Name? Job? Purpose in Life?
Angela Ehrenzeller. Project Manager. Try to make other people’s better.

Would you rather be stuck in a giant’s sweaty pocket or his shower drain for eternity?
Hmmm…both of those are rather disgusting. The idea of being continuously suffocated with giant sweat does not seem appealing, but I don’t like the idea of spending my days alone in a dark drain and being drowned with giant sweat in the end as well. At least if I was in his pocket I could get out and explore the world, seeing things from a giant’s perspective. Let’s hope my life never comes to someone offering me this decision.

If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?
To quote Facebook- “It’s complicated.”

Ok. Why the nickname, “The Lamp”?
When interviewed, I was asked what type of furniture I would be and why. I’m not sure why this happened, but I didn’t hesitate even a second and replied “I’d be a lamp because I like to shine.” I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Favorite meal?
I love tomato soup, oatmeal, guacamole, trail mix and breakfast burritos. Not all in one meal, but I love them all.

If you had a super power, what would it be?
I’d read people’s minds. Imagine all the crazy stuff even the guy sitting next to you on the bus is thinking.

What’s your favorite smell in the world? Least favorite?
I love the smell of toast and of coffee. My least favorite would be fried food.

Most embarrassing moment?
I have a lot, sadly. One time while living in Spain, my boyfriend and I had planned to meet on one of the corners of a main square by a McDonald’s. I was standing there waiting for him and pulled out a book to start reading. An old man quickly approached me and started asking me questions like “Did I live close?” “Was I married?” and, instead of being smart and pretending I didn’t speak Spanish I answered him. Luckily, my boyfriend walked up in the middle of the situation and the man walked away. My boyfriend then informed me that I had been standing on the most well-known hooker corner in Madrid. My granny clothes and book must have just seemed like a disguise I guess.

If you were a color, what color would you be and why?
I would be green because it’s mystical, lively and comforting all at the same time. It’s energetic.

Do you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain?
Piña Coladas are a bit sweet for my liking, but if you’re caught in the rain I suppose it wouldn’t hurt…and, I AM into yoga but can’t handle champagne.

If you could describe yourself using 3 words, what would they be?
Loyal, active and goofy.

Frase española predilecta?
“que te cagas”

If Imulus was a person, what would he/she be like?
I think s/he would be a s/he. A brilliant, eclectic, goofbally hot mess.

Yes, I’m talking about a fabulous new place called Modmarket. It’s located in the 29th Street Mall, next to Noodles, over by the Staples. I’ll admit I was a little hesitant to try it, since I didn’t actually realize it was a restaurant from the outside. I thought maybe it was an actual market for shopping or even a furniture store. Don’t ask why. I’m not really sure.

Anyway, every Friday, the Imulus owners take us out to lunch. Yay! And someone suggested we try this new place. We’re all hooked. I highly suggest you go check it out for yourself, but let me tell you a few of my favorite aspects.

LOVE the menu. It’s mostly salad, soup, and pizza. But, it’s unique. I have been getting a side salad called the Wintergreen (although I’ve tried the tomato basil soup, the cashew butternut squash soup, and the goat cheese pizza, and all are amazing!) Anyway, the Wintergreen salad is a hefty proportion for even a side salad (and I like my food), and it has mixed greens, walnuts, apples, roasted potato, goat cheese, fat-free honey herb dressing. See? Different? But, melts in your mouth. Amazing.

Let’s also take a moment to praise the $2 glass of wine. Not a little sippy cup full. A GLASS of wine. Good stuff too. To [sort of] quote the cashier, “Other places charge as much for a glass of wine that they spent on the bottle itself. We think that’s crap.”

After I received my receipt, right there on the print out is all of the nutrient information. I love it. An honest place, trying to do the right thing, and help everyone out.

Anyway, my wintergreen salad:

• Cost: $4.75
• Calories: 230
• Fat (g): 16
• Carbs (g): 17
• Protein (g): 9

The restaurant’s decor is also great. Very clean, modern, a little funky. It’s kind of narrow, and it’s not huge, but there are still plenty of places to sit and people are in and out pretty quickly. It’s also a great place to grab and go, since they are super fast. (The pizza takes a bit longer since it has to be made, but a salad from start to payment takes all of 3 minutes.)

Other fabulous items: the menu changes often (so you know the ingredients are fresh), they offer free wifi, even the silverware and plastic-ware were clearly chosen with an eye for detail.

Ok, enough gushing. Try it out for yourself. Just try to prove me wrong.

What did I miss? What are you favorite things about working from home?

The artists influenced by MJ can’t even be counted. He was by far one of my favorite musicians and dancers. Although he lost it in his late years, there are still several hits that are popular for all generations living today. In fact, some of my friends and I still have a pretty rockin’ Billie Jean dance on tape somewhere.

He will be missed, and I hope everyone remembers and realizes what a true genius Michael was. My thoughts are with family, friends, and fans right now.

Obviously, this was a difficult week for many celebrities and their families. I would also like to express my condolences to Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, and Billy Mays.

If Imulus were a person, what would its personality be?
They would be someone who constantly tries to excel and push to better themselves. A person who would be a professional but also not have a bug up their ass. They would be so excited about their work, they find it hard to fall asleep at times.

Star Wars or Star Trek?
During my childhood years, it was all about Wookies, lightsabers, and X-Wing fighters. At 5 years old, my Dad and I soldered LED’s all over my Millennium Falcon. Although, as I got into high school and my love for science grew, I started watching Star Trek:TNG and also got hooked on the movies with the original cast. It’s amazing my brain has enough room for programming languages, OOP concepts, and database schemas with all the obscure, nerdy knowledge in there. KAHHHNNNN!!!

What is your most embarrassing story?
Blowing myself up. During my early part of college, my friend and I were filming a scene for a computer game we were making. I had strapped a home-made black powder charge to my chest to simulate a gun shot. We had put a little too much powder in the charge and after depressing the button to ignite it, a fireball the size of a beach ball fired from my chest. I wasn’t on fire but I went against everything I was taught by running around, arms flailing, trying to find water to dump on me. After the fiasco was done, my chest and neck looked like they had a bad sun burn. Thankfully, my Mom was there to comfort the wounds and the ego. The most embarrassing part is the video still exists out there. Somewhere.

If money were no object, what would you do with your life?
I would try to build a house. I know a little bit about most aspects in house construction but it would be nice having the money and time to figure it all out. Another area I would like to dabble in is creating independent computer games. Like game development, I’m ecstatic to be in a field where so many talented people can come together to produce a product from the idea phase to seeing it fully functional on screen. Or I can combine the two and build an old school arcade cabinet and then sleep on a hammock at the beach all day long.

What do you do for fun?
Listen to dirty talk radio with my headphones on causing my co-workers to look at me weird as I’m laughing out loud. Recently, I have found a love for cooking. My wife helped me discover that the art of cooking is really the science of chemistry. Someday, during some free time, I need to watch the dozens of Good Eats episodes saved on my TiVo.

Favorite Programmer joke?
“Keyboard not found. Press ‘F1′ to RESUME.”

Bonus joke. Warning… its very dirty:
4920736177206d79206769726c667269656e6420666f6f6c696e672061726f756e6420776
9746820616e6f74686572206775792e204920616c6d6f73742066656c6c206f66662074
6865206c6164646572206a65726b696e67206f66662e

What does curiosity smell like?
Smells like victory. Humanity has grown because we are, by nature, curious. We have made some pretty amazing discoveries because we were curious. I feel curiosity is how we learn where we are, where we’re going, and why we’re here. Answering 2 out of the 3 is a good average.

What made you decide to co-found a company?
My father was a big entrepreneur and I inherited that particular gene. Since late high school, I’ve started three businesses. Third time is a charm. When you start a company, you have to know your weaknesses and you need people to complement your strengths. My two previous businesses did not have the diverse talent needed to be successful. Given the opportunity to work with two of the most talented and well-rounded people I’ve met was a no brainer.

In one word for each, describe the 3 owners.
I have one word for all three:
Passionatededicatedinspirational (that’s a word right? I’m using it in Scrabble.)

What are you afraid of?
I’m afraid of losing a finger. It’s a little selfish I know, but I feel my productivity would suffer dramatically. When I code, I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts and it is second nature for me to use all my fingers for production. It would take awhile to re-train my body and mind to get back to the speed before an accident like that. That is why I never go bowling; those ball returns are dangerous!

If there was one place in the world you could travel, where would it be?
Tokyo, Japan. I would love to learn Japanese and visit Tokyo one day. Being a huge gadget man, what better place to visit!? It’s a country I find amazing with its culture and society constantly trying to better themselves. It seems like a beautiful place where architecture blends both ancient and modern ideas.

If you could sit in a bathtub full of something, what would you chose?
I first thought a bathtub full of money, but I’m sure the Secret Service would arrest me for mutilation of national bank obligations. My second option would be a bathtub full of foam. I imagine I would feel like I was floating and that experience would be very relaxing. My bad attempt at weightlessness.

What is your favorite/least favorite part of your job?
The thing I most look forward to is coming to our building and working on cool applications formed from the heads of some very talented people. I love thinking of smart yet simple ways to solve problems. It gets my blood pumping to find a solution and to write an elegant, reusable method for a project. My least favorite part of the job is the random bug. No matter how hard you try to reproduce it, it never shows it’s ugly head until you’ve THOUGHT the bug was annihilated. Then, out of no where, the bug is glowing on the screen, laughing in your dumb face, mocking you the whole time.

What’s your favorite movie?
Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Great sci-fi story with, (back then), state-of-the-art effects. What more could you ask for!

If you were a font, what font would you be? (Yes, this one is for the designers entertainment only. I realize you hate me for this.)
Fixedsys: Simple, down to the point, old fashion, and even funny to some.

I know people love to talk about themselves, but frankly I don’t think anyone needs to know what I’m doing every 5 minutes. I guess if I have something to say, I say it to the relevant people. I also personally don’t give a shit what you’re up to. I mean that out of love. I swear. I love to know where my friends are and what they are up to, but I really don’t need a play by play. Knowing you’re at work or out for the night is just fine. I just don’t care that you’re brainstorming for a big project, just beat someone at Halo, or just ran out to the bathroom. Really. Who really needs that information?

I’m all for a personal IM conversation with my friends, but I don’t need the whole world to know. I guess that’s why I don’t update my facebook status. I only write on people’s walls. That may be why the “mini-feed” pisses me off. Sure it invites more conversations, and I know people can view whatever if we’re friends, I just don’t think my friends need to know every freaking thing I do. I’m all for advances in technology, especially in our industry, but isn’t there a point where we’ve lost all personal communication?

I’ll give Twitter some credit for putting like-minded folks together. I think it’s a great system for bouncing ideas off other people or getting help, but do I really need to know that you had a snowy drive into work this morning? If the point of Twitter is to get information from people and share ideas, great, but that’s clearly not what it’s used for, at least not exclusively.

I’m sure the hate mail will come soon from Twitter defenders, but please someone explain why I should Twitterfy my life!!

For those of you who have never heard of these, it’s basically a summary of a meeting, phone call, or even quick discussion you’ve had with a client. (It doesn’t hurt to do this with internal meetings too.) After every meeting, send a summary and list of action items to your team and your client. Trust me. It’s worth it.

The call report does NOT need to be an extensive document. It just needs to cover the basics. If you have a client who tends to “forget” what you talked about, you may need to be a bit more specific. No matter the level of detail, just do one. Every time.

I can’t tell you how many times there has been a conflict about what we decided, a task unassigned, or a lack of follow up on an urgent request. With the call report, this is practically impossible. I have had times where the client was quite upset with a situation and couldn’t believe we chose to go down a certain path for his design. Based on a meeting we had over two months ago, I vaguely remembered him requesting something along those lines, but I honestly had no idea what we decided. I feared we were in for a huge change (and a significant loss of money). Low and behold…the magical call report. I pulled up the old document that was sent to my client the day after the meeting, and copied the exact statement saying he agreed to the change. Not only did he insist on this change, but he also agreed that it was out of scope. The call report saved us hours of headaches and a bundle of money. This is not just a random example. These types of things happen at least once a week, and the meeting report has saved my team, my company, and myself a lot of problems. So, I beg of you. Take the time. It’s worth it. And who knows? It may even save a life or two.

While, I commend companies for doing this environmentally-friendly push, I think they are going about it the wrong way. Most companies seem to be doing this as the next trendy, cool thing to do. They are using this opportunity to be leaders in this category, and if they truly feel that this is the right thing to do, then bravo! However, if they really think it’s the right thing to do for the industry, why aren’t they encouraging everyone in the industry to do the same, instead of using it to prove their own brand’s worth? Consumers are smarter and more cynical than we give them credit for. Personally, I think the average consumer can see right through this.

Attention Brand Marketers: Don’t use this “green” opportunity as a brand differentiator! It may seem like the thing to do now, but if this really is the way of the future, within months every company will be pushing for green and showing off their capabilities. Don’t rely on a one-time fad to be your companies brand benefit. I beg you to look inside your company and find the true differentiating benefit and really focus on that in your advertising campaigns. The green effort is an amazing thing to do, and great to talk about in your marketing. Keep doing it! But, don’t rely on that to get you more business. It’s obvious you found a trend to latch onto and a big following for it. Try to stay a step ahead of the fad and don’t just look to find the next trendy thing. Your company was made for a reason. Obviously there was a need for your product, service, or whatever it is you offer. Once you show consumers why you exist, and reasons to believe that inherit benefit you can offer them, I have no doubt your company will succeed.