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8 March 2008 – Austin, originally uploaded by Aubs.

Waiting in line at Stubbs. Yum!

No WONDER there are so many empty coffee shops and parking spots in San Francisco today…

read more | digg story

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The height of fashion!, originally uploaded by Aubs.

My dad emailed me this today, and since I’ve been the crappiest blog poster EVER as of late, figured it would have to suffice as today’s post.

Go forth and mock my chubby cheeks, but never, EVER, my astute fashion sense.

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My view from The Strand, originally uploaded by Aubs.

The room’s not ready, Kevin is in an interview, so I figured I may as
well do some work. Always better with a view.

I used my Clear Card for the first time today. In case you haven’t heard of it (which is possible – while it’s been heavily touted here in SF, it’s not yet available in most airports), the Clear Card allows you to "avoid the hassle of airport security every time you fly." For $99/year, you fill out an application, and once approved, complete a fingerprint and retinal scan and voila! Within a few weeks your card arrives, and you can fly right through security. So they claim. (I’m not even going to touch upon the concerns that many people have about privacy by allowing a private company AND the TSA access to your one-of-a-kind retinal scans, since I figure the government already knows more about me than I do, and there’s very little I can do about it. It’s just the way it is these days.) I heard about it first from Anil Dash, another frequent traveler in the tech space, and his "unsolicited testimony" convinced me that this is something I must have, especially since I’d be losing my Gold status on one of the airlines, something I had come to love and expect. So, I signed up. And, en route to Atlanta, I was eager to see if it lived up to the claims.

It did, and more.

I expected to get to avoid the line leading up to the X-Ray machines, but in fact, I went to the Clear booth (situated next to the normal line where they check your boarding pass and IDs), showed them my ID, Clear Card, and boarding pass, scanned my left index finger, and I was well on my way…WITH AN ESCORT. The woman from Clear not only carried by bags, but cut in front of all of the other people in line (including the ones that were putting their bags on the conveyor belt), put my laptop and "liquids and gels" into one of those plastic bins, and – here’s the clincher – had me go through the X-Ray machine while she waited for my bags to get to go through. They claimed that you’d "fly through security in under 4 minutes" and they were wrong: it was under 3.

What they don’t tell you, though, is you feel like an asshole. Or at least I did. I’m fiercely independent, having a hard time even utilizing assistants when I know that’s why we have them and pay them,  and this just feels like I’m somehow cheating the system. This surprised me – I have NO problem with enjoying my Gold or Platinum status on the airlines, and waltzing right up as soon as the flight is boarding, hoarding all the pillows and blankets, and being sound asleep in first class before the rest of the plane has even finished boarding. But in that case, I’ve paid my dues, enduring countless long flights to places near and far, missing family and friends and Lila. I’m justified for that privilege. And while I paid my dues for the Clear Card – literally, I paid my $99 as a Christmas present to myself when I was still unemployed – something about it feels wrong. Chalk it up to my Midwest upbringing or sense of humility instilled upon me by my parents, but while I think the Clear Card is probably the way of the frequent traveler’s future, I still found myself averting my eyes as I cut in front of the other folks who weren’t yet fully awake at 6am.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’ll be waiting in the long lines of the Atlanta airport (which doesn’t yet offer the Clear Card) on Sunday, frustrated and tired and worried about missing my plane, but at least I’ll be doing it with a clear conscience.

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The Bigg Digg Shindigg at SXSW, originally uploaded by Aubs.

It’s been a busy week here at Digg (which actually means it’s a TYPICAL week here at Digg) and we’ve got some great things coming in the next few days and weeks. (I suppose I haven’t posted my “What I’ve Been Doing These Days” post yet, so in the meantime, Hi! I’m working for Digg, a website where users submit and “digg up” stories & videos & images that interest them the most, which gives you an easy way to see the most popular & interesting content on the web. Cool, right? Right. I’ll expand on that at some point, but that should provide the sufficient background for now!)

Anyway, the first of this is our Townhall Webcast this Monday at 6pm PST – grab yourself some dinner or a beer and tune in to see Kevin and Jay (our fearless founders) talk about what’s going on at Digg and answer your questions (you can submit them here!)

The other thing (and oh, I can’t even tell you how excited I am for this!) is The Bigg Digg Shindigg, our kickass party that we’re throwing at South by Southwest (SXSW) in a few weeks. This is my fourth SXSW and each year gets better and better…I can’t think of anything more fun than hanging out for 9 days in Austin with some of my closest friends, seeing awesome live music AND throwing a party. If you’ll be in Austin on March 11th, come on by one HELL of a party. We don’t call it the BIGG Digg Shindigg for nothin’!

There’s apparently a service for everything these days. Why it came up on my Gmail ad stream, however, is a bit disturbing. Does Gmail think that I should join to FIND one or to BE one?

Last night’s Valentine’s Day party was a huge hit, all thanks to y’all. Turns out that not only did I come in with $137 tickets for my bucket ("Put your ticket in my bucket!" was kind of my favorite phrase for the last week) but I also apparently had more that double the tickets than anyone else including the ones that people donated at the door! Not only is that flattering, but it warms my heart to know that my friends/family/readers are so generous. The lucky winner and I are heading out next week for a drink, or you know, four, since that’s how I roll. But more than anything I’m just glad I helped play a part in all of this (and that you did too!)

Seriously. Thank you.

It makes up for the fact that one confused couple thought they got to buy me for a threesome.

There are many ways to spend your Valentine’s Day.

Some choose to go out with their sweetheart, celebrating the day that Hallmark loves with a fancy dinner on the town.
Others opt to stay in, either celebrating in private (for those à deux) or perhaps lamenting that most hated day for many singletons by themselves.
And yet others, those fine folks that are single (like me) and loving it (sometimes like me), decide to throw caution to the wind and head out to an event to CELEBRATE their singledom. Like me. And yet this year, the hangover I’ll (likely) have on Friday will be all worth it since I’m raising money for charity.

Specifically, I’m RAFFLING MYSELF OFF to raise money for charity.

Yes, you read that correctly – my friend Dan throws this kick-ass party every year to raise money for this fantastic charity BayKids.org – and each year raffles off eligible bachelors & bachelorettes with all proceeds going to the kids. And this year, he asked me to be one of the lovely ladies.

Here’s the deal:

It’s only $1 to buy a ticket, and since I want to help as much as I can, figured I’d open up the raffle to y’all as well! So, for each and every one of you that donates (use the button below) I’ll put a ticket in my designated bucket (oh, the glee I’ve had from getting to use that phrase lately!) and if you win, I’ll buy us a round of drinks. If we can’t work out the logistics, I’ll send you something awesome. Like a Mix CD. Or an autographed photo of my dog. Or something…we’ll be creative. I’ve left the item amount empty so you can donate as much as you want – for every $1 you donate, I’ll put in a raffle ticket. (So, if you REALLY want to up your odds, throw in $10. Or, you know, a grand. Whatever feels right.) Just make sure you put in your real email address when you donate so I can get in touch with you. Drinking alone is SO 2007.

So, please take a moment to click that little orange button below and you never know, the next drink you’ll have may be on me…

October 29-February 7.

The span between calculates to exactly  100 days…100 days that I haven’t been "officially" working. Which translates to 2400 hours, 144,000 minutes and 8,640,000 seconds, give or take, um, not a damn thing.

One hundred days. I keep repeating this because the scope of this – not to mention the unintentional exactness of this time span – just seems so vast. It’s been an interesting time, probably one of the hardest times of my life. My emotions have spanned from excited (I can’t wait to try this whole freelancing thing) to worried (what if I *NEVER* figure out what I want to do with my life?) to scared shitless (uh oh, I’m running out of money.) There was a point where I thought I was going to have to take a job – any job – just to get by and pay my rent. My savings – saved for an event just like this – have dwindled, and I can’t say that my confidence didn’t do so as well.

With all due respect to Gabriel García Márquez, it has been One Hundred Days of Solitude. I found myself pushing people away, avoiding social events (probably also due to my "No Alcohol in January" quest) and basically looking into myself to figure out where to go from here. It was a pretty damn scary time, I’m not going to lie, and while I wouldn’t exactly call it a "Third-life crisis" (esp. since I hate that term and think it’s over-generalizing different stages in peoples’ lives) I will say it was a time of introspection like I’d never had before. I realized that I hadn’t been happy at the last few jobs, and while I knew why, I didn’t yet have the answer on how to fix it, how to find something that WOULD make me happy. Freelancing wasn’t doing it, and though I found myself interviewing for high-paying jobs that I could do with my eyes closed (good jobs for good companies), I didn’t think they’d challenge me the way I wanted. Nor did I find a place that I was passionate about, a product that I cared about, people that I genuinely wanted to work with and learn from and, hell, go have a beer with. Until I did.

I start tomorrow as a Marketing Manager at Digg.com, and I’ve literally been jumping up and down and doing (virtual-only, since I can’t do real ones) backflips for the past two days. My soon-to-be manager asked me when I wanted to start, and I basically screamed "THURSDAY!" and alas, so it is. I don’t know how how Gabriel García Márquez chose to end HIS book, but in mine, this story just got one hell of a happy ending.