txilife.com » Greg http://www.txilife.com Fri, 14 May 2010 19:28:08 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 When work stuff becomes useful in your personal life http://www.txilife.com/2010/05/personal-brand-management/ http://www.txilife.com/2010/05/personal-brand-management/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 19:28:08 +0000 Greg http://www.txilife.com/?p=2343 A couple weeks ago I changed the title of my wedding blog from “Greg and Rachel are Getting Married” to “Greg Baugues and Rachel Lazelle Are Getting Married”.

Small, unnecessarily formal change… right?

If you Googled me prior to the change, the top result would have been a cheesy interview I gave to an entrepreneurial website seven years ago. Our blog was buried half-way down the page.

Why? Because on a site full of information about Rachel and I, only a single page had the phrase 100% of people use when looking for me online — my full name.

By simply changing the name of our wedding blog I created forty pages of content with “Greg Baugues” and “Rachel Lazelle” in the title, establishing our blog as the definitive source for information about us and boosting it to top of search results for our names.

What shows up when people Google you?

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]]> http://www.txilife.com/2010/05/personal-brand-management/feed/ 0 Lucas is Leaving http://www.txilife.com/2010/05/lucas-is-leaving/ http://www.txilife.com/2010/05/lucas-is-leaving/#comments Thu, 13 May 2010 21:22:02 +0000 Greg http://www.txilife.com/?p=2331 Tomorrow will be Lucas’ last day.

Lucas was the first full-time Table XI employee. For the last couple of years he has been working remotely from Victoria, BC where he and his wife completed their post-graduate education. He will be relocating to Vancouver to take a job with TaskTop, a software process management company founded by the researcher with whom he almost did his PhD.

For all intents and purposes, this is Lucas’ dream job, and while we are incredibly sad to see him go, we can’t help but wish him all the best.

Obviously time for him to go.

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]]> http://www.txilife.com/2010/05/lucas-is-leaving/feed/ 0 Table XI Bikes http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/table-xi-bikes/ http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/table-xi-bikes/#comments Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:02:56 +0000 Greg http://www.txilife.com/?p=2321 Here’s a shot of the bike racks right outside our office. From front to back that’s Erik’s bike, Samantha’s bike and my bike.

Erik and Samantha are hardcore and ride to work all winter long.  I’m kind of a little girl when it comes to the cold, so I just started riding again a couple weeks ago when the temp rised above 50.

Riding my bike in Chicago is one of my favorite activities.  There is no better way to get around and experience this incredible city.

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]]> http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/table-xi-bikes/feed/ 0 Matt went and got himself an iPad http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/matt-went-and-got-himself-an-ipad/ http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/matt-went-and-got-himself-an-ipad/#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:14:41 +0000 Greg http://www.txilife.com/?p=2299 He’s only had it for a couple hours, but his initial review is that it’s “pretty sweet.”

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]]> http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/matt-went-and-got-himself-an-ipad/feed/ 1 We are hiring http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/we-are-hiring/ http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/we-are-hiring/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:04:57 +0000 Greg http://www.txilife.com/?p=2269 We’re blowing up over here. Business has been good and we are about to start a couple of really large projects that will be keeping us busy for a long time.

And since work/life balance is very important at Table XI, we are looking to hire a developer so that John, Erik and Rich can continue spending time with their significant others.

Perks of taking a job here:

  • You get to work at Table XI
  • Umm, just skim some of the past posts on this blog and you’ll get the idea

Check out the job description and drop us an email if you or anyone else you know might be interested.


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]]> http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/we-are-hiring/feed/ 0 Table XI does well by eating well http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/table-xi-does-well-by-eating-well/ http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/table-xi-does-well-by-eating-well/#comments Fri, 02 Apr 2010 20:15:17 +0000 Greg http://www.txilife.com/?p=2255 Medill Reports wrote an article about us called Tech consulting firm does well by eating well.  The article gives a background of who we are and what we do, but the highlight is the video of Ellen putting on a cooking demonstration.

Speaking of cooking, yesterday Ellen made for us Tortilla Espagnola with Spanish potato, caramelized onion, and piquillo pepper omelet. The salad had sherry-mustard vinaigrette, and the dates were stuffed with manchego and wrapped with serrano ham.

Ridiculous, no?

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]]> http://www.txilife.com/2010/04/table-xi-does-well-by-eating-well/feed/ 0 Some videos for you to watch http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/some-videos-for-you-to-watch/ http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/some-videos-for-you-to-watch/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:41:35 +0000 Greg http://www.txilife.com/?p=2219 We’re still working on collecting pictures from everyone and putting them online.  In the meantime, here are some videos.

Playa Grande
Playa Grande means “Big Beach”.


Hotel Bula Bula
Seven of us stayed at this ten-room hotel & restaurant/bar. The most succinct way for me to describe the vibe of Hotel Bula Bula is to say “you check in at the bar”.

Water Taxi
Playa Grande is a short water taxi away from Taramido. Costs about the same as a ride on the CTA.

Matt Lineen to the Rescue
This actually isn’t from Costa Rica, but rather Matt responding to an urgent client issue earlier this week.

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]]> http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/some-videos-for-you-to-watch/feed/ 0 Table XI Talks http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/tablexi-talks/ http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/tablexi-talks/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:48:05 +0000 Greg http://www.txilife.com/?p=2157 We have a bunch of interesting, smart people at TableXI with a wide range of interests. We took some time in Costa Rica to learn from each other’s expertise through some informal discussions.

Like the pet projects, discussion topics were solicited ahead of time.  We had three sessions, each with two discussions running simultaneously so that people had to choose which talks to participate in.

Discussions were not limited to TXIers; significant-others joined in on the fun so that we’d have more perspective from the non-nerd contingent.  Alcohol was provided to make the conversation more interesting.

Topics included:

Cooking for Neanderthals
With so many cooks running around TableXI, the question was asked “how does a man who has never cooked before start?”

Digital or Paper – The Future of Books
Samantha, with her background in publishing, led a discussion about the future of publishing and whether pulp will still have a place in 10 years.

Something you do differently from the masses, and you’re pretty sure everyone else is doing it wrong
I started the conversation talking about why I run in funny-looking shoes. We moved onto topics like why Josh is renting instead of buying, why Ellen hasn’t fled to the suburbs with her children, and why these 7,064 people have no idea what they’re talking about:

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]]> http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/tablexi-talks/feed/ 0 We also worked http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/we-also-worked/ http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/we-also-worked/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:48:55 +0000 Greg http://www.txilife.com/?p=2029 In addition to lying by the pool, swimming in the ocean and swinging from trees, we actually managed to get some very productive work done. Costa Rica allowed us the opportunity to have discussions that simply would not have been possible during a typical work week.  Tuesday and Thursday were fully dedicated to Table XI business, with our work day going from 9am to 10pm.

One of the activities we engaged in was the rapid development of our own “pet projects”. Prior to heading to Costa Rica we solicited ideas from everyone at Table XI and ended up with a list of over 25 possible projects to choose from.  Ideas ranged from content based websites to iPhone games to ways to use technology to modernize the public education system.

Three teams were created by grouping TXIers that normally don’t work together.  Each of the teams selected a project to rapidly prototype and evaluate for commercial viability.   Ideas were brainstormed, wireframes were created and code was written.  After two days, groups presented their projects to the rest of Table XI for feedback.

Overall it was a great exercise in team building and rapidly vetting, brainstorming and developing ideas. In fact, a couple of the ideas were intriguing enough to receive some post-costa-rican attention.  We won’t say too much about them other than yes, that is a keyboard cat in Jordan’s presentation.

Jordan presenting on his group's project.

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]]> http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/we-also-worked/feed/ 0 Things I learned in Costa Rica http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/things-i-learned-in-costa-rica/ http://www.txilife.com/2010/03/things-i-learned-in-costa-rica/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:22:26 +0000 Greg http://www.txilife.com/?p=2047 On his previous visit to Costa Rica, Josh drove two hours before realizing he and his fiance had left their passports in the safe back at their hotel.

When Ellen was 20 she read The Joy of Cooking cover to cover.

Erik is the only TXIer with anything close to a useful grasp on the Spanish language. A bunch of us know how to say “hola”, “gracias”, and “arroz con pollo”.

Samantha can name all the books of the Old Testament in order.

If you tie a bunch of $60 video cards together, you can build a processor as fast as a supercomputer. -Byron

There are over 20 state parks within driving distance of Lucas’ home in Victoria, B.C.

“Mr. Bean” in Spanish is “El Senor Frijole”.  -Daniel

Matt once programmed Blackjack on his TI-82 calculator while sitting in church.

John Gore likes pina colodas, and it hasn’t rained in Playa Grande since November.

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