.

We both had plans in SF on Sunday, but decided to at least spend the night in Tahoe and try to have some fun before heading back in the morning. However, early the next morning, a huge snowstorm hit the motion, and we woke in the morning to at least 6 inches of fresh snow on the ground. 'What the hell' we said... and what a treat was waiting for us-- tons of powder and hardly anyone on the mountain. However, this being the first time that I had skied this year, I was feeling a bit tentative. Especially skiing in such deep snow, where I could quickly found my skis to be under a half foot of snow, and despite skiing for 20 years now, I have never really been in conditions like this.

Maria is a great skier, however, and gave me a quick lesson in powder snow, and we were off. What a day we had! Despite how much my legs burned to make these impossible turns in the powder and how cold it was, it ended up being The snow as amazing, and the above photo was snapped of me as we made our way down one particularly difficult and powder-laden run as the snow pelted us. The visibility was poor, needless to say. I didn't really think that I would be able to do such runs, but it turned out to be really fun. When she skis with her her dad and brother in such conditions, they call themselves the 'powder-hounds' and I am now an honorary member.

Had we left earlier in the morning, it wouldn't have turned out like that. The weekend was quite a bonding one for us, and I'm glad we said 'what the hell'.

Costa Rica, Cows & Cemeteries

Over C's Spring Break, we made a trek to Costa Rica. This had been a country that had been on my list to see for over 5 years, and it really turned out to be the trip I had always hoped it would be. We saw some amazing sites like the Arenal Volcano-- we got to hike around the base of it, and then when the sun set, see lava flow down the side. We saw the hot springs of Tabacon, where people frolic in the natural heated water in a so beautiful-it-almost-seems-like- Disneyworld-setting except that volcano towering above us was real. We hiked through the Monteverde Cloud Forest, saw monkeys frolic above us, and saw the quetzal, an indigenous bird that our guide was thrilled to see so many of. And of course, we zip-lined-- climbing platforms that towered some 400+ foot above the trees, attaching ourselves to wires and sliding to and from. (yes, it was scary, but it was fantastic) The weather held out for most of the trip, the hotels were good, and the first-class flights were nice as well. (thanks again, Mom)

But as I mentioned on our recent trip to Mexico, as wonderful as all of those things were, something I couldn't have planned for was the highlight of the trip. We ended up traveling with John and Dana, a classmate of C's and his wife, who although were already very high on my list of awesome people, have climbed even higher after the trip. The itinerary worked out that we flew into San Jose together and then would drive together for the 4 hour journey up to Arenal, and then the next 4 hours to Monteverde. Traveling together is an excellent test of a relationship between two people, and even more so four people when you're in a country where no one has ever been, the roads are incredibly poor and good directions are hard to come by. And as it turns out, it will be the time spent with John and Dana on the roadtrips that I'll most likely remember when I look back on the trip.

To use the word 'road' on the way between Arenal and Monteverde is somewhat of a joke. We followed a partially paved road winds around Lake Arenal that then gives way to a mish mash of dirt and rocks for the last 70 mile push to Monteverde (a long way when you're only going 20 mph or so). We tried to make the best of it; we stopped in a town of a few homes and 1 "soda", the Costa Rican term for a cafe. No one at the restaurant spoke English and our Spanish was all pretty rusty. There was no menu and the cook just said 'bistec'. We rolled with it, ordered cuatro platas, and it turned out to be a fabulous meal.

As we pushed on, the drive became weary. We passed a lot of farms, with cows everywhere mindlessly grazing. When we passed a small church with a cemetery, I was reminded of a game my parents used to have my brothers play on road trips. The rules were simple: one person took each side of the road, and as fields went by filled with cows, the person who had that side of the road counted as many as they could see until they were out of sight. The one with more cows wins. Oh, the catch? All would be good unless you passed a cemetery on your side; once that happened, all of your cows would be dead and you'd have to start over from zero. I told this story to make fun of myself and the country surroundings that I grew up in and as we wound our way through the heart of Costa Rica, everyone chuckled. And about 2 minutes later when Dana saw some cows on her side, she started frantically counting. John was on the other side, and it was game on. For the next hour, we laughed excitedly as each new field approached, and time seemed to fly.

In the end, poor John ended up having two cemeteries on his side of the road, and Dana ended up winning the game handily. I hope I get to tell that story to their grandkids someday, and I'll probably still be laughing. If you would have told me going into the trip that all of those dusty hours in the car, counting cows, would have been a highlight, I wouldn't have believed it. But that's the beauty of travel, and really, life- no matter how hard you plan, you never quite know what's around the next bend.

But I'm pulling for more cows.

My Brush with Reality (TV)

It was (finally) sunny here in San Francisco on Saturday and I decided to go for a fun and take Hobbes along with me. (I'm still reveling in the fact that I can go out my door and pass by SBC Park and the Bay Bridge within minutes) The street that SBC Park (where the San Francisco Giants play) is right behind our new apartment, and I'm headed towards the Park when I see the billboard that I've posted a copy of here. I chuckle to myself and think that a group of San Francisco liberals probably got together a bunch of money and decided to give the ol' finger to the biggest cheater in sports since, well, probably ever.

I love sports, but other than going to actually watch the games in nice parks like Camden Yards, and SBC Park, I haven't much cared about baseball since the players strike in 94. Despite my nonchalence about the sport, however, I still have a reverence for the records that the sport holds dear. The Red Sox come back two years ago was some of the most riveting TV ever, as was the Cubs collapse the year before. Sadly, I'm continually shocked at how more and more players are either saying they doped while in the sport or are getting caught and the league does nothing about it. So needless to say, despite being somewhat of a fan of Barry Bonds early in his career when he played for the Pirates, I don't think much of him now.

As I get closer to the billboard, a guy approaches me and asks me if I would mind answering some questions about it. I figured he was on the PR team for whoever created the billboard and they were looking for some good quotes. So I popped out my ear buds and before I knew it, was being filmed as the reporter asked me questions like 'Who do you think is behind this billboard' and and 'Do you think the Giants would be better off without Bonds?' I said that even though the Giants would probably not win as many games without him, they would be better off without him. I continued that it would be nice to see them get rid of him, but I didn't see it happening since pretty much everyone in baseball seems so crooked and out to protect their own. I finished with something along the lines like he was a cheater and didn't belong in the sport or record books.

After the interview was over, I said 'So, are you guys associated with the people who put this up?" The reporter quickly responded saying 'No, we actually don't know who is behind this at all. We work for ESPN." There was a pregnant pause and then it dawned on me as I said 'Are you the crew that is following Bonds around for that reality show, following his run towards the home run record?' and he said 'Yep'.

Feeling a bit red-faced, all I could stammer was 'Lucky you', grabbed Hobbes, and headed off. Will I be the next reality TV star? Doubtful. But I think it pays to know who is interviewing you before you spout off!

Learning is Fun (I Think)

After skiing for 20 years, I decided that I wanted to learn to snowboard this year. I did this for a couple of reasons: although I loved to ski, I was always a bit curious about what all the rage about snowboarding was about; many of my friends had 'converted' from skiing and said they would never go back; the equipment is a whole lot more comfortable; and I thought, learning something new would be fun. Plus, Christian said he would do it too so I thought it would be something neat for us to do together.

Everyone who snowboarded warned me that the first few days would be spent pretty much exclusively on my a**. Over New Year's weekend, we took a group lesson and after the lesson was over, it took 45 minutes to get down one of the bunny slopes. But I guess because I had been so conditioned to expect so little, the day was mostly enjoyable. After being rained out the rest of the weekend, we were back on the mountain with our friends Ryan and Tom, who were both just learning as well. It snowed all day, so anytime I fell, it was like falling into a pillow. After a few trial runs on green dots (that's the easiest slopes) and not falling much, we were collectively emboldened to try some blue squares (intermediate). I really felt like I was catching on, and was hooked.

Well, 2 months went by, and for one reason or another, we didn't make it back up to Tahoe until this past weekend. I knew I'd be a bit rusty, but expected to pick right up where I left. Um, not quite. Getting off the lift became the terror it was on the first day, I couldn't go more than a minute or so without falling, and couldn't even get close to riding on my toes. (To non-snowboarders-- the idea is to go back and forth between riding on heels and toes) We decided to take another lesson and ended up with Bibi, an instructor whose accent was so thick, I could barely understand her. It didn't help that Christian picked up what she was teaching quickly and I just couldn't get it. Bibi kept barking empty praise at me that I finally had to tell her 'I need a minute' to get her away from me. After the lesson, we did one more run and I sorta felt like I sorta was getting it, but overall, the day was a wash. I left the mountain pretty disgusted. I was so frustrated that I wanted to turn in my snowboard and get skis for the next day-- I just wanted to know what the hell I was doing.

Alas, I didn't swap my board out for skis and it was back to the mountain on Sunday. After a first few couple of rough runs, something changed. I was able to be up for a bit longer and I was starting to actually get it. Of course, there was still a lot of falling-- a lot of falling. But I was getting the feel of what it's like to ride on your toes and get the "S" turns. Yes! So then what do we do? Follow our bonehead friend Peter up to a run called Siberia Express. It was a crazysteepnarrow run that we had no business being on. After a brief freak out and throwing some expletives at Christian (sorry, honey), we somehow got down the hill. But over the next few (less steep) runs, the feeling was there again. Awesome! We stopped for lunch and were back out on the mountain. After each time I fell, I could stay up a bit longer and carve longer. However, at this point, even though my brain was totally in the game, my body said no. After 2 long days of falling and falling and falling and twisting in ways I didn't know it could, I was done. As we walked off the slope, I felt good about the improvements I had made and can't wait to get back out there again.

I think our culture of immediate gratification has taught us to expect to master things right away. Any software package I open or website I go to, I feel like I should be able to get right away. I felt like after a day or two of boarding, I should be as good as I was at skiing. Well, it didn't work out quite like that, but I think I'm okay with that. It's an important lesson to remember - learning can be fun again.

A Part of Something Good

When I started my job at Yahoo, which is about 30 miles south of San Francisco, I assumed there would be gay folks everywhere. I mean, the only thing gayer than working at an airline is living in San Francisco, right? Yahoo had the requisite domestic partner policy (that was great for us since Christian was in school) and this being the Bay Area, there was a very open environment. But I was surprised to find that there really just wasn't much of a presence of gays and lesbians at Yahoo!, or so it seemed. That is, until an acquaintance of mine named Brady, who went to Stanford with some of my other friends, started at Yahoo and decided to change all that.

Pretty much single-handedly, he created a GLBT (that's Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered) employee group called Yahoo! Pride that held a number of social events and what do you know, there were a lot more folks there than I thought! He began a number of initiatives to raise awareness of GLBTs across the company. He started a email list where people could communicate with each other (messages like 'Anyone up for a karoke night tonight' or group screenings of Brokeback Mountain were common). A wonderful achievement was last summer, not long after the group formed, during Pride month when a rainbow flag was hung in the cafeteria for the week. Having your workplace place something that is so commonly associated with a group you are part of is a tremendous feeling.

Additionally, he worked to educate how marketing to the GLBT audience could benefit the different businesses that are part of Yahoo. One of these such initiatives was to create a station in the Launch internet radio service that would cater to the gay audience, and he was looking for help to program it from members of the employee group. Dubbed 'Gay Club Mix', this was pretty much right up my alley. I poured through my catalog of songs and created a spreadsheet of 300+ songs and sent them in.

Well, the station went live last week and has been an instant success. It debuted in the top portion of audience members listening of all the stations on Launch and after listening myself for a few hours, I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Yes, the icons like Madonna and Cher are there, but there were also some less mega-popular songs that I had suggested made their way in as well (Mike Rizzo's mix of Becky Baeling's 'Getaway' was one of the such surprises.) So next time you forget your iPod at work, give this station a shot. (Note: a Yahoo! ID may be required) But beware-- you will be tapping your feet and dancing in your chair!

The Good Life

Ahhh, the good life. It's something we all aspire to live. I'm pleased to report we just got back from the big birthday celebration for Christian in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and got to live that cherised good life for a few days...

Casa Nautilus, the home where we stayed, proved to exceed my (and I think everyone's!) expectations. It was about 7 miles south of the city, perched right on the side of a cliff overlooking The Arches, a stunning Vallara landscape icon. There was a staff of a house man, a cook and a maid who had margaritas and guacamole waiting for us when we arrived, cooked us breakfast every day, and dinner two of the nights we were there. Good life, indeed.

Beyond being waited on hand and foot at the house when we were there, we also had some amazing dinners. The first night out was recommended to us by good friends from C's school and it proved the perfect locale for us all to re-connect; the staff even sang Happy Birthday in Spanish to Christian after dinner. Sunday night we had dinner at an exclusive hotel with a terrace on the side of a hill overlooking the city. We had the deck all to ourselves and got to watch the sun slowly sink into the Pacific Ocean as we sipped cocktails The terrace only had 3 tables capped off with a mariachi band playing. The food was of the fresh out of the sea variety and even though I've had more expensive bottles of champagne before, I don't remember them tasting quite so good.

As shocking as it may be though, this wasn't the best meal experience we would have. Having a staff to serve you food is a great concept -- if you have arranged in advance for them to have the food and for them to be there to cook it for you. Unfortunately, we didn't plan ahead so well on one of the days, and what we thought was the legendary Hotel of the Black Iguana next to the house was certainly a hotel and legendary as promised, but it hasn't been open in years. Miles from anywhere closeby to get food and unable to reach cabs, I had to reach back into my 'Logistics Man' playbook and pull out a full house. We ended up wandering a little bit down the road on the search for something, anything, when a local who worked at one of the mega-houses like the one we were staying in happened to walk out front of the house. We accosted her and she recommeded Le Kliff, which was about 3 miles down the road. However, this being rural Mexico, the roads were quite narrow and there was no way to get a cab.... she recommended the bus and before I could say 'Lady, I don't even ride buses in my home country, much less one that is notorious for rickety old machinery..', one pulled up behind us, she flagged it down, and 50 pesos later, we were on our way. The bus was an old beat up school bus painted blue and the bus driver's four year old sun was sitting with his back to the dashboard collecting the fare. Oh, don't ask me why, but a teddy bear was taped to the area above the dashboard. But little did we know what would be there when we arrived-- simply one of the most stunning restaraunts I have ever had the pleasure of going to. Nestled on the side of the cliff, the picture to the right was taken right by our table and was but one of the many stunning ones I snapped while there. That's why you have to love when unplanned things happen when travelling-- we went from destitue on the side of a road to a decadant experience in about 5 minutes. Even when we weren't trying to lead the good life, it seemed to find us!

Iit probably doesn't matter where we would have gone, being with 7 of my best friends plus Christian is a formula for fun no matter what. But given the choice, I'd take the good life route anytime.

More Absurd than Absurd

Not completely satisfied to horde marriage rights for themselves and themselves only, Social Conservatives are now moving to try and pass more laws outlawing gays from adopting, USA Today reports. In particularly oppressive states like Ohio, laws are actually making their way through the state houses, despite the numerous reports that having gay parents has little impact on a child's ability for success (or not) and that even most of the jerks who voted to outlaw gay marriage don't support it. Read this amusing retort from a Senator in Ohio I found on the Akron Bee site that helps to highlight the important theme here -- just because certain people think that a "way of life" is inherently bad (be it gay or Republican or, gasp, both), that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to have kids.... or get married or.... have a normal life.... or... whatever.

To: All Senate Members
From: Senator Robert Hagan
Re: Co-Sponsorship Request
Date: February 22, 2006
I intend to introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents. Policymakers in Columbus have ignored this growing threat to our communities for far too long. My legislation is modeled after a bill recently introduced in the Ohio House by Rep. Ron Hood (R-Ashville via Carrollton), which would prohibit homosexual, bisexual and transgender people from adopting children. It is unclear at this point whether Rep. Hood supports my legislation, though I remain hopeful.
Credible research exists that strongly suggests that adopted children raised in Republican households, though significantly wealthier than their Democrat-raised counterparts, are more at risk for developing emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, an alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves, and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.
In addition, I have spoken to many adopted children raised in Republican households who have admitted that, ``Well, it's just plain boring most of the time.'' In fact, one adopted child raised in a fiercely partisan Republican household in suburban Cincinnati described his upbringing as ``18 years of hellish terror.'' ``A nightmare I haven't yet awoken from,'' said a 25-year-old Republican adoptee that chose to remain nameless.
If you are interested in co-sponsoring this legislation, please feel free to contact my office.

As ridiculous as it is to consider, I wish a few of them could read this and see the ridiculousness they continue to raise through their efforts to keep things to themselves that they don't own. To my dear family members/readers who don't think the current adminstration's support of these people effects anyone, here's another example of efforts to institutionalize homophobia-- that is, the ability to lawfully discriminate against me and people like me. When will it end?

We Live Here!

Christian and I talked for many years about living in San Francisco. We even had a name for it-- 'The West Coast Plan'. We would have fun during our 20s, and then by the time I turned 30 (which seemed sooooo far away when we hatched the plan), we would really sit down and figure out a) if/how we would start a family and b) try and determine where we would settle, ie, California. Hence, the name of the plan.

So we had a great time in our 20s and I never really thought we would live in California anyway. But then Christian got into Stanford and I got my job at Yahoo! within a month of each other, and we suddenly found ourselves living here on the west coast. Many times since then, whenever we experience something very California-- say, looking out over Lake Tahoe or a week of 75 degree temperatures in February, we would turn to each other and say 'We live here!' There's always a sense of amazement that we're both here, actually living the life we talked about for so long.

But now it gets better, because we actually live in San Francisco, not a suburb. I was walking Hobbes tonight up on top of Potrero Hill (our neighborhood) and came across a view like the one in the picture, as the sun was setting. The city sat there in all her glory, the Bay Bridge lit up and the sun setting behind the Golden Gate. It was a stunning view, and it really hit me-- 'we live here!'

So we only have an apartment, we're still a bit away from seriously considering kids, and Christian hasn't even graudated or started his job yet. But standing there on the top of the hill, overlooking my new home city, I couldn't help but feel the West Coast plan is coming into place.

I trust that will be the first of many more wonderful San Francisco memories to come.

"Going to the Chapel... And We're Gonna Get DP'd..."

Well, not really, but Christian and I did finally fill out the forms to be domestic partners here in California and send them away for official recognition. (For those of you who don't follow this closely, Mass. is the one state we can get married in but they don't marry out-of-staters due to a law from the early 1900s that tried to discourage inter-racial marriages (!) while VT and CT call them civil unions, and CA domestic partnerships that grant most of the in-state rights of married couples such as estate rights and hospital visitation)

It was just as I had imagined my government would recognize my relationship someday.... on a quick break from work.... squeezing into an cube of an administrative assistant at Yahoo who is also a Notary Public.... Christian wearing a Stanford sweatshirt and flip-flops and me in my polo shirt and jeans..... and when I heard the forceful stamp of the notary's stamp against the printed-from-the-internet form, I really felt that my government was doing right by me.

Uh, not quite. I'm not one to kick a gift horse in the mouth and all, but even my most optimistic description of the transaction today would equate the process to applying for a driver's license. Christian and I have been together 8 wonderful years now - and one commitment ceremony (in Washington, DC), one civil union (in Vermont), one near-marriage (in San Francisco during those glorious few days of Valentine's Day 2004 when Mayor Newsome opened up City Hall) and now a domestic partnership later, I'm left to wonder what the big deal is about just calling it a marriage and being done with it already.

In fact, the euphoria that we felt when we got to be part of those historic days in San Francisco led us to say 'Look, we're not doing this again until it's 100% legit, recognized in the municipality we live in, and we are married. Period.' But here we go again, drawn like moths to the flame of any governmental recognition. So why keep doing it? Well, it's important to stand up and be counted, I think. Call it civil union, domestic partnership, whatever, if someone is counting, I think that Christian and I should be part of it. To let people know that there are people that think, even though its pretty much marriage in everything but name to the state of California, that even those rights conferred are still important. To let people know that these increments of steps are a good thing, even if its still not enough.

Nearly 5 years out from our big event, I can truly appreciate the gravity standing in front of your friends and family and committing your love, carries-- what most people called getting married. Back then, we struggled with what to call it; some members of my family had issues with the 'wedding' word. This being 2001, before gay marriage was even a term here in the US, we called it a commitment ceremony. It was a wonderful event, hands down the best day of my life. But in hindsight, it was a wedding, and we got married, government be damned. And we should have called it that. If I asked any of my married friends/readers 'Would you rather have a civil union, domestic partnership or a marriage..?', what would they say? Separate is not equal, period.

All that said, this is still a milestone in our relationship, and one worth celebrating and noting. I'm so lucky that I get to be domestic partnered/civil unioned/married/sharing my life/whatever you call it with someone as kind, loving and generous as Christian. The labels we have or don't have or have full access to does nothing to dimish that, but I still look forward to the day we get to add a wedding certificate to our ever-growing collection of documents.