I'm a killer....of fruit flies

It seems each of the past few summers I've fought a small war with fruit flies. First you see one or two, the next day it is 10-15, the day after you have a small army. I swear, they must do nothing but annoy humans and have sex all day long. There are a bunch of methods to get rid of them that I've found, but this is one of the easiest ones and also the one that has worked best for me. How to kill fruit flies (the easy way):

Step 1: take out a glass

Step 2: Pour some apple cider vinegar into the glass

Step 3: Add a squirt or two of dish soap and swirl the glass around a few times to mix it a bit

Step 4: ignore the smell and leave the area, within a day or two they will almost all be dead

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Results of my successful battle last night !!!

What is success?

A lot has been written lately about David McCullough Jr.'s “You are not special. You are not exceptional" speech recently at Wellesley High School's graduation, most recently this NY Times Article and this blog post now going viral.  I think this has really hit home with me as it's something I've been slowly working my way through myself the past year or so as I've made some pivotal life decisions.  As my 30th birthday quickly approaches, I'm realizing more and more that it's the journey and not the destination.  When you are younger, success was much easier to measure and attain.  Make the honor roll, win a baseball game, do well on the SAT's, get into college, etc..  For better or worse, there weren't many other factors that our peers or parents judged us by. Post college, things started to get a lot more interesting.  Am I successful if I have a big title?  Make a lot of money?  Do something that I truly enjoy?  Own a big house? Avoid Corporate America all together and live off the grid?  Start a family?  Volunteer my time? Go to grad school?  Defining success is no longer as straightforward and can be attained through many more avenues than when we were younger.  This actually is comforting, especially to those who were never great at the school thing (irregardless of intelligence) or very good athletes.

I wish I had the silver bullet, but I don't.  Instead I've realized that I need to pursue what makes me happy, which may or may not fall in line with societal norms.  I've seen too many folks with big titles and huge salaries that aren't happy, too little compassion for others, too many floating through life with no meaningful or long term relationships to others, and too many people that can never stop and smell the roses.  I want to never stop learning, improve my focus on relationships with those who I care the most about, care for the greater good even if it has to come at my expense, keep an open mind, and travel more of the world continuously remind me to be thankful for the gifts I've been given.

What does success mean to you?

San Francisco, here I come!

March 16, 2012:  I don't remember much from this phone call other than that it likely included something along the lines of "I got matched in San Francisco".  Regardless, of what was said exactly, it was who said them and how they were said that immediately changed my life.  As someone that generally doesn't take many risks, 2012 had already included me leaving a job I'd been at since my Junior year of college and subsequently traveling to a third world country by myself.  Yes, January was pretty exciting.  But as I tried to process those words as they were tearfully repeated to me over the phone, I knew that the excitement of 2012 was just beginning.  I knew immediately that judging from my girlfriend's tears and my immediate emotional response, our relationship had progressed way past our joking 2 months earlier that it was "nice getting to know you" if she didn't match to a medical residency program in Boston.

And so here I go on what will quite possibly be the most scary, stressful, and downright exciting three months of my life.  I will be renting out my condo (anybody interested in renting out a really nice place from me?), packing my bags, saying goodbye to the city I was born in and have grown to love, and then driving my car west to San Francisco at the end of August.  I will be following in my parent's footsteps (when they were my age) and staying out there for at least the next three years before likely returning back to Boston.  For such a big decision, it strangely has been incredibly easy to make despite the bottomless pit of questions (What will you do for a job?  How will you make friends?  Do you really want to leave all of your family and friends behind?). Perhaps it's because I will be embarking on this wild ride with such an amazing girl (who will be about the only consistent thing in my life in 2012).

Unfortunately, this also means that for the second time in a year, I am starting a job search as I will likely not be staying at my new employer past the end of this year.  Thankfully I work in IT and am going to be living in the greatest city in the world for technology companies.

Check your calendars, who's coming out to visit me and the California sunshine?  3 hours from Yosemite and skiing Tahoe, minutes from the Pacific, and a brand new city to explore, I CAN'T WAIT!

Things I just don't understand

You've all seen them and likely didn't give them a second's thought.  But seeing a "This Car Climbed Mt. Washington" bumper sticker recently got me thinking, there are just some things that no matter how hard you try I would just not understand.  Interestingly, as much as I don't understand it now, that doesn't necessarily mean that my opinions can't change.  Case in point:  I've been training for my first marathon the past 3 months and that would have been on my list 5 years ago, but at this point in my life running has become a big part of who I am. Here's the rest of the list I could brainstorm (in no particular order).  What would you add or remove from this?

• Automatic transmissions in sports cars (even if transmissions are technically faster these days, the point of having a sports car is to have fun, and having fun requires a clutch and a shifter)
• Rick Santorum - Need I say more?
• Anybody still using a blackberry by choice over an iPhone, Droid, or Windows phone
• Pennies - At this point you can't buy anything for less than a nickel, so why bother?
• Drinking crap beer when much better stuff is available for essentially the same price (I'm looking at you Mr. Bud Light drinker)
• The Washington Post social reader app on Facebook - requiring users to use/install your app seems rather unsocial, no?
• Eating beef well done - I can understand and appreciate those who are vegetarian, but if you choose to eat beef and purposely overcook it that is just a shame
• Why NPR has yet to figure out some kind of subscription model so that those who donate (like myself) don't have to listen to the unbelievably annoying pledge weeks
• WWF Wrestling
• Nascar