McCarren Park Pool Party, Brooklyn

jotting off a quick note to say that I had one of the best NYC weekends ever! hung with folks who are both friends and family - dim sum, catch up, beer, laughs, food, jungle juice (thanks Coral!), music, crab dancing on the rooftop, conversation, laughs, human limbo contests, some more laughs, singing,  shouting, lotsa free late night pizza, beer, beer and then more beer, including the blueberry kind.

McCarren Pool Party on Sunday - it’s a somewhat deceiving name bc it’s a pool but all dried up and used as a venue space for bands, music, dodgeball court but there is a kick-ass SLIP ‘n SLIDE (hosted by JellyNYC) - it’s the BEST!

i think there’s another concert this Saturday, the last one before the city takes the park and transforms it back into a pool (which personally, i think would be pretty darn nasty, but hey ~ ~  ~)… but make it out for the last weekend of summer if you’ve got the inclination. all you need is a good attitude, bathing suit and some good friends to make it a killer day!

a total hipster park, i got mad at all the ladies who felt the urge to wear fringe knee-high boots with booty shorts and lil dresses. WHY do you need to wear BOOTs of any kind, much less with fringe… when everyone’s baking in the 85+ sun?! WHAT?! WHY?!

that, and some other fashion don’ts is what made the day laughably too hip… it hurt. unfortunately, we didn’t take any pics bc we were too busy watergun fighting and running over each other on the way to the inflatable slide but at least i can capture in words how AMAZING of a time we had.

oh, and i’ll totally vouch for dewar’s on ice with ginger beer. Yum! good idea V

sorry for missing the kickball game afterwards gang but i was poopered. hope the monsters won!

writing with love,

~ j

where do i belong?

i’m still figuring it out. i’ll probably be figuring it out for the rest of my life, and that’s if i’m lucky. the world is our playground… and we’re fortunate to experience the parts we can. there are just endless facets to everything. that’s the beauty of life.

take NYC for example. every time i come back, it’s a different reality. and very few people in the city can say they share the same take on it - it’s a big black hole of life experience to infinity. that’s what i love about it.

i’m back home in new york. but it’s not really home anymore, is it?

well, no place is home right now.

i don’t live anywhere. my lease was up in san francisco and my (non-related) twin brother justin and i decided it was the right time to drive my 9 year old jetta cross-country. i still owe a few blogs posts on that experience and TRUST ME one day (soon) i will be sharing those moments. they were rad.

my eyes are burning so i should probably go to sleep but just laid there reflecting so got up and started writing. this whole blogging thing - very therapeutic

2008 has been the year of travel … learning the conference business and world of Web 2.0 boot camp. BOOT CAMP.

i’ve packed so much into my head in the last 6 months i fear that i’m forgetting names of my relatives to make room for it. i used to send birthday and christmas cards to everyone. snail mail style. and now i can barely get a text or email out. i’m sorry everyone. when things settle… my USPS deliveries will come back. promise. oh how i miss my colored pens and address labels.

which brings me to what i ponder on a lot… GEEZ, when and more importantly, where will i settle?

i’m 28 years old and love growing older. living life, collecting wisdom year after year. working harder, shining brighter, making the world a better place for me and mine.

i’ve experienced a lot in my life and have done all kinds of random. have always been a workhorse - i get that from my mom. i got a full scholarship to college, landed great jobs and put myself through grad school. but oftentimes i still feel like a big fuck up … perhaps bc i haven’t bought my parents a house yet or see my grandmother only sporadically now that i’m traveling so much. these thoughts are the result of the strong family values and korean guilt ingrained in my DNA.

a few months ago in paris i had this big epiphany about life that scared the shit out of me. and now i’m thinking that i really need to ’settle down’ someplace. and join a group or something. go to church. establish routine. it’s weird. travel is all i ever wanted to do.

this nomadic-ness is exhilarating yet brings with it varying degrees of mental, physical or emotional exhaustion. but i don’t have to live this way. i chose it. it’s the right time to do this. so i’m doing it. and loving it. and i’m grateful every day to have a job that supports this lifestyle.

the plan is to stay bi-coastal, tri-city, transatlantic for the remainder of this year. i’ll spend christmas with the fam here in NY, which i missed for the last two years. i’m hoping that by the time i ring in the new year i’ll have a better sense of where i belong.

hey janetti, where to next?

great question.

road trip. 20 miles in.

done

road trip. status update.

Day 1: Tuesday, 7/29

Traveling with my SF roommate and NY homie, Justin Clemons - we are moving him to Brooklyn and me to the Bronx.

Loaded with almost everything we own packed in my ‘99 Jetta (minus a few postal boxes of items we shipped) we left San Francisco via the Bay Bridge to the I-80 East. Straight. Our goal was the 650ish mile stretch to Salt Lake City.

Just north of Winnemucca, NV we ended up with a flat tire and needed a tow to get it changed and a new full-sized spare (for any future emergencies).

I was advised to pick up trinkets along the trip - fresh tires from Winnemucca. Check!

After about a 4 hour delay and a beautiful roadside sunset, we continue onward to Wendover, the last city in Nevada before the Utah border. We arrive just before 1 am Mountain Time.

On the dark road it appeared like a neon oasis. A mini-casino town, we see flashing lights and billboards that read: Wendover Golden Nugget $45 a night. Justin stalls, I say we go for it!

And just as we’re about to check in the lights to the entire city shut off. WTF? Scheduled breaker replacement. Wendover’s power goes down and we check in to a pitch black room, in a dark city.

Justin hunts down food and finds $8.95 surf and turf. He passes.

Janetti sleeps.

A long day complete.

States: California and Nevada

Day 2: Wednesday, 7/30

The power to our room in Wendover went back on around 4 am. Fan kicks in to cover the whirr of trucks we had to listen to all night, having left the window open for some air in Tower Room 609 (non-smoking, double queens).

After some Starbucks and a moment of panic when I realized my laptop would not turn on we readjust our plan and hit the road. 2 minutes later, while I’m tweeting our ‘on the road again’ status - Welcome to Utah!

Wow - I could have thrown a rock into Utah from dear old Wendover.

Cruise through Salt Lake City on the I-80 and hit the I-15 North - it goes straight up through Idaho. We’re on our way to Yellowstone National Park, which sits in the NorthWest corner of Wyoming, bordering Idaho and Montana.

A quick refueling of both us and the car in classic American style - the fantastic Idaho Falls Olive Garden - we hop on Route 20 East which should take us straight to Yellowstone’s West Entrance.

“Visitors Center” Rock!

Starting this trip, we had a general road map but no reservations, no deadlines and no GPS.

Justin and I are moving speedily across the country with one Google Map printout of our route, a 2008 Rand McNally US Atlas, Blackberry, iPhone and the kind help of truck stop strangers and the free maps from Montana’s West Yellowstone Visitors Center.

We loaded up on maps for Yellowstone National Park, Mount Rushmore/Badlads, Wyoming and South Dakota.

Bought some trinkets, beer and barbeque.

States: Utah, Idaho, Montana

~ ~ ~

I’m twitpic-ing what I can off my twitter account (http://www.twitter.com/Janerri - @Janerri) but otherwise the click, load and get up on a blog is not working out so well. But take a look at Justin’s flickr-supported blog postings to follow our trail - http://sarubozu.com/yes

Images, video and more stories to come.

5:39 am, West Yellowstone, Montana

see you again san francisco.

after a short night of sleep, i’ll be up and packed… ready to hit the road.

fare thee well the sunset.

i consider it a pleasant pit stop between here and some place else.

inner sunset favorites: Arty’s hash brown breakfast sandwiches. sf botanical gardens. de young museum. jamba juice wheat grass shots. the local hardware store. and without doubt, the bagel shop.

big ups to the korean dry cleaners, sensai nails, all the friendly bodegas and the N Judah - for always bringing me home.

next up: 3,000+ miles of road

journey-ing clothes, shoes, handbags… some more girly stuff and stupid justin’s 40″ flat screen. really.

ROAD TRIP!

5 days. endless music.

SF -> Salt Lake City

(I’m trying to catch a 10:30 pm IMAX screening of Dark Knight in Sandy, UT - fingers crossed we’ll make it but I won’t hold my breath)

Salt Lake City -> Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park -> Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore -> Chicago (ish)

Chicago -> NYC

we have a plan, sort of. we’ll likely hash it out tomorrow while on the first hour of our trip. typical of me… but always the best way to start an adventure!

i’m getting excited now.

felt this was the perfect way to say farewell to san francisco.

done

kind of. i’ll actually be back next week. ;P

~ j

Zero to Endless: The Birth of a Community Manager

I wrote this post on my 3 month anniversary … and never shared it. I’m inspired while sitting here in the BlogHer conference so putting it on my blog – as is. Editing be damned.

~ ~ ~

3 months ago I joined TechWeb (then CMP) and O’Reilly Media as the Content and Community Manager for the Web 2.0 Expo. Great title, isn’t it? Jen Pahlka, GM of Web 2.0 Summit and Web 2.0 Expo came up with it over Indian food in SOMA. At the time neither of us knew exactly how the role would play out, but in an age where the wisdom of the crowds reigns, thus establishing communities as a source of influential power and insight, it was a perfect, and somewhat evolutionary, match.

Obviously, I’m new to the conference business but I do feel that by hiring me the executives of TechWeb were being cognizant of the maturation of the marketplace and the changing needs of conference audiences. That’s a great sign for someone hoping to establish a career with longevity.

I’m also very fortunate to have been discovered by Jen – a woman with collaboratively 10+ years in the tech/gaming/web business, a mother, gardener and mentor. UK blogger and entrepreneur Simone Brummelhuis writes about female internet heroes – well, did you get my email Simone? I nominate Jen!

…. And after a Valentine’s weekend moving up from LA to SF I entered TechWeb’s office never having attended a Web 2.0 Expo but knowing that I now represented the brand, and that, ultimately, I had to help it grow.

A week later I hit the road.

*

Stop 1: Carsonified’s Future of Web Apps, Miami, FL

Intro to Microformats workshop:

I try to convince Tantek Celik former Chief Technologist at Technorati that I’m just here to observe.

“I don’t code.”

But he’s adamant, and proceeds to walk me through how to HTML a vCard.

“Holy shit!”

I had just jumped over a huge technical hurdle. Flash, AJAX - what next?

Jabber: Building the Real-Time Web workshop: presented by Blaine Cook

It was waaay too technical for me… so instead I decided to look into this Twitter thing he kept referencing.

Enter: @Janerri

Note: Blaine Cook is the former Chief Architect at Twitter. Before his departure he focused on building and maintaining Twitter’s Jabber-based real-time backend infrastructure that tracks and distributes millions of updates every day to users on the Web, instant messaging, and SMS. (crunchbase)

Good luck on your new endeavors Blaine! You Rock!

*

Stop 2: O’Reilly Media’s Graphing Social Patterns (GSP) / Emerging Technology (ETech), San Diego, CA

I connect with Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco conference co-chairs Brady Forrest (O’Reilly Radar) and Dave McClure (500 Hats) … and all of O’Reilly, except Tim. I spied him from a distance but was too shy to say hello.

It wasn’t until about the end of ETech when it hit me that what I was doing instinctively with all the folks I was meeting had a name – brand evangelism. And as I sat in the hall getting some work done, I was introduced to, and appreciated, the concept of a LobbyCon - great conversations definitely take place while chilling in the conference lobby.

*

Stop 3: South by South West Interactive, Austin, TX

Spring break for geeks… and a whole lotta fun. Thanks Supercollider Souris and EMV for the amazing Salt Lick dinner!

~ ~ ~

Here are some other highlight experiences from my first 90 days of being Web 2.0 Expo’s community manager…

maker faire. may 8, 2008.

This post is a little late in coming but wanted to share some of the cool stuff I saw at Maker Faire - it’s a geek-arts-and-crafts-diy-science fair of sorts…

about 50,000 people attended over two days at the San Mateo Fairgrounds.

now onto the cool robot shit…

i love this one but filmed it sideways by accident… :/
~ ~ ~

Make + Craft Magazine

O’Reilly Media

~ ~ ~

Fête de la Musique

I was fortunate enough to be in Paris this year for the annual summer solstice music festival -

Since the 80’s Parisians have invited performers to grab street space to share music, conversation and summer. So on June 29 I celebrated the brightest day of the year alongside my cousin Pierre and some newfound friends.

Tips: Try ‘une panache,’ a beer and lemonade afternoon cocktail.

Here are some of my favorite photos from Paris. The rest you can see on flickr

my daiso excursion.

a few sundays ago my roommate and i went on an excursion to daiso in daly city. the wondermart of japanese ridiculousness.

i love that place. it’s kinda like disneyland ~ the happiest place in the world.

i may have walked out with 70 less dollars in my pocket but i was chock-full of cuteness.

here’s a sampling of some of the random stuff you will find there -

the addictive web.

it’s interesting that people find it difficult to disconnect.

‘go off the grid’

‘radio silence’

‘turn off’

‘unplug’

…

i love it.

more people should do it.

it’s fabulous to embrace the web, internet, interwebs.

but it’s also important (really important) to explore green grass and hidden walkways.

balance is key.

tips:

take your cat for a walk

run through central park

discover the neutra house in silverlake

eat crab sandwiches at fisherman’s wharf

buy silk in phuket

climb wooden steps through bamboo forrests

sing drunken karaoke with friends that last a lifetime

experience rainstorms so strong, it hits you horizontally

enjoy gluttonous amounts of funions and diet coke

take tons of cheezy family photos

laugh at really good jokes… and a few bad ones too

appreciate the present

show love to the ones you love

work hard but smart

and remember to kill the world with kindness

kharma reigns.

…

~ janetti, sf