Of lemonade and pizzas

So, I went to the grocery store when I was hungry this evening--I know everyone says you shouldn't go when you're hungry becuase you don't buy the stuff that's GUIs fir you, but let's be honest, when you're hungry is when you get all the good stuff. So I walked in, and lo and behold the first thing I saw was the bread. And what bread it was! I don't know if I ever told you about Le Gay Choc (the gay shop) bakery across the street from my relatively prudish Parisian domicile, but it was an amazing bakery all staffed by--well, use your imagination. And they had the most amazing cheese bread. It was this normal bread but it was ten times more greasy (actually, check that: is normal bread greasy?) than usual and it was covered in asiago cheese and it was to die for. Well, I saw a loaf that looked just like the Choc's cheesy bread so I snapped it up immediately. I could already tell this would be a fruitful hunger buying experience. Oh what joy!

Well, I kept along through the bakery till I saw another antiquity -- blueberry bagels. Those who knew me during my fake freshman year (ie the second one) will recall that I was obsessed with the blueberry bagels. I even almost burned down the apartment once. That's a story for another night, though. Actually, at first all I saw was cream cheese, so I grabbed the big tub (no fat removed... I'd hate to ruin my walk down memory lane) and moved on to find the bagels. I trundled past the Mexican food (which I thought was the reason I had gone to the store in the first place, but you must beware the power of the store. It has a mind of it's own) till I found the frozen pizzas, grabbed a few at three times the college price (Totinos, Totinos, where did you go?) and headed back to the bread aisle, toting a bottle of Simply lemonade as I went. I put a bag of blueberry bagels in my basket and turned.

Then I saw them. They were beautiful. I had to have one. I reached out my hand and almost grasped the ho-ho's in my hand before I saw what had become of me. I was a monster, like Frodo I had seen the darker, inner me, but as my own Samwise pulled me back from the brink, I rushed from Mordor, raced to my car, and contentedly chomped on my Choc bread...

Mmm... Too bad I left my computer cord in Colorado or I'd tell you more...

Sent from my iPhone

This time it's for real

Ok, so I'm going to start up with this whole blogging thing for real. I just started a new job, I'm ready to go and we'll see where this takes me.

I need to plan it better, but I'll tell some stories from Africa (complete with pictures) in my next post, along with details about my job and my Masters at Hopkins I'll be starting in a few weeks...

For anyone who pretends to follow my life (ie not closely enough to have talked to me in the past month), I just resigned from my job in the big apple and moved down to Washington DC to work at the Fed...

In the meantime, peace out and have a good weekend!

Catching up? Where do I begin?

Ok, so I've done an atrocious job of keeping this up, but here's my meager attempt to fix that.  Maybe if I tried once a week, or once a month.  I could ease back into it.  We will see.

So, I was half writing this for my own benefit back in the day, but I recall that the girls formerly known as Lees used to follow it, so if you're still plugged in, you'll get a little tidbit of news from me.

I'm still in New York, and I'm still gainfully employed in the financial service industry; I feel like both of those are pretty amazing things.  But, given how things have been of late, I've got some extra time to kill now-a-days.  Not really to kill, but I've got time to live now.  If I get super ambitious, I'll throw in some pictures for next time, but that's asking a lot.

I love New York.  I live on the upper west side (where Seinfeld lived, for those of you who care.  I even went to brunch at Seinfeld's hangout a few months ago, and the food is terrible, but it's a fun place.  it's right next to Columbia University, which was fun.  I love old college campuses.  Sometimes I'm not sure why I use parentheses as much as I do... if anyone has any ideas, let me know).   I live close enough to an express subway stop that I can be in the thick of it all (or in spanish harlem if I get on going the wrong direction) in about ten minutes, so I'm close enough to the action, but where I am is quiet and tranquil.  It's a dream.  I recently moved to a new bedroom where I have my own bathroom, space, and balcony.  Good times!

Well, I'm going to sign off for tonight.  I'd hate to spoil all the secrets of my life at once.  It'll give you something to look forward to... so, until next time!

Jeff

Lazy Sunday Mornings

So, church doesn't start till 1pm, and it's kinda wonderful. I woke up and finished the Count of Monte Cristo, which I've been working on for a few days now. I read the abridged version when I was in 7th grade, but now I've finally managed to conquer the full version. I'm going back to the Aeneid, which I began in Paris, but haven't had the time to finish.

At work there's not a lot to tell. I go in from about 8 to 6 everyday, we get trained on the computers and in accounting, and go home. There will be an end of unit test next saturday, which will cover all we've studied. They are planning on showing the scores to all of the prospective groups (I'm already placed in a group, but they show everyone's to all of the groups, and the people who aren't placed get selected based on 1) how much the groups like them and 2) how well they did on this test), and they post the scores in the hallway to tell all of us how we did... Shoot! I'll probably spend some serious time next week getting ready; my Managing Director told me he expects me to score number one in the class, and I told him I would, so I've got to make good on my promise...

Life is good. I am meeting a lot of people, both at work and in the ward, and I am loving it! Until next time!

Negligence

Okay, so I said I was going to start posting last week, but I was a bit negligent. The weekend was awesome. It turns out I was invited to DC to watch the fireworks with my sister (she is a director in the speech writing office for one Mr Bush) on the south lawn of said Bush's residence. I would show you pictures, but my cousin is the one with the camera. I even got to eat Blue Bell Ice Cream at George's place. He was nice enough to have a few shipped up from Texas for me. I had a great time down in DC, I got to meet a lot of people, and I made it to several other barbecues.

Well, I also hoped to make a post or two from work (I got assigned a cube and a computer today) but it turns out that the system has an internal firewall so that we cannot access foreign email or information services such as blogger. Yesterday, the first day, was a bit... dry... to say the least. I did get some sleep in, though, after having gone to sleep at 2:30am on Sunday night. The bad news is the sleep came during the global head of operations' discussion about goodness only knows what... (I wouldn't; I was asleep). The CIO wasn't much better, but Ray McGuire, the co-head of Global IB was pretty dynamic, engaging, and made fools of enough people to make us all laugh. We're not quite to Michael Lewis' crowd's level, but one of the guys who was present in that fateful analyst class spoke to us (for those who don't recall/know the history of Wall Street--if you don't care, skip to the next paragraph--Solomon Brothers was a really famous bond house in the 80's where Liar's Poker took place, which merged in the early 90's with Smith Barney, which was later acquired by Citigroup--hence, I work for the old Solomon Smith Barney, although Citi had since dispensed with the mouthful to give us "Citi Markets and Banking." There is still a Global Private Wealth Management business run by Citi called Smith Barney, which has an office in Salt Lake and quite a global reach, but it's kind of a different beast than the old SSB).

Well, life is good out here. It's fun. I've been meeting a bajillion people, and am trying my best to remember names.

Oh, and my first sacrifice for the cause will come this week. Someone had the bright idea that we need one more day of training, and it can't wait till Monday, so I have training scheduled for Saturday, from 8:30 am till 5 pm. I'm in the upper level accounting class, so thank goodness, because if not I'd have to go on Sunday. Phew!

New Beginnings

Alright, so this will be short, but I wanted to let you all know that I will

be posting on my blog again regularly when I get to New York next week. I figure as long as I am starting a new set of things, I might as well keep the blog as a semi-journal that I can share with others. I'm sorry if you're been disappointed by it of late, since I have not been posting, but I guarantee that I will post more outrageous and funny things for you here.

In the meantime, I've been in Provo having a blast. Here's a picture of Natausha (the girl I've been dating for the past month and a half) and I jet skiing up by Pineview reservoir. I am currently in Denver, though, for about a week and a half, enjoying being with my nieces and whatnot, one last break before the hurricane begins again. I'm in the eye of the storm.

I go out to New York next Tuesday evening. I'll be an adventure; I am really excited about it. I am excited to start work and to be actively involved in something. I've been working on a few side projects of late, and I learned French, and I've been working at Granada Capital, but I don't feel like I've gotten a whole lot done lately. Accordingly, I am extra ready to get to work and make it happen. I hope you're all doing well, and I'll start up again with the regular posts next week. Peace out!

Catching up

Alright, so I've done a pretty terrible job of writing since I've been home. In fact, I haven't written once. You'll forgive me; I've been busy drinking root beer and learning about the history of civilization... (don't laugh, I still have to finish my civ requirement... sad day...).

Well, to give you the salient points of the past two weeks. I made it home from Paris alright, as you gathered from my last posting, and then I drove out to Utah for graduation. (Seen above are pictures with Daniel Martoma, a guy I home taught, and with my mom, with my grandma, and my family with Cecil O.) Elder Bednar spoke at commencement, and he said that we probably wouldn't remember any of what he said... and it's been a few weeks, so you'll forgive me if I've forgotten what he said... j/k. He told us to learn to love learning, and to take that with us everywhere. It was good.

I've also attended quite the spat of weddings, from Lindsay Lees to Jon Laudie (Jon and Carrie in front of the Timpanogus Temple, above) to Alex Pingree (and done my share of car decorating--see pix above). It's been a good time. Before Jon got married, we kidnapped him and took him to the mountain house for a party... we'll leave it at that.

I changed civ courses. I was originally signed up for Music 202 with two of my roommates, but after about 30 minutes of class the other day, it dawned on me that I really was not in the right class. The teacher was talking, and I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. I picked out a few words, including "violin", "Bach" and "Germany." Beyond that, i really don't know what was going on. I suspect he might have been speaking Greek and/or Latin over long periods of the class, but I'm not sure, seeing how I don't speak it... Well, that lasted, as I said, about 30 minutes before I took off. I did, however, get to press the "drop all classes" button on the AIM page, something I've always wanted to do. Some dreams do come true. I'm back in History 202, though, and things are going well there.

Lastly, I have had some free time to just kick it and enjoy doing some of my normal things... like cooking, reading, and jamming on the guitar. This is me in my captain planet apron... when I say "my" apron, I actually mean Rachel's apron... but you get the idea.

La vie est belle!