Last night, Brian and I attended our first Champions League game while we were in Munich. Lucky timing, we’re able to see hometown FC Bayern Müchen face Celtic Glasgow in the second leg of their round. Rather than an account of our travels, I just wrote down some observations. You know, when my fingers actually worked and were not frozen.

• On the train to the game, we were in a car full of fans from both teams. What I found heartwarming was that each side of the fan base let the other do their cheer before doing their own. They took turns, and it was beautiful to watch (and hear!).
• Also, beer (in bottles) on subway trains is a thing. Who knew?!
• It’s amazing how these (Celtic) fans can make this trip in 36 hours, basically.
• Allianz Arena is beautiful when it’s lit up red for a FC Bayern Munich match.
• It’s fucking cold in Germany in February. It was 22 degrees F for most of the 4 hours we were at the arena and the game.
• Scarves make a lot more sense in Europe than they do in MLS. They’re actually needed in Europe as part of the match-going experience.
• The supporters section gets about as much work in as the players: they don’t stop.
• Men’s bathrooms are at a standstill. Even worse than baseball games in the United States.
• There’s still a LOT of smoking in Europe.
• Unlike games/matches in the U.S., everyone leaves the stands for halftime. That could be because they do not leave while the game is happening.
• Ever heard 75,000 people dead silent? There was a moment of silence for the victims of the Munich attack just days before. It was eery how quiet it was. Silence has never been so loud.
• It was a great experience, but a long one. Brian and I left the hotel at 6pm, and didn’t return until 12 midnight.

These days, my body takes great joy in reminding me that I’m middle aged. And one way it does it (almost every morning) is waking me up about 10-15 minutes before my alarm. And yes, most of the time it’s alerting me that I need to pee.

But this morning, it was a gift. My alarm was set to 5:00am because of the drive backk to San Jose is about 3 hours, and international flights, and all that. But I woke up around 4:45 and walked to the bathroom. I happened to look out the open shower window, and saw this:

Breathtaking. As cliché as it sounds, it really was like a scene out of a movie. I went downstairs, grabbed several shots (as seen above), and marveled for a little bit. The bugs were buzzing around, the birds just starting to wake up and chirp.

I went back upstairs and hopped in the shower and enjoyed that view a little longer. No lights. No sound. Just me, the water, and the view. I had found that moment. That small moment of peace.

That’s what vacation is supposed to be.

Why are wheelstops (bet you didn’t know that word before now) so high? They are there to assist drivers who are parking their car. They only need to “bump” the car’s tires to alert the driver. They don’t need to be so high that they scrape the ever-loving crap out of the underside of the front of the car. Honestly, this puzzles me. It seems so unnecessary.

Wrexham secures promotion in front of jubilant owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney

This weekend, the world witnessed a feel good story play out in a small Welsh town. Writers all over have used the moniker “Hollywood Ending” due in large part to Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s involvement in the team from Wrexham. It’s a very good story, even if you don’t like football (for you Americans, soccer).

I was privileged enough to visit Wrexham this past February. My family traveled to Europe over the kids’ winter break to see 4 European matches in 6 days. And a jaunt over to Wrexham was something I insisted upon.

The documentary series produced for the team’s first season under the Hollywood stars’ reign intrigued me. Well-produced and beautiful. It achieved its goal of making me relate to this town, these people, and this team. It sparked a longing to follow this story further (as any true-to-life documentary would).

What I’ll describe here are my impressions of the game we attended on February 21, 2023, when the hometown Wrexham Red Dragons took on Scunthorpe United FC in a National League showdown. (Don’t worry, that’s the last of the sports announcer voice.)

My first impression was one of a minor league baseball feel. For those of you who haven’t experienced that, you should. Make it a point to visit your closest minor league team and take in a game. It’s small. It’s quaint. And it’s baseball at is purest.

As we walked through the gates into The Racecourse Ground, the stands were so close to the pitch, you could see individual blades of grass. Not at all like our hometown Atlanta United at Mercedes Benz Stadium, where the stands sit quite high off the pitch. Here, we could see players up close. They looked bigger. Taller. Stronger. You could see the detail of their faces. The color variations in their tattoos.

Game time approached, and I was struck with the realization that this was a small town. The fans that filled the stands were all here. They were not strangers. They were (and are) a community. The person walking by you is not some guy. It’s John that you have a drink with on Thursday nights at the pub. Conversations from days ago continue as they squeeze past others to find their seat. They laugh and ask about John’s kids. They are part of this small town family.

I gazed across the stands, and realized the entire town is just…here. Like this is what they do on a Tuesday night, match night. It was cold (44 degrees) at kickoff, and they came prepared. Jackets and scarves all around. They brought their coffee in the same tumbler that they pack in their lunch pail for work. This is normal. This is what’s done.

Halftime came, and most of the 9,915 fans filed out below the stands for a bathroom break. Or to grab some food. Or just to grab a quick smoke. Just out of curiosity, I joined the throng. Found the lines for the bathroom (10-15 people in single file) and the massive wall of smoke just beyond the tunnel. 30-40 people deep trying to get themselves through the 2nd half.

One of the most endearing sights was watching a pair of boys waiting at the railing. They couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 years old. While decidedly Wrexham hometown kids, they would watch players warm up along the side of the pitch. Didn’t really matter which team they played for, the boys lit up. They even jumped up and down when the players would come and give them a fist bump. Their little faces would turn around to catch a glimpse of their parents, almost saying “Look what just happened, dad! Mom, did you see that?”.

That is what this game, this town, is about. Seeing the smiles on those kids’ faces and understanding that they will be talking about that experience for a long time. It made me smile.

I also realized that the vast majority of fans in attendance were men. Much like American football games, these were big men. Gruff men. Men who drink and smoke. Men who have calloused hands from labor-intensive jobs. But attending tonight’s match, they were more than that.

Their inner boyhood shone through watching the game that they loved. The team they loved from the city they call home. They had a child-like quality to them that I can only describe as nostalgic. They were transformed by the boys (to them, at least) on the pitch as if those boys were their own.

It was then that Coach Parkinson made a substitution that almost brought the house down. If you watch the first season of the documentary, you will learn about a hometown kid named Jordan Davies. By the end of that first season, you are rooting for him with a full heart. And as he walked onto that pitch that night, all 9,915 people stood and chanted in unison “he’s ours”.

And they meant it. While the team had changed (and will continue to change as they move up in leagues), a slice of the town itself was still kicking and Jordan served as the living embodiment of that dream. They chanted with vigor and with pride. And if you were sitting amongst these people, hearing them collectively chant and cheer, and didn’t smile (or cry), you “ain’t made right”, as they would say where I come from.

That night was magical to me. It was everything I wanted it to be and more. Sure, watching Messi and Mbappe play in Paris days before was exciting. But this. This was an experience. This felt more “real” than that PSG game ever could. And it is something I will take with me forever.

I guess I’m a small-town homer at heart.

Let’s go Wrexham!

Mayor says Louisville shooter’s rifle ‘will be back on the streets’ under state law

Just a pull quote from the article: “The killer’s rifle was confiscated after police shot him dead, and Kentucky law requires officers to send it to state police officials to sell at auction.”

I wish I had a logical answer to the poster’s question. The thing is, there is no logical answer except state revenue. That’s it.

As with most things, it all comes back to money.

Listening to this episode of “Throughline”, I heard the following from Raymond Goldstein, a man who moved his family to a town just outside Harrisburg, PA in the mid 70’s, very close to Three Mile Island:

“Going back to Harrisburg was like going back in another time period, in another time where things were socially, culturally weighed different, or you might say, not as progressive.”

Hard not to hear that and assume he meant “safe and white”.

Last month, my family and I had the privilege of visiting Paris and London for about 9 days. It was a "let's go see some European soccer" kind of trip, but that's definitely not why you're reading this now.

No, the reason I'm engaging your eyes right now is that we rented a car for the first time (in my lifetime) in the UK and I drove us from London to Wrexham (that's just over the English border into Wales), back to Brighton (England), to Stonehenge, and then back to London over the course of 3-4 days. Now, I've never driven in the UK before, and the "wrong side of the street" situation was nerve-racking, to be sure.

Then came a charge on my credit card that popped up on my phone a couple of days ago. It was from SixT UK (the company I rented the car from), and it was for about $158. Not knowing why they'd charged (several weeks after returning to the United States), I opened my email to discover this:

Ok...90 GBP penalty and 40 GBP for the "admin fee". Bollocks.

What is a congestion charge (as it relates to London)? A bit of Googling brought me to this site. Apparently, there is a zone in London that charges you a daily amount for driving inside it during a certain period of time during certain days of the week. It's to prevent pollution. I get it. It's harsh, but I understand it. L.A. should look into this, just saying.

Anyway, not being from London (or the UK), I didn't automatically know this. How would I? (I'm a dumb American, right?) So, I contacted SixT and asked them why I wasn't made aware of this congestion charge when I picked up the car. Not being made aware of it, I asked that they refund the 130 GPB (roughly the $158 I was charged). In no uncertain terms, they called me a uniformed American (at least they didn't use "dumb"?) and told me I could go pound the nearest sand I could find.

This made me angry.

Now, I can understand the plight of the company. They don't control local laws where they operate. They have to abide by them, and function (hopefully, profitably) inside parameters not controlled by them. I get all of that, I really do. I work for a Home Depot service provider. We have to operate within limits and regulations, and sometimes that is a true pain.

What's even more guiding is that they knew this was a potential issue. In London. Study the line item detail of the charges below, and you will see that they charged me (the customer) the 15 GPB for the FIRST day of my rental. 

So this leads me to my main question for this post…

What happened to customer service?

When I contacted SixT, instead of coming back with what they said, they could have offered me several different options instead of the "piss off" answer I got. I'll run through some of them here:

1) Offer me (the customer) sincere apologies for the inconvenience and charges, point me to the rules and regulations they have set forth, and (even if untrue) recognize the need to prompt future travelers (especially ones coming from outside the UK, much less London itself) that there are specific penalties regarding X, Y, or Z.

2) #1 above and offer to refund the 40 GBP "admin fee" for the recognition that the local associate probably should have made me aware of the potential penalties.

3) #1 above and offered to refund me 115 GPB (130 - 15 "normal" daily fee), recognizing that IF they had offered to charge me the 15 GBP at the time of rental for the return of the car, I would have taken it (knowing the potential 130 GBP penalty fee).

4) #1 above and offered me a (one-time) full refund with apologies for not providing the simple service of letting me know of the local regulations and the potential local charges and/or fees associated with violating them.

But they didn't do any of that. They simply sneered at me and wrote me off. Preferring to lose me as a customer than try and either explain (with empathy) and/or make it “right”.

Having done neither of those, they succeeded in writing off my future business.

A good point made by Michael Podhorzer on this week’s “Amicus” podcast from Slate. There have been startling few repercussions for elected officials who supported the January 6th insurrection. Even the man who urged it on is running for President (again) and is currently the front-runner for the Republican Party.

There has been no learning here. There is no victory for democracy here. People have been driven to not caring about facts and/or objectivity. It is this or it is that. There is no gray.

We are no better today than we were on 1/5/2021. We have learned nothing from this.

…and still counting!

It’s been a rough several days. I found myself driving up to NC this evening, and noticed a really pretty sunset to the left of me as I drove down the road. It’s a quick shot, but as the sun sunk lower and lower, the sky turned a deeper pink and purple.

I sighed out loud. Not really a sigh. More of an exhalation. Letting some of the things go and begin the rest up for the long-term fight.

You’ll probably read about some of those things here over the next couple of days. But not tonight.

Tonight, I’m exhaling.

When my trainer said we had to work on my food intake, my immediate thought was what I'd have to give up. My Zaxby's #1 meal, near and dear to my heart. But what we were actually talking about was moderation. And what's the opposite of chicken tenders and French fries? That's right: salad.

I like salad, don't get me wrong, but modifying my lunch-eating habits was going to take some getting used to. Luckily, I know how to make a good salad. So I set up a plan to make 3 salads for myself (replacing 3 eating out lunch meals) per week. I can do that. (And then, eventually, Jayme asked me to make her 3 salads for the week, too.)

So I thought I'd document what I make and how I make them.

With the salads done, it’s now time for dessert:

Et voila! There’s my lunch prep instructions for the week.

Feel free to take and customize!

…and many more to go!

I look relaxed in this picture. That’s not only good, it’s great!

…or is there serious risk of not understanding these bathroom symbols? It’s always made me anxious. I always wonder if I’m going to miss something specific indicating men vs. women.

Luckily, these were pretty clear. But I’ve seen some where I have to sit there and study the differences in the two graphics or lettering. I shouldn’t have to study them so closely to be able to know which room I should go pee in.

Don’t even get me started when it’s overseas…

There really should be ways to prosecute people like this.

Honestly…

I don’t understand marketing sometimes:

Does it matter that the bottle for the shampoo has a “new look”? Did they improve the product inside? Make it better?

No?

Then why do I care?

So, this is happening.

I came home on Wednesday (2/3) evening, and went to get a quick snack (yogurt-covered raisins), and they tasted weird. Like, a bodily fluid taste weird. I mean, at least I could taste something. So, I knew it wasn’t COVID-related. But I thought it was odd, and kind of chalked it up to weird raisins or whatever. Ate dinner, did some work, went to bed. All good.

The next morning, I woke up and went to work. As the day progressed, I found that my eye felt irritated, and my mouth was not working properly. Specifically, I could feel it when I smiled. I took a picture that morning, and then repeated it in the afternoon. It started to look odd.

I got home, got dinner ordered for Caroline and I (Jayme and Brian had gone to soccer practice), and then started to panic bit. My speech was starting to become impaired. (Even more than it already is.) I decided to go to the Urgent Care facility to get it checked out. I mean, you hear slurred speech, and droopy mouth, and you think stroke.

Well, that was all I had to tell the Urgent Care person, who examined me for 3-5 minutes, and then said “yeah, you need a head CT to rule out stroke, and we don’t have that here. You’re going to need to go to the ER down the street.” Ok, off I went. And three hours later, I had my clean head CT, and a brand spanking new case of Bell’s Palsy.

(Note: the weird taste of the raisins was actually just my tongue being half-numb)

Sigh.

I didn’t know what Bell’s Palsy was, to be honest. I mean, I had heard the term before, but I had no basis for understanding. I started reading about it, and listened to the ER doc explain it to me. Apparently, it mimics some of the symptoms of a stroke, but it’s nowhere near as bad. It’s the inflammation of a nerve in your head caused by a latent viral infection (again, not COVID-related). The nerve that it hits is the one that branches out from the back of your ear, and controls the muscles in the side of your face. Mine happened to hit the left side of my face. And it's caused my eye not to close, and my mouth (and lips) to malfunction.

I’m here to tell you, it sucks.

I talk everyday with a friend of Jayme’s (see ** at end of post) who had this thing a couple of years ago. Everything she’s said has come true so far. It didn’t really hurt for the first week, but oh boy did it come with a vengeance this past weekend. I likened it to getting punched in the face repeatedly. The whole left side is tender, and feels swollen (even though it’s not). Yet, it sits there and aches.

How am I feeling?

I’m ok, I guess. I mean, it is what it is. There’s nothing to do but wait. It takes anti-viral medicine, steroids, and patience. All of which I have, but it is a roller coaster along the way.

Every time I smile, I am reminded of it.
Every time I try to drink, I'm reminded of it.
Speak.
Eat.
Brush my teeth.
Try to sleep on my left side.
Say any word that starts with an "f" or a "p".

And, just as a nice topper, it makes the stuttering even more pronounced. Fantastic.

Honestly, it really makes me feel like a freak. Like the Hunchback of Notre Dame or something. You have this notion of what you look like in your head, and it’s REALLY not that right now. My view of myself seems disjointed, misaligned. Not exactly good for a healthy self-image or self-esteem.

Having said that, everyone in my life has been extremely supportive. They’ve treated me with empathy and respect, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.

It will get better. It will go away. It seems it's just a tiny little exercise in humility until then. 

** A very big and very special shout-out to Rachel Mountain. She's been my sherpa through this thing, as she has experienced it first-hand and knows the ups and downs that come with it. Not only has she treated me with kindness and compassion, but she has checked in on me most days, and her sincerity has really made me smile (even if half-cocked). Really appreciate it, Rachel!

Ironically, the very same road I drive down to take Brian and Lucas to school has a large, brick mailbox that has its 4-digit street address arranged in a square pattern. I would have commented on it to Brian himself, but it’s going the other way away from the school. So, no one’s in the car with me when I pass it. (Of course, that didn’t stop me from commenting on it to no one in particular.)

This mailbox’s numeric address is supposed to be 1624. But that’s not obvious, nor is it easy to decipher. The numbers are stacked like this:

1 6

2 4

So, is that 1624 or 1264 or 1246? I have no idea in the quick second I glance at it. Now, I know it because of context clues, like the house before and the house after it. But isn’t the entire purpose of the number on the mailbox to make it easier to find the house in question quickly?

I even noticed this at Starbucks recently. This is a picture from the coffee Caroline got on Saturday morning:

I’m assuming it’s supposed to be 1971 because 1791 or 1719 wouldn’t make much sense. But I don’t know that right off hand. The only context clue I have is that I’m pretty sure Starbucks was not around in 1791 or 1719. In fact, Washington state wasn’t even Washington state back then (that happened in 1889, if you were wondering).

But why make this difficult? To be cutesy? To be designer-y? To me, it just makes the user experience that much more difficult. And that defeats the purpose. Boo :(

I guess I had never really noticed this on my previous trips to Seattle, but in downtown (at least), whenever possible, there are overhangs for people walking on the sidewalks.

It rained yesterday afternoon, and I walked 8 blocks without getting really wet. I was amazed, if not a little embarrassed, that I hadn’t seen this right above my head the entire time.

Kudos, Seattle!

Like most things, ideas come to me as I listen to podcasts. Topics jump out at me, and I have an opinion or a fact I like to share. One recent one was a song that would be played at your bespoke funeral. As it happens, I have thought about this one a lot. And I already know what song that should/will be.

A bit off the beaten path, the song comes from one of my favorite indie folk/rock acts: Ray LaMontagne. The song is off of his 2nd album entitled “Till the Sun Turns Black”.

2006

Within You, unlike most of LaMontagne’s songs, is not dependent lyrics for the storytelling. In fact, the only lyrics in the song are “War is not the answer / The answer is within you”. And many repetitions of the words “love”. All of them airily whispered to the listener, as if it was a release of relief. Love being always within you, and the answer to, well, everything.

The reflective message is woven through such an instrumental series of waves. It lulls the listener into a reverie. In my case, it’s a contemplative thought process on looking back at my life. Looking at the love in my life. And celebrating it. If my funeral is happening, as the case may be, I want the people to think back of me and really consider who I was. Not only to them, but to everyone I knew. What was my place in this world from their perspective? And how will they remember me?

I need my life to matter to people. Especially to the people closest to me. To the people who love me and whom I love(d). One hopes, and I do, that that list is long.

How the ACA changed American incomes

The bottom line: At least as far as this analysis goes, the ACA helped more people than it hurt. Whether you want to call it “redistributing wealth” or "reducing income inequality," the ACA achieved it. Or, in CBO’s words, the law "made household income more evenly distributed."

But “reducing income inequality” is bad, right? Right?

This is where we are. Totally and utterly ridiculous expectations and perspectives. Brilliantly pointed out in the tweet above.

Believe it or not, software is worth something. It’s disturbing that we’ve let the value of it slide as far as we have.

On Episode 278 of “Roderick on the Line”, Merlin (Mann) encapsulates exactly something that a friend of mine said about 2 years ago, well ahead of the 2016 election. Merlin said:

There's so much reckoning going on about strangers. There's so much reckoning going on about millions of people who are disadvantaged culturally in a way that so many of that 32%-36% are not. And yet they have found some way to find agrievement in every cultural improvement in the last 50 years, Every time somebody who's not them gets something, it's a zero sum game. Everything that somebody who has always been treated like shit for their entire life gets is necessarily one less thing that they get, in their mind.

I can’t tell you how right he is, how right my friend was back then, and how wrong I was to write it off as something of an ignorant opinion. On a car trip to/from Seattle, we were having a discussion on the phenomenon that was candidate Trump at the time. Speaking for myself, I just didn’t understand how he was still in the race, much less leading it. During the course of that discussion, it was pointed out that there was a certain group of people that felt disenfranchised because of the cultural changes that had been happening (especially in the past 7 years of the Obama presidency). And that this group of people felt left behind, or left out, of the benefits that were now coming to the historically disenfranchised. And that was pissing them off. So much so, that they would absolutely invite into their house this loud-mouth, boastful, pussy-grabbing-and-proud-of-it shitbag for a possible president.

At the time, I thought that was ridiculous. I thought that people would surely be smart enough, informed enough, to see him for what he was. And the danger he imposed to a civilized notion of government, norms, and order. I believed in the basis of a morality, and believed that these people would ultimately end up siding on the basis of that morality and not on the idea of “anything but (her/establishment)”.

I have to say that I didn’t believe my friend then. Didn’t want to believe that narrative. But I believe it now. And I realize that, even now, I still have some thinking outside the box to do.

“Keep honking…I’m reloading”

Yep, what an advertisement in this day in age where people are suggesting we arm everyone (including kindergarten teachers) to combat other people being armed!

Yep, let’s make sure to arm people who are driving, so if they don’t like how someone else honks at them, they have the opportunity to simply blow them away.

Perfect.

Doesn’t sound plausible? “People would never do that”, you say?

This fucker has a bumper sticker that says so. Because people are ALWAYS rational when it comes to driving.

FFS

P.S. This was less than a mile away from my kid’s school. People suck.

So, every time we got a new car, Sirius XM is always an option on the car’s entertainment system. It’s also signed up (automatically) for a 3-month trial. Sounds great, right?

Well, The calendar just ticked over to month 4, day 1 for my new-ish A4, and sure enough, the XM Preview channel is screaming at me (yet again) to subscribe.

“Never miss the great music of yesterday and today!”

“Want to take your music everywhere you are? Subscribe to SiriusXM!”

“Follow your favorite team for every goal, touchdown, and home run!”

Umm, no. I’m good. And that’s when I reach for the iPhone cord and plug in my phone to use CarPlay.

Ahh, back to normal.

But, yesterday, I was in the process of getting out of my car to walk in the grocery store. And right before I open the door, I hear a terrible, terrible noise. Imagine the sound a grinder makes on bare metal mixed with TV static. A screeching, ear-splitting sound at top volume. Horrible on so many levels. Surely this is a mistake, right?

Nope.

It was a commercial that went something like this: “Hate this sound? (Sound plays for 5 seconds) Yeah, who wouldn’t?! (Sound plays again for 5 seconds) Subscribe to SiriusXM to make sure you never hear it again!”

Are you fucking kidding me?!?!

Just shameless. And pathetic.

Guess what you’ve successfully done, Sirius? You’ve ensured I will never, ever again subscribe to your service.

Job well done.

Programmers who only code at work

What's your opinion on programmers who are not passionate about programming, have no side projects and only program at their jobs. Not senior devs either, just programmers, who are not juniors anymore. Can they ever improve, write better code? Or do they stagnate. Asking because my coworker said he doesn't enjoy programming at home.

I have to say something. This mentality drives me crazy. Even the question is so galling that it infuriates me. As if you MUST leave work and go straight home and continue to code so you can be viewed as a worthy developer. It’s ridiculous and wrong-headed.

You’re reading the blog of someone who is passionate about programming. I have been passionate about programming since I wrote my first C program in college. My 12-year anniversary at work was this past week. And guess what? I’ve never gone home to code “for fun”. Why? Because I have a life outside of my work, and I enjoy it. My kids are 11 and 13 now. I’ve watched them grow up, and am very proud of the fact that I have been present in their lives from day one.

I am a worthy father the same way that I am a worthy developer. One does not preclude the other.

I don’t understand this way of thinking. And I don’t understand why this idea would be so prevalent in the software development industry. I’ve heard stories of hiring procedures that depend on candidates having side projects on GitHb or BitBucket. Why is that a requirement? Because it shows you will bust your ass at work and bust it even more at home to prove…what exactly? That you are “committed”? That you’ll do whatever it takes? That you’ll sacrifice everything to “prove” yourself?

Yeah, no thanks.

All I’ve ever wanted to do in my career is matter. I want my work to matter. And it does. It fulfills me. And it’s enough for me.

The good news is there are voices starting to push back on this idea. I ran across this tweet this past weekend:

And a responder to the linked article above said the following:

Having said that, no-one's trying to stifle anyones passion here. If you love to code, do it at every opportunity you get. But be careful when passing judgement on the skill, growth and development of folks who don't share that same level of passion.

When it comes to my personal life, and the personal lives of my employees, work is work. And your time is your time. Enjoy both.

#youdoyou

Ok, this is probably going to be an unpopular sentiment. So, I’ll just go ahead and get it out of the way. Rip off the band-aid. Here it goes:

“Hamilton” was not the best live musical theater experience I’e ever had.

There.

I said it.

Please don’t get me wrong. “Hamilton” was amazing. Like, really, really amazing. Even my son, who is not normally a musical theater fan, found it enthralling. Myself, Jayme, and the kids were all about the soundtrack both before and after the show.

Every bit of credit and respect goes to Lin Manuel Miranda and crew for creating such a cultural phenomenon. The songs were amazing. The story was gripping. It’s everything you could ask for in a musical.

(Side note: Angelica and her masterpiece “Satisfied” was my favorite part of the entire show!)

But…

In my mind, seeing “Les Miserables” on stage in London in 2003 was and is the hallmark of my theater-going lifetime. Maybe it was because I grew up with “Les Mis”. It was the musical that everyone knew and sang. Hell, we even sang a good bit of it in our high school chorus concert(s). Or maybe it was listening to the songs over and over and over again and finally seeing it live and in the flesh in front of me. Valjean with the soaring voice. The powerful ensemble pieces. The heart-wrenching ballads about love and loss.

It was mesmerizing. It also came at a turning point in my life. I was 23, married, had my first job, and really hitting a stride in my new-found adulthood. We were in London, living in Paris, and so many miles from our home in Georgia. We were living our life. There was an independence running throughout the whole experience.

That performance and that experience has stuck with me for these past 15 years, and is the barometer by which everything is judged.

My confession laid bare.

Sen. Orrin Hatch calls Obamacare supporters ‘stupidest, dumbass people’

Dear sir,

Fuck you.

With love,

A stupid dumbass

I was perusing Facebook after all of the Florida shooting stories. Shocking that none of the normal gun freaks were speaking up in the aftermath.

Anyway, not the point here.

I came across the post above, and was struck by something. Number one, my aunt left a comment on the post that said “Thank you, Mr. Vice President.” Sigh. Number two, Joy Behar is not altogether wrong for saying what she said.

Think about it. If I publicly ran for office and said I discuss my issues and problems with my imaginary friend named Alan, people would say I was crazy.

“No, no, he’s my spiritual advisor,” I would say.

And they’d call me even crazier.

And you know what, they’d be right. Because I’d be talking to someone (or something) THAT’S NOT REAL. There is no Alan. Just like there is no Jesus listening to you or talking to you.

It’s not there. It’s not real.

So, I would question my aunt. Why do you say “Thank you, Mr. Vice President”? Because you talk to imaginary friends, too? Is that ok? And if it is, I would presume you’d support any candidate or leader that talks to an imaginary bunny rabbit, right? Or a robot? Or what about an alien?

Those things are just as “real” as Jesus. (Oh, and by the way, there are “religions” that don’t believe in Jesus either, so it’s not just coming from this atheist.)

FFS

A lot has been written (and spoken) about a new(ish) technology called Voice Assistants. Don’t know what that is? I bet you actually do. Ever said “Hey Siri, what’s the weather like?” to your phone or “Alexa, play Bruno Mars"? If you have, you’ve interacted with a real-life virtual voice assistant. (See what I did there?)

Amazon has one (Alexa). Apple has one (Siri). Google has one (“Hey Google”). And even Samsung has one (Bixby). With all of these high-profile companies, you’d think we don’t do anything but sit around the house or car all day speaking into the air to no one in particular.

Luckily, we don’t. Because we’d probably be put away in some looney bin if we did.

But these are around, and they seem to be gaining steam in broader popular culture. No longer existing only in tech nerd environments, these devices (and services) have made their way into mainstream households. Amazon’s Alexa, arguably the most popular service out there, was adopted by my mother-in-law before me. Seems strange, doesn’t it it?

Well, yes and no. I must admit, I don’t particularly like them (at least as they are currently implemented). My holdback is not so much a curmudgeonly, get-off-my-lawn resistance. Nor is it a nervous apprehension about privacy and allowing a multi-billion dollar corporation to put a dingus in my house whose sole purpose is to listen to me. (Ok, let’s be fair, a large part of it is the privacy angle. But let’s not get bogged down in that right this particular minute.)

I actually love the idea of a computer being able to interact with me in the same manner that another human being would. What’s unfortunate is that, right now, we’re still in the really early days with this technology. “Conversations” and true human-like interactions are not real with any one of these things. I do want this technology to work. And I want it to be as good as they advertise.

No, my largest hold-up comes from an apprehension that most people would never think about. It comes from the “voice” portion of the phrase “voice assistant”. That part where you have to say, out loud, what you want the assistant to do.

Out. Loud.

That always works out great for stutterers.

A device can now hear me stutter. Hell, it even records it. In its own way, it can even judge me. You see, the built-in functionality has a threshold of silence at the end of your query to know when to stop listening, which is how it knows when to proceed with its response. There is literally a timer counting down until it’s done waiting for you. In a stutterer’s mind, there is ALWAYS a timer going in your head. I feel it when I speak to other people, and I see it in their anticipation of what’s coming next as they listen to me. To give you an idea, this is what goes through my head:

When will it ding at me and cut me off because I blocked and can’t get the next syllable out? Will it ding now? Now? What about now?

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Ad Infinitum.

The pressure is ever-present. That pressure just adds more pressure to get it out, which adds even more pressure to do it quickly. “Now. Quickly. They’re waiting. It’s going to ding any second now. Do it. Get it out. Say it. Say it, you moron.”

That inner dialogue never stops. And it leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. A vicious cycle.

Now, not only can I not speak normally to another human being, I can’t even speak normally to a frickin’ machine. Fuck.

In my own life, the version of this technology I use the most comes from Apple’s Siri. And most of that comes from the Messages app in the CarPlay system in my car. (I’ve been meaning to write something on how I use Siri more in my car by a factor of 10 than I ever do from my phone.) It reads my messages to me, and I can formulate my response by simply speaking into the air.

It’s a great piece of technology. Specifically in the car, as it frees your hands from fiddling with the phone. At the same time, it’s so frustrating when I get to a block in my speech pattern, and Siri will stop and begin to repeat what I just said. Unfinished, broken sentence and all. And I have to either send the sentence fragment, thus clueing in the person on the other end of the message that I have fucked up in speaking to the dingus, or I have to start over and say all of it again. And what if I fuck that one up, too? Start again? Send the fragment and send a follow-up message? What about the next time? And the next time?

See where this goes…

It’s enough to make me WANT to pick up my phone and just let my fingers do the talking for me. Lord knows, it’ll be quicker, sharper, and more concise.

Oh yeah, and less humiliating.

In my tech nerd circles, mostly on podcasts that I listen to, these voice assistants are lauded as the way our devices should be interacting with us. Getting the smartphone or laptop out of the way seems to be viewed as “better” in the long run. And maybe they’re right, for most people.

I’d just ask them to realize that some of us on the other end of the microphone don’t necessarily see this as a good thing. We either can’t speak to these things, or would honestly rather not.

And you know what, that should be ok, too.

River (with Ed Sheeran) Performed by: Eminem Written by: Marshall Mathers / Edward Christopher Sheeran / Emile Haynie

I can't keep my lies straight, what I made you Terminate my baby This love triangle, left us in a rectangle What else can I say? It was fun for a while That I really woulda' loved your smile Didn't really want to abort But fuck it, what's one more lie to tell an unborn child?

I mean…wow

The search for Jackie Wallace by Ted Jackson

Only a half-mile more and it would all be over. One hundred and 50 feet below, the powerful currents of the Mississippi River would swallow his soul and his wretched life. He dodged another car. But why did it matter? Getting hit by a car would serve his purposes just as well as jumping.

Read this. It is a roller coaster ride of hope and sorrow, redemption and desperation. This is what happens in a society of living in (and caring about) only the now. We so often forget what happens after the spotlight is turned off.

(PDF) The search for Jackie Wallace - NOLA.com

Flight Performed by: Lifehouse Written by: Jason Wade

It’s no secret that music means a great deal to me. It’s soothing when nothing else will soothe me. On the flip slide, it can also tear at me like nothing else can. When I come across “new” music, I usually grab hold of it and just let it wash over me by playing it again and again and again. The band Lifehouse is particularly special to me. They encompass almost the entirety of my relationship with Jayme. One of their earliest songs “Everything” is our wedding song. (Granted, a very long wedding song.)

So when I came across this song while listening to a varied mix of Lifehouse, I realized it was new to me. It was on an album from several years ago that I will admit I hadn’t listed to a lot. But I was in a particularly Lifehouse kind of mood, and I let them all play. The song that caught my ear was called “Flight”.

It is a gorgeous song. A heart-wrenching song. One that is filled with so much emotion. And what I love about it is that you can hear it in the way Jason (Wade) sings it. The music swells. It builds. The feeling is building to something. Building to a resolution. Building to freedom.

These lyrics just slay me:

No more running, no more hiding No more hurting, no more crying No more trouble, no more sighing No more falling, no more striving No more heartache, no more fighting No more fears, only flying

Listen to Jason sing them. If that doesn’t engender resolve and purpose in your own soul, I’m not sure what will.

Do yourself a favor, listen in the video below:

youtu.be/polHMqkLJ…

Why this Houston Astros player has an inspiring mission beyond baseball

"I totally embrace my stutter — it makes me who I am," Springer said in a statement when he first took on the role with SAY.

“Some people have blue eyes, some have blonde hair, and some people stutter. I’ve never let it hold me back and with SAY, I want to help kids who stutter build the confidence they need to pursue their own dreams,” he said.

Bravo, Mr. Springer. Bravo.

Fascinating…

This picture was taken just under 5 years ago. Caroline was still a little girl. Brian looks so much like a young child. They are not that now.

They are still my kiddos, yes. And I willl always see them as such. But they are growing up so fast. As Jayme told my sister this morning, it’s only 6 years that we’ll be taking Caroline to college. Brian is about to hit his growth spurt and he’ll be asking for keys to the car before you know it.

I’m just not sure I’m ready for this.

Just study this picture, and you will know most of what you need to know about my dad.

• Loves music? Check!
• Beatles fan? Check!
• Still reads paper magazines? Check!
• Needs glasses to read those paper magazines? Check!
• No way he's cutting the dish/cable apparatus? Check!
• Need to know the temperature because he's old? Check!
• Yet still uses earbuds for his iPod (yes, an actual iPod)? Check!

Yep, this is him. Very much surrounded by what he loves. And very much set in his ways.

And I love him everyday for it.

I'm not negotiating a common reality with someone who can hear the words "President Trump" and not experience an oxymoron. Who can look at the Flynn situation and say the problem is the media leaked this. I'm done negotiating that common reality. I don't care if I'm above or below the person I'm not negotiating with anymore. In my estimation, that person is an enemy of the American Republic. I am no longer in dialogue with them.

FINALLY, someone is starting to say this out loud. Some of us have been saying this for months and months. (If you click on the picture above, you can listen to the entire rant. I do encourage you to do so.)

It’s time to stop fucking accepting that all of this is normal. This is not normal. This doesn’t happen with every president. This doesn’t happen with every administration. Stop fucking saying it is. It’s not.

And if you say it is, you are lying. As Stephen addresses in the quote above, I’m done even approaching a common, intellectual conversation with you. Because your reality is a purely fictional one.

It’s that simple.

Perfectly sums it up…

Brydge Keyboard 12.9 Review: Closer to iPad keyboard perfection

We’ve officially reached the end of the circle. Look at this keyboard/case. It effectively makes your iPad Pro an iOS version of a MacBook, at least from an aesthetics perspective.

This is the future for most people. Get used to it, guys.

On the morning of one of the most bitter and divisive Presidential elections in history, it’s nice to be reminded of the good things that surround the Presidency.

I don’t know if all presidents do this or if it was specifically instituted by President Obama, but did you know that he requests 10 letters to read everyday (that he’s in Washington) before bed? (I learned this on the latest episode of 99% Invisible, pictured above.) That’s 10 letters potentially from everyday people telling them about their fears, their joys, their frustrations, and their sadness.

I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but that gives me at least a little hope heading into this historic day.

#truth

That’s a gorgeous poster. 

I’ve started watching the new HBO show “Westworld”. The idea surrounding the show is one that intrigues me. What does being human mean? How do we as humans distinguish ourselves from technology?

In the second episode (not a spoiler, promise), a character asks the question “Are you real?” The response is exactly why I’m going to like this show a lot. And why it will spawn several forthcoming posts. “If you can’t tell the difference, does it matter?”

Stay tuned…

Don’t get me wrong, I really like Slate’s Political Gabfest. I’ve listened to their weekly podcast for over a decade now. Jayme and I even went to their live show here in Atlanta at Georgia Tech’s Ferst Center a month or two ago.

That’s why it drives me crazy when I hear the type of discussion I heard on this week’s episode.

(For those who have not listened to the gabfest before, they always break each episode into three segments, followed by Cocktail Chatter. That means they discuss three main topics for roughly 10-12 minutes each.) The first segment was all about Donald Trump’s (relentlessly) ridiculous week. While trying to get his campaign “back on message”, he had a relatively normal Monday talking about a (somewhat coherent, although see the “charts” video for evidence of being not-so-coherent) economic policy. Then, his week fell apart. He suggested that the “second amendment people” might have a way to stop Hillary Clinton, basically saying they might consider assassinating her. He also called President Obama the founder of ISIS. Yes, you heard that right, the founder of ISIS (what the actual fuck?!?). And even when offered a way to back off of these comments later in the week, he simply doubled down on them.

So, commentary, commentary, commentary…

Then, the second topic was about how politicians can/should apologize in the age of constant media. And this was all about Hillary Clinton’s remarks to Chris Wallace regarding her interview with the FBI Director concerning the email server thing.

Again, commentary, commentary, commentary…

Here’s what angers me. They have set these two topics up to be a back-to-back questioning of the candidate’s bona fides. First, let’s present this candidate’s foibles. Then, we’ll point out the other’s.

AS IF THEY’RE THE SAME THING?!!?!

One is by an assclown who is suggesting that people might think about MURDERING A SITTING PRESIDENT and the other’s is over the candidate’s word choice about a fricking email server. (Believe me, if I hear her say anything to the effect of “it depends on your definition of ‘is’”, I’m going to hurl.)

How are these two even remotely the comparable? Why should anyone make that argument? Did they realize they were doing this in setting up the segments this way?

I see this so much, especially when it comes to Trump. Every stupid fucking thing he does (and there are so very many examples to choose from) is followed by some mention of a Hillary flaw. Most of the time, it’s the damn email server.

Just so frustrating…

Everything about driver services (in every state, but especially Georgia) is f****** maddening. Everything. It has literally led me to scream out loud in my own house, and prompted the kids to ask “What’s wrong with daddy?”

I have to get the tags renewed (what an awesome birthday present for us adults!) and I’m thinking “hey, it’s 2016…surely there’s an easy way to do this online now!”

Nope.

When you visit our lovely state’s DOR services website, you are asked for the RIN number on a sheet of paper they have (supposedly) mailed to you. Which is ludicrous, because what if I never got that piece of mail? What if the dog ate it? Or it got thrown away because one of the kids didn’t know any better? But hey, I actually have it this year, so this should be a breeze, right?

“Please confirm the information on file,” it asks me. Well, everything is correct on the information shown except the unit number of the condo, because we moved last Labor Day. I can’t specifically say “yes, it’s accurate” because they’ll send the new tags to 415, and I don’t live there anymore. That’s not good. So, I have to choose “no, it’s not accurate”. I’m thinking they’ll offer me the option to modify the information so as to let me continue.

Isn’t that awesome??!? This means I have to travel to one of these damn places to change 3 numbers.

3. Damn. Numbers.

So angry.

Also, Jayme recently changed her address on her driver’s license online. I thought that if she could do it (because she has NOT gone through the give-me-everything-but-a-spot-of-urine verification to renew your license yet), that surely I could do it quite easily (since I have gone through that back in 2013). Nope.

On the DDS website, which by the way is NOT linked to the DOR website (which handles the tags) in any way, you have to log in. Ok, maybe I’ve logged in before, maybe I haven’t. I honestly can’t remember. So I tried registering again.

Error.

“You already have an account with this information.” Ok, fair enough. I still don’t remember the login information, so I’ll press this handy dandy little link that says “Forgot User ID”. This should do the trick, right?

Really?!? How the hell is that possible? I didn’t even attempt to log in because I DON’T KNOW THE DAMN INFORMATION. Locks happen because the system is protecting itself from hacking. But I haven’t done anything. And I’m pretty sure that if I do this 2 hours from now or 2 days from now, it’s going to tell me the same stupid message.

Oh, and I DID try to use the Forgot User ID functionality and this is the error you gave me, numnuts.

So…now I have to go to two different places to change the EXACT SAME INFORMATION. Wtaf?

I hate, hate, hate drivers services everywhere. They should all be burned to the ground and started over. And if we’re going to do this, let’s try to incorporate some f****** user experience fundamentals into the design. You know, because maybe, just maybe, real human beings need to use the system you’ve provided.

Today, I became one of the many. Brian and I set out this afternoon for Piedmont Park to look for those elusive little virtual monsters.

It was beautiful outside, if not a little warm (91 degrees, roughly). But it was worth every moment to see Brian having fun without the word Minecraft being involved. And he really did have fun.

As anyone who knows Brian also knows he is a talker, but he took it to the next level today. It probably didn’t help that I didn’t understand what he was talking about, so he felt it was his duty to explain exactly, in excruciating detail, what he was doing and why he was doing it. It was also funny to watch people walk by and smile as he (not so softly) explained to his ignorant dad.

And yes, I now know how to “catch one”.

Apple doesn’t understand photography

Apart from that Apple still thinks we use photography as we did it 30 years ago: we go on a trip, take a bunch of photo’s then struggle with how to show our friends these photos when we get back from our trip.

Well, I’ve got news for you Apple; that’s maybe 1% of photography, and not really an issue most of us deal with.

What is the problem that needs fixing? It is that photography is changing. I showed my girlfriend some tiny text on the back of a credit card. Without hesitating she pulled out her camera, took a photo, and then zoomed in on the photo to read the text.

I can’t say that I disagree with van Santen on this point. All of my pictures are not of trips or specific people alone. If you look at my Camera Roll, you will certainly see a collection of photos I’ve taken of my kids, my family, and my friends. But you will also find pictures of work whiteboards, screenshots of clever tweets from Twitter, UI example screenshots, pictures of receipts, and so on, and so on.

[caption id=“attachment_1769” align=“alignnone” width=“576”] Not just photos…[/caption]

I love the idea of classification at the image level. Apple does it with selfies (a recent addition), but that’s a bit of a cheat because it’s based on the camera being used. I’m interested to see how (or if) their new AI processing can help auto-classify some of these pictures (think receipts for a start).

I was bicycling along the canals with my teenage daughter when she spotted a ‘missing cat’ poster. She pulled out her phone, took a photo of the poster without looking twice, and put the phone back into her pocket. I said ‘That’s pretty smart’ and she replied; ‘Well how else are we going to remember all that information if we ever find that cat?’

What if the system could know that the image was an informational poster? And take that information and convert that image into a note and create an entry in the built-in Notes app? That’s intelligence. That’s allowing the data and the image to work together to implement the intent of the original picture.

Looking forward to see what happens in this space…

I was perusing Twitter the other day and came across a wonderful witticism from Kent Beck, founder of Extreme Programming:

The craft of programming begins with empathy, not formatting or languages or tools or algorithms or data structures.

This perfectly illustrates my everyday…

Little things bother me. Extremely little things. Things that nobody in the world would probably think about but me. And yet, here they are. Hiding in plain sight from everyone.

Look at this picture: 

 Seems fairly normal, doesn’t it? It is. In fact, it’s the McDonald’s right across the street from the QT I stop at for gas in the morning on the way to work. One low sign. One high in the sky.

But look closer at the lower (street-level) sign: 

 Do you see it?

“OVER99BILLION  SERVED”

I know why it is the way it is. It was a throwback to when they hadn’t served over 99 billion. And while we’re on the subject, 99 billion of what? Hamburgers? Fries? Milkshakes? What?!

Never mind for now. Not the point of this. Why would you intentionally leave the sign like it is? It’s not even. It’s not symmetrical (based on the number 99). It’s just not…right.

Contrast that with the higher sign: 

 Makes a lot more sense, design-wise. The spacing is correct. Centered. And it doesn’t limit them to a specific number ever again. It was always be at least billion served. Perfectly planned for.

Come on McD’s. Fix the lower sign. It drives me nuts every time I look at it.

Oh, and P.S., we still need clarification on what exactly has been served billions and billions of times.

These images are based off of an actual article 10 Meeting Room Designs You Won’t Believe Are Real. But infused with humor from the very funny Chappell Ellison (@ChappellTracker).

                     When I first saw them, I could not stop laughing. 

I really hope they can deliver on this promise. Tesla has set themselves up nicely as THE next car for a lot of people. Fingers crossed.

 Oh wait… 

(Photo credit: Pete Souza, @petesouza)

  I don’t know what KSP is, but the rest of the sentiment is spot-on. Sigh. Is this what happens throughout your thirties? Follow-up: KSP is actually http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/  

  So unbelievably creepy...

theuserisdrunk.com

Brilliant!

This is the kind of fun we should be putting into our software. Our jobs as designers and developers, and especially our end user's jobs, don't have to be dull and boring. If what we do puts a smile on even one person's face, we're helping them. We're making their lives better.

(Screenshot from MailChimp)

Whenever you set up a new iPhone, Apple kindly adds a playlist to it that references all of the music you've purchased from iTunes in the past. Let's do some quick math, shall we. Let's say that that the average price per song is $1.15 (remember songs used to be $0.99, before jumping to $1.29).

That means I've spent $1,764.10 on iTunes music. I'll let that sink in a bit. Just on music. Keep in mind what that doesn't include: apps, movies, books, ringtones, etc.

My oh my...

Designing for Crisis Eric Meyer, Author, CSS: The Definitive Guide

• crisis drives you “how do i get to my [loved one]"
• opened iPhone and went to find Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; saw full desktop site
• couldn’t figure out how to navigate; couldn’t think clearly
• looked in center column (where the content should be)…nothing of use
• looked in left column for structure…nothing of use
• looked for site navigation (admittedly subtle and themed correctly)…missed it completely the first time
• no consistency in verbiage (Emergency Room vs. Emergency Department)
• placement of “Contact Us” (and font) looked like ad (brain is trained for it)
• so many roadblocks to finding the answer to the simple question of how to find your loved one
• “You don’t get to decide what your users will want to do on mobile. They do.” - Karen McGrane
• we don’t get to decide their mood, their concentration level, their ability to think clearly
• TIP: add another persona to your end user list: someone in crisis
• Empathy: fully imagine being a person who DOESN’T know how this shit works
• YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT SIMPLE
• TIP: on top of persona, add contexts to user requirements (example: time of day)
• helpful tip for airline passengers: Airlines should provide (in-app) maps of the airport, with a route pointing the user from the gate they are arriving into to the connecting flight’s departure gate (relieves stress)
• error handling: you’ve got to tell the user what action to take if an error occurs
• processing: you’ve got to tell the user that the system is working
• give the users options that will fit within the context they are in (car accident; do not force IE on them)
• do things that will never be noticed; if they are never noticed, you’ve done your job
• they will never thank you, but the thanks is from all of us to you

Talk Links Torre Kean’s Notes hipmunk.com

Smaller, Faster Web Sites Mat Marquis, Developer, Bocoup

• Users care about their information and how they can get to it and use it
• We force our own context on our users (we assume high transfer rates / fast processors / lots of memory)
• Need to build a “Built for me” site, not a “Works best on…"
• Page weight (i.e. faster load times) opens opportunity for so many things
• currently, mobile/tablet usage accounts for 35% of all Worldwide Internet traffic
• EDGE is 50% of that usage; 3G is 30%; leaving 20% 4G+
• 71% people expect websites to load faster on phone than desktop
• 72% of responsive sites send roughly the same data to mobile and desktop users
• “Cutting down on the weight of our images is the single greatest bandwidth shaving we can achieve.”
• Smaller Websites
  • average page weight: 2MB
  • JS crept up in size; images have become much worse (retina is the reason)
  • srcset to the rescue
  • icons are a problem, too (“Pictures shouldn’t be made of math”)
  • SVG’s supposedly to the rescue (not all browsers support; looking at you Android)
• Faster Websites
  • Critical CSS (serve only stylesheets needed for current context)
    • initial TCP/IP connection carries 14KB (sends markup and head content)
    • the rest of the requests happen after the initial connection
  • Deferred Loading of Webfonts
    • most browsers wait 3 sec to load webfont before falling back to system defaults
  • Set a Performance Budget
• We build purpose, not just websites
• “I take pride in building things that are invisible. That’s beautiful.” -@wilto #aeaatl

Talk Links Torre Kean’s Notes Chris Zacharias: Page Weight Matters janocycles.com Grunt grunticon grunticon.com fontsquirrel.com/tools/webfont-generator Above-the-Fold Detector

Responsive Images Are Here. Now What? Jason Grigsby, Co-Founder, Cloud Four

• Currently shipped in Opera and Chrome
• In development for Safari and Firefox; IE “considering"
• Images have always been difficult (remember web colors?)
• Use Cases
  1. Resolution Switching (one image, multiple sizes)
  2. Art Direction (cropping when/where appropriate -OR- different assets)
• is always required
  • Sometimes, is all you need
  • But what about high density displays?
  • srcset to the rescue: 1X vs 2X display density identifier
  • if that’s not enough, provide browser with width specs
• How do browsers pick the correct source image from ?
  • Images are downloaded before size is known (viewport is only known size)
  • Tug of war between Lookahead processor vs. Responsive Images
  • The pre-parser is why we can’t solve responsive images with CSS/JS/new image format
    • BUT…it makes browsing experience 20% faster
• Sizes
  • provides max-width queries to base images on viewport width (vw)
  • Let the browsers be smart
• So when do we use ?
  • art direction (providing different images based on context)
• What about CSS?
  • Art Direction
    • image-set(): can be used in CSS where src-set would be used inline
    • image-set() doesn’t support density definitions yet
    • Image Breakpoints: images normally tell you when they need to change
  • Resolution Switching
    • Image Breakpoints: Hmm…don’t have any idea (depends on image, need, rules, etc)
• Responsive Image Community Group
• Use of polyfills work with older browsers (Scott Jehl)

Talk Links Torre Kean’s Notes A List Apart: Responsive Images in Practice PictureFill

Prototyping and Play Dave Rupert, Paravel; The Shop Talk Show

• Co-host of Shop Talk Show (co-host with Chris Coyier)
• Tools to Help
  1. Clicky Image Prototypes
     • invisionapp.com (prototyping)
     • flinto.com
  2. Clicky Motion Prototypes
     • framer.js
     • Origami
  3. Code Prototypes
     • codepen.io
     • jekyllrb.com
     • Pattern Labs (atomic design) (patternlab.io)
  4. Frameworks & Libraries
     • getbootstrap.com
     • foundation.zurb.com
     • ionicframework.com
• “Spend less time designing the Container and more time designing the Content.” - Trent Walton
• How We Prototype
  • Goal: get to code as soon as possible
  • Start with sketching
  • “The fidelity of your prototype should match the fidelity of your thinking.” - Jared Spool
  • Share what you’re building; make sure people know what you’re doing, the decisions you’re making
  • “Don’t Hoard the Process"
    • unintentionally creates animosity
  • Web Design is a Team Sport
  • We’ve got to set goals to match skills
• Benefits of Prototypes in the Workplace
  • Prototypes help solve arguments
  • “Won’t work ‘cause it’s weird” - Me. Every project ever.
  • “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a prototype is worth a thousand meetings.” -IDEO
  • You WOW upper management
  • “The technical challenges of integrating with the CMS are huge when [a design is] not even tested yet.” - Chris Balt, Microsoft, on the RWD Podcast
• The Costs of Not Shipping
  • Turnonver
• Biggest Failures
  1. Too Many Designers
  2. Didn’t Code Soon Enough

Talk Links Torre Kean’s Notes Making Front-end Development a Team Sport

Content Amid Chaos Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Author, Content Everywhere

• We love the web, so we don’t want to see it trashed
• Gripes about websites:
  • Always late
  • Not mobile-ready
  • Too corporate
  • Totally irrelevant
  • Way too long
  • Redundant
• We’re really talking about “not-my-problem” or “too-big-to-try” problems, not content problems.
• How can web projects fix those problems?
  • Turn your project into a catalyst project
    1. Make change feel achievable
       • most people want to do a good job
         • but big problems feel…big
       • Start with just one thing (Visible / Valuable / Scope-able)
         • sweet spot is between your skills and area of influence and what’s causing problems right now
       • Fix something…don’t necessarily fix everything
         • Small wins build optimism
    2. Aim for ownership
       • We can’t just wait around for “someone else” to fix it
       • We need people to take charge
       • Get people problem-solving together (Ask, don’t just tell.) (Do, don’t just talk.)
       • Doing things with people > doing things for people.
    3. Get a commitment
       • Maps give us momentum
       • Maps connect vision to operations (defines where you’re headed)
       • example: Unstructured (scattered) content ——> Structured (indexable) content
       • Identify potential projects / challenges: break down into tasks
       • Decide who will lead each charge / Set a cadence for progress
       • Maps keep us moving
       • We’re not here for perfection. We’re here to change for the better.

Talk Links Torre Kean’s Notes

Magical UX and the Internet of Things Josh Clark, Principal, Global Moxie

• Interactions not just keyboard/mouse anymore; now there’s touch/natural gestures
• Design beyond the screen is coming; we have to be ready (“Expecto Patronum” is coming)
• Common technology will lead to these new design interactions to user experiences

A Performance in Three Acts

1. Magic & Technology
   • “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C. Clarke
   • “Fantasy fuels a need for a simpler, more controllable world.” - Alan Kay
   • “One goal: Make the computer disappear” - Alan Kay
   • The phone is the first Magic Wand (aka Internet of Things Device) for everyone
   • Sensors + Smarts + Connectivity = Magic
   • “Mobile is available at the point of inspiration.” - Tomi Ahonen
   • Mobile phones bring computing power to immobile objects (we can now embed smart brains in anything)
   • Average smartphone screen time: 3+ hours a day.
   • The more connected we are the more disconnected we are
2. Physical Meets Digital
   • Physical interaction with a digital API
   • The world IS the interface
   • The world IS ALSO a data source
   • The world is a big canvas
   • The world has depth and mass
   • Gather data for insight; Channel intention
3. Magic, Imagined
   • “What is ____ was magic?”
   • Add insight, not just data
   • Make the tech invisible
   • Build systems smart enough to know they’re not smart enough
   • Algorithms can go VERY wrong
   • The magic is not about the thing; it’s about the combo of sensors/smarts/connectivity
   • Technology should amplify our humanity

• It’s not “Can We?”, it’s “How Will We?"

Talk Links Torre Kean’s Notes bit.ly/browser-magic

What does it feel like to live in the future?

A Long Decline

Have young people too lazy to learn to write been with us since the very beginning? A collection of proverbs in Sumerian—the world’s first written language—suggests that they have. “A junior scribe is too concerned with feeding his hunger,” contends one. “He does not pay attention to the scribal art.” It seems that the slovenly teenager, not to mention the purse-lipped schoolmaster, is at least 4,000 years old.

Source: The Econimist

If only Hitchcock knew about these signs back in the day…

The infamous barred owl known for swooping down on runners and sometimes clawing scalps at Bush’s Pasture Park in Salem, has not only instilled fear in the hearts of many a jogger, but has also inspired the installation of at least 10 bright orange “angry owl” warning signs at the park on Thursday morning.

Source: Stateman Journal

It hits you when you least expect it. This particular Friday morning, it was while I was driving to the office. Tons of things on my mind:

• What do I need to get done today from my project list?
• What are the tasks from yesterday I didn’t get to finish? Are there any meetings I have?
• Mom asked us to mail the mail to her, need to make sure to text Jayme and ask her to mail them.
• Brian has chess this afternoon, do I need to pick him up or did Jayme say she would? I’ll ask her while I text her about the mail.
• What’s up with this traffic? Why is 285 East closed? Did something happen?
• I need to make sure I don’t have anything on Saturday morning so I can sleep in. So tired.
• I took my medicine this morning, right? Yeah, I think I did.
• Wow, too much coffee this morning.

And so on and so on.

But then, my phone shuffles to a particular song. I know it by heart. I buffer it into my brain as the song begins. I soon feel those other things fall away. That cloud of stress is lifted (even if for only a little bit). I know the experience I’m about to have with this song. I know what it does to me. I know how it makes me feel. And it makes me feel good. And, oh my goodness, do I need that this morning. It may be Friday, but I am tired and stressed about so many things. Until this song starts playing…

Carrie Underwood’s “Something In the Water” sets the tone from the first couple of bars. The driving beat is light (this is not Bon Jovi, after all), but it is light enough that it has somewhere to go. It has something to build to. And as the song progresses, it becomes relentless. Carrie’s tone is spot on, too. And by that, I mean the tone of the message it is meant to convey. You can feel it pulsing through her voice. And the music just validates that passion. The chorus joins in. And it is on.

This song is pure inspiration. It makes my heart grow a little larger just by listening to it. It gives me those wonderful, jubilant butterflies. It makes my soul richer. There is a smile that starts deep inside of me that finds its escape through my lips. It makes me feel good. It is the power of music in action.

Seeing the Light

“Hold on a minute, Lee”, you might be saying. “This is a religious song. A Christian song. You’re not exactly the religious kind of guy.” And you’d be right. I’m not. But there are certain things that transcend religious beliefs. And one of those things is music. Music is universal. It is not tied to one thing vs. another. It is not contentious. It is beloved throughout the world from every race, gender, religion, lifestyle, and any other classification you can think of. It’s the one thing we can all get behind.

It’s not a wonder that most every religious service has some kind of musical component. After all, what better delivery mechanism than music to pass along the message (the Word, if you will)?

Believe it or not, I grew up in a religious household. Definitely not fanatical, mind you, but we went to church pretty much every Sunday. The sermons and the hollow rituals I could do without, but I always enjoyed the hymns. They were traditional hymns, nothing too “out there” (we were Methodists after all). But I remember how “Amazing Grace” grabbed me. It was emotional. It was moving. When well-sung, it could do exactly what I described above. I remember visiting a church that was predominantly African American when our youth group was invited to a Sunday service by their youth group. Unlike our (shall we say) “quiet” congregation, these churchgoers got up for hymns. There was excitement. There was energy. There was passion. I loved it.

Music can be a wonderful delivery mechanism for religious beliefs. Absolutely. But the beauty part here is that music, even music written for a religious purpose, doesn’t have to be limited to that intended purpose. Music is a very personal thing. You interpret it however you want. You take from it whatever you need. It is yours to discover and yours to decipher.

Anybody remember the television show “Greatest American Hero”? Yeah, didn’t think many of you would. But the theme song for that show was called “Believe It or Not” by Joey Scarbury. This song was a highlight of mine from the church camp I went to as a kid in St. Simons Island.

Look at what's happened to me, I can't believe it myself; Suddenly I'm up on top of the world, Should've been somebody else.

Believe it or not, I’m walkin' on air, I never thought I could feel so free; Flyin' away on a wing and a pray’r, Who could it be? Believe it or not, it’s just me.

Just like the light of new day, It hit me from out of the blue; Breakin' me out of the spell I was in, Makin' all of my wishes come true.

Believe it or not, I’m walkin' on air, I never thought I could feel so free; Flyin' away on a wing and a pray’r, Who could it be? Believe it or not, it’s just me.

I believe the camp organizers meant to imply that God, the Holy Spirit, and/or our fellowship were the reason we were “walking on air”. (Let’s put aside the next couple of lines that say “Look at me, Falling for you”. We’ll just let that go for now). I realize now, though, that the feeling I got (the reason it sticks out even now) was not from the Holy Spirit or faith in God or anything like that. It was about the feeling I got from the song itself. The way it made me feel at the time (and even now).

Planting Flags

Who remembers the song playing when you got your first kiss? What about the first drive by yourself, free of parents? What was playing when you danced your first dance at your wedding? What were you singing as you rocked your baby to sleep?

Ever realized how music is interwoven so tightly with the impact points in your life? Ever thought about the fact that you could listen to your iTunes library and replay your life story? All through music.

“Believe It or Not” is now representative of my youth church camp. So many other things went into that experience at Epworth By the Sea, but that song serves as the gateway to all of those other wonderful memories. When I think back over my life (yes, it sounds like I’m writing as an 80-year old man, and let’s face it, sometimes I feel like one), I am struck by how many songs can transport me back to that point in my life.

6:00am. Friday. Summertime. Late 80’s. Hardee’s sausage biscuit, Coke, and Motown. That was my experience when I went to “work” with dad on Fridays. Every time I hear this song, I think of my dad and the fun we had driving to and from all of his product drops. The Four Tops - “Same Old Song”

Coming into middle school, I was a shy child. Didn’t really know where I fit in with school groupings. I found a home at Richards Middle School in chorus. I remember a very specific concert in which Rob Wilson, Trey Wells, and Josh Becker sang a song that I remember to this day. And it even sparked my interest in a brand new artist (at least to me) as well as a new genre of music (again, for me) called country. Garth Brooks - “The River”

I remember vividly a school dance in the fall of 1994. I want to say it was even a Magnet Social (for all you CHS’ers out there). I was wearing a sweater vest (lord help me), and hoped against hope that a certain girl, one Lauren Johnson, would dance with me. She didn’t, but I remember the song that played when she danced with someone else. Boyz II Men - “I’ll Make Love To You”

From 1996 on, this song has served as the song from the early stages of Jayme and I’s relationship and later marriage. It was even the song I woke up to every morning, when we had a CD player-based alarm clock. Ty Herndon - “Living In A Moment”

A television show that Jayme, her mom, and I watched (Roswell) brought Jayme and I our wedding song. It started a relationship with this band that still exists today. Lifehouse - “Everything”

Jayme and I watched this movie 17 times in the theater. Yes, 17 times. We were young. And in love. And had no other bills to pay. :) James Horner - “The Portrait” (from Titanic)

My sister gave me a gift, a CD, for my newborn baby girl, Miss Caroline Rose Feagin. Will Hoge - “Baby Girl”

Early one morning, I am sitting in the nursery rocking my littlest man back to sleep after a bottle (finally giving Jayme a break from feedings). And I am singing this softly to Brian, as he drifts off to sleep. Jeff Buckley - “Hallelujah”

I was in San Francisco for the first time on my own in the summer of 2011. I was attending WWDC for (what turned out to be) Steve Jobs' last keynote. I was surrounded by nerds and geeks and was having a blast. Brandon Fowler - “Crossfire”

I am singing on stage in my first ever karaoke appearance. Jayme, along with a lot of my co-workers, cheer me on while we sail to the Bahamas aboard a Disney Cruise ship. Billy Joel - “Piano Man”

In the fall of 2012, I am watching a total guilty pleasure of a television show (Nashville) and a song comes on that stands up and punches me in the gut. Because in it, a real story of want, desire, and togetherness is transmitted through a beautiful and sublime duet. And it hits me hard. Sam Palladio and Clare Bowen - “Fade Into You”

I could go on and on for days. All of these songs signify points, people, and events in my life that have made a significant impact. They will be with me forever. They should (and will) be cherished and celebrated forever. Because they have made me the man I am today. And will serve as the cornerstone of who I will be for years to come.

It is music that allows those memories, those people, and those events to live on. In our past. In our present. And even in our future.

Music, a very powerful thing indeed.

Happy 81st, sir. Your class has been unmatched in the game. You are the best.

The Secret to a Long Life: Be Cooperative and Live Underground

Damn it Smithsonian, what are you trying to do to honest, hard-working people? Scare the shit out of them? I don’t care what the article is supposed to be informing us of, I’m terrified of this thing. This penis-with-teeth-at-the-end-of-it thing. WTF?!?

Source: The Secret to a Long Life: Be Cooperative and Live Underground

I saw this on Twitter and thought it was just, well, brilliant.

You might be cool, but you'll never be "include your dogs in your official astronaut photo" cool.

I’ve always wondered if it was just me…

Raise your hand if you live by your fears.

Come on. Raise those hands. Everyone. Raise your hands. Both of them.

I know mine are raised. Fear is everywhere. Am I raising my children right? Am I being a good husband? Father? Co-worker? Friend? Son? Person?

Is this what I want to do with my life? How I want to live it? How I want to leave my mark on the world, my kids, my family, everyone around me?

And those are just the existential kind of fears. What about the small, run-of-the-mill fears? Did I remember to turn the oven off? Did I lock the door? Did I forget something the kids were supposed to have signed?

It seems overly easy these days to get bogged down in fears. Big fears. Small fears.

(Be careful, I might start to sound like Dr. Seuss here in a minute…)

I think this is why dreams exist. To give us a break from that fear. Give us something to look forward to. Some hope. Of a better…

…something.

Maybe what we’re all doing here is searching for our own something.

Keep searching. You’ll find it. And when you do, don’t ever, ever let go of it.

I know I have been raised in the south, where cars are pretty much necessary. So maybe this happens a lot in the large, packed-in, northern cities and I’m just not aware of it, but I have now seen everything.

A taxi In the drive thru At McDonald’s Passenger out the back window

Yeah…

Florida becomes 36th state to legalize gay marriage

This makes me exceptionally proud. For every generation, especially my kids' and beyond. We are all people, and it’s time we start acting like it.

If you hadn’t heard by now, Stuart Scott, 49, passed away this morning after a long battle with cancer. If you know who Stuart Scott is, you already know everything I’m about to say. If you do not, you have missed seeing a joyous, beautiful soul in action.

This morning, ESPN had some very moving tributes to Stuart. Second only to Jim Valvano’s original speech in 1993, Stuart reminds us at the 2014 ESPYS acceptance speech for the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance that life is precious and up to us to make the most of it. In his words, “you beat cancer by how you LIVE, why you live, and in the manner in which you live.”

Tears were falling in my coffee this morning as I watched them. I can’t believe they won’t be flowing from your eyes when you watch them as well.

Stuart Scott’s Legacy 2014 ESPY Speech Rich Eisen Says Goodbye

Robin Roberts, a very good friend of Stuart’s and a fellow cancer fighter, shared her thoughts on FB this evening:

As we were about to board our long flight home Amber checked her phone one last time. She pulled us out of the line and all she had to say to me was...Stu. The news we were dreading and not at all prepared to hear. Stuart Scott has died.

This picture was taken shortly after Stu was presented the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at last year’s ESPYS. He gave a speech that still had me in tears as we chatted backstage. Tears of admiration and profound gratitude. Grateful that this beautiful, strong man was a dear friend. Grateful that he had the strength that night to deliver such a powerful, meaningful message. Admiration for how he valiantly faced cancer..again and again.

As I stared out the window on the flight home tears again streamed down my face. By the time we landed so many had posted wonderful tributes to Stu. President Obama, LeBron James, Tiger Woods…and our ESPN family. I’m still struggling to find the words to express my feelings. But then I think of Stu’s own words at the ESPYS. He was right. “You beat cancer by how you LIVE, why you live, and in the manner in which you live.”

He closed his speech, with his sweet daughter Sydni by his side on stage, by saying “have a great night and a great rest of your life.” That was Stu, always thinking of others.

Bless you, my friend, for showing us how to live and how to love. Tonight after I say my prayers and thank the good Lord for Stuart Scott…I’m going to climb into bed…and flip my pillow over to the other side. XO

This is the worst trap to fall in to in life. Whether it relates to work, family, romantic relationships, whatever. The way it’s always been done might work and be perfectly fine. But nothing in life is perfect, It can always be improved. Embrace the improvement. Accept the change. It might just be for the better.

Take a chance. Your life will thank you.

Brian is now 7 years old. And I believe he’s turning into a human garbage disposal. Seriously, this kid is 7 years old, 4' 2" tall, skinny as a rail, and can’t stop eating. (I should note here that he is, in fact, my son, so his whole body may be skinny, but his head is quite massive. Just sayin’)

His favorite saying recently is “I’m still hungry”. To everything. Doesn’t matter how much he eats, what time of day it is, nothing.

5 waffles down? No problem. “I’m still hungry, daddy!”

Pancakes, fruit, and cinnamon rolls? Piece of cake. “I’m still hungry! And did someone say cake?”

Snack time in the afternoon, specifically after he gets home from school, is a classic “I’m still hungry” moment. Keep in mind he has already eaten breakfast, a morning snack (which I pack for him everyday), and lunch for the day. By 3 o’clock, though, it’s time for afternoon snack.

If he actually ate cookies (which he doesn’t because most cookies have chocolate in them and he doesn’t like chocolate), he’d be like Cookie Monster (“COOOOOOKIES!"). While I’m on the subject, what kid does not like chocolate? I mean really!?!

Despite all of that, even despite being eaten out of house and home, this is the smile you get from him. And you realize it’s all worth it.

On this Christmas Eve, as I drive around Rockford, IL and cook Christmas dinner with my sister Emily, I am reminded of how much music is part of not only my life, but also my holidays. I thought I’d share 6 of my favorite holiday songs. Any one of these songs makes it instantly feel like the holidays, and maybe they will make it feel like the holidays to you as well.

Please Come Home for Christmas Aaron Neville

O Holy Night Michael Crawford

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) John Lennon

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) Darlene Love

Mary, Did You Know? Pentatonix

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree Brenda Lee

“Well, hello …"

Now, they’re just f***ing with me.

Yesterday, I went to McDonald’s for lunch (no judgement!). I ordered my double cheeseburger, ketchup only, Coke as the drink meal, as I always do. Yes, I slow down the line with my “special order” burger, but shut up. My $4.86 is just as good as yours, so there.

Anyhow, I was feeling particularly hungry that day, so I ordered it large-sized. You know, what they used to call supersize. But some dispirit made a movie about them and called it “Supersize”, and well, you know the rest. Now they cut your tongue out if you even breathe the word, much less say it.

So, I ask the lady if she can large-size that for me.

“Sure, and since you have made your meal a large size, you get a free cookie. Would you like oatmeal raisin or chocolate chip?”

I’m sorry, what?! Was there even a choice in that question?

You’re going to give me a 300+ calorie sugar-laden cookie as a “gift” because I ordered my 1800+ calorie meal large-sized?

Was the self-loathing not evident enough in my voice as I gave in to the fast food gods to order my double cheeseburger with large fries and a large Coke? Did you feel that wasn’t enough?

You’re ok with making me hesitant to even show my yuppie face at Window #1 to pay for my large meal with my no-cash-holding-only-credit-card-available self? And then pull up to Window #2 and wait for them to hand me the bag, which as it hits my passenger seat, it implants a visible grease stain and proceeds to permeate the car with the not-so-easy-to-hide stink of McDonald’s on the go?

Is that what you want from me, Mr. Creepy Clown mascot guy? To surrender my pride? Give in to your heavenly salted french fries that still beat every fry I’ve ever had (that do not involve truffle oil and parmesan cheese)?

IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?

“Chocolate chip, please”, I say.

I love this picture on so many levels:

Love it!

I’ve seen this a couple of times, but it made laugh again yesterday. The caption was: “All this technology is making us antisocial.”

After reading this tweet, I went to the completely verified wealth of all human knowledge, Wikipedia, to find out what this was all about. Here’s what I found out:

The Christmas truce was a series of widespread, unofficial ceasefires that took place along the Western Front around Christmas 1914, during World War I. Through the week leading up to Christmas, parties of German and British soldiers began to exchange seasonal greetings and songs between their trenches; on occasion, the tension was reduced to the point that individuals would walk across to talk to their opposite numbers bearing gifts.

I can’t understand something. These guys spend months trying to kill each other day and night. Then, take a week off and sing Christmas carols, exchange presents, and generally be nice to each other. And then, go right back to killing each other. Dead. As in dead. No more life. All done.

Just don’t understand.

Ok…who gets this? Anybody? Anybody?

Beuller?

Spotted in the wild…a contraption called a pay phone. Apparently, natives insert circular currency into the machine to make a phone call. According to the local medicine man, the currency is known as “coinage”.

Fascinating stuff!

Before

After

…yesterday happened during kickboxing class at the Y. You see, kickboxing class is from 7pm-8pm. But Margaret (our instructor) always holds a mini-abs session for about 10-15 minutes after the actual class ends. Yet, child care at the Y (on weeknights) ends at 8pm, so either Jayme or I have to go get the kids before class really ends and then come back. Last night, I went to gather the kids and brought them back downstairs to the classroom. They know what to do by this point, and they took their place against the wall and I went to grab one of the mats for abs work.

I’m straining like crazy (this is ab work, after all). Then I see Jayme smiling at something and look over to see what it is. Brian has somehow gotten a mat and is now doing ab work with us. And not slouching at it either. I smiled. A proud smile. A wonderful feeling smile. I got up, grabbed my iPhone and took a picture. That’s my boy!

Crass? Yes. Funny? You bet your ass!

In browsing my Twitter feed last night, I came across this Instagram photo from a phenomenal photographer named James Duncan Davidson (@duncan). And this particular image just spoke to me. Not only from the Apple nerd part of my brain (let’s see how many of you get that), but from a life perspective as well. Think about it. Why do we put up with all of this negativity? Why not just get rid of it? Delete it, if you will.

[caption id=“attachment_1357” align=“aligncenter” width=“584” caption=“Photo by James Duncan Davidson”][/caption]

Message received!

Parenting is hard. Period.

It’s unbelievably frustrating sometimes. “Why won’t you eat your breakfast Brian?” “Caroline, why the attitude this morning?” “Wow, do you guys need some sleep!” “Can I have some candy, daddy?” “Can I have some candy, daddy?” “Daddy, can I have some candy?”

“No, Brian, no!”

But there are some times where the unexpected happens. Where you are reminded why we (parents) do what we do. And don’t go completely batshit insane. One of those moments happened this morning.

Like most mornings, Brian is difficult to get out of bed (kind of like his mother, I might add). Caroline was stressing about her hair (new “do” with bangs and all that). And I was just trying to survive that hectic 50 minutes between the time they wake up and the time I drop Brian off at school.

I finally got Caroline’s hair somewhat styled (if you can call it that). But Brian came downstairs and started his pout routine because we were out of his favorite cereal and he didn’t want the cereal (which I know he also likes, btw) that was left. So, he drags himself upstairs with the “I’m just not going to eat” mantra. Fine, whatever. They’ve got breakfast at school if he really wants it. So I’m bracing for a fight to get out the door in time for Caroline to catch her bus and me get Brian to his school.

Well, they remarkably got their collective stuff together and hopped in the car at 6:54am. Two minutes to get to the bus stop. We’re good to go. When we got there and the bus was almost there, Caroline leaned up front to give me a kiss. I told her to have a good day and that I loved her and I would get her from the bus stop this afternoon. She got out and started walking toward the bus.

Brian practically leaps in the front seat. He presses the button to roll the window down and sticks his head out the window.

“Carowine!” And no, that’s not a misspelling. That’s how Brian still says Caroline’s name.

She turns her head.

“I love you!” Brian says.

When hearing that, Caroline runs back over and gives Brian a hug and a kiss as he hangs out the passenger side window.

That’s when you know it’s worth it!

via Marco Arment’s Instagram feed

From a Mantelpiece Fern to the Front Page

[caption id=“attachment_1313” align=“aligncenter” width=“529” caption=“Photo from Doug Mills/The New York Times”][/caption]

Doug Mills didn’t have to concern himself with a crowd of jostling photographers when he shot the photograph that appeared on Thursday’s front page. He knew he had a good angle.

The only thing he had to contend with was a rogue fern.

I love geeky photography stuff like this.

Stay classy, Republicans!

from some forum

I don’t care what the product is, if you have beautiful imagery in your ads, I’m going to pay attention. And this is some beautiful imagery from the Berlin Philharmonic. See more here.

A lot of people will look back (and some already have) and say the announcement of the iPad 3 was not that exciting. Oh excuse me, The new iPad. As opposed to The old iPad.

Anyway, I have still not watched the actual presentation yet (just haven’t had time, to be honest). But I have certainly read about the specs and read (and listened to) countless commentary on it. “The retina display is unbelievable!” “Now we can actually use it as a camera.” “How will the other tablets catch up?”

In taking in all of that, something occurred to me that made me sit back and marvel. I am amazed at how many things Apple got right with the very first iPad. You know, the one that people kind of frown upon now because it’s so slow or it doesn’t have a camera or just has a “normal” display. Being the owner of one of those first-generation iPads, I can tell you that it still does work. And it works well. Is it as fast as the newer ones? No, of course not. But, I still use it every single day for a variety of tasks. And i still love it.

I think the fact that the past two iPads introduced have not strayed from the basic design of the first iPad should tell you how much they did get right out of the box. While other companies are (still) scrambling, changing, pulling their hair out to match Apple’s success with their own tablet, Apple just refines the market leader. Each time, making it better and better.

Will someone, someday, come up with a product to match the success of the iPad? Maybe. If (and when) they try, they will have a long, uphill battle on their hands.

Video about The new iPad

I don’t really have anything against the guy, per se. But this was just too funny to pass up!

Dan Benjamin on the moment you realize it’s time to go to bed:

“I don’t know what I was staring at. Was I staring at the sofa? Maybe it was the wall. I don’t know why I’m still awake.”

Gold!

A friend of mine (thanks Aaron!) sent this to me this morning. Oh so perfect!!

Porsche stuck in wet cement proves karma exists | Motoramic

Porsche 911 stuck in wet cement on Marina Blvd., San Francisco.On Thursday, the driver of a Porsche 911 decided he'd take a shortcut around some construction cones and drove straight into wet asphalt near Marina Green on Marina Blvd. in San Francisco.

from Yahoo News

My buddy Bruce sent me this picture in an email. It was so funny, I had to post it here:

That’s what she said!

No, really, this is a picture of the new Samsung Galaxy Note held next to an iPhone. Um, over-comensating much?!

via The Loop

Pure Genius!

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“600” caption=“Photo © Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Minneapolis Star Tribune/ZUMApress.com”][/caption]

Sabrina Rubin Erdely, writing for Rolling Stone:

Six weeks after her son's death, Aaberg became the first to publicly confront the Anoka-Hennepin school board about the link between the policy, anti-gay bullying and suicide. She demanded the policy be revoked. "What about my parental rights to have my gay son go to school and learn without being bullied?" Aaberg asked, weeping, as the board stared back impassively from behind a raised dais.

Anti-gay backlash was instant. Minnesota Family Council president Tom Prichard blogged that Justin’s suicide could only be blamed upon one thing: his gayness. “Youth who embrace homosexuality are at greater risk [of suicide], because they’ve embraced an unhealthy sexual identity and lifestyle,” Prichard wrote. Anoka-Hennepin conservatives formally organized into the Parents Action League, declaring opposition to the “radical homosexual” agenda in schools.

There is nothing about the situation described in this article that isn’t disgusting. The board, the teachers, the outside influences. All played a role in this. And who are the victims?

Kids. 13-17 year-old kids.

How could these people (collectively) allow this to happen? If you read the article, even the students asked this question. How can we, as a society, allow this to happen to our children?

I think the most heart-breaking part of the article was the story of the 9 year-old brother of one of the suicide victims. His mother, obviously having been through a living hell I don’t wish on anyone, found him in a bath tub, trying to drown himself. The reason?

He wanted to see his big brother again.

via Rolling Stone

Oh yes, I must have this…

via “Local man sells breast-shaped iPhone cases for cancer cause” from TwinCities.com

Truth. See more good advice at Good Fucking Design Advice!

No, this is not a sequel to the Johnny Cash song.

We were at the Y this evening after a much-needed weekend off. Jayme and I are starting this training regimen called “Lee Labrada’s 12-Week Lean Body Daily Trainer.” It’s brutal, to say the least. Anyway, after this first session, we finished the hour with some cardio on the treadmill. The Y has treadmills (and other equipment, I’m assuming) by LifeFitness. On the tread part of the treadmill, there is a LifeFitness logo on each side of the conveyer. Specifically, the outer edge of the tread on each side. The weird part is they are staggered, so one doesn’t exactly line up with the other.

And here’s where my OCD kicks in a bit. Does anybody else feel the compulsion to never step on those logos? To stay between the two? Of course, to challenge me, they added the whole staggering thing. Is that just something that bothers me?

Ok, so maybe that is just me.

Recently, my sister sent me an email requesting some help. Turns out she need some help in purchasing a laptop. Her work was willing to buy her a laptop, but she had some specific qualifications for it:

• 17" notebook
• numeric keypad built-in (along with the standard keyboard)
• under $900

Right off the bat, that rules out any of the Apple laptops (boo!). Needless to say, I was a bit fuzzy on how to help her, as I don’t really keep up with PC deals or anything like that anymore. But, I still keep up with the underlying tech in computers as I kind of have to where I work. So, I set off the find this mythical perfect notebook for her. To be honest, $900 for a decent 17" notebook sounded a little daunting, but I’ll give it a shot.

I first checked Dell, as that’s where our company’s PC’s are purchased. They had one, about $850. Great. Checked HP, they had almost the same exact configuration, for about $825. Awesome. I sent the two PDFs with the configurations I had picked out to her for approval. Shortly after that, she sent back an email asking about the numeric keypad. Hmm. I don’t actually know which laptops have numeric keypads. It’s not one of the usual listed specs when you’re looking down the (really) long list of tech specs that only geeks can understand. How would I find out that information? Surely, it’s on their website, right? In pictures, I’m assuming?

In a word, no.

At both the Dell and HP websites, there was one stock image, that’s it. No gallery of what the machine looked like. No specifications on the keyboard itself. It was certainly not one of the search criteria (not that I was expecting it to be, given how rare it is on notebooks). They went right from choosing Home/Home Business or whatever bullshit category name they’ve come up with to configuring it. There’s no way to simply see it. Very frustrating.

That same afternoon, I saw a tweet that epitomized my frustration with the PC market. And by the PC market, I mean the hardware manufacturers who make “generic” Windows PCs. The tweet consisted of simply this:

This is how HP sells its laptops:

This is how Apple sells its laptops:

See the difference?

Not convinced? Go to the product page for the Macbook Air. Now, go to the product page (if you can call it that) for the HP Envy. (For you real geeks, check out the URL those links point to. It doesn’t even all fit in my status bar in my browser.)

This pretty much sums up the exact experience I had when looking for a laptop for my sister. And I know this stuff. What is a muggle to make of all that technical mumbo-jumbo that HP throws at you right off the bat? To be fair, HP does have the geek-to-muggle translated marketing stuff, but it’s buried behind a “View Models” button on the right-hand side of each entry on the page. And even then, it’s “below the fold”, underneath warranty information and more frickin' tech specs. So, let me get this straight, you’re going to try to sell me on the warranty before you even explain why I might want this particular laptop? Exactly how big a piece of shit is this thing? Come on, people.

It’s not a wonder I don’t like shopping for PC’s anymore.

(via National Post)

This year, for our annual manager’s meeting, our company broke ranks from old habit and went on a cruise. And not just any cruise. A Disney cruise. Having never been on one of these things, my expectations were mixed. I knew from Jayme’s depiction from one of her girls' weekends that they were like floating cities. Full staterooms, just like a hotel, dinners prepared every night, clubs, the works. And come on, it’s Disney. They’re like the Apple of entertainment. But what do you do on a cruise ship for 3 days? Would I get sick? Would I simply get sick of being packed in with everybody else for so long? I honestly didn’t know what to expect.

All Aboard!

We left out Wednesday afternoon, stayed in Cordele, GA for the night, and headed out first thing Thursday morning to Port Canaveral, FL. The Disney Dream was waiting on us there, where we would set sail at roughly 4pm. Any doubts I had about the ship were very quickly smashed when I saw the enormity of the Dream sitting there in port. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I can only imagine this is what the people who boarded those luxury liners at the turn of the previous century experienced. It was breathtaking.

After all of the logistical stuff had been taken care of and we checked in 400 times and we swore up and down we hadn’t had any explosive diarrhea in at least 3 days, we actually boarded the ship. Up until this point, a lot of these things felt like we were about to board a plane. X-ray machines, bag checkpoints, boarding passes, card dispersals. You name it, we had to do it. But nothing compares to walking through the tunnel onto the ship for the first time.

The midship atrium is where you are thrust into when you leave the non-floating world behind. Large, elegant, and polished to the nines. It was magnificent. I think I actually turned to Jay and mentioned some comparison to the photos of the Titanic’s Grand Staircase. A smile crossed my face at that moment, and my first thought was, “this is cool!”.

After finding our stateroom and getting everything squared away, we went to our mandatory this-is-how-you-don’t-die-if-the-ship-has-an-emergency briefings. Not fun, but necessary seeing as how many passengers the thing holds. After the herding session had ended, we stopped by our stateroom again, changed clothes, and went to the company reception in Club Evolution, which proved to be a favorite stomping ground throughout. Aaron and Doug both gave their opening remarks, we talked about the year that was, and got ready for our first dinner.

This particular dinner was held at Animator’s Palette. A themed restaurant, sporting a number of sketches, prints, and animations from most all Disney movies, it was a large dining room. The most interesting part of the place were the screens that had characters that floated by in their “tank” and talked to you. And I don’t mean spoke from some pre-determined script. No, sir. I mean characters that spoke to you, specifically. The most astonishing one was a gentleman who had his back turned away from the screen and Crush (the far-out turtle from Finding Nemo) was trying to get his attention.

“Excuse me, sir,” Crush would say. The man didn’t turn around.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, a little louder this time. Still nothing from the man.

“Dude, are you going to turn around or what?” The man finally turned around.

“Finally! I was beginning to think you didn’t like me!” Crush followed up.

The man’s eyes were so wide. He couldn’t believe it. I don’t know how they did it, whether there are cameras everywhere and live humans behind the scenes assigned to each screen or what, but to some extent, I don’t want to know. The magic would be gone. Every now and then, it’s nice to experience a little magic.

After dinner, we made our way up to Club Evolution as they had a Match Your Mate game planned. In this game, three couples (strangely, one younger, one middle-aged, and one slightly older) played a Newlywed type of game. Let’s just say we learned A LOT about these people that we didn’t know before, some things we probably should have never known. By the way, if you ever visit one of the Disney resorts in Coronado (I think), you might want to skip the hot tub. Just sayin'!

After the game was over, the club turned into a club and the dancing began. Jayme and I normally don’t dance. It’s not that we actively try not to go dancing. But, when the opportunity for a night out together (sans kids) presents itself, we’re normally so exhausted or lazy that we don’t end up making plans, and we end up going to a movie or something like that. Not this time, though! We hit the dance floor.

Wow, was that fun! I mean, let’s not get it twisted, we’re not going to be on “So You Think You Can Dance” or anything, but we move pretty good out there and have some rhythm to us. We danced and danced and danced and finally left about 12:30 or 1am, I can’t remember. All I know is that I felt old for not knowing ANY of these club songs and I was sweating like a pig. Did I mention they don’t really use the AC in that place all that much?

Friday

In the morning, we had our one (and only) real business meeting from 7:30-9:30. I got up ok, let Jayme sleep in a bit, and headed to get some breakfast. The meeting went fine, Aaron laid out the year ahead and we were set off to explore Nassau. After a (much better) breakfast with Jayme in the Enchanted Garden, we headed off the ship to roam the streets. Like anything tourist-y, Nassau itself was filled with stores selling all kinds of knick-knack stuff and T-shirts and keychains. Great for souvenirs for the kids (which is what we were there for), but not so great for those wanting a little more. Maybe we’ll try Atlantis across the bay next time.

Anyway, back aboard ship, we grabbed some lunch, and headed for the pool decks. We laid out in the sun for a while, just enjoying the peacefulness of not having to do anything or watch anybody or monitor what the kids were doing. It was nice. It was a little hot in the sun (as my face and left side could attest to later), but nice.

We actually stopped back by the room and changed into our bathing suits so we could try the water slide called Aquaduck. It’s essentially a tube filled with water that kind of winds around the top deck between the two smoke stacks. It was really fun, but was really cold when getting out because of the wind (this would be the gusty kind). And worst of all, Robert was standing right there when we came out at the bottom with his camera. I had to look like a beached whale at that point. I’m not even sure the camera could tell my actual features as the white balance was thrown off a bit by my white-ass chest. Ooh, not a pretty sight. I guess, looking back, it was shades of things to come.

Dinner was not too much later. We had some wine, some lobster ravioli, some spinach salad, and some (to be honest, not-so-good chicken). Best part of the meal, the Mickey Head popsicle. Yes, it was from the kid’s menu, but I didn’t care. I had a craving! After dinner, we popped back up to the top deck to watch some fireworks, have a few more drinks, and prep for karaoke. Yes, ladies and germs, you heard me correct, karaoke!

So, here’s the thing…

I have always kind of wanted to do something like this. I have a moderately good singing voice, but I’ve always been nervous because as I get into my higher registers, I lose a lot of the power of the voice. To hit the notes, I have to switch to falsetto and I start to kind of sound like a girl. Think Kurt from Glee when he gets to those high notes. Same thing. But, as Jayme rightly pointed out, karaoke is about having fun first and hitting the notes correctly maybe 5th or 6th. The point of it is to have some laughs, embarrass yourself a little, and have some good times to talk about later. Got it. Let’s do this.

We get there and are ready to go and then it hits me…what should/can I sing? Nathaniel and I decide we want to try to do one together, but we can’t come up with a song that we both actually know well enough to be those guys. After looking through the catalog thing, I start to get that feeling of chickening out. Balls!

Then Trevor (an incredible MC for most of the adult events) came up and said they were going to do one open mic song. Whoever wanted to come up could just come up and start singing. Pretty cool, but what song? Then, the first couple of chords came over the speakers…“Piano Man” by Billy Joel.

Wait a minute, I know this song. I know this song well. And I can actually sing it. But, there’s a girl already up there. Hmm. Should I just sit here? If I sit here, then I’m just going to continue to walk down the chicken-out path. Can’t do that. Get up, Lee. Get your ass up. You know this. You can do this! Hey, there are two mics up there. Here’s your chance! Go!

So, I got up and kind of sneaked on stage for the start of the second verse. After that, everything becomes mostly a blur. I remember singing. I remember hearing people cheer. Hell, I even remember doing a little dance when the song got to the “La la la, di da da” part. I do actually remember Trevor saying something about my little interpretive dance. Again, that guy was really good.

I looked over after the second verse and refrain and the girl was no longer there. In her place was this guy (Eddie, I came to find out later) who was taking his shot, too. We caught a glimpse of each other and there was an understanding between us. We didn’t really know what we were doing up here, but by god, we were doing it. And it was fun. And I felt energized and happy. I felt…alive.

At some point during the song, during one of the musical interludes, I gave a shout-out to my cheering section. They were loud and I was loving it. And at that exact moment, I had a feeling. A weird, hopeful feeling. I knew somewhere in that crowd, beyond the bright lights and smoky atmosphere, Jayme was watching me. Probably clapping, hopefully smiling. She was watching me (possibly make a fool of myself, granted), but deep down in my gut, I had a strange hope that she was proud of me. That seems weird to me thinking about it now, but there it was.

Favorite line of the song, by the way: “And the piano, it sounds like a carnival…” I’ve always loved that part.

Anyway, Eddie and I finished the song and bowed together and we exited stage left. Literally. That’s where my peeps were sitting. I came back to a crowd of high fives, cheering, and at-a-boys. It was an awesome feeling. It was all so overwhelming, to be honest, but I think I remember Jayme kissing me when I got back to her. Maybe I had made her proud.

After that, we had several more songs, even “New York, New York” by my new friend Eddie, who did a spectacular job on it. My favorite was probably “Summer Nights” from Grease. Jayme’s already agreed to do that one with me the next time we venture into a karaoke bar. That one is just fun, all the way around.

Dancing followed, aided by several more drinks, one from Mike (thanks man!) for getting up there and singing. We danced a WHOLE lot after that and finally ended up leaving around 2am. Exhausted and a little tipsy for me, we got back to the stateroom, talked to Mike over the railing for a few minutes, and then went in and collapsed.

What a day!

Saturday

Then came Saturday. Oh dear, what a Saturday! Somehow, Jayme got up and got ready to go run a 5K on Castaway Key. You heard me right, a 5K in the morning, on vacation, after having slept for about 4-4.5 hours. Wow. After that was over, the whole Romanoff group met up for some beach games. After being tackled at the finish line (literally) by Ken, Sherman and our team went to whip some tail at volleyball, before finishing off the final team in the sand castle building competition. Team Castaway for the win, baby! Great fun!

After some lunch, Jayme and I headed off for our couple’s massage in the cabanas on the adult side of the island. Set off away from everything else, it was unbelievably quiet and serene. We sat (in the shade) and just relaxed for a bit. We went to get a picture in front of the water, but we put one foot in and took it out right quick. Freezing water!

The massages were wonderful, if not slightly painful. There was one point where she started at my neck and went down my back that I swear everything popped one after the other. The sound was like hearing popcorn being made. Afterwards, she actually commented on that, which led to Jayme saying I needed to go to the chiropractor with her. I don’t know about that, but we’ll see.

We got back on the ship and went back to the Aquaduck for two more rides. Needing to get in our pre-meal meal, we had some snacks on the pool deck before heading back to get ready for the Awards Ceremony. The ceremony itself was very nice. A lot to celebrate this past year, and the winners were well-deserving. Even Ben got up there and delivered an inspirational speech thanking Aaron for all that he’s done for him personally as well as all the things he’s done for the company as a whole. Very touching speech, I must say.

After all the formal awards were over, I got to take the stage to present Doug and Lisa with a print of the Disney Cruise, signed by everyone in our group. 72 signatures in all. Jayme and I had been working since the previous night to get everybody and we managed to get the last ones right before the ceremony began. It was worth it, as we were all having a wonderful time and wanted to give a small token of our appreciation to them.

Aaron had a couple of more minor things, and then announced where we were going next year. These things do tend to take the whole year to prepare for, but even this was a surprise. Mostly that he had it and he and Doug had already agreed on it. He told everybody thank you and started reminders about dinner and plans for later and all that stuff. Then, he (very) casually looked to the back where the audio/video engineer guy was sitting and said “Do we have that song cued up?”

See, here’s the thing…

I have always loved MJ’s “Thriller” ever since I was a little kid. My dad would play it and I would be scared during the scary parts, but I would always love the singing and dancing. And I always love to watch the videos on YouTube where a wedding party will bust into the Thriller dance at the reception. I’ve always said I would love to do that. So, I shared this with Aaron and a couple of other people, and this thing led to that thing, and all of a sudden the spotlight turns to the stage and people are chanting “Feagin” like it’s Rudy. I finally get up from my seat, after taking a long shot on Jayme’s white wine, and make my way up to the stage.

I asked for at least a couple of other people to join me on stage so I wouldn’t feel like a complete dumb-ass, so a couple of people jump up. I can barely hear Michael singing (as what’s playing is actually the karaoke version of the song), so I know I’m just going to have to make something up on the spot.

[youtube=youtu.be/b1nBiwBvf…]

Yeah, that just happened. Feel free to take a few moments.

You back? Ok, good. You’re going to need your big-boy or big-girl pants for this next part.

After the ceremony was over, we went to pack our things and get ready for dinner. The final dinner was in the more regal Royal Palace. I’m sure you can guess what the ambiance was like in this restaurant. From the food to the menus to the waiters in nice jackets, it was pretty nice. Highlight of the dinner, though, was our table trying out the escargot. That’s snails for you following at home. That is correct, I ate a snail. Paula said it tasted like some kind of cooked oyster, but having never had those, I had no comment on that comparison. To me, it kind of tasted like shrimp, to be honest. Either way, I can say now that I have eaten a snail. You may now pick your jaws up off the floor! Thanks, and a waiter will be coming by to clean that up for you.

After dinner, it was time for 80’s Music Trivia back in good ole Club Evolution with Trevor. I should also mention that Trevor had on his 70’s garb as the theme for the night at the dance club was the 70’s. White polyester pants, pulled up almost to his nipples (his description, not mine), a gold shiny shirt, and a pink sparkly hat. That dude was committed. We didn’t win 80’s trivia or anything, but our group had a good time going “What the hell was that?”

The dance club came alive after trivia was over and we got out on the dance floor. They played random 70’s tunes, we did the electric slide for a while, and generally had a really good time with everybody out there. At one point, a Disney employee girl who was working the club came up to me and said, “You’re fun. Here, wear this!”. It was one of those glow stick type of necklace things. Random, but ok. Cool! Then she asks me what other guys can she give these to? I said I don’t know and finally found Mike and pointed to him. She disappeared and I didn’t think twice about it.

Until, that is, she showed up with another worker friend that led us (there were five of us with the little glowing necklace things) to the hallway between the club and the Skyline Lounge. She closes the door behind us, walks to the middle of the hallway, and says the following with no pre-text whatsoever:

“Take your shirts off.”

I’m sorry, what?!

“Take your shirts off.”

As she gets to the word shirts, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a headdress. An Indian (Native American) headdress.

Are you getting it now?

70’s…check!

5 guys…check!

No shirts…check!

Headgear…check!

Oh yeah, we’re about to go there.

She pulls out the Indian headdress (which Mike got), a policeman’s hat, a captain’s hat (that was mine), a construction worker hat, and I honestly can’t remember the other one.

Yes sir, we were the Village People.

And in a few short seconds, we would be running out (no shirts, mind you) and performing Y.M.C.A. in front of everyone at the club.

Fuck it, I went with it. I’m game. Let’s do this. I’m told there’s video of this floating around the company as we speak. I have not seen it, but I hear that it’s pretty funny. I’m quite sure my lovely wife was utterly mortified by this (and let’s be real here, who can blame her?). The icing on top of the cake was that Doug and Lisa were in the crowd for this little shindig. Oh wow. Mike and I will never be looked at the same way again, that’s for sure!

Dancing followed, but the 3 nights of dancing were catching up with me and my stomach was starting to hurt. Which actually can’t be all that surprising, considering dinner was not long before the YMCA routine and the amount of unconscious sucking in I was doing because of that was monumental. Plus, I had to drive the next day. We bid our final adieu around midnight and crashed about 12:30am. Long day, but a very fun day!

Sunday

Sunday was mostly about the trek back home. I think everybody was beat. Everybody was rung out, and really just wanted to be home. And I know in our van, we all wanted to get home to see our kids. So, when we finally did pull in to the office parking lot about 7:45pm, it was a welcome sight. We unpacked the van, got in our separate cars and dipped out.

Epilogue

I can’t begin to thank Doug and Lisa enough for this magnificent trip. Doug’s words to Aaron when he first pitched this was “it’ll be cool”. Cool it was! So cool! Everyone had fun, had laughs, had some times to remember for the rest of their lives. For some, it will be the only cruise they will ever go on. For others, it’s a door to other experiences that they can share with their friends and family. Either way, it was magical. Thank you so much!

I also want to thank Aaron and Paula for all the work that they did to (it sounds simple enough) “make it happen”. I do know how much work something like this takes and it’s incredible that you make it look so easy. I think I speak for everybody on this trip: Thank you!

Kontra (@counternotions) 1/10/12 9:25 PM Is the number of people who can no longer be persuaded by facts and reason growing more rapidly than ever?

On this, the 34th birthday of my lovely wife Jayme, I present a simple acronym describing her best traits in five short letters:

Just about the only woman who would put up with me

Auburn-loving fan

YMCA-going fanatic (hey, Y is really hard to come up with!)

Mommy to the stars (at least, my two little stars!)

Easy-going individual (well, except when there’s cooking to be done…Kisses!)

I love you sweetie!  Happy birthday!

5MB HARD DISK DRIVE, 1956

-via Retronaut

Here’s something I don’t understand: Why do people think the President directly controls job creation (or lack thereof). Yeah, yeah, I know. Macro-economy, market stability, blah, blah, blah. But, come on. One person can’t control all of the factors that go into the health and stability of the economy. And he certainly can’t solely control unemployment. He doesn’t hire people. He doesn’t fire people. He’s the President. At best, he can make (hopefully educated) suggestions and make a good speech to rally support.

Which brings me to my proposal. Here’s what I think Obama should do:

1. Hold an evening address from the Oval Office. Primetime. All major networks. Explain how much the unemployment rate is hurting the economy, yada, yada, yada. To help remedy the situation, publically mandate that every business in America must hire at least one extra person by January 31, 2012. Thank (and make sure to God bless) the American public and say goodnight.
2. Wait 3 seconds for the backlash to explode on Fox News. They will howl and they will wail:

   “How can the President do this?!”

   “He doesn’t have the authority!”

   “Only Congress can make laws!”

   “He’s trying to destroy the Constitution!”

   “Muslim!”

   “Socialist!”

   “Muslim Socialist!”

3. The next night, hold another evening address from the Oval Office. Same time. Same coverage. Same everything. Even wear the same suit and tie. We're going for reproduction value here, people. Repeat what you said last night. To the word. When you're done, play the most bombastic Fox News clip from the night before that explains the notion that the President has no power to mandate job creation. Extra points for a socialism tie-in.

   As the broadcast comes back to you, say “So let me get this straight…I can’t make businesses create jobs, yet you criticize me for not creating jobs. What the fuck? Goodnight and God bless America.”

Boom!

I really like how Louie Mantia (via Craig Hockenberry) put it on Twitter: “A perfect example of Apple continually refining their products” [caption id=“attachment_979” align=“aligncenter” width=“512” caption=“5th Ave Apple Store”][/caption]

Yes, yes, and yes:

Get a print for yourself at: crazyonesquote.com

Santorum: No One Has Ever Died Because They Didn’t Have Health Care

“The answer is not what can we do to prevent deaths because of a lack of health insurance. There’s — I reject that number completely, that people die in America because of lack of health insurance,” Santorum said to a crowd of 100.

“People die in America because people die in America. And people make poor decisions with respect to their health and their healthcare. And they don’t go to the emergency room or they don’t go to the doctor when they need to,” he said. “And it’s not the fault of the government for not providing some sort of universal benefit."

About the actual statements from Santorum, words fail me.

As to the notion that this fuck is even newsworthy at all is mind-numbing. The tweet that brought this to my attention actually said something to effect of “Holy crap…what an idiot!” You know what, he’s not an idiot. He knows exactly what he’s saying. He knows how ridiculous it is. He’s saying it because he’s a pandering douchebag. Plain and simple.

What a dick…

Did you ever wonder how a free service/business hits a customer service home run? This is a GREAT start from Pinterest!

To be honest, Jayme uses this service a whole lot more than I do. But letters like this make me want to actually use the service more. That’s impressive.

The site for the new Authentic Jobs iPhone app is simply gorgeous. And, the best part, it’s responsive.

[caption id=“attachment_932” align=“aligncenter” width=“1024” caption=“The Authentic Jobs iPhone app (Desktop)"][/caption]

[caption id=“attachment_933” align=“aligncenter” width=“768” caption=“The Authentic Jobs iPhone app (iPad)"][/caption]

[caption id=“attachment_936” align=“aligncenter” width=“403” caption=“The Authentic Jobs iPhone app (iPhone)"][/caption]

This morning, I was trying to catch up on my Instapaper queue backlog and came across (ironically) Marco’s post about the Mac Pro and Apple’s future plans for it. Not really an important article for most of you reading this, unless you happen to care specifically about the fate of the Mac Pro. What struck me was the picture at the top of the post.

[caption id=“attachment_926” align=“aligncenter” width=“497” caption=“Apple's Mac Pro”][/caption]

The first Mac I ever used came about from a trial run at my former job. When asked if I wanted to “test use” a Mac, I said sure. The Power Mac G5 (the former name of the Mac Pro) was shipped a couple of weeks later. When it arrived at my office, the first thing I noticed was the stylish box it came in. Let’s remember, I was used to the Gateway and Dell boxes at the time and this was a complete departure from that. (Sadly, not much has changed in this realm since.)

We opened the box (my colleague and I, as I had never set up a Mac before), and removed the machine. First impression: gorgeous. It was solid aluminum, and looked like an industrial design marvel in its simplicity. Again, unlike desktops that I was used to from Dell and Gateway, no stickers adorned the surface. No latches for hidden doors on it. No ridiculous plastic covers that served only to differentiate the color pattern and/or make it look that much cheaper.

The real difference happened when Robert opened the inside of the machine. Again, I had never seen the inside of an Apple machine, much less the inside of this beast of a computer. In my mind, there would be wires everywhere (as this particular machine was fully loaded) and boards sticking out and fans scattered about, as something had to cool this massive system.

What I found, however, was what you see in the picture above. I don’t even believe any more commentary is needed. If you’ve ever seen the inside of a “normal” PC, you know. You can appreciate the pure beauty of how this machine is laid out and manufactured.

It’s beautiful. Geeky? Yes. But still just as beautiful.

I think the graphic speaks for itself.

Seriously, Tweets for Balls is an online campaign to raise awareness and money for testicular cancer using Twitter. Great cause and made me laugh hysterically when i first saw it!

http://tweetsforballs.org/

Okay, I know this makes me a huge geek, but this thing just looks so cool. Simple elegance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QCJ1PnVlzIE

Check it out for yourself at: Nest Learning Thermostat

Music is so powerful. The story that it tells. The emotion it envokes. The way it can speak to you as if it were being written and performed for your situation. For your life.

I’ve always loved music. Some of my most fond memories in life revolve around music.

During summers as a kid, I would go to work with my dad on Fridays. Fridays were always his “light” day, so he didn’t mind me tagging along. What’s most vivid in my mind, though, is riding down the road listening to music. Motown, specifically. Dad loves Motown. He had this one cassette that contained intermingled songs from The Temptations and The Four Tops. This was always our favorite. I still remember one song in particular, “The Same Old Song” by The Four Tops, that we would “jam” to.

[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch

It still makes me smile.

From 6th grade all the way through college, I was in some kind of chorus class. Singing made me feel part of something. Part of a group. Even part of a family. I wasn’t half-bad, either. I auditioned and was accepted to the All-State choir my sophomore, junior, and senior years in high school. Of course, this was also after disappointing rejections in my 8th and 9th grade years. I certainly liked my high school chorus and we had some great performances, but no experience could compare to All-State. There were singers there and songs we sang that gave me goosebumps from the moment we sang our first note. And when our performance finally came after 4 days of practices, I would dread the moment we finished our last song. Because that meant I’d have to wait another year to enjoy it again.

I distinctly remember the feeling of singing in such a large group. The feeling you get when so many voices join together to produce a powerful sound. When done right, it can be beautiful. So beautiful that it can take your breath away without you even knowing it.

Music also led me to enjoy the performing arts. More specifically, musical theater. I think it’s because I know what it takes to really nail down a part or song. There are endless days of rigorous rehearing, sometimes spending all day and most of the night getting it right. Getting it perfect. You practice so much that it becomes second nature. You can’t turn it off. It becomes another lens from which you view the world.

That’s why musical theater excites me so much. When you attend a musical (live musical theater, I should say), you are witnessing a production in which hundreds of thousands of man-hours have been put in. The dedication of so many are evident in the set, the costumes, the hairstyles, the preparation of the actors, all of it. It’s (mostly) flawless. And even when there are flaws, you appreciate them, too. Because you realize at that time that these are not robots. They are real people. Performing impossible feats right before your eyes. Sure, they will mess up from time to time. But it’s okay. Because you know what? They’ll get back up and do it flawlessly the next 999 times.

Jayme and I had the pleasure of going tonight to see Wicked at the Fox Theater. It was the last performance of the show here in Atlanta, so the place was absolutely packed. I turned to Jayme and told her I hadn’t been to the theater since we went to see Les Misérables in London…around 2003. Had it really been that long? The show started and everything came back to me. The lights. The roaring music. The singing. The excitement.

I won’t go in to the story of Wicked itself right here, but it’s based on The Wizard of Oz. Instantly, you’re familiar with the characters and the world in which they are set. With that out of the way, you’re free to simply enjoy this new twist on a very familiar story. It was, simply put, amazing.

While I was watching it, though, I was brought back to why I loved this genre of entertainment so much. The opening number had a group of about 15 characters involved in it. When they reached the final bar, all voices were joining in to throw a last-second punch at the audience. As they crescendoed together toward that last note, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. When the final note had faded, I actually turned to Jayme and whispered, “That’s why I love the theater”.

It makes you excited. It gets your adrenaline pumping. Knowing what they’re doing and how well they’re doing it. Live, in front of you. It’s awe-inspiring. I can sing, sure, but I can’t do that. I don’t have the gut voice like they do. They have the unique ability to hit a note (which is the one thing I can do) and project it from the depths of their diaphragm all the way across town (which I have never had). I have to sing in my head once it reaches a certain pitch. These people can sing from their chest. They let it rattle around to produce a resonant and booming vocal. And did I mention breath control? My god! They can punch a note…hard…and hold it for ages. It’s unbelievable.

I just don’t understand people that don’t get excited about musical theater. The human drama alone in relation to the actors on stage is enough for me. And that’s even before you get to the actual story of the show. It’s riveting. I dare someone, anyone, to watch a particular scene from Wicked and not get goosebumps. At the end of the first act, right before intermission, the company does a song called “Defying Gravity”. Everyone on stage eventually comes in to sing, but the song is centered around the character of Elphaba. She is coming to terms with the fact that she has to take a new turn in life. Everything she once knew, everything she once believed was now broken. She needs to look in a new direction. On her own. Doing things her way. Sit through that scene and that song and tell me it doesn’t shoot the goose bump factor through the roof.

The chicken was actually really good last night. Sometimes it can be a bit dry, like it’s been sitting underneath that lamp thing they have in restaurant kitchens. But not this time. It was fresh, it was hot, and it was good. In fact, my belly was pretty full of it, some sweet tea, and some medium buffalo sauce. Emily had just called to talk to dad. I made sure to ask about she and Sean. I wanted to make sure everything was going okay with them. Other than some work stuff, they were doing well. Good to go.

I looked up at the television, hoping to see anything else besides the Amanda Knox coverage on CNN. Steve’s face was there.

What? Why is Steve’s face on television? Sure, the endless commentary on the iPhone 4S announcement the day before had not been drowned out yet. Everyone had their opinion. Some were disappointed. Some were delighted. Some were, shockingly enough, even amazed. I had heard all sides at this point. And, to be honest, I was kind of tired of hearing about it.

But why would Steve’s face be on television about the iPhone 4S? He wasn’t even there, at least as far as I knew. No one had mentioned that he was there. Huh?

“HAS DIED”

Dad wasn’t talking. In fact, no one was talking. I didn’t hear anything around me.

“APPLE SAYS STEVE JOBS HAS DIED”

Surely, that can’t be right. I picked up my iPhone. Shaking in my hand, I knew my adrenalin had kicked in. Yet, it was still quiet around me. Where had everybody gone?

www.cnn.com

Nothing there. The only story I recognized was on the non-candidacy of Chris Christie. Nothing there. I looked up. Video montages of Steve. Steve introducing the iPhone. Steve introducing the iPad. The 1984 introduction of the Mac by a young Steve Jobs. The 1984 Super Bowl commercial. Paparazzi flash bulbs go off as B roll footage is shown. They must be wrong.

www.apple.com

My heart sinks. Noise hits me again. Loud. All around me.

“Oh…my…God.” I say as I stare past dad again. Dad swivels his head around to look at the television screen. His head turns back around to look at me. I am holding my iPhone screen toward him. He looks down to study it.

“Oh no,” he says.

I don’t really remember what he and I said to each other for the last 5 minutes were were sitting there. I told him I needed to leave because my stomach hurt. Which it did. I told dad goodbye, got in my car, and drove home.

The night from that point on was not really filled with much discussion. At least verbally.

I got home to find my kids getting ready for bed. Just like it happens every night. We are pushing them to get their jammies on, and their teeth brushed, and their books read. It’s always a challenge. They never want to go to bed. No kid ever does. But they need to. That’s what parents are there for.

I was helping Brian get his jammies on. He finally got his shirt over his humongous head and thrusted his arms out the armholes of the shirt. He stood there looking at me. He didn’t have his glasses on. He still looked like my little baby boy. He’s not really anymore, but when those glasses are off, and he looks at you a certain way, you can still see it. I asked him to come here.

“Why, daddy?”

“Just come here, buddy.”

He walks over. I throw my arms around him.

After a few seconds, “Daddy, are you okay?”

“Yes, buddy, daddy’s fine as long as you’re here. I love you, big boy.”

“I told Mommy I love her. Would you like me to tell you that, too?”

“Yes, buddy. Absolutely.”

The next three or four hours I spent combing my Twitter feed. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of tweets regarding Steve’s passing. Most of my Twitter universe is centered around the Apple universe. Whether it’s developers, writers, fans, or Apple itself, that content group consumes most of it. It was too soon yet for the blog posts to be written. Most of it was pure reaction. In 140 characters. You give creatives a limitation, and they will surprise you. Heartfelt. Touching. Sad. Inspirational. Mournful. It was all there.

I’ve never worked for Apple. I don’t know anyone personally that has ever worked for Apple, either directly or indirectly. Most of my Twitter feed, though, is littered with people who are indirectly employed by Apple. Most of them developers. One- to three-man shops that have made a living being a developer for a platform they love. Most started off as Mac developers and have moved over to or supplemented their business with iOS development. Lots of their tweets were ones of gratitude. Without Apple, sure they would probably have a job. But not this job. Not the job they obviously love. Not the job they make incredible sacrifices for. Not the job that keeps them up at night trying to pursue something great. I can understand the resonation this news would impart on them. It means a lot to them. Personally and professionally.

What I was not expecting was the way I was feeling. Something had changed within me. Something was missing. Something was gone. It felt wrong. It still feels wrong. I think someone commented last night that it feels like “we’re missing an ally in the world tonight”. I wasn’t expecting to take this so personally. What I finally realized was that I was feeling the hurt. The hurt of losing someone special to you. I don’t know how else to describe it. I realize how strange that sounds. It feels even stranger. Strangely personal.

It’s funny how enticing hope is. Many of you know me as a very logical thinker. I need to grasp what’s happening in a situation and apply logic to it to understand it. I need to know the why. That’s how I get it. And yet, some things elude our normal way of thinking. The logical part of me has always said that Jobs was going to die relatively soon. It’s been trying to convince the emotional side of me for months now.

When Steve went on the indefinite medical leave of absence back in January, it was widely speculated that the cancer that was responsible for his need for a new liver had returned. In the aftermath of that announcement, one of the podcasts I listen to had an actual doctor on the show to explain to them what might be going on. Not knowing any specifics, obviously, the doctor said one thing that stuck with me. At least the logical side of me. He said that no one beats pancreatic cancer twice. If it had come back, he would have another 6-12 months. That’s it. Unfortunately, he turned out to be right.

Even knowing that logically, I always had hope. I think we all did. This was Steve Jobs, right?! If anyone can beat something like this, he can. It’s naive to think that way, but I did. We all do. If we have no hope, we have no reason to keep going. To believe. To think that things can get better. I am often saddened by life’s inevitabilities. I am truly saddened by this one.

Grief is another emotion that hits you and you have no idea it’s coming. Sometimes, it taps you on the shoulder. And other times it punches you straight in the mouth. Very directly. I told you earlier, when grief hits me, I collect things.

Why do I collect these things? I don’t know. Maybe it’s my way of coping. From a logical standpoint, I know that my quest to collect these things occupies my mind enough to keep any real feelings away. Out of reach. Just out of reach. Far enough away to where I don’t/won’t have to deal with them right now. I realize now that I don’t really know how to express grief. At least grief that’s not direct. I know it’s there. I just don’t know how to deal with it. My grief usually shows itself when I see and feel the grief from others. The two times in my life I remember just breaking down, uncontrollably:

• When my grandfather died and seeing my dad walk in the house completely and utterly distraught (that's a sight children don't see that often)
• Strangely enough, watching an "Outside the Lines" piece on a women's basketball coach who was in a car accident only about 8-9 months after her daughter was born. If I remember the story correctly, she lived long enough to speak to the responding officer. Caroline was 10-11 months old at the time. Jayme was either taking a shower at the time or she was still asleep, I don't remember. As the officer (with tears streaming) recounted what she said, I just sat there and held Caroline and cried. Cried hard. Just held Caroline. Didn't want to let her go. Afraid to.

Grief is a strange beast.

It felt surreal all day today. I was at work, doing my normal work things. And yet, it was different. I knew there would be no more waiting for the next Steve Jobs keynote. I knew there would be no more Steve one-line emails being passed around the Mac blogosphere. It’s weird. It’s truly the first time we’re living in a world that Steve Jobs is not in. Very surreal.

Four different people expressed their condolences to me today, each in their own way. That sounds very formal when I put it like that, but you get the idea. It was like they knew I had lost someone close to me. How strange is that? Does that happen when the CEO of any other company dies? If nothing else, I think it speaks to the truly unique nature of this man and this company.

I mean, look at the screenshot of the Apple homepage above. Even as I’m writing this, it’s still that way. Think about that for a second. They (Apple) make a major product announcement on Tuesday. This new product will be available for pre-order at 12am this Friday morning (some 22 minutes from now). iOS 5 will ship next Wednesday. The iPhones will ship next Friday. iCloud will be rolled out next week. These are major announcements for any company. Certainly major announcements for Apple. Companies are in business to make money. I’ve become well-acquainted over the past 6 years with the notion of opportunity costs. Opportunity to sell your product to consumers is big business.

And yet, on Apple’s homepage, there is only the picture of Steve himself. Would that happen anywhere else? With any other company? Truly, I don’t believe it would. It’s just one of many reasons I love this company.

Back in June, I wrote about my experience attending my first Stevenote. It turns out it was my last Stevenote. It was the last Stevenote.

I’m sure this is in that post, but it bears repeating. I remember when Steve walked out on stage that morning. I had been up for several hours already, standing in line, and had been shuffled through many lines and large groups in order to get to that place at that time. When Steve walked on stage, the entire auditorium erupted in applause. Everyone stood up. It went on for what seemed like an hour. I could feel the warmth, the love, the admiration for the man right then. No one sat there and looked around to see if they should clap and/or cheer. They just did it. They did it because they wanted to. They did it to show their small token of appreciation for the man on stage before them. The man who built this empire they were a part of. Ostensibly, for them.

I was lucky to be part of that moment. It is a moment I will tell my kids about when they are older. I will show them the video of that last WWDC keynote. The last keynote Steve Jobs ever gave. I was there.

Yesterday, the meaning of that experience changed. And for that experience, I cannot thank you enough, Mark and Aaron. It is truly something I will never forget.

P.S. Finally finished the post about 12:26am Friday morning. Steve’s picture is still there.

[caption id=“attachment_791” align=“aligncenter” width=“640” caption=“Reserved (10/04/2011)"][/caption]

They knew. They had to know. It’s strange that this is the picture that brought the first tear.

[caption id=“attachment_758” align=“aligncenter” width=“1024” caption=“Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)"][/caption]

President Barak Obama:

Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world. The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.

[caption id=“attachment_754” align=“aligncenter” width=“523” caption=“Steve (August 2011)"][/caption]

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg:

Steve Jobs saw the future and brought it to life long before most people could even see the horizon.

[caption id=“attachment_757” align=“aligncenter” width=“600” caption=“Steve Jobs - Macworld Issue #1”][/caption]

Bill Gates:

The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.

Twitter Reactions:

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Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Other Links: “He opened doors for people” My neighbor, Steve Jobs ‘Birdfeed’ Letter A Genius Talks Steve Jobs Remembering Steve Jobs Steve Franks on Steve Jobs The Steve Jobs I Knew (by Walt Mossberg) Goodbye to an Icon The inevitable… The Reserved Seat Steve Jobs Reflection Steve Jobs (by Elliot Jay Stocks) Steve Jobs is gone, but his impact will live on (Dan Moren - Macworld) Behind the Cover: Steve Jobs (Time) Steve Jobs: Making a dent in the universe (Jason Snell - Macworld) How Steve Jobs saw the future (Nancy F. Koehn - CNN) Remembering Steve Jobs: New Market Innovator (Michael Miller - formerly PCMag) 10 Things I Loved About Steve Jobs (Terry O’Reilly) He Noticed, and That Mattered (David Sleight) SJ (Matt Drance - Apple Outsider) The Career of Apple and Steve Jobs (Time Magazine Photos) In a Private Light: Diana Walker’s Photos of Steve Jobs (Time Lightbox) He Was Too Young To Die (Kevin Hoctor) I Don’t Get Why You’re Crying About Steve Jobs(Kristina Halverson) ‘One more thing’: The spirit of Steve Jobs lives on (Serenity Caldwell - Macworld) Steve Jobs Was a Kind Man: My Regrets About Burning Him (Brian Lam) Jobs humanized technology, made the magical common (Dan Frakes - Macworld) Eric Schmidt on Steve Jobs Steve Jobs (Stephen Fry) Steve Jurvetson on Steve Jobs (Steve Jurvetson) two minutes with steve (Michael Sippey) Insanely Great (Dave Wiskus) You Are Underestimating the Future SPJ (Gus Mueller) Steve Jobs and the idea of letting go (Hank Stuever - Washington Post) The Rundown Steve and I (Gautam Godse) Key Notes (Daniel Steinberg - Dim Sum Thinking) Here’s To The Crazy One (MG Siegler - TechCrunch) Steve Jobs (John Lilly) A Studio Chief Pens Revealing First-Person Steve Jobs Remembrance (Jim Gianopulos in Hollywood Reporter)

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[caption id=“attachment_739” align=“aligncenter” width=“768” caption=“Steve Jobs”][/caption]

Shock. Sadness. Even though I never met the man, it hurts on a personal level. I don’t know why. But it does.

Damn it.

Why A Heterosexual, Married, North Carolinian Father Of Three Cares About LGBT Equality by Eric L Shepherd

People have historically married for many different reasons: legal, social, economic, spiritual, libidinal, and religious. So stop it with your 'sacred institution' argument and open up some history books. When you say that the Bible is clear about homosexuality, you must also admit that it was also very clear about how to treat your slaves, and the uncleanliness of women during their menstrual period. Listen. Society evolves. Sometimes we leave behind the Bronze Age mentality of the men who wrote the Bible. You want your marriage to be a religious, strictly bible-based marriage? That's fine. Nobody is stopping you from having one.

A very compelling read from a self-professed normal guy. I, a heterosexual, married, Georgia father of two, would like to think I could have written such a plain-spoken argument. The point Shepard is trying to make is it’s time for us to stop this nonsense of denying “other” couples that don’t meet our outdated, Puritanical notion of what a marriage should be the same rights, rewards, and responsibilities that heterosexual couples possess. As he states in his post, we are going to look back on this with the same shame we hold now when discussing civil rights and women’s suffrage. It’s ridiculous and it’s discriminatory. Plain and simple. I’m so sick of the “one man/one woman” argument, I could vomit. Stop it. Put your petty “the Bible says it’s a sin” argument to the side and get over it. Get over yourself, for that matter. Just because you don’t agree (or don’t even like it) doesn’t mean other people’s rights should be trampled on. It’s not a political issue. And it shouldn’t be a religious issue, either. It’s a human one. It’s time to start treating it that way.

My favorite graphic from the post:

UPDATE: As we were sitting at lunch on Sunday, Jayme pointed me to the following article, from which I learned a little something:

Puritans valued the family as the basic and permanent human institution. They permitted no divorce except for abandonment although they would allow an annulment because of infertility. They saw marriage as a civil rather than religious custom. Puritans arranged marriages for their children and no one could marry outside the church. A girl could veto a choice but no one expected her to use the right. Love meant physically caring for someone so romance was unnecessary for marriage. In spite of popular mythology, the Puritans respected a healthy sexuality and saw human sexual relationships as normal unless they became obsessive. They punished illegitimacy albeit gently. When a girl conceived out of wedlock, Puritans generally tried to establish a family. Pregnancies often resulted from the Puritans' curious custom of "bundling." Bundling allowed a courting couple to sleep together in the girl's home provided they were individually bundled. While the Puritans appeared to take a loose position on fornication they severely punished adultery and they executed homosexuals.

Never too old to learn something new! Thanks, Jay!

Luke Adams (@luketadams) 9/21/11 7:17 PM How do right wingers who believe that government is incompetent, have complete faith that the same government never executes the innocent?

‘Mad Men’ and the end of the American Dream: A great show spells the decline of a great nation

'Mad Men' - with yet another Emmy the other night - is not about the nostalgic past and such lost pleasures as smoking. It's about the unattainable future. Betty Draper is old now. She shops at Costco, buys the cheap beer and passes up Ivory for - what's this? - Gain. A Mad Man would put it this way: Her Gain is our loss.

[caption id=“attachment_709” align=“alignright” width=“300” caption=“Mad Men”][/caption]

An unbelievably well-written by piece by columnist Richard Cohen of the New York Daily News. Besides the maudlin mood of the piece itself, it is very poignant and disheartening. For what it’s worth, dad and I sometimes discuss the state of the country at our weekly dinners. The economic struggles. The constant political infighting. The ever-growing divide of the haves and have nots. It’s scary. I don’t know what to make of it. Dad doesn’t know what to make of it. It seems every time the very notion of true hope is presented, we (and I mean the collective we here) seem to squander it. I certainly felt it in 2008 when we turned our eyes to President Obama. Now, I don’t know where it’s gone. This is probably what is so disappointing to me about Obama’s presidency. It’s not him as an individual and it’s not the actions he’s taken as President. It’s the utter void where hope used to stand. For someone whose whole campaign revolved around hope, we sure have a dismal supply of it at the moment.

As I listen to and/or read the “reviews” of Cam Newton’s first two games as a Carolina Panther, I just have to sigh and shake my head.

“Awesome!”

“He’s unbelievable!”

“This guy may be the real deal.”

“This kid is good”

That last one there is from an article posted on ESPN Sunday afternoon. I have to laugh and question all of these guys' credentials. Did you not see any of last year when Cam was leading Auburn to a perfect 14-0 record en route to a National Championship. Did you not see the way he could take over a game by himself and literally carry his team (along with a couple of the other team’s defenders) on his broad back? If you didn’t, you weren’t paying attention.

Bo Jackson knew it. Here are his statements to Jim Rome before the season even started:

He has the arm strength and power of Dan Marino and John Elway combined. He is quicker than Michael Vick, faster than Michael Vick. And he will run over you with the power of a Jerome Bettis, Bo Jackson, Earl Campbell. That is the type of guy that he is. There isn’t another quarterback in the NFL that has all of those tangibles.

One reason hopes were not as high may be the mess that got stirred up about midway through the season. There were allegations of a “pay for play” situation between Newton’s father and Mississippi State. Allegations that were never actually proven (to the best of my knowledge). But those allegations followed Newton through the rest of the season and not only gained his reputation, but the reputation of Auburn itself. And I’m quite no one was ever able to prove that Auburn participated in any sort of scandal. And, by the way, don’t you think it’s interesting that these allegations all of a sudden popped up when Auburn started the season 6-0 and Cam’s start was starting to rise? Hmmm.

Anyway, the NFL is starting to see the talents that Cam Newton can bring to a football team. Yes, in the first two games in which he threw for over 400 yards, the Panthers also lost. Can’t deny that. But I’m almost positive that every Panther fan may be seeing their team’s future success every time that ball is snapped to number 1. They see it. I can’t believe not many others did.

By the way, War Eagle!

Let me take you back in time about 5 years. It’s late 2006. There are lots and lots of rumors that Apple is in the process of making a phone. Nobody knew what it looked like and nobody knew how it worked. Obviously, this led to a multitude of theories and mockups that (mostly) proved to be completely wrong.

At the time, I carried around my 5th generation white iPod (20GB) and a Motorola smartphone that ran Windows CE or Windows PocketPC or Windows Mobile or whatever the hell Windows naming scheme Microsoft was sporting back then for their mobile phones. An Apple fanboy even back then, I had my own speculation on Apple’s phone. I was intrigued from the very notion because it would mean that I would have the opportunity to only carry one device (phone + iPod) instead of the two distinct devices.

At work one day, Mike and I were discussing future possibilities of mobile computing. I remember sharing with him my want for a single device that would run my phone/iPod when in my hand and “on the go”, but also serve as my full desktop system when plugged into some sort of dock. Imagine this scenario:

• Leave for work with device in hand. On the way to work, I can listen to my music and use it as my phone.
• I get to work and dock my device and it turns into my main system.
• After work, drive home (again, it serving as my iPod and phone).
• At home (once the kids are in bed), I plug it into my home dock and I have my main system again.

All the while, my entire system/phone/iPod with me all the time. Keep in mind, this was also around the time people first started speculating about a tablet from Apple as well. (Wow, did those rumors take a long time to materialize!) There was even speculation that this tablet would slide into a dock and become your normal OS X system.

I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if I didn’t have to carry around three devices (iPod, phone, and laptop) and only had to carry one device. One device to rule them all. (Sorry, had to do it.) Granted, I understood the technological hurdles at the time. No processor and memory combination was powerful enough and power efficient enough to warrant any discussion on that front. And the same thing could be said today. While the industry has come a long way since then, the power required to run (even) a mobile Intel processor is significant and not efficient enough to use for a truly mobile device.

So, here we are 5 years later and what I am carrying around? 1 iPhone, 1 iPad, and 1 MacBook Air. Wow, we’re back to three devices. Of the three, my iPhone is, by far, the most important. It is always with me and serves so many different purposes. (I still have a blog post coming on this aspect, just haven’t gotten around to writing it yet). I use my iPad primarily as a reading/entertainment device (and kid pleaser) and my MacBook Air is used for all computing tasks not taken up by either of the other two. Now, we’re back to the same question. Wouldn’t it be nice if all of these functions could be done with just one device?

I’ve come to face the fact that this may never happen. At least not any time soon. Phones are just too small to put any kind of power/battery combination that satisfies the efficiency demands of modern-day mobile needs. So, what about replacing the larger two? Apple’s answer to that question has been a firm “no”. Their fundamental philosophy is that each of these devices serve a specific and separate purpose. Period. No merging. No cross-pollinating. Nothing. They are separate and that’s how it is. Understandable. In practice, the use case of a laptop for “real” computing is very different than the use case for a mobile device (specifically referring to a tablet here). The main differentiator is touch. Touch, combined with the traditional desktop metaphor, has proven to be a sub-standard interaction technique. That’s why Apple decided to abandon the desktop metaphor in its tablet offering.

Microsoft, with their recently announced Windows 8 platform, believes differently. They have proposed to make one OS that will run not only on both hardware platforms, but (supposedly) at the same time. Want to use a tablet? Here’s the Metro UI for touch-y, feel-y use. Want to use the traditional Windows UI? No problem, here’s your desktop. Want to use the traditional Windows UI on a hardware tablet? We can do that ,too. Want to run Metro UI apps while you’re sitting at your desk? Wait for it…we can do that, too! Sounds a little pie-in-the-sky, doesn’t it?

Since the announcement, there have been many things written about Windows 8 and Microsoft’s bold move into the tablet space. Some of them ridiculous. Some of them fanboy-ish. And some of them even thoughtful (perish the thought!). But, they all agree that it’s a bold and refreshing move from a company that has, for so long, relied on its two main products to carry the company (Windows and Office). As I always do, I Instapaper-ed (is that a verb yet?) all of these articles to gain some perspective from around the web.

This morning, I was reading an article by Jason Snell over at Macworld. His overall take is cautiously optimistic. He loves the nature of the Metro UI, but is hesitant because he’s not sure if Microsoft can pull it off properly. Fair enough. But something he said stood out to me specifically:

In this future world, you can use your device in many different ways. If you want to travel with a tablet but also need to run a Windows app, Microsoft will oblige: plug in a keyboard and mouse and your touchscreen tablet interface vanishes, replaced by old-school Windows. Carry a tablet with you for reading a book on the bus in the morning, then plug it in to a stand at the office and it becomes your PC. Maybe even something as small as your smartphone is actually your entire computer, docking to a tablet screen, TV set, or traditional desktop setup as needed. Microsoft is also counting on millions of PC users running Windows 8 on their desktop PCs and then demanding that same familiar interface on a tablet device.

Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so, too. What if they can do it? I mean, I’ll be as surprised as the next guy. I am cautious only because for the most part, Microsoft only sells software to businesses. I know, they make Windows, which comes on most (if not all) PCs you buy off the shelf. But let’s face it, consumers don’t buy PCs because they’re from Microsoft. They don’t actively go out and say, “Ooh, I’ve got to get a PC because it’s got Windows!”. They get PCs because they need a computer and they need it cheap. Hell, Apple doesn’t even make a Mac for under $600. Microsoft sells software to businesses (Exchange, Office, Server, Team Foundation Server, etc.). They know business. They get it. They cater to businesses with roadmaps, expectations, and notions of backwards compatibility going all the way back to the original (stone) tablet. Have you ever seen Apple lay out a roadmap for their products? Um, no. I’m cautious because I don’t know if Microsoft gets the consumer market the way Apple obviously seems to.

But, let’s not sell them short for their idea. Windows 8 sounds a lot like what I say I want. Granted, they didn’t tie in the phone aspect, but I think that’s an engineering problem that can’t be solved right now. So, they didn’t get my full dream in there, but that’s not their fault. They have promised this mythical beast that can be your tablet when you want it to be a tablet and a PC when you want it be a PC. Can they do it?

Jeremy Toeman at LIVEdigitially is not hopeful yet. He begins his article:

Microsoft introduced Windows 8 for developers today, with a specific focus on their take on the tablet. Now some are fawning over this, but they clearly don’t recall a summer day in 2005 when Microsoft showed off Vista for the first time. I was there. It was, in a word awesome. The early demos of Vista blew us all away, it was as if we were at the Windows 95 launch all over again. Then Windows Vista came out, it was *nothing* like the demos, the train blew through the station, and the company’s been in a bit of a quagmire ever since, losing market share as well as credibility and prestige in virtually every category (other than Xbox).

He’s got a good point. This mythical beast is not due out for another year. What will happen in the industry between now and then? One person on Twitter commented that by the time this thing comes out, we will (collectively) be talking about the notions of an iPad 4! Will Windows 8 and its feature set still be relevant by that time? Will Apple or even the Android tablet makers keep evolving to the point that makes Microsoft look like they’re chasing the tails of everyone else (again)?

I don’t know what to make of it right this very minute. Too many things are up in the air. Too many questions and not enough physical hardware to see. Let’s face it, if it can’t run the traditional Windows UI on a mobile device, aren’t we just talking about the Metro UI as their mobile platform and Windows UI on laptops and desktops? if that’s the case, what’s the difference between that and what we have now with Windows (desktop version) and Windows Phone 7 devices? Nothing. Where’s the revolution? Where’s the sexiness in that?

My overall point is I hope they do succeed in what they’ve proposed. It certainly is ambitious. And it’s the closest thing to device downsizing that I’ve seen. I’m always for carrying one less device. After all, that’s the main reason I bought the first iPhone!

It’s funny the events that change your life. I always point to the day in 2004 that Caroline was born as the turning point in our lives. Yes, Jayme and I were joined together by marriage, but I didn’t really consider us a family in the traditional sense. Then, Care came. All of a sudden, I was a dad. Jayme was a mom. And we were a family. In any and all senses of the word.

So, looking back to September 11, 2001, it really does seem like a lifetime ago. I was still mired in college classes at Georgia Tech and Jayme was researching 19th century French medicine for her dissertation, of which she would finish years later. We were newly married (literally for less than a month) and still getting used to the whole husband and wife moniker.

[caption id=“attachment_667” align=“alignright” width=“225” caption=“WTC Memorial”][/caption]

Recently, in the lead up to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, there have been countless tributes and memorials and specials on television, radio, and in print. Some of it’s poignant. Some of it’s pointless. And some of it, as one commenter correctly explained on Twitter, borders on tragedy porn. Whatever the memory of that day was, we can certainly point to that day as a pivotal day in the history of the United States. Luckily for you (and my own blood pressure), I’m not going to go in to the political and cultural fallout from that tragedy. There’s plenty of that going on. I’m pointing to you, Fox News and MSNBC.

What I am going to do is tell you my story from that day. There’s certainly nothing heroic about this story. There’s nothing even interesting in the grand scheme of the day. But it is my story. And it’s a story that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

September 11, 2011

8am classes in college suck. There, I said it. They especially suck when you don’t live on or near campus. In the fall of 2001, I was somewhere in between my sophomore and junior years, thanks to weird rules in dealing with transfer credits. To get “caught up” with everyone else, I was trying to pack one more class than normal into my schedule. That way, I could hopefully graduate by 2003 (a five-year plan with co-op included in there) and not get stuck in college forever. Hence, my 8am class.

That class, as a I remember, was a programming class. I don’t really remember what the class was called, but I remember it was the Squeak class. (Squeak was a programming language, the second object-oriented language we were exposed to besides Java. I think it was there to open our eyes to the fact that other languages did exist outside of Java and C.) It was one of the more difficult concept classes I remember, made all the more difficult given the fact that it was at 8am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

That particular Tuesday morning, I remember arriving at our classroom about 30 minutes before class started. The classroom itself was being used by a group of students before us, so we all kind of sat against the wall and waited. Once 8 o’clock rolled around, we all filed in and took our seats. This particular class session was supposed to be a showcase of what could be achieved using the media libraries in Squeak. Our professor, Mark Guzdial, was one of the inventors of the Squeak language and was working on using Squeak to teach children about computers and programming. Given that charge, he took advantage of the multimedia capabilities of Squeak, and wanted to show us the possibilities. Laid back session, in all respects.

After class announcements and the like, he fired up his computer (attached to the overhead), and started his presentation. He went through a couple of projects and was moving on to the internet-based one. He fired up Netscape. Yes, you read that right…Netscape. It was 2001, after all. His homepage happened to be Yahoo.com, so when it rendered the day’s headlines, it had a very blurry picture of smoke coming from a building. The headline was something to the effect of “Plane crashes into North Tower”. He stopped and read the blurb, and commented on how someone could have crashed their little plane into such a large edifice. That was it. The collective thought in the classroom was some random pilot had veered off course, lost control of the plane, and accidentally crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. A big deal, yes, but at a very local level.

We sat through the rest of the class, enjoying some of the other projects he had been working on. It was a nice little break from the normal taking notes and trying to wrap our brains around a brand new concept habit. Class ended, and I headed off to the little snack shop outside the bookstore to get a morning pick-me-up, as was my normal routine back then. Once I finished that, I sat down at the coffee shop to study for my 11am Sociology exam.

Thinking back, it’s amazing how this could have happened. By that time, it was about 10:00. Both towers had been hit (North at 8:46am and South at 9:03am) and the South Tower had just started to collapse at 9:59am. Yet, no one said anything. I’m not sure anyone (who had joined me in the coffee shop) even knew what was going on. They were probably doing the same kind of thing I was doing: studying, reading, or just enjoying some precious downtime. You have to remember, this was before Facebook. Before Twitter. Before smartphones. Before texting was commonplace. There were no televisions in the coffee shop. No televisions in the snack shop. No televisions in the bookstore. How would we have known?

About 10:55, I finally gathered my stuff and got ready to slog through another exam. Yay team. I walked out of the building with the coffee shop and noticed that the student population walking to and from class had grown significantly since I went in. Not surprising though, considering it was right before 11am. I merged into the human traffic and set course for the classroom where I was to take my exam. About halfway between the Student Center and my class, I happened to notice my cousin, Chris Revell, walking in the opposite direction. He looked at me curiously. I stopped.

“What’s up, man?” I said.

“Didn’t you hear?” Chris asked.

“Hear what?” I responded.

“The towers have fallen.” he said. Keep in mind, I was attending Georgia Tech. One of Tech’s famous buildings is called Tech Tower. Even though he said the plural word “towers”, I instinctively turned in the direction of Tech Tower. Realizing what I was doing, he stopped me.

“No, the World Trade Center towers. Two planes crashed into them and they have fallen down. Campus is closed. They don’t know what’s going on. Has Jayme not called you?”

I felt in my pocket for my phone (an old-school Nokia, if I’m remembering correctly). I pulled it out and realized it wasn’t turned on. I had either forgotten to turn it on that morning or had turned it off for class. At the time, I couldn’t remember why. It didn’t matter. I turned it on. When it finally connected to the cell tower, my phone buzzed. There were 8 voicemails.

I looked at Chris. There was anticipation, dread, and worry in his eyes. As I looked around at everyone else, I realized they all had that same look. I must have adapted the same look because he realized that it had finally sunk in. I honestly don’t remember how we separated right then. I’m assuming we said something to the effect of “be careful” or “see you later”, but it’s a blur in my mind now.

As I walked to my car (a 15-minute walk from where I was), I listened to the “unread” voicemails. Six were from Jayme, 1 from dad, and 1 from mom. All of them had the same type of message. They were all checking in to see if I was okay and urged me to get home. I remember vividly the fear in Jayme’s voice, growing in scale as the message count went on. No one knew what was going on. No one knew what the scale of this attack was or would be. Was Atlanta going to be a target? What was still planned for the day by the attackers? It was the closest thing in my lifetime (as of this writing, of course) to a panic situation.

Once I reached my car, I immediately turned on the radio and set it to the news station. One of the (local) reports stated that the interstates coming in and out of downtown Atlanta were completely packed. Knowing this, I tried my hand at going “the back way”. Unfortunately, many others decided this as well. It took me about 60-70 minutes to get home from Tech. I must admit, I got lost a couple of times, as I was a little unfamiliar with the back roads getting back to Smyrna.

When I finally walked in the apartment and saw Jayme, her eyes were puffy and I saw fear in them that I have never seen before. Or since. She had been watching CNN and I finally was able to see what had happened with my own eyes. Up until this point, it was all by word of mouth via other people and the radio. I was stunned. Utterly and completely stunned. I could not believe what I was seeing. Of course, by this point, they were all replays as events had taken place hours beforehand. Didn’t matter. The same horror that had befallen all others who had watched this live those 3-4 hours before hit me like a train. I sat down on the couch and cried. We sat on that couch for the rest of the day. We didn’t say much. Didn’t need to. We simply held each other. And we didn’t let go.

I’ve always been a collector. As a kid, and my parents can attest to this, I collected baseball cards. As I grew up, I stopped collecting cards in general and focused on cards of my favorite baseball player at the time, David Justice. It didn’t stop with the cards, though. I would cut out newspaper stories, look for those plaque things that local stores would sell, and beg my mom to buy me a Justice #23 Braves jersey. All the stuff you do as a kid when you become obsessed (yes, it was an obsession) with your favorite player. I had it all.

Unfortunately, and a little depressingly, I did the same thing when it came to the aftermath of 9/11. Every article I could get my hands on, I read and kept. Every picture I saw on the Internet, I saved to my computer. Every documentary and special on television, I watched and taped. I was obsessed. Obsessed with what, I don’t know. The tragedy? The “eventness” of it? I don’t know what it was. I think it finally hit me when I bought a television special on DVD of the tragedy. It was by A&E or the History Channel or something like that. I bought it, but couldn’t bring myself to watch it. Not the day I bought it. Not a month from then. Not even 3 months from that time. In fact, I never watched it. I never even took the plastic wrapping off of it. It sat on our DVD shelf until years later when we finally started to sell off our DVDs. Still wrapped in that plastic.

I just couldn’t bring myself to re-live that day. It was too horrific. It was too monstrous. It was too sad. Normally, I fight through the horror and sadness of certain events when watching documentaries or specials. But this one I couldn’t shake. Maybe it was the fact that this was the only one that I actually lived through. Tragic events of the past are easier to watch for me because there’s a separation inherent between me and the event. I wasn’t part of it. I wasn’t cognizant (or alive, for that matter) of the happenings in and around World War II or Vietnam. I was only 6 years old when the Challenger exploded. These events are simply history to me. 9/11 was real. Like no other world event I’ve ever known. The only one that comes close is probably the Holocaust.

Like I said before, I will never forget what happened that day. And neither will anyone else who lived through it. Even though I was nowhere near NY, Pennsylvania, or DC, the ripple effect of 9/11 still rings true within all of us. It is this generation’s “Where were you when…” question, much like the Challenger explosion and the Kennedy assassination was for the generations before. My wish, on this 10th anniversary of 09/11/2001, is that my kids' generation will never require their own “Where were you when…” question. My hope is that they will never have to witness an event that so stuns an entire nation. And even an entire world.

This is what you would see if you were fixing the antennas on top of the Empire State Building:

Audi S7 Sportback : 2012 | Cartype

[caption id=“attachment_632” align=“aligncenter” width=“645” caption=“Unboxing”][/caption] [caption id=“attachment_630” align=“aligncenter” width=“645” caption=“Comparison”][/caption] [caption id=“attachment_631” align=“aligncenter” width=“645” caption=“Side Shot”][/caption]

Hurricane Irene approaching North Carolina… via WILX News. … on Twitpic.

[caption id=“attachment_615” align=“aligncenter” width=“625” caption=“Steve Jobs at WWDC 2011”][/caption]

Thank you, Steve! Best wishes to you and your family!

Apple: A Letter From Steve Jobs Daring Fireball: ‘That Day Has Come’ The Stevenote Daring Fireball: Resigned

Where’s WALL-E?.

The Apple iPhone 5’s Worst Nightmare | Flickr - Photo Sharing!.

This is ridiculous. A couple of years ago, my wife bought me a Nintendo Wii for Christmas. The reason? I wanted to play a couple of games on what they call the Virtual Console. That’s the mechanism they have for playing old Nintendo games on the Wii system. Games from the original Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super NES, the N64, and the Game Cube. Those last 3 don’t interest me in the least. The only one that meant anything was the original NES. These were the games of my youth: Super Mario Brothers (1,2, and 3), The Legend of Zelda, Contra, Punch Out, Mega Man, etc. I spent hours playing these games as a kid. That’s hours of enjoyment from my childhood.

So, when Jayme did get the Wii for me, I wasted little time before purchasing and downloading all of these games. It was awesome. It made so much sense. You can play all of these old games without having to fiddle with those NES cartridges that you were forced to blow in and spin around and hop on one leg. Only then could you put the cartridge back in the system and pray that it starts the game correctly. None of that with the Wii!

Then, tragedy struck. The fan inside the Wii stopped working one day and it will only allow me to keep it on for about two hours before it overheats (with the Virtual Console games) and only about 20 minutes with the current disc-based Wii games. So, that wasn’t going to work. I was willing to let it go and give up on my childhood gaming habits. My kids stepped in, however, and started to lobby for a new Wii system. So, we purchased another console. Nice. Now I get my old games, right?

WRONG!

Apparently, the games you purchase on a Wii console are “tied” to said game console. Hence, when I got my new console, I could not transfer those games from the old console. WTF? What is this, 1986? Needless to say, I was insanely pissed off about this. But, we still had disc-based Wii games that the kids love, so we kept the system. I was done, but they weren’t.

Recently, however, it has come to my attention that the discs we had are so scratched that the console will not play them correctly…effectively, rendering them useless. Remember all those nice things I mentioned about the notion of the virtual console games? Yeah, right out the window with these new games. We’re talking about games that cost anywhere from $30 to $50. What a f’ing racket. Now, the game my kids love (Super Mario Brothers Wii) is useless. The $50 game my kids love. Are they going to eventually ask for another copy of it? Um, most assuredly! What am I going to tell them? No? No, kids, because I’m a cheap ass bastard? Of course, I will melt like butter on toast and get another copy of it. (Granted, they will contribute to the replacement value with their allowance money, but you get the principle I’m trying to get at, right?!)

Anyway, after all that, I’m here to say I’m done with the Wii. In this day of cloud implementations of email, music, videos, and (hello?!?!) games from Apple, Google, Amazon, I have to count on a physical console to withstand a 4 and 6-year old? And not be able to transfer said purchases between devices?

No thanks!

I don’t like the beach. There, I said it. I think it goes back to my whole OCD thing about being neat and clean. The beach is neither one of those things. The sand. The salt water. The sand sticking to every conceivable square inch of your skin (and even in some areas that are not exactly on the surface). It’s just icky.

Having said that, the kids absolutely love it. Hence, we scheduled a quick trip to the beach for Wednesday thru Saturday. Jayme and I decided we did not want to go to Florida this time and chose Hilton Head. After hearing good things about it from many other people, we thought we’d give it a chance.

Wednesday

[caption id=“attachment_574” align=“alignright” width=“112” caption=“Sweet Caroline!"][/caption] We didn’t rush to get up (hoping the kids wouldn’t start off in grumpy moods), so we didn’t actually arrive in Hilton Head until about 4pm. Which was actually kind of nice, because we went straight up to the room, dropped our stuff off, and prepped for our first jaunt to the beach.

I hung around at first to take a couple of pictures of the kids and Jayme in the water. I had actually assumed one of them would want to start with a sandcastle, so I was prepared for a little bit of a wait until we ventured out in the water. Not so. Brian, especially, was eager and willing to go full tilt. After seeing the kids hit the water with such ferocity, I had to get my whale self in the water, too. Did I mention I look like Casper from neck to knees? Not a pretty sight, but I sucked it up and got out there with them.

[caption id=“attachment_572” align=“alignleft” width=“150” caption=“The King of the World”][/caption] Caroline was kind of nervous about the “heavy” waves (the wind was blowing pretty good at that point). She would venture out a ways and then come back because she was scared of the break of the wave itself. Brian, on the other hand, was absolutely fearless. Unlike his older sister, he just attacked the waves. A wave would knock him down and he’d get right back up with even more vigor. The little guy is amazing!

[caption id=“attachment_577” align=“alignright” width=“112” caption=“Care and Smurf”][/caption] After about 2 1/2 hours of playing around in the surf, we headed back to the room to clean up so we could go get some dinner. We ended up at Marley’s Island Grille, a couple of miles from the hotel. Think of it as a seafood version of Chili’s (or something to that effect). The most interesting part of the place was they had a kid’s drink called a Smurf. (If this is not unique to Marley’s, I apologize. It was my first exposure to it.) The kids each ordered one (we were on vacation after all). When they arrived, Brian took one swallow and declared it a dud. Caroline got through about 3 swallows before asking for water. Wanting to see what it was, I sipped it. It was like club soda with a bucket of sugar. I can’t say that I blamed the kiddos for that one. We told them not to worry, as we’d get ice cream after dinner. Which they loved!

Thursday

The next morning, we planned on more of the day before. We got up around 8:30am and put on our (cold and wet) bathing suits from the day before. We headed to the pool, a destination I much prefer over the beach. First lesson learned: to get a “spot” (or a chair) by the pool, you’ve got to get up and going pretty early. We arrived around 8:50am and could not find a folding chair. At all. Anywhere. Oh well. The kids and I swam (while Jayme sunbathed) for about an hour before they wanted to go back to the beach. Joy.

But this time, I was wrong. I had a blast at the beach. Essentially telling myself to get over myself and just commit, I waded into the water right away with Jayme and the kids. I ended up sticking with Brian most of the time. He was a blast. He kept asking me to go farther out to find the “bam” waves. As there was no prayer he could stand, I carried him out there in my arms. We met our fair share of “bam” waves and were knocked back a couple of times. One of the best times of my life, I have to say!

[caption id=“attachment_586” align=“alignleft” width=“112” caption=“Ouch!"][/caption] Of course, as with every time I…you know, get out of bed…I injured myself. While in the waves with Brian, I stepped on something. For my own sanity, I’m going to pretend it was simply a rock. But, it left a nasty bruise on the underside of my right foot. I had no problem walking on flat surfaces, but for the rest of the time we were there, it was painful walking on the lumpy dry sand.

After the beach, we went to get cleaned up and headed out to lunch. A local hamburger joint was on the menu (Caroline’s request). Nothing to write home about, except for the insane prices. I mean, come on, these are hamburgers for goodness sake. But, it’s vacation…stop worrying about money. (At least that’s what I kept telling myself).

Next, we searched out a putt-putt place. As a kid, the highlight of a beach vacation was not the beach (for obvious reasons). It was playing putt-putt. In Panama City, back in the day, they had a place called Pirate’s Island. Given the obvious pirate theme, it was always fun read all the signs and be a pirate golfer for a little while. Guess what we found while driving the main road on the island? Pirate’s Island Golf. Hells yeah!

The difference between childhood and adulthood is you are aware of certain things as an adult that are completely glossed over as a kid. First thing: price. Whether it be the price of Hilton Head specifically or just the rise in the cost of living over the past 20 years, I had no idea how expensive putt-putt was. We’re talking roughly $50 for the 4 of us to play. AYFKM? Vacation, Lee. Vacation.

Second thing: heat. Ho, Ho, Holy crap was it hot out there!!! Yes, the thermometer only read 95 degrees (which is hot enough), but the damn humidity index had to be off the chart. We were through one hole (that’s out of 18, for those not familiar with the concept) and we were all dripping sweat. I don’t remember being this hot and sweaty doing putt-putt before. Of course, that was probably mostly my fault, seeing as though we went about 2pm in the afternoon. In August. Not my best decision.

Needing to cool off, we went back to the hotel and rested for about 30 minutes. I’m pretty sure Jayme and I dozed off there for a minute. Not the kids, though! No sir! When they (or should I say, Jayme and I) were ready, we went back to the pool and swam in the late afternoon/early evening sun. It was much better now. There was a slight breeze and the pool (after having been baked all day) was slightly warm. Perfect for just lazing! We did that until about 7pm, and went back to the hotel to get ready for our 7:30pm reservations at Antonio’s.

[caption id=“attachment_582” align=“alignright” width=“112” caption=“Us”][/caption] The kids had never been to a “nice” restaurant, so this was their introduction to a couple of lessons on “acting right” in said nice restaurants. Before I go on, my kids are really good kids, but they do get excited and forget their surroundings from time to time. Caroline was especially curious about all of these rules. Which is funny, because I don’t really remember learning some of these until the Holiday Socials in high school. Anyway, we all filled up on Italian food (excellent eggplant parmesan!) and went next door for some gelato afterward.

When we got back to the hotel, it was dark, but we decided to give the kids a treat. We walked down to the beach and just walked along the water for a long while. The wind was blowing, the air was (beach) fragrant and there was nothing else on my mind except for my wife and kiddos. Perfect! We even saw a couple of people near the water shining their flashlight on something. Turns out, it was a ghost crab that had washed up. He looked a little pissed, as he scurried about. Strangely, it was the first time any of the four of us had ever seen a live crab “in the wild”, so to speak. A neat, little experience, and a perfect way to end the day!

Friday

Seeing as we were so close to Savannah, we figured we’d make a day trip to see River Street, grab some pralines, and munch on some beignets. While we certainly did that, I think I’ll remember this trip to Savannah for two things.

[caption id=“attachment_583” align=“alignleft” width=“150” caption=“Shrimp and Grits”][/caption]

1. Shrimp and Grits

We always go to Huey’s on River Street for some beignets. But, what I never remember is what I eat before the beignets are served. My guess is something to do with chicken. This time, though, I thought I’d be adventurous. In homage to my officemate back in Smyrna, I ordered the shrimp and grits. The waitress said it was the best thing on the menu. And I must say, she was right! I love grits anyway, but the Creole sauce and the shrimp added a whole new spin on the grits. Yummmy! Top that off with a couple of heavenly beignets and I was stuffed and happy.

2. Misery

We love Savannah. We love the parks in Savannah. We love the history of Savannah. We even got engaged in Savannah! But, I have never been more miserable by the end of a day than I was that day. After lunch, we walked the length of River Street, going in and out of shops as the kids scoured for their one Savannah souvenir. By the end of it, we were hot and a little tired of walking. A city tour was in order. No walking and you could hear some cool stories. Let’s do this!

[caption id=“attachment_585” align=“alignright” width=“112” caption=“Dead to the World”][/caption] Unfortunately, toward the end of the tour, it had started raining. We were sitting on the back of the trolley, so it was actually a nice feeling at first. But, the rain did not last very long. In fact, it lasted only long enough to wet the sidewalk and further moisturize the air. Couple that with the fact that Brian had fallen asleep on the trolley and had to be carried, Jayme and I were hot, dripping, and miserable. Brian’s sweaty head only added to it. We decided to go grab the candy we wanted from River Street Sweets and get out of there. Good decision!

We grabbed dinner on the way back to Hilton Head and decided to go for a swim when it was dark. (The kids had discovered the pool was still open the night before and wanted to try it). When we got to the pool, though, we were in for a nice surprise. The hotel had set up a big screen at one end of the pool and we getting ready to play a movie. So, for the next 90 minutes or so, we (along with 200 of our closest friends) watched Toy Story 3 while wading around in the pool. A unique experience, and a very enjoyable one! The kids had a blast and Jayme and I, having never seen Toy Story 3, enjoyed ourselves as well.

Saturday

[caption id=“attachment_587” align=“alignleft” width=“150” caption=“Caroline's Castle”][/caption] Our last day in Hilton Head started (and ended I guess you could say) with a stint at the beach and the indoor pool. Caroline really wanted to build a “proper” sand castle, so we set off to do just that. My big DSLR was acting up due to the insanely humid conditions, so my iPhone stood in well for documenting the construction and finished product of her castle. And Brian, not wanting to feel left out, built his own volcano out to the side of the castle. Very cute, seeing these guys work to build it. Although, I must give props to Jayme’s patience in working with them. Not surprisingly, they can become frustrated easily (I have no idea where they get that from!) and she was always (and is always) there to get them back on track.

Once the sand castle (and volcano) were completed and subsequently kicked down, we said goodbye to the beach and headed for the indoor pool. I guess they wanted to hit every aspect of the resort before we left. After many times of throwing Brian into the water and watching Caroline demonstrate her swimming skills, we packed our stuff, got a few gifts for a couple of their friends from the gift shop, and hit the road.

You know, I am always hesitant when the notion of vacation is brought up in our house. As a parent, you know there is no such thing as a vacation when your kids are with you. There’s always parenting to be done and little ones to watch after. So, rest and relaxation are hard to come by. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re getting older or maybe it’s just that I’m just softening up or something, but I had a lot of fun! It was relaxing. It was enjoyable. It was fun. It was even, dare I say, a real vacation. Even if it did involve the beach! ;)

[slideshow]

From a nice little weather app called Shine

As I was sitting in the drive-thru line at Starbucks this morning, something occurred to me. Something that had never occurred to me until right then.

Before I get to that, let me explain something to you about food. Specifically about how I like food. If you know me, you know I like routine. I like to do things in an expected manner. I like things (especially food) how I like them. I look forward to my food. I look forward to knowing what my food will be like because I know what my food will be like. What it will taste like. How good it will taste. You know why I know it will be good? Because I get it prepared how I like it. Very specific.

Hence, when I go to McDonald’s, I get a Double Cheeseburger meal, ketchup only (on the burger), large size, and i know it will be roughly $4.02. Why do I know that? Because there are MANY times before where I’ve gotten the same thing. And yes, the ketchup only thing is a “special order” but, come on, it’s just leaving off onions, mustard, and pickles. Is that so much to ask?

The same goes with pizza. I like pepperoni pizza. Period. I like pepperoni pizza, sometimes with chicken and sometimes with sausage. But, I don’t like peppers or onions or mushrooms or any other kind of vegetables. Not on my pizza. I just don’t like it. It’s not that I have something against those things on pizza. It’s just I don’t like them.

Apparently, this type of thing makes me stand out and causes people to comment on said habits. Ribbing from my friends is fine. It’s light-hearted. It’s jokey. That’s fine with me. What’s unnerving is people who actually comment on it that don’t know me. Why is it odd to only like specific things on or in my food? I realize other people like to try new things all the time with their food. Good for them. But everyone doesn’t have to be that way. It’s not odd. It’s just different.

Which brings me back to Starbucks. All of the remarking on my food habits seem to disappear when it comes to coffee. I mean, come on. Non-fat, no whip, 1 shot, peppermint mocha. That’s perfectly fine. No one ever says anything about that. In fact, in some sense, it’s expected. It’s almost like a prideful thing that you like this specific type of coffee prepared this specific way. It shows that you “know what’s going on” within the realm of the coffee universe.

Why the double standard? Why am I an oddball for knowing (and expecting) exactly what I want with the preparation of my food and yet, when it comes to coffee, it’s exactly the opposite?

Just wondering…

Afghans Rage at Young Lovers - a Father Says Kill Them Both - NYTimes.com

It was the beginning of an Afghan love story that flouted dominant traditions of arranged marriages and close family scrutiny, a romance between two teenagers of different ethnicities that tested a village’s tolerance for more modern whims of the heart. The results were delivered with brutal speed.

This month, a group of men spotted the couple riding together in a car, yanked them into the road and began to interrogate the boy and girl. Why were they together? What right had they? An angry crowd of 300 surged around them, calling them adulterers and demanding that they be stoned to death or hanged.

FOX News Facebook Page on 9/11 Cross Generates Death Threats Against Atheists « No God Blog.

Guess some Christians had the page torn out of their Bible that stated “Thou shall not kill”. Hate to see that happen!

As some of you know, this past Sunday was my 31st birthday. What you might not have known is that on said birthday, I think I skipped some years. Because apparently, I’m 47 years old now. Let me explain.

Back in the day (don’t you love overused phrases? I know I do!), I could stay up with anybody. 1am, 2am, even 3am…no problem. In fact, back when I was building the company application for dad’s business, 2am was standard. Go to work during normal business hours, and code on that app from about 10pm-2am. It was nothing. Get up at 5am to start the process all over again? Sure. Bring it.

Alas, I am now 47 years old. I go to bed (routinely) between 9:30pm and 10pm. I even have to have a mid-evening nap sometimes just to make it to 10. I’m old.

What freaked me out even more is that I have started to drink coffee. Wait, let me preface that. You hardcore, addicted, coffee nuts are probably going to shoot bullets at me for even calling what I drink coffee, but bear with me. I have NEVER liked coffee. I tried it once when I was 15 and then tried once again when I got to college. Never liked it. Didn’t appeal at all. I even wondered why it was so freaking popular because it was so nasty.

My mistake both of those times was trying to drink coffee straight. Not black, just with a couple of creamers or such. Not the way to start, apparently. No, it took someone introducing me to the idea of a mocha to get me drinking it. (This is, in fact, all your fault, Aaron.) Sugar eases everything! On a recent business trip, he got me a peppermint mocha from Starbucks. Pretty good, actually. Mostly because I love all things peppermint. Got one last week. Expensive (who knew?!), but good. So, this morning, what do I end up with? Mocha, minus the peppermint. At this rate, I’ll be drinking straight black by Labor Day. Balls.

Anyway, the point is I feel old. I actually need a lot of sleep and I’m starting to drink coffee. I might be the oldest 30-turned-47-year old you know.

“I think of it as bling for the yard,” said Ms. Schiller, 40.

AYFKM?!?!

Playhouses - Child’s Play, Grown-Up Cash - NYTimes.com.

Apple - MacBook Air - Designed the way every notebook should be..

I don’t really think I need to add any comment here…

A couple of days ago, I came home from work and the kids' swim lessons to a broken television. Yes, the 4-year old set we purchased from Costco for about $600 had a dead video board (according to Vizio tech support) and would cost around $200-$300 to repair. I told my self (not the tech support guy) that he was out of his fricking mind if I was going to pay that much to repair a 4-year old set.

A Different Ballgame

Before I do that, let me say something. Before I called tech support, I scoured the Internet looking for solutions in online forums and the like. Lots of people were disgruntled with their Vizio purchases (my set was a Vizio set, so those are the results I was inevitably looking at). “I’ll never buy another Vizio television”. Okay, that’s fine. “These televisions should last longer than 2 years. This is an outrage”. Agreed. “I still have a television from 15 years ago and it still works just fine”. And…stop right there.

Let’s think about that. (First, let me preface this by saying I am NOT a television technology person. I know the very basics of this stuff, so pardon me if I get the tech wrong.) Televisions made 15 years ago were made from tubes. They were heavy, monstrously big, and pretty dumb in terms of technology. They were analog devices that ran off analog frequencies. No real smarts about them. Then came digital cable, which we still routed through coax cables into these analog devices. Then, digital inputs (both audio and video) and the modern digital television was born.

The television sets of today are computers, plain and simple. Do you have a computer right now that is 10 years old that still does its job the same way it did back when you go it new. Of course not, they’re slow and antiquated, and can’t do a whole lot. (By the way, 10 years ago was 2001. Does’t seem like that long ago. Yet, in technology, that was lifetimes ago.)

I liken it to the modern automobile. I’m sure our parents' generation remembers when you could open up the hood of a car and fix anything that was wrong with it, assuming the person had the right mechanic’s knowledge. Anything could be fixed with a socket wrench and some sweat. That period is long gone. Ever opened up the hood of a modern, mainstream car? Some manufacturers don’t even show you the damn engine anymore. Cars are computers now. They run via computers. They’re diagnosed by computers. They are sometimes fixed by computers. It’s a different ballgame.

It Mattered Little

During the week, there’s not a lot of time for me to go shopping for a new TV. So, we didn’t have a television for Wednesday night (the day I discovered it was broken), Thursday night, or Friday night. Normally, this would cause havoc in our household. How could we share a viewing experience if there was no centralized set? How would we watch our shows? This is where technology stepped in.

Jayme and I watched a couple of shows on Hulu+ from my iPad. The next day, the kids watched what they wanted to watch from the computer. And Friday night, when I was alone and eating dinner, I brought my iPad in the kitchen and watched a Netflix documentary I wanted to watch right there. We didn’t miss a beat.

I’m not arguing against a television, mind you. It’s a great thing to have that set up there where everyone can watch the big screen and listen to it throughout the room, without having to strain their ears. I mean, let’s face it, the iPad is a personal device. It’s not meant to take the place of a television. And yet, in our hour of need (sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?), it served as just that.

And it’s not just the iPad. We have our computers and our phones to watch and listen to media wherever we are. No longer do you have to watch television shows and like in that one place. You can watch it wherever you want. Granted, we like to watch the shows we like together in the living room on the television, but there are things that I watch and/or listen to on one of these devices.

It’s just cool, that’s all I’m saying.

A lot of talk has been brought up in geeky circles recently about this new social network called Google+. Even the name itself been talked (and/or argued) about. Is it Google+ or Google Plus? Who knows? Who cares, right?

Normally, I wouldn’t care. And I’m still not even sure that I care at all. The reason this is on my radar is because it’s a service/product from Google. Google and I tend to have a love/hate relationship. It’s a wonderful company for tools and services that pretty much just work (at least most of them).

A Little History

Google seems to have been around forever. In fact, sitting here now, I can’t remember what I used as a search engine before Google. I’m not even sure the term “search engine” was even commonly known, even though there were certainly predecessors to Google in that space. Lycos, Yahoo, AltaVista, AskJeeves, just to name a few. The majority of these predecessors, with the exception of possibly Yahoo, don’t even exist anymore. That’s how dominate Google has been, and is, in the search engine space.

But now, Google has its hands in so many more industries. They are an email service provider. A productivity apps service. A photo editing service. A team collaboration service. A mapping service. A browser maker. A smartphone/tablet operating system maker. Even a smartphone handset maker. And now, a social network service. Given all of the areas that Google is in now, it’s hard say where they’re going and/or what industry they will break in to next. I mean, why not?

It’s You

The major issue that I have with Google is complicated. Like I said, I have used (and still use) Google’s core product, search, each and every day. Like it or not, it is the best search engine out there. I use it. Jayme uses it. Work uses it. My sister uses it. Even my dad uses it. And if you can get my dad to use anything on the computer consistently, you’ve done something right.

[caption id=“attachment_505” align=“alignright” width=“150” caption=“Google Ecosystem”][/caption] My problem is they’re increasingly sticking their hands into every facet of our online lives. Think about it. Email: Gmail. Photo Sharing: Picasa. Social Network: Google+. Search: Google.com. Applications: Google Apps. Cloud storage: Google Cloud. Maps: Google Maps. Browser: Google Chrome. None of which, on its face, is bad. But, why are they in all of these businesses? Search works great. They make plenty of money on search alone, right? Yes, they do. But, they could make that much MORE money if they are in all of these areas.

The reason lies within how their business model works. They make money by getting people’s eyeballs (for ads) and collecting/collating/manipulating/processing user data. They gather all kinds of data. Search terms. Search trends. Photo types. Face in photos. Location information. Social trends. Browsing habits. Browsing behavior. Storage usage. What do they do with all of this data? Very simple. They sell it. They sell it to the highest bidder. Good ole' American capitalism at work. They sell user data to all kinds of third-party companies looking for ways to advertise their own products/services to their customers. That’s the simple explanation, anyway.

You see, you are the product they are selling. And by “you”, I actually mean your online profile. They have your name, location, email, phone number, likes, dislikes, places you’ve traveled, people you interact with, files you’ve uploaded, emails you’ve received and written, pictures you’ve taken, terms you’ve searched for, results you’ve clicked on, people on your contact list, people you call, people you text, and all of the other spider-webby type of information that they can get their hands on. They know everything about your online life.

That is, assuming you use their services. But, hey, why would you not use their services? They’re free, after all! Gmail is free. Picasa is free. Google+ will be free. Google Maps is free. Google.com is obviously free. Google Apps is free. Google Chrome is free. I’m not sure they have a single publicly facing product/service that is not free (with the lone exception of the “pro” Google Apps accounts). And that’s how they get you. It’s free. It’s convenient. And it’s available on any computer on any operating system, whether that be Windows, Mac, Linux, or something else. It’s brilliant, when you think about it.

Privacy is dead

But it’s also terrifying, if you think about it deep enough. Like I said, because they have all of these services and because they make it convenient and free, they have EVERYTHING about you if you let them. They know all of that stuff I mentioned above. Couple that with their proven business model of selling data and you have yourself the end of any kind of online privacy whatsoever.

“Don’t be evil” has been Google’s motto from the very beginning. The founders wanted a simple (some would say naively simple) motto to always remind themselves and others that a company can do a successful business while keeping their morality and ethics intact. I call BS on that, but that’s my cynicism talking. What’s interesting here is the “to who” aspect of that statement. Don’t be evil to who? Their customers? Their customers who use these services everyday and rely on them to do business or keep in touch with family and friends? That sounds great, even a little heartwarming. But, I would argue that those people, that audience, is not Google’s real customer. Google’s real customers are ad buyers. They are the people who purchase this sliced-and-diced data from Google. They are ultimately the ones who pay for these services that Google releases to the public for free. And, publicly, that’s why Google is regarded as all warm and fuzzy. And (dare I say) open. No, Google’s customers are not the end user.

“Wait, I gave them all this data voluntarily, right? I used and produced this data in Google’s services, yes, but surely they’re not using this information for harm or anything like that?” No, of course they’re not. At least not directly. At least they claim they don’t. Can you believe them? I guess you kind of have to. What other choice do you have? The only real choice is to not use their services.

Okay, so what do you use for these types of online services? Where do you go that has this many services around one “centralized” ecosystem? There really are only two others in this landscape currently: Apple and Microsoft. They have a somewhat similar range of differentiated services (though neither have replacements for all of Google’s services) out there for consumers to use.

The Empire

But, aren’t one of those two companies capable of doing the same thing? Potentially, yes. But, here’s where dogma, fanboy-ism, and loyalty meet and collide. It comes down to who do you believe has the potential to be as (hypothetically) “evil” as Google? Whose business model is selling user data? Whose business goals are to throw out that “free” lure and hope to get a bite from a large enough group of “willing” fish that they can make a profit off of their usage? Who has the potential to be the Empire if Google goes down for some reason? I would argue neither one, to be honest.

Microsoft’s business model is one thing, sell software. Let me say that again. SELL software. They don’t really give software out for free except when it’s a lure to buy more Microsoft software (and more expensive software) based on that initial free use case. For example, they do give away a database engine (SQL Server Express) for anyone to use for anything. Except that when your business grows big enough, the limitations of the free software are exposed. What do you (or your business) do then? Well, you look to Microsoft for the non-free version. After all, your business systems are based off of this core now. It’s got to be more expensive to change the core of the business, right? So, how much is the non-free version? Like all things, that depends. How “best practices” friendly would like to be? If all the way, maybe $100K. If part way, maybe $15-20K. The point is, that free piece of software was designed for the sole purpose to “lock you in” to using their (Microsoft’s) platform and their software. They perfected this practice long before Google ever existed.

Insidious? Yes. Evil? Well, that point could be argued. Directly evil? No. Potentially dangerous for you? I don’t think so.

And what about Apple? Exactly, what about Apple? Apple famously sells hardware. Period. Yes, they sell some software, too. But that’s niche stuff that is geared for a certain market of people. We’re talking about mass appeal software and/or services. They don’t have any. (Granted, they’re introducing something called iCloud in a couple of months that could change my whole argument. But, nobody knows exactly how it works quite yet, so we’ll save that for another day.) MobileMe is probably the closest thing they have to replicating some of the functionality of Google’s services. But MobileMe costs (or did cost) $99/year. They have their money. Besides, Apple is about building an ecosystem. A hardware ecosystem. In my house right now sits an iMac, two MacBook Pros, an AppleTV, two iPhones, 3 iPod Touches, and 1 iPod Shuffle. A roughly $6,200 spend on Apple hardware alone. And they get the best margins in the entire industry for their products. In fact, there was a recent study that said HP has to sell 7 computers to make the profit that Apple makes with 1 computer. That’s staggering.

Personally, I don’t think Apple would ever get in the data collection business because I don’t think Apple NEEDS to do that. And if you can say anything about Apple, Apple doesn’t do things because other people say they NEED to do something. In that sense, they certainly make up their own rules.

Finale

I don’t think the people who work at Google are evil. I don’t even think the people who actually run Google are necessarily evil. But, they seem to be the company who has the most potential and/or opportunity to be. It makes me shudder every time I hear them announce a new venture into a new part of my online life. I shouldn’t have to shudder at that. Call it 1984. Call it the Empire. I just don’t like it. And therefore, I’m inclined to not like them.

I do actually use Gmail right now. I’ve been using it for years. Why? Because it was free. At the time, there was a shortage of free email services that weren’t named Hotmail or didn’t have some kind of storage cap on them. So, I signed up. I think I’ve reached a place where it’s time to move away from that service and away from Google.

Where will I be going? If you know me, you already know the answer to this question. Here’s a hint: They’re really good cold and crisp.

It’s amazing how we insulate ourselves in our own little cocoon. The environment we create around ourselves in our everyday lives speaks to what makes us happy. It’s what makes us comfortable. Content. It’s only when you step outside your life tent that you realize there are other ways of living. Other ways of getting through your day. Other ways of living your life.

This notion hit me square in the face this past weekend. We have been to (what is affectionately known in our household as) Granny’s house before. Even both kids (at 4 and 6) have been there more than a couple of times. Granted, they were younger and probably don’t remember those trips at all, but technically speaking, they have been there before. In looking back at those visits, we seem to have only visited for a couple of hours and then headed back home.

You see, Granny lives in Dana, Kentucky. Where is that exactly? Yeah, I asked that too the first time Jayme told me about it years ago. Dana is a very small town between Prestonsburg, Kentucky and Pikeville, Kentucky. Still doesn’t pinpoint it, huh? It’s about 2 hours east south east of Lexington, amongst the foothills. Being about 400 miles from our house, and about 500 miles from where Jayme and I both grew up in Columbus, it’s not like we saw Granny too much. In the 15 years I’ve been with Jayme, I’ve probably been up there about 7-8 times.

Most of the time, we try to find a 3-day weekend that we all can go. By all, I mean her parents and maybe her brother and his daughter. As the kids have grown up (both ours and his), it’s become harder to get all of us together on the same page. And, to be honest, I’m not sure Granny could handle all 8 of us showing up at her doorstep. But, because we’re so far away, it takes us pretty much a whole day of traveling to get up there (roughly 9am - 5pm, including stops for lunch and restroom breaks). So, on a 3-day weekend, we normally have maybe about 24 hours actually in residence, so to speak. Like I said, mostly a visit and then we’re gone again.

Right from the start, though, something about this trip was different. For one thing, I took off Friday from work so we wouldn’t have to rush up there. We could take most of Friday traveling, and stay for all of Saturday and then the first half of Sunday before heading back. Granted, we’d be late getting back on Sunday, but that didn’t matter, as Monday was July 4th. So, off we went.

I won’t bore you with the travel journal-esque telling of our trip. If you’d like that kind of thing, see my visit and subsequent step-by-step retelling of my trip to San Francisco. No, what I really wanted to focus on here was the wonderful time we had during our visit. One that went so well, we even decided to stay an extra day.

The first thing you have to realize is that (at least where Granny lives), there’s not much to do in the “suburban” sense. Sure, you can travel a little bit and go to the movies, go bowling, and all that. It’s not desolate or anything like that. It is, however, a destination where there are no expectations of manufactured entertainment. Which is what makes it so special. The only expectation is to visit, and talk, and share some stories about the kids and family. It’s a chance to relax and tell some bad jokes and laugh about the little realities of life.

Most of the weekend is spent on the porch, not even a very big porch. The porch itself holds about 5 people, and is also conveniently set up so no one is directly in the sun (which can be deadly at times). And I’m not exaggerating when I say hours. Hours upon hours are spent on that porch. Talking. Laughing. Sharing. Can you imagine doing that at your own house? Jayme and I laughed at the very mention of it. That’s just not something that happens in our neighborhood. But then I started to wonder why. Why is this place so special in that way? Why is this place so different than home?

Family

I think you have to begin with family. Sure, there are many families that live close to each other. Growing up, the vast majority of my family on my mother’s side lived in Columbus. Every holiday was celebrated with family. It was wonderful, actually, to have family that close. What’s different here is the degree of closeness. We all lived about 10 minutes away from each other (an eternity in Columbus, mind you). Close enough to gather for those celebrations, but far enough away that our everyday lives were silo’ed from theirs.

In Granny’s case, her oldest son (along with her great-grandson) lives right “above” her. A different house, but literally about a hundred feet away from her front door. Her youngest son (with his wife) lives across a grassy field from her. Her granddaughter lives three houses down from her, with her husband and now two kids. We’re talking walking distance to three separate family members. I live close to my parents now, and that’s a 20-minute drive from my house.

It’s so different. It’s not an odd thing, or a special thing, for them to have dinner with each other. It’s not scheduled. It doesn’t require a call. They just show up with food in tow. No one questions it. No one even thinks it’s odd. I am sad to say that I can’t say the same. If someone showed up to my door with food in tow, we would still let them in and proceed, but it would be weird. Out of the ordinary. I would expect a call first. I would need to schedule this get-together. Make sure the house is acceptable and the kids are “ready” and the food is prepared. All that good old suburban expectation stuff. It’s not like that there. It’s comfortable. It’s easy-going. It’s fun. It’s expected.

[caption id=“attachment_485” align=“alignright” width=“112” caption=“Posing”][/caption] Another great example of this happened this weekend. My kids are learning to swim right now. They have been taking swim lessons for about 5 weeks or so and are progressing nicely. Dwight, Granny’s youngest son, has a pool in his back yard. (Along with that, he has a trampoline and a large tree playhouse thing in that grassy area that I mentioned. Needless to say, his house was the winner with the kids.) He invited the kids to come swimming Saturday afternoon and the kids were more than happy to accept the invitation. We got over there and Dwight’s oldest daughter brought her daughter over and they all played and had fun in the pool. A little bit into it, Dwight said they (he and his wife Shelia) were going to Lexington to visit their other daughter with their newest grandbaby. He told us feel free to swim and have a good time and that they wouldn’t be back until Monday or Tuesday. What? They were leaving for about 3-4 days and feel free to use the pool (and other play things) whenever you want? Unbelievable. We lock our house down, lock our fence from the inside, and would lock our mailbox (if we could). Again, a different world.

Life’s Pace

What you also fail to understand (if you’ve never been there) is that life doesn’t move at the same frenetic pace as it does where I am. Honestly, that may be because I don’t live there and I don’t see the happenings of a regular work week. If it is frenetic and fast-paced and all that, they certainly don’t talk about it. And it’s not that things move slow, necessarily. It’s that they seem to drift by, not fast, not slow. Just drift. Very easily by. They don’t stress about when they need to eat, or the errands they have to run, or the activities the kids have to be shuttled off to. Those things still happen and they still get done, but it just seems like there’s no pressure to “stick to the schedule”. It’ll get done when it gets done. Everybody breathe. It’s very relaxing (coming from that frenetic place) and it’s almost freeing.

The kids want to go jump on the trampoline next door? Cool. We’ll just sit here on the porch and watch them. No need to “prepare” to go over there just so the kids can jump. Just let them go. Want to go swimming? Let’s go swimming. It’ll be nice to spend some time with the kids in the pool. It’s like being there creates time to spend with the kids. (Yeah, I get it. There’s no need to go somewhere else to simply create time with your kids. It’s one of those things that I personally struggle with, though.) Want to eat lunch? Awesome, what would you like? Someone will fix lunch. No complaints. No resentment. Just a peaceful, easy fe…no, I’m not going to do that to you.

Detachment

I think the final thing may simply be detachment. Detachment from the everyday. Detachment from the ordinary. Like I mentioned earlier, we don’t get to go visit Granny as often as we’d like. I have responsibilities. Jayme has responsibilities. Even the kids have responsibilities here in Kennesaw. Carving out several days to step away from those responsibilities is a chore, actually. Which is why when we actually manage to achieve stepping away, it makes it all the sweeter. It happened to be a 3-day weekend (with July 4th holiday on Monday). I happen to have some time off with nothing pressing for work. Jayme happened to be off from teaching on Fridays because it’s the summer session. And the kids happen to not have school during the summer. Worked out great. We were therefore able to completely detach ourselves from our everyday lives and simply enjoy the time together.

As I was saying earlier, I struggle with the notion of “family time”. I am an independent person. I am a workaholic. I often prefer being by myself and enjoying the solitude more than being with others. I like doing my own thing and getting things done (work or otherwise) that I need to get done so things are easier for me the next day. Sounds a bit selfish, doesn’t it? When family and kids are introduced into that mix, it’s a struggle to take the time and divorce myself from that individualism. I certainly don’t mind being dad and I actually want to be the cool and fun dad, but I know that my personality does not necessarily mesh with that philosophy.

That being said, one thing that this weekend allowed me to do was dive in headfirst. I had nothing to do for work that couldn’t wait until I got back. I had nothing that I needed to do “on my own time”. I was free to enjoy my kids. Free to enjoy my family. Free to mess around with them in the pool. Free to go play with them on the tree playhouse thing. Free to sit on the porch and just relax. Free to relish the time off from myself.

Sorry. I didn’t mean to get all navel-gazing on you. I was just struck this weekend at how different these people live their lives than I do. No one is right and no one if wrong. It’s just different. And it’s the differences that made me have such a great time. Could I live in that world? I don’t know. Could they live in my world? I don’t know that, either. But it sure is nice to mix the two every now and then. It really makes you appreciate both worlds!

How we treat our computers - sticky comics.