I went to Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle’s house, as usual. This year was a little more entertaining than normal since Jan Altman came along with me. (Yes, Jan went to my Thanksgiving!) Jan brought a ton of games and we kept the kids entertained with Rummikub for most of the night. (I lost badly.) Jan turns out to be an oldschool math nerd, which I already knew, but also a fun person to have along on most any trip. (Plus, I am a nerd/geek too, so it works.)

There were lots of people there, but most of them didn’t speak any English (background: my aunt is Chinese and it’s her side of the family that doesn’t speak English.) Thankfully, my aunt remembered that I don’t like turkey and made roasted crab for me, which I devoured. (Another Thanksgiving Day where I didn’t eat a single piece of turkey! Take that, Pilgrims!) Jan and Jessie (one of my cousins; she’s 11) got on the piano, with Jan playing one hand and Jessie playing the other. Then Kelly (my other cousin; she’s about 9 years old) got out her violin and played along with them. (Everyone on that side of the family is musically inclined, including my uncle, who plays the guitar.) Jan and Jessie were having a blast and I had to remind them that we needed to leave around 10:45PM.

While the piano duet was going on, I was talking to my uncle about taking some college courses. As you know from reading the sidebar on this site, one of my life goals is to learn another language, and I figure if I’m going to learn another language, I might as well get college credit to do that. I think I may re-enroll at SJSU and take a class next semester. I also want to learn to play piano and this may be possible at SJSU as well. I’m going to look more into it.

I went to an IBI potluck the night before Thanksgiving. I carpooled with Jan since it was in Marin, and there were a bunch of cool people there. One of the new guys there (he signed up for December) owns Asians.com and is going to host it with Simpli. (I didn’t tell him this at the IBI potluck because I didn’t know whether he’d be offended, but that’s one of the best porn site domains ever.) After the potluck, Jan wanted to introduce me to some friends of hers, Rob and Nita, that she’d met through IBI… they turned out to be a photographer couple (Rob does nature and Nita does people.) Their condo is decorated with fabulous pictures that they’ve taken, and the photos are really breathtaking.

The constant torrent of phone calls and emails from IBI grads continues (not that I mind.) Kevin Keithley sent me a business plan today. Joe Moss sent out a “Happy Thanksgiving” update. Stewart Levine has been trying to get in touch with me for several days, and I even heard from Rich Lehmann again… he wants to do a testimonial for Simpli for other IBIers. (Cool!)

My parents are coming to IBI in February, and it looks like willfe got sucked in too… he’s now fundbusting for December IBI. (I told him that he’s already made $1800+ off IBI, which is about $1500 more than I’ve made!) 😉 If it helps him get more programming projects, then it’s totally worth it, and being in an environment like IBI will probably help him boost his self-confidence as well.

Oh, and about the Treo 650. I got it a couple days ago, but it’s been too hectic to set it up. Today I installed everything on it from my 600 and it promptly ran out of memory. #&@*!! I deleted some old programs, but honestly, this should have been caught way before release. I have 5.5MB free on my 600, and with fewer programs on my 650, I have 1.4MB free. Ridiculous.

However, that aside, the 650 is stunning compared to the 600. The keyboard is a joy to type on (Palm finally got that one right!) The screen is much nicer and would be worth the upgrade just by itself. Mine came with a free Bluetooth headset, which I will try out tomorrow and which will probably become my new best friend. The downside is that you actually have to charge the headset. Look, I’m already out of plugs in my office. I don’t need anything else to plug in. 🙁 But it will probably be worth it in the long run.

I also made a note to myself to write down what I’m thankful for. I’m thankful for the friends who have stuck by me in the past few weeks. I really got to see the true colors of a lot of people throughout this, and for those of you who were there for me, even just on IM or over the phone, THANK YOU. I’m still not 100% back to my normal self. I’m a little more introspective than normal, and I catch myself listening to sad music and staring off into space every once in a while. But I know that I will be okay eventually, and that makes it bearable. I realize I have been more needy in the past few weeks than I probably ever have been before. But to those of you who realized it and listened patiently on the other end of the phone or IM window while I was crying or screaming “Why?!”, thank you. Seriously. It means the world to me.

So I called my mother today (er, yesterday, now), and I finally told her that FG and I had broken up. The first words out of her mouth are, “Oh no! He was supposed to help me buy a new car at Christmas!” And then, “And I even bought him a Christmas present! … Do you think he will still help me buy a car?”

Alright, Mom, I’ve just broken up with my boyfriend/best friend of 7+ years, and the first thing you can think about is he’s not going to take you test-driving. (I told her he probably would anyway.) If anyone wonders why I hate talking to my mom on the phone, this is why.

BTW, I called my dad on his cell a few days ago and he abruptly hung up the phone on me because “your mother is coming into the garage and I don’t want her to know we’re talking without her involved. She’ll just get jealous.” So now I can’t talk to my dad either. I actually liked talking to him. 🙁

LOL. Well, it’s not as dire as the title makes it sound, but sometimes I forget there are cool people here in the Bay Area.

A friend of a friend (his name is Anatole; welcome to my blog, Anatole!) works at Adobe here in SJ, and he emailed me a few weeks ago and asked if I wanted to buy Photoshop CS for $40 (employee price.) Um, YES!? Anyway, all this crap in my life happened, and I totally forgot about it. Last night, I was digging through my email inbox, and I found a note from him asking when I wanted to come pick it up. I emailed him back, saying, “Crap, do you still have it?” Fortunately, he did, and he invited me to a pizza party tonight to come pick it up.

I showed up at Chuck E. Cheese (apparently the organizer wanted to relive his childhood!), which is actually like 2 blocks from my house, tonight. I felt a bit like I was crashing the party, but it was soon apparent that random people were showing up from all over the place. Anatole was there with his fiancee, and there were about 15 other people there as well. Most of the circle of friends belongs to a hiking club, and most of them are not originally from California (I know absolutely no one who is actually from the Bay Area here anyway, so I get that.) I had a lot of fun, and I ate a ton of pizza and played a bunch of games. I also saw a guy I used to work with at Cobalt, who was there unrelated to this gathering — unbelievably, he survived the layoffs and is still working at Sun!

Anyway, I emailed Tim, the organizer of this whole shebang, and asked him to put me on his email list for future outings. When I got home, I found an “evite” for an after-Thanksgiving dinner and girls’ night out in my inbox from some people from IBI. Does this mean I actually have (gasp) a social life?! I am shocked! Shocked! But I’m having fun. 😀

Okay, I’ve made a nice little box where you can stick your email address (right over there —–>) and the blog software will send you a friendly email when my blog has been updated. I did this because I know y’all are just sittin’ there refreshing my blog all day, waiting for me to post more! 😀 Well, now you don’t have to.

I will not sell, rent, blah blah blah your email addresses; they are mine alone and I’m the only one who knows how many of you have subscribed. (Two! Only two of you! Now go over there and subscribe before I kick your butt!)

I ordered my Treo 650 today, and I expect it’ll be in on Tuesday. I am also ordering Mooneer and Brandon (Simpli’s two employees) a Treo 650 as a Christmas bonus for working at Simpli, so I will be ordering two more for them this week. Unfortunately, the “bulk discount” for buying 10 of them was lame ($581 ea. instead of $599), so I went for the free Bluetooth headset option instead (available if you order direct through PalmOne.)

I now have a Treo 300 and a Treo 600 for sale. The 300 is a bit scratched but still works well, and the 600 is almost brand-new (having been swapped out just a few weeks ago.) If any of you want them, please get in touch. I’m setting the price on the Treo 300 at $80. It comes with NO accessories, so you’ll need buy a charger and sync cable (you can find a retractable charge/sync cable on eBay for ~$10.)

The 600 comes with a retractable sync/charge cable as well as a cradle and a car charger (assuming I can get the car charger replaced by Sprint.) I’m selling it for $350. Both of these work on the Sprint PCS network exclusively.

I’ll put these up on eBay on Thanksgiving if I haven’t sold them by then, so here’s your chance to get in early!