And I'll Keep On Fighting Til the End...

Did I mention I won Poker Night this month and now am the World Series of Poker Champion? You must have forgotten to tune in to ESPN2 when I was on... It was glorious.

No time for losers, I am the champion, of the worlddddddd

It's Christmas Time in the City

A bunch of friends went Christmas caroling on cable cars around San Francisco recently. We started out in Union Square, took a detour at Ghiradelli square (weird how that happened) and then hopped back on to spread some more holiday cheer, drunk on chocolate fudge sauce. This needs to be repeated at least once a year. Such a great time.


First cable car ride. Will not be the last. Worth it.

Check out Kimmy's sweater.

Part of the group

Neighbor loving. These boys live in the same complex as us and are great at killing spiders, opening jars, and lifting heavy things for us :)

Merry Christmas!

"Intellectual" Stuff

Round two.

1) I tutor a boy that is a freshman in high school. Sometimes we work on math, at the beginning I was scared. But it turns out all those years I spent hating math were silly, I like math! I was just bad at math :/. Mostly cause I never did my HW or paid attention in class. Math is cool. I wish I could go back in time and make my middle school and high school self realize these things. Instead I will try to do this vicariously through my tutee.

(This could've been me.)

2) I love to read. I've read a lot of really depressing (albeit great) books recently. Sarah's Key, The Girl with the Dragon Tatroo, House of the Spirits, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close = Political corruption + Murder + Rape + Holocaust + 9/11 + Who knows what else. They're all great, I suggest them all. However, maybe don't read them back to back to back to back.

3) The Palo Alto Film Festival is in town this week. They showed a movie last night called "A Day in the Life" that we watched. They asked over 7,000 people to submit one-minute film clips showing a typical day in their life. What would yours show? Other than me showing off my office cube with my standing desk (so great), I'm still thinking...

"Important Stuff"

Yeah,, I'm about to rock your world with all the "important stuff" I've been thinking about lately.

1) Chris Brown and Justin Bieber's Song "Next to You" is my favorite. The music video is not. Christ Brown looks like a creep/serial killer person, which isn't far off these days, and Justin Bieber kind of looks like some weird tranny woman thing. Observe (but don't let it take away from your enjoyment of the song).


2) Modern Family this season. Anyone been watching? How ugly did Lily get!? (Cameron and Mitchell's adopted daughter). She used to be really cute and now, she looks really weird. I've been trying to figure out if they switched out kids, or if she really just aged that unfortunately since last year. I hope my kids stay cute. Compare the photos below to see what I'm talking about.



3) Kate Moss. I don't get it. Really? Her? A model? THE model? Eh. She's just not. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. I just don't see it. Vacant, drugged out stare. Gapped toothed. Stringy hair. Someone care to explain?


Maybe after this post I'll do a post you'll actually care about. Stuff that makes you say, "wow, Jess is really deep" or "hey, Jess really has made a life/name for herself" or "cool, I'd never thought/done that before". Until then...

Never Forget. 9/11.

I love this.



My heart has been really heavy this week leading up to yesterday's 10 year anniversary of September 11th and continues today. I'm grateful for family and friends and this event's reminder that regardless of differences, we are all Heavenly Father's children.

Shark Week Copycat

My friend Ashton already posted about our shark adventures together in Hawaii but I'm going to do it again, because I'm loving Shark Week and feel really proud to be able to say I did that when I watch people going down in shark cages on the Discovery Channel.

Did you see the one where a Great White swam into a cage through an opening and the people had to hide at the bottom for a while before mustering up the courage to escape out past him? Boy am I ever glad that didn't happen to us Ashton, although I think we both probably would have been pretty excited and thought it was pretty cool (our brains were a little too fried from the sun those few months).

Every time I'm in the ocean I try to swim out as far as I can hoping to see a shark, I wouldn't mind that much if I could tell people that the huge scar running down my arm was from a shark bite. My brother always gets angry with me for not following the buddy system and going against the "rules of the sea". He's old and boring ;). Living in Hawaii made me conquer my fears of pretty much everything I can think of. Heights, sharks, being kidnapped... I wouldn't mind spending a couple more months on the North Shore again one day.

Extreme Makeover: Gmail Edition

I got sick of never being able to find anything in gmail due to the large number of emails (exaggeration) I've received over the years. I've been spending a few minutes here or there each day organizing my emails into their appropriate folders (this blog post is fascinating I know). Here's a buried treasure I rediscovered in the process...

http://mashable.com/2010/02/12/fresh-prince-of-bel-air-trick/



I've only got 1,500 emails left to organize. Remember that time I was going to go to Law School? Gmail does. Remember that time I was unemployed and tried to get a job at the Food Network as a food critic? Gmail does. Remember the time I learned Herb Brook's speech from Miracle to give to my lacrosse team? No? You don't remember those time? Gmail does.

Garden Parties and whatnot

Favorite thing about living in Palo Alto? People have great gardens. Rose bushes out the ying yang, tons of hydrangeas, twinkle lights, etc. it's a magical little time.

Jess in Real Life

Apparently certain members of my family (mom) get confused about why I have a blog and yet never post about my own life. Well, mostly I'm bad at remembering to take pictures and don't have babies to make people drool over, so I stick to random thoughts I have. But today I'll humor you with a photo montage.











I went to Lake Tahoe for 4th of July weekend with some Palo Alto friends. I got there Friday night and didn't get home until late Tuesday night and had a ball. We boated, swam, hiked, cliff dove, white water rafted, played sports, played endless card games, watched fireworks, went to a Giant's game in SF, ate tons of food, and had a great time. I wish it had gone on forever.

School House Rock

I hate it when people mess up their and there, your and you're, its and it's. We learned these in like 4th grade people, it's not that hard! Guess who has realized they are totally guilty of doing this lately? Me! So next time I make these mistakes, please call me out on it so I can a) fix this problem b) not hate others who do so as much, and realize that they, like I, are just human.



(Not totally the same concept, but it's grammatical, and entertaining)

The More I Know, The Less I Understand

I majored in Political Science in college, and whenever I tell people this they are interested to hear what my positions are on today's issues. They (and I) are always surprised at how little of an opinion I have on most of these topics. It's not so much that I don't have ideas or thoughts, but I think I see so much of what's going on as being entirely gray, while both sides are trying to make it seem like it's black or white.



I like to read Greg Mankiw's blog, he's an economics professor at Harvard, and he recently wrote an article about health care in the NYT that I thought was interesting and spells out some of the same thoughts that I have. I think both sides are more on each other's side than they realize or are willing to admit.

Radiohead said it best...

I went to Utah this weekend for one niece's birthday party and the others' blessing. While there, I learned something about myself... I'm a creep. I spent practically all weekend trying to get my 1 nephew and 3 nieces to cuddle with me.

Case Study #1: Andrew was showing me a video on his dad's phone and I kept scooping him up on my lap only to have him say "no Jess!" and crawl right back off again and again. Here we've captured that moment on film.

Case Study #2: I convinced Madeline and her other cousins/friends to play hide and go seek. Every time I was hiding I would convince Maddie to hide with me. At one point I started tickling her and in her tiny little 2 year old voice in the dark I heard her say "quiet Jess!"

Case Study #3: I barely participated in any of the Little Gym activities because I was stalking a sleeping baby Olivia waiting for her to wake up. Here we are once I managed to convince everyone she was awake and ready for me to hold her.

Case Study #4: That's it. Baby Caitlin is a gem and willingly let's me cuddle her all I want (despite my creep face in this picture).

Two Rants and A Rave

Time for a really deep blog post... Psych.
1) I am angry about Costco's lack of Honey Crisp apples for the last... I don't know how many months! How dare you dangle something so great in front of me just take take it away. I was perfectly happy with my pink ladies and royal galas until those babies came along, now everything else tastes terrible.

2) Oral-B Satin Floss is the worst. It breaks into string little piece and is just terrible. Anyone have good floss and floss pick recommendations? The last 4 I've tried have failed. I'm someone who flosses 3-4 times a day, at minimum, so this is a big deal.

3) Chobani Greek yogurt. I've been purchasing and eating this stuff for a long time but still love it a lot. Thank you Costco for at least doing this right. Although I think your pack should include Vanilla and Mango for me to try too... maybe replace peach? It's my least favorite. Strawberry is my most favorite. Peach is still a favorite too.

Pepper Pots

Happy Birthday to my favorite niece named Madeline :)! Aka Maddie, Mads, Maddles, Pepper, Pepperoni, Pepperdine, Dr. Pepper, Pepper Pots, Peppermint Pattie, seriously? You're two and you already have more nicknames than I've accumulated over 23 years. That must mean you're pretty great, I think so at least!

This little girl was born while I was backpacking Europe two summers ago. I remember checking my email at random internet cafes like 5 times a day while we were in Greece and finally she was born one morning when we were staying in Athens (ghetto) and although I did not get to be with her that first day... I sang songs about her all day throughout the Acropolis in tribute. Can't wait to celebrate with you Little Gym style Maddie! When you're a little older, tell your mom to send you out here for a fun girls weekend with your "cool" Aunt Jess :)

Awesome People Hanging Out

Ummm... so...yeah. I just stumbled upon this site... I wish I could give my thoughts on every single one of these pictures (call me, I'll give them to you) but I'll leave you with just a few for now...
The Man Your Man Could Smell Like and the Most Interesting Man in the World

- The Beatles and Mohammed Ali seem like they were pretty tight back in the day, wish Ali had been there to punch Mark David Chapman out
- Mother Teresa was a freaking midget, am I going to shrink in my old age too? Or do they just breed hobbits in India?
- Nancy Reagan and Mr. T? I wonder if Ronald knew about this love affair... "I pity the fool who doesn't 'Just Say No'"
- I could tell from his art that I wanted to be Salvador Dali's friend, but now that feeling is stronger than ever. "The Persistence of Memory"? More like the persistence of drug abuse.
- I bet Ludcaris and Bill Gates had a lot to talk about. Pimpin' hoes, Windows CE, you know, guy stuff...

Mostly just because I'm obsessed with the Beatles and Paul Rudd is hilarious.

Learning Curve

My company is full of nerds. Some days I forget. Some days it hits me in the face the second I walk in the door. Today was that day. I walked into one of our programmer's cubes to find him taking a "brain break" to do a little online gaming... I don't know what the game was exactly, but you know the type I mean. He has a pony tail and was wearing leather pants. These two shouldn't paint a picture in your mind of someone that is cool. He is not. In this case, the pony tail and the leather pants just make him even nerdier.

Then I was responding to an email this morning and as I read over the email to make sure I'd touched on all the points they'd made, I sat back for a second and soaked it all in. After four months of working at this company, this email made perfect sense to me. Check out a snippet...

<< We're looking to use a RTOS on a TI AM/DM3730 based control system. Currently using the Mistral AM/DM37x EVM Development Board running Linux to test our application, but dedicated hardware is being developed. The finished product has very tight latency requirements for responding to external interrupts that are unlikely to be met with a stock Linux implementation. We would like to pursue a Linux-based solution for their finished product.

I would like to determine if your Real-Time Linux System would be suitable for this system. The primary task of the system will be to process external data at a 1kHz rate. Therefore, in less than 1ms it will need to do the following:
- Acknowledge an external GPIO pin interrupt
- Read in approx. 50-100bytes via SPI
- Process the data
- Transmit the results out of a UART
- Run background tasks to perform additional data processing

BSP Peripherals required:
- VFP (Double precision floating point and saving all VFP registers during context switching)
- DDR RAM
- NAND Flash
- SD Card
- SPI (12+Mbps)
- USART
- I2C
- GPIO and external interrupts
- DMA

Who's got two thumbs and knows way to much about random tech stuff? This guy!(girl)

Please Sir Can I Have S'More?

In case you hadn't heard... my mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. So naturally, growing up, all I ever wanted her to do was buy crappy store bought cookies like all the other kids' mom's/nannies did. (One time in fourth grade I actually had a meltdown at school when she surprised me by baking a batch of cookies to bring to me and my friends at lunch time. Through my hot salty tears I yelled "why can't you just give me Oreos like everyone else's mom/nanny!" Yeah, I sucked as a fourth grader apparently.) Anyways, I've since recovered from that bout of youthful insanity/desire to fit in and totally appreciate my mom's cookies. And pretty much everything else she makes.

Howeverrrrr. There was one type of cookie that I would have her buy at the store that I still think are fantastic. Have you tried Mallomars? They were my favorite. They didn't sell them in the summer because the thin chocolate dipped coating melts in the trucks because it's so hot. (My mom learned that for us after constantly coming home from the store to me empty handed in the summertime). Mallomars are the best. You should try them. I couldn't find the brand name ones at Safeway but the knock-off ones are pretty o.k. for now.

PS I hope my future kids aren't stupid like I was. If my daughter started crying and screaming at me for making homemade cookies for her and her friends... I think I would lock her out of the house and let her sleep on the lawn for a night or two. Sorry mom, you're a saint.

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

Trip to Utah this weekend in a nutshell...
Flew in to see this little cutie... Olivia Havana Caffee

Spent some time at the Thanksgiving Point Farm with this one too

I'm having withdrawls from these little girls. They're the best. I can't wait until they grow up and do this someday

(Their mom's high school team was in the playoffs for state this weekend. They lost but played great and I was so excited to watch I nearly lost my voice.)

PS check out my sister's awesome parenting skills in this video

Whoopsie Daisies

You know the scene in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant keeps trying to climb over a fence and every time he falls down, he says "Whoopsie Daisies" and then Julia Roberts makes fun of him and then he still does it again? This scene?

Sometimes that scene is all too familiar to me. Yesterday I was on the phone with my sister while at work, and must have said "okey doke" or "okey dokey" a half dozen times, and the second I hung up a co-worker popped their head into my cube to laugh and make fun of me for something only "little girls with blonde ringlets" and people from 50 years ago said. Help me? It's getting embarrassing.

Save Me, San Francisco

One of my oldest friends from BYU came to visit me this weekend! This was pretty much the soundtrack to our weekend (the video's kind of lame... sorry)

We spent some time getting in touch with my roots at a Pow Wow at Stanford

Exploring some of my favorite San Francisco spots

Watching the Giants and Brian "I have a disgusting lice filled beard" Wilson

Napping on the beach in Half Moon Bay

You should come visit me too :) I'm a real good tour guide, I think.

Cougars, Caddies, and Mancubs

I, along with two friends, have joined a women's golf league. Every Monday night we meet up with a number of Palo Alto women to play nine holes of golf, have a little friendly competition, and do some socializing. It's great.

Other than me and my friends, I'd dare to say the average age is 60. So now you can guess that the reference to Cougars in the title has nothing to do with my Alma Mater, and everything to do with the League's demographic. Golf League is the new Ladies Who Lunch, and I intend on become a key member of the group. It's my ticket in to society's upper crust.

After 9 holes we all meet up in the clubhouse to eat, drink, and enjoy the tunes of some aspiring musicians who double as Golf Pros. I like to refer to these as the Mancubs. 20-something boys playing Dave Matthews songs while these ladies indulge in a glass or two of wine and feast their Cougar eyes on young flesh, you can't make this stuff up.

Mondays just got a little bit better.

Colonel Mustard with the Wrench in the Library

Last week my life was like a game of "Operation", this week it was like a game of "Clue". Next week... Scrabble anyone? (No seriously, I'm obsessed with Scrabble... if you have an iPhone, let's be "Words with Friends, friends)

I hosted a little murder mystery dinner party Friday night to celebrate a friend's birthday! It was a lot of fun to plan and decorate and turned out great.

We had fun dressing up and it was hilarious how into it people got.