Ring in the New Year

Here's looking at you kid!

This will be the last post from frankfurtsanfrancisco. It's been a fun experiment that I will miss, but it's all for the better. I am moving on and focusing my energies on my other website and other projects.

Never say never. Who knows? I just might start up a new blog under a new name if it strikes my fancy.

Only 4 more hours to the new year. I hope that it will bring all of my faithful readers good health, happiness and success.

About the picture: In honor of my last post, I decided to haul out the "big boy" camera and snap a photo of me. Taking self portraits helps me to be more self aware. For example, I realized how asymmetrical my eyes are. Also, my default look, that of a poker face can be quite intimidating. My resolution for 2010 should be to smile more, when it's appropriate of course. :-)

Bis demnaechst! Adieu! Ciao! Adios! Until Next Time...

frankfurtsanfrancisco

German consulate

I'm paying a visit to the German consulate in San Francisco this morning so that someone can certify my citizenship. This needs to be done before I can get the money back, which I paid into the German retirement system. I'm hoping to get back a nice chunk of change.
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Quality of Life

I wish the SF government would do more to improve quality of life problems in the city such as graffiti. These things do impact larger problems. I need to report this graffiti to the department of public works.
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Return to Normalcy

Walk This Way

It was pouring yesterday afternoon, but it seems to have stopped this morning thank goodness, just in time for my pending power walking session.

The return to normalcy in the title refers to my diet. After a couple days of eating festive foods, my stomach is glad to return to a bit of normalcy.

I woke up at 5:45 AM yesterday so that I could get to the mall early enough for the deals that didn't really show up. Bummer. One place offered sweaters for only $20, but there were only XXL and L sizes available. The lesson I learned is not to go to Stonestown Galleria for after Christmas shopping because their merchandise is expensive and I can't check off items on my gift list.

Miracle on Christmas

The attempted Christmas Day attack on a plane enroute to Detroit was a scary reminder of the terrorists that are still out there plotting destruction and damage. These vermin are scum because they try to instill fear in everyone with their scare tactics. Also, now it will even be more of a nuisance to fly because of all the reactionary security measures the security agencies implement every time there is another bombing attempt. Remember the shoe bomber who caused us all to have to remove our shoes. Then the attempt to use explosives that were in liquid form, which resulted in the ban on bottled water. The security measures are getting insane and it not even clear how much safer these measures make us. Pretty soon we'll all be flying naked as many others also predict.

Feeding Frenzy

The holidays are a feeding frenzy in many ways. It's a time to stuff yourself just like bears do before they start hibernating. Not that I've met any bears who told me that first hand.

Then the day after Christmas sales is a different type of feeding frenzy. Because of the sales and discounts, people turn into monsters as they grab at deals. I will likely join the crazed masses tomorrow, but I hope to maintain my sanity and humanity.

Christmas Eve 2009

The pink glow of the sun hangs on the horizon and gently fades into the light blue of the sky. Today is Christmas Eve morning and I must go to work, albeit for only a half day. Most people either take today off or have a company holiday today, so the traffic is very light.

I like how a common German holiday greetings is to wish people a "besinnliches Weihnachtsfest". Besinnlich means contemplative and reflective. More people should be contemplative these days. I wish you a contemplative Christmas.

Tis the Season

I had lunch today with a former colleague, who provided the inside scoop on what's going on at my old employer. Apparently there was a "RIF" (reduction in force) in November sometime and a couple folks I know got released. I think they should just call it like it is, layoffs, instead of using euphemisms. I'm glad I left when I did. I knew it wasn't sustainable. Plus, the pressure to sell is suffocating.

Assertiveness Training!

Festive Cable Car

Having been at my previous company for so many years, I tend to maintain the "service provider" mindset. We were always supposed to please the client, meet or exceed their expectations and basically ask "How high?" when the client said "Jump!"

Now that I'm in industry and find myself in the client role, I need to learn to take a client mindset and be more assertive in protecting my department's needs. For example, I am working with the marketing department on updating a brochure. Considering we have a limited budget for printing the brochures, I suggested taking a risk based approach to distributing the brochures. Higher risk branches get more brochures delivered to them. Marketing said that it would be more expensive and in general tried to dissuade me from that idea. Of course Marketing just wants to save themselves some headaches. So instead of just agreeing with Marketing, I need to defend my department's interests and inform marketing that we want a estimate of how much more it would cost for the risk based approach and we will make the business decision of what route to take. I should not let Marketing or other departments dictate what makes sense for our department just because they are trying to avoid extra work. That's where I need to be more firm in standing my ground instead of always giving in.

This is a good lesson. I will take this example to heart.

Friendliness Overload

I read an interesting article in the Economist on the preponderance of friendliness these days. By friendliness the author meant too much casualness in our day to day communications with one another. My favorite excerpt from the article is as follows:

"Replacing formal politeness is a kind of neutral friendliness, where human encounters take place devoid of the signifiers of emotional status differences that past generations found so essential. That may lubricate business meetings. But it makes life outside the workplace less interesting. If you use first names everywhere at work, how do you signify to a colleague that you want to be a real friend? If you sign all emails 'love and vibes', how do you show intimacy? Much of the world has an answer to that, at least in their own languages and cultures. English-speakers may have triumphed on one front, but they are struggling on another."

The author is so right.

Reunion

I met up with some of my middle school classmates tonight at a divey looking bar. It was interesting meeting up with most of them and finding out how everyone turned out. One of them made a hurtful joke, which I didn't really appreciate. However, there is such a thing as karma.

Money Launderers Beware!

I'm happy to announce that I passed my exam. Now I am a Certified Anti Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS)!

That's one weight off of my shoulders. No more studying at the crack of dawn every morning. This morning, a Saturday, I woke at 6 AM (which no one should be forced to do on a weekend) to make sure I got to the testing center on time. The Prometric testing center is conveniently located in the Financial District. I entered the room and joined the line of other test takers. The others were taking different types of tests. I heard a couple of folks taking the TOEFL and one person taking the GRE.

The rules are strict - no watches, no face tissues, empty pockets except your ID card and the key to the locker, where you store the rest of your personal items. They give you a couple pieces of scratch paper, 2 pencils and then lead you into the computerized testing rooms. Fortunately the testing center provided headphones to block out surrounding noise because there was one test taker who seemed to need a lot of assistance from the proctor.

I had not taken an exam like this in a while, so when the digital timer started counting down, I was a bit rusty. After a while, I got more comfortable with the questions, and I was in the test taking flow. The CAMS exam consists of 120 multiple choice questions that you must answer in 3.5 hours. The passing score is 75%. After I reached my 120th question and had double checked my work, I was ready to press the finish button. With bated breath I awaited my results. Luckily I passed and have good news to share with others. It would have been embarrassing to have to tell my boss that I did not pass.

Freebie

I got a 3 free pairs of socks at Lucy just by trying on a pair of yoga pants. What a deal! Those socks had a $14 value. Didn't like the pants though.

Wish me luck. I'm studying for an exam tomorrow and would like to pass.

About the Picture: This is a photo of the Ritz-Carlton hotel up on Nob Hill.

Winding Roads

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood today. Just look at the golden yellow leaves shining against the blue sky in my picture above. The rain has gone away for the moment and we are left with glorious weather.

Countdown...Only 14 more days left of frankfurtsanfrancisco. Then it's bye bye time.

Dark and Mysterious

I inadvertently let a German phrase slip from my mouth today. One of my coworkers asked where someone else went and I said, "I think she went to lunch or so." It sounded weird in English once I heard myself saying it, but it works in Deutsch, or?

About the picture: What is this guy doing in the alley? At second glance I think he was on a BlackBerry judging by the position of his hands. Why so private?

Whirligig

I brought my little Christmas pyramid into the office to add some holiday cheer to my workspace. A couple of my coworkers have even given it a twirl. It does look kind of interesting with those propellers on top and you can't help but want to make the figures move around and around. It can be a type of hypnotic stress reliever.

Discretion

Another late night posting because I was working at home. I put in 3 hours this evening. I don't mind it that much at this point because I'm still relatively new and still need to prove my worth. Plus, I enjoy the creative aspects of my work. I say creative because I get a lot of free reign to design processes and reports. The ID theft program is still relatively young and flexible, so I get to impose my vision on many things.

Anyhow, I really need my time to work at home because during the work day, I'm always interrupted by this or that. I lose most of my productive time by transitioning from one project to another or answering emails. There was a great Harvard Business Review article recently on managing information overload. It covered the many different theories out there on how to productively managing overflowing email inboxes. Some people recommend having a clean inbox. Others advocate the one-touch rule meaning you should deal with an email the first time around rather than have it languish in your inbox. I try to apply both of these rules to a certain extent.

What are your secrets for dealing with information and email overload?

About the Picture: I took this with my built in BlackBerry camera, so that's why resolution is poor. However, I am really learning to love the discreet nature of photographing with camera phones. It's less obvious than pulling out a big old dSLR and can you can take more spontaneous pictures.

Rain Check

I fulfilled my Christmas duties this weekend by creating my own greeting cards, writing cards, wrapping gifts for other people and setting up my Christmas tree. This is the first year that I've created a "theme" tree. The theme this year is red and bows, meaning that the tree contained only red colored ornaments and bows. Although I have to admit that I did sneak in an tin soldier ornament I got from the German Christmas market in Frankfurt. The photo above was taken with the lights in the room off, with a slow shutter speed. It's an interesting effect.

The only thing that I still have open on my Christmas to-do list is to think of and get a gift for my mother. Christmas is coming, so the pressure's on.

Heat seeking

No more Espanol until mid January because today was the last class. The weather is somewhat nasty today. I had planned to go take photos at twilight but the weather probably won't be conducive for photos. Sorry!
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Lunch time indulgence

I treated myself to a decadent hazelnut latte from Coffeebean today. Yum! I'm also trying something different today which is blogging midday. Only a couple more hours to go and then the weekend starts. I've got some serious studying to do tonight because I've got a Spanish final exam tomorrow. Ciao!

Wishy Washy

Clean Money

I spent half the day in anti-money laundering training. However, most of it was not relevant for my daily responsibilities. Buona sera! I need to get some beauty sleep now. It's so difficult to wake up in the morning when it's cold outside and I got less than 8 hours!

Gladhanding

Socializing after work at the Bubble Lounge - can you believe that? Yes, I forced myself to attend a mixer organized by Ascend, a professional association because I know it's good for me, similar to taking medicine.

I spoke to a couple folks, got two business cards and left after a hour. Socializing in small doses I can handle. It's when I need to be out there for extended periods of time that it starts to be draining on introverts like me.
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Verboten

I took this verboten photo of the Christmas decorations in the lobby of my office building. After I snapped my photo, I became aware of one of the security guards making some noise. She told me that photos of the building were not allowed. When I asked why, all she could tell me was that this was policy. This policy doesn't make sense to me, especially since I work in the building and am not some weirdo, who walked off the street taking photos of the lobby to plan who knows what. Come on. It's a harmless photo of decorations that don't even look that good! Sheesh! At least she didn't ask me to delete it.

Anyhow, I was scanning the headlines on the Sueddeutsche Zeitung online and saw an article on GEZ fees, which are monthly fees levied on televisions, radios and computers that are capable of connecting to the Internet. These fees are used to support public programming on the channels ARD and ZDF. The article is about proposed fee increases for those households that don't own a TV, but do own a laptop or mobile telephone that has Internet capabilities. According to the GEZ website, since January 2009, the quarterly GEZ fee for a radio is 17,28 EUR. The equivalent cost for a TV is 53,94 EUR. I guess TV's cost more because it gives you more entertainment than a radio.

I don't think I paid the fee when I was over there, perhaps because it was included in my rent to my landlord. In any case, these fees can really add up if they are paid regularly. I'm glad we don't have to pay these fees in the States. We have public television called PBS - Public Broadcasting Station, but these stations are funded by donations from viewers and probably some government support. I like public television because they have shows like Masterpiece Classics, Masterpiece Mystery and Masterpiece Contemporary. They show a bunch of British programming that I wouldn't otherwise be able to get on other channels.

Mahlzeit!

Frog Hollow Farm*

I dread thinking about what to eat for lunch everyday. I don't want to eat out everyday because that gets expensive and boring very quickly. That means I need to plan what I'm going to cook on Sundays in preparation for the upcoming week. This is easier said than done because I essentially have 2 recipes in my lunch repertoire - pasta with tomato sauce or pasta with cream of mushroom/white sauce. The other ingredients stay the same - mixed veggies and some type of meat be it chicken, turkey or ham. If I want to keep it simple, I make a sandwich. When I'm kind of lazy, I also will heat up frozen food from Trader Joe's like burritos or mushroom risotto.
I've got to start expanding my cooking skills or my lunches are going to be the same old same old day after day. Ugh!

*These guys make the best pastry in town in my humble opinion. Today I tried a pear fragipane; whatever a fragipane is, it tastes good. The tart had a pear in the middle and underneath it was some sort of almond paste. Almond makes everything better!

Food for Thought

Mango Blush

Walking in Golden Gate Park today was a cold affair today. The sky was overcast and most people stayed indoors, so there was plenty of parking. Right now it's 48 degrees Fahrenheit and raining. The forecast is for more rain in the upcoming week.

Smarty Pants

I picked up a copy of the September 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review (HBR) from work and have been reading it these past couple of days. It has excellent content and case studies that are relevant to people working in the business world. For example, in the 9/2009 issue, there was a case study about surviving a boss from hell, a first person article about how Cisco manages innovation within the company and then an article about how to manage information overload. Think of the HBR as a type of textbook for business folks. It costs $79 for 12 issues. Should I make an investment?

Three New Things

Blue Night

I learned three new things today.

1. I don't like broccoli rabe
2. I learned (kind of) how to tie a scarf in a new way
3. MS Visio can be used to create timelines

Today for lunch I invited my coworkers to try out "Il Cane Rosso" with me. It's a new restaurant in the Ferry Building. I ordered the broccoli rabe sandwich since the other sandwiches sounded too meaty to me. When I bit into it, I was put off by the bitter taste. After complaining to my office mates about it, one of them informed me that broccoli rabe is a type of broccoli that tastes bitter. Wow, I will never forget that lesson! I probably won't go back there either because the prices were pretty high for food that is not that distinguished. In any case, I paid for that lesson and now have a new experience under my belt.

While heading out of the building for lunch, I had to take an elevator down to the lobby of course. I stepped into the crowded elevator and minded my own business. Suddenly the woman next to me, a total stranger, turns to me and asks, "Do you want me to show you a new way to tie your scarf?". After I said yes, she proceeded to unknot my scarf and retied it a different way explaining as she went along. I just thought it was a very interesting experience. People don't usually do that in elevators to total strangers. Maybe she didn't consider me a total stranger since we worked in the same building and for the same employer. This experience prompted me to research scarf tying techniques and I came across this site here.

In the afternoon, I had to rush a presentation to my manager. One of the slides was supposed to come from an image in a Visio file. It was a timeline image. My mission was to update the timeline and paste the new timeline into Powerpoint. I thought the dates in Visio could just be changed pretty simply, however, I was wrong. Apparently the timeline was built using special Visio features, so I had to right click it to "Configure the intervals" before it worked. I never knew Visio had timeline capabilities. I only used it for its process flow diagraming powers.

Now I'm exhausted from such an experience rich day. Buenas noches!

Black and white

I had a hankering for some caffeine this afternoon at work, but I resisted the temptation and instead walked briskly around the block. (1 for self-control, 0 for additional calories). As I was briskly walking, I happened to peer into the lobby of an office building and noticed 3 framed black and white photos of buildings. They were nice looking prints and were probably taken with traditional cameras. I aspire to do something like that and have my work displayed in office buildings.

Party Pooper

Reflections

Where's the holiday spirit? Don't bother looking for it at my workplace. They canceled holiday potluck, which was planned for next Wednesday. That's fine with me. However, I just think that we should have a company sponsored lunch at the minimum. I overheard my coworker telling his team that they would have a team lunch at a nice restaurant.

Sunday - Day of Rest of Day of Shopping?

But not on Sundays

Germany's version of the Supreme Court - Bundesverfassungsgericht in Karlsruhe decided today that Berlin should not allow shopping on Sundays during the advent season because it goes against the constitution. The church argues that Sundays should be a day of rest, God's day.

I am fascinated by this decision because I've had the experience of shops being closed on Sundays when I was in Germany. On one hand, it was pretty nice to enjoy a quiet day. The little pastry shop around the corner was open briefly on Sundays so that people could pick up fresh bread, but it closed around noon but overall, Sundays were relatively quiet in Frankfurt. However, because of this, Saturday evenings were all the more hectic since everyone tried to fit in last minute grocery shopping before the stores closed. I learned very quickly to avoid Saturday evening shopping at all costs. The court's decision in favor of the church is indicative of how traditional Germany is. Something like this would not survive in the US because American popular culture is focused on consumerism, commerce and making money.

Although I'm not a huge fan of shopping, I think people should have the option of choosing to shop or choosing to relax on Sundays. Let's assume for argument's sake that you forgot to buy some milk for a recipe you wanted to make on Sunday. Well, you'd have to scrap that plan because you can't buy milk on Sunday. Grocery stores are all shut.