Um, hi neighbor.

I work on the second floor of a fairly large office. There are probably hundreds of people in the building, of which I know very few. I've had occasional moments of friendliness which have led me to meet a few people on the 5th floor. I was proud of that fact until it dawned on me that I have never met the person whose office is next door to mine. This week marks the one year since I started working here, and this morning, it struck me that one way I might be giving up joy in my life is by isolating myself and not bothering to get to know people. So, on my way back from the kitchen where I was getting my morning yerba mate, I uncomfortably poked my head into her office and said "Hello. I'm your neighbor. I've been working here a year now, and it seems a little crazy to me that we've never met." She laughed and agreed. We chatted for a few minutes and she thanked me for stopping in. It really wasn't so hard to do and I'm feeling emboldened. Next step, the other hundred or so people who work on this floor... I wonder where else I'm doing this in my life? I have started saying hello to people in elevators, particularly in my apartment building, but I know very few of my neighbors there. Time to take a closer look.

The New Lost Season 4 Trailer

It's ba-aaaack... finally. In 5 short weeks I can resume my obsession with Lost. In the meantime, there's this trailer to tide us all over:

Ghostland Observatory Concert Review - Henry Fonda in Los Angeles, CA

If Orbital reunited and joined forces with Daft Punk, the Chemical Brothers and the White Stripes, then were fronted by that crazy homeless guy that aggressively shouts obscenities as you at the corner of Hollywood and Highland, they'd be pretty darn close to what I saw this past Friday night at the Henry Fonda. A friend emailed a few of us insisting that we check out the two man outfit, Ghostland Observatory, and that we watch this video. I was skeptical, but adequately intrigued by the video, so I convinced 3 girl friends to cough up the $32 ($18 + absurd Ticketmaster fees) and off we went. The band is comprised of the aforementioned front man and his keyboardist/drummer/programmer who is always cloaked in a dramatic, floor length silver cape. We were instantly hooked - the show was original, energetic, and very dance-able. The crowd was going nuts the whole time even though the band was debuting new material that no one knew - they actually played their most well known song, "Sad Sad City," two songs into the show. The light show was fantastic, similar to one you'd expect to see only in a massive dance club. The new material sounded great and I'm looking forward to hearing the album when it comes out in March, though I suspect this is an act that needs to be seen live. I will certainly be seeing Ghostland Observatory again at the earliest opportunity.

Going scuba diving in Belize

Former boyfriend (more or less current boyfriend at this point) and I are headed to Belize over the holidays for another adventure vacation. We are trying to recreate the type of experience we had in Kauai - getting up at the crack of dawn, being active all day doing things we can't do here, making our own breakfast and lunch so we don't feel stuffed to the neck, and crashing early without feeling the need to spend the evening drinking.

We were happy to have found accommodations that are reminiscent of our fantastic stay at the Hideaway Cove. The name even has "cove" in it again: Parrot Cove Lodge, and the TripAdvisor reviews are equally positive. I found us an overpriced flight on trusty American Airlines (I needed one more flight to keep my prized Platinum status) which entails ringing in the new year at 35,000 feet en route home. I decided to use a few miles to upgrade us to first class on that leg since we're going 3 hours out of our way and flying through Miami, plus we're celebrating a holiday so we need access to free champagne. I'm actually looking forward to that - we may even see fireworks all across the country as we see the clock strike midnight several times throughout our journey.

The reason we decided to go to Belize is that a friend suggested that we might enjoy Scuba diving there. We are such fanatics of seeing aquatic life and wildlife in general that we decided to give it a shot. This week and next week we will be spending 5 different days in class getting Scuba/PADI certified at Haven's Reef. This entails one day of indoor class, one day of class in a pool, and one weekend in Catalina island doing six open water dives. We started watching the instructional videos and realized just how complex Scuba diving really is. There is so much to keep track of and adjust - air supply, flotation, air pressure - I'm just glad we're doing so many practice dives in class so we have a shot of enjoying the fish when we do it in Belize!

Other planned activities include visiting Mayan ruins, hiking, and deep sea fishing. I'm very excited for all of this and looking forward to another great getaway!

How to mockup a website if you're not a designer

I spent eons searching for an answer to this question and finally a friend tipped me off to the best way to mockup a web page without using a heavy design program like Illustrator, Photoshop or Fireworks (or even the old fashioned pen and paper method). First, the SnagIt extension for Firefox is an easy way to capture bits and pieces of other sites you wish to emulate or show the designer. Next, these can be very easily pasted into good 'ole Powerpoint, which is an easy way to organize multiple screens. Powerpoint allows you to insert all sorts of useful shapes and buttons, as well as text boxes which can be used to annotate. So far this system seems to be working well. Hopefully this blog post can save someone else the time it took me to figure it out!