Julia's Mexico City

Life Online and Free Stuff -- Coke Edition

See Part 1 of this story here.

At Blogger Prom, I ended up having a fun conversation with a woman who does PR for a beverage company and they had brought Newcastle Brown Ale to the Prom. Newcastle is one of my favorite beers. We followed up after the prom in emails "nice to meet and chat" etc. She then asked if I wanted to try Newcastle's new summer ale sometime and I said yes, but before we could arrange a meet up, they had run out of the summer ale (it was a trial run). Oh well. But then she asked if she could send me some CocaCola products in the new aluminum cans to try out. Well sure! I'm a loyal Diet Coke fan, why not?

So this week in the mail I got these:

 

Sweet little 8.5 ounce bottles of Coke, Diet Coke and MY ABSOLUTE CURRENT FAVORITE Coke Zero. I've already drunk the Diet Coke and Coke Zero, I'll give the regular coke to Kurt or to his mom as regular coke is way too sweet for me.

How can you not love free stuff? 

Ah, but I hear some of you: it's not really free because you are shilling for Coke and for The Gap now. Well, I have no problem with saying I love something when I do. I've shopped at the Gap ever since I moved to LA 25 years ago (cuz there wasn't any such thing as "the Gap" on Maui). And my relationship to Coca Cola goes all the way back to Tab and Fresca. (Man I LOVE Fresca! Add some vodka and lime juice, and damn you have a fine cocktail.) 

All through high school I drank diet coke probably twice a day. Diet Coke for breakfast and a Diet Coke and a twix for a snack on the drive home. As Diet Coke became more mainstream, Tab was being edged out. But one of my friends at Seabury, we'll call her Tabitha as another friend called her back then, was not going to let Tab go. She never switched and to this day I believe she's still a die hard fan of Tab. 

When Coke Zero came out, I gave it a try and loved it. It's my zero calorie beverage of choice now, though I'm happy to have a DC if the CZ is not available. I haven't seen the aluminum bottles in stores yet (haven't really been looking) but I did notice new smaller plastic bottles of DC and CZ. Normally you can only get 16oz plastic bottles, but now there are (I think) 12 oz bottles.

In the summer of '06 when I was spending much of my days getting to know Paddy and living online while sitting in a F U N K Y movie location in Mexico City (oh and working too), we would have our Diet Coke breaks. You'd have to ask the catering guys to get a diet coke because they weren't just sitting around in coolers like they are on set in the US. It felt awkward to "order" a Diet Coke from them, but after a while you sorta got used to it. They would bring it in a nice glass with ice and lime. YUM. Paddy and I, to this day, wax nostalgic about CLETUS and their Diet Coke deliveries.

Oh dear, I have gone on and on, haven't I? Well, that's a blogger for you.

I am loving my online life and experience. I get excited to meet new people and try new things and I appreciate free stuff to try. Why not?

Online Life and Free Stuff -- Blogger Prom and Gap Edition

I've been blogging in various ways since October 2005. Not very long compared to some, longer than a lot of others. But only in the last six months to a year has my online life really started to be more than just me writing down what I'm feeling or doing. This comes with the whole "Social Media" boom of Facebook going uber mainstream (not just for college kids) and Twitter exploding all over the place.

And I LOVE IT!

Lots of people who are not online as much as I am might think it is a lonely place to be. One person in front of a monitor and keyboard, silently typing away into the virtual ether. Wrong and wrong. If you interact on Facebook and Twitter and comment often on people's blogs and websites, you start making friends fast. And with new friends come unexpected benefits. 

I started my book blog in 2005. I start this blog in the summer of 2006 while in Mexico City (oh that's why it's called what it is). In 2006 I also started living on line in earnest, reading blogs and websites with great regularity and commenting often. One of those sites was LA Metblogs and when they said they were looking for new writers in 2007, I applied and was asked to join up! Through Metblogs I've met an amazing array of brilliant funny people. I started the Classic Eats series last fall and have met even more fun people in real life as we eat our way across LA. One person I met was Caroline on Crack and because of her, I got invited to Blogger Prom earlier this summer. 

With Twitter going great guns, I met new friends there, online, many of whom were also going to Blogger Prom. So the night of the great event, I ended up meeting The Slack Mistresses, Be The Boy, Lisa of 1 Good Foot, and Kim Prince of House of Prince in real life! And OMG what a great time we all had. Plus Blogger Prom was a completely free event -- free food, free cocktails and tons of give aways, plus a huge goody bag full of great stuff. All FREE.

Not long after that glorious evening, I got an invite from Nina, aka The Slack Mistress, to come to a Gap Jeans Born To Fit party. I wasn't exactly sure what this was all about, but I was told I would get a free pair of jeans and who says no to a free pair of jeans or to Nina? Not me. Plus it would be chance to meet more online peeps. 

The party was at the Gap Pop Up Store on Robertson (it's open until Sept. 27, read more about it here.) and was completely private to our group. There was free valet parking, to start (nice!) and when you walked in a Gap representative greeted you with a coupon for your free jeans and other info about their pop up store. Then a guy offered me cocktails so I said yes to Sangria, thanks! And another gentleman offered lovely pu-pus. This was already great! While I was talking to Lisa (of 1 Good Foot), I saw a woman walk in and I recognized her instantly -- GINA! Holy cow. We'd been twitter friends and there she was. FUN.

Then it was time to browse the jeans. I think there were only about 15 women there to try on jeans and three or four Gap sales people to help you find your perfect fit. I worked with a nice young gentleman who knew his jeanery and suggested a few different styles to try. I went into the fitting room with a few pairs and settled on the Long and Lean style in a size 14. But the 14 was a touch big (yay) so the nice young gentleman suggested the 12s. I was unsure but gave it a go. I put the 12s on and they seemed a skosh small, but when I walked out, a couple of the ladies who were there said, "oh yes, they look great!" and I was still a bit unsure. The nice guy helping me also said he thought they looked perfect. I hemmed and hawed a little, asking are you sure? He said, and I quote: 

"Mee-oww!"

SOLD!

I changed back to my clothes and poked around, trying on a few shirts and sweaters then put a purple t-shirt on my to-go pile. Then we all socialized a bit more, having a few more drinks and snacks. When it was time to go, I paid for my shirt, got my bag of clothes and hugged and kissed my new friends good-bye and left. Total cost for the evening? $22. I got cocktails, dinner, new jeans, new shirt and free parking for $22. If I hadn't have bought the shirt, it would have been $2 total. NICE!

Nina got to host this awesome shindig because she was contacted by a Gap representative who found her through her blog. ONLINE.

Am I getting through to you yet about life online? How about this: Remember that Sarah was on the Oprah Winfrey show because a producer found her Mar Vista Mom blog and she and three neighbors got rooms redesigned by Nate Berkus for free. 

Good. I'm going to finish my little story about bloggy life and free stuff in the next post. Stay tuned!

Vacation Without Wifi

Im blogging from my iphone cuz i need my fix! (all the promised wifi at each hotel has not worked...) We've been in Seattle all week visiting friends and family. And it's been HOT! no, I mean hot!! Record breaking temps that are 20-25 degrees above normal. Yesterday it was about 103. No one has air conditioning because why would you need it if the average is 77? Oy.

But with the view we have from out B&B, we can't really complain.

Home to LA on Saturday, where it should be so much cooler. Who'd-a-thunk?

Blogger Prom 2009

Wow! What a night! It was so much fun I needed a full day to recover! Blogger Prom was a smashing success and I was so lucky and glad to have been a part of it.

First of all, a HUGE HUGE thanks and shout out to the amazing Blogger Prom Committee! That was a great party and I was overwhelmed by the amount of give-aways and prizes and great food and drinks. And the view! Couldn't have asked for a better one. I know how hard it is to organize and run an event like that so major kudos to you all.

Oh let's get to some pictures, shall we? First of all, you can find a ton of pictures in the Blogger Prom 2009 Flickr group. The outfits! The Hair! The Make Up! The Bows! The Taffeta! The Fingerless Lace Gloves! The Piano Key Tie! Pauly Shore! No seriously, Pauly Shore was there. How 80's is that?!

I had to take the classic "in the bathroom before prom" picture as soon as the cloud of hairspray had evaporated. Let's get a real good view of the hair and makeup, shall we?

I couldn't get the blue to be any bluer. I tried. I put about three layers of blue eyeshadow on. Either they just don't make it like they used to or I need to shop where the drag queens shop.

When I got to the prom, I ran into fellow Metblogger David Markland and his wonderful date, Claire.

Then additional Metbloggers, Joz and Mykal came in, rocking the Dynasty look. I felt right at home!

At the mention of the word Dynasty, Mykal opened his jacket to reveal this AMAZING detail about his outfit:

Holy crap the 80's were, uh, weird.

But the best part of any blogger get-together, wacky prom costumes notwithstanding, is meeting people you have only ever communicated with online. So I got to meet Adri The Girl Blogger (@thegirlblogger) We had tweeted about our Dynasty dresses and curling irons and hairspray before the big event.

Then a babe in hot pink was coming toward me and we did a triple take then yelled each other's names and hugged. It was Kim Prince of House of Prince! (@houseofprince) and with her was a fairly new online friend I had made, Lisa Kelly of The Tale Of My Left Foot (@lkkelly).

We are so sassy!

Then Slackmistress and Be The Boy! (Otherwise known as Nina and Will.) I was striking Blogger Gold!

Check her hair -- I was so excited about taking a picture I got too close to get good focus (#nervousfan).

There were even a few Smarty LA Women, Katy and Jennifer:

Best of all were my MetBlog homies, Travis, Lucinda and Joz:

What a fun night! Woweee.

Oh, and for the record, none of us had sex with Mykal Burns. Also, I won a $75 gift certificate to Ciudad! What a night!

Saturday Already?

The week flew by, wow. 

My goal was to finish two short stories and send them into NPR's Three Minute Fiction Contest by next Wednesday morning (July 15). I finished one and sent it in today -- yay me! The other I'm still working on. I have enjoyed this exercise very much. The rules are to write no more than 600 words and having that kind of limitation makes you figure out your story FAST. There is so much you can't do in that amount of time. And there is so much you can explore. I think I'll try a few more, later on, when I'm done with story #2. 

I had wanted to get updates done on Hot Dog Death March, but it fell to the bottom of the pile. I'll get there.

My other goal for the week was to get Safety Graphic Fun posted, two posts a day, past July 19. I'm up to July 15 so only eight more posts to do (if not more). I also needed to tweak the site a bit. I added a press page and played around with the look and especially the wording in the sidebar, though more work is needed there. I still have to write a few press releases and send them out to tons of places to keep the momentum going. Plus sorting through all the amazing email I've been receiving from fans with many new safety graphics to post. Hooray for fans! My biggest goal for SGF this week was to post another graphic from France with a "translation" and have someone (or multiple someones) to write in and correct my french. SUCCESS! 

In the inspiration part of the week, a friend started blogging after I encouraged him to please do so as his emails are always hysterical and brilliant. Steve's blog is here and I've added him to my blog roll over to the right. Keep going Steve! Please click through and read him. Give him your encouragement please!

I went out every night this past week, except Thursday. Monday and Wednesday were evenings spent with my friend Kevin from high school. It was great to see him and catch up in person for more than one night. Tuesday we went to a free screening of Public Enemies. Glad it was free as the costumes were the only thing that fascinated me in the film. Gorgeous costumes.

Another great thing about not working now is that it is July. And in July, lunch breaks with Kurt at home include watching the Tour De France. Lance is back, hoping for win #8 and he could very well do it. I was laughing with a friend on Facebook about how our vocabularies in July become peppered with Tour De France-isms: making an attack, heading into the feed zone, exploding off the back of the peloton, unpacking our suitcase of courage, etc etc. Good fun.

Last night was a Metblogs meet up at the Nickel Diner in Downtown LA. Great fun had by all and much bacon goodness was consumed. Next week a bunch of bloggers are getting together at a gun range for some shooting. Very much looking forward to that!

This morning I woke up with a scratchy throat, but I hope it comes to not much. It's not going to stop us from going to Vegas on Wednesday!! Luckily, we are home tonight, having veggie burgers and OoOoh, there are tator tots in the freezer! Wrong but so right. I can sleep in (again) tomorrow and putter around watching the Tour, answering emails, adding a few more posts to SGF. 

Busy week! No wonder I'm tired.

Feeling A Bit Behind!

Upon returning from our trip, work got BUSY. I got more added to my plate and am working longer hours, plus having to work over this last weekend. The extra income is good and it's only for another week or so, but dang it makes time fly. And time is something I need much more of!

I barely kept up with Safety Graphic Fun last week, posting the night before or first thing in the morning. I'm usually a week or so ahead. Then Hot Dog Death March is in six weeks. SIX WEEKS! Gotta get moving on that but it will be tough to get rocking this week. Maybe Kurt can help...

Then I want to post all kinds of good photos from our trip, but have barely had time to go through photos, etc. All very high class problems, I know.

Monday Monday!

Fun Busy!

This weekend we depart on our southwest road trip and we are really looking forward to it. I haven't been on a proper road trip for ages. I hope this is the start of many to come. I feel like when we have kids we might be total throwback parents -- packing up the car and kid/s and hitting the road, seeing the biggest ball of string and giant frying pan, etc. Can't wait. For now I'll be glad to see the natural wonders of the southwest. Look for blog posts to come on our trip.

As some of you LAers know, there is a series on LA Metblogs I run called Classic Eats. Event #5 is scheduled for May 2 and the voting has begun for where we will go. I am really pleased with the turn out and enthusiasm for these events. We've always had at least 12 people at each event, and hopefully that will keep expanding. The last event we did at Pie N Burger in Pasadena and after we ate, we went to another place and sat around talking for two more hours! Great discussions about Los Angeles, Music, movies, etc. I love these events.

One of the options to vote on within Classic Eats has been the Hot Dog Death March. One of the other Metblog authors suggested we create a stand alone event and so The Hot Dog Event Of The Year was born. Check out the website for Hot Dog Death March. Please mark June 13 on your calendars and start stocking up on antacids. This is going to be so much fun. We'll have t-shirts and contests and I'm sure much wacky conversation while waiting in line to eat hot dogs!

I made time last weekend to do the spring planting: Basil, tomatoes, broccoli, rosemary, and sunflowers. I have other flower seeds to plant, but probably won't get to them until May at this point. I restrained myself from planting too many tomatoes and opted not to have zucchini again this year. I liked having them last year, but they take up so much space. We'll see what happens with the broccoli. It felt good to get my hands dirty, and it always feels good to be that grounded. I look forward to more planting in the next few weeks. 

Here is the main section with all the baby plants snuggling into their new beds.

Spring is springing along!

The Internet Is A Super Cool Place

Within the last few weeks many fun things have happened to me or people I know, owing completely to the the series of tubes, the internest, the interspaces, the information superhighway, the interwebs, well, you get the idea, and it just made me so pleased that I spend time online and what a warm, friendly place it can be.

Someone I met recently described the internet as a cold place. She was complaining that her experiences online had not been very good and so she was skipping the internet and really just wanting to meet people in real life. Boy is she short sighted. Here are a few example of how the internet has personally been so fun and exciting for me and people I know. 

One of my German pen pals who I started writing to in 8th grade found me on Facebook and we have reconnected. We had written to each other for about 20 years, though mostly at christmas toward the latter part of that time. Somehow she moved or I moved or both and we lost touch. I thought of her often and sent letters to the old address but no luck. Then one day about two weeks ago, I get a nice note, asking if I were the Julia who came to visit her in Germany. It's been so nice to reconnect and find out about her family and her life. I met her twice, once in 1989 and again in 1992. I hope to get back to Germany within a few years and see her again. 

I started a series on LA Metblogs last fall called Classic Eats. Once a month I post a poll and the readers vote on where we will go next. #1 was Clifton's Cafeteria and the rotating bar at the top of the Bonaventure. CE #2 was Union Station and Phillipes, #3 was Tiki Ti and Taix and #4 was Pie 'N Burger. Each event has had at least 15 people, sometimes more. There are people I'd met before, like other Metblog writers, but also authors I'd never met. There are people who read and comment and it was nice to meet them in person. Then there are people who just come and want to be social. The first event we had a woman (who's name escapes me! Sorry!) who came on her own, she'd read about it and joined in. #4, last Saturday also had a newcomer, Diana, who had never commented, but often read and joined in. I just love that I've made new friends because they read the blog and wanted to join in the fun. 

Sarah, who writes many blogs, but is most famous for Mar Vista Mom, got a call last week from the Oprah Show. Yes, THAT Oprah. They are doing a show about re-decorating in these recessionary times and how to do it without spending anything or only very little, by swapping stuff out with your neighbors and sprucing up what you do have. They contacted her because they were looking for neighborhoods like hers where it would be a fun group activity on one block. They contacted her because she writes a blog about her neighborhood. At the moment (key phrase there, "at the moment") she some decent traffic, but she put herself out there and guess who came knocking at her door? Dude.

The internet rocks. Seriously, you should try it. Oh wait, here you are!  Enjoy.

Really Lame Marketing

I got this email today:

Dear Julia,

[Company redacted] thinks your Mexico City blog rocks! You provide great tips on city and we'd like to help by providing our travel videos for your site. We're big believers in providing independent voice for travel and would love to be of assistance.

[Redacted] is the leading online travel video website, and we've got thousands of informative and entertaining videos made by real travelers and professionals.  Our new, free embeddable travel video widget gives your site visitors instant access to videos about Mexico City. The widget is customizable to match the color and theme of your site.

We can also help integrate Google In-Video Adsense to help you make money with these videos.

Please visit our [redacted] Widget page at [website redacted] to check out the video player and get the embed codes.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

[Name Redacted]

I don't want to give this lame site any linkage or name recognition which is why I'm leaving their name out, as well as the name of the person who emailed me from the company. After reading it, I immediately wrote them back and said: "Have you actually read my blog? If you had, you would know it has very little to do with Mexico City." Can't wait to see if I get a response. 

Too bad this site doesn't actually take the extra five minutes to, you know, find a sight that is travel related. I could see where in two seconds you might think this sight is about Mexico City. That's why I put the "Where I'm At" box right below my picture (see? right there on the right?). I wanted to clarify so there wouldn't be confusion. I do write about places I travel to, but that's just part of my life, not the main focus of my blog. 

Good luck with your marketing campaign, [Redacted Company]!

After All, A Personal Blog Is Still Public

A work colleague said he found this blog and read it, then apologized for that saying "I wasn't sure if I should..." I laughed and said, "Hey, it's public!" I've had other people tell me they feel weird when they read my blog, like they are spying or voyeuristic or something. Spying? No. Voyeuristic? A little bit, but in a good way. 

Let me put your mind at ease about reading blogs like this one: If I don't want you to know about it, I won't write about it here.