there are lots of ways to enjoy the good weather in sunny northern california. my friend jon and i like to drive when the weather’s nice out and that’s exactly what we did today. we took the back roads from north oakland to san ramon and i had a blast letting loose. it was particularly sweet since i’d gone a week without my g while she was in the shop getting her rear bumper replaced from the hit and run a couple of weeks ago. good times, i plan to repeat this run again a few times in the summer with some variations…

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interestingly, some have recognized this niche concern and have started online reputation management services. thankfully, i don’t think i’ll need to enlist those services.

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• twitter update on my stream
• post to wordbook plugin on my facebook profile
• facebook status updated as a result of twitter update

this is a bit of an experiment on my part to see the maturity of various platform APIs to support this type of integration. if it coincidentally increases readership of my blog, i won’t complain. i will continue to maintain some degree of anonymity as far as information available on this blog about me, but friends/contacts clicking through from facebook/linkedin/twitter will clearly know who they are reading about. i will be experimenting with apture and flowgram and posting some thoughts about these here over the next couple of weeks. they are startups that offer methods for sharing and annotating information over the web.

i’ve had a few things going on in life. katie and i have been working on getting wedding plans together, including getting most (but not all) of our save the date cards out to guests. things have been slow at work but i’m working on an interesting project that’s very bleeding edge in terms of technology on a handset. i’ve also been tracking a standards body for a project i’ve kicked off at work and this has taken me to a few destinations around the world. in the past few months i’ve been fortunate to travel to vancouver, london, beijing and paris where i’m composing this post right now. in the past 5-6 months i’ve actually had a bit of travel in addition to this with trips to hawaii, vegas, chicago and seattle. i’m looking forward to this settling down over the next couple of months, likely with just trips to seattle and chicago sprinkled in every few months.

the travel has been good as i haven’t done much travel around the world, but i’m fatiguing of being on the go every couple of weeks. there are many things that need to get done at home that i feel are being neglected. for example, i typically file my taxes in february, but this year it got pushed back to april. the travel schedule has also interfered with my health habits, so i end up eating irregularly and eating worse food in addition to not having the time or energy for gym visits. i have become better at dealing with 12-16 hours of travel at a time, typically carrying some reading material, a dvd or two, and headphones with my ipod.

something’s brewing in the pot…. i will be able to elaborate on this later =)

that’s all for now!

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lots to report on between job stuff, getting married, travel, and life in general. i’ll try posting updates a bit more frequently since i’ll be activating the Flog plugin on facebook.

that’s all for now!

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on my actual birthday, katie took me out for dinner to Oliveto’s where we had some great food, although the service needed some serious help. we split a couple of appetizers: house-made salami and bluefin tuna tartare. katie ordered the pasta with squid and i ordered the steak. the appetizers were delicious and katie’s pasta was very tasty. my steak was so-so… in hindsight i should have skipped the round eye cut and ordered something else like the rabbit loin. ah well, i’ll have to get that next time. katie had the rose wine, which a nice dry rose, and i ordered their “armando paro” and a greyhound. the armando was pear brandy, vodka and a couple of other things served as a martini and it was great. for dessert, we split a dark chocolate cake and plum ice cream with plum caramel sauce, the latter of which was interesting, but not quite what i was expecting since it was more sorbet-like than creamy like ice cream. overall, it was a nice relaxing day at work followed by good food and chilling at home afterward. oh yeah, katie got tickets for us to go watch the seahawks play the 49ers in SF! definitely psyched for that since many are picking the 49ers as the dark horse to steal the NFC West from seattle… we’ll see about that =)

on friday, some friends came over to oakland, and we had a really good dinner at Garibaldi’s, then came back to our place for dessert and drinks. despite some mixed reviews at chowhound, i found the food at Garibaldi’s to be really good. for an appetizer, we split a cheese plate, shoestring fries, and a spicy prawns dish, all of which were pretty good. i ordered the filet mignon (too much red meat this week…) and it came out accompanied by a mega tater-tot. the food was phenomenal. ben ordered the lamb dish that i was eying but back away from because of a pistachio couscous line item. he gave me a healthy sample of it and it was also extremely tasty, so much so that i preferred it to the filet. i sampled a bit of katie’s halibut dish and it was also very good. overall, i plan to return to Garibaldi’s after the great dining experience. the wines were good and my bengali gimlet with vodka in place of gin was pretty solid too (garam masala in a drink? who knew?). we came back to our place for a sundae bar and lots and lots of drinks. i made a limonata recipe i found off chowhound and it was pretty good. basically similar to a mojito, but made with lemon + vodka instead of lime + rum. by the time i crashed saturday morning, i was thankful i kept everything down. katie was away for all of 5 hours on saturday… and i was pretty tired the whole weekend. here are some pics from my birthday and the festivities on friday:

as can be inferred by what i wrote above, ben came to visit me for my birthday which was nice. i really like the tradition that we have going of visiting each other on/around birthdays because i always enjoy his company and catching up with him since we don’t live in the same area and haven’t for a really long time now.

don messaged me a belated birthday wish and lamented that we are getting old, since he also turned 26 in the month of august. i have to say, i don’t really feel like i’m getting old. i still feel young, energetic and ambitious yet comfortable with where i am in life. i probably would have felt very different if i had not made a conscious decision to change my lifestyle 3 months ago to start taking better care of myself. did some reflecting and came up with the following that i’m happy about accomplishing in my last year of life:

• started a new job that’s working out well for me. jump in pay didn’t hurt either.
• bit the bullet, bought a ring and finally got engaged after 4 1/2 years of dating an amazing girl i met in college
• found a new place and moved in with katie in oakland. leaving south bay, where i went to stanford and had most of my school friends was tough but worth it
• finally started to get serious about my health, having lost 20 lbs so far and on my way to losing more. i finally feel like i have good exercise and eating habits and that just makes me feel a lot better about myself and my future
• got some new wheels for my car! long overdue, found a great deal and i love the way my car looks now. it just needs a vortech, greddy TT build or hks supercharger (whenever those get released)…
• saved a lot of cash (see new job above)
• visited india with my parents. this was a huge deal for me since i hadn’t visited in 23 years. 4 1/2 weeks of amazing memories, awesome food and a little bit of illness
• took ~2 months off in between jobs (see India trip + moving to Oakland)

for this next year, my goals:

• save more for a nice down payment on a nice house in seattle next year
• lose more weight
• kick ass at my job and get my newly approved project off the ground and staffed up with ppl
• wedding plans + marriage
• travel more

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so what has compelled me this time? i received a few cold calls from various companies in the valley in the past two weeks. google, vmware, yahoo and a couple others. it was pretty surprising to me since they all reached me on my cell phone (where do they get this information) and knew where i worked. i figured they gathered some work history from linkedin, but still… the direct contact creates a bit of a creepy feeling. also, they would know i’ve only been at my current company for 5 months… a bit early to leave right? i wouldn’t leave for another pure technology job for a while anyway…

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my desk at home is a mess, i don’t feel like i’ve been systematically knocking off my weekly chores, things are progressing somewhat haphazardly at work, etc. i’ve got sam’s wedding this weekend and then i’m off to vegas for 5 days to attend the national association of broadcasting conference. between now and the time i get back, i’m going to be organizing my shit to get that sense of control back. more than anything, i want that feeling back where i feel like most things i’m doing are intentional.

an ambiguous post at best, but i just had to write it out.

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In sickness, health, doctor always cared
Cameron helped found Columbia St. Mary’s wound center

Colette Cameron always showed compassion for the patients she treated, both as a specialist in rehabilitation and in the treatment of wounds.

So when the doctor was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, it was her patients’ turn at Columbia St. Mary’s, Columbia Campus, to express concern. They and their families often asked after her well-being during those times when treatments took her from the wound center that she helped found.

“Her family came first,” said her husband and fellow physician, Jeff Cameron. “But her work was important to her, so that even throughout her illness, she went back as soon as she could to the wound center.”

Colette Cameron died Thursday. She was 54.

Cameron was born and raised in Rockford, Ill. She attended Loyola University and Northwestern University’s medical school in Chicago.

Afterward, she and her family lived in Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Wheaton, Ill., before she became director of the rehabilitation unit at Columbia St. Mary’s.

Cameron’s cancer diagnosis came shortly after she had taken on a new professional challenge.

After years spent practicing pediatric and adult rehabilitation, Cameron underwent special training in wound healing and hyperbaric medicine. She became the founding medical director of the Wound Healing Center at Columbia St. Mary’s.

Husband takes over

Because the center meant so much to Cameron, her husband received training and has taken over as director of the wound center.

Even during the most difficult parts of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Colette Cameron made sure to get to the wound center at least once a week to see her patients, her husband said.

Sometimes she would be in pain, but she never let it show to her patients, he said.

“What people will remember about her work is always being energetic and upbeat,” Jeff Cameron said.

Colette Cameron traveled extensively abroad, including Ireland, where she had family.

She loved sports and had many hobbies.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by three daughters, Katie, Kelsey and Emily; her mother, Eileen Burns; and her brothers, Chuck and Jim Burns.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. today at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 836 N. Broadway. Burial will be Tuesday at Calvary Cemetery in Rockford.

Donations to the Colette Cameron Fund for Wound Healing, Columbia St. Mary’s Foundation, 4425 N. Port Washington Road, Glendale, WI 53212, were suggested.

this has been a very tough time for katie, her family and myself. katie’s mom was one of the greatest women i’ve ever met in my life. from the very first time i met her over four years ago, she was so warm to me and immediately put me at ease when i was nervous to meet katie’s family for the first time. even though katie and i are recently engaged, she referred to me as her future son-in-law relatively early in the relationship. i have never written about her diagnosis, treatment, prognosis and struggle with cancer but i wanted to do my little bit to celebrate her life.

i’ve been in milwaukee for the past week helping katie and her family in any way i can. her wake, funeral and burial were on sunday, monday and tuesday respectively. hundreds of family members, friends and coworkers attended the various services to pay their respect. to see the positive impact this woman had on the world was very admirable and encouraged me to consider what i am doing with my own life.

may she rest in peace

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end result? no visible damage to her car but her @#(@ tow hook put a hole in my bumper. here are some pics…

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