Dark Side of the Carton

Synergy is one of those DotCom era buzzwords that you still occasionally hear from an out of touch executive giving a bad presentation. Synergy also happens to be a piece of software that has significantly contributed to the clean up of my desk here at work.

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Shortly after my wife and I started dating so many years ago, we went to dinner with her family at a quiet little mexican restaurant at the corner of West Ave and NW Military called La Rosita. The owner was a strange man named Fred. Fred had Woo.

What I mean by that was that Fred’s goal in life was to be the most hospitable person on earth and he was. In fact, the local newspaper had nicknamed him “Hospitality Fred.”

The food was good and the service was outstanding. Our usual waiter began prepping our drinks as he saw us walking to our table. They were usually on the table within a minute or so of us arriving at the table. He remembered what we all drank and what our favorite dishes were for close to 6 years.

2 or 3 years ago Fred sold the restaurant to another very nice gentleman that used to run a Luby’s. George was a swell guy that graduated from Texas A&M and he did a good job of making people feel at home, but he was no Fred and it showed. Many customers moved on to other places once Fred was gone. A sad thought considering nothing about this quaint little place had changed except the smiling face at the door.

Last night we decided to get together with my inlaws for dinner and decided to head to La Rostia, or Fred’s as we’d called it. Upon arriving we were greeted with an alarming sight… La Rosita was gone. The signs had been removed and the restaurant was vacant, with only the characteristic neon lights still up and the built in booths adorning the walls. They’d been here not 2 weeks prior for dinner, so the closing must have been a swift one.

A major loss for San Antonio residents indeed, La Rosita was a wonderful place that has been the backdrop for many fond memories over the years. It is with a sad heart that I bid adieu to La Rosita. It’s been grand.

Strollers are not a very “manly” thing to be excited about and so it is with a heavy heart that I have to admit that I am currently geeking out over one of our most recent purchases, a Bugaboo Bee.

My wife and I have 2 children, and over the course of their lives we have owned far too many strollers. We started with a standard Graco travel system (#1) for oldest. That was one heavy stroller and before going on vacation, we bought a Graco Lightrider(#2). We picked up a super cheap umbrella stroller (#3), which we still have, for those quick on the go trips as he got older. Pretty soon he stopped riding in strollers, and then we found out we were having a second child. Time to buy a few more strollers!

We reused one of the strollers we already had, I think, for the first few months and then it was off to buy a Combi lightweight stroller (#4), and a Joovy Sit and Stand (#5), for when the kids are both tired, and then somehow we ended up with a second umbrella stroller (#6).

At this point, it should be obvious that we love buying strollers. After all, my poor ability to fully recall the number we have bought still left us with 6 of the things. I don’t know what it is about the things, but they can be addicting. We have been moderately happy with each of the strollers, but they were either too heavy, too bulky, or they folded in a manner which was totally nonsensical. Needless to say, we were stressing about what to take for the upcoming vacation. Our Sit and Stand is huge and heavy and would necessitate a rental van once we land.

My wife and I started discussing the ability to find a light stroller that was compact and easy to travel with. We were both aware of the Bugaboo brand, but had never considered purchasing one due to the cost. The Bugaboo Cameleon will set you back about $895. A hefty price to swallow for just about anyone when a much cheaper alternative is available.

On Friday, we found out that Bugaboo had released a much more affordable stroller in the form of the Bee. We also found out that they were sold locally at Neiman Marcus. Saturday afternoon we were off to Neiman Marcus to check this thing out and see what the fuss was all about.

After carefully navigating the kids through a maze of items that I can barely afford with an entire paycheck, we found the baby boutique. There it was, in all its glory. We walked out a few minutes later with a bright yellow Bugaboo Bee. Actually, the nice sales lady delivered it all the way to the car for us.

I’ll spare you the trouble of asking the obvious question, “How much was this thing?”

Just know that it wasn’t cheap.

The stroller is really as nice as it appears. It steers like a champ and is super lightweight. In all, if we would have just shelled out the $500 in the first place, we probably would have ended up ahead in the total equation. After all, the total price for all the strollers that have found their way into and then out of our household adds up to a lot more than the price of this single item.

If I haven’t already intrigued you enough to hit google and find out what this thing looks like, let me present you a nice little shot of the Bee:

If you have any specific questions about the Bee, feel free to ask in the comments section.

I’ve never had sushi before. Not until about 2 hours ago that is. My manager has been taking us to lunch as a team every week and this week’s venue was Syn over at Vance Jackson and Huebner.

I’ve never tried sushi before today and I am still not sure what to think about it. I had one bite of a raw tuna roll covered in wasabi. The wasabi was hot. Real hot. I couldn’t taste the raw fish, but I stopped after one bite. The cucumber rolls, tempura rolls, and california rolls were all very tasty though.

At this point I wouldn’t call myself a fan of sushi, but I’m definitely not afraid of it and would feel comfortable ordering a few rolls if I was ever in the situation again.

Oh and Syn was a very neat place. The staff was helpful and nice. Thumbs up on that front from me.

I’m not sure what the stats are for the current American workforce in terms of workplace happiness, but I am sure they are not very high. Corporate America seems to be running rampant with unhappy and disgruntled employees.

I am happy to say I am not one of these people. I love my job. I love where I work. I love getting up in the morning and coming to work.

I’m also very passionate about what I do and I am sure that goes a long way when it comes to overall job satisfaction. I also work with an incredible team of guys that make the day seem less like work.

What about you? Do you like your job? Why/Why not?

Seriously Kobe. Are you blind enough to actually believe that Fisher didn’t foul Barry on that last shot? Even the Zen Master admitted that Fisher bumped him.

My mother in law owns a local flower shop and during rush times my wife goes up to help with all the orders. Often times this results in her working about 40 hours over the course of 3-4 days. During these times, I get to wrangle the kids and boy does it get tough.

So here is my chance to give a shout out to all the parents that do this each and every day. I don’t think that most people realize just how tough it is. You guys really deserve a pat on the back for keeping it together.

Having kids is a daily challenge. Most things you can get through by counting to 10 and taking a few deep breaths. On occasion, something happens that is a little more difficult to get through.

Rewind to yesterday.

My 4 yr old son decided to conduct a science experiment. I haven’t concluded if this was an intentional or accidental experiment, but it took place nonetheless. The experiment hypothesis would read something like this if you were preparing it:

Will a 3″ Lightning McQueen racecar shatter the display on my parents LCD TV if thrown hard enough?

What do you know, the answer happens to be a resounding YES! As proven by my son. I’ll take a picture of the damage later today and add it to this post. So painful.

UPDATE: Let me clarify that it was my son writing the hypothesis and, yes, it was my TV that suffered said fate.

I really scaled back all my sports posts because I realized that I don’t really have anything interesting or unique to stay on the topic and I really come off as a blatant Spurs homer, which I am.

I did want to take a moment to give the Spurs a shout out for showing up last night and showing the Hornets what it’s like to play a Championship caliber team. They weren’t prepared and didn’t bring it. The result is that the Spurs have a chance to engage in another battle with the top of the West, the Lakers.

Before the playoffs started, I was pretty sure that Boston would sail through the East and whip up whoever came out of the West. After all, the West is a battle this year. I was wrong. I think that the Spurs or Lakers, whoever comes out on top, is going to crush either Detroit or Boston. Boston has shown they don’t have the composure to compete at this level and the Pistons are just passed their time.

Regardless of how it all plays out, I think this is hands down the best post season ever. I’m sure my wife will be glad when it’s over as I’ve watched almost every single playoff game to date.

I’ve been a staunch supporter of Windows Vista since well before release. I’ve used it for well over a year and defended it’s use for a long time before arriving at this conclusion. That changes today. As Microsoft would say, my support has gone EOL. For you non-techs out there, EOL stands for End of Life. In short, I am no longer defending Vista or using Vista on any machine that I own. I give up. For all the benefits and things that I like about Vista, I just can’t deal with it’s bloat any longer.

My desktop is already XP and my current and future laptops will be downgraded as soon as I get them.

Viva XP!