Bobarrito

I went on a road trip with my girlfriends this past weekend to LA, and went to the Meme Art Show at Gallery 1988. It featured works from over 100 artists devoting artwork to internet phenomenons. If anyone is familiar with Randall the voice of the Honeybadger, yes we met him! Yes he was awesome! And yes we took pictures with him and have an autographed copy of his book!

What got me though was the Nyan Cat. Nyan Cat is a gray cat, with a pink (most likely cherry?) pop tart for a body. And he flies around to a song whose only lyric is the word "nyan". (nyan.cat/ ) And he's cute. I have no clue how I completely missed this internet phenomenon! Me, who prides herself in being a good little consumer of everything which embodies cuteness. 

After some research, I also learned that Nyan Cat can come in plush form thanks to Alicia @ Nom Nom Shop!

Therefore I came to the decision that Boba (my chinchilla) can also be made into a plush. Since his nickname is Bobarrito, I will attempt to make Boba with the body of a burrito. 

How this will turn out? Who knows? Stay tuned and I will update with photos after I'm done! 

For now, here's a picture of Boba. Just imagine him embodying the characteristics of a burrito...

Chinchilla treat recipe

So long story short, I wanted to get a puppy, but my landlady was so not up for that. After giving it some thought, a chinchilla seemed like the perfect pet. Cuddly, fluffy, and also doesn't bark. :)

So I adopted a chinchilla named Boba, he's a black velvet, which for those of you who understand what Boba (tapioca pearls in pearl milk teas) means as well as what a black velvet chinchilla is will be able to make the correlation. If not you can always check him out on Twitter: @BobaMonster.

Reason for the post is that when I adopted the little guy, the lady at the shelter had given me some home baked biscuits that he can have as a snack once a day. Once I ran out of course I wanted to bake my own! I figured going online to find a recipe should be pretty easy, but it was actually sort of hard! Seems like chins are way more common in the UK, and people care to post about their chins and chin care alot more out there!

So I put my sourcing skills to good use, and did find a recipe, which I used last night. Boba is now enjoying healthy, organic (buy your ingredients from Whole Foods or other organic markets!), homemade oat and fruit biscuits. He loves them! :)

For anyone else who may have a chin, or have a friend with a chin, feel free to share this recipe! I've already adjusted some measurements and times based on my own experience. Thanks Tabitha from Pets Hub!

Ingredients:

1/3 carrot (finely grated)
1/3 of an apple (finely grated) - including the juice
1/2 cup of oats
1/2 cup of chinchilla pellets (blended into a powder in a food processor)

1 large, or 1 1/2 medium bananas (mashed)

Method:

Put the first four ingredients together in a bowl. Add about 3/4 of the mashed banana and mix well. The mixture needs to be moist and hold itself together. If it doesn't mix easily, and feels too dry - mix in some more banana.

Cover with Clingfilm, and leave in the fridge overnight (up to 24 hours).
This will allow all of the moisture from the fruit to soften the pellet mixture.

Pre-heat the oven to 250F.

Roll the mixture into treat-sized balls, and place on a non-stick baking tray (you can flatten them into small disks if you want to, but you won't get as many on the baking tray).

Cook in the oven for 1.5 hours (you only want to dry the mixture out, you
don't need to cook it).

When the cooking time is up check to see if the treats are done by cutting the largest treat in half. If the middle is darker than the outside, it hasn't properly dried out all of the way through, so put them back for another 15 - 20 minutes.

Limbo

Laid off after only two short months. There was a lot of "it's not you, it's us" during the discussion. In my case I believe them since recruiting is always the first to go when a company isn't hiring, so can't say I didn't see it coming...

Luckily for me, VMware really is like my family, and are welcoming me back with open arms. For others affected like myself, I'd have to say they're less lucky, and I'm doing what I can to connect them to others in my network to help them out.

If your company is hiring, now is a good time to reach out to me if you're looking for great talent because I know of some great people looking for work!

More to come after a weekend in Vancouver!

Back to social gaming!

Yup I've done it. I've moved on yet again!

Tomorrow I will start at CrowdStar (a social gaming start-up, you may have heard of some of their games, ie Happy Pets, Happy Aquarium, Zoo Paradise, check out www.crowdstar.com for a complete list) as their Staffing Manager. They've risen quickly as a major contender in the social gaming industry.

I've had a chance to play a part in participating in and shaping many different types of staffing infrastructures and processes, and now I've been given the chance to build my own. Definitely feeling that bit of IC-transitioning-to-management anxiety right now.

I can't thank my team at VMware enough for the support, encouragement, and the good laughs they've provided during my second stint. I shall be looking forward to the occasional catch-up sessions in the future :)

Having met with the intelligent and dedicated team that CrowdStar is comprised of right now, I have no doubt that I'm in for an awesome ride. My limits will be tested and pushed to the extreme (oh how I've missed start-up life!) and I can't wait to begin.

More to come after I find out just what I've signed myself up for!

Did I mention I'm now back at VMware?

Done it yet again! Someone read my blog and reminded me of how an update is so tragically overdue!

So let's play catch up! Between a trip to LA, Michigan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Maine, and Las Vegas, here's what I've been doing work-wise:

I went to Playdom back in July 2009, and left at the end of Feb 2010. Playdom was at over 400 people by the time I left (props to the recruiting team for a bang-up job!), and was just recently acquired by Disney.

I'm very proud of my Playdom Peeps, made a lot of great friends, and wish them nothing but continued success, but I just couldn't resist coming back to VMware to work with my old manager, aka my greatest mentor of all time. He popped the question, I said yes, and voila, full-circle, back to my old stomping grounds!

A few things have changed since I left.
#1, they now have this AWESOME gym! I still remember pitching the fact that VMware is in the middle of building this world-class gym to candidates back in 2007, and in the back of my mind calling BS, but they've done it! Place is run by staff from Club One Fitness, has the latest exercise equipment, and a basketball court which can also double as a volleyball court, a racquetball court, a fully manicured soccer field right outside, and instructors who come in to teach spinning, martial arts, TRX, and most importantly YOGA. (I've sort of become obsessed with yoga ever since my time at Playdom.)

#2. No more free lunch Wednesdays. But the snacks are as plentiful as ever, there is still on-site dry-cleaning, and Posh Bagel Wednesdays.

#3. Since Facebook is now headquartered about 2 blocks from where we are, I can frequently go visit and have nachos on Wednesdays.

Haha ok so my priorities are very blatantly exercise and food-related. But I will also add that the amount of talent I now see at VMware is tremendous! We're attracting many industry leaders to come work for us, and there have been some awesome product releases and major acquisitions. VMWorld 2010 just took place in SF two weeks ago and had over 17,000 in attendance!

I'm currently working on filling positions in the areas of Product Security, Cloud Services, Virtual Datacenter Flash Computing and Enterprise Management. Things are as challenging as ever, with me working hard to fill "purple squirrel" requisitions. (What is a purple squirrel you ask? They don't exist. Duh.) Keeps the brain busy!

Of course if you happen to be reading this and would like to make my life easier by referring industry experts or presenting yourself to me as an industry expert, please feel free :)

I think that covers the past year and two months!

Social Gaming

Having moved onto my latest residence at Playdom, Inc. I'm now seeking software engineers with experience in Java and MySQL, PHP, etc. As well as Linux Sys Admins, QA engineers and UI designers.

Yes I'm doing tech recruiting again!

So what happened with FB? 10 months, finished the Dublin quota, so therefore it was time to move on since there were no more heads to hire. Ironic but I guess I did a good job, haha.

Playdom is a pretty neat place. Roughly 80 people, most crazy about online games, and are doing a bang up job by taking over MySpace, and now FB. Time will tell how long I'll call this my home :)

Yay!!

I guess I really really really need to work on keeping this up to date! It's always exciting when someone contacts me and tells me it's because they saw my blog :)

Of course as usual I have a GREAT excuse for why I haven't been doing this. The past two months has by far been the most dramatic and crazy in terms of my personal life for a looooong time...lots of heartbreak to say the least. But as usual, life goes on, with or without me, so I'm hopping back on the train before it leaves me behind!

As far as recruiting, Facebook Dublin is doing well! The team is growing, making their office more like home, like a little happy family. Seeing their pictures on Facebook always make me smile, and it's always a good feeling knowing I've contributed to its growth.

The madness continues! I'll continue to recruit for Online Operations folks that are bilingual in Italian, French, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, etc etc. I welcome anyone to reach out to me regarding openings because as the office grows our needs will grow as well. Again I apologize to those who have reached out regarding English-speaking roles, since that's just not our priority right now.

So here's to you, 2009! I'll hang onto my optimism and hope everything else falls into place.