I just wanted to write a few words in reflection of this past year (before I get distracted with tonight’s New Year’s Eve festivities)…

2006 was a pretty sweet year for me. I improved several areas of my life. The most significant improvement was in my financial life. I finally reached that “I’ve Had It!” moment with finances that provided me with solid, lasting motivation to get out of debt and never borrow money again. Sometime in the spring of 2007, all of my credit cards will be paid off and cancelled. (…Well, I might keep one open to simply keep my credit rating from becoming totally demolished.)

This financial turnaround came on the heels of reaching a new plateau in annual income. My hard work paid off at Sprint, and I secured a contract that finally put me at the seemingly unattainable salary as my father’s. I felt like I got a second chance to make things right financially, and I wasn’t going to screw it up again.

I started tithing a full 10% of my gross income. I almost completely ceased all frivolous spending. I sold off a ton of my possessions. And I started planning for a future where my money will make me more money, rather than my debt taking my money away. I became satisfied with less. And God blessed me with more.

Another area of improvement was physical. I reached another “I’ve Had It!” moment with my weight this year. I’ve been trying to remedy this life-long obstacle for several years now, but this year, I finally started to see myself at the place I want to be physically. Though not as strong as my financial motivation, my motivation for working out regularly and dieting is stronger than it’s ever been. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can see my goal just sitting there, and I’m going to reach out and grab it.

My physical goals are tied to many of my other goals. For instance, one of my professional goals is to look & act more professional in the office. One way to attain that goal is to buy nicer clothes. However, I don’t want to buy clothes in the size I’m currently at. I want to get physically fit, then do my wardrobe makeover. The more urgent my goal of appearing more professional in the office becomes, the more motivation I have to get physically fit.

I believe all it will take is 3 straight months of diligently using my Bowflex three times a week, riding my stationary bike everyday, and low-carbing it everyday to get to where I need to be. Throughout the year, I’ve had 1-month spurts here and there, where I’ve had enough motivation to sustain this regimen for that month. But I’ve yet to sustain it for a full 3 months straight. This is the next goal on my list to conquer. I fully intend to be where I want to be by the spring of 2007 (right about the time I make the last payment on my credit card).

The final improvement I’ve made in my life this year is in my social confidence. I know it might not seem like I have a problem in this area, because I’m very social at work and in professional environments, but throughout my life, social success (particularly with women) has been hard to come by. I’ve only had four actual girlfriends/relationships in my life. I’ve dated several women, but only really connected with four. When I look back, I don’t even know how those relationships happened. I just stumbled into them. When it came to meeting women, it was totally by chance. Whenever I actually tried to make something happen with someone in particular, it never seemed to work. I hated this lack of control.

I spent most of my free time this year studying social dynamics and the nature of attraction from masters of the genre. I read people-management books, relationship books, and various eBooks on the Internet. I studied how human beings relate and connect to one another and why certain personalities have more success than others.

While I’m still studying this topic (and am not completely confident in the things I’m learning), I’ve now transitioned to the point of practicing what I’ve learned so far. So much of this can only be learned by doing it. (Otherwise known as “calibration.”) My winter months have been set aside for going out and meeting as many people as I can. I will be striking up conversations with total strangers everywhere I go. I will force myself to do this, even when I don’t want to. I will learn how to open any variety of sets (aka groups of people) and engage them in conversations.

Eventually, I’ll be fully calibrated to meet (and attract) anyone anytime I want—and thus gain some control over my social future.

So that’s what 2006 brought me… It kick-started three major improvements in my life. I intend to see the fruit of these improvements in the coming year.

Two weeks ago, my department at Sprint had its annual holiday party at Breakers in Herndon. Of course, this was only for employees, and contractors like me weren’t invited. Whatever.

The next week, the web team had an apologetic holiday party for contractors and employees alike. However, unlike the employee party, our party was held during the lunch hour in one of the office conference rooms. So…incredibly…lame.

So after these failed attempts to have a decent holiday social gathering with my coworkers, I planned a happy hour for some of my fun, alcohol-loving coworker friends at Ned Devine’s in Herndon on Thursday night.

Due to the impending Christmas holiday, some folks couldn’t make it out (namely Bridget and Ann). But those of us with holiday balls left work on Thursday and headed down the street to Ned’s.

When we arrived, we made a quick walkthrough of the bar and discovered that it was a total sausage fest. This was disappointing to me, because when we used to have Thursday night happy hours at Ned’s (with my old Nextel team) there were always plenty of girls (including a group of AOL girls, who I always said hello to). Maybe it was the holiday, but the place was packed elbow-to-elbow with dull corporate dudes. I gave up the idea of trying to get our group to mingle with other folks at the bar. Instead, we all sat down in a booth and enjoyed each other’s company for about three hours.

It was me, Ben, Gita, Ramiro, and Lucia. I think Gita and Lucia made up 50% of the female population in the bar.

We drank a lot (except for Ben, who only had one beer). We took lots of pictures. And we laughed a lot. It felt really good to spend some quality fun time with my mates. Especially considering it could be my last happy hour at Sprint.

Around 8 PM, we paid up and left Ned’s. Gita, Ben and Lucia went home. Ramiro and I decided it was way too early to call it a night, so we went up to Breakers to shoot some pool. When we arrived, I didn’t see my bartender friend, so the possibility of getting free drinks was out. The place was also packed with dudes, so we said forget it and left.

We walked all around the clock tower shopping center, but couldn’t find a decent place to continue the evening (even Starbucks was filled with guys). Rather than call it an evening (or go back to Ned’s), we decided to move the party to Reston Town Center.

We first went to ATR, which was bustling with good-looking women and men. However, because it was so packed, Ramiro and I sat in the restaurant area and ordered some food. I have to admit, ATR is a really good happy hour venue. We just need to get there earlier to secure a good spot inside the bar area.

After eating, we left with the intention of actually going home. We passed by Rio Grande and saw a group of girls through the window. Unfortunately, the doors were locked (at 10 PM???), so we kept walking. McCormick & Schmidt’s was still open, but it appeared to be full of dregs, so we didn’t stay. We rounded the block and tried out Clyde’s. There was a good mix of people at Clyde’s. We walked through the bar and settled in an area dominated by females. I ordered us a couple beers, then made small talk with a girl at the bar. She seemed too drunk to talk normally. She spoke very slowly, and I eventually ran out of patience and didn’t continue our conversation. Ramiro and I talked for a while, then left.

It was around 11 PM, when we found ourselves at our cars, prepared to go home. I spotted M&S a short distance away and convinced Ramiro to give it one last shot. It’s a good thing we did…

When we entered M&S, I knew we were going to have some fun. It was filled with a bunch of really drunk, young professionals having an office holiday party. We sat at the bar, ordered some beers, and continued our conversation, while keeping an eye on the festivities.

Eventually, I locked eyes with a cute brunette and motioned for her to come over. I made up some fictitious story about a dilemma Ramiro was having and asked for her advice. She said I was cute, then turned the conversation immediately towards sex. I was suddenly inspired to mischief…

I told her, if she was interested in sex, she was out of luck. Ramiro was married, and I was… well… gay. “Yeah, I kinda figured you were gay,” she assured me (as I held in my laughter). Apparently, she at once decided it was her sole duty to cure me of my “gayness.” She immediately became physical by grinding her body next to mine and sitting on my lap. I kept pushing her away, saying she was totally turning me off and killing my buzz. Rather than give up, she kept escalating the kino.

Two of her guy coworkers (aka cock-blockers) came up to us and tried to pull her away from me. I encouraged them to take her away, because she was so repulsive. (Meanwhile, I gave her discrete winks & smiles, so she knew I wasn’t serious.) The guys tried to console her by saying how pretty she was (like total chumps), and she ignored them. They began leading her to another part of the bar. She looked back, and I gestured with my finger for her to come back. She broke away, ran back, and that’s when things got crazy…

She jumped up onto my lap and started screaming and gesturing wildly, which got the entire bar looking our way. She yelled out some sort of sexual instructions, but I was too busy laughing to hear what she was saying. The two chumps hurried to us and tried to pull her off me with absolute urgency. Between their pleading with her, her screaming and my laughing, I managed to tell Ramiro to take some pictures. I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be gay, so I started shouting, “Get her off me! Get her off me!” I pushed her away with one hand, while holding on to her waist tightly with the other. It was the funniest damn scene ever… Total chaos.

When she ran out of energy and knew the battle would end soon, she leaned in for a kiss. I’m sure her friends objected to this as well, but I pretty much zoned everything else out at that moment. I didn’t resist, and afterwards she got off me, staggered backwards into the pulling arms of her coworkers, pointed her finger at me, and slyly stated, “You’re not gay!”

Yeah, no shit, baby.

I looked back at Ramiro and found him laughing his ass off. We agreed that anything else that happened at that bar would be a downer, so it was officially time to leave. As we exited the bar, the two cock-blockers got into an altercation with another dude in the bar. I can only imagine that the dude made some comment towards the girl that the cock-blockers didn’t like. Whatever. It was time to go. I told the two guys that they were good friends and should make sure the girl got home safely.

By this time, it was past midnight, which made this particular happy hour adventure officially 7 hours long. Not a bad way to go out, I figured. I had a total of 8 beers that evening, so I was in pretty good shape to drive home. Ramiro and I bid our adieus and headed our separate ways.


Click here for the wonderful holiday pictures.

You know, I just remembered what the catalyst was for my recent social experiments… On December 5, I attended a free GMU Alumni Association workshop on networking. I really just wanted an excuse to hang out at the Mason campus and check out all the new buildings and structures around campus. I didn’t expect to learn anything at the workshop, though I was open to picking up a few helpful hints about networking that I may have missed in life.

The workshop was pretty boring. We met in one of the ballrooms in SUB II. There was free food (definite plus) and a whole lot of young alumni trying their best to network with one another and boast about their accomplishments. I had no interest in actually networking, so I just hit on some girls and talked to the leaders and organizers of the event.

It was fun to see the reactions of each alumni as they talked to me. I didn’t ask them about what they did professionally, what their goals in life were, or what they studied at Mason (which were the standard questions everyone was asking). Instead, I asked them if they were single and what they were doing afterwards.

As I talked to the leaders, they asked me what I did and what tips I had for recent alumni seeking jobs. I told them not to specialize. Pick an industry and learn a little about everything in that industry. That way, you’re not stuck being a worker bee all your life, specializing in one task. Instead, learn how to do everything fairly well (in the Internet world, I’ve been a designer, coder, content writer/editor, and project manager). Having a good general knowledge of everything allows you to jump up to management much sooner. I also told them that switching jobs was the fastest way to increase your salary. I think 2 years is the max that I would stay at any job. Being a contractor forces you to abide by this rule (which is very beneficial).

After having my fun at the networking event, I got the urge to do more of the same this holiday season. And thus, my plans were put in motion.

Even before this event, my interest in unlocking the formula to social dynamics was born from reading the classic book How to Win Friends & Influence People. I was originally trying to figure out how to be a good manager at work, but quickly realized that these same skills could be applied to any social activity, whether at church, at work, or in bars & clubs.

My reading list for the past year or so has included other management classics like The 7 Habits of Highly-Effective People, and books on obscure topics like how to read body language, how to tell if someone’s lying, and the confessions of successful pick-up artists.

The skills I’m learning are akin to being able to read “tells” in Poker. They provide a huge advantage in everyday life. When you learn how the mind, body and emotions work together, you can practically read someone’s mind or influence their behavior after talking with them for 10 minutes.

Further reading:

How to Win Friends & Influence People – by Dale Carnegie
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – by Stephen Covey
Get Anyone to Do Anything – by David Leiberman
Never Be Lied to Again – by David Leiberman
How to Talk to Anyone – by Leil Lowndes
The Game – by Neil Strauss

‘Tis the season for holiday parties. Given that the holiday season is full of various social events involving friends, work, church, and family, I thought I’d take advantage of this year’s batch of events by learning a few things about social dynamics. This is a topic that has fascinated me in the past, but I haven’t had the time or opportunity to look into it in detail. Well, now I have both…

The festivities jump-started with a lively wine party at Sarah’s house on December 2. This month’s theme was “mulled wines” (which is basically like hot apple cider, except using wine in place of the cider). I have to admit, I’m not a fan of hot wine. It just doesn’t go down quite as smoothly (and quickly) as cold wine. …I guess that explains why I never got tipsy at this month’s party (I didn’t drink much). However, I had a delightful time getting to know the people at the party—many of whom were new faces. The conversations flowed, and much fun was had by all. Lesson one: The less I drink, the more loquacious I can be.

A week later, I attended a Christmas party at Kim’s place in Clarendon, where I learned a few more lessons regarding social dynamics. I went to the party with the specific goal of drinking a lot and being loud & jovial with everyone I spoke with. I actually paid attention to people’s reaction, whether positive or negative, by watching their body language and gauging their comfort levels.

As it turns out, being a loud, joke-cracking fellow at Kim’s party allowed me to 1) open sets of people with little hesitation or awkwardness and 2) be entertaining enough to hold a conversation for 5-10 minutes. Unfortunately, this routine ran its course after about 10 minutes, and the person or set lost interest. This happened consistently throughout the evening. Lesson 2: Being fun & energetic is great for openers, but leave the set before the conversation fizzles.

Another aspect I barely touched on was the “eagerness” factor. Throughout the evening, I was opening sets and was on the offensive for most of the conversation. I think this is why the interactions lasted no more than 10 minutes. It was natural burn out on my part. On the other hand, as I prepared to leave the party, I became more aloof in order to end conversations more quickly and make my exit. This had the opposite effect, however, as people wanted more and more to talk to me and secure my interest (I assume as a need to feel validated by attention). In these cases, “playing hard to get” actually worked in my favor. Lesson 3: After opening a set, pull back and let them engage you; half their fun is winning you over.

I left the party disappointed that I couldn’t escalate certain interactions, but felt really excited that I was actually understanding and identifying social dynamics in real time. I couldn’t wait for the next party!

Aside: After Kim’s party, I decided to get back on a low-carb diet and do it hardcore for the remainder of the holiday season. Within a week, I lost almost 10 pounds, which will undoubtedly help my social interactions by 1) making me more physically appealing, and 2) improving my confidence.

A week later, I went to my friend Maureen’s party in Annandale. I was determined not to drink any alcohol, and instead brought a six-pack of Diet A&W that I knew no one would drink but me. Other than two or three familiar faces, the place was packed with total strangers—which was perfect. I used some of what I used the previous week (cocky-funny) to open each and every set immediately (which in itself is a small victory), but this time I toned it way down after opening. Mixed sets were the best, because I would focus all my attention on the guy(s) and ignore the cute girls completely. The girls would vie for attention, and eventually I’d give it to them. Lesson 4: Ignore the person you really want to meet and make friends with her friends first; Don’t be over-anxious.

I definitely talked less than I did the previous week, and it helped. I didn’t come off as the guy desperate for attention, but I wasn’t the pathetic wallflower, either. There’s a place between both extremes, and it’s definitely the place to be. Also, I ended conversations while they were still entertaining, so the next time I ran into the person/people at the party, there was still that feeling of entertainment (rather than “oh, there’s that boring guy, with whom I have nothing more to talk about”).

Prior to leaving, I was invited to a follow-up party after New Year’s, which I graciously accepted. I grabbed my remaining root beer bottles and left Maureen’s party feeling even better than I had the previous week.

Next up: Holiday Happy Hour with co-workers this week!

Man, oh man. I haven’t had internet access at home for a week and a half, and there’s no estimate on when I will regain it. My cable service provider is switching from Adelphia to Comcast, and they’re taking their sweet time to transition modems over to the new service.

What this means is that I only have Internet access at work, which means that, while I can access my personal email and basic, daily websites, I cannot access sites like eBay or (sporadically) MySpace, because they’re blocked by Sprint’s IT department. I have access to MySpace right now, so I’m taking full advantage to post an update to my blog.

There’s been a lot happening lately. Last week was incredibly stressful. Here are the highlights…

As I may have mentioned previously, Sprint is currently flipping all the contractors on my team into employees. Normally, this would be fine with me, except the fact that they offered me a salary way less than what I’m currently making as a contractor. We’re talking about $15K less. Naturally, I declined the offer and immediately started looking for jobs elsewhere.

I had an immediate (we’re talking same day here) lead on a job at AOL. It would have been an awesome job. I would have been a full-time professional blogger for their site. I would have been writing a column (or blog) on technology and working with on-air personalities from Tech TV. It sounded like a dream job. And it disappeared like a dream, when they offered the job to someone else.

I was presented with another opportunity at Network Solutions. It was for a UXD (user experience design) position on a small, 12-person team. Although I would love to move over to UXD (I even tried to get on the UXD team at Sprint), I had a feeling they were looking for someone who had prior experience designing website wireframes. I also wasn’t sure I wanted a heads-down kind of job, when my skills lie in interacting and project managing large teams of designers, editors and developers. We mutually decided I wasn’t the man for the UXD job.

So, that leaves me with possibly 3 months at Sprint (my contract was extended), or a new job in the next couple weeks. Obviously, the loss of Internet access at home has made this situation irritatingly torpid.