I never got along with my mom. She always said I didn’t turn out the way she expected, and she never failed to remind me every chance she got. So when she passed away nine years ago I didn’t really miss her. Sounds cold and callous but it’s true. I don’t miss her criticisms but I miss the fact that I no longer have that historical link to my past.

Dear Mom,
Was I really this annoying when I was 14? Never mind, don’t answer that, I think I know the answer. My daughter is just like me isn’t she. Yep, Karma’s a bitch.

How did you handle this when you were a single mom, working full time with three angsty teenagers in the house? You must have been thrilled when I went to Finland for a year in high school. You’re welcome.

Just so you know I turned out okay. I know I was never the daughter you wanted, but I have thrived in my own unique way.

Your first grandson is graduating from college this year. Yes, that little kid who used to play in your tool drawer is now 22.

My youngest son is smart, funny and easy. You would really like him.

Then there’s my daughter. Mom, she would drive you crazy just like I did at 14. She is stubborn, defensive, creative and beautiful. She’s like that crazy brew we used to make at camp when everyone would bring a can of soup and all of them would get poured into one pot. Sometimes it tasted good, and other times it was the nastiest brew ever.

What do I do with her? I think I remember you just letting go and trusting me, and it worked Mom. You gave me wide boundaries as I recall and I never abused them. I made mistakes but I learned from them. And that’s the important part, right? Is that what I do with her? Set her free? Let her make mistakes?

This is hard. This single parenting stuff is hard, Mom. I don’t know how you survived, but you did.

I thank you for not clipping my wings and letting me become the person I am today, even though I’m not the person you wanted me to become. I’m better for it. Thank you.

Your angsty daughter,

Kelly

These are the DO’s and DON’T's for that first email:

• DO personalize the email and mention something from the person’s profile and tie it back to you. For example, I notice you like Green Day. Did you see them when they were in town last year? It was a fantastic show.
• DON’T start with, “Hi, how are you?” It’s an empty question with a one-word answer – “fine.”
• DO keep it short. Three to five sentences is about all you need in a first email.
• DON’T send the same email to every person you write to. It’s impersonal and lazy.
• DO check for spelling errors before you click Send.
• DON’T ask a question that is already answered in the person’s profile. It is a big red flag that you never actually read the person’s profile.

The Formula
If you’re not the best with words and you don’t know where to start, use this formula:

• First sentence is about the person you’re writing to.
• Second sentence is about you.
• Third sentence is a question that gives the person a reason to respond.

Example:

Dear Dating Ninja,

I love the photo of you in front of the Trevi Fountain. I was in Rome in June, and threw a couple of coins in the Trevi myself. What was your favorite spot in Rome?

HappyGuy1

While the above email comments on a photo in the profile, an email that comments on something that you read in the person’s profile can increase your chances even more.
Example:

Dear Dating Ninja,

I see you have a passport story…me too. I learned that you should always know the expiration date of your passport! What’s your story?

HappyGuy1

The bottom line is be authentic and engaging. Good luck!

A very good friend of mine in the UK called me last week to tell me he had finally found the lid for his pot, or as they say in Cockney Rhyming slang his perfect China Plate (mate).

We have both been single on and off for the past 10 years, and have had many Skype sessions discussing the various reasons why. But it wasn’t until this past week that we came up with the perfect analogy for our unsuccessful dating histories.

Test driving Volvos when you want to buy a Ferrari.

That one phrase pretty much sums up both of our online dating experiences. Online dating sites are chock full of Volvos. There is nothing wrong with a Volvo. It’s a sturdy, stable, reliable car, but there’s really nothing extraordinary about it. And it’s just not sexy.

There are plenty of people who want to drive a Volvo, and plenty of people who want to drive a Ferrari. Me, I’m more of a Tesla girl. The Tesla is a one-of-kind car, a unique driving experience, and very adventurous. Here are some real comments from the Tesla website:

“It’s one of the most fun vehicles I’ve ever driven.”

“There has simply never been another car like this one.”

“…my eyes are wide and my jaw has dropped.”

That is exactly what I’m looking for in my China Plate. Someone who makes my heart pound and my jaw drop. In the words of Jeff Bezos I want someone who’s resourceful. Someone who could get me out of a Third World prison. I’m pretty sure a Tesla could do that.

I have been lucky enough to test drive a few Tesla’s in my life, and I’m still hoping to find the perfect model. But for now it seems like I’m looking for a Tesla in a city full of Volvos.

***********************************

What’s your perfect model?

1962: Born. Okay, I don’t really remember that part, but the important part is that my dad had a degree in math and we moved six times before my 6th birthday. And that last move landed us smack in the middle of what would become Silicon Valley.

1962-1968: I remember the teachers at school whispering and giggling about this radical musical ‘Hair,’ and I remember a lot of low-waisted bell bottoms, blue eye shadow and headbands. That is all.

1969: My parents get divorced. You may not see this as an important milestone on my road to geekdom, but in fact it is, because after my parents get divorced my mom quits her job as a teacher and goes to work as a secretary for Fairchild Semiconductor. Boom.

1972: Pong. My first video game.

1973: Sometime around 1973 my dad moves to San Diego, but the rest of the family stays in Silicon  Valley.

1974: Mr. Demerelli gives me a C in math and I realize I did not inherit my dad’s math gene. Sigh. How will I ever become a geek if I can’t wax on about calculus and write my friend’s phone numbers down in binary notation?

1975: My dad quits working for large government contract companies and starts a company called Antares, and begins designing and building I/O circuit boards that allow commercial computers to interface with Naval Tactical Data Systems (NTDS) devices or systems.

1976: My mom needs to keep me busy for the summer so she brings me to work with her every day and pays me some exorbitant salary (probably 50 cents an hour) to type invoices and packaging labels for semiconductor parts.

1976: Bill Joy invents the “vi” editor for Unix (This will become important later. Trust me)

1977-1979: I discover that working summer jobs in startups is way more interesting than working in retail or fast food. I spend my summers editing code I don’t really understand, do secretarial work, and soak up the energy of the startup entrepreneurs.

1979: I ask my dad what I should major in in college and he says, “Major in art. It doesn’t matter. You’re just going to get married anyway.” Yeah, didn’t take that advice, but thanks anyway.

1980-1982: I share a 2-bedroom apartment near San Diego State with three strangers, one of whom is a Computer Science Major. Boom. I watch Shelly carry stacks of cards back and forth to the computer lab, and I finally get curious enough to come with her one day to see what she’s actually doing with all of those cards.

1982: Stanford classmates Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim, and UC Berkeley computer science graduate student Bill Joy co-found Sun Microsystems (SUN is the acronym for the Stanford University Network). I have no idea this is happening, but it will become very important later.

1983: I register for Computer Science 101, a class that just barely scratches the surface of what an operating system is, and how you can program it to display “Hello World.”

1984: I graduate with a Journalism degree, with an emphasis in Advertising, and minors in Spanish and Television & Film. I know, nothing to do with computer science, but just hang in there. I assure you this all comes together in the end.

1984-1985: Did I mention that I graduated during a recession? I couldn’t get a job in an advertising agency, so I became a cocktail waitress. Boom. I know what you’re thinking. Major life detour. What does this have to do with becoming a geek. Well, if I had actually gotten one of those advertising jobs my life would have taken a different path.

1985: I decide I’ve had enough of the cocktail waitress life, pack my bags, buy a one-way ticket around the world and leave.

My Employee Badge from Sun

1985: I make it all the way around the world, run out of money in Hong Kong, come back to Silicon Valley and head to the Volt temp agency. They place me at a little startup called Sun Microsystems as an administrative assistant. Boom. Geek heaven. I am amazed by Sun’s internal email system, Suntools, so I decide to write a User’s Guide for the employees. I am bored in my administrative assistant job so I read Henry McGilton’s book “Introducing the UNIX System” cover to cover like a recipe book, trying out every command as I go. I ask Henry to lunch so I can discuss further. I’m well on my way to becoming a geek.

1985: Arpanet becomes the Internet and I discover online forums that you can only find if you know the IP address.

1986: I become a certified Sun systems administrator, and discover how to hack through Sun’s screenlock and report this as a major security bug. I take a Pascal programming class and write my first computer program.

1989: I am working for another startup called Frame Technology when I discover a proposal written by someone at CERN about something called the World Wide Web. I decide this is going to be something amazing and I write a white paper about it that no one outside my company ever sees.

1989: Frame Technology founder Steve Kirsch comes into my cubicle and tells me he has this brilliant idea to create a way to let us find things on this Internet without having to know the IP address of what we’re looking for. That idea becomes Infoseek, one of the first Internet search engines. At this point I consider myself a full-fledged card-carrying member of the geek club.

The years from 1989 up until now have been a blur of information and cutting edge technology. I have spent the past 20+ years working with a multitude of different companies (mostly startups) in a consulting capacity or as a full-time employee.

2012-????: This chapter is being written every minute of every day as I continue to chase the top of the wave—which for right now is social media marketing—and look for the next one to ride.

I am the daughter of an entrepreneur, and I thank my dad every day for telling me to major in art, because I’ve never really been good at doing what I’m told.

My friend Greg recommended the Flume Trail in Tahoe, saying it would be a great ride for the kids and everyone would enjoy it. Now let me just point out that Greg rides his mountain bike five days a week, and he considers a 5-mile ascent at a 45-degree angle a fun ride, so I should have taken this fact into consideration before dragging my family into this adventure, but I didn’t.

We honestly didn’t know much about the Flume Trail ride so we called the Flume Trail Bike Shop the night before we planned to ride and asked a few questions, like how hard is this ride really. The answer was a bit vague being, “Oh there’s a bit of a hill at the beginning, then a few miles of flat terrain, and then a few miles of downhill.” We would soon find out that this was the understatement of the year.

The ride begins at Spooner Lake at 7000 feet and climbs to 8157 feet at the summit. If the hills don’t get you the altitude will.

FACT: The first FIVE miles of the adventure to get to the head of the Flume Trail is uphill.

This is no joke.  I spent the first five miles of the “ride” walking with my 14-year old daughter who was so frustrated with the climb that she literally gave up and sat down on the dirt trail. It took me about two hours to talk her out of turning around and get her up to the summit. My 21-year old son and 12-year old son were able to ride up most of the five miles with a few exceptions, but they had to wait 90 minutes for us at the summit.

FACT: If you have to stop for any reason you will be eaten alive by mosquitoes.

My daughter spent the first five miles swatting at flies and mosquitoes and shouting, “I am not an outdoors person!”

The next couple of miles past the summit were a walk in the park compared to that first five miles of hills. We really enjoyed the easy miles of trail that winded along the edge of Marlette Lake. However, the cakewalk was short lived, because you see the actual Flume Trail is 4.5 miles of single track trail hugging the side of a mountain with a 1600-ft drop off.

FACT: People with a fear of heights should NOT ride the Flume Trail.

This part of the ride is not family friendly. There is one place on the trail where you actually have to pick your bike up and carry it over a pile of large boulders.

The last few miles of the adventure are all downhill on loose sand and gravel, which is a challenge. But when you’ve been riding the last 4.5 miles on the edge of a cliff it’s a welcome change of pace even if it is harder to keep your bike upright.

All seven of us arrived at the end of the trail (at the Ponderosa Ranch) relatively unscathed, but incredibly thirsty, because you see we all ran out of water after that first 5-mile climb and had to ride the last 10 miles with no water.

FACT: You will need three bottles of water per person if you want to stay hydrated on this ride.

Four of the seven of us said we would do the ride again if we were more prepared. I would have absolutely loved this challenging ride had I not spent the entire time trying to talk my kids through it. So if you want to do this ride take my advice:

• Park at the Ponderosa Ranch parking lot and take the shuttle to the Flume Trail Bike Shop where you can rent a well-equipped mountain bike.
• Bring your own riding gloves, because they run out of loaners early in the day.
• Pack three bottles of water per person.
• Bring ample snacks, as you will be burning in excess of 1500 calories on this ride.
• Pack a small first aid kit, because the only way you can get help if you’re injured is to have someone ride back to the bike shop, which could take hours.
• An experienced rider may be able to finish the ride in under two hours, but it took us five hours, so keep that in mind.
• Wear lots of sport sunscreen and a good pair of sunglasses to keep the dirt, dust and sun out of your eyes.
• Apply mosquito repellent liberally.
• Do not bring children or inexperienced riders. This is a moderately difficult ride.
• Rent a place with a hot tub because you’ll want a long soak afterwards.

Happy trails!

I rarely eat ice cream at home, but when in Rome…

One of our sayings on our sailing trip in Italy was, “It’s our last night in (insert city name here). We should have gelato!” Never mind that we were in a different city almost every night. Needless to say I tried a lot of gelato, and as I found out as I worked my way through Italy not all gelato is created equal.

I had been curious about one thing: where did all of the gelato come from? It obviously didn’t come in prepacked tubs like ice cream, because it always looked like it had been poured into the pan and decorated by hand no matter where you bought it. But just like ice cream there were definitely varying degrees of quality.

I was wandering the streets of Rome on one of my last nights in Italy when I stumbled upon a place called Gelateria Valentino. I walked in and asked the attractive middle aged man behind the counter my burning question. “Do you make your own gelato?”

Turns out the man behind the counter serving up gelato was none other than Valentino himself, who explained that most of the gelaterias around town used a powdered mix that they pour into a gelato machine. Ah ha, I knew it! I knew there was a difference.

Valentino explained that he used only fresh fruit for the sorbet-like gelatos, and in fact he grew his own lemons, oranges and grapefruits for his fruit flavors. I tasted the lemon and it was like nothing I had tasted at any other gelato stand. You could tell it was the real deal. He insisted we sample almost every flavor in the shop, and explained how he hand crafted each one.

By the time I left Gelateria Valentino with my small Biscotto gelato I had spent 30 minutes with Valentino who was kind enough to not only  share pictures of his wife, his son, and his grandchildren, but to share with me the culinary delights of hand crafted gelato.

Gelateria Valentino – Via del Lavatore 96, Roma (Fontana di Trevi)

The first day I arrived in Rome to meet my fellow crew members my motivation was starvation. However, most of my crew members were motivated by price and location. So, when I arrived at the hotel we walked a couple of blocks and ordered pizza at a sidewalk cafe. That 4-Euro Pizza Margherita tasted like a hundred dollar-steak and lobster dinner after an entire day of airplane food. Almost anything would have tasted like a feast at that point.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I had just eaten a meal that I would now rate as mediocre. Hey, but at the time I was jet lagged, starving and dealing with what seemed to be super pollen production of Roman proportions. I was congested and sneezing so how much could I really taste that pizza anyway?

One evening we ventured out to the Pantheon area of Rome, where the piazzas are lined with small cafes with what I call Italian Carnies. You can’t walk by a piazza restaurant without someone trying to hustle you into eating their pasta.

The first thing that I noticed was the menus were all basically the same, and seemed to cater to tourists. The second thing I noticed was that the prices were almost all the same, with few exceptions. I used the basic Pizza Margherita as my yardstick when looking at menus, and it almost always hovered around 4 Euro.

We randomly picked a place based on nothing other than the fact that we were tired of getting harassed by the Italian Carnies. I specifically remember ordering Spaghetti Vongole that night. And I specifically remember getting a plate full of spaghetti and three, yes three, tiny clam shells with little clams in them. At that point I knew I would never eat at a piazza near a major Roman monument again. It’s akin to eating at Denny’s.

The best sources forrestaurant recommendations are taxi drivers, waiters, and people who have eaten their way through Italy before. If you take recommendations from friends, relatives and random people you meet on the plane, ask them to elaborate on the meals they’ve had at the establishments they’d recommend. I’d be much more likely to take the recommendation of someone who described a Tortelli di Zucca as “swimming in butter,” than I would someone who recommended a pizza that was “pretty good.”

One of the crew members had a list of recommendations she had gotten from someone on her flight over to Rome. One Sunday evening the two of us ventured out near the Trevi Fountain to look for a restaurant called Il Chianti. The person who recommended the restaurant had given only the following directions, “Stand facing the Trevi Fountain, walk down the street to the right, look for the restaurant on your left.”

We walked up and down what we thought was the right street but couldn’t find the restaurant, so we finally asked someone, who told us exactly where it was. Turns out we had walked by it several times and missed it because it was set back from the street a bit and there were very few people sitting outside. Not usually a good sign.

We noticed a waiter standing outside the entrance and approached him to ask for a table for two.  “I’m sorry but we are closed on Sundays,” he said. “Drinks only.” This was my friend’s last night in Rome and she wasn’t going to get to try the one restaurant she really wanted to try. Then we got the brilliant idea to ask the waiter for a recommendation. He perked up immediately and said, “Piccolo Arancio. First small street on the right.”

You always have to wonder if a waiter or a taxi driver is recommending a place just because their cousin owns it, or if they are really pointing you to something wonderful. We were pretty sure this particular waiter was genuine, and we were willing to take a chance, so we walked up the street, turned onto the first little street on the right and found a sliver of a store front tucked away off the beaten path.

We were one of the first people seated, but it wasn’t long before the staff was fetching tables and chairs out of the storage room across the street to accommodate the constant flow of dinner guests. It was a quiet little street, thankfully absent of the constant flow of moped and motorcycle traffic you get on most streets in Rome.

I scanned the wine list and found exactly what I was looking for: a Banfi 2003 Brunello for Montalcino. I have my priorities.

The waiter brought the wine and a plate of fresh Parmesan to go with it. We ordered the bruschetta, which looked like a pile of freshly diced tomatoes until we cut into it and found the the warm thick slice of bread hiding underneath. My friend had the lasagna, which she rated as “fabulous” on a scale of Never Again to Outstanding. I had the Fusilli alla Malanzane (eggplant) which was simple and perfectly prepared. At the end of the meal we both agreed we had just experienced an Italian culinary orgasm.

The last of the crew members flew back to the U.S. the next day, so I was left to wander the streets of Rome on my own. I made my way back to the street just to the right of the Trevi Fountain, and back to Il Chianti for lunch. It was open, and the Tortelli di Zucca was indeed molto bene and swimming in butter.

******************
Il Chianti – Piazza Fontana di Trevi 81 / 82a
Piccolo Arancio – Vicolo Scanderbeg, 112 00187 Rome, Italy

In 2010 I crewed a sailboat in Italy with a handful of people I’d never met. These are my stories…

Walking to Atrani

I have nothing against my boat mates, but there is such a thing as too much togetherness. I was the last one to climb out of my bunk today, only to sit down at the table to hear that an executive decision had been made and we were sailing back to Capri right after lunch.

“Wait a minute,” I asked. “Why?”

I was starting to feel like a traveling salesman. I really wanted to stay in one spot long enough to actually have some down time. I was in desperate need of Me time.

“I have an idea,” I said, hoping the executive decision that had been made earlier wasn’t one that couldn’t be vetoed. “Why don’t we stay in Amalfi another night?” I suggested we relax in Amalfi for a day, and then leave the marina early in the morning. That way we could take our time getting to Capri and even stop for a midday visit to Positano.

My suggestion was met with surprising enthusiasm. My boat mate Val had had enough of the allergens in her cabin, and wanted an opportunity to get more time above deck, and everyone else just shrugged and said, okay, sounds like a plan.

Having made the decision to stay one more night suddenly let everyone breathe a sigh of relief and gave us all permission to scatter to the wind for the day.

I quickly applied some sunscreen, grabbed my purse and basically told the others I’d be back at some point.

My goal was to get as far away from the center of Amalfi as possible by foot. You see there was a Club Med 2, 5-mast cruise ship anchored in the harbor which translates to a few thousand extra people crowding the narrow streets of Amalfi. No thanks.

I started walking south along the road that hugs the coast, with my sights set on getting to the next town, whatever that was.

This is not the wisest decision I’ve ever made. The roads that hug the Amalfi coast are not for the faint of heart, whether you are a driver or a pedestrian. They are only wide enough for one car in some places, and the larger buses will come within in inches of the railing that you find yourself so terrifyingly plastered against. There is no shoulder to speak of.

But I saw little old Italian women walking the windy road, so I figured it was okay. What I didn’t realize is these women are trained professionals, as in, they have been doing this their entire lives. when in Rome… I took a deep breath and stuck with the old ladies.

The first town I came to was Atrani, which is supposed to be an artist community, although I saw no signs of art or artists anywhere. Just the same pizzerias with the same menus I had seen in Amalfi.

There was, however, a nearly deserted beach down a steep set of stairs, and it was at that point that I realized I had been sailing on this sailboat in the Mediterranean Sea for four days now and hadn’t once so much as dipped a toe in it. This had to be rectified.

I walked down to edge of the dry pebbly sand where the gentle waves were lapping at the stones, slipped off my Keens and stepped into the Mediterranean. This is exactly what I needed. Solitude, sun and the sea.

I sat there for an hour, I think. I lost track of time. I took a picture for a young Italian couple, who wanted a memory of themselves by the sea. I collected bits of tiles and pottery that had washed up on the shore, and imagined the Italian kitchens they had once been a part of.  There was the wave-worn terracotta oval, with the blue glaze the color of the ocean. A small triangular piece with a single dot of red glaze that looked like an eye. A bit of white pottery with hand-painted grapes and vines. Someone’s trash became my treasures.

I tucked the small broken pieces of pottery into my purse, put my sandals back on and made my way back up the steep set of stairs. I wasn’t exactly sure what I would do with my treasured pieces of trash when I got back home, but I did know that those small pieces of pottery will forever remind me of my hour of bliss on the beach in Atrani.

This poem was inspired by those storytelling ads and the group of women I’ve been running with for almost 20 years. Running isn’t just running to us. It’s the thread that weaves together our life experiences.

It all started back in August of 2011 when I accepted a job at Crowd Factory, which is a company whose product is social media widgets. My boss is the one who divvies up the accounts, and I was privileged enough to end up with Lionsgate FIlms. So far I’ve been part of the social media teams for Abduction, One for the Money, Good Deeds, and now Hunger Games.

I spent most of last year eating, breathing and dreaming up ways to make the Hunger Games fans engage online. I worked diligently with some very creative people at Lionsgate and two external digital agencies. My tiny piece of the pie in all of the Hunger Games digital magic was the “Race for Mayor” campaign on the 13 District Pages (12 Districts and The Capitol) on Facebook.

At 4:30 am on Monday November 14, 2011, there was an open conference line for the incredible group of people with whom I had spent so much time building this amazing immersive experience with. When the trailer went live at 5am we simultaneously pushed 13 new Facebook tabs to the District pages on Facebook and held our breath, waiting to see if the fans would respond. The CTA (Call to Action) was simple: I Want to Run for Mayor!

Within a week there were thousands of fans running for mayor. They had created video campaigns on YouTube, and Facebook pages to get people to endorse them, because you see there was a hook. The fan who got the most endorsements would be elected mayor of their District on Facebook, and at the time what they didn’t know is that they would also be invited to attend the world premiere in Los Angeles.

On Monday March 12, 2012, I proudly sat in Row A of the Loge section at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles with a group of geeks I had spent countless hours on the phone with, but had never met in person. I was grinning from ear to ear when Joe Drake, the President of Lionsgate, came out on stage to introduce the movie and commented on how wildly successful the marketing effort had been for the film so far. According to Fandango, Hunger Games has outsold Twilight Eclipse in pre-sales, making it the most successful pre-sales movie on record.

Then the lights dimmed and adrenalin took over as some of us saw the film for the first time. After the credits rolled we all made our way to the after party. I watched the newly minted stars enjoy their exploding celebrity status, and the veterans like Donald Sutherland graciously pose for photos with everyone who asked, including me.

There were so many moments that evening that were once-in-a-lifetime type moments. The palpable anticipation in the theater before the first frame of the film appeared on screen, and the excitement when the final credits rolled and we all realized we helped create this phenomenon. But the moment that I will never forget was when someone who I really respect at Lionsgate introduced me to someone as a “social media genius.” That made the journey all worthwhile.

**************

Recent articles:

How ‘Hunger Games’ Built up Must-See Fever. - New York Times

‘Hunger Games’ Dominates Facebook, Online Ticket Sales – Mashable