I often talk about the Power of the Internets (not to be confused with the Power of Greyskull, natch) and how things like Twitter and especially Facebook find us reconnecting with those from our past. (In a somewhat related manner, I’m about THIS CLOSE to deleting my MySpace page because really, it’s lame, I check it like once every four months, and NO, Mr. Random Guido Bodybuilder, I DO NOT want to get to know you better. Really.) What I’ve found, though, as while Facebook is the social  network du jour here in Silicon Valley, I had a hard time explaining it to my friends whose lives don’t revolve around the Interweb. (Bless their hearts, I’m kind of jealous.) They’ve HEARD of it, mind you, but it was difficult trying to explain what it did. "You can add applications [note: at this point, they told me they thought I was talking about job applications, which makes sense if you’re not ensconced in the geekland like I am] and leave comments on people’s sites and see who’s married and who’s dating…" I trailed off then because not only did I do Facebook such injustice to describe it that way, but really, I sounded like a voyeur. This coming from someone who’s put her entire existence on the ‘net for 8 years now.

So while I’m adding friends on Facebook as far back as middle school on a semi-routine basis and finding out where they live and what they’re doing and mentally getting irrationally angry that we didn’t have this when I planned my 10-year high school reunion 2 years ago, I’m simultaneously discovering that LinkedIn is the more prevalent of these social networking apps, if the fact that Daisy’s Mom and MY OWN DAD are both on it. What? Ed Sabala on LinkedIn? What has this world come to!? And why, preytell, didn’t he ADD ME? Thanks, Dad.

Also, though LinkedIn only provides you with minimal details (read: No, you can’t find out if that dude you smooched once in the Sig Ep basement is still single, though if he lives in the South and is still that hot methinks the answer is probably ‘no’), you can see that your friend who used to run through the streets of Chapel Hill butt naked screaming "Look at  my wienie!" is, in fact, a lawyer.

LinkedIn: Proving that it’s a good thing that YouTube wasn’t around when we went to college.

When one owns a home, one expects that things will break. That’s what warranties and handymen are for, after all. Yet one doesn’t always expect them all to break AT ONCE. Add insult to injury when you own TWO houses and don’t live in either of them, so while you’re importantly ensuring that your renters have important things like hot water and frozen food, it just doesn’t have that same sense of satisfaction that comes with repair. It’s like sending money into the abyss.

Lately, it’s been a breakin’ type of season. Two weeks ago, the renter of my townhouse alerted me to the fact that the washer was leaking. Lovely. That’s out of warranty. (The fridge was doing the same a few months back, and the garage door also stopped working. Awesome). Then, the renters of my house told me that the Atlanta Gas & Light people had come out but refused to re-light the pilot lights since the water heaters weren’t apparently installed to code. Two and a half years after my closing – and this was part of the house purchase – those things are posing a health hazard for the lovely family that lives there. Which, of course, is totally unacceptable, and the former owner or the contractor should pay for this. Only we can’t track down who that was since it wasn’t written in the settlement statement. And all the emails that I had sent years ago to the former owner to get the sewer line working correctly (don’t ask) seem to have vanished. ARGH.

I love owning my houses, I do. I think that eventually, after this whole hullabaloo with the interest rates dies down (thank the dear lord for my long mortgages) I’ll make money on both of these places. In the meantime, I’m building equity and credit and being a good landlord while I spend more on my rented apartment here in SF than I do on my mortgages (both of which I’m losing money on, btw, due to low rents and higher mortgages. Still, I shouldn’t complain. I was able to own a home at age 25 and 5  years later, am glad that I do so.

It’s just a bit hard when in a week’s time, a washer hose springs a leak, you need to replace your water heaters and then the fridge stops working. Please, God of Home Appliances, can’t ya cut a gal any slack?

I honestly don’t understand how this happens EVERY YEAR. I consider myself a creative person but lo and behold, October comes and I find myself without a Halloween Costume. EVERY. YEAR. I’ve been Marilyn Monroe (a few times). Naughty Nurse? Check. I was even one half of "Blondes Have More Fun" (which, once separated, nobody understood). I am really open to anything, as long as it follows these three rules:

1. No face/body paint
2. No being intentionally ugly
3. Nothing scary

Given that the collective is smarter than the individual (and the Internets make EVERYTHING better), I ask: What should I be this year for Halloween? Bonus points for creativity…

Another tasty tidbit from Fred Wilson’s blog (which is quickly becoming one of my favorites):

Facebook is unlike anything we have seen to date because its the
first megatech company built by the generation that used the web before
they had sex

I’m now dying to know who said that, b/c they’re SO spot-on.

Saw this cartoon on Fred Wilson’s VC Blog, and found it bitingly true. Not sure who "ohugh" is but I like him/her.  Many thanks to Felix, who directed me to Hugh’s site, GapingVoid.com, of which I am now also a huge fan. He draws cartoons on the back of business cards. That’s awesome.

This weekend I found myself pledging my love and endless adoration to my Swiffer WetJet. If you don’t yet  have this magical device, put everything else down, and run – walk, scooter, drive, fly, skip, crawl, hitchhike, whatever – to your nearest hardware store or Target and procure one right now. It will change your life. And I mean that with every drop of sincerity in my body.

Anyway, while Swiffer WetJetting my very needy floors I decided to give myself a little cleaning music. Inundated by commercials these days as I continue my obsession with the new tv premiere season (LOVE Chuck. LOVE Journeyman. LOVE LOVE LOVE, and unapologetically so, Gossip Girl) I’ve naturally had Feist’s "1234" stuck in my head. I say "Naturally" because every other commercial is one for the fugly new iPod nano, and clearly someone wisely decided that the only way to sell this unattractive little nugget was to couple it with a catchy song. Not sure how sales are going for Nano Fugly-point-oh but I do know that "1234" is leeching space in my already overwhelmed brain.

In light of this, I share with you an awesome rendition of this song as she performed it on Davide Letterman with backup from members of my other fave bands (Broken Social Scene, Mates of State, The New Pornographers, The National, and Grizzly Bear.) Feel free to listen to it while Swiffering YOUR floors, or, as I did, treat yourself to watching the whole video (repeatedly) from the comfort of your now-spotless house.

As usual, I agree with Billy Madison. He’s a wise, wise man beyond his years. In the same vein, I’ve been doing a TON of learning here, and may I please brag for a second? (You said yes, didn’t you?)

Just today, I made this page. And also this.  And that snazzy little "News" section in the bottom right of the home page? Yep, did that too. I hand-coded it, designed it (information architecturally, that is), added the content, the logos and even learned markdown language. I didn’t know there was such a thing. I’ts nearly 6pm, my hands hurt, my eyes hurt, and my brain hurts.

Oh, but it hurts so good.

Marshall Kirkpatrick, author and my imagined new best friend (he’s not imaginary, mind you, I’ve just never met him) published an article today announcing our new round of funding and saying we’re the coolest company in Silicon Valley (that you may not have heard of). I think it’s time to change all that, so Hi! We’re Mashery! We have a fantastic service that will make your world easier, increase your business, and help you grow your traffic and user base. (I could get far more technical and tell you that we allow for on-demand API management and deployment, but that may lose some of y’all. More detailed post on what EXACTLY it is we do in layman’s terms coming soon).  Anyway, check out the article. I’m bursting with pride, all four-days in, and happen to agree. We ARE cool.

So today – Day Three of New Awesome Job – holds not only that moniker but also the title of The First Time I’ve Ever Had To Blog…For Work. I’m putting this in all-caps to emphasize the ridiculousity that this is, that after EIGHT YEARS of writing on this website (not blog), I’ve never, not once, been asked to write for a corporate blog. (Ok, that’s a lie. I wrote this, but it’s not really blog-like and I had been given the topic so I don’t really count it.)  But today, the heavens opened up and the angels began to sing and hell started getting some snowflakes and oh my! Is that a pig flying? Methinks it is. So yes. I get to write a blog post, one of many forthcoming and I’m just sitting here hoping that Typekey changes my profile name correctly and it doesn’t come from "Aubs".

Exciting, right?

Yep. Except I don’t really know where to begin. I’ve been here just three days (two and a half, if you’re being specific) and while I know what we’re doing and what I’m supposed to be writing about, I think I’m working myself up into a nervous tizzy about a blog post. I mean, if this involved math, nervous tizzy justified. But this is writing – nay, BLOGGING – something I consider myself a quasi-expert on. I mean, if there were a GRE section on blogging, I’m SURE I wouldn’t have gotten halfway through and just started putting down "B" for every answer. Like, um, I did for the math section.  (Whatever. Georgetown AND George Washington University still thought I was fabulous with my less-than-stellar math percentile. And you should too. But I digress…)

So with a hectic morning behind me and it being an "eat-at-my-desk" sorta day, I figured I’d take 20 minutes to pump myself up and do a bit of practice by reading some of my favorite blogs, catching up on the news of the day, and writing here.

I honestly never thought I’d see the day where I had to PRACTICE blogging, but hell, that pig WAS flying outside, wasn’t it?

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The celebratantes, originally uploaded by Aubs.

So I’m knee-deep in first week of work stuff or else I’d write a huge long post on how awesome it was to see some of my oldest and dearest friends this past weekend in Cleveland. Or how the weather there far surpassed that of San Francisco, a truth that my Mom just couldn’t fathom. Or I’d wax poetic on how awesome my new job is going to be and how I can’t wait to be totally insanely busy and welcome this stress, the GOOD stress, the stress of excitement and doing things and changing things and MAKING THINGS HAPPEN. Yep, I’d write about all of that and more, but honestly, I’ve got stuff to do. Y’all will just have to wait. (Which yes, I recognize that I’ve said that a lot lately to y’all, so thanks for your patience. My life will settle down here one of these decades.)

Instead of that post that I just don’t have time to write, I’ll share with you stories of Daisy and my “Onwards and Upwards Party” last Wednesday evening. Over fifty of you lovely, amazing friends showed up to eat, drink and be merry. (Please note that I did the latter two amazingly well and completely failed on the former. Next time, more food). Both Daisy and I had an amazing time, and after my ONE DAY OFF prior to the new job, I came into it with a new, fresh set of exhilaration for all that lies ahead which I completely attribute to fantastic friends who are always, consistently supportive. Enjoy the photos and I promise, more to come soon….