my little dog, cuba: 2006-2008

my little dog, cuba, died on weds dec 10th. she died from complications from an emergency surgery she had on monday. she ate a rock -- i will never know or understand why -- and she had to have it removed. unfortunately the surgeon made a mistake and didn't close her intestines completely causing her body to go septic over the next 48 hours. i was there when she died and i think a part of me - a cuba-sized - part of me died too.

cuba was a 5 lb morkie -- a maltease yorkie mix. I got her when she was 6-weeks old. she completely changed my life - she had a frolicky, whimsical spirit that brightened every room. over the last 2+ years we spent a lot of time together - she traveled with me, she went shopping with me, in many ways she has been my closest and dearest companion. now that she is gone, i'm a little bit lost and i'm lonely. I feel that gap in my life and i miss her cheerful, sprite-like greetings when i came home. i miss snuggling in the morning and going on our exploratory walks all over queen anne. she may have been little, but her favorite thing was to go on walks and check-in on the neighbors.

Someone wrote to me that cuba represented a sweet and disarming part of me. I think that's true, she often acted as my ambassador - providing sweet joy to those around with little licks and some of her cute moves (downward dog stretches, over the shoulder winks, running around for toys, jumping with glee). She had a lot of cuteness to her. She would eat her food one piece at time -- i'd line it up in a row and she would eat each one bit by bit. it was adorable and silly.

i'm so sad by the tragic circumstances and i feel that time was stolen because of human error. losing a pet is always hard, the unexpectedness of it, i think, has made it a bit harder for me. i am incredibly grateful for my friends and family (and my co-workers). they have all been amazing. i'm not a very emotional person, but this has broken me and i'm deeply sad. my friends have come and taken care of me - cooked me food, taken me out, saved me from complete loneliness. my dad has come up to stay with me for a few days. it's been great and the connectedness i've felt from all the support has been a blessing.

i don't yet know how to commemorate my little one properly. the nearness of her is still close - i woke up this morning expecting her little self to be in bed with me.

all i can say is this: cuba, my little morkie, was awesome. i cherished my time with her -- and i loved her completely. i will miss you little one.

Below are some cuba pictures -- for more go here.

WOOOHOOO! Obama!

Last night, at the War Room in Seattle, I watched as Barack Obama was elected president. I am so excited! Change has come to America and wooohooo i am ready to do my part!

Here's a pic from last night -- what's missing is the champagne and the cheering.


I was glad to be in seattle, a city that is quickly growing on me now that I actually admit to living here :) At the same time, my people back in CA are having a rough morning as it looks like Prop 8 will pass. It provides a bittersweet reminder that we have a lot of work to do.

sunny in seattle

i am so happy with this weather forecast:

it's a little bit geeky ...

a couple of weekends ago David and I went to San Juan island for a mini-break. It was awesome (as you can see from the pics). We did hit one snag -- we decided to play a board game (Scavenger Hunt -- there's more strategy to it than one would think!) but the game required a pair of dice...which were no where to be found...and we didn't have the internet...So, david wrote some code and voila we had dice. See below (the formatting is a little off because of my blog -- sorry david!):

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UPDATE: hrm i seem to have broken the code. it worked wonderfully on vacation :)

SMX Advanced Presentation

Last week I gave a presentation on adCenter during the "Amazing PPC Tactics" session at SMX Advanced. My presentation focused on three things: Keywords, Bulk Tools & Tricks -- check out the presentation below for the details. It was a really fun session with lots of interesting information -- if I get links to the other presentations i'll post them.

This conference was a particularly exciting one for me as a product I've been working on shipped in Beta -- adCenter Desktop. Here's a link to an article on the launch. If you are interested in trying out the bulk management application, fill out this form and let us know.

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Going on Vacation: Australia & New Zealand

I'm flying out to Brisbane Australia for a few weeks of much needed vacationing. Below is my schedule. It's an interesting vacation for me as I've been to all the places I'm going to sometime before ... usually i try to break out and do something completely new. However, this will be my first multi-day-week bike trip...so that should be interesting. Yes, I plan to blog...

ok, so i haven't blogged in a long time.

Note: It's been ~6 months since i last blogged. Lots has happened. really. I think though that the thing most people want to know about are the triathlons. So I will write about that.

Yes, i did 6 triathlons last summer -- 3 sprint and 3 olympic. It was honestly one of the hardest and most insane things i have ever committed to doing and i don't think i would do it again without being in considerably better shape and having a lot more free time. It was hard on me mentally as well as physically. I would never have done the last triathlon -- where the water was BELOW 60 degrees and the temperature outside was just above -- if it wasn't the last olympic i had signed up for and not doing it would mean I would have to do 6 more triathlons the next season in order to finish my 3-3-tri challenge.

"Triathlons seemed easy enough"
Initially I thought that doing 6 tri's would be fun, interesting and not so tough. I had done 2 sprints before. The distances of an olympic are very approachable: 2K swim, 40k bike, 10k run. And, since I'm typically one of those over-achiever types, Triathlons seemed easy enough: get from A to B, quickly and efficiently. It turns out that when you travel pretty regularly, have some shoulder issues, don't like wearing a wetsuit and probably have a reasonable amount of extra weight to carry around that getting from A to B is often harder than it would seem and may be in conflict with my usual "win" mentality. This was probably the best thing about doing a bunch of tri's: i lost all the time. I never won. I was never even able to compete to win. I just had to focus on what i was doing, what my race was and what I wanted to get out of it.

"I hate wet suits"
Initially, when i first evaluated my triathlon goals they were pretty simple. Get in better shape and don't be last. Well, these goals came to an end during my 2nd Olympic Triathlon. I wore a wet suit for the first time in a race and it was horrible. I had a panic attack. I have issues with things touching my neck. I actually get a little bit uncomfortable when people wear turtle necks around me. Well, it turns out wetsuits touch your neck -- and need to so that your chest doesn't scoop water when you swim. This was a problem. A big problem.

Of course, I did try on a wetsuit before my race. We splashed around in our wetsuits the day before the race for like 3 minutes and although it seemed like it would annoy me, I thought it would probably be ok. This was not the case on race day. On race day we had a mass start. I dove in and started to swim and the neck part of my suit started to rub my neck and i FREAKED out. I had one of my only panic attacks ever. I tried to get over it, then i tried to loosen my suit and get it off. Funny how you can't really do that when you are in a race situation in the water. The result was that i struggled a lot during my swim (and burned my neck with the suits edge) and when i finally got out of the water i was right behind someone else, but i was last. Which meant i was last in the race.

This was a horrible place to be. The swim -- until then -- was kind of my strongest bit. Since it was a mass start, there was no one behind me to "beat" and as i got on the bike i was completely mentally off my game. I was consumed by being last. By failing at my objective. By hating my wetsuit. I was clumsy and cold. I was angry and disappointed. More than anything, I was mad. I dropped my chain on the bike -- a beautiful ride btw -- 3 times. I never drop my chain.

What does being last mean?
I did the run and finished the race last. I started crying as soon as I crossed the finish line and got a private moment. My friend Diedre (who had also done the race with me) came over. She was so excited. I was a total mess. Overachievers aren't last! What did this mean for me? Was I now a failure? A loser? My self-image was a mess. It turns out it didn't mean as much as I thought. The huge significance I had put on myself -- and the wasted energy being frustrated with the race and mentally being off my game, wasn't worth it. I'm not going to say that it didn't suck -- but now months later, I can say that this was one of the most important failures in my life. It's made me more human, more relaxed. I am more comfortable in my own skin.

I did eventually get better at swimming in a wet suit -- i still don't love it but i now see the value. I'm planning to do some more triathlons this summer -- but easy ones that I don't have to stress about -- i.e. all sprints! I'm also going to focus on cycling. I really love cycling now. Doing 6 triathlons was definitely insane (for me) but it was also great -- as I did them all and proved to myself that yes, I can set some specific health goals and achieve them. Maybe not how i dreamed but successfully none-the-less. I also proved to myself that i can stay focused on a ridiculous challenge just to persevere. Which proved to be a useless victory, but it's good to know.