CV Vs. Resume

I updated my CV today to include my awesome grant writing experience with Grassroots Nepal and some new writing clients. I know that CVs aren’t really standard in the U.S. outside of science and academic industries, but I really prefer them to resumes. They include less fluff, while also allowing more detailed information about your experience. It’s also nice that it’s more acceptable for them to be a bit long. They let your accomplishments speak for themselves, rather than trying to woo employers with a creative design or witty descriptions of yourself.

I’d love to hear a success story of anyone who’s gotten a job in a non-science industry in the U.S. using a CV instead of a resume. I wonder how it would go over if I started sending my CV to potential writing clients instead of sending my resume.

Wine Grapes

I want to jump on a giant batch of wine grapes, like these ones at Antica Terra. Unfortunately (or actually probably fortunately), they care too much about sanitation to use feet to crush the grapes.

2006 De Ponte Pinot Noir

2006 was a great year for Oregon pinots. I absolutely love this wine. It’s not as light as many pinots. It’s much bigger and very flavorful.

Google Music Beta

I live in Portland, Oregon, which is the test city for Google Music Beta. I’ve had it on my computer for a few weeks, and decided it was time to write down my thoughts for future users.

Google Music is a new service from Google that allows you to download (upload?) all of the music on your computer to your Google Music account. You can then access your entire music library through Google Music on any browser. It’s a very useful idea for traveling music lovers, but my experience using it has not been 100% positive.

Here’s a screenshot of what my music library currently looks like. The music player is easy to use and pretty straightforward.

To add music to your Google Music library, you have to download an application called “Music Manager”. It was easy to install and start using, but I didn’t like that it automatically put an icon in the upper right hand corner of my screen. It also adds songs pretty slowly. As you can see from the screenshot, I only have a few hundred songs added so far out of thousands. This is after having the program running for quite a few hours, maybe 10-20. I have pretty fast cable internet, and I think that downloading music is usually quicker than this.

It actually seems like it would be nice that the music downloads slowly, so that it doesn’t use up all of your bandwidth and slow everything else down. However, having the music manager running does slow down my internet connection DRASTICALLY, despite not adding many songs. Before I changed its settings, the music manager would also automatically turn on and start downloading at the highest speed possible when I turned on my computer. The program also sometimes acts crazy and refuses to close once open. I really dislike when companies make programs default to automatically starting up with the computer and when they have them automatically use up as much memory or bandwidth as possible. It slows down the computer and is something that people without enough computer savvy might not know how to remedy. For example, my mom used to have several programs startup with her computer, and she didn’t realize that this was the reason behind her computer’s slowness and problems.

Anyway, if you get the program, I highly recommend finding going into system preferences and changing the settings so that it has a slower download speed and does not start up automatically.

All-in-all, the program is very useful, and its flaws can possibly be chalked up to the fact that it’s still in its test phase. Google is pretty nice in that it occasionally offers you free songs and offers this service for free. Some of the music it offered me seems kind of random, so I keep finding songs in my library and not knowing why they are there. I have a few invites left, so let me know if you want one!

 

 

 

 

 

Because I Love Grapes

I love grapes, and I’ve managed to take several grape-related photographs recently. I highly recommend NuGrape Soda for its strong grape flavor and dark purple color. I got mine from Kenny & Zuke’s in Portland, Oregon, but I hear Pine State also has it. The first three photos are all from De Ponte Cellars in Dundee, Oregon. I love their pinot noir, beautiful view and grape decor.

De Ponte Cellars

I helped my friend Tan (with his catering and sommelier company, Crudo) plate a bunch of hors d’oeuvres for an event at De Ponte Cellars winery yesterday evening in Dundee, Oregon. Everyone at the winery was very nice, and all of the Du Ponte Dundee Hills Pinot Noir that we tried were delicious too. I think my favorite year that we tried was the 2002. I got to take home a bottle of 2009, which I expect will also be amazing.

Tan brought pickled cherries, which we decorated with edible flowers. They were a very interesting and tasty combination of sweet, salty and sour.

Macaroons, which tasted great with all the pinots.

The main preparation work I did was to slice hundreds of bread slices for Tan’s pate and rilletes. I think I can finally slice bread perfectly straight! Tan pays a lot of attention to detail with his plating. We garnished each hor d’oeuvre carefully and arranged them on the plates facing the same direction.

Oregon wine country is so beautiful! This photo is of Archery Summit, not De Ponte, but it’s right next door.

Berry Picking Photo Diary

Berry picking is one of the things I love most about summer in Portland. We drove to Sauvie’s island to try and pick blueberries, but they weren’t ripe enough. We ended up getting a few marion berries, but most of them weren’t ripe either. I think raspberries are the best right now.

The Simple Things

I love summer in Portland. The warm weather puts me in such a better mood than winter does. Sometimes it’s the simple things that make you happiest…

Boyfriend bringing over Grapevines and a poodle.

 

My friend Alex at his birthday party wearing the raspberries I picked him on his fingers. His party was on the patio at North 45 on NW 21st in Portland. I highly recommend North 45, especially the happy hour from 4 to 6. We had 3 dollar beers and a bunch of delicious ribs. I also recommend Sauvie’s Island for berry picking. We picked 7 pounds of raspberries, and they only cost 12 dollars! So much cheaper than the store, and it was really fun.

 

My second attempt at using the OPI Black Shatter nail polish. It’s still not great, but it looks way better over pink than it did on top of silver.

 

Pretty pink flowers in a Mirror Pond bottle. I’m not sure what type they are, but their color is so vibrant!

Summer Evening

Greg, my sister Audrey and I went up to the view spot overlooking Portland on 4th of July. There was a small field of clovers with tons of ladybugs. I love summer!

These two made friends.

We were somewhat disappointed at the view of the fireworks. The viewspot is great for seeing all of downtown and also looking North towards Vancouver, but downtown’s buildings obscured some of the main firework show. I guess we should have anticipated this problem. So many people go to the Pittock Mansion for fireworks, which has a similar view, that we thought the view spot must be nice too.

Ban Leaf-Blowers

I’ve recently started having issues with a public menace: leaf-blowers. I live in Northwest Portland, Oregon, and landscapers are constantly using leaf-blowers all spring and summer long. This morning, my boyfriend and I asked a landscaper across the street if the property management requires him to use a leaf-blower. He said no. We asked him if he would be willing to consider a broom, and he rudely said no and that he had to leave to go blow leaves away at six other properties.

I might have given him this angry face a little bit, but he deserved it because I had just gotten dust in my eyes from his leaf-blower… from ACROSS THE STREET.

Anyway, I hate leaf-blowers for several reasons.

• The noise they make is so annoying that it’s impossible to sleep or get any work done when there’s a leaf blower running nearby.
• Even if you cross the street to get away from them, they can still get dust in your eyes. This article in the New Yorker mentions that road dust kicked up from leaf-blowers can stay in the air for days and contain toxic compounds.
• They use gasoline, which further pollutes the air.
• They are a lazy choice. Does a rake or a broom really take that much more effort to use? No! I’ve used both and neither was difficult.
• Leaf-blowers do not create a neat pile of leaves like rakes do. Most people who use them just blow the leaves and dust into the street, sidewalks and other nearby yards. They don’t really clean debris up efficiently; they just move it to someone else’s space.

I started a new Twitter account  to support the banning of leaf-blowers. Please follow BanLeafBlowers on Twitter to support the cause and learn more as I research the negative impacts of leaf-blowers and  how to go about getting a leaf-blower ban on the ballot in Portland, Oregon.