... february general meeting ...

Cynthia Wesley is a great speaker, that is a given. We were lucky to have her grace our February meeting. Cynthia founded the Black Recruiters Network, BRN, with the primary purpose of providing mentoring and training support to Black Staffing and Human Resource Professionals in Silicon Valley. Her focus on this lovely Saturday was leadership – How to be a leader at work. Several good questions were tabled during the presentation and there were several memorable comments as well. We definitely all know that “testing Devaris’s gangster” isn’t exactly the way to go at work coz he will let the “educated gangsta” out on you.




As always the company was lovely, food great – thanks Jen for the great sandwiches. As far as meetings go, we’re gonna put a spin on the March meeting. The March meeting will be held at Google – Google is sponsoring it all, the food (they got some great chefs), the location, the projector … everything. March 24th 2007, 10PM … you know the location … shouldn’t be too hard to find on Google maps.

... Goodbye Jana ...

Food and drinks: May be $200 or so
Money that changed hands at the poker table: Damn I lost!
Dez hosting Jana’s send off at his place: Priceless
Jana leaving for Toronto: Devastating … aye.


Thursday the 15th of 2007 will definitely be remembered as the day Jana decided to run off from lovely Silicon Valley for the cold unknown and unforgiving slopes of Toronto (we all know the story of the Spanish explorers who got to present day Canada and said “aca nada” which means “nothing here” then turned back to continue exploration of present day Estados Unidos aka USA and South America) … that said, we are still trying to understand why Jana’s moving to Canada – now a move to South America would make sense but Canada … catch my drift, aye?



Regardless of all this, a send-off for Jana was in order as she prepares to veer off into the wilderness of unexplored aca nada. Kindly enough, Dez prepared the goodbye Jana shrine over at his place – quite the memorable night – Emeka and Brittany will definitely be remembered for the elevator Kodak moment scene, we all know that Tari nicknamed the phrase “Jana is cool” and everyone knows that Corey could never break Vegas even with the best good luck charm one could ever ask for (Jana).






We will definitely all remember Jana for the great person she was (and still is) during what felt like a really short stint with the Silicon Valley NSBE Alumni chapter. She always had the smile going, she played every sport you could think of on this earth – MVP a couple times over at soccer, shooting fade away jumpers over Diego, etc. We would like to wish her all her best in her endeavors in Canada and pray that she doesn’t forget us as she gets ready to take over the institution that is Accenture.



Peace out Jana. You are the best and we all love you the mostest.

... February Power Lunch ...

I guess soul food does the trick when it comes drawing the crowd. February’s power lunch at H Butler’s turned out to be the best attended power lunch we’ve had in our 6, 7 month history. We definitely pulled a bigger crew than the last supper crew – too bad our event wont forever be immortalized in lovely paintings that grace walls all over the world but … we try. I would believe that engineers who feel the need to take crazy poses over lunch photos will definitely NOT go into helping the declaration of this lunch event as a historic, landmark, “once in a lifetime”, “you had to be there” occasion … but that is a story for another day.



Intel definitely came out strong and so did Rockwell Collins. It was nice that the Intel people who showed up had never met before (they all work at the same site but … Intel’s huge). Of importance is the opportunity the connection presented and a possible job change opportunity that rolled in as a bonus. Aaaah, the joys of power lunch + soul food. Keep eating, we’ll keep connecting.

... Soccer Season Closing ...

Goooooaaaaal. That was literally the way season 1 of soccer ended for the Black Stars. Elvis just felt the need to show off, the Kenyan Killer they call him, by taking up an ESPN top ten moment spot by scoring the last goal of the season with 4 seconds left to go in the game.

The season was really great and was surprisingly oversubscribed. The number of people who wanted to play was waaaaay more than the number of allocated teams spots and it was really nice to see that kind of enthusiasm. Jessica did a great job organizing the whole tournament, getting us to practice and the likes … some of us of course felt the need to take the Iverson path … “we’re talking about practice. PRACTICE”. Dez . We were definitely not your standard polished pro English Premier Soccer League team when the season started but we definitely improved as the season progressed. There were tough times when other teams had us in a tough spot (talk about Robo Girl … but that is another story)


The girls really came through for the team and we lost a couple of soldiers in the good fight – Erica went down in game one of the season and Marcela in the last game of the season. They managed to somehow hold it all together for a good 40+ minutes with no rest – hats off to all the girls, Lisa and Jennifer#2 on defense, Jana, Jennifer#1, Jessica and Renee on the goals, Marcela on handling the whole floor, Jo and Adrienne with the lovely pom poms. Not to forget the dudes – Seitu aka “like glue”, the Nigerian Nightmare trio Dez, Ola and Tari, the Kenyan Killer Elvis, Diego aka D Maradona. Big shout out goes to out goalie Chris who scored all the way from our goal – not to forget all the spectacular dive saves … that’s a true hero man.

All in all, it was a great run. Kudos to all the players, the cheerleaders, the cheerleaders at heart as well good old David Silva over at MVP Arena not to forget our worthy opponents all through the season who made it the exhilarating experience that it was. I guess in the wise words of NSBE we could call this “an experience that positively impacted the community – the NSBE community as well as all the others who had a jolly old time participating in the games”. Marching on to season two …


Nov 10, 10:25PM - Black Stars 1 vs Relentless 8
Nov 17, 10:25PM - SVSE 10 vs Black Stars 4
Dec 1, 8:45PM - Black Stars 2 vs Smack! LE 9
Dec 8, 7:55PM - Black Stars 8 vs AC Milan 2
Dec 15, 8:45PM - Black Stars XX vs Benchwarmers XX
Dec 22, 8:45PM - Black Stars XX vs Relentless XX
Jan 12, 7:55PM - Sports Basement SV XX vs Black Stars XX
Jan 19, 6:15PM - Black Stars XX vs Smack! LE XX
Jan 26, 7:05PM - Black Stars XX vs AC Milan XX
Feb 2, 7:05PM - Black Stars XX vs Benchwarmers XX

Season Record XX-XX

... january general meeting ...

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