In a recent comment my buddy Dave asked: “Okay. I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask, even see if you would write a blog post on it. This seems like an opportune time. Why Twitter? I don’t get it. Am I not understanding something fully? It seems like one more digital distraction in my day. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is. But the rate at which people use it makes me think its not going away as fast as I once thought. ...
140 Characters manages to convey a magnificent vision of the capacity of the Short Form to convey all forms of knowledge, to incite, or delight, to challenge and support.
Bruce Schnier has given a similar talk in years past that I just loved. This one is Dan Gilbert talking at TED Global on the topic of how our ability to estimate risk/odds/value/etc. in our modern context just sucks. I don’t easily stoop to using other people’s content on my blog, so please do cut me some slack on this one. Its just too important to paraphrase!
Errata: I initially labeled this “Ruby’s 8th Kyu Test”, having counted backwards from 10. I forgot that she was a AikiExplorer before she was 10th Kyu. So when you see the movie title, you’ll know which to believe.
Today started off just like any other Sunday. We scrambled around to get dressed and ready for the Coffee Social and then to get Vick out the door to the Farmer’s Market. All of our friends came over for coffee and much fun was had. Then at 11:30 we kicked everyone out so we could hop a train to San Francisco. We caught the 12:19 train to SF and hoofed it to Automatic @ Pier 38. We arrived just a few minutes before the Camp started and there was already a line out the door. At 2 (on the nose) the line started moving and within a few minutes we were all crowding the tables for the first round of cupcakes. Ruby and I opted for Taro cupcakes and I was quite surprised that I really liked it. Vick stood at table 3 and waited for the Cheesecake cupcakes but they never came. ...
I replace my dispersion screen every couple of months and I’m always disgusted by what I find on the other side of it. The screens and gaskets don’t cost much, but I always drag my heels because getting the darn things back in is just a tremendous pain in the butt. Yesterday Olive and I decided it was time so we got our parts and tools together and set to work. I used the Flathead screwdriver on my handy Swiss Army knife to remove the old screen and gasket, and gave that to Olive to throw away. Then I put the gasket around the new screen and handed it to Olive to inspect, commenting on how nice and clean it was. I turned around for a moment and when I went back to the task the screen was gone. I asked Olive where it was and she jovially replied “ina dash”. As I was washing the screen I had a minor epiphany, if this thing were wet, I probably wouldn’t have to fight so hard to get it in place. And if wet is good, lubed would be better right. ...
I have never considered myself to be a competitive person. Perhaps at one point I wasn’t, or perhaps I’ve just been deluding myself all this time. The first indisputable proof that I am indeed a competitive person came when I started riding my bike to work on a regular basis*. I noticed after only a few weeks that I just could not tolerate being passed, and had an unquenchable thirst to pass others. ...
This is just too good to simply post to Facebook and retweet on Twitter. I just found out that there is a food centric counterpart to one of our family’s favorite sites, Etsy. If you’re not familiar with Etsy, its an online storefront where artists and craftspeople can sell their wares to a voratious customer base. It seems some enterprising individual has extended the concept to food, and the result looks quite scrumptious. Check out Foodzie. If you decided to buy anything, please comment on your experience.
Last night I roasted up three batches of Yemen Mokha Ismaili (highlighted in my last post). The first batch was Full City + and the second and third were roasted all the way to Vienna (all roasts were at full heat). Today when it came time to grind it up for the trip I decided to mix the FC+ and Vienna roasts together. If the smell is anything to judge by I am going to be delighted with the results. Hopefully I’ll get the licorice/cinnamon, clove flavors of the bean ( which FC+ reveals best) and the deep chocolate/caramel/earth flavors of the Vienna roast. ...
I posted my first roast report in March, right after I got my new roaster. Since then I’ve been so busy with roasting, entertaining, traveling, and life that I’ve not reported back. Well here it is. Sometime in July I convinced Vick to let me take over a portion of the laundry room for my roast shop (gotta love the smell of burnt cardboard in your clothes). I moved a bunch of stuff around and finally got the roaster semi-permanently set up next to the microwave. With the scale and barrel stand on top of the microwave everything fits nicely and I don’t have to move a bunch of part in and out of the cupboards every time I want to make a batch. This dance was occurring every 4 or 5 days so it seemed like a worthwhile compromise to our anti-clutter rule. Now the only thing I have to do when its time to roast is pull the ducting up to the hanger and crack the window a bit. ...
While I was on vacation, I received word that I had been invited to be a guest at TED India 2009. Tonight I completed the registration and made it official. My tickets are purchased and plans are being laid. When I mentioned to my dad that I was almost certainly going to India, he told me that he had always wanted to go and got this far away look in his eye. I instantly extended an invitation to him, hoping that he would accept, but aware that it was a big lift for him. I was happily surprised when my Mom started to encourage him and he gradually agreed that this was the chance of a lifetime. Of course my parents have this habit of dreaming about things in a way that looks to outsiders like resolve, so I was optimistically skeptical until last week when we bought our plane tickets. ...
We just returned from a truly wonderful vacation. I took the family back East (Boston, Portland, Round Pond) for almost the whole month of August. We saw most of our family, got to welcome baby Jacob into the world, and many of our oldest friends. It was a true vacation in every sense. The children both came into their own. Ruby, discovering her roll in our family (nuclear and extended), found her inner sweetness (best self) and showed an unexpected degree of maturity, self reliance, and empathy. This was best expressed when she was shepherding her sister around, pointing out dangers, explaining tricks and relationships, and helping her get her needs met. ...
I’ve received a few complaints lately regarding the gallery login. If you’ve tried to log in to see the photos, and found yourself redirected to a Profile Page, you will be pleased to hear that this problem has been “fixed”. The default behavior now will be to redirect you back to the home page where you can easily click on the gallery link again. Sorry for all of the confusion. ...
UPDATE: Based on feedback from @reese and Victoria, and my general sense that I was just doing this to avoid writing about something more interesting, I have removed the Snap plugin from this site. Phew. Read on if you must… …I am trying out snap.com’s snapshots. Snapshots add seemingly cool mouseover popups to my links. . I’m interested to hear what my readers think? Is this intrusive, annoying, helpful. Please comment!
Okay, I’m going to come right out and say this cheesy thing that sometimes runs through my mind. I am a radiant being. This is not to say that I am radiant and some other people are dull. I suspect that we are all radiant. In any case, that’s not the point of this post. This is the point. I want to believe that what I do for money is just one aspect of who I am, and what makes me valuable in this life. ...