Entries Tagged as 'feedburner'

Professional Wedding Photos

March 30th, 2011 · 1 Comment

We were lucky enough to have Steve Koo, an award-winning Chicago photographer (and friend), come out with us to Kauai and photograph our wedding. Steve did such a good job on our engagement photographs in Logan Square. I was excited to see what he’d come up with for the wedding.

We could not be more happy with how Steve captured the spirit of the day and all the little moments and emotions. We love Steve’s style, how saturated the photos are. It went really nicely in the tropical setting. I could not pick just a few favorite photos from the day, so I posted a whole bunch below!

For a more behind-the-scenes account of our wedding day, check out this post.

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Tech Cocktail 14

November 8th, 2010 · No Comments

The last week of October, Jessica and I went to Tech Cocktail. I think this is something like the 14th one they’ve held in Chicago? Back in 2006 our FeedBurner coworker Eric Olson co-founded the event with Frank Gruber and now it has its own conferences and parties in more than a dozen different cities. I just looked up on this rachelleb.. it looks like I missed the first Tech Cocktail, but I attended the 2nd, along with many others. Until last week, though, I hadn’t been to Tech Cocktail for years.

It was nice to check back in. Mostly the same scene. Free drinks. Ron May. In a wheelchair this time. Lots of people. Lots of tech startup demos. Here’s something that’s different: Sponsored by Sprint! Also, you now have to pay admission to get into the event.

About the demos we saw: A lot of them were some version of a daily discount site. One new company was doing ads in games. Their founder told us they were like AdSense but for games… which already exists, so I’m not sure I get that. Another had you sign up for a family style meal through a Facebook and then you’d show up and eat dinner with a bunch of strangers. One was a social wishlist kind of thing. Another had you type in something you wanted to and it would supposedly go out and find deals for you. I used the site as part of the demo and told it I wanted to take a sushi-making class. I know there’s a million places to do this around Chicago. Tech Cocktail was over a week ago. I still haven’t gotten my results from the site. Hm.

Jess and I talked briefly to Brad Feld, who we knew when he was involved in FeedBurner. And then for a bit to Frank, a Tech Cocktail cofounder we know. Frank said he thought that there were about 550 – 600 people there, so it’s good to know the event is still going strong!

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Last Meal at Singha

August 27th, 2010 · 1 Comment

I met up with Paul Baker and Jess today to have lunch at Singha. They are closing in a few days, and I’m sure this will be my last lunch there. Paul Baker loves Singha so much that he went to dinner there last night, lunch today and has plans to have at least one more lunch before they close.

I have mixed feelings. When I worked at FeedBurner we used to always have Singha ordered in for all of our “important” meetings. After we moved into the Google offices, Singha was just a block away. Even though we famously got free lunch at Google, we’d sometimes go out for lunch at Singha for old times sakes. Mostly just the old FeedBurner crew working at Google. Even now, Singha is still just a block from me so I get together with the old FeedBurners for lunch there. I’ve had so many countless crab rangoon and lunches from Singha. It’s very nostalgic for me.

On the otherhand…. who is moving into the Singha space? Sola. I love Sola, have met Chef Wallack, and have kept in occasional contact with her online. I love dinner and brunch at Sola. The cuisine is delicious, with the Asian and Hawaiian influences. Now that we’re not living nearby the Sola, it would be nice to have it nearby work so I could at least lunch there.

On the otherhand… Singhaaaaaaaa… oh such mixed feelings :) .

I guess we’re just going to have to try out Star of Siam after Singha closes and see if it’s as good. It could be the best Thai food in the world, though, and it still wouldn’t be Singha. One more note: The old Sola space will become Ohana, which means “family” in Hawaiian.

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Catching Up With Old Friends at Simone’s

February 8th, 2010 · 2 Comments

Matt was back in town last week so on Wednesday he got a bunch of people together at Simone’s in Pilsen. Matt and I used to work together at FeedBurner and Google and has since moved to Seattle, so it was good to see him again. A few of my other coworkers from those places that I hadn’t seen for some time also came and it was fun to catch up.


Eric, Jessie, Alden, Rachelle, Joe, Jessica, Matt

I also got to see Blagica, who I still keep in touch with online, but don’t get to see in person much any more.

Simone’s has a great beer list, which we sampled heavily. Matt also ordered up an assortment of food like empanadas, pizzas, fries and mozzarella sticks. Later on after a lot of people had left, Sam, who was taking care of us that night, appeared like this: Flaming.

And Matt looked something like this: Day-am!

He blew the fire out and we drank the shots and they were delicious. Sam’s own creation, they tasted like black forest cake. I can’t remember all of the ingredients, but there was Bailey’s and Grand Marnier on the top (which is the part that was lit on fire). Sam would then sprinkle cinnamon over them. Can you see it?

It looks like the shots aren’t on fire because of the flash, but they are. Look again.

We had a couple round of these shots. They were so good. Alden wanted to drink a pint glass of them. But he didn’t.

After a few rounds Matt started to look like this. (He had just flown in that day on a 6 a.m. flight!)

And the bar started to look alien.

Fun night. Nice catching up with friends. And I liked Simone’s, too. It’s somewhat hard to get to, but if you live down by Pilsen or the neighboring hoods you should definitely check it out. The owners of Simone’s are the ones opening Nice Slice Pizza Bar at the end of my block, so I’m very hopeful now.

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Do You Like Our Aretha Hats?

March 23rd, 2009 · 3 Comments

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Fausto, Rachelle, Charles :: Gold Coast, Chicago

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I have no idea who this guy is, but I insisted we get our photo taken together.

Saturday night we went to a party at Charles and Alpana‘s place. I was surprised at how many people they packed into their condo, but before long we saw people we’d met at their place before, ran into people we knew from other places, met a few new people, and ended up having a great time. I knew Fausto and Marc from my FeedBurner days. They had made these Aretha Franklin inauguration-style paper hats that everyone was having fun wearing. It was nice to catch up with them again. At the party, I sure did not eat enough food and drank way too much sparkling wine. Luckily Dallas was feeling charitable Sunday morning and made me English muffins, eggs and breakfast sausage.

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Dapper Dallas back at our place after the party, Logan Square, Chicago

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