via TweetDeck

TripIt is far and above my favourite way to track my travel, and Alaska has a great policy for refunding airfare price drops – I may never hesitate to buy a ticket again!

I have a new job! Funemployement did not last long, thankfully. I stumbled across a great opportunity with a really smart team. This really deserves it’s own post so more on this later, except to say I am super excited and start in a week.

My time off was filled partially by a truly lovely vacation to Phoenix and Tucson for a week. Amazing time, lots of sun and desert, a hot air balloon ride, a hummingbird exhibit that I never wanted to leave, and the discovery that the Android kicks the iPhone’s non-existent rear end when it comes to navigation, among other things. I’m so happy to kick the AT&T/iPhone combo to the curb. Overall, the Android (2.2 on the HTC Evo 4G) makes me feel like I’m living in the bright and shiny glorious future that is 2011.

I’m so, so, so in love with 2011.  If it weren’t 2011 I wouldn’t have my gadgets, my geeky hobbies, my delightfully nerdy career or the freedom to be me. However, that being said, often I imagine being my age in the late 1920s.  Obsessing over the style of the era, I find myself watching Boardwalk Empire on HBO, hunting down prohibition-themed bars in the alleyways and hidden attics of Seattle, and even hosting a 20s themed New Years.

This evening I came across this picture on someone’s tumblr and realized I inadvertently (subconsciously?) have 1920s hair now:

I meant to have Tron hair. :-)

Serendipity?

I worked at an amazing startup called iLike until Myspace acquired us at the end of last year. Both were great experiences for me professionally, and I had fun.  But alas, it is the end of that era. Myspace recently went through some fairly exhaustive layoffs and I’m now unemployed. I hold no ill will towards Myspace, they did the best they could and for a year I fought hard for them.  In the end, they treated us quite fairly.

Now, I’m on to my new full time job: looking for a job. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I’m excited. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to really step back and imagine where I would like to go professionally. It has made me think a lot about why I do what I do and what direction I want to go with it.

My conclusion so far is that I love (love love love) being a product manager. Thinking about user scenarios. Friendly, intuitive interactions that make people smile. Problem solving. Being decisive and unafraid. Going to battle with a great team. Getting to the root cause of issues, and with any luck solving an issue before it has a chance to ship.  It all makes you want to come into work in the morning.

Previously, heading support meant cleaning up product’s messes. Treating only the symptoms. Being in product gave me a chance to dig into the causes. Where were users going to get hung up? Was this designed for superusers or for someone who’s never seen our product before? What were the assumptions we were making? Was it easy? Was it quick? How many clicks did it take to accomplish something?   It was a breath of fresh air.  It was like moving from the urgent treatment ward in the hospital to the preventative care section. Finally, power to make things better from the gate!

Suffice to say, I find work of this nature very rewarding and fulfilling, which makes this the most exciting job hunt of my life.  I know what I want to do. Now I just need to find a team and a product that I can direct my energy into, something that I deeply believe in, and a place where I can continue to grow.

Check out the announcement and shiny new group on Facebook.

<!–insert gratuitous gun photo –>

For those of you without Facebook:

Time: 09 March · 18:00 – 21:00
Location: West Coast Armory Indoor Range
13216 SE 32nd Street
Bellevue, WA

Seattle Geek Shootout is a safe, non-partisan, and fun environment to practice your aim (or try for the very first time) with other Puget Sound people involved in startups and technology.

GunUp.com is kindly sponsoring this event by covering lanes fees for the first 30 participants to show up at the range. You can bring your own guns & ammo or rent there ($15) and purchase ammo.

Afterwards we will likely meet up at a nearby watering hole.

Please feel free to invite friends of similar caliber (pun intended). :-) Add yourself to the “Seattle Geek Shootout” group on Facebook to receive invitations to future events.

http://www.gunup.com/

http://www.westcoastarmory.com/

My grandparents are coming to town! This is great news, but it means I need to sell some of my season tickets to Sounders FC games. I’m trying out Bixbe to sell them. It’s a handy-dandy fairly instant storefront you can set up in a few clicks if you have PayPal (and who doesn’t?). The first set of tickets I put on Bixbe sold in 8 minutes. Like, money-in-my-PayPal-account sold. Beautiful. Let’s hope I have the same luck with this pair – the game is next Sunday night!

Speaking of Sounders, I went to last night’s US Open Cup game against the Portland Timbers via the epicness that was the Emerald City Supporter’s uber-bus caravan. So ridiculously fun. So so fun. I got to meet a whole bunch of ECS members and watch the Timbers can cut down, again, by the Sounders before their Open Cup hopes even had a chance. I love a little cross-”town” rivalry. Competition drives excellence.

Since we won (BOOYAH!), our next USOC game is Wednesday, July 7th at Starfire versus LA Galaxy. ECS has tickets for sale at $16 for members. Buy from our supporters club and avoid the Ticketmaster fees.  If you aren’t an ECS member and for some silly reason don’t want to be, here’s the Ticketmaster link.

The game is all general admission, so come early for great seats! So far Harmony, Erin O., Colin, Matt, and I will be there, for those of you out there in internetland who know me IRL.  Hope you can make it.