My Calves Hurt But My Toes Are Fine – SXSW Interactive Days 1 and 2
Mar 12 2011

The second day of SXSW Interactive is still going on in downtown Austin.  I called it a night early since I’m too old for this stuff it’s become too mainstream and there are too many people.  I’m not a big crowd person, which is one of the reasons I have no real interest in going to Mardi Gras in New Orleans…I like a little bit of personal space.  As I mentioned in my first post about the conference, I was approaching this one in a zen-like, floating manner and so far I’m succeeding and my stress level and need to stay late at events has been very much reduced.

Yesterday, I made it to the keynote by Marissa Mayer, vice president of consumer products at Google.  As some of the panels/keynotes at SXSW Interactive are, her talk was pretty much a big commercial for Google.  They are focusing on location based services and maps.  I love Google Maps.  I don’t know how I lived without it since I’m directionally challenged and having a map on my iPhone telling me where to go, despite it being wrong about 10% of the time, has saved me much angst.  I have since transferred that angst to other things in my life, but still.

I then went to the Entrepreneur’s Lounge, co-hosted by the Austin Technology Incubator, where I work, (awesome new website alert!! – designed by Clutch Creative) and connected with people I hadn’t seen in a while and met some new people.  After that I went to Ignite Austin, but didn’t stay long because it was very loud so my friend Karen Banteverus who founded VolunteerSpot and I went next door to a restaurant to have hot tea and tortilla soup and catch up.  I did see Michael Dell and his brother Adam who were sitting a couple rows ahead of me at Ignite Austin.  I had met Adam for lunch with a couple of my co-workers before, but had never seen Michael that up close and personal before.  Then I went home.

I checked out the Blogger’s Lounge (sponsored by Samsung) yesterday and today and was surprised at how few people I knew there.  In just a few short years, the people I know/knew either aren’t here or aren’t at the Blogger’s Lounge.  Things and people move on fast in Internet time.

Today, I saw the keynote by Seth Priebatsch, chief Ninja at SCVNGR.  He’s something like 21 years old and dropped out of Princeton after his first year.  I was really impressed with his talk and how he delivered it especially given his age.  I think he’s someone to watch who will be doing some game changing things in the future.  It made me wish I was 21 again and knew what I knew now…how differently I would approach life and business.  He basically spoke about ways to apply a gaming layer to the world.  In other words, applying game theory to solving some of our biggest problems.  It’s not the first time to hear someone talk about this, but he presented it in a unique way.  The room was completely full and there were several overfill rooms where his talk was being simulcast.

Then I headed to the Entrepreneur’s Lounge again this evening and then to the uShip party at their new offices on 3rd and Brazos (sweet!).  I know the uShip founders from activities around the UT Austin business school and the CEO/Founder and I used to be in a Business to Consumer (B2C) group when I was running Babble Soft.  After that party, I realized my calves were killing me from all the walking around downtown in my Skechers, but my toes/feet were fine because I wasn’t wearing heels!  So I headed home to write this blog post and to see if there was a new episode of Grey’s Anatomy this past week that I could watch.

Author: | Filed under: austin technology incubator, conferences, entrepreneur | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Why I Watch Grey’s Anatomy
Nov 2 2007

 Grey's Staff

I don’t have time to watch a lot of TV but one of the shows I do watch on a consistent basis is Grey’s Anatomy.  I know it’s a night time soap opera of sorts.  I know it’s not a real depiction of life in a teaching hospital, and I know that most doctors aren’t that good looking, but I still get caught up in the drama.

In the November 1, 2007 episode, Dr. Cristina Yang said something quite simple yet quite profound to Dr. Meredith Grey.  First a little background for those who do not watch Grey’s Anatomy.  Dr. Yang is a brilliant surgeon who expresses little to no emotion.  It’s clear her entire goal in life is to become the world’s best cardiothoracic surgeon and nothing will get in her way.  She is very direct with people and she rarely takes time to listen to other people’s problems.  It’s all about her and she has recently been faced with experiences that are making her evaluate her approach to life.

Dr. Grey is also an outstanding surgeon with serious relationship/personal issues.  Her dad left her when she was a kid partly because her mother was cheating on him and partly because she was so focused on her career.  Her dad never came back to see her.  He married another woman and had two kids with her one of whom is Dr. Lexie Grey, who has just found her way to Seattle Grace hospital as an intern.  Needless to say Meredith and Lexie have an awkward relationship.

Meredith’s mom, Ellis Grey, was intensely focused on her own medical career and was a highly accomplished surgeon and pretty much resented that she had to take care of Meredith.  She often told Meredith that she did not want to have children and consequently was extremely critical of everything Meredith did (or did not do).  So now Meredith has tons of personal issues but somehow has won the heart of Dr. McDreamy (Dr. Derek Shepherd), whose character in the show is one of practically a saint among men because he is there for Meredith no matter what she does or says!

Meredith almost drowned in an episode last season.  She could have saved herself but instead gave in to her self pity and crossed over to the other side for a short while.  Somehow she comes through after being unconscious for several hours and awakens to a different perspective and awareness of who she is and where she fits into the world.  This perspective soon fades and she begins to involuntarily inflict her insecurities on those she loves and on those who love her once again.  She doesn’t want to, but she does not know how to accept or give love because she was physically and emotionally abandoned by the people most important to her as a child.  Despite these childhood traumas, most of the rest of the world would classify her as a functional adult (i.e., she is smart, has a career, has friends, etc.). 

In one scene Meredith asks Cristina why she just can’t get past all of this stuff and move on now that she’s aware of her issues.  Cristina says “being aware of your crap is not the same as getting over your crap.  They are two very different things.”  Meredith knows she’s right and stares off into space.

This post is dedicated to a good friend of mine who is dealing with crap of her own right now.  I worry about her.  I wish the best for her.  I can relate a tiny bit with what she might be going through, and I pray that the gap between her being aware of her crap and getting over her crap decreases exponentially day by day!

Author: | Filed under: mother, parenting, random stuff, TV | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on Why I Watch Grey’s Anatomy