Christmas Spree

Have you done your Christmas shopping yet? Well, the prices are rather amazing this year, given the state of economy.

As holidays approach, my ultimate gift question arises - what should I buy? It's one thing to shop for friends and family where I can let my creativity shine. It becomes difficult to shop for co-workers, teammates, and especially clients.

What is an appropriate, fun, yet ethical gift? My friends in the financial sector tend to disagree with me and last year their gift bags included goodies from Hermes and places as such. I am more on a conservative side and prefer to give gift baskets composed of items from all over the world (Belgian chocolate, Italian coffee, etc.), good wine, and of course boring but favorite gift cards from Starbucks. We all drink coffee, especially in the consulting world. Those who don't drink it, become addicts on their first 100 hour weeks project.

This year a few of my clients were interested in art and photography, so I got them books and photo-collages from their favorite art galleries in NYC.

In that Christmas spirit, I could not help but also get some treats for myself. Because of my hectic schedule and the fact that pre-holiday malls remind me of an airport during a hurricane season when all flights get canceled, I started shopping online.

Besides the traditional Neiman Marcus-like sites, I discovered a few online places that offer designer sample sales where a truly unique items can be purchased to add a twist to a boring business suit.

Sites such as Gilt Groupe, Rue La La , Editor's Closet sell items from Just Cavalli, Muse, Michael Kors, etc.

Gilt invite: http://www.gilt.com/invite/bachity

Happy Shopping!

Texting Your Way Through

We, consultants, practically live in a virtual world - emails, phone calls, text messages. Work around the clock and constant change of cities, hotels, suitcases does not leave much time for a face-to-face relationships with other people than our clients. So we use our creativity and maintain our long distance love lives via texts.

Who does have time for emails these days? I stop reading them after the fifth sentence.

Modern marvels of the cell phone technology created an easier way to express our feelings - through signs of smiley/sad faces, abbreviations OMG, TTL, and pictures sent via MMS.

Some of us, like my Bostonian friend, are able to even "date" over text messages communicating with several "significant others" all over the globe. A bartender she met in Colorado sends her kisses every morning; a surfer from California cheers her up with his careless hair and fit body in a surfing outfit; and of course a boyfriend in Europe who surrounds her with his eternal love.

How did we survive the dark ages when an iPhone was not an option? OMG, we actually had to face a person and express our mixed emotions of anger, happiness, tears, or joy. We had to tell our "sorries" and explain why we thought that breaking up is a better option than staying in this pointless relationship. We had to do many things.... that somehow now we forgot they had a meaning.

What is Dallas, TX like?

I have many stories to share about my euro trip, but first things first. Lately, I've been frequently asked about Dallas and what is the city like. I often say to each its own, and even though I have been living in Dallas for the past two years, I am not a big fan.

As every city, Dallas has its pros and cons. Life is definitely convenient here in terms of real estate and infrastructure. The city is trying to become cosmopolitan, so construction activities can be spotted everywhere. New areas are being developed in attempts to follow the northern style - West Village, Victory Park, Uptown, Travis Walk, etc.

Once a major IT hub, Dallas and its surrounding areas have been engaging in the medical, energy, finance, and real estate sectors. Texas weather creates a laid back atmosphere - seasons don't change much here - 2 weeks of winter, 2 weeks of spring, 2 week of autumn and hot, hell like in July-August, summer.

A few other points:

- typically, people do not walk in Dallas because of the long distances, so buying a car is mandatory. Most of the apartments come with a free parking spot.

- there is no state income tax, however, property tax is quite intense, especially for those who own assets in Dallas county.

- life is suburbia is extremely slow

- creative side of Dallas tends to be on a boring side. It seems to me that the city has got its brain, but its soul is still missing.

- there are plenty of restaurants here. The unique ones are usually located in the uptown/downtown area and other areas are stuffed with the chain eateries.

- what do people do for fun here? Eat, shop, watch football.

- a blog of a Canadian who is planning to move to Dallas:
Why I am moving to Dallas Texas