Omg I'm a Googler!

Social Gold + Google! Jambool + Google!
...Jamboogle?

Champagne! Excitement! Ponies! It's public!

I joined Jambool back in December. Today, we've officially been acquired by Google! It's been crazy-distracting keeping up work as usual while having the acquisition process going on. So much uncertainty and changes going on. And when the story leaked on TechCrunch this Monday, we had to fend off our techie friends' questions with "no comment" until the deal closed today. Now I can finally explain in detail what's going on!

Champagne Post-Acquistion

For the most part, I'm excited. The benefits sound awesome (free meals! subsidized massages!). It will be very interesting to be part of Google and see how things work there. From what I've heard, they're a very developer-centric culture, which will be interesting to see in a big corporate context (rather than a startup context, where it's hard to be anything but). Retention bonus handcuffs are very shiny, too. ;)

But there are some downsides; almost nothing is 100% good, eh? It is a big company, so I'll be going back to that environment. Also, we're being asked to relocate to Mountain View within 6 months. I like it here in Seattle — I have friends here, and I actually like the weather. :P Also, I'm not so crazy about the suburban sprawl that is the South Bay. But que será, será.

say "We just got acquired by Google" &&
SKIP_HOSTFINDER=1 cap production deploy

All things considered, I'm super excited about this new phase of my (ex-)Jambool career. :)

So my schedule for the next two weeks is hectic: partying today ;), flying to Mountain View for week-long orientation & training, flying back to Seattle to settle into the Fremont office, then flying to Hawaii(!!) for a long weekend celebration with the Jamboolers. Life's tough around here.

Recovered; Still Engaged; Moved; Aunty C

English:

It's been so long since I've written! First, I'm completely recuperated from my surgery. I'm very, very happy that my stupid, broken gallbladder is no longer attacking me. :) I can eat whatever I want now and I don't have to be afraid of it hurting.

On the topic of weddings, we are still engaged and we still don't have a more concrete date than "some time in 2011." We continue not-planning. ;)

We moved from our rented house to an apartment in the Fremont neighborhood. Packing our boxes and bags and everything was an epic disaster that lasted for 2 or 3 weeks. And now in the apartment, we still have the majority of our things in boxes. At least the boxes are only in one room of the apartment and we can use the rest. There are photos on Flickr.

Other news... Forrest has a full-time job at Jambool as an engineer! Yes, you read that right, he's working with me at the same company.

And in other, sadder, news, I attended the memorial service for my Aunty C, who died this past winter. She was 96 years old, was always feeling bad, and it was simply her time to go. Her family meet on Mount Diablo to scatter her ashes.

Spanish:

¡Tanto tiempo que no he escrito aquí! Primero, estoy completamente recuperada de mi cirugía. Estoy muy, muy contenta que ya no me ataque mi estúpida vesícula biliar rota. :) Puedo comer lo que quiero ahora y no tengo miedo de que me duela.

De la tema de bodas, todavía estamos prometidos y todavía no tenemos una fecha más concreto como "algún tiempo en 2011." Sigamos no-planeando. ;)

Nos mudamos desde nuestra casa alquilada hacia un apartamento en el barrio de Fremont. El hacer de las maletas y cajas y bolsas y todo era un desastre "épico" que prolongó atrás 2 o 3 semanas. Y ahora en el apartamento, todavía tenemos la mayoría de nuestras cosas en cajas. Al menos las cajas están en sólo un cuarto del apartamento y podemos usar los demás. Hay fotos en Flickr.

Otras noticias... ¡Forrest tiene un trabajo a jornada completa en Jambool como ingeniero! Sí, lo lees correcto, él trabaja conmigo en la misma empresa.

Y hablando en otras cosas, cosas más tristes, asistí a las honras fúnebres para mi Tía Cita, quien murío el invierno pasado. Ella tenía 96 años, siempre sentía mal, y simplemente le llegó la hora. La familia de mi tía reunimos en el Monte Diablo para esparcir sus cenizas.

Global Warming is God's Fault

By Alberto Montt

The Devil asks, "First an ice age. After that, global warming. Then another ice age. And now more global warming... Would you mind telling me what you're doing with that poor planet?" And God answers, "Pasteurizing it."

Lesson Learned: Don't Push Yourself When Recovering from Surgery (Duh)

With respect to my recent surgery, I thought I was recovering nicely. So well, in fact, that this weekend I did quite a bit of walking around with my friends. Come Saturday night / Sunday morning, I barely slept because pain in my side kept waking me up. Last night I slept with the help of 2 Percocet. :(

I was supposed to go back to work today. But because I was dumb and pushed myself too much too fast when I thought I was feeling okay, I'm going to have to wait a little while longer. So I'm taking it easy again today — lots of lying and sitting around is on the menu.

Weddings Are Just Special Dinner Parties, No?

I spent some time at Barnes & Noble yesterday, looking at wedding-planning books. I've concluded that I must be a bad female, because I just don't get a lot of what goes into the "traditional" expensive wedding and all its assorted related parties.

bridesmaids, maid of honor

What does a bridesmaid do? What does the maid of honor do that's distinct from that?

groomsmen, best man

Ditto the bridesmaids question, but for the guys. And what if all but one of the single guys are also my close friends?

rehearsal dinner

If you go through the whole thing as practice run, doesn't that make the wedding itself feel like "hey, we've done this before"?

bachelor and bachelorette parties

We're supposed to celebrate our soon-to-be-gone life as singles, "one last hurrah" before we're no longer single. But... what if we've been living together for 4 years now — I haven't been single in a long time, as far as I'm concerned. And pretty much all our friends our mutual, and male. I would feel pretty left out if Forrest went out partying with all my friends but I wasn't invited, especially since I have like one close female friend so I couldn't even do "my own" party.

escort card tree

...the hell? Never even heard of such a thing until today.

wedding favors, invitations

I have to agree with a lot of websites on this one: Who actually keeps these things? Maybe the mothers and grandparents of the bride and groom. But I'd be surprised if my friends, cousins, etc are really going to hang on to a wedding favor or invitation for any reason but guilt over throwing it away.

bridal shower

What goes on at such things? And why are there no "groom showers"? Men so need more showers than women do. ;)

The more I look at books and web pages about wedding planning, the more it seems like the reception is just a big dinner party shindig. With pretty dresses and candles. But still, basically a dinner party. If our wedding party is only 25-30 people, I don't really get how this is so much more of a big deal to plan compared to, say Christmas dinner. I am wrong?

Engagement Rings

Engagement Ring

So I don't like the traditional diamond solitaire engagement ring. I never have. On a practical level, the stone gets caught on things ("Oh noes, my favorite sweater!") and likes to twist off-center, and I hate my rings off-center. Just one of those things. On an emotional level, having a big rock on my finger would feel gaudy — it doesn't fit my aesthetic tastes, nor do I feel any need to flaunt dollar signs on my finger, y'know?

Forrest and I went to Green Lake Jewelery Works (which is apparently some big-name custom shop, not just our little local shop, go figure) to talk with the jewelers there about how much custom rings would cost. Since we're holding off the wedding date itself primarily for financial reasons, we wanted to ask about designs that would allow us a simple engagement ring now that could then be combined* into a more expensive custom wedding ring later.

We came up with a design that we really like: a subtle two-tone band, with engravings across the ring, like combining these two rings (plus tiny inset gems on mine). This design even allows for wearing plain bands that later become the final ring.

Unfortunately, the plain bands weren't going to be in our immediate price range (although the final price the custom wedding rings is okay, I think). We decided that, if we can't get the engagement-ring-that-becomes-the-wedding-ring thing working for us right now, we might as well keep the engagement rings super simple and inexpensive. After all, we're only wearing the engagement rings for a small amount of time; it makes more sense (to us) to splurge on the the custom wedding rings instead, since those are the rings we'll be wearing for the rest of our lives. (Omg! I'm getting married!! Sometimes it just hits me, like this thing is real, y'know? Hehe...)

Anyway. We've been wearing these plain silver bands on our right hands since 2007, when we were long-distance for the year that I had moved to Seattle but Forrest still had a couple quarters of college left to finish. Forrest suggested that we just use those rings as the engagement rings, then "upgrade" to the custom wedding rings when we get married. Sounds like a brilliant idea to me! The only problem is that, while Forrest's ring fits on his left-hand ring finger, mine was too big. So I went back to Something Silver (where we originally got the rings) and bought myself a size 4 silver ring to wear on the correct finger.

So now I'm properly engaged and ring-ified! It's really pretty awesome. :)

* I don't like the tradition of wearing both the engagement and wedding rings after the wedding. I want just one ring on my finger, and ideally I'd like the engagement ring to become the wedding ring. Alas, that's not happening, but it's not really a big deal.

Wedding Cheesecake

Forrest and I just had the following IM conversation:

Me: some book suggests wedding cheesecake
Forrest: ooooooooooooh
Forrest: i looooooove you
Me: but that would clearly be a bad idea
Me: because I'd find you hiding in the kitchen even before the ceremony, bloated from eating allllll the cheesecake, and you'll just burp instead of saying "I do," and that's not so romantic ;)

Engaged!

Forrest and I have been dating for four and a half years now. We've discussed marriage off and on for the past two or three of those years, but we never made anything official.

The surgery helped clarify some things for us, like how the things we disagree on are so petty in the face of the big things that matter to us. When I really needed Forrest, he was right there for me, taking care of me, making sure I was okay, worrying for me, and sometimes just holding my hand to comfort me. He has just the right amount of seriousness and playfulness, emotion and strength. I was so grateful that I didn't have to go through that long night of my gallstone attack alone, nor have to make the decision to do emergency surgery alone and scared.

In so many ways, we're on the same wavelength. We talked a lot after the surgery, especially today when we had some time to ourselves. (My mom has been staying with us this week to help take care of me. She's been awesomely helpful, but it has also meant less private time for us to discuss what we're going through.)

We've definitely talked about marriage and long-term life goals before — quite a lot, in fact — so this isn't some rash decision rushed into just because of the surgery. But the surgery, for me, did stir up some strong emotions and opened up the conversation again between us. So when we were talking more tonight (at the bookstore, where else?), it just seemed right to ask Forrest if he would marry me. He said yes.

:) :D :) Omg!! ;)

We have no date set — we want to pay of credit cards and rebuild our emergency fund first. But we've been together for more than four years now; I don't think either of us is going anywhere. And that, really, is why it seems right that we're getting married: it's what we've practically been doing anyway. We want each other in our lives in the future, indefinitely. So let's make it official already! :)

Gallbladder, Bother Me No More!

My gallbladder obviously reads my blog and took offense at Tuesday's post. So much so that it decided to attack me, unprovoked, on a nearly empty stomach, from 9:30 PM Tuesday until 4 PM yesterday — at which point we cut the damn thing out of me! So I'm at the hospital, recovering from my cholecystectomy that the surgeon says went very smoothly. (Well, for me. Not so much the gallbladder. Muahaha!)

I'll report more later, but for now I wanted to let y'all know that I seem to be doing just fine. Thank you everyone for your well-wishes!

Surgeon, Take 2

English:

I met with a second surgeon today. I liked him much better; I'm very glad I didn't just go with the first guy I talked to. So, dear gallbladder, start packing: you're being evicted next Friday!

Spanish:

Encontré a un segundo cirujano hoy. Me caía más bien que el otro; me alegro que no elegí el primer hombre con el que hablé. Pues, vesícula biliar querida, vete a freír espárragos: ¡ya te desahuciaré el viernes que vienes!

Notes:

vete a freír espárragos

go fry asparagus

Isn't that an awesome turn of phrase? Sure, it means something closer to "go jump in the lake" or "go fly a kite," as opposed to "start packing" or "get lost" like I originally meant... but it sounds so cool!

desahuciar

to evict; to declare terminally ill

How's that for a perfect double meaning? You hear that, gallbladder??