Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Edward Cullen of Twilight fame

Reminds me of how much I miss Buffy on the air

Climate Positive Cities

The US Green Building Council & The Clinton Climate Initiative are working together on the Climate Positive Cities Initiative.

Why are these initiatives never possible when politicians are still in office?

Friday Fun: Your Ice Cream Personality

Sometimes these quizzes are just disappointing. . If I’m “modest” and “fairly conservative,” how can I also be a “bold” “big dramatic” person. It seems we have a personality conflict in the ice cream assigned to me.

What about you?  Is your Ice Cream Personality contradictory?

Your Ice Cream Personality:

You like to think of yourself as a fairly modest person. And it’s true that you don’t talk yourself up… but you’re also pretty happy with who you are. You are incredibly cautious. You rather miss out on something than make a mistake. No one would ever call you wild… but they would call you responsible. You are a somewhat open minded person, but deep down you’re fairly conservative. You don’t like trying new things very much. And if you do find something new you like, you stick with it. You can be a big dramatic and over the top sometimes. You are bold in every way

The Ice Cream Personality Test

Social networking tools & the power of the Internet kick the pony express’s ass

Written Tuesday night, April 14th @ LAX.

Last week I got a job offer after 19 months of coming THIS close. A job offer that I quickly accepted, even though it means moving clear across the country to yet another city where I’d have to “start over,” because it’s a way into a hot industry that will only pick up speed with time and the Obama administration’s support.

Of course I wanted to share the news with my network immediately, so I tweeted it while getting the offer, and promptly followed up with a FaceBook status update. Then I called my grandma, my two best friends – Hi! Jane and Ryan – my mom, my aunt: how old school of me. I noted the turn of events through my LinkedIn status.

By 11pm that night I sent out an email announcing the offer to the 90+ person network that had been most closely tied to my job search, asking for their help yet again.

Given that I’d be moving to a new city, I wanted introductions to their friends in the area and neighborhood tips if they’d lived there. Happy friends and connections emailed their congratulations, and within hours information started pouring in. E-mail introductions were made and cell phone numbers were swapped. The list of neighborhoods I should be looking in for an abode dropped dramatically.

I requested that people save their copier paper boxes at the office, so I could ship my 350+ book collection back to the East in manageable 35 lbs blocks. More than a dozen boxes have been dropped off and picked up in the days that followed.

Knowing that I’d be apartment hunting in DC this week, I asked friends to try to hook me up with metro-accessible sofa(s). I quickly got an offer from a friend of friend who could help out one night. I’ve never met Michelle, but I’m told she’s similarly gifted at keeping in touch with people, which is why the introduction was made.

But I still needed a sofa for two more nights, and Metro-accessible people in my secondary circle were out of town. And then I saw the email from an acquaintance I met when I joined her ning community of women interested in women and girl advocacy. She reminded me of the DC group.

So I decided what’s the harm in asking, right? I’ve been communicating with one of the women off and on for a year, so it’s not like she was a complete stranger. I noted that I realized it was really presumptuous to even ask, so she needn’t feel obliged. Turns out she and her husband were happy to host me Thursday and Friday night, which meant I didn’t have to pay out for pricey 2-star hotels for two nights – hostels in DC were all booked up.

So I had boxes, sofas, neighborhoods and possible new friends covered. What to do about the apartment hunting? I googled income tax brackets and found people in DC, despite their lack of national legislative representation, had rates 3%+ higher than MD or VA, so DC proper living was quickly nixed. Craigslist found me a great place in Santa Monica, so I could only hope it will do the same for me in Virginia.

Over the past few days I’ve emailed and called posters about their listings along the Orange line in VA and the Red line in Maryland. Thanks to Google maps, I’ve been able to print out pictoral directions to about 6 places that I have firm plans to check out over the next few days. I whittled down possibilities based on their distance from the metro using the map tools. It’s entirely possible the first place I look at tomorrow could be the one if it lives up to the print ad and my lengthy Q and A with the property manager.

I’ve downloaded metro schedules and maps of gyms near my new office so I can pick up applications to teach pilates on the side.

Now as I wait for my LAX to MKE leg of my trip to board, I wonder how much harder it was to move to a new city 15 years ago before the Internet put information a mere right click away. . .

New job announcements would be relegated to Christmas newsletters or word-of-mouth because you probably wouldn’t phone or send a letter to your entire network one by one. People would learn on an as needed basis that you had switched jobs and moved, which meant you wouldn’t be able to immediately take advantage of their network to build yours in a new place.

Moving must have been an ordeal, as you’d have had to rely on print ads that are typically out of date almost as fast as they’re printed. And you’d either be rather reliant on bulky fold out maps to orient yourself at intervals in a city you were unfamiliar with. With Google maps I can literally look at street level photos of the addresses I’m looking up.

Back in the day, I wouldn’t have had instant access to connections in my new home city or an easy way to tap into the knowledge of more distant connections about that city.

So as I layover in the Milwaukee airport for 2 hours, I can’t help but appreciate that 2009 technology is making what could have been a painful move a more streamlined experience with fewer question marks.

How have you tapped your network to smooth life transitions?

Customer Service works both ways OR my observation of the angry guy who missed his flight

Written Tuesday, April 14th @ LAX

So I ordered my ticket online on Saturday night to do an apartment hunting trip in DC.  (Last week, Organization X offered me an exciting position with a May 12th start date.)

I tried to check in online but was informed that service was unavailable because I had been issued a paper ticket, which I had not been.  Not to worry, I’d be at the airport early for my red eye flight.  I leave my car off at a friend’s place, because her residential block has no street cleaning rules, so it can sit there undisturbed until I get back.

After being dropped at the terminal listed on the itinerary I printed off, I am unable to check in. Apparently, my airline takes off from that terminal during the day, but at night it takes off from the opposite side of the airport, 2 terminals away.  So I book it to Terminal 2 – on foot, schlepping my duffle and laptop bag because it’s faster than waiting for the shuttle—and try to check in.

Now the computer doesn’t even recognize my confirmation code, which is starting to make me anxious.  Do I have a seat or not?  So I flag down someone wearing a badge from the airline, and he directs me to wait for the one of two late shift ticket agents.

There are two men who ahead of me trying to get on a flight to Detroit, but since they had not checked 45 in minutes in advance, the airline was refusing to seat them.  The plane was boarding and there would be no further check ins.

One whiney, unshaven twenty something in a gray hoodie and jeans insists he needs to be on the plane, but other wise waits quietly.  They other, an arrogant, balding middle aged male – you know the type: sports jacket, button down, no tie, waving a fancy cell phone that could launch nuclear weapons—is  making a spectacle.  Aggressively arguing with the ticket agent that he was in line 45 minutes in advance, and she is going to put him on THAT flight come hell or high water.  His condescension of agent “Monica” continues as he insists she’s “something special,” when she tells him, sorry, the flight is closed and no, there is nothing else she can do.

Raising his voice, for all to hear the plight of the first class ticket holder who didn’t make it to the ticket counter on time, he tries to get Delta – the airline that put him on this Northwestern operated flight — on the phone while he continues his diatribe after she informs him there is only one seat left on the plane—wait for it—in  Coach.   The whiney kid says he’ll take it if that guy isn’t jumping on it.  Baldy is disgusted; he doesn’t fly Coach. He flies FIRST class.  Nonetheless, after talking to the gate, neither guy is getting on a flight to Detroit tonight.

Monica waves me over as the entitled premier flyer guy continues his rant, and we both try to ignore him while I explain what was going on with my ticket. He physically inserts himself in front of me, demanding to know “why, [Monica] won’t help [him]?”  We do our best to ignore him as we try to find the best seat left on my flight – in Coach.   Security arrived to deal with the prick as I walked away from the counter, since he was dangerously close to crossing the line.

I’m flying to DC overnight with a layover in Milwaukee of all places.  My return flight includes a layover in Pittsburg and Las Vegas.  I see more airports than anyone else I know when I travel because a $254 round trip ticket with 3 layovers is the price I can afford at this juncture of my life.   And I’m OK with that reality.

Someday, should I be so lucky as to travel business and first class everywhere, either because I’m an independently wealthy author or so-valued by my employer or whatever, I’d like to think that I’ll remember that the ticketing agent is my best shot at getting where I need to go expediently.

Rather than accept he missed a flight and congenially ask what the next step is in getting him to his final destination as close to his originally scheduled arrival time as possible, he went into full blown verbal assault mode.   Did he really think Monica was more likely to accommodate a gesturing, abrasive customer than an accommodating one that just needed to get from A to B?

I also hope that I’ve never so self-important that I can’t be bothered to print my boarding pass at home like the peons who fly coach when that option is available to me and gives me more wiggle room at the airport.

PS. Angry, self-important guy wound up in First Class on my flight to Milwaukee, so I guess he found a way to get closer to Detroit, one flight at a time.

PPS.  Army guy in fatigues on crutches with a broken leg sat several seats behind me.   The flight crew moved him up so he had 2 neighboring first class seats to get comfortable in with his leg elevated.  Not sure if they made the move because of the fatigues/crutches combo, but it was great to see staff take the initiative to make the flight of an injured party a little more comfortable.

March Sex and Relationship News Round Up

photo by bensonkua

Bad relationships don’t just take a toll on your mental health, they do damage to your heart and metabolic processes as well.

While both men and women in “strained” unions, those marked by arguing and being angry, were more likely to feel depressed than happier partners, the women in the contentious relationships were more likely to develop high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and other markers of what’s known as “metabolic syndrome,” said study author Nancy Henry, a doctoral candidate in clinical healthy psychology at the University of Utah.

Metabolic syndrome is known to boost the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

If your relationship isn’t headed in a direction you’re happy with, you have yet another reason to ask, is it worth it?

Alternately, a new study draws into question previous conclusions about marriage and relationships.  Previously, biological anthropologists like Helen Fisher concluded that early in a relationship heightened hormones drove passion and lust, which leveled off after 2-4 years to a more level attachment that kept many relationships together.

In a just published study in the Review of General Psychology, researchers looked at couples from college and middle-age brackets who experienced romantic, passionate, or friendship based love in short and long-term relationships.  Couples who kept the romance going had the most satisfaction in both types of relationships.  Couples in more obsessive relationships were happier in the short-term, than long.  Since it’s just a handful of couples, much more research needs to be done, which could shift our understanding of human partnerships.

VOD: Bond bunnies

In honor of the the latest installment of James Bond, Quantum of Solace, being released on DVD, I bring you 30 Second Bunnies and their Bond Medley.

PS. Quantum of Solace was AWFUL. Here’s what you need to know.
(Action sequence x 2) + Sex + (Action sequence x 4) = Bond wins, again.

Heartbreaking photo essay of an abandoned school in Detroit

The interior of the former Detroit Public Schools’ book depository is the first of many heart-breaking photos in James Griffioen’s Vice Magazine photo essay.   It’s not only sad to see a place of learning abandoned, but that so many resources that could have been used by other school districts and charities were left to rot is just criminal.

Via The Daily Dish

VOD: Jon Stewart interviews Jim Cramer

Who hasn’t been following the back and forth  between Stewart and MSNBC/Cramer this week?

Thursday night, Cramer voluntarily took part in a lengthy dialogue with Stewart about the culpability of the financial media in the economic meltdown.

I blog at wordpress.com, which means I can’t embed flash, sooooo I have to send you away to The Daily Show to view the unusually lengthy interview. Pundits and commentators will hopefully be talking about this interview today like adults, not snarky adolescents.

Go here, and bask in the glory of real journalism disguised as pseudo-journalism. Like a pit bull, when the interview gets uncomfortable, Stewart wouldn’t let go.

Ask yourselves why people who claim to report “real news,” don’t go in for the kill like that and do their job. Based on the failing economic models of newspapers, it seems pandering to advertisers (not writing too negatively about the companies that ante up) might not be the way to go. I’d buy a paper that went for the jugular and did some real investigative reporting. But maybe that’s just me wanting to stick it to corporate America.  Would you?

PS. For the record, I’d like to be adopted by Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow. How cool are they?

March 10th: National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

This year the US Department of Health and Human Services wants to remind you that HIV isn’t just a third world epidemic, the disease takes its toll domestically as well.  There are educational events taking place all over the country today to offer American women information on HIV prevention and transmission.

Though originally stigmatized as “gay cancer” in the 1980s, young adults, particularly African-American women, are especially at risk today.  HIV is the leading cause of death for young black women (ages 25-34).  In 2007, they made up 65% of new AIDS diagnoses in women. Overall, a third of new HIV infections occur in young adults 13-30 years of age.

Check out the Red Pump Project (launched by The Fabulous Giver) for more information about how women are fighting the further spread of HIV amongst their sisters and how they’re helping those who’ve been diagnosed.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn more.  Here are some resources to get you started.

Prevention:

• Find an STD testing site near you to get tested with your partner(s).
• Get your Safe Sex Tips here
• Always use a condom when having sex (unless absolutely sure your not-philandering partner is disease-free, and you’re using another type(s) of birth control).

Get your facts:

• CDC Fact Sheet on HIV/AIDS in women
• Kaiser Family Foundation HIV/AIDS Fact Sheet covering the history and current state of HIV/AIDS in the US.
• Epic tome And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts provides excellent coverage of the early reactions to the emergence of the virus by the medical, political, and gay communities.