Odyssey of the Mind

Fogo is a Go

On Thursday night I had the opportunity to visit Fogo de Chao for the first time for a group birthday dinner for a friend and colleague.  During a time when I feel like all my fine dining experiences seem to "run together" I must say I was pleasantly surprised.

We walked in off of the bitter cold streets of Washington DC to the warm decor and overwhelming aroma of all different kinds of meats that wafted into the guest waiting area.  I didn't know much about the resturaunt before coming in except the fact that there were guys that walked around to each table with giant swords of meat on them! Well those guys are called Gaucho chefs and they carry and carve all the meat offerings of Fogo tableside for you at your request.  How do the Gaucho chefs know whether or not to interrupt your eating or great conversation?  Good question, I am glad you asked.  There are little disks (much like coasters) on your table in front of each patron.  When you want the Gaucho chefs to stop at your table, just flip the disk so that the green side is up.  All the chefs will continue to stop at your table until your disk is red.

My favorite cuts of meat from the meal were the Picanha - Tender sirloin with sea salt and garlic, and the Linguica - slow roasted pork sausages. The Filet Mignon wrapped in bacon was also delicious.  Overall Fogo offers sixteen different cuts of meat ranging from beef, pork chicken and lamb. Vegetarians beware!

Currently, Fogo de Chao operates at seven cities in the US and only two on the east coast. The east coast cities are Philadelphia and Washington DC.

Given that you have an opportunity to sample the entire menu without the annoying  dynamics of a family style dining experience it more than makes up for its price of about $50/person.

So call some of your closest friends, make your reservation, order your favorite wine (I like Cabernet Sauvignon), sit back, turn your disks to green and let the Gaucho chefs go to town serving you some of the most perfectly prepared selections of meat around!

Update - Personal Portalization

My last post talked alot about the virtues of the Google Customized Homepage. I run a variety of widgets that import the information that is important to me to one information dashboard. Previously, I mentioned the weaknesses in the task list functionality. Well I found a much better solution for those of you that are out there looking for a solution.

Remember the Milk (www.rememberthemilk.com) started as what you an imagine - a web based grocery list. Well the service has grown up. It now has functionality to completely integrate with Google Calendar and imports directly to the customized homepage. The functionality it provides in separating the work, personal, etc. tasks is huge for me. Lists can be published, shared and subscribed to through RSS. Task clouds (like tag clouds in del.icio.us) help visualize the categories which have the most outstanding  or high importance things to do. 

Best of all: The service is FREE. I would highly recommend this service. I have found it very effective for my needs. Check out the new configuration below.

Personal Portalization - More Work Needed!

In my quest to ever simplify my life and move away from locally-stored software and data, I am on the look out for a web-based information dashboard.  This dream product would integrate email management, calendaring (shared and collaborative), to-do list (tightly integrated with calendaring and able to dynamically drag and drop content for reordering priorities), contact management and RSS management page (much like FeedDemon or News Gator Online Services).

There are alot of providers of the services that I am describing, however no one company does any of the above well.

Currently I am running a customized Google Homepage with "widgets" (third party developed applets) that display weather, stocks, Google Calendar entries for Sophy and I, virtual Post-It notes, daily quote, weight tracking (I am on a diet) and task lists.

I use Google for a few reasons:
1. I know they won't be out of business tomorrow.
2. Gmail, Google Talk and Calendar all interact well with each other.
3. Gmail offers me nearly limitless space on their servers to save my mail.
4. Google offers a variety of widgets that get me the most relevant/pertinent information in front of my face ASAP.
5. None of the Google web properties are blocked by my company which allows me to have the most up to date information across any computer with a web connection.

Task lists:
For me, task lists are critical. My daily actions and schedule are driven off the priorities of my task list. Being able to tie specific tasks to my Google Calendar would be a godsend. I would then be able to have a daily meetings agenda with tasks related to that specific day. Everything (tasks, email, calendaring) would be unified on the web. Good task lists which I have tried for the trial period are offered by Gootodo and Ta-da Lists by 37signals. Unfortunately I will never switch to either of these until I can integrate it with my information dashboard. It is ashamed since I really enjoyed Ta-da Lists!

Brad Feld of A VC talks about the deportalization of the internet. I think that the portal needs to become more integrated and personalized. If personal information (email, contacts, etc.) is the main driver for someone to visit a web property like Google's Gmail, Calendar, etc. The case could be made that sucg offerings would be jumping off point into the rabbit hole that is the internet and hence a wider audience with more stickiness (like crazy glue).

Wedding Singer, A Review

Ever since seeing Avenue Q (my first show) on Broadway this past spring, I have been hooked on the Broadway experience.

Considering my thoughts while standing in line to see Avenue Q “I can’t believe I am going to see a play [like the ones in high school]. Not only that, but this one is $60 and has puppets!” now I can’t believe I was so short-sighted in my views of Broadway. Avenue Q was great and the score was instantly addictive with songs like [favorites listed]: What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?, It Sucks to Be Me, Everyone's a Little Bit Racist and The Internet Is for Porn.

Needless to say, I am hooked. When I was in New York for the first two weeks in October, shows would have to added to the list of things to do. I had lined up The Wedding Singer and Monty Python’s SPAMALOT for the two weeks that I was there. Unfortunately I had to bail on SPAMALOT till the next time I am in New York.

The desire to see The Wedding Singer over one of the other comedic Broadway Musicals was driven by my love for Stephen Lynch and his musical comedy. The Wedding Singer tells the story of Robbie Hart, a popular New Jersey wedding singer, who begins to ruin other people's wedding days after his fiancée leaves him at the altar. Things begin to look up after he meets Julia, a warm-hearted waitress -- who is also engaged to be married.

The Wedding Singer was a bit of a shallow show, and very predictable (especially if you saw the movie with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore). The cast is good and the score is good but I was waiting for a breakout from one of the main characters the whole show – it never came. It is a fun “date show” that doesn’t require much thought or emotional investment. I don’t see it becoming one of those shows that is on Broadway for multiple years, like Les Miserables or RENT. If you are looking for a light-hearted comedy, see it only if you can’t get tickets to Avenue Q!

 

Dilbert Must have worked at PwC

I love it when your job can be encapsulated in a singe Dilbert comic strip! The sad thing is, it isn’t far off.

A Couple Things I Like

The view from my downtown hotel room. [Yeah, that is Ellis Island out there in the river.]

I also like the rockstar parking I get down in front of the New York Stock Exchange with my new car! Look at the people hanging around, they are so envious. [Ok, maybe the work is starting to get to me.]

Shadyness on Canal Street

Chinatown in New York City is unofficially known as the place in the city to get good knock offs of popular name brands like Coach, Rolex and Louis Vuitton. One cannot take five steps out of the train station before being assaulted by all sorts of people standing on the sidewalk, inconspicuously, saying the brand names that they offer. If you are interested in some of their knock off wares, you should acknowledge the person and they will take you to some back room of a storefront or in my case, a beat up mini van a block off Canal Street (the main street in Chinatown).

The person I was with was interested in getting a “Coach” bag. I was totally against such activities, but since the person from whom we would be buy said “Coach” bag was known by one of the people I was spending the day with, my uneasiness was abated – momentarily. We were ushered down a back street towards a beat-up mid-80’s mini van. I didn’t know what to expect, but apparently we had reached the place of business. I was planning on waiting outside the van since my instincts of self-preservation were kicking in at this point. I was ushered into the van where I found myself sitting on a wooden plank that was supported by two milk crates. Around me were hundreds of knock off bags. They were on the “after-market wooden shelving” installed in the car as well as all over the floor. While my companion and merchant were talking about the bags, I noticed that there was a thick black felt cloth that was stapled to the ceiling blocking out the visibility from behind the driver’s seat as well as heavy blackout window tint on all of the windows in the rear of the car.

Anyway, this super shady, obviously illegal, operation got me thinking as to how much money someone could make selling knock off handbags to people on the sidewalk. My friend asked him if he made good money selling bags. He responded that he had made about $1,000 bucks yesterday (Saturday). $1,000 for a weekend seemed pretty typical in the way that he responded. Assuming a 100% mark up, that would mean he and his wife (this is a two person operation) would make $1,000 profit, per weekend. Of course there would be no taxes to account for. Not bad if this is your side job! Unfortunately, this is highly contingent on many factors like the presence of the NYPD (a night in jail and $10,000 fine if caught) and weather – since not many people like walking around on the sidewalk in the rain. Not to

All in all a pretty interesting experience, one that I would not like to repeat anytime soon. Maybe I will be more accepting of this type of “back-door” business if I were to travel to Asia or Europe.

[Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the interior of the mini van, it would have been a sight, but I leave you with a sign of one of the “legit” street vendors.]

Tough Decisions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is becoming an ever increasingly difficult decision to make.

Paper or Pixels?

The Way I See It #178

I was sitting down to my computer this morning with my obligatory grande house blend coffee from Starbucks when the brown cardboard sleeve that the coffee comes in slipped off revealing the "Way I See It" series. I always knew that it was on there, but never took notice since I was always rushing around. The purpose of the series is to get people talking and engaged in "good, healthy discussion."

Here is what my cup had to say:

The measure of genuine civilization, it has been said, is the quality of life for a nation's poorest and least priviledged people. By that measure, we are barbarians. Our current level of inequality cannot be justified or sustained.
--Robert W. McChesney Author, media critic and professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

As I sit here in downtown Manhattan, one block from Wall Street, I wonder how I can work to better the quality of life for this nation's poor. Short of donating money and volunteering my time I don't have a good way of bettering society's ills. Hell, I have enough of a problem keeping myself above water.

More thought on this is required.

So Pissed

It is 11:30pm and I am getting ready to sit down with In an Uncertain World when I realized that I left it on the Amtrak train when coming up to New York City this morning. Time to find the closest bookstore in the morning.

What a let down :-(

Alot Can Happen in Six Months

Like I said in my welcome back post, this is the time of the year when I do the most self-reflection and planning for the year to come. Plato once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." With that here is a quick recap of the last six months.

At this time six months ago, I was wearing shorts and sandals to work at a start-up, driving an old '92 Mercury Grand Marquis and not making too much money. I lived a couple miles from my office with a good buddy from college. I was dating the same girl I had been all throughout college and I was developing a good group of friends and professional contacts. I was beginning to shrug off the college mentality and come into my own. Philadelphia was beginning to become a place that I called home.

Professionally, I couldn't have asked for more (except more money). I liked my job and the people I worked with. I believed in the idea and the management team - especially the CEO. The CEO and I began to think of him as more of a mentor than just a boss. The hammer fell this past February when I was informed that I was being let go (along with 3 other people) to make the financial statements look better to a VC firm that had been interested in us for several months. I could tell he was crushed when he had to tell me. I felt like I had been blindsided by a Mack Truck. I went back to my apartment, that Monday afternoon, in complete and utter shock.

A couple of weeks later my long time girlfriend broke up with me. It wasn't because of the job, but I will save you from the bloody details. I felt like that sphere of comfort that I described in the first paragraph was collapsing around me.

My life is much different now. I live on the doorstep of the Nation's Capital, Washington DC. I have a new, overpriced apartment in Alexandria, VA, a new car, new girlfriend, new roommate (also a good buddy from Villanova) and I am a new member of the Free Masons. Did I mention that I have a new job at PricewaterhouseCoopers, the largest of the Big Four public accounting firms? Ask any of my friends from college and I bet none of them ever thought I would be working as an information security auditor for a Big Four firm.

It has actually been only six months since all this change started happening and I must say, while it has been a whirlwind. I can say the one thing that I am most excited about is developing new relationships both professional and personal in the DC Metro area. When I made to Philadelphia five years ago, I knew two people. When I made it to Washington, I knew one. I know it will certainly be a challenge in this new environment but I am up to it.

The bigger challenge in my eyes will be maintaining the relationships I have in Boston and Philadelphia while working hard to build a strong network of friends and professional contacts in DC.

Live fully, in This World

Here is a great quote from Joan Didion's commencement address at U.C. Riverside:

I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package, I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.

[hat tip: Ben]

Notable News

In yesterday's New York Times there was an article entitled, "Medicare Refund Mixup Part of a Larger Tangle" It quotes President Bush as saying that the mistakenly sent Medicare refunds was part of a large scale "computer glitch" is quite amusing to me. I am currently deployed on a client engagement for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. I really wish I could go on about the relationship, between Medicare and the Contractors that administer the drug plans, but independence issue prohibit me from doing so. However, it is pretty neat being in able to see, from the inside, what is being discussed in the National headlines.

In an article entitled, "Here's Your Syllabus, and Your Condom" Stephanie Rosenbloom describes the growing target market of college students as a primary focus by Trojan, Durex and the like. Not that this news is overly surprising, but when I think of back to school, I thought of notebooks, textbooks, dorm living and drunken debauchery - never condoms. Then again, I suppose a night of drunken debauchery dovetails nicely with pack of Trojans!

This isn't notable news, but is interesting nonetheless:
An Atheist Manifesto is a very interesting exposition into Atheism. While I have heard most of these arguments before they are arranged in a very interesting way. I don't agree with the author's thesis but I do respect the argument he is trying to make. The true existence of God is always an important conversation to have, especially when extreme and fundamentalist religious groups dominate todays headlines. I ask that you give is a read, one time, with an open mind.

Below is the Editor's Note:
At a time when fundamentalist religion has an unparalleled influence in the highest government levels in the United States, and religion-based terror dominates the world stage, Sam Harris argues that progressive tolerance of faith-based unreason is as great a menace as religion itself.

The Web...Embraced

[Written at 35,000 feet - somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico]

I have finally fully embraced the web! I have come to realization that with the amount of travelling most knowledge workers theses days are expected to do there are one truth:

· Less is more

To that point, the less that we have to carry the better off we are both at the security check points and in having less to carry around.

But what is more, I have found myself on the road, spending the night at a hotel or at a client site when I need something that resides on my personal PC back inVirginia i.e. a billing statement, personal file or check book.

Over the course of the past two weeks I have moved all of my personal files to the web using Gmail as my online storage device.  My collaborative calendaring is also handled through Google using Calendar.  It is a great service that works in a similar fashion to an enterprise version of Microsoft's Outlook.  The best feature, though, is that it will send me text messages reminding me that I need to be somewhere.  I wish Google would build in a simple "To Do List" function that would eliminate the electronic Post-Its on my desktop.  I also host almost all of my pictures through Facebook.

All available billing statements are set for e-delivery/e-payment.  Those that I cannot pay via the web are paid by way of the automatic check processing service from Bank of America.  Bank of America will automatically cut a check to the person or entity you designate and drop it in the mail for you with the person to whom you wrote the check for within three days.  This service has saved me on a couple of occasions when I have been out of town when I forgot to leave out a check for rent on the apartment. Best of all - The service is free!

I have even trivialized the need for my Ipod since I have moved to Yahoo's Music Service - Launcast. What's best, I don't have to worry about charging and synching another device. Nor do I have the headache of worrying if my heard drive fails.  I usually always have a high speed connection except in the airport and on the plane.  As such these are the only places that I used said device.  Now I have a completely customizable radio station without the worry of lugging my clunky second generation Ipod around. [I currently have Rob Thomas, Jason Miraz, Jamie Cullum, Maroon 5 and Norah Jones on heavy rotation.] There is one device that I wish I had that has some considerable "clunk" - The Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones. However, I can't justify the cost right now.

I have had some interesting conversations with Sophy about how much I trust the Web and whether I trust it a little too much.  I argue that the companies I have entrusted my daily productivity and data storage to (Yahoo, Google, Bank of America, etc) are not going away any time soon.  She argues that she trusts none of them and she will continue to hold onto her notebooks and check books.  She has a point, some of the oldest documents we have as a civilization are on papyrus.  While, I respectfully disagree, I still love her, but she will just have more to carry!

Back to In an Uncertain World (it is turning out to be a very good book, even though I am in the early goings). Thanks Jeff and Ben.

Page Layout Issues

Is this page loading correctly in your browser? I am having issues getting the lists on the right sidebar to display correctly in Internet Explorer. I have no troubles in Firefox.

I have been trying to update links, freshen up the layout and displayed content of the page and I just keep having display issues in IE.