Baby Shower, Leigh, and MathScore
We just had a baby shower at Pearlin's parents' house. Pearlin is due in August, and we got a great laugh from some of the games. Our first game involved baby pictures of me, Eddie, Vivian, Kenney, and Pearlin. Our guests had to guess who was who. One of our friends who knows us really well was very disappointed that she only got 4 of them right. Shally, however, got all 8 right! She was the only one to get them all right, so kudos to her! Our prize was most welcome - a bundtlet from Nothing Bundt Cakes. Surprisingly to us, very few of our guests had ever played the "guess mommy's waist size with a string of yarn" game. As a result, most of the guys overestimated by a good six inches or more. My mom came close at 3rd place. However, Kailin made the best guess and Nancy (who has played before) came in second.
See the pretty cake that Kailin made for us? Yes, Kailin is a professional! At parties, Kailin would often bring 2 or more original desserts for everybody to try, and they always tasted great. In Los Angeles, she spent some time as an assistant pastry chef. Now, she operates her own business here: http://baked7.wordpress.com.
We've patronized Kailin's business a couple of times already. However, for the baby shower, we simply asked Kailin to bake a cake. We had no idea that she would go the extra mile and put together a wedding-grade baby shower cake! The block on top has the word "BABY" around the sides and "P" for Pearlin on top. In addition to looking great, her strawberry cake was delicious. We had a lot of leftovers, so we actually froze the block just like you would with a wedding top!
This past week, Leigh came to visit us from Boston. As a result, I'm personally losing a lot of sleep. We're playing Age of Empires 3 way too late, but it's loads of fun working cooperatively to overcome steep odds. In a good game on expert difficulty, I will often need reinforcements from Leigh to survive. I've become a defensive specialist who tries to survive long enough for Leigh's economy to pick up so that he can form a large army and go on the offensive. Last night was the first time that we were able to beat 2 expert computer players, a level of accomplishment I didn't think we'd achieve in such a short time.
We also took Leigh to see some homes in Los Altos and Palo Alto. He's thinking of moving here, and it would be great to have him. If you've ever lived in Boston, you know the Mexican food just isn't any good, so one of the first things he ate when he visited was a burrito. Otherwise, we've been taking him to our favorite Asian restaurants, including A&J in Cupertino (niu rou mian) and Su Hong in Palo Alto (best xiao long bao in the Bay Area). Since my parents were here for the weekend for the baby shower, we also treated my parents to Taipan in Palo Alto. They have very upscale dim sum that will run you about 20 bucks each. They have immaculate decor, white tablecloths, and very high quality food. Every single dish was done well, and we particularly loved their bbq pork changfun. Thankfully, you really do get what you pay for at Taipan.
Meanwhile, Michelle, who helps me with sales and marketing for MathScore.com, came up with our "Math Stimulus Plan" promotion for the summer. It turns out that her idea was our best marketing idea in quite some time! Due to the weak economy, school budgets are being slashed. We decided it would be a nice gesture to give up any potential summer school revenue and just give away MathScore subscriptions to any K-12 summer school program from now through August 31, 2009. The response has been very strong, and I'm swamping Michelle with leads. The new promotion has generated interest from as far away as Pakistan, Australia, Germany, and Mexico! Our marketing campaign involved a press release, snail mail letters, website links, the http://www.mathstimulusplan.com domain name, and a newsletter ad.
Given the success of our math stimulus plan, I'm starting to think I should try a similar campaign some time for individual subscribers.
See the pretty cake that Kailin made for us? Yes, Kailin is a professional! At parties, Kailin would often bring 2 or more original desserts for everybody to try, and they always tasted great. In Los Angeles, she spent some time as an assistant pastry chef. Now, she operates her own business here: http://baked7.wordpress.com.
We've patronized Kailin's business a couple of times already. However, for the baby shower, we simply asked Kailin to bake a cake. We had no idea that she would go the extra mile and put together a wedding-grade baby shower cake! The block on top has the word "BABY" around the sides and "P" for Pearlin on top. In addition to looking great, her strawberry cake was delicious. We had a lot of leftovers, so we actually froze the block just like you would with a wedding top!
This past week, Leigh came to visit us from Boston. As a result, I'm personally losing a lot of sleep. We're playing Age of Empires 3 way too late, but it's loads of fun working cooperatively to overcome steep odds. In a good game on expert difficulty, I will often need reinforcements from Leigh to survive. I've become a defensive specialist who tries to survive long enough for Leigh's economy to pick up so that he can form a large army and go on the offensive. Last night was the first time that we were able to beat 2 expert computer players, a level of accomplishment I didn't think we'd achieve in such a short time.
We also took Leigh to see some homes in Los Altos and Palo Alto. He's thinking of moving here, and it would be great to have him. If you've ever lived in Boston, you know the Mexican food just isn't any good, so one of the first things he ate when he visited was a burrito. Otherwise, we've been taking him to our favorite Asian restaurants, including A&J in Cupertino (niu rou mian) and Su Hong in Palo Alto (best xiao long bao in the Bay Area). Since my parents were here for the weekend for the baby shower, we also treated my parents to Taipan in Palo Alto. They have very upscale dim sum that will run you about 20 bucks each. They have immaculate decor, white tablecloths, and very high quality food. Every single dish was done well, and we particularly loved their bbq pork changfun. Thankfully, you really do get what you pay for at Taipan.
Meanwhile, Michelle, who helps me with sales and marketing for MathScore.com, came up with our "Math Stimulus Plan" promotion for the summer. It turns out that her idea was our best marketing idea in quite some time! Due to the weak economy, school budgets are being slashed. We decided it would be a nice gesture to give up any potential summer school revenue and just give away MathScore subscriptions to any K-12 summer school program from now through August 31, 2009. The response has been very strong, and I'm swamping Michelle with leads. The new promotion has generated interest from as far away as Pakistan, Australia, Germany, and Mexico! Our marketing campaign involved a press release, snail mail letters, website links, the http://www.mathstimulusplan.com domain name, and a newsletter ad.
Given the success of our math stimulus plan, I'm starting to think I should try a similar campaign some time for individual subscribers.
posted by Steven | 4:43 PM
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