Check out Ms. Dewey

This is pretty cool. http://www.msdewey.com

Try "Chris Rock"

DodgeMallow

This past weekend I went down to Monterey for a church retreat with Baylight. It was a great time of fellowship, worship, and sand football.

What was really hysterically fun, though, was a new sport that was invented by accident late Saturday night by myself, Jason Kuo, Mike Kim, Jay Jansen, Hideo Sataki, and Minho Hyun. We were sitting around with Jason musing to himself that there must be a game we could play with the orange cones he had brought with him (the type used for outlining a sports field). I don't know how we ended up there, but within a few minutes everbody had an orange cone and a marshmallow, and were lobbing them back and forth in a game of catch.

Until I randomly decided to wing one side-arm at Minho and nail him squarely in the chest. 30 seconds later we were lined up in two teams on opposite sides of the small room, with a host of chairs between us, and playing the first ever game of DodgeMallow.

The rules are simple. You throw marshmallows at each other, and if you are hit, you're out. If you catch one thrown at you, the thrower is out and one of your teammates can come back in. As quoted in the game of Dodgeball, it's all about Dodge, Dip, Duck, and Dodge, the 4 D's of Dodgeball. Except in DodgeMallow, you're throwing marshmallows. And of course you are only allowed to throw OR catch the marshmallow in an orange cone, not in your bare hand.

As it turns out, marshmallows fly perfectly straight when thrown from a cone, but there is no ability (or nearly none) to control which direction the marshmallow flies in. Which explains why at one point in the game two guys threw 10 marshmallows at once (5 in each cone) at Jason, and all 10 somehow missed. Amazing.

And so a new tradition is born. Maybe next we'll try Halo-Frisbee...

Yahoo! SuperStar Awards

Today was the announcement of the yearly Y! Superstar winners. I knew quite a few of them, including Brady Wood, Irv Henderson, and Joy Mountford among others. Lots of kudos to those folks.

I am a bit disappointed that neither of the folks that I nominated this year, Praz or Joe, received awards either. Both guys did an amazing job on the project I worked with them on last year, both examplifying the best of what it means to be a Yahoo!, and also going far above and beyond the call. I wonder if I should have "gamed" the system more, and encouraged more folks to write nominations for my nominees, to convince the judging panel by volume, rather than by content...

I have to admit that I'd love to win a SuperStar award someday. It's not terribly likely, to be honest, given the parcity of awards and the large number of employees, but that doesn't make it any less appealing. I love public recognition (this blog does not count), and to be honest, it's rare, at least at Yahoo!. The SuperStar award is the one consistent example that I'm aware of that actually is actually material recognition (Y! putting its money where its mouth is). So someday I'd love to win one. But knowing the winners as I do, and some of what they did, the competition and bar are set incredibly high. But that doesn't keep me from dreaming.

Cameraphones grow up

I'm using a Nokia N73 right now, and it's got a 3.2 megapixel camera on it. Wow. Have to tell you that it's amazing. It's not my 8 MP Canon 20d by any stretch but it's an *amazing* cameraphone. Seriously, why carry around a point and shoot anymore? You can see the pictures I've taken with this phone here. Not many yet, but still cool.

I love it.

Jetlag el sucko

I'm in London for 3 days, starting yesterday, leaving tomorrow. Jetlag sucks. I was fine all-day yesterday, somehow by the grace of God catching a full 5 hours of sleep on the flight over, even though I went to sleep at 6pm my time.

But last night was a different story. I went to bed at 10:30, woke up 3 hours later, worked for 3 hours, went to sleep for 5 more. The fact that I actually got 8 hrs helped, but it's still no fun.

London, however, is cool. I don't really have time to explore much on this trip, but the views from the office are definitely different from those in Sunnyvale. I have at least had some good food for lunch both days, thx to various co-workers.

Back from Vacation

The trip was great. Denali was... wet. The cruise was awesome. Pictures to come later, and hopefully more interesting memories.

The double-edged sword of patents

When we launched Yahoo! Podcasts last year, we put together a quite impressive list of patents to file for. On the one hand, it's cool to have patents in your name. And at Yahoo!, there's a bonus for patents filed. And it's good for Yahoo! So I'm a big fan of patents.

However, they are a *huge* time-suck. Each one requires a number of discussions with attorney's, and at the very least reading a 50 page legal document for each, if not writing sections of it. I am *still* doing patent work for Yahoo! Podcasts, from 9 months ago. Craziness.

And in the meantime my team has put together a list of potential patents (not all of which we'll file, thank God) for stuff we've worked on since then that's more than twice as long as the list from Y! Podcasts.

But it's hard to complain when you get a bonus check in the mail.

From Advanced Products to Mobile Web

Today was officially the first day of a new job for me at Yahoo!. I loved running the Advanced Products Group and am going to miss working with that team on a daily basis. But I'm really stoked about my new gig, running Mobile Web. As one of the designers on APG phrased so eloquently, Mobile Web is the crouching tiger of the mobile world.

I've got tons of learning to do; Yahoo! Mobile has a lot going on, but I'm really stoked to join such a strong team and change the world. For real.

Goodbye standby mode?

According to Engadget standby modes on electronic devices eat up 8% of the UK's energy. That's incredible! And a complete waste. Crazy.

So they're thinking of outlawing it, and from my California environment-friendly perspective (although I do drive an SUV... guess no one's perfect), that's a great idea. It's not like we "need" standby mode.

But then part of me is also like, holy cow, that's going to cause a ton of extra work for lots and lots of companies...

Maybe instead of outlawing standby they should require that devices using standby include their own solar energy cells.

Back from the beach

I went to a wedding and then to the beach in South Carolina for all of last week, and am now back in the flow of my regular life. I have to admit, though, that I miss the beach. Big surprise, huh? 6 days of doing pretty much nothing at all. Wake up when I wake up, read a book, get in the water, read a book, eat, eat, eat, read a book, sleep again. Awesome.

I really needed the break, both from work and from regular life (six weekends in a row of weddings or wedding-related activities knocks the wind out of you). For some reason whenever I actually let myself take a break, I get sick, or nearly so. For the first half of last week I felt like a truck had run over me. Sore muscles, sore throat, headache, etc. Basically I felt like ass. Soph speculated that when I actually let myself relax that much that my muscles release any and all toxins that they'd been accumulating. Who knows. But I do know that after a week of aggressive relaxing, I feel way better. Almost fully awake.

And I've got another adventure/vacation in August. I should be fully functional by September.

Naming conventions for web-products... and the next fad

I had a fun discussion a few days ago with some coworkers about fads in the naming conventions for web products. It started because we were talking about the abundance of products launched in the last year or so with a missing "e". That all started with Flickr, but has continued to Flaggr, Wishlistr, etc. And a lot of Web 2.0 companies have also used new domains (instead of .com) to make interesting URLs, like del.icio.us or blo.gs.

Of course, this isn't just a Web 2.0 thing, it's a web thing. Why are Flickr, Flaggr, and their ilk missing the "e"? Because they all got used up by all the "eCompany" names in Web 1.0. Or the "o" 's got used up by Yahooooo, Goooogle, etc. And the "i" 's got eaten up by iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, etc. Anyway, so now in Web 2.0 we're missing vowels.

Anyway, the point is that web names go in fads. So here's the next fad, Web 3.0. I decided on it today with some coworkers.

Web 3.0: Company or Product names made up of words repeated twice.

• cowcow
• fixfix
• toptop
• boxbox
  

you get the idea. we discovered that most farm animals make interesting product names when used in this way. they don't mean much, but they're fun to say. a lot like the names kicked out by the Web 2.0 Name Generator.

Time for a vacation

I'm exhausted. Work isn't the culprit, really, although it's always moving at 110 mph at Yahoo!. No, this time it's weddings. I thought I made it through the wedding season a few years back, but this must be "Indian Summer" or something. We've had wedding-related activities every single weekend since essentially the 3rd weekend of May. That's like 6 weeks in a row or something.

I'm totally worn out. And we're not just talking about the kind of wedding where you show up, drink some champaign, and take off. No, these are the kind where I'm helping out, standing up, or in charge of something, which means that every Thurs/Fri/Sat for as long as I can seem to remember recently are wedding-filled.

Don't get me wrong; I'm stoked for all my friends. I just need a vacation. Thankfully, it's very close. I have one more wedding this weekend, and then I can take a break. Can't wait.

Digital Sneezing

This is a phenomena that my co-worker, Matt Fukuda, noted yesterday, and he's totally right.

Just about everybody in my group has a Nokia 6682 camera-phone. It's a cool phone, but basically just a basic camera phone to most folks. The cool thing is that it can run lots of next-generation application, like Zonetags, which was put out by Yahoo! Research Berkeley. Zonetags makes it a one-click step to upload camera-phone pictures to Flickr, and also figures out where you are physically in the real world, and adds that information as a tag. Very cool.

It means I put up a ton more photos on Flickr, and also means that I just take a lot more pictures with my phone. Since everybody on my team has this phone, and we all have zonetags, we're all always taking pictures of things. Pictures of each other in embarrassing situations, pictures of each other at our desks, pictures of what we're working on, pictures of buildings, pictures of just about anything.

Here's where the sneezing part comes in. When I see one of these guys take out his cell phone to take a picture of something, I get mine out, pretty much unconsciously, as if *I* should be taking a picture of whatever it is too. And it's not just limited to me. If one person gets out their camera phone, the whole group suddenly has their phones out, and are taking pictures. It's just like when someone sneezes, and a bunch of other people suddenly need to sneeze. What gives? Bizarre, frankly, but entertaining.

And of course terribly geeky (someday it will be totally hip). At a swank Japanese restaurant last week, Nihon (Y! Local info), we were about 10 minutes into appetizers and suddenly more than half the table had their phones out and were taking pictures. of everything. everything. so geeky. so ridiculous.

but so entertaining. and of course the photos are fun to look at the next day, too.

This is just wrong

This site "christian social networking site", ChristianVibes, at least according to TechCrunch, is related to another site called "SmutVibes", which is like MySpace, but actually encourages pornographic photos.

If they really are the same company, that's absolutely ridiculous. Or rather, it's brilliant, assuming you're just trying to use one platform to target two very different constituencies. But there's something offensive about it as well. It would be like having an "anti-gun" site intended to attract the eyes of anti-gun advocates, and using the resulting revenue dollars to run the NRA site.

doh! delete isn't the same as edit

I deleted a comment today by accident, when I was trying to respond. and unfortunately, 360 doesn't give me the option to "undelete", and didn't give me a confirmation dialog. I thought it was standard practice to get confirmation for irrevocable actions?

Unconditional consumer love of Google

For those of you who don't religiously follow the internet industry (what's wrong with you?), TechCrunch is one of the best tech blogs for just keeping up-to-date with recent internet news, and for a quick analysis of new products, and it's relatively evenly delivered.

This article today vents about a lot of the "halo" effect Google seems to enjoy, even when they release products that aren't necessarily life-changing. But somehow everyone thinks they are.

I have huge respect for Google, and actually love the fact that having healthy competition has really benefited consumers (note Gmail and Google Maps). But seriously, the products aren't really "better" than other products out there, or if they are, it's marginally. But people have a love affair with the brand.

As a Yahoo!, it's annoying. I'm sure if I was a Googler, though, I'd be reveling in it, and laughing at folks like at Yahoo! and MSFT. Guess it just provides a nice challenge to those of us without the home court advantage of unconditional consumer love.

Building products fast

I'm giving a talk tomorrow to whatever Yahoo!'s want to hear my $.02 on how to build products quickly. I titled the talk "Building products fast - cutting through the red tape... but not really... but really", in reference to a line from Dodgeball. Quite appropriate in this case, because some of the "red tape" can be cut (ignored, reclassified, avoided, etc), some you can reduce with a little elbow grease, and some you have to deal with. But a lot of folks, myself included at times, get bogged down and end up letting ourselves think that it's the organization's problem, and stop taking the responsibility to just get the job done.

But I digress. Much more important is that while typing up the presentation (which I kept very light-weight, to give more time for discussion), I accidentally wrote a rhyme. Can't really call it a poem, though. That would be demeaning to the art-form. But a rhyme nonetheless. Here's what I wrote.

If your engineers are stuck, so are you.
If your designers are stuck, so are you.
If anything is stuck, so are you.
If you are stuck, your product is too.

Funny that it rhymes. But very true.

Make it burn

I go to a Power Yoga class at the local YMCA twice a week. It's a tough work-out, something I would never have believed before trying it. I thought Yoga was all stretching and calming. Not this one. Lots of stretching, but a serious serious workout.

Today, though, was a whole new experience. Ever "sit" with your back against a wall as though you were sitting in a chair, but simply using your quads to keep you in that position? Remember how it makes your legs burn? That was today. We held a position for 2 minutes, switched to another position that used the same leg and held *that* position for 2 minutes. And onto another position on the same leg. And a fourth. And a fifth. And then we did it all on the other leg.

That's basically 10 minutes making one quad BURN. Burn baby burn. Man. It felt like someone had injected molten lava into the veins in my leg. I had forgotten what that feels like. It's definitely not the same as simply tiring out... it's burning out.

We won the Webby Award!

Yahoo! Podcasts, a product my team launched last September, won a Webby Award for best podcast site. Cool!

Panopticon

What a cool word. What is it? A very interesting type of prison where a very few number of guards can see all inmates, each inmate has a window to the outside world, and no inmate can see another inmate. Check it out on Wikipedia.

I heard the concept in the context of a talk given at Yahoo! by Jamais Cascio (cascio@openthefuture.com), where he talked about the Participatory Panopticon. The idea is that once everyone has a mobile phone capable of recording photos or videos at any time, without the target's knowledge, we basically are in a situation where you live your life as you do, but at any moment you might be recorded (seen by the guards).

Question: If everything is always recorded, does it destory social fabric, or does it require forgiveness, since nothing is forgotten?

Natural high

I decided yesterday to do a "sprint" workout, something I haven't done in a long time. I was partially motivated by the fact that I want to play ultimate frisbee this weekend, and would like to get the lactic acid out of my legs ahead of time. I was also partially motivated because the more I've done Yoga, and stretched out my legs, the more I feel like I need to do something to tighten them back up. Just stretching all the time is uncomfortable.

Anyway, the point is I ran some sprints. And it was EXHILERATING. Man, it was great to run at full speed. It feels like I'm flying. And almost immediately after finishing the first sprint, I could feel the runner's high hit me like a freight train. I had a huge grin on my face. I felt awesome. So I ran a few more sprints. And I felt awesome. But then I quit, because I knew I was running on borrowed energy, so to speak.

About 15 minutes later, as I was getting ready for work, I crashed. I felt sick. It was brief, thank God, but it was real. Unsettled stomach, spinning head, the works. Yeach.

So what's the point? I need to sprint more often.

A great idea finally comes to life

I had this idea maybe 5 years ago; I just didn't know how to make it happen. Iomega has launched a wifi NAS... what is it? It's a set of hard-drives that you just hook up to your home network. You put all your photos, music, etc on there, and it's all available to every computer or networked television (Tivo, Windows Media Center) in your house. Not only that, but because there are multiple hard-drives, the data is backed up. Even if one hard-drive fails, you haven't lost the data. You just swap out that one drive and keep going.

It's probably still not sufficiently user-friendly to hit a mass market, and I doubt most people would get the benefits, but someday something like this will be either part of your home stereo setup, or part of your internet setup.

I'm glad it's finally happening.

Denali!!!

I'm totally stoked! Soph and I have cemented our plans to take off for Alaska this summer, something I've wanted to do for a while now.

We'll be spending about 5 days backpacking in Denali National Park (pictured here). The mosquitos will suck (literally), but it's wide-open, no trails. Basically hike wherever you want for days on end, with nearly endless sunlight. Cool.

Then we'll take an SUV down the Denali highway from Fairbanks to Anchorage for a couple of days. The road parallels the park, and has great views of the mountain. The whole thing is unpaved, too... Off-roading!

So then after a full week+ of exhausting vacationing, we'll take a cruise down the Alaska/Canada coast for a week, taking in the sights, doing day excursions if we have the energy, and basically soaking it all up with very little effort.

And then we come home and collapse for a day before returning to work/school.

I am SO stoked. I can't wait. I'm starting to compile a list of stuff I may need to buy in anticipation of the trip (and probably sell on Craig's list/Ebay again after we're back). Things like:

• 600mm lens (for bears and wolves and such)
• GPS (no trails, remember? and my map/compass skills are ok, but maybe not ok enough)
• mosquito netting (nasty suckers)
• solar recharger? (camera batteries, gps batteries)

If you've been to Alaska and have any recommendations, throw 'em my way.

Crush List

Soph and I both realized lately that we have become buried in our work and hobbies, both individually and together. It seems like whenever we have free time - weeknight or weekend - we try to fill it with things like watching a movie, reading a book, surfing the web, playing a game, photography, etc. We're already super-busy during the week with work and school, so perhaps it's understandable to want to relax.

The effect, though, has been that we're not investing in people's lives the way we once used to. We used to have at least one night a week that we spent with friends, or with people we were hoping would become friends. And that time really was a great way for us to both be encouraged and have fun, but also a way for us to pour ourselves into other people.

If you examine Jesus' life, you'll see that he was almost always inviting someone to join him in *whatever* he was doing. Every moment, it seems, was a chance for him to invest himself in someone else. That's how he made disciples. My Dad refers to this as the "With Me" principle. He even wrote a book on it called "The Joy of Discipleship".

Anway, both Soph and I came to this conclusion on our own at about the same time a couple of weeks ago. So we decided to institute the Crush List. This is a concept we borrowed from a friend of ours from his "single" days. He had 5 women on the crush list, and 5 in waiting. It might seem like a strange concept, but it makes sense. He was basically focusing on the set of people he wanted to develop relationship with. So Soph and I now have a "Crush List" with people that we really want to target developing deeper relationship with. The list changes regularly, and the number of people on the list isn't really a set limit. But it gives us some focus relationally, and gets us off our butts when we have free time.

360 drafts...

I really really wish 360 allowed me to save draft blog entries.

This entry, for example, I am writing in notepad because I just posted another post. I don't want to post all my thoughts all at once, but I need a place to capture the thought when it occurs. I've also run into plenty of instances where I'm halfway through writing a post when I need to shut-down, close the browser, whatever. I can't save the draft, but I don't want to post a half-finished thought, so what can I do?

Why multiple blogs are useful...

I constantly find that there are things I want to blog about that for one reason or another I can't. Usually it's because it's related to Yahoo!, or product strategies of competitive companies as they relate to Yahoo!, etc. Obviously I can't blog about that stuff in public, because, well, it's not public information.

But sometimes I *really* want to talk about it. So now I have three blogs. I have this one, purely for personal stuff. I know some people are much more hip than I and use their 360 to write up their thoughts on Web 2.0 stuff, but most of my thoughts can't be expressed publicly anyway. So this blog is for personal happenings, opinions, etc.

I have *also* started a blog internally at Yahoo!, behind the corporate firewall (sorry to those of you who don't work at Yahoo!), where I *can* comment about these things. Actually, I've started two internal blogs. I started one for my group - the Advanced Products Group - and one for myself.

It does mean, though, that I've neglected this blog for a number of days, maybe even weeks, since I've been posting to those other two blogs. Sorry about that. I'll try to make amends over the upcoming weekend.

Snowboarding blind

Since my trip out of the country for work was postponed, I took advantage of having no meetings scheduled for Friday to take the day off and hit the slopes with Soph. We headed up to Kirkwood early in the morning, and had an awesome day.

The snow up there is crazy deep. Like 20 feet or something. We were going down blacks and double blacks that were essentially just blues. All of the gullies and gulches were filled in with snow. It was a blast.

It was blowing really hard, though. I couldn't see the lift until we were one pole away. No visibility at all. And the wind was so strong at the top that if you just stood up on a flat area, it pushed you along like a sailboat. One run we went on was so whited-out, that it felt like I was in Antartica. A little bit disconcerting.

But the snow was awesome. I love being the first or only person to make tracks down a long run. What a blast!

Rain, rain, go away, but just the same, leave the snow to stay

What a crazy March in northern CA. It has rained a ton! here, which of course also means it has snowed a ton up at Tahoe (for you non-californians, rain in SF = snow in the sierras).

Alpine Meadows is reporting an all-time record for snow-fall in a single month, with 189.5 inches just this March. That's nearly sixteen feet of fresh snow. 16. That's nuts. I hope I get up there soon.

When you're so mad you can't see straight

I rarely get this upset, but something happened yesterday that really lit a fire. I won't bother with the gory details; let's just say that I have to keep telling myself not to break stuff. I'm trying really hard to get my thoughts together so that I can express my frustrations correctly even to myself (I must be learning something from my wife). In the meantime I'm trying not to take it out on people who just happen to be sitting near me, something I failed at last night with Soph. Thankfully she has lots of grace for me.

What it comes down to is this: I don't like being manipulated. At all. Really only two things can get me this pissed off with any certainty. One is causing me unnecessary physical pain. The other is being manipulated, and I definitely feel that way right now.

Just needed to vent.

Finding joy in the small things

It's cold out in the Bay Area right now. By cold I mean wet and upper 50's, of course, not freezing rain or snow. But it's cold enough to want a hot drink.

I have to say that I love hot drinks in cold weather, just as much as I love cold drinks the rest of the year. I live my life at a sprint, both at work and at home; somehow having a really good beverage in the middle of the day (or the end) is like taking a small hiatus, and entering a world of relaxation.

I don't know too many other people who get as much pleasure from just a simple beverage as I do, but I do believe that finding joy in the small things is a great way to enjoy life, whatever the circumstance.

US Patent System - Time for a Refresh?

The US Patent system is crazy. I don't claim to really understand it, but I know enough to know that I wish it would be changed. Unlike patent law in many other countries, US patent law essentially allows you to patent an "invention" simply by dreaming it up, not requiring you to build it or even intend to build it. Of course, it has to be pretty thoroughly dreamt-up... including diagrams, explanations, etc. But you don't have to actually sell the thing, or even build it. That seems crazy to me.

On the one hand it's nice for inventors; if you have a great idea and don't have the money, time, or expertise to build it, you can still get a patent.

However, it also creates a corporate culture of litigation. There are companies that do nothing but acquire patents, never intending to do anything with them, only intending to litigate for tons of money should the patent become valuable. Rather than protect the inventor, this system ends up preventing some really fantastic inventions from getting to market, or in the case of BlackBerry, possibly being pulled from the market. So ultimately this just harms the consumer.

I think it would make a lot more sense for the US to require the invention to be publicly available... as in you've actually *built* what you've invented, at least in some prototype variation. This would certainly cut down on frivolous patent lawsuits, and would also force companies to really put their money where their mouth is with regards to what areas of intellectual property they think is important, since they'd have to spend resources to make it happen. If was a really important area for a company, they'd actually ship it! That's a way better proposition for consumers.

I moved up on Jack!

Wow. Cool. I decided to see if I could write somewhat more regularly, and have been somewhat successful. To prove it, I noticed that Danny has moved me up on Jack.html to "updates somewhat regularly".

Awesome. Catch me if you can.

Battlestar Gallactica - Best Show on Televsion

Ok, I'm a sci-fi geek, and I know it. But that doesn't make it any less true when I say that Battlestar Gallactica is the best show on tv. It's really amazing, and if you haven't watched it, you should. Go get it on iTunes or something.

First of all, it's not your normal sci-fi show with little plot substance and lots of geek factor. This is quite different. It's really a drama that simply occurs in a very real setting that just happens to be futuristic and in-space. But the drama is awesome.

It's SO intense. In fact, it's so intense that Soph and I don't watch it regularly. We record multiple weeks on Tivo, and we ask ourselves, "Do we have the emotional energy to watch this tonight?" Usually the answer is no, and we watch something way less involved. But then there are those nights where we say, "heck yeah, let's do it", and we watch like 3 or 4 episodes in a row. And then we're exhausted for another few weeks.

I thought we were the only folks who did this, but the more I talk to other people to watch the show, the more I'm discovering it's quite common.

All of this is to say that if you're not watching the show, you're missing out. I'm rarely this into a show, too, so you know it's really good.

Sweet Dreams - Dashed... argh

Duke lost and is out of the tourny. Aaaaargh. What an abysmal game. J.J. - where was your shot? My only consolation is that UNC went out earlier than us. And Stanford, of course, was nowhere to be seen...

Oh well. At least I won't be upset about missing the Final Four and Championship games when I'm on a plane to India.

vegas, baby... or not?

It seems like everyone I know is a huge Vegas fan, so I definitely feel like the odd-man-out at times, as I am not particularly enamored with the place. At the risk of seeming lame to those of my friends/colleagues that really like Vegas (who are many), here's why.

1. I don't really gamble
I have too many expensive hobbies, at least by my standards, to blow the money in a relatively short time playing a game. I like games; I really figuring them out; I especially like winning. And I love hanging out with friends. But I don't like losing money; it leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. I'd rather go buy a new camera lens. Or a snowboard. Or camping gear. Or spend the same amount of time and money on a shopping spree at REI.

I hung out last night with some friends from work as they tossed their money away at Craps, or as other people did it for them. It was fun. I had a great time, even though I wasn't playing, and as a result wasn't nearly as energetic or entertaining as they were. It's a great social atmosphere. Everyone's friendly and exuberant. And there's a sense of suspense that the game creates that's really addictive. It's fantastic. But I was perfectly happy still having all my cash at the end of the night.

2. Strip clubs ain't my thing
There are some things that are culturally acceptable that just aren't ok with me. This is one of those cases. It's an issue of personal integrity. There's no way I could enjoy a show like that, or even go along for the ride, and make any sort of claim to wanting to know God better. I know that God's not going to like it. And there's no way I could tell Soph that she's the only one for me, and still go. It's not that a part of me wouldn't enjoy it, quite the contrary unfortunately, but not the part of me that is the person I aspire to be.

3. I never get around to seeing the shows
Ok, so this is more a function of me coming for business conferences all the time, and has little to do with Vegas. I'd probably enjoy a lot of the shows. I just never get to go. Someday I'll come for a vacation and not for work, and will see some, and maybe I'll re-evaluate my opinion then.

On a positive note, I will say that Vegas is a great place for a business conference. Most business folks (especially tech?) are eager to come, and the facilities are fantastic. It's also a cheap flight from a lot of places. So for that, it's great.

V for Vendatta

I went to see this movie on Saturday with Ted and Danny, and we were evenly split on our reactions. I really liked the movie, overall. Ted hated it. Danny liked it more than he hated it.

The movie is quite political; it makes numerous not-so-subtle statements about the current political environment. And the movie takes a *very* strong stance; it's so dogmatic in it's position that it is almost as outrageous as the position it is fighting. Of course, you have to think about that a bit, because they don't make the dogmatism of their own position all that obvious - or at least they don't come right out and state it.

I didn't agree with all of the comments, but I did like the movie overall. I liked the tone, I liked the visual effect, and I agreed with one of the main comments in the movie, which I think is this: it's extremely dangerous to sacrifice freedom for security.

But maybe the reason I liked it most is that it was both entertaining (a basic requirement for me, and one that most dramas fail to meet), AND it causes you to think. "The Usual Suspects" was similar. This one actually has a real-life component to it, though, which makes for great conversation.

Let me know if you see it; I'd love to discuss it more.

Tourney Time - Go Blue Devils!

I love tournmanet time, even if I don't always have time to watch as many games as I want to watch. And while it's specific to Duke/Carolina, not the tourny overall, this link from Miriam just warmed my heart. Basically, it explain why it's sometimes good to have someone to hate. Really hate. And even though it's written from the decidely uniformed and inherently "wrong" perspective of a UNC grad, it's still good.

Interestingly, as a Christian, I'm instructed to "turn the other cheek". Can this possibly apply to the University of North Carolina, though? If it does, then thank God for Jesus, because I'm a sinner.


Go Duke.
Go to hell, Carolina.

Dancing with the Football stars?

A co-worker just told me that Jerry Rice was the runner-up in Dancing with the Stars. I was shocked. Not in a bad way. Just shocked.

My [female] co-worker's first question to me was if I danced with Jerry. Um, no?

Obey Your Thirst

I sat behind Jerry Rice on the plane home from LA yesterday. He ordered a Sprite.

I have to admit that being a celebrity has *got* to be exhausting. Every single 20-something guy in the airport kept asking to get a picture with him. I've got to give the guy a ton of credit, though. He was super-nice about it, always said yes, and smiled for the picture. He even stayed on the plane while people were filing off so that he could take one with the stewardesses. Class act. I was very impressed. And sure that he was going to go home and collapse of exhaustion.

Ratings ratings everywhere

My team just launched Syndicated Ratings (officially, anyway - it's really been out for weeks if you knew where to find it). Check out the blog post by Mike Quoc. It's a very cool concept that we kicked off a long time back, and finally manifested itself.

Basically it takes the power of a platform that Yahoo! has been using internally, and makes it available for any site. Good for the site because they can show off their rating, or encourage users to rate. Good for Yahoo! because it generates a lot more ratings data.

Right now it's limited to the Yahoo! Podcasts site, but it's very extensible.

Anyway, I'm stoked! In some ways I'm as excited about this one little feature as I was about the whole Podcasts product, simply because it illustrates and illuminates a big concept that should hopefully take off.

Yosemite in the Winter

I've been wanting to go to Yosemite in the winter for the last three years, and I finally made it this last weekend. Holy cow. I've read that Yosemite is actually the least beautiful in the summer when everybody usually visits, but I only half-believed it. But wow, Yosemite in winter after a fresh snowfall is UNBELIEVABLY beautiful.

It was being in Narnia. It was so beautiful it was surreal. Even while I wandered around for 4 hours in the morning snapping pictures, I couldn't really believe it. And afterwards, sitting exhausted by the fire I couldn't really believe it.

The pain of losing

Nobody likes to lose, but when Duke loses a basketball game in the ACC, it sucks. I'm ok with the occassional loss - good learning experiences and all. But the problem is that most of my family has allegiences to *other* schools in the ACC, so when Duke loses, I always get crap.

My dad went to Georgia Tech. My youngest sister is in Law School at Florida State. My other sister's husband does ROTC for NC State. Shelley called me Wed at half-time when Florida State was up, and again afterwards to gloat. Ridiculous. I would never do that to anyone. Never.

uh. right.

Thank God none of them went to UNC. That would be the definition of a dysfunctional family.

loss of childhood?

I occassionally here comments in the media or from people about how kids, teens in particular, no longer can enjoy "childhood" because of the expectations put on them, such as homework, activities, etc.

Those kind of comments seem a bit ridiculous to me. Where did we come up with the notion that you are not expected to be a contributing member of society until you are 21? In many previous generations you were already working, married, and possibly with kids by then.

I feel like these sorts of comments idealize what it means to be a kid, or a teen, rather than be realistic. I think we expect too little out of ourselves as a society, honestly, not too much.

Drinks from next door

I went to lunch with my team recently and saw this under the glass table cover. This was a first for me.

Reflections - 2/14

I read this excerpt this morning.

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that [God] finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." - From The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis.

We dream too small.

Podcasts go mobile

I think this is cool - Yahoo! Podcasts getting demoed on Motoralo phones at a huge mobile trade show in Europe.

Of course, I participated in it, so I'm biased, but it's cool nonetheless. Partly it's cool because it's a great idea. But I think for the most part I think it's cool to see something I worked on validated by another big brand that I've long admired for creating cool products.

Steelers win the Superbowl!

Awesome. I had my Terrible Towel ready, and the team came through. Pittsburgh has got to be rockin' tonight. I'm guessing my sisters, who are unbelievably crazy fans, may be in need of some medical attention to help them recover from the ride.

Even if you're not a Pittsburgh fan, which you should be, you have to at least love that Bettis got to win the big game in his own town. That's awesome.

I love how Detroit turned out to support the Steelers, too. One Detroit writer said this: ""98.99 percent of Detroit is rooting for the Steelers," wrote Bob Wojnarowski of the Detroit News. "The other 1.01 percent drink $6 cups of coffee."

love it.

Size Matters

I have a bunch of photos that I've taken printed and framed in my house. A lot of them are decent, some better than hours. But anytime someone visits they are inevitably drawn to the largest photo in the house (50"x17"), and they *always* say they like that one best. It's a good picture, maybe my best, but it's not so much better than the others to earn the disproportianate amount of praise, but it gets it.

Size does matter.

So in that vein I had my first *digital* picture professionally enlarged and printed at 20"x30", which is standard poster size. I really though it would be pixelated at that size - it should have been given the limited amount of data an 8MP camera captures. But amazingly it wasn't pixelated at all. I even commented on it to the folks in the shop and they agreed with me that I could have gone even bigger, maybe 24x36. That's AWESOME! The picture looks pretty cool, too. It's a bit more stark than some of my other pictures, but looks pretty cool.

Go Stillers!

It's true that I rarely find time to watch or pay attention to sports anymore, even my beloved Duke Blue Devils. It just takes so much time to watch a game, and I have too many things going at once to take so many hours out on a regular basis. Tivo is a big, help, of course. And it also makes it a lot less interesting for me with fewer local Blue Devils or Stiller fans in the area anymore to watch the games with; I'm not one to watch games alone much.

All that aside, I am salivating at the chance to watch the 'Burgh pick up another Superbowl win. GO STILLERS!!! Now, where did I put my Terrible Towel?

Playing with pictures

I printed out a ton of photos this past weekend. What a blast! I printed them all at about 12x18 inches... LARGE! Size really does matter, at least in prints. They look spectacular! Now I just have to matte and frame them.

How many #1 priorities can you have?

I saw a slide in a presentation today that made me laugh. The title said something like "#1 Priority". In the body of the slide were 8 bullet points.

I see this happen all the time at work where there are multiple "#1" priorities. It's really impossible to have more than 1. You can work on more than one thing at a time, but when push comes to shove, something is the top priority. And frankly, you shouldn't work on too many things at once. You get less done overall, even though you *feel* like you're doing more. It's very dangerous.

Of course, I'm really bad at this myself, especially at home. Recently I was installing track lights, a project that had been taking a few days, and I had a set of shelves waiting out in the garage to do, and I was printing/matting pictures. There was no way I was going to get through it all, but I was still tempted to buy another set of lights to install in the garage. I didn't, but I was tempted.