Jason has a much better picture of our sushi making class, so go over there to check it out.

Sushi!

Originally uploaded by ColleenEN

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

I can’t remember where Jason got the idea that I should make Turtle pancakes, but I think I did a pretty good job.

IMG00004.jpg

Originally uploaded by ColleenEN

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Note: I’m posting this a few weeks after the event, but dating it back to the actual day I started it!

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This past Friday and Saturday, I attended a networking conference with my co-worker, hosted by the Women’s Business Association. They are based at the Owen School of Business here at Vanderbilt and I received an invitation because I am an alum.

The conference started off with a networking “fair” on Friday night where local and regional women-owned businesses set up booths and answered questions. It seemed like some of the vendors really got the jist of the evening and promoted the fact that they were women-owned businesses. Others just seemed to be advertising their products, which was a bit annoying.

One of the first booths we came to was all natural body products, with burning candles, lotion and many other goodies. I asked a few questions about the products and then my co-worker (a very successful Mary Kay consultant) started asking questions about the business, which is really why we were there in the first place. The woman behind the table seemed uncomfortable that she was asking her these questions, or maybe she just wasn’t ready. Who knows.

On Saturday, the Keynote speaker was Beth Canavan, EVP of Tiffany’s. She was a great speaker and had some interesting things to say about being a mother/wife/woman in the capital business market. However, she comes from a company that embraces family life, flexibility, etc., and I got the impression many women there wanted to know how to deal with the pressure that comes from being a woman in an environment that is not as welcoming. She either missed the point of the questions asked of her, or she couldn’t relate, because most of her answers didn’t really seem to address the questions.

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(added today, 2/29/08)
After the keynote, we were separated into small sessions focusing on women in business (as you might imagine). Some were more interesting than others. I unfortunately had to leave the conference early, but I met some great women who are in similar work environments and made a few good contacts. I hope to do more things like this in the future.

I love football. And even though the Titans are not in the playoffs anymore, I still enjoy watching the playoff games. However, something inside me just can’t allow myself to sit there doing nothing for 6 hours. But I can’t really do anything productive like clean or do yardwork, cause then I’d miss the games. So, this is how I’ve been keeping my hands busy:

Yes, that’s a jar of tiny folded stars. Although I can’t find much on the history of origami Lucky Stars, I’ve had a great time starting to make them. I picked up a packet of lucky star paper in San Francisco, not really knowing what it was. But I like bright shiny things, so there you go. It looked something like this:

I kinda forgot about the packet till last weekend when I sat down and tried to make one using the instructions on the back, which were mostly in Japanese, and had just a little English. The first few tries were awful and I knew I must be missing something. So, I found this YouTube video of a guy showing how to do it.

Its really pretty easy and you end up with a neat puffy star at the end. The hardest part is the “puffy” part. I smooshed a few of them trying to get the hang of it and some of the shinier papers make it hard to get the hang of it. After folding the first packet, I scoured ebay and found a bunch of pretty papers:

So now I’m keeping myself busy during the games.

I’m sure this hobby isn’t for everyone, but if you like pretty paper and instant gratification, you should give it a try.

While getting gas this morning, I noticed that MAPCO now has a sticker on their pumps that reads “Contains Ethanol”. Now, I know Ethanol is kind of a buzz word these days, but I usually associate it with hybrid vehicles, which mine is not (believe it or not, the Honda Fit is not a hybrid even though it has that “early model hybrid look”). I inquired inside, but the worker didn’t have much information about percentages or the effects it would have on my car.

So, advocating for the average consumer who doesn’t know much about Ethanol, I called Delek US (the distribution company for MAPCO) and spoke with someone about it. Turns out Tennessee is in the works to join up with other states in reducing emissions and using less gas (i.e. foreign oil). By mixing less than 10% Ethanol into the gasoline, they are able to stretch the supply without reducing efficiency.

That was my main concern. I don’t have an “ethanol” car, but apparently that doesn’t really matter if the mixture is that low. The representative I spoke with said that any manufacturers owners manual should state this. The pamphlet they’ve provided to inform the consumer contains half a dozen quotes from such manuals. The worker I spoke with didn’t seem to know about any pamphlets, so the Delek rep offered to follow up.

I might do the same in a week’s time. IMO, consumer education is so important to the success of something new.

After a meeting away from my desk, I returned to a red light on my phone, which means I have at least one new voicemail. This is not an uncommon thing for me to see, so I went about standard procedure.

Message 1:  Someone calling right after emailing to see if I got the email. Normally I hate it when people do this, but this guy’s alright, so I’ll let it slide.

Message 2: “Hi, this  Mr. Johnson, litigation specialist. Please call me at 555-5555″ (names and numbers changed to protect the dumbass).

You can hear the  “dun dun dun” horror music, can’t you?

So my heart is beating like crazy and I start thinking, “why would a litigation specialist be calling me? what could he possible have to talk to me about?”. So I look up the number, which has an Alabama area code, and come up with nothing. “Who do I know in Alabama?? Ashley?? Why would Ashley have a litigation specialist call me????”  Reluctantly, I dial the number and get an answer.

Turns out he was looking for medical records on a Vanderbilt patient and just needed to speak to the Medical Records department. Dude! DUDE!? Couldn’t he have just said that on the message? You don’t leave a message on some random person’s voicemail telling them nothing more than “I’m a big lawyer and you need to call me”.

How he got my number, I’m not sure. I know I’m listed as the main contact for my team, so maybe that’s why. *sigh*

Nuff said

Since our cabinets are a good deal taller than our old cabinets, and coincidentally taller than me, Jason convinced to buy a little stool so I could better reach the top shelves. Taking his suggestion, I didn’t want to buy just any old stool, so we went to Michaels where I found this cute wooden stool that I could decorate. I cannot find a picture of the unpainted stool, so just picture it without paint when you see the pics below.

Seeing how our kitchen is going to be headed in the direction of a wine theme, I thought something to do with grapes or vines would be appropriate. I bought some stencils and finally painted last night, after spray painting it last weekend. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I may add something down the middle, like a wine bottle or something, but I don’t have a stencil for that. And I’m not very good at free-handing anything really. We’ll see!

Dex and clem’s new bed

Originally uploaded by ColleenEN

Accident on moores lane

Seen while on my way to get dinner.