... black stars ...

THE NIGERIAN NIGHTMARE. Need I say more? Hopefully Devaris wont sue me for using his coined nickname. The soccer practice was some good stuff – went through the regular small talk after the meeting – all that bonding stuff and then … we moved on to enjoy the heavenly nickelodeon day. Jessica was not smiling on the field – she had us doing drills; no smiles; no warm fuzzy “you have it in you’s”, “you can do it” … just plain cold heartless drill sergeant attitude.





We got to vote on the team color and name; red and black stars respectively. Kwasi was pretty stoked about the team name (for those of you who don’t know, the Ghana team is called “The Black Stars”) – Do you think that it is ironic that he was wearing a Ghana Black Stars Jersey at the park?





Anyway, the games are gonna be every Friday starting on the 10th of November. We are a coed team signed up at the MVP arena. If you would like to join, Jessica’s the contact (littlejp52@yahoo.com).





The practice session was great. We held it at the park next to Rivermark Plaza (this should be the location of future practices I believe??) after which we all strolled over to Jamba Juice and Chipotle for a good filling and some team bonding conversation. Games start 11.10.06 – If you are down, you know who to call. With the NIGERIAN NIGHTMARE aka Dez on our side + the KENYAN WANNABE NIGHTMARE at goalie all other sides are guaranteed to flop. Guarantee!

... october general meeting ...

Saturday October 28th 2006 – Now that’s what you call a perfect day. The skies were all laid out in blue with little puffs of white here and there, sun shone brightly and I could almost see the little face on the sun smiling at me … OK, story times over. It was a great day, the sun didn’t have a smile on it neither did all the mailmen break into song as I walked down the street – The lies Nickelodeon fed me when I was young.





Down to the meat (or whatever your favorite food substance is). The meeting turnout was superb! A lot of new faces – always very welcome. The downside was that our speaker turned out to be available at the last minute because of unexpected commitments that arose from her Chinese homeland. No biggie though – next meeting is definitely gonna feature a patent speech.





As always we kicked it off with the intros – The ego thing is getting to me and next time I may just introduce myself as the king of the world (A coworker once told me that if he was king of the world his first action would be to get off – Something about him being a racist; apparently he dislikes the human race). The intros led into the icebreaker titled “person to person” - I can’t really explain the whole thing – All I can say is that it kept everyone laughing. I got the pictures to prove it.





The good times on the icebreaker led to even better times when Jessica discussed the previous events that we had held the previous month – power lunch and the AIDS walk in which we managed to raise $1765 which was well above out $1000 target. She touched on the upcoming events i.e.
11.03.2006 – Power Lunch at Sonoma Chicken Coop in Downtown San Jose
11.03.2006 – NSBE Fall regional Conference, Newport Beach
11.14.2006 – Black Recruiters Network Networking Event over at Yahoo
11.15.2006 – Second Harvest Food Sort
11.16.2006 – San Jose State BASE Joint Potluck Event
12.16.2006 – Holiday Party/ Gift Exchange at Diego’s
12.06.2006 – Second Harvest Food Sort





Among other programs run initiatives that were touched on were the formation of a NSBE soccer team which starts (everyone’s welcome to join – games start Nov 10th and are held every Friday?), our PCI involvement, our mentorship program with both collegiate and PCI students and the ski trip to be held some time early next year.





Since we didn’t have a scheduled speaker, we held a forum where we discussed the effect of rap and hip-hop on the African American community as far as education, relationships and opportunities are concerned. This was a very HOT topic. A lot of emotional opinions and the likes. We were very blessed to have people with friends in the industry who gave us an insight on what the rap/hip hop entertainment industry is about. After this, the propositions and bond measures on the upcoming ballot were tabled and explained in more detail other than the usual “If you vote yes/no on prop XX you are saying yes/no to Satan” explanations you get on TV. It’s all about empowering the community starting with the man in the mirror.





We closed off after a Q&A session that was held in parallel with the presentation of the propositions. In conclusion, all I really have to say was that the meeting was a great event as always – always fun to meet new people from diverse backgrounds (It is quite amazing how many of the members are from outside California – where are all the California NSBE engineers heading to?) I gotta get back to my Nickelodeon dreams so … see you at the next event.

... Silicon Valley AIDS walk ...

The AIDS walk event was a fun event. The day wasn’t exactly the warmest day ever and the 8AM advertised start time was a little – whats the word – perhaps this would be best summarized by a phrase delivered by a Silicon Valley CEO in response to late meeting times “I don’t wake up that early. The creatures of the night scare me and I’d rather be up once the early birds have finished killing them off.”





Kick off time was at about 10AM and I am more than glad to say that we overshot our $1000 goal by at least 50% (The final numbers are not in yet but we got a rough $1600 count on the monies raised). Thanks to everyone for making this possible. The whole walk was supposed to be a wonderful 6 mile walk but some of us (cough cough) took the shortcut to the shortcut and they walked for a total of 0.5 miles (talk about creatures of the night who had to wilt away so that the real CEO’s could come up and get the work done).





The walk was enjoyable; there weren’t too many complaining about aching body parts at the end of the walk which is a good thing. The conversation was very exquisite and it is amazing how much we as a group tend to have in common (this can be scary). We found a nice balance to this by agreeing to disagree on several issues (which is a great thing because the last thing you want is a non-diverse thinking group of people trying to make a change within a diverse population).





The food aspect of it was great as well – the committee in charge of the walk put a great continental breakfast selection, they fed us along the way, we stopped at starbucks (it is essential to support a Magic Johnson venture especially when walking for AIDS/HIV) and we finally threw down good old Mexican style at LaVictorias. I have to say that at the end of the day, nothing topped the conversations we had during the course of the walk (FYI: A 6 mile walk is a nice way to get to know someone as it translates to a good two hours of talk time) and at the restaurant over lunch. This was definitely a great way to help positively impact our community. Coming up we will have a general body meeting on the 28th of this month. This month’s feature speaker will grace us with knowledge on patents i.e. how to go about patenting ideas, knowing whether your idea is patentable, etc, etc. See you on the 28th! ☺

... october power lunch ...

Well I guess fads will always be a part of life … you know, everything from those huge fly glasses to Africa being the “place to be” for celebrities to those all so common corporate action acronyms we have come to be so accustomed to – you know – the SMARTs (Say, Mean, Achieve, blah blah blah), FLOW (Feel, Love, blah blah). I guess one thing you could say they all have in common is that they all allow us to measure something of importance given the circumstance (you know – the more kids you birth in Africa the cooler you are, the bigger your stunna glasses the more … etc) and in the corporate atmosphere those little action acronyms usually involve the setting of a goal, the drawing up of the game plan, the implementation and finally the evaluation of how close one came to achieving their goal.



I digress a lot. Power lunch was over at a Mongolian BBQ place in Santa Clara a couple of blocks away from the DMV. I personally have been to this place several times and one thing I have to say about the owners of the place is that they are definitely the most chipper people I have ever met. They are always smiling, always so friendly, the food is nice, the bathrooms have that freaking soothing nature music that makes you just wanna sleep in there or something (insert your favorite activity here). No I have not been paid to endorse this place. I will let YELP do the advertising.



Well power lunch has quite some ways since June. I remember 4 people showing up for the first one! That was something. Since then the attendance has held steady between 8 and 10 attendees. One might say that we are definitely not growing in power lunch attendance numbers (statistically this is true) but I defy that thought process and declare the power lunches a huge success. What amazes me about the power lunches is that ever since June, I have always met at least one new person whose name was not on any NSBE roster that I have seen in my short NSBE years. What makes this a big deal is the fact that I know a WHOOLLE ton of people (being a member of the board and having access a lot of databases) yet new people always show up somehow from somewhere out in the blue.



Generally most of the people who show up meet at least three new people every month (if not 8 or 9). You could call it NSBE speed networking without the pressure. Subjectively speaking, I can only say that I am awed at the success of this event. With every first Friday of the month comes an automatic addition into the tighter circle of my associates, the people who will most likely play a very instrumental part as I advance onto the next step of my career, people who I play soccer with in the parks on weekends, people who inform me of events from which I grow in multiple facets of life … put it plainly - it is ridiculously amazing.



OK, corny touchy feeling post is over. Enjoy the pictures. Stay safe. See you next power lunch on either the 3rd or 10th of November (FRC will be held from the 3rd to the 5th of Novemver and as such the power lunch may be moved). Stay safe. Play smart.

... meeting numero uno baby! ...

OK OK. Go easy on me. Well the update is finally here so hopefully everyone can now go easy on me on blog updates. I have a job, a wife and kids (well I don’t really have a wife unless you call a car a wife and my beat up 20 inch black and white TV + my JVC VHS deck kids)





Well we had out first general meeting on the 23rd of September. It was held at Santa Clara University, Bannan Engineering Room #325, 500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, California 95053. Curious why I have the whole address up on the blog?? Well that is because we will be holding all out meetings at this location from this point onwards. The building is kinda funky (you know how those engineers like to model every simple task into a full blown Rubik’s cube solving session) and for future reference you might wanna have someone’s number just in case you get lost within the building.





The initial intention was to actually combine the meeting with one more summer barbeque given that we had an extremely successful bbq in May when we officially kicked off the alumni group … long story short – we decided to do a breakfast event instead as this is the format in which all general body meetings will be modeled after.





The hot items on the agenda were a good old intro session. The icebreaker was interesting – something about everyone standing in a circle and adding an adjective (noun, shmoun, whatever) in from of their name e.g. adventurous Andrea, dynamic Dez … and everyone in the circle had to remember not only everyone’s name but also the little adjective the person chose to put in front of their names. Needless to say it got very comical. The meeting featured and explanation of our goals as a chapter, the things we have accomplished so far and upcoming stuff. (the powerpoint preso is available HERE)





Our first speaker was Mr Zuberi White who spoke on investing. He definitely oozed pure wisdom, Wise man I tell you. His stuff was solid and participation from the meeting attendees was great. Couldn’t have played out any better than it did. Our good friend Devaris threw in a lot of tips – he definitely has walked the investing earth and all in all it was a very informative session. Towards the end of the meeting suggestions were taken on future topics and some of the ones that seemed to shine were patents, real estate, handling workplace drama, diversity at work, interview techniques, even more about investing, …





At the end of the day, the meeting was great – good attendance, great company, ridiculous stories (you wont believe half the stuff that is out there), comedians all over the place, great vibes – very lovely event. October’s meeting should definitely be something to look forward to.

Well – talk about history is over. Lets talk about what’s coming up.

10.06.2006 – POWER LUNCH (yes, this is like in two days from now)
Well, you know what power lunch is all about. How about I tell you where its gonna be. Drumroll please! We shall be having Mongolian BBQ. The location is over in Santa Clara at 3380 El Camino Real, CA, 95051. Time: 11:30 – 1:00PM. Click HERE for more on this place (BTW, my picture is on the wall in this place)

10.06.2006 – In conjunction with San Jose State BASE, we will be taking a couple of PCI kids over to EA Sports so that they can see that it really isn’t all that bad being a geeky computer engineer.

10.06.2006 – Ira Dearing who happens to be a very important NSBE associate who is also on the San Francisco Opera board invites us all to attend THIS free opera event at Stanford.

10.08.2006 - One of our members, Kevin Jones, invites everyone to show up for a play "The taming of the shrew" put up by the African American Shakespeare Company. Check out THIS link for more details.

10.15.2006 – In an effort to give back to our community, we will be participating in the annual Silicon Valley AIDS walk. Please join us in supporting this cause either by:
1. Joining our team “NSBE Silicon Valley Alumni Extension” HERE
All the materials you require to solicit monies are available from the web address above or you can download them from our yahoo group

2. Sponsoring any of our walkers. Click HERE and take your pick