Utter Failures

After college, like just about every college grad, I was looking for work. I had worked during school breaks at WebMD for a few years and had a little other work experience as an office assistant. My first task was to ask WebMD if there was a full-time position. There wasn't. They didn't hire new grads anyway. But they did have a little freelance work I could take on while I job hunted, so I gladly took the offer. I thought to myself, I bet the WebMD brand would at least get me some phone calls, so I applied everywhere I could think of that seemed relevant: American Cancer Society, Children's Hospital, even the CDC. And I got the phone calls, but they all wanted more experience. Sigh. Then a coworker at WebMD mentioned that CNN hired "VJ"s right out of college, and that was how she got started. A VJ, or video journalist, is an entry-level position, but it's in really high demand, so you really have to be impressive to get in. I was told the first six month...

Sometimes these stories embarrass me. This is one. I hate looking dumb in front of people, which is weird because it happens so often. But I especially hate it when I'm trying to look competent. Back in my WebMD days, before my good friend Alicia stepped in as SEO of the UK site, Boots WebMD, I was handling the SEO for both the UK and the US sites. I had two or three main contacts in the UK for their site, and every Friday I sent a status report -- a weekly roundup of trends in search in the UK health sector.  All well and good.  Except on one email exchange, in some sort of context I don't remember, my UK contact said something like "It won't matter by the time they will have got to Nottingham."  Pause here. I like the UK just fine. I find their history interesting and their literature lovely. My favorite authors are from there. However, I admit to not really knowing much about their geography. I mean, I know where England/Ireland/Wales/etc are. I...

This post could really get out of hand. I am also going to be careful because some of my stories involve other people who haven't chosen to broadcast their fails to the world, so for the most part I'll be focusing on my part in these exciting adventures in failure. However, my mother-in-law has agreed to let me share part of her story too in the second section. Let's see, where to start. Well, rather than go in chronological order, let's group by theme. 1. Pregnancy (Feel free to skip if this doesn't interest you.) I have largely avoided morning sickness during this pregnancy, thank God. But of course, the morning of our early flight out of Greenville, I managed to have my first bout. So I got on our flight feeling awful and having eaten a couple of bites of a scone. We got to Chicago where I proceeded to be sick but did manage to eat part of a burger. That layover was 8 hours. Bleh. Then we got on the plan from Chicago to Tokyo for a fun 11 hour flight by AN...

I'd like to start this off with a disclaimer, because what I say in this blog will be really real and probably not, well, what you hear from most people. In case you haven't noticed, I'm usually pretty real, so this shouldn't be that surprising honestly. But in any case, the disclaimer is that I am happy about the pregnancy and looking forward to the future. But seriously, what in the world am I doing? The timing is fine. I mean, of course timing happens differently for different people, so I'm not saying that this timing is the only good timing (duh), but for us, it was important to have time alone. I was never the type to envision myself with kids. Honestly, I didn't even plan to get married for a long  time, but plans happily changed that. Jeremy felt the same about kids. We both figured we'd just wait and see how we felt about it later, and in the end we both decided that we could live happily with no kids, but eventually we'd regret that an...

There's really not much to say about this. I left for work and stopped by Liquid Highway  for a nice cup of coffee. Their coffee really is delicious. I was so happy, looking forward to sipping it at my desk this morning. And then I got to work and got out of the car ... and ... That's ... just the saddest thing. And now I feel like

My grandpa, Roger, was a cool guy. He passed away a few years ago; today would have been his birthday. Every year my family would get together around this time and throw a party for him. He was cool that way, getting a birthday party every year. I miss him. He had a way of making you feel like the most important, special person, even if you were one of 30 people in the house or one of the grandkids vying for his attention. When he was with you, he focused his attention on you. I think we all had something we enjoyed doing with Papaw that we felt was "our" thing -- whether playing a game, watching a movie, or listening to music. The thing I enjoyed doing with him was drinking coffee and watching Star Trek, preferably The Original Series. He loved  it, and so did I. Usually we sat watching and sipping coffee in silence. You really didn't have to say anything when you were with him. Just being around him was comforting somehow. I don't recall when it was, but at...

I love playing video games -- well, many  video games, not all (cough, Gears of War, cough) -- but I tend to take them personally. I consider it a personal achievement when I beat a boss. Like, I am a better person for it. And if I fail, I fail at life. My first video games that I remember were Mario Bros for NES, Link's Awakening and Donkey Kong for the original Gameboy, and then for computer, Commander Keen and original Duke Nukem. I once peed in my pants because I refused to get up from fighting the boss in Duke Nukem to go to the bathroom. There was no pause! I remember beating Twilight Princess (a Legend of Zelda game) around 3 a.m. one weekend many years ago and yelling in triumph! You really shouldn't yell at 3 a.m. when you're not the only person in the house. I play League of Legends, but never solo queue (when you just jump into a random game with other people you don't know). I only play premades, and usually that consists of four family members pl...