Thanksgiving; Treo 650; etc.

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.