My son and I
say happy Friday!

Happy Friday, dearest Salsa users!

Yay. Lucky people. You get this email, and it's Friday! This is the first official Friday Fiesta email for the masses, so if you were wise enough to sign up for my rambling... well... I apologize. The Friday Fiesta is a more informal update on what's going on in the Salsa Community. I usually like to add a few notes on my favorite topics as well as what's up in our office, all delivered with a charming dose of rambling sarcasm, because I don't actually know how to communicate in any other way.

September's Third Thursday yesterday was a great success. We had a great turnout at the office, and the Actions 2.0 presentations were educational for everyone involved. Thanks to Anne for sharing how Clean Water Action uses our advocacy tools, and to Dan for his training on Action basics.

Be sure to check out our updated Webinar list. We've been trying out a Salsa 101 series of trainings, which we hope will be a little less overwhelming for our newest members, so keep an eye out for another round in October. Have any particular requests for Webinars? Send them our way!

As you stare at the webinar page, how's the new Salsa CSS treating you? I personally am thrilled too much by the white background, but let me know what you think or if there's anything odd that you run into while posting a topic or anything.

Speaking of topics and webinars, Leslie just posted a note for feedback regarding recording of webinars. We'd like to have some more useful training videos available to you in the future, but you'll have to let us know with which training you think we should start!

Thanks to Bill for help with a bulk update response on this topic.

We recently changed how we request zip codes on Action pages, which is pretty neat.

There's been a good amount of feedback regarding Facebook and Twitter recently, and I've appreciated seeing all of the great posts from our users. If you're on Twitter you should probably follow us too; it is what all the cool kids are doing!

Andy, pondering Legos and water softeners.

Everything you didn't want to know about your Salsa Staff for the week:

What was your favorite toy when you were young? A standard question of our new hires, I laughed out loud at every response I received when I asked a few coworkers this:

Andy, Director of Network Operations: Probably a computer, or legos, although I did like to take apart this piece to our water softener. It needed replacing and I got ahold of the old one and took it apart and put it back together again.

Anupama, Salsa Support Specialist: My favorite toy when I was little was a doll that I got for my second birthday. I named her Himabindu (meaning "snowflake" in Sanskrit) because that's what my mom was planning to name me if I turned out to be a girl. However, she took one look at me and decided to name me Anupama instead, meaning, "without comparison." This doll was a sort of heavy doll that felt like you were carrying a real baby. She had curly blonde hair and her own bottle that looked like it was emptying when I fed her. The first time I went to India (at age four) I was thrilled because the security people let me put Himabindu on the scanner belt.

Jesse, Software Engineer: My favorite "toy" was always a screw driver, I guess because it made everything else so much more interesting. When combined with a screw driver, any household appliance was transformed so that it was... full of joy and wonder if you will. It was also usually transformed so that it was no longer a functional household appliance, but that's beside the point.

I hope you all have a terrific weekend! I plan to spend much time dancing with my son and drinking hot chocolate. Yum.

Chelsea