This past week, Bazaarvoice had its annual US Social Commerce Summit where I served as photographer again. It was pretty cool, with Google being our platinum sponsor, but also pretty tiring. You can view my photos in my flickr set, but here are a few:

After the summit, I took the rest of the week off to chill and recharge. I did mostly nothing, but I did cheat a little and showed up to my team’s offsite to hang with them for a bit at Crown & Anchor:

Friday night, I went to Uchi with Al, Eduardo, and Scotty, which was pretty tasty as expected then went to meet up with Melissa at Sarina’s birthday party… where I spent about 30+ minutes trying to find parking in west campus… oh west campus…

I started to mess with Aperture 3 and decided to make the switch from Lightroom over to it. I was experimenting with the pics above and also reedited some shots from when I went to Salt Lick with some BVers (that batch happened to be on my laptop when I was looking for photos to play with). I think the Salt Lick ones turned out pretty well.

I’m still getting used to having control of curves in the individual RGB channels, but I’m liking it lots so far. =) Good job, Apple.

Some other random tid bits:

• finally got around to watching Slumdog Millionaire


• started using Time Machine for backups on my iMac


• looked at reviews for Canon’s 1D Mark IV, but promptly stopped deciding it was too dangerous (don’t think I could give up full frame, anyways)


• watched a few classes about iPhone app development on Stanford’s iTunes U


• went to the Glee sing-along at the Drafthouse

I’ve probably left stuff out, but whatever… you’ll live. =)

So yesterday we were all minding our own business playing WoW when Sam, who is sitting next to Brook, suddenly exclaims “wow, Brook, have you been working out? It looks like you’ve got a hot bod under that shirt.” Brook blankly stares back at Sam as he goes on “…what would I need to do get you to take it off?” Brook was pretty flabbergasted, but eventually gives in to Sam’s wily ways under the condition that Sam also go shirtless.

Sam happily agrees and I managed to capture the moment with my handy camera. I guess Sam just really wanted some man eye-candy next to him as he tanked ToC. Whatever gives you motivation, I guess, Sammy.

Oches got a puppy!! She looks sad a lot… probably because Ochs got her.

We made name tags at work today! Here’s mine:

And here’s Al’s:

I saw Avatar in IMAX 3D and I enjoyed it more than the first (at least because my high expectations weren’t crushed)… probably wouldn’t see it a third time though. =)

This weekend was a wondrous ultimate frisbee weekend as the weather was awesome and we had a great showing (including Simon from BV UK)! We also ended up playing the longer way on the field pretty successfully. It was a good time and we had only minor injuries (I believe Mark was bleeding and Steph messed up her finger a little).

Some BV and related folk came over on Saturday night and we played Mr.Bacon’s Big Adventure, which turned out to be pretty much like Candy Land, and a few other games in addition to that. Wrapped up the night with a visit to Jim’s which has solidified the realization that caffeine is actually doing things to me now. That’s something new for me to get used to…

On Sunday, went to Vox, then watched the USA/Canada game (grats, Canada). Took the doggies back up to Round Rock (was taking care of them while mom/sister were visiting Dallas) and now I’m just chilling at the parents’ with Oriana…

Here are some pics from a BV game night at my place on Thursday:

Tiff cleaning my sink (Yay! … and she’s crazy!):

Update: Eric made a great video montage of game night!

My Batman keychain has finally lost both of its legs. Now he looks almost offensive… perhaps it is time to replace him with my LEGO Yoda keychain.

“In a field of yellow flowers,
underneath the sun,
bluest eyes that spark with lightning,
boy with shoes undone.
He is young, so full of hope,
reveling in tiny dreams,
filling up, his arms with flowers,
right for giving any queen.

Running to her beaming bright,
while cradling his prize.
A flickering of yellow light,
within his mother’s eyes.
She holds them to her heart,
keeping them where they’ll be safe,
clasped within her very marrow,
dandelions in a vase.” - Five Iron Frenzy

I’ve apparently been awake for the past almost two hours and I can’t go back to sleep (which is a rarity for me). I suppose I might as well blog!

Here are some pics from Sunday, when Al ran his first marathon!

Ryan had an “accident:”

Yay, London Lad!

Here’s my sign, which I don’t think Al liked that much:

I’m sure he liked Meagan’s more:

For the rest of Sunday, I cleaned up a good chunk of my house which was long overdue for vacuuming, then took a nap in my tauntaun. Went to dinner with Sam, then chilled for a while with him and Ryan before going to sleep again only to wake up two hours ago… and here I am.

I spent way too long trying to find lyrics to put here… but alas, they have been found!

“Life is like a hurricane here in Duckburg
Race cars, lasers, aeroplanes - it’s a duck blur
You might solve a mystery or rewrite history

Duck Tales, Oo-oo
Tales of derring-do, bad and good luck tales, oo-oo

D-d-d-danger, watch behind you - there’s a stranger out to find you
What to do? Just grab onto some Duck Tales, oo-oo!
Not pony tails or cotton tails but Duck Tales, oo-oo!” - Mark Mueller/Disney

Did you know that Mark Mueller wrote the Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers theme song as well? That guy is awesome. Okay, time to try to sleep again…

I’ve returned from our 14th and last Bazaarvoice All-Hands at the Alamo Drafthouse (we’ll be too big to fit next time). It’s sad to leave as it’s been a great quarterly tradition thus far. On the plus side, our next one will be at Salt Lick! YESSSSSS… MEEEAAATTTT…

Speaking of which, I broke down and purchased meatcation.com. Not sure what I’m going to do with it yet, but I have it. =) Maybe I’ll just make it a documentary of our (hopefully) annual Meatcation…

Back on the topic of the All-Hands, I was awarded a Darth Vader TIE Fighter LEGO set from the product group, and a culture award (2000 stock options). I must say that I am greatly honored to have received both of these (one likely worth quite a bit more than the other in monetary terms, but one a lot more fun to play with right now). I was incredibly surprised when I stood up to receive my award and was greeted by a freakin’ standing ovation. You guys are ridiculous. I can’t express how appreciative I am in words, but since I’m not a telepath, a very deep thank you to you all. =) Seriously, I don’t know if I’ll ever have a work experience like this again and you all make it awesome.

On a down note, I’m still not fully recovered from the cold I caught going to Seattle, so I will have to skip out on going to Dallas with Heather, Ryan and Steph (need to come up with a name for that group…) and eating lots of food. =(

With that, I will end with photos from the last Bazaarvoice All-Hands at the Alamo…

The rest are here.

Well, ultimate on Saturday was spoiled a bit by crazy wind, but we had a lot of people show up, which was pretty cool. Can’t wait until we have those numbers with a calmer day. That’ll be awesome.

After frisbee, food, and a nap, I went to Al’s birthday bash with Ryan. It was a themed party, if you can’t tell from the photos…

There were also some really old LIFE magazines there…

The rest are here.

I finally got around to going through the few photos I had from Oriana’s bday dinner:

More here

“I know you’ve heard it all before -
so I don’t say it anymore
I just stand by and let you fight your secret war.
And though I used to wonder why -
I used to cry till I was dry.
Still sometimes I get a strange pain inside

Oh, Joey, if you’re hurting so am I.” - Concrete Blonde

Over the Christmas break, we raided some old photos. My sister snatched a few to digitize in order to make sure some of the crimes done against us were documented.

This one of me, in particular, is a beauty:

There are many more over at livizilla.com. Sometimes, I am honestly surprised I didn’t get physically beaten up. Little did I know that I lived in constant danger… ahhh… ignorance.

On another note, the iMac 27” is too much for Photo Booth to handle. When it turns the screen white as a pseudo-flash, it basically washes out the resulting picture. Luckily, I discovered that holding down shift while taking the photo makes it not do that… but that was after I took this beauty (which somehow isn’t as washed out as other ones I’ve taken):

Hmm, I need a haircut…