saturday february 9, 2008
It's kind of shocking that the year is already more than 10% over. It's been a busy year so far between work and home and everything in between. The holidays were nice and we definitely managed to get a little quit time with family back in Charlotte. While I was there I even managed to meet up with Chandler one afternoon at the gun range with my brother.
In January Dara and I went to New York for a long weekend so I could see the new office and catch up with everyone there. The weather was fair, kinda cold, but bearable. Though I didn't have a chance to make all the usual rounds, I did get to see Johnny and a couple of other old friends. For our trip we flew Virgin America for the first time and I have to say that these guys definitely do a few things right. The whole "Red" system of self-service is just brilliant and truly should have been implemented years ago. If you have ever been that anxious person that waits and watches as the flight attendants slowly make their way to your row with the drink cart, then you will really appreciate VA. Aside from that the relaxing lighting and music along with the entertaining safety video really made the experience enjoyable. In conclusion, I highly recommend seat 3F.
Tomorrow I am off to LA for some meetings early in the week. Again, I'm flying VA and coincidentally I am again in seat 3F both ways, just like NY, which makes me think I should only ever fly VA seat 3F to not ruin "a good thing". The trips to LA have slowly gone from relaxing and friend-filled to in-and-out business frenzies with scattered intersections of friends and food. In the "good old days" it would be a five to ten day run in Venice with a lot of focused development time and relaxation instead of constant freeway cattle drive between meetings and appointments.
Unrelated, we are looking for a seasoned Python/Django adviser/consultant, ideally in the bay area, for a large and quite exciting project that is on the horizon. This project is likely to run for 8-14 months and will be a lot of fun on several different levels. So, if you know anyone that you think might be a good fit, let me know.
One last thing... BOING!
Fixing Up 88 Rivington
saturday december 22, 2007
So it's been a while... and I'm not really sure where to start. Should I dump-off what I have been doing, what I have been working on, what's happening with Cuban Council or maybe what we're looking towards in 2008? Maybe I'll just try and cover it all.
September
As far as I can remember we had a busy September, though I don't recall if there was any travel involved. I think it was mostly the daily grind in SF going and back and forth between the house, the office and the occasional client meeting. According to the old calendar it was a busy month of project work with 4-5 of them getting underway at once in late August. Fortunately we had hired some outstanding folks earlier in the summer otherwise the load would have been completely unbearable. One project in particular that we are eager to see go public is some design work that we did for NASA through Lockheed Martin. Hopefully that will be released in the next month or two and will have maintained at least 95% or better of the design.
October
October started out much like September, though I did manage to get some personal time at the end of the month where Dara and I flew to North Carolina for a family reunion up in Asheville. With a good bit of travel and and great deal of drinking, we had a nice time visiting with everyone. On one of the days up in the mountains Dara and I visited the Biltmore Estate just outside of town. If you ever are in the area and have the chance to go, I highly recommend it. Aside from the sheer grandeur of the property and the house itself, there's a creepy atmosphere that comes with notion that this was an everyday living space.
November
November was a bit more of the same on the work front. I managed to get some maintenance done for both ANTI as well as Astro Gaming. Toke took a vacation to Denmark and the rest of us held down the forts in SF and NY. Once Toke returned, we locked in a new office space in NY, moving from the 42 RIvington spot just down the street to 88 Rinvington. The new space has a lot more room, much more to see from the windows and as of last week a whole new interior.
Later in the month Dara and I attended an art opening with Brett and Gina that was profiling Kellisimone Waits, daughter of Tom Waits, that was hosted down in SOMA at a place called the Luscious Garage. The show was great and afterwards we went with Brett and Gina to Farmer Brown for dinner. Shortly after we got to the restaurant, the Waits family joined us for fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and lots of iced tea. The dinner conversation was light and I learned a lot about the behavior patterns of buzzards from Tom, who seems to be well-informed on all types of interesting topics.
Thanksgiving was the usual event, though this year my brother and his family came out to visit us in SF. We took them to our usual favorite neighborhood restaurants including Tsunami and Nopa. We played a lot of guitar hero with his step-son and we all managed to catch a nasty head cold by the middle of the weekend, which more or less knocked us all out of commission.
December
The month of turning "33" and lots of travel. From Los Angeles to Portland to Seattle and next Charlotte, it's going to be a frequent flyer miles stack-up. Having covered the west coast this month for meetings and meetings following by meetings and more meetings, Dara and I are getting ready to head back to NC tomorrow for a week with my family. I assume we will be laying low for most of the trip, but I've learned that visiting with my family can be a busy time typically not offering much in the way of rest. I assume we will see some friends, shoot some guns and eat/drink a lion's share of beer, wine and cocktails, turkey, stuffing and snacks.
It seemed for me that all of the holiday parties this year were stacked at the end of last week.
First I went to the Kadium party where Rogue Wave played, and though I only faintly heard it, Zach and the band were gracious enough to dedicate a song to me. The next night we went to the KNI party out on the Mission/Potrero border where they had a best holiday punch "punch out" contest complete with gifts for all of the contestants and a special prize for victor. After the KNI party I stopped by the Gravity Mobile party where I ended up staying until 4am. At the end of it all Noah and I grabbed a late/early greasy breakfast before throwing in the towel and putting an end to my holiday party triple-header.
I recently helped a friend who is in involved with Iron & Wine put together a site to sell remastered music from live shows. The site is called Played Last Night.com and so far the only artist in there is Iron & Wine. The key difference for this site over other similar attempts is the quality of the recording and the subsequent audio engineering. The guy behind the whole thing is a master sound engineer for a local animated film company and he has put his love and expertise into the product, that's the pudding.
Tomorrow we are off to NC for a week and then to NY later in January...
While I promise to make a better effort to update more frequently in '08, I think what I really need to do is find a more general topic of interest, because my everyday life reads more like aspirin instructions than anything of interest or continuity. I don't have a poll on here anymore, but I would certainly like to know what you would find more interesting to read about...
- Everyday Life/Travel
- Projects and Clients
- Gadgets and Software
- Something else entirely?
Thanks for listening and happy holidays.
thursday august 30, 2007
As the fog finally runs off and we get our late summer, summer... I'm looking forward to the next six to eight weeks of warm air and sunshine. Hopefully we can get a kickball game in there somewhere since we've only had one so far this year, and that was the season opener.
In travels, I will be headed to Los Angeles next week to attend some meetings as well as the QBN Sessions event at The Getty. Then in October Dara and I are traveling to Asheville, North Carolina for a family get together in the mountains.
Work is busy and the three new employees hired over the summer seem to be settling in fairly well. It's been kind of strange yet exciting all the same to watch the company grow and see what new dynamics each person brings to the overall culture.
This week John is in town visiting from New York. It's always nice to have more people occupying desks in the office, whether they are drifters or not, but especially when it's Mr. Weir.
Thomas did a number on his arm so I want to try to make a new mix in his honor, though I am not quite sure how to top the 80's glam rock collection at the moment... suggestions are welcome.
Pete? When the hell are you coming back from Central America?
