Prose, obsessed upon for far too long. Judge kindly.
Well I had this post in the hopper before I left so it’s really past me writing. Don’t expect any more I promise but begardless we’re live!
The Left Bracket crew has worked long and hard these past 6 weeks to bring you DS Buttons. It’s a simple solution to a basic problem: If you’re a Nintendo DS owner you might not be able to find people to play local wifi games with. WIth DS Buttons we aimed to solve that. You buy a few buttons, toss them on your bag and when you’re ...
I’ve been planning this trip for almost 6 months now and I can’t believe I’m about to leave tomorrow morning. Everything’s packed, all that’s really left is to get some sleep, shower, brush my teeth and hop on a plane. Then it’s just a quick 18 hours before I’ve landed in Santiago. Wow.
My sister’s just finished up studying abroad in Valparaiso which luckily for me is just a few hour bus ride, so she’ll be waiting at the airport when arrive. We’ve got a kick ass trip planned complete ...
I’m sitting here in my apartment and it’s pouring outside, much as my parents tell me it was 26 years ago when I came into this world screaming. The clock just struck midnight and since I don’t remember what time I was born that’s close enough to official for me. I’m 26.
I think birthday’s make it easy for everyone to get all reflective and think about the past. It’s sort of your like your own personal New Years. After a quick think though there isn’t much more to say other than ...
The switch is complete. It’s hard to admit it after years of blindly defending the electric but I’m now a straight razor man. I few months ago my electric razor got stolen and I ended up picking up a Gillette Mach 3 at the store to cover me until I could get a chance to go buy a new one. I’ll be honest, it was tough. After a lifetime of shaving using an electric it wasn’t easy to get used to the straight razor. I was determined though, and after a few months now I’m ...
Okay, so I’m not one to whine about service companies. After experiencing first hand the unbridled anger of a few irate customers I have a good deal of empathy built up for the people representing the corporate face, but with Comcast they’ve blown through that goodwill years ago. So now I’m writing on the internet to vent my frustrations. I know, it’s not very original.
Even before moving to Seattle I’ve had troubles with my cable and Internet connection. In Palo Alto, yes the heart of Silicon Valley, the cable guy visited our place at ...
I really can’t believe it’s October already. I’ve been working at Blue Flavor now for a month and it only feels like a week. I’ve been busy, sure, but it’s been a fun type of busy and I’ve got high hopes for what the companies going to accomplish—good times. But, since I failed to keep writing this month I figured I’d do a quick recap:
Flew down to the Future of Web Apps Conference in San Francisco for work. It was great to hob nob with the web luminaries and I learned ...
It’s Blue and yeah, it’s another big life change.
It’s a long story, involving a whole slew of random events, but (and I still can’t believe I’m typing this) I’ve got a new job. This past Tuesday I started working for a small “experience design” company called Blue Flavor just a few blocks from my place in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. I’ve known for a while but haven’t been able to write up anything here since the guys asked if I could hold off until the big formal announcement over on ...
My uncle swung by the old family homestead this past weekend and took a few shots of the soon to be Ercolini Property Park. I hope they end up calling the thing Ercolini Park, but with that ambiguous “Property” inserted in there I don’t know. The house is down now, which is a little sad, and there’s a few shopping carts on the property. Oh, and of course a little graffiti on the sign but with any luck these are just a few bumps on the road to it becoming a sweet little park nestled in the heart ...
We finished, and damn was it a fun time. We ran 152 miles in 103 degree heat in just under 22 hours. I’ll be honest I never thought I’d think doing that would be fun, but with a team it really was. The comradarie in the van really motivated you to give it everything you had, even though we were just out there doing it for fun.
After the long haul, all 11 tired ponies (and a few crucial volunteers) celebrated at the much deserved “beer garden” (don’t ask about the official one, we’re all still ...
So these past few months I’ve been training for this crazy relay my buddies and I decided to enter. We’re about ready to head out on the open road, so I’ll make this quick. The race is called the Rainier to Pacific and it’s probably 3 times farther then I’ve ever ran ever. The quick stats:
About 2 years ago for my Birthday a couple of my close friends thought it’d be a great idea to get me a bonsai plant. I’d just got back from Japan, I love them, and so they thought it’d be the perfect gift. Until you start to think about it.
I’m assuming all you horticulturalists out there are secretly laughing because you know. Giving someone a bonsai plant, especially a juniper one (think Karate Kid/Mr. Miyagi style), is the plant equivalent of giving someone a puppy for their birthday.
It requires constant attention, pruning, watering ...
Don’t really have anything witty to say but since the 4th is such a great holiday I figured I’d send out a little internet shout out. Hope everyone is enjoying the burgers, brew, and pyrotechnics. I know I will be.
Okay, so I’m bit of a gizmo guy. I dig the well thought out feature on a product. As long as it’s not hindering what the device is actually intended to do in any way I’m all for the upgrade. My new toaster has done just that, it has the bagel option.
It’s a normal toaster, nothing to fancy but on the top it has an easy to understand info-graphic showing you the proper way to put a bagel in the toaster with the inside facing out.
Sunday afternoons have always had this reflective air about them. The weekend is winding down, you usually don’t have a lot planned. If you’re still in school you’re either frantically finishing up that paper you meant to get to three weeks ago or deciding that you should call home to ask for money, er… call home and chat with the parents. Sunday afternoons, especially sunny ones, always get me thinking. It’s such a great time to reflect.
Maybe it’s some odd need for a lists that driving me to write this, but at 25 year ...
I’ve written about this here before, but it seems every year spring sneaks up on me with all it’s amazing smells. The fresh cut grass, that unmistakable smell of dirt after it rains, the windows down instead of the heater blowing as you drive home after work—it’s all just getting you ready for those long days, bbq’s and baseball. I was walking around the grocery store yesterday and could just feel the warmth and I was back in the cold dairy section. Ahh… spring is here and summer is coming.
What’s your favorite spring ...
I’ve been a bit quiet here this week and it’s mostly do to the information I got the past weekend from my father. Our conversations never last more than about 10 minutes. They’re always quick exchanges of information but this one blew me away.
It’s a bit of an odd connection but my Dad’s Fiance’s ex-husband and her new wife were brutally stabbed and killed over the weekend by his wife’s son. So, no I’m not related to any of these people, I’ve never even met them, well I’ve met ...
Last week I was reading this post about how the raisin has ruined the oatmeal cookie, and it really riled me up, got my blood boiling, okay, I was mildly irked but that’s not the point. The point is somebody, well somebody besides grape/raisin farmers needs to step up and defend the raisin and its placed in my favorite cookie, the oatmeal raisin.
Yes, yes, the raisin is a dried, shriveled fruit like he was saying, but it’s basically all sugar. Sugar which obviously belongs in cookies. Sweet sugary goodness from a fruit in a delectable oatmeal ...
11 years after I walked into my high school French class and sat down next to Jasmyn, and 11 years after I was partners with Sean in Biology class—my two closest friends are now married. On Tuesday in front of very small group of friends and family, the two of them proclaimed their love for each other and vowed to spend the rest of their lives together.
It was a beautiful ceremony and an incredible dinner, but I still can’t believe Sean’s sausage fingers are sporting a ring.
Anyway, congratulations! I’m so happy for you two.
So I have a tendancy to talk a bit too much about my trips to Target. Maybe it’s because I’m setting up my apartment and need to get a bunch of odds and ends, but maybe it’s because Target is the mecca of household supplies. It does hurt me a little shopping at the large box store, but at least it’s not Walmart. Anyway, this past weekend I picked up what can only be described as the greatest thing to happen to apartment grilling since, well the original George Foreman. Or as the marketing on the ...
This morning when I was finishing up my taxes, I hit what must have been the 70th screen on Turbo Tax and couldn’t help but laugh. How specific do they really need to be with the alternative forms of revenue for California? I mean “Ottoman Turkish Empire Settlement Payments” gets it’s own category!
It boggles the mind how much collective time is wasted with the U.S. tax code.
Last night my friend calls me up, his voice sqeaking, “Dude, there was a dead rat in my toilet.” All it took was a flush, but he was still having a rough time with the fact that there was a dead varmint in his toilet. I calmly explained that it wasn’t a big deal.
Now, for most people this would have been shocking news. Rat, dead, in a toilet. But in my family lore we’ve had live rats in toilets. Yes, that’s right, a rat came up through the sewers and made it alive into the second ...
I’ve spent a lot of writing here eulogizing my mom. Today I’m closing that, ummm, laptop screen and moving on. Having the Internet be my soundboard for some of my most difficult experiences losing her has been therapeutic in ways I didn’t know it could be. Being able to sit down at the keyboard and know that you could be speaking to everyone at once or no one at all was incredible. It’s wonderful and scary all at once—thanks Internet.
Today she’d be 54 and it’s been exactly 4.5 years since she ...
It’s been over a year since I scoffed at Sean during our Target run to get life’s nessesities. But just a few weeks ago during a similar solo trip, I found myself standing in the aisle with shampoo and “body soap” on one side and femine products on the other. I was staring at that metrosexual appartus—the shower poof. I’ve always been fine with the traditional bar soap and I’m not worried about the shape of my eyebrows (as long as there’s two of them). But, I buckled.
And damn, is it great. The ...