ACK! so much stuff to do and so little time to do it. I always do this to myself--procrastinate with packing. It's about 1pm and my flight's in 7 hours and I have yet to even open up my suitcase. I need to pack like crazy and prep my condo so that it's not a dirty place to come home to----I have coming home to a dirty place.
Off to L.A. tonight to meet with the entire family--I'm really looking forward to it. Good food and just seeing everyone. I can't wait to give Christmas gifts too.
Speaking of---I got the most wonderful gift from Pierre: a weekend spa vacation sometime in January or February at the destination of my choice. I researched the other day and found the coolest place but it's a bit $$$. We'll have to see....
China doesn't seem that much colder than Seattle..which is good. I can basically just pack what I wear every day here. In fact, the weather forecast over this next week in Beijing is much nicer than Seattle--sunny and in the 40's.
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Monday, December 22, 2003
whoa. It's been a whole month since I last posted---so much to tell. Well, I'll just start where I left off:
portland
It was an awesome trip over there for Thanksgiving--and indeed, I got the plasma tv I wanted for a really great deal. We all woke up at 5am the day after Thanksgiving and were at Best Buy by 6am only to see that the parking lot was completely full and the line to get into the store was about 2 blocks long. Once we got in, the line to checkout wrapped around the entire store. Complete insanity. I got a new cell phone while I was there--an upgrade to my older phone--the SPH i500--very cool. I really wanted a flip version of the pda phone because I hated how the screen and buttons were always exposed in the i300 version. This one is also much more compact. Besides, my i300 was falling apart after over 2 years with it. After leaving Best Buy, Pierre and I went cruising around town with Matt's little brother comparing plasma tvs in a hurry (a lot of the great deals were expiring at noon sharp). I ended up with a fantastic Zenith 42" EDTV Plasma Monitor from Circuit City---here it is on sale at Circuit City today: $3799.99. How much did I pay for it? $2340. Hot damn! Talk about the deal of the century. On 11/28, this TV was on special sale for $2599--which is already a great deal. And--since I had just recently moved, I got all these "welcome to your new home" coupons, including a 10% coupon from Circuit City--that's $260...bringing a grand total of $2340. AND keep in mind that I made my purchase in the great state of Oregon where there's no sales tax---I probably saved about $250 right there. Boy, I'm so excited---I just recently mounted the TV and it looks fantastic. I was seriously prepared to spend close to $4000 on a TV...and got away with half the price.
work
The first two weeks of December was pretty intense for me as I tried to launch the very last expansion store on the site for 2003---and that I did, only 8 days late! Quite an accomplishment considering that most of our launches this year slipped on average of 1.5-2 months. Check it out--the new Health & Personal Care store. Now you can buy anything from wheelchairs to vitamin C to condoms to makeup to hairdryers. Basically anything that you could buy at any local drugstore. It's pretty neat---this project wrapped up so fast, it's amazing. Ten thousand times easier than Sporting Goods was. Anyhow--support the new store and check it out!
dsl & itunes
I finally caved in and decided to get some high-speed internet at home instead of dial-up that I've been doing for the last 4.5 years. Isn't that funny? Here I am, working at Amazon but I've been dialing up at home all this time. I still have a land line because if I want to log into work from home, I have to dialup---so I figured that was all I really needed. Boy--am I excited...I've been missing out. Now I can finally get all those massive Windows software updates and patches that I get notification for...but couldn't download before because it was so massive. And the first thing I did was download iTunes for windows----what a DIFFERENCE it has made. It's way too easy to buy a song. But the best part is the software for synchronization with my iPod. With Musicmatch, it took FOREVER to put any song on my iPod---like, longer than it takes to burn a CD...which made putting music on my iPod a total pain and not something I really looked forward to doing. Now---it's like "zi-i-i-p!", done in less than 5 seconds for a whole album. I was just floored. I couldn't believe it and checked my iPod multiple times..but sure enough, those songs were there. Another great thing -- I can create playlists directly on my iPod...before, with Musicmatch, I had to create the playlist on my computer and then synchronize it. Remember what I was saying about how long it took to synchronize? You can see how I was deterred from creating playlists. And lastly, it's no time to put my iPod in and eject it..with Musicmatch, I'd have to start it over a few times just to get the damn thing to recognize my iPod..and when it did, it'd take eons to really load it up and see what songs were on it so that I could transfer more. I'm going to really get this thing loaded up before I head to China.
china
oh, so I'm going to China for the holidays with my family. I'll spend Xmas in L.A. and then take off the next day for a whirlwind tour of northern China. I really can't wait because I've never been to any of those places (beijing, shanhai, sian, the great wall). I'm so excited about this---gotta pack gotta pack...
portland
It was an awesome trip over there for Thanksgiving--and indeed, I got the plasma tv I wanted for a really great deal. We all woke up at 5am the day after Thanksgiving and were at Best Buy by 6am only to see that the parking lot was completely full and the line to get into the store was about 2 blocks long. Once we got in, the line to checkout wrapped around the entire store. Complete insanity. I got a new cell phone while I was there--an upgrade to my older phone--the SPH i500--very cool. I really wanted a flip version of the pda phone because I hated how the screen and buttons were always exposed in the i300 version. This one is also much more compact. Besides, my i300 was falling apart after over 2 years with it. After leaving Best Buy, Pierre and I went cruising around town with Matt's little brother comparing plasma tvs in a hurry (a lot of the great deals were expiring at noon sharp). I ended up with a fantastic Zenith 42" EDTV Plasma Monitor from Circuit City---here it is on sale at Circuit City today: $3799.99. How much did I pay for it? $2340. Hot damn! Talk about the deal of the century. On 11/28, this TV was on special sale for $2599--which is already a great deal. And--since I had just recently moved, I got all these "welcome to your new home" coupons, including a 10% coupon from Circuit City--that's $260...bringing a grand total of $2340. AND keep in mind that I made my purchase in the great state of Oregon where there's no sales tax---I probably saved about $250 right there. Boy, I'm so excited---I just recently mounted the TV and it looks fantastic. I was seriously prepared to spend close to $4000 on a TV...and got away with half the price.
work
The first two weeks of December was pretty intense for me as I tried to launch the very last expansion store on the site for 2003---and that I did, only 8 days late! Quite an accomplishment considering that most of our launches this year slipped on average of 1.5-2 months. Check it out--the new Health & Personal Care store. Now you can buy anything from wheelchairs to vitamin C to condoms to makeup to hairdryers. Basically anything that you could buy at any local drugstore. It's pretty neat---this project wrapped up so fast, it's amazing. Ten thousand times easier than Sporting Goods was. Anyhow--support the new store and check it out!
dsl & itunes
I finally caved in and decided to get some high-speed internet at home instead of dial-up that I've been doing for the last 4.5 years. Isn't that funny? Here I am, working at Amazon but I've been dialing up at home all this time. I still have a land line because if I want to log into work from home, I have to dialup---so I figured that was all I really needed. Boy--am I excited...I've been missing out. Now I can finally get all those massive Windows software updates and patches that I get notification for...but couldn't download before because it was so massive. And the first thing I did was download iTunes for windows----what a DIFFERENCE it has made. It's way too easy to buy a song. But the best part is the software for synchronization with my iPod. With Musicmatch, it took FOREVER to put any song on my iPod---like, longer than it takes to burn a CD...which made putting music on my iPod a total pain and not something I really looked forward to doing. Now---it's like "zi-i-i-p!", done in less than 5 seconds for a whole album. I was just floored. I couldn't believe it and checked my iPod multiple times..but sure enough, those songs were there. Another great thing -- I can create playlists directly on my iPod...before, with Musicmatch, I had to create the playlist on my computer and then synchronize it. Remember what I was saying about how long it took to synchronize? You can see how I was deterred from creating playlists. And lastly, it's no time to put my iPod in and eject it..with Musicmatch, I'd have to start it over a few times just to get the damn thing to recognize my iPod..and when it did, it'd take eons to really load it up and see what songs were on it so that I could transfer more. I'm going to really get this thing loaded up before I head to China.
china
oh, so I'm going to China for the holidays with my family. I'll spend Xmas in L.A. and then take off the next day for a whirlwind tour of northern China. I really can't wait because I've never been to any of those places (beijing, shanhai, sian, the great wall). I'm so excited about this---gotta pack gotta pack...
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