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 | The new water feature and reflective pool at Cal Anderson park. Seattle, WA October 8, 2005 |
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April 22, 2008Coupla Months OffTap, tap, tap. [Blows into microphone.] (Is this thing on?) Wow. Two months off. My blog turns four this summer (four!), and the last eight weeks represent the most extended break I've had since starting the silly thing. I had a few kind inquiries from friends about the hiatus; to quell the rumors - everybody's healthy, everybody's happy, everything's going great. I took the break because life just exploded on me after the new year. After spending my early January at Macworld, I came back to work and found myself managing three concurrent projects, all of which needed a specific level of attention. As a relative newcomer to MacBU and the Program Management role, there was a whole lotta' learnin' curve goin' on. I'd get home at the end of a typical day, exhausted, and not even want to look at my Mac. (I work on Excel, by the way. That's new. I'm pumped. It's awesome.) Things have stabilized. We're getting moved in, my training is going well, and, while work is keeping me busy, my ability to surf the busy is much, much better than it was back in January and February. I'm looking forward to getting my blogging groove back on. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated April 22, 2008 3:38 PM. February 22, 2008On HiatusI'm putting the blog on hold for a while - might be a few weeks, might be a few months. Short version: life is crazy right now. Ever since the calendar clicked over to 2008, I've been nonstop-a-go-go with work, training, getting settled in to our new place, and so on. It's been hard for me to make the time to post regularly - let alone work on some of the longer pieces that I really enjoy. So I've decided to just ... let it sit. I'll be back to posting regularly once I've caught my breath. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 22, 2008 7:09 AM. December 10, 2007All Moved In (Again)Oy. My arm muscles are aching, legs are stiff, back is sore, and hands are nicked/cut/scraped to death. I slept like the dead last night, and still am walking around this morning with a fatigue hangover. Yep, this weekend was The Big Move (and, as far as I'm concerned, the last one I'm going to be involved with until 2013, at least). I don't know if I have a learning disability or what, but I am always surprised at how much effort it takes to move my stuff from one place to another. Initially, I think, "Oh, move - no problem. We don't have that much stuff..." and mentally slice off, like, an afternoon to get a few boxes taped up. Hoo, boy, am I naive. Lane and I have been working nonstop for the last two weeks to get our stuff boxed, sold, or donated. This weekend was a complete loss, time-wise, as we dealt with the actual moving of stuff from A to B, the cleaning of the old place, the setting up of furniture, the triaging of boxes to find bedding/clothing/toilet paper/plates/laptop power adapters, the endless games of "Tower of Hanoi" with our stuff to get down hallways and in to rooms. We did some serious violence to the chaos, but we're looking at another solid week of organizing, keep-or-tossing, and re-arranging. And we're likely looking at another month or two of mop-up work to get the place the way we want it. But we're in. PS - Lane and I both want to give a big shout-out to the friendly guys at Mountain Movers of Seattle. These are the folks we used to move back in April, and they were every bit as professional, fast, and awesome as they were last time. If you're moving in the Puget Sound, give them a call - I can't recommend them more highly! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 10, 2007 9:37 AM. November 20, 2007Fun Forest Likely To Close By 2009According to the Seattle Times, the Fun Forest - that crazy mix of carnival rides in the Seattle Center, including a too-short-but-not-terrible roller coaster - is likely shutting down: The Ferris wheel, bumper cars and other amusement rides likely will stop running at Seattle Center in two years, victims of declining revenues and a changing vision at the city-owned cultural campus. I'm a little sad to see this happen, but it's seemed inevitable for years. The Fun Forest carries a few really happy memories for me (when I was 12 or so, I fell in love with roller coasters, by riding the "Galaxi" about 50 times in a single night), but the Forest has seemed listless and abandoned for a long time. I'm not surprised that their revenues are down; if anything, I'm surprised it's taken this long. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated November 20, 2007 10:14 AM. October 17, 2007Our "Weekend Couples Workshop" AdventureThis past weekend, Elaine and I attended a two-day "couples workshop" put on by the Gottman Institute. Called "The Art & Science Of Love", it was held at the Seattle Center's Northwest Rooms, which feature some of the least-comfortable chairs I've ever had the misfortune to perch myself on. Despite that, I recommend the workshop very highly. The Gottman Institute was recommended to me by a friend of mine, who had attended one of these workshops and found a lot of the advice to be insightful, helpful, and practical. I'm not generally one for "relationship counseling" - the term itself invokes an immediate mental picture of Dr. Phil, wagging a finger at some hapless couple as he proceeds to get in to their business in front of a live studio audience. (No thanks.) This was different. It was a much larger event than I'd imagined - about 300 couples - and the general structure worked like this:
As you might imagine, 300-some couples trying to learn a new/different communication style can get a bit emotional, so the Gottmans have a platoon of PhDs from all over the US and Canada there to help out if couples need it. These assistants were introduced at the beginning of the weekend, and the sheer number of them seemed a little overwhelming until I saw how many couples were looking for help. (So that's a good thing.) So what did we learn? Well, we got two biggies. First, we got a lot of 'tips and tricks' for keeping the relationship working. Some of them are advanced common sense ("carve out a 'date night' on a monthly/weekly basis"), while others involve some great techniques for listening, asking for space, and structuring conversations so the other person doesn't feel like they're being personally attacked when you're trying to discuss a sensitive issue. Second, we got a lot of practice using the frameworks and exercises. A lot of it sounds easy, but when you get in the middle of a real conversation you find that old reflexes kick in and, suddenly, you're defensive, stonewalling, or counter-attacking. Having a safe, extended environment where you can walk through the steps together is surprisingly educational. Overall, I'm really happy. We both took the Gottman workshop as that 'ounce of prevention' that, hopefully, can help keep things fresh and open over time (I mean, I've never been married before, so I'm interested in all kinds of advice). If this sounds like something you and your sweetie might like to try, I definitely recommend it. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated October 17, 2007 10:16 PM. July 11, 2007Convenience Samples: A Pictorial RepresentationIn market research, a convenience sample is defined as follows: A convenience sample is a sample where the patients are selected, in part or in whole, at the convenience of the researcher. The researcher makes no attempt, or only a limited attempt, to insure that this sample is an accurate representation of some larger group or population. Convenience samples are generally bad, because the researcher winds up gathering data from people he or she knows. Since people generally (but not always) associate with people who are like them, that often results in the survey data reflecting the researcher's own biases - and not the tastes of a larger population. Which, when you're gauging something like, oh, say, the public's appetite for a new product, is pretty damn important. I bring all of this up because Richard and Melissa were kind enough to throw Elaine and me a wedding shower on Saturday, and, as our friends arrived, they'd generally toss their keys and cell phones on the kitchen counter. The photo kinda says it all:  We had quite a lineup: 6 iPhones, 2 BlackBerries, and a RAZR. (I guess I really do live in a bubble.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated July 11, 2007 10:21 PM. July 1, 2007Happy Canada DayToday is Canada Day - 140 years ago today, Canada Day (French: Fête du Canada) is Canada's national holiday, marking the establishment of Canada as a Dominion on July 1, 1867. It is a federal holiday celebrated on July 1, annually by all provincial governments and most businesses across the country. (When you're marrying a Canadian, these things tend to make your calendar.) UPDATE, July 3, 2007: Richard wrote me with a correction: Your post about Canada Day contains a technical error. Canada did not become an independent country (from Great Britain) until 1982. The 1867 date represents the combination of four British colonies into one "dominion" (a.k.a., "the territory of a sovereign or government"). Yikes. My bad. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated July 1, 2007 1:42 PM. June 21, 2007Casting My ShadowSo there's this lunch I had in my early twenties that's been on my mind lately. I was sitting in a seafood restaurant (of the generic, moderately upscale, white tablecloth/cloth napkin/watery martini variety) with an Internet service customer of mine, a really great guy who owned a local boat brokerage. He had recently received a lead through his Web site that had turned in to a sale, and he was ecstatic (this was 1995 - it was a big deal then). So he took me to lunch to chat, get to know me/our business a little better. So the conversation is hummin' - he's a great conversationalist - and then, after I've been strip-mined for all kinds of information about the emerging Internet industry, I decide I want to turn the tables and learn a bit more about his business. So I ask him, you know, what it's like. The boat business, I mean. He smiles, leans forward over his gigantic shrimp cocktail, shoots up an eyebrow, and said to me in this avuncular, semi-conspiratorial voice, "Gavin, m'boy, there are two great days in the life of any sailor: the day you buy it, and the day you sell it. Everything in between is is headache."1 I've always remembered that moment, partially for the delivery (really, you had to be there), and partially because that sentiment - the joy of getting, the headache of the having - has been one that applies to any number of areas in my life. Like motorcycles. Regular readers may know that I bought myself a shiny, brand-new Honda Shadow motorcycle last summer. The purpose of my purchase (aside from all the usual "Girls Love Guys Who Love Motorcycles" reasons) was to spend the summer of 2008 going on a road trip across America with my father. Here's the thing: I never really loved the bike. I bought it, rode it home, rode it around on weekends and to work and to Game Night, rode it with Elaine on the back, rode it along scenic views (yes, including the damn Viaduct), and ... never fell in love with the machine. Liked it plenty, admired it, had fun in brief flashes while riding. But more on that in a second. Instead, I used the second half of 2006 to fall in love, which meant that I now was taking a nice, long honeymoon in 2007 that wasn't part of the original, 2008 road trip. Riding across America the long way (which is the way we were doing it) is about 12,000 miles, and when you like to ride 300 miles in a day, that works out to a solid 40 days off from work. With stops for roller coasters, general resting, maintenance, yadda yadda, that's five weeks out, plus the weekends and occasional national holiday you can sneak in. And there's no ability to shrink it. So two weeks for the honeymoon sorta pushed out the road trip. 2009 won't work (Dad's got other stuff going on), so now we're looking at 2010(!). And suddenly, it's all a little too insubstantial and intangible, and I'm back to looking at this motorcycle in my garage, and I'm realizing that, much as I love my father and love the idea of being Dennis Hopper to his Peter Fonda, there's just no way it makes any kind of sense to hang on to this bike - the bike I don't really love - for an extra three years on the off-chance we actually pull this thing off. So I talked to Elaine, who counseled me to ring him up and talk to him about it (I'm marrying a smart one), and I do, and Dad's all thoughtful and considered, and without a whole lotta debate our 2008 Road Trip Across America has become Two Weeks In London And France With A Stop At Disneyland Paris. (Which, on balance, is a way better time for everyone.) Now, back to the question I left hanging, above: why didn't I love the bike? Well, I'm pretty idealistic. And for me, often times the idea of something is the thing that I'm really in to, rather than the reality of the thing itself. (I assume this is true for other people; if not, the guys with the straitjackets will be coming 'round later, I'm sure.) And with the motorcycle, I couldn't tell in advance if it would be something I bought and loved (I mean, I sure loved the idea), or something that I bought and, eventually failed to integrate into the rest of my life. I bought it, of course, and then quickly found out how limited the motorcycle was for my lifestyle. A few notes:
You get the point. Surprise, surpise -- the bike was parked a lot. I couldn't use it to ride to Greenlake to go for a run, couldn't use it to get to Storm games (I'd practially need to buy an extra seat at the Key for all my gear), and eventually found it used as vanity point-to-point transportation (or a Sunday pleasure ride for me and Lane). It was also a powerful reminder for me, Mr. No Car Guy, that cars are more than transportation or status symbols. They're also mobile storage lockers (and private phone booths, and private karaoke parlors, and...). They've got the space for you to stash your stuff - away from prying eyes if necessary. They give you the ability to come to work in slacks and a semi-nice shirt without everything being wrinkled. Bikes have none of that. So we move, the bike goes on Craigslist, and within a few weeks it's found a new owner, a guy who knew exactly what he was looking for in a starter bike, found it, and was a total delight to work with. And here I am, down a few hundred in taxes and normal "drive it off the lot" loss, happy and feeling like, well, the day you buy it and the day you sell it are the two best days. And it was fun while it lasted, but this one definitely goes into the "loves the idea of" category. 1 - His next sentence was, "And I'm in the business of buying and selling boats, which seems like the right place to be in an industry like ours." Which is pretty shrewd, but totally ruined the flow of my paragraph, and thus, here it is, a footnote. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 21, 2007 8:59 PM. May 28, 2007Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
I mention this because, this weekend, Kim and Steve flew up from San Francisco to join me and a handful of fellow Woodinville High grads (Amy, Mike, and Guy) on a Saturday-morning hike up Wallace Falls. We've all known one another for the better part of two decades, and have become closer as adults than we ever were as kids. (In fact, we really didn't hang together back in the day. As honors brats, we all knew one another and had classes together, but we weren't friends. Raw randomness brought us all back together over the intervening years, and now, frankly, I can't imagine life without them.) Amy, Guy, Mike and I go on hikes together from time to time - we've done Rattlesnake Lake, among other things - but Saturday's hike was special. In addition to the usual reasons to go up the mountain (camaraderie, exercise, stunningly beautiful scenery), we had something more personal, and a little more somber. We wanted to honor one of our teachers, Don Cain, who died earlier this year. Don taught Honors History to the lot of us during our Junior year. He was smart as hell, funny, loved his subject and loved teaching. He looked a little bit like Santa Claus - bushy white beard and eyebrows, sweater vest, glasses - and brought a huge amount of creativity to the job. He was one of those teachers you remember, and one of those teachers that makes a difference in your life. And so, at the summit of the Upper Falls, the group of us stepped back from the trail, slid into a clearing, opened a bottle of good champagne, and toasted to the memory of a great man. We swapped stories, like how Mr. Cain had a habit of repeating facts during lecture that were likely to appear on the test ("The name of the shooter was Lee Harvey Oswald. The name of the shooter was Lee Harvey Oswald. The name of the shooter was Lee Harvey Oswald."); how he'd open a lecture with, "For those of you who wallow in your ignorance"; how he'd rattle us during tests by saying, "For those of you who cannot see the clock, you have ___ minutes left ... plenty of time" - which he would utter, with the same soothing intonaton, every few minutes from 50 minutes down to 5. He was quirky, interesting. He cared. He ran Knowledge Bowl and History Club, made time for students who needed help (or who wanted to go farther than the basics), and brought a sense of authority to the class. And now he's gone. I'm not a terribly morbid person. I think about death from time to time, often in the same context that Steve Jobs referred to during his (amazing) 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech: Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. 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. And yet, as we walked down the Falls to our cars, it struck me - hard - that time is going fast. I've known Amy, Guy, Mike and Kim for more than half my life - and, as of this year, I've spent more of my life after high school than before it. Surrounded by old friends, raising a glass to a respected elder that had passed on - that's the right way to live. And at the same time, it just reminded me that time is really, really, really fleeting. You can't choose when you go, so do the stuff you need to do now. Thanks a lot, Don. You'll be missed. (If you're interested, my Flickr photostream is available.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 28, 2007 9:14 PM. May 6, 2007All Moved InI'm pleased to report that Megaproject #1 of 2007 (aka, "the move") is now complete: Elaine and I are kickin' it in our new place, and for the first time in 5 years, I'm no longer living in Capitol Hill. (Megaproject #2, aka "The Wedding" is now on-deck.) Last weekend was the big move, with the week before being Gavin n' Elaine's Pack-A-Thon and this last week being, naturally, the Great Unpacking. We've still got the odd box hanging around the living room or the spare bedroom, but, generally, the kitchen's set up, our office is set up, we've got Internet, and we're able to cook. A few notes from our recent adventure:
Now we just have a wedding to plan... Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 6, 2007 11:36 AM. March 18, 2007Movin' In Together (Or, "I Heart The Internets")Elaine and I spent a chunk of our weekend looking for a new place to live. Given that we're tyin' the knot later this year, it seemed high time that we actually move in together and go through the ritualistic, traditional Mingling Of The Stuff. This is a good/bad thing - good in that I'm soon to be the proud half-owner of a microwave, 19" TV and Garden State soundtrack CD; bad in that there will be, without question, something in my Bachelor Stuff that qualifies as the "Stupid, Roy Rogers, Garage Sale Wagon Wheel Coffee Table" from When Harry Met Sally. (My framed Tron poster stays. I'm firm on this.) We've both been apartment-dwellers, and I've made no secret to anyone that I've been fantasizing about/coveting the "house experience" for some time now. I like the "tiny life" apartment experience just fine (my place is 500 square feet, and, as I don't have a lot of stuff, it suits me), but whenever I attend Game Night at Kristen & Aaron's, I'm taken with their space - Exhibit A being their big, soundproof downstairs (perfect for the round of Karaoke Revolution or Wii Bowling). For my part, I've wanted a private garage to park the Shadow, a back yard with a barbecue, a place to entertain friends, and more closet space. So Lane and I chatted, built our list of criteria (a few bedrooms, not too expensive, a good kitchen, room to entertain, my BBQ/garage action, close proximity to services and transit, yadda yadda) and hit the Web. This is my fifth move in the last ten years (Dallas, Eastlake, Cap Hill, my current place, and now this), and each time has become progressively easier. I attribute this entirely to the proliferation of the Internet, and the amazing amount of information available to a fella with just a few keystrokes. Consider. When I moved to Dallas in '97, it took me a good few weeks of looking around to find a place I liked. You'd look for listings in the local paper, call the numbers, and when people got back to you - if they got back to you at all - the place was likely rented. It was often hard to know where things were located in town, as well - when the seller is paying for each line or character in the ad, the ad tends to be minimal. And so you drove neighborhoods, looked around for this and that, and ultimately made a decision that you were (often) less-than-satisfied with. Craigslist has changed all this. Ads are verbose, overflowing with photos, and come with Google/Yahoo map links. Sites like housingmaps.com mash up Craigslist with Google Maps, thus allowing you to plot the locations of current rentals all over the city. When you find something that looks good (again, much faster than you could've a decade ago), you can just e-mail the seller, and the responses are (invariably) immediate. Heck, renters even use Craigslist to watch out for each other. I saw this one online: Beware of 2 BR Green Lake bungalow rental on N 62nd St. House suffers from basement flooding due to cracked foundation and collapsing southwest retaining wall; also, faulty interior wiring, leaky roof. Potential damage to possessions if owners cannot address. (Whoa.) Once you've got your laundry list of places you're really, truly interested in, you can then use some other great sites to cross-check for amenities like transit. I was forever going to BusMonster to see what stops were near a proposed address, or to Google Transit to see how long it would take me to get to work on a given Monday morning. And from there, again, the list was culled. All of this, of course, is a long-winded way of saying that we found what we were looking for, and are going through the paperwork process now. The place is excellent - a house with garage, back yard, barbecue, soundproof downstairs, space for guests, and so on. Assuming we pass credit checks and whatnot (aside to our future Mr. Landlord: We're not axe murderers! Really!), we move at the end of April. I expect some serious Karaoke Revolution action come mid-May. I'm in a serious state of lovin' the Internet right now. UPDATE, May 6, 2007: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 18, 2007 7:44 PM. January 21, 2007Death To Distractions!Productivity guru Merlin Mann (he of 43 Folders) was on MacBreak about a month ago, doing a segment on how to reduce the number of distractions on your computer so you can focus and get work done. I can certainly relate. Reducing/eliminating distractions has been the single most effective technique I've found to boost both the volume and quality of my work (see also: "7 Rules For Maximizing Your Creative Output"). Study after study show that a distracted worker is an unproductive worker; sadly, most snazzy new tech (chat clients, RSS readers, e-mail software) seems to be focused on interrupting you on a regular basis. Be like Merlin: shut it all down. When I've got to crank on something creative - a blog post, say - I tend to isolate myself. E-mail? Off. Chat software? Off. RSS reader? Off. Phone? Off. And so on. (I then put a nice, thumpin' stream of Groove Salad in my ears so I can get into flow, but your mileage may vary). I've had good luck with Merlin's suggestions. Turning off the Dock has been valuable (although I'm annoyed at the slight delay it requires when I try to use it again); setting my desktop picture to something neutral has been good. I'd like to just suggest two other products for his list. First, I know the Mac Digerati are forever hot on Quicksilver as their application launcher of choice. I've tried it, and, personally, found it to be a bit too sluggish. My launcher of choice is LaunchBar - fast, fabulous, and, while not free, certainly worth paying for. I can keep my hands on the keyboard and zoom around my machine with ease. This makes it easy to get the resource I need, right when I need it, and helps me stay in flow. Second, if you're sick of mousing to the Dock every time you want to bring up a window, you might give a look to Witch. By default, the alt-tab routine in OS X brings up an entire application; Witch, conversely, dices everything up into specific windows. In English: Witch lets you get access to that one window you had in that one app, without bringing every other window owned by that app along for the ride. Again - what you need, when you need it. Do check out the segment (and heck, check out Merlin's podcast, too). At a minimum, it'll make you think about how your work environment might be working against you. UPDATE, December 2, 2007: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated January 21, 2007 1:16 PM. November 30, 2006A Quiet Night At HomeOn Monday night, Seattle got the first snow of the year. And hoo boy, the stuff brought a posse, showing up with enough of its friends to get our attention. This week has been moderately entertaining, transportation-wise: it took me a good two and a half hours to get home Monday, and I was flat-out snowed in the next morning. Microsoft's main campus was closed both Tuesday and Wednesday; today saw the return of (tropical) mid-thirties temperatures, and so the snow has, finally, receded. I'm not much of a fan of snow - I don't like walking on it, driving on it, or dealing with it. I mean, snow is very pretty to look at, and I love the amazing, sound-dampening quiet that comes over the world when a good, heavy snow has taken over, but overall the stuff is forever associated with automobile crashes, terrible snowboarding accidents, or hypothermia. I avoid. Tuesday was interesting. I'd brought home my work laptop, and met up with Bill over at Victrola around 8:30 so we could use their wireless and work. His wife and daughter swung by around noon, and Elaine joined us for lunch. In the late afternoon, I resumed working remotely ... and my work PC promptly died (for what seems like the fifteenth billionth time - this Toshiba is cursed, I tell you). As usual, the stupid thing was dead-dead-dead - like, "call helpdesk and pray" dead. So I tried switching to my MacBook (hey, it runs Windows), but the weather had fouled my Internet service - intermittently on the blink, finally throwing up its little digital hands and said, "the hell with it." So now I'm really stuck. No Internet, no work files. Nothing. The evening goes on. It gets dark. Elaine shows up, and the two of us cook dinner. So there we are, Elaine and I, snowed in at my apartment. My PC is dead, the Internet is down, the streets are empty of traffic, the phone's not ringing. The world is really, really quiet. We turned off the lights, opened the blinds, stared out the windows and just watched the stuff come down. It was so ... rejuvenating. With no distractions or "stuff" to get to, we elected to just be. It was wonderful. We crashed a few hours later. My feelings on snow are changing. And: I must unplug more often. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated November 30, 2006 8:53 PM. November 23, 2006Happy ThanksgivingHappy Turkey Day, everybody! Elaine and I are (I suspect, like many of you) zooming around to visit family today, and (I suspect, like many of you) ought to be in a Tryptophan-induced coma around 5 or 6 PM. Be safe, be careful, and be sure to call at least one person today to tell them you love them. (Can you believe 2006 is nearly over? Holy cow!) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated November 23, 2006 9:24 AM. November 14, 2006Answers To Some Frequently-Asked Questions About My Forthcoming NuptialsEver since announcing on Sunday that Elaine and I are going to be tyin' the knot, my phone and e-mail traffic has, shall we say, increased. I've been flattered (and gratified!) by all the friends and family who have called with congratulations and questions ... but it's also occurred to me that I'm having the same basic conversation, over and over again. (Which I don't mind, really - Lane, as you might imagine, is a fave topic of mine.) Anyhow, in the interests of Setting The Record Straight on a few things, I hereby present a (brief) list of answers to some of the questions I've been getting a lot over the last 48 hours.
I think that about covers all the big categories. Both Elaine and I want to send big, big love and kisses to Keith and Angela Vaitkus, without whose dinner party (and ever-so-gentle nudging) we never would have met. (We owe you guys.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated November 14, 2006 9:56 PM. October 3, 2006The GTD ExplosionBack on the 21st, I wrote about about David Allen's "Getting Things Done", a system for managing projects and tasks in a hyper-efficient way. In the post, I talked about some of the great digital tools on the Mac for GTD, such as OmniOutliner Pro + Kinkless GTD. Well, as it happens, the So: OmniFocus. It has a name. It has a team of engineers working on it, a user interface guru mocking up modes and widgets for it, and a product manager whose Herculean job it is to herd this whole mess towards an elusive ship date. Now, you might think that Ethan, the author of Kinkless GTD would be, shall we say, a mite hacked that Omni is building an application that may well render kGTD obsolete. Not so: OmniGroup has been very supportive of kGTD from the beginning, clearly making code tweaks and additions to support this nutty venture. At some point it became clear that the next logical step would be to consider Cocoafying the whole shebang. Having the chance to take everything I'd been thinking and working on with kGTD and see it turned into something bigger and better and brighter is like making a doodle on a piece of paper, handing it to da Vinci and seeing it turned into a full color oil painting. Even better: it's like Da Vinci letting you sit around and gab at them while they do this and ask for "a bit more cobalt-blue in the sky" and "a few more peasants in that bit on the left". Turns out Omni flew Ethan and 43 Folders' Merlin Mann out to Seattle for a GTD summit earlier this year, asked their opinion, and basically used that to guide their development and thinking. This is great, great news. Omni is so good at Mac software, that if they're investing in GTD, the app is going to rock. And if that's not enough for you, Midnight Beep just released 0.95 of Midnight Inbox, which is their Cocoa-native GTD application - and available now. (I'm telling ya, this GTD thing might just catch on one of these days!) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated October 3, 2006 7:03 AM. September 5, 2006Officiating 101Judging by my mailbox, Saturday's post about how I officiated the wedding of my friends Irene and Edmund caught a few folks by surprise: Whoa, dude. Since when did you get ordained? Yes, it's true: I'm a minister of the Universal Life Church ("Over 20 million ministers ordained since 1959"). From their "about us" page: The Universal Life Church will not stand between you and your God and recognizes that each person must choose his or her own path. Each person in the ULC is free to follow any path as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. (Basically, think of the ULC as being like the Unitarian Universalists, but without the stringent entrance requirements.) I first got ordained back in '92, when I was studying philosophy in college. My friend John Calvin mentioned that he was an ordained minister, and I remember thinking that it seemed liked a pretty cool/funny thing to do (and certainly a good gag at parties - "Reverend Gav", and all that). So John performed my ordination - I filled out the paperwork, sent in the $5, and that was that. Flash forward a few years, and now I'm off at Western. Two friends of mine wanted to get married, had heard that I was a minister, and wanted to know if I would be willing to perform their ceremony. At first I was flattered (it's pretty amazing to be asked to be a part of such an important day in people's lives), then freaked (can I go to jail for this? Short answer: no). So I told them I'd do some digging on the legality of the thing, and let them know. Turns out there's nothing to it. In Washington State, our marriage laws (RCW 26.04) are pretty clear. Marriage can be performed by any licensed or ordained minister: The following named officers and persons, active or retired, are hereby authorized to solemnize marriages, to wit: Justices of the supreme court, judges of the court of appeals, judges of the superior courts, superior court commissioners, any regularly licensed or ordained minister or any priest of any church or religious denomination, and judges of courts of limited jurisdiction as defined in RCW 3.02.010. [Boldface mine] (RCW 26.04.050: "Who may solemnize") Because we enjoy the separation of church and state in this country, Washington doesn't pass judgment on what your beliefs are - they just care that you're a licensed/ordained member of your religious organization. Since I'd been ordained according to the rules of the ULC, I was in the clear. So then I worried about what might happen if I did the ceremony, and ULC was somehow disqualified. Would my friends' marriage be dissolved? Turns out ... no: A marriage solemnized before any person professing to be a minister or a priest of any religious denomination in this state or professing to be an authorized officer thereof, is not void, nor shall the validity thereof be in any way affected on account of any want of power or authority in such person, if such marriage be consummated with a belief on the part of the persons so married, or either of them, that they have been lawfully joined in marriage. [Boldface mine] (RCW 26.04.060: "Marriage before unauthorized cleric - Effect") So if I tell you I'm a minister, and you believe me, and I marry you - and it turns out I'm a crazy person who lives in a cave, or something -- your marriage is still good. I'm just on the hook for a misdemeanor (RCW 26.04.200: "Penalty for violations"). And thus, back in 1995, I performed my first-ever marriage ceremony. I was nervous, scared, and happy for my friends all at the same time. Things went quiet on the wedding front for a few years, but then I got asked to do one, and another, and pretty soon I found myself doing a couple each year, eventually marrying Chris & Todd, and Chris & Sara, and Dave & Sharon. So yes, I officiate weddings for friends. Edmund and Irene were, I believe, my 10th ceremony. (And the third couple from b-school. Whoa.) So ... why? Why this? Why do ceremonies? What's the appeal? To be honest, the first ceremony I did was more about the novelty, experience for its own sake - almost a dare, really - that sense of being 22, feeling totally out of your element, and yet, incredulously, able to stand there in the front of the room, pronouncing 'man and wife' and having it, you know, stick. The novelty faded fast. Eventually, as time went on (and, candidly, I grew up a bit), I realized that marriage is, fundamentally, a personal matter between the two people who are committing to one another. The couple is making a choice to be together, and I find myself asked to perform ceremonies where, for personal reasons, the couple wants someone who they feel closer to, who's not a stranger, who actually is excited to see them get together and tie the knot. And so, as time has gone on (and, again, as I've grown up a bit), I've come to see that being asked to officiate a wedding - to be chosen as the person your friends want to look to as they start this new, amazing chapter in their lives, is a tremendous honor. It's special, and it feels wonderful. Some friends of mine have suggested that I turn this "wedding thing" into some kind of sideline business, a cottage industry to support me in my old age. This proposal has at least three problems, which are:
In fact, if you'd like to be a minister (and trust me - it is a great thing for parties), do it. Just go to the Universal Life Church site, fill out the form, and SHAZAM! you're done. (Be sure to put a few bucks in the PayPal donation plate.) Should you, post-ordainment, decide that you'd like to start marrying your friends, there's really nothing to it. Here's what you do.
That's it. No, really. That's it. All the rest of the stuff people associate with weddings - the rings, the content of the vows, and so on - are optional. They're whatever the couple wants them to be. And you, as the officiant, get to help your friends make their wedding, well, whatever they want it to be. It's a terrific feeling, and I highly recommend it. And if you do get ordained, let me know. I'd love to hear about it. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated September 5, 2006 10:02 PM. August 13, 2006Songs To Learn And SingYesterday, I started taking singing lessons. I've wanted to learn how to sing for a long, long time. I love music, but I never took an instrument as a kid (being too busy geeking out on computers to get into band), so my stock response whenever asks me "if I play" is to reply "yeah ... the stereo." I do sing today, of course, but in the same way most people do - in the shower, in the car. I would never, ever sing in public other than warbling "happy birthday" with 10 of my coworkers or "the Star-Spangled Banner" with the rest of Key Arena. I've decided to change that. The desire to sing well, defined as, "The ability to take the stage at karaoke and not embarrass oneself," is something that I haven't been able to shake for more than a decade. It's been one of those personal things that's always lost out to other, more pressing things on my calendar (startups, marathon training, yadda yadda), and yet it never let go of its hold on my imagination. So, after much hemming and hawing (it's a bit scary to put myself out there in that way), I decided to do something about it. Hence: lessons. I found my instructor, Sarah, as a referral from a friend. She's terrific (and, amazingly, her studio is just a mile from my place ... a nice bonus). We spent most of our first session talking about personal goals, the psychological anxieties of singing (apparently, I'm not the only person on the planet with some fear, here), and her methods. We wrapped the hour with some breathing exercises and lung-capacity tests (being a former swimmer = bit of an edge), and closed with some "la-la-LA-la-la" scale work. It's going to take about six months of lessons, plus outside-lesson work, to start seeing results. So I'm excited, nervous, happy. I can't really believe I'm doing this (and I'm about a million miles away from doing it in front of anybody), but I need to know if this is something I'm actually capable of doing. It's been kicking around my psyche for too long, and too strongly, for me to ignore it any more. (And who knows? Maybe one day I'll be belting out "Sit Down" someplace where others can hear it.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated August 13, 2006 9:13 AM. July 17, 2006Two Years InThis last Friday, my blog celebrated its second birthday. Blogging has, for me, been a source of great pleasure and surprise over the last two years. My original intent when starting the silly thing was to simply chronicle the experience of being an MBA intern at Microsoft - a fairly unique experience, I thought (and still do). As time progressed, the topics grew and mutated - personal information started appearing, and then the whole thrust of the blog changed into a second-year MBA chronicle when I returned to the UW. And now, today, it's become a nearly-daily personality-soaked op-ed piece that (hopefully) is as engaging to you, the reader, as it is to me, the writer. I've had a lot of favorite "blog moments" over the last 24 months. Many of these are still pretty well summed up in my "go blog, young man!" post from September 2005 ("Put Yourself Out There"). The experiences that prompted the post - meeting people who had read my work, and whose lives, they claimed, had been enriched - still resonate with me today. However, birthdays are a great time to share stories, and there's one in particular that I think sums up the happy accidents that blogging can bring. Rahi is an old friend of mine from 7th grade. He and I lost touch a few years after graduating from high school (when he moved to Portland to teach). So when I was in Portland this last October to run the marathon, I posted a quick blurb ("Arrival") and included a photo of my hotel. Not twenty minutes after the post had gone live, my hotel desk phone rang ... and Rahi was on the other end. Turned out that he'd Googled for me a few months previously, found the blog, and had been reading it ever since. We spent a great half-hour or so catching up. (And I think I still owe him a drink.) Lesson? The Internet is full of great people. And if you're a blogger, your audience will find you. Yes, I think my blog is sometimes a little too self-indulgent. And yes, I think it veers from the geeky to the mushy to the rat-a-tat of Storm game recaps. What's funny to me is the number of people I meet who tell say that they like the grab-bag nature of the thing. It's not BoingBoing, but that's OK. Two years in, I'm amazed that I both have a wide (to me) readership and love writing the material so much. It's become a happy habit, a wonderful creative outlet, and a serendipitous way of connecting (or, if you like, re-connecting) with some excellent people. So thanks for reading, commenting, and sharing. It's been a great two years. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated July 17, 2006 9:11 PM. July 16, 2006Sunday Drive
Two weeks ago, I bought myself a 2006 Honda Shadow (I'll get to the buying experience in a second, but bear with me for the moment). The bike is a necessary part of my Grand Plan to ride the four corners of the United States with my father in 2008. I've had a motorcycle endorsement for better than 13 years now, but it's been nearly a decade since I owned my own two-wheeled deathtrap. So I thought it prudent to get the bike now, get comfortable on it, and figure out the quirks so I'm able to focus on the road (and not the machine) over the course of our 12,000-mile journey. Now, I haven't owned any kind of motor vehicle since December '03, when my Jetta got totaled. Since then, I've been a committed (fanatical?) transit rider/walker, taking the bus to work and walking all over Seattle (this also makes me, according to Knute Berger, a mooch). I don't want to use the Shadow for commuting: it's purely a recreational vehicle. This is partially because the bike is so frickin' impractical for work (when you get dressed up in all the protective gear and whatnot, you a) look like RoboCop and b) are guaranteed to have wrinkled anything you're wearing underneath), and also because the bus really is more convenient, especially when I'm heading downtown after work for a Storm game or to have dinner with friends. With "recreation" in mind, I've been taking the bike out the past couple of Sunday mornings for rides around the city and the region - out to Woodinville on 520, say, or zooming around Mercer Island. Today, for instance, I spent a good hour or so riding north to Greenlake, around the lake, back down into the city core on the Viaduct, and finally around Cap Hill and home. It's a total blast. There's a wonderful, simple joy of taking an aimless, Sunday-morning drive around the city. Nowhere to be, nothing in particular to do, no errands to handle - just you, the road, and the machine. Want a coffee? Want to pull over to visit a park? Want to just take it a little easy and marvel at Mount Rainier on a sunny day? No problem; just do it. (Oh, hey -- I'm looking for riding partners, too: Vaitkadamus has a bike, and he and I are talking about some good Sunday-morning excursions. If you're interested in joining me, let me know.) So. The bike. It's a gorgeous (see photo) Honda Shadow Aero 750. I bought it from Mac's Cycle in Clarkston, Washington on Friday, the 30th. I packed my motorcycle helmet, flew to Spokane, hopped on the back of my dad's BMW at the airport, and we rode the 120 miles to the dealership. (Math-oriented readers might suspect that "a flight to Spokane" plus "120 miles" is a long way from Seattle. You'd be right. If you want to know where Clarkston is, just imagine a point in space that's as far away from Seattle as you can get without being in Idaho or Oregon, and you're pretty much there. If you need more detail, Google Maps can help. Why'd we choose Mac's? Because my father likes the guy who runs it, and they gave me a great deal. Relationship selling strikes again!) After doing the paperwork (and picking up the Kevlar-reinforced jacket, boots, and pants - you can't be too careful, kids), Dad and I hit the highway. We zoomed down SR 12, past Chief Timothy Park, switched on to the 260 and continued on to the 261. We called it a night after about 120 miles, packing it in at the M&M Motel in Connell, Washington. The next morning we were up and off at 7 AM, riding up toward Moses Lake, past Ephrata and on to Waterville. We parted ways toward Wenatchee and I headed back to Seattle along Highway 2, riding through Leavenworth, Stevens Pass, Skykomish, Gold Bar, and Monroe, ultimately popping out on SR522. The total mileage was 394.5 miles - not too shabby for a weekend trip. So. I've got the machine, I'm warming up to it, and I'm spending my Sundays in the saddle. Anyone up for a ride? (Oh: one final, funny, karmic bit: as it happens, June 30 was the last day of the taxable period for the now-defunct Monorail. And, yep - that means I paid it. Somehow, that seems fitting, doesn't it?) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated July 16, 2006 12:57 PM. July 4, 2006Viavor: Footwear That FitsRegular readers may recall that, back in February, I road-tripped up to Vancouver in order to get my feet scanned and sized for some custom shoes. (I have long, narrow feet - skis, really - that have defied my attempts to find a pair of suitable, nice, business-class shoes that don't beat the hell out of them over the course of a day.) Well, on Sunday I was relaxing out in Kirkland with Richard, Elaine, Tapas and Laura when Laura looked over the rim of her (double) Mojito and said, "Hey whatever happened with you and those crazy feet of yours? Did those fancy laser-scanner shoes fit?" (Oh, yeah. I forgot to post the follow-up. Apologies.) So, yes, the shoes are here. And, in a word, they're excellent. Comfortable, good looking, easy to wear for long periods. I took them to London and to TechEd, have worn them to work a whole bunch, and find them to be terrific. Really - couldn't be happier. The shoes are from a company called Viavor. If you've got strange feet, I'd strongly encourage you to look at their offering. At a high level, it works like this:
My shoes showed up in May or so, and it took me several wearings to break them in. The stiff leather (coupled with the closeness of the fit) just bit the hell out of my feet, and I had to deal with a few blisters. Once the leather started giving and loosening up, the shoes became instantly comfortable. And it's been love ever since. One note about Ken Rice: I can't recommend him more highly. Ken knows shoes, and has been a pleasure to work with throughout this process. Viavor, as I've said, uses dealers, and I've had no direct interaction with the company. Instead, I've worked exclusively through Ken, and he's been just terrific. If you decide to go the custom-shoe route, be sure to pick a dealer you're comfortable with, or your experience could be a bit rougher. I do plan to get some additional shoes made in the future, varying styles and colors as I do so. It's a relief to finally be able to get something nice on my feet. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated July 4, 2006 1:54 PM. June 20, 2006Blame Harry PotterThanks for all the e-mail, folks - yes, I'm back in Seattle. The flight was fine (long, but fine), and my weekend was great. The reason I've not blogged since Boston is that I - stupidly - cracked open Elaine's copy of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince and now I'm addicted to the thing. The good news is that I'm 2/3rds of the way through the book, and it's going at a solid clip. I have missed reading fiction. I really must remember to spice up my reading list with this stuff from time to time. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 20, 2006 12:52 PM. June 7, 2006Watch Your BackI got ripped off today. During lunch, I checked my bank statement through the Web to reconcile some outstanding items on my credit card. To my surprise, at the top of the list was a charge for $563.55, ascribed to a balance transfer. Huh? So I phone the bank, and get a very nice man on the line who looks into it and tells me that a "convenience check" was written against my account for that amount. (A "convenience check" is one of those little promotional checks the bank sends you in the mail that let you draft against your credit card account - a privilege they then charge you cash-advance interest rates for). A little more digging, and it turns out that the check was written to Staples. Have I been to Staples recently? Uh, no. No, I hadn't. To make a long story short, this kicked off a rather entertaining session on the phone where I'm transferred to the fraud department, talk to another very nice person, and am, ultimately, assured that this charge will be removed from my account ASAP. The bank has issued me a new credit card, and will be sending me an affidavit to sign (which basically says that no, in fact, I didn't shop at Staples recently). Here's the strange part: I have no idea how this convenience check got written on my account. See, I'm a regular shredder. Have been for years. I shred most everything - credit card receipts, of course, but also old bank statements and sensitive junk mail. Which means that the thieves had to have obtained my convenience checks before I got them - either from my mailbox (which is a secure box, in my secure building) or because they were mis-delivered, or my postman dropped them on the ground, or something. It's creepy. The good news is that the person - whoever they are - that spent the $500 at Staples had to give a phone number (likely bogus) and a driver's license number (likely not). So they've either got fake ID they use for this stuff, or they're incredibly stupid, and therefore likely caught. A few notes, and pieces of advice from this experience:
In the immortal words of Hill Street Blues: Hey, let's be careful out there. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 7, 2006 2:31 PM. March 15, 2006More Cowbell!OK, so who sent me the "More Cowbell" t-shirt? I mean, seriously - it showed up today, quite unbidden, in a plain white envelope. Crazy! It's a great gift (and you know I'm gonna wear it) but I'd like to issue a thank-you to the sender ... but there was no note, no nothing. To whom do I owe my thanks? Stand up and be counted! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 15, 2006 12:09 AM. February 25, 2006Frickin' Laser Beams!
I have weird feet. Look, I'm not one to blame my parents for my genetic shortcomings (it's not really their fault, right?), but in my case a guy with big feet married a woman with narrow feet, and the DNA sequence that came out the other end - mine - was the unholy byproduct of those two factors. Hence, my feet are long and narrow (14 AA), with high arches. This sucks. It sucks because it's impossible to get nice, dressier (read: leather) shoes that fit right. (And please, don't write in and tell me you heard something about a guy who knows another guy who can get these kick-ass Italian whatevers for me that will fit like a glove. I've been down that rabbit warren about a million times, and I don't believe it anymore.) Typically, my shoe-buying scenario works like this: I walk in to the Men's Shoes department of some store (Kenneth Cole, Nordstrom's, whatever), and interact with a friendly salesguy who, very quickly, realizes that he likely has nothing that will fit me anywhere in his system. Longer shoes aren't narrow; narrow shoes aren't long. And so, after trying on a handful of near-misses (and vexing the poor salesguy with my Cinderella problem), I'm stuck with two possible outcomes: 1) a shoe that fits correctly, width-wise, but will murder my toes over the course of the day, or 2) a shoe that is comfortable length-wise, but that has so much room to either side of my foot that I feel like I could park a Volkswagen in the bloody thing. So, historically, I've worn sneakers. Gray New Balance 991's, baby. They fit. Since it's become obvious that my feet are too strange for the mass market, I have been on a quest to find a company that'll make custom shoes. This is not actually that easy to accomplish - I needed to find someone who is local, and can take my shoe measurements in person. (I'd once tried custom shoes by mail-order, where you measure yourself and take an outline of your foot, but the results just weren't good enough). There'd been rumors of someone in the Pike Place Market, but I never could find it - that shop might've well been in Diagon Alley for all the good it did me. And then, in June, I attended Chris Meyer's bachelor party in Vancouver. And as we strolled around Granville Island, we found ourselves, quite unexpectedly, in front the Ken Rice Shoe Studio. They not only do custom shoes ... they use a cool system from a company called Viavor to laser-scan your foot into a computer and then match it against a series of models, or lasts, in their system. If they find one that fits you, they can have the shoes made against that very-precise model. If not, they can do a custom last for a couple hundred bucks. I did some research on Viavor over the last couple of months, phoned Ken Rice to ask questions about this and that, and finally set an appointment for a custom scanning. And so, today, Elaine and I road-tripped up to Vancouver to get me scanned. The system is really cool, measuring each foot down to the millimeter and generating a 3D model of your foot that can be manipulated in the system. Once the scanning was complete, I selected a style of shoe I liked ("The Nelson"), color, type of sole, and so forth. They take about two months to make, and they'll drop-ship 'em to me here in Seattle. For the first time in a long time, I'm optimistic about my feet. If this works out, I'll be totally, totally, totally thrilled. Stay tuned. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 25, 2006 10:53 PM. February 21, 2006The Joy Of CookingMy good friend Keith came over last night to hang out and sample some of my cooking. Cooking?, you say? Yes. Look, I've never been much of a chef. My twenties were spent shuttling between college (staple foods: ramen and pizza) and my startups (staple foods: ramen and pizza), so my culinary skills never progressed much beyond the oh-so-rudimentary "heat it up" or "put it in the microwave" phase. (I mean, what does it say about a guy when his favorite food is microwave popcorn?) So this year, I promised myself I was going to add a few phat kitchen skillz to my polished-to-a-shine ability to boil water and put stuff in the microwave. I broke out some of my cookbooks, picked out some stuff I wanted to try, and then made a date with myself to cook at home twice a week. So far, the experiment's been encouraging. I'm goofing around with homemade pizzas (yeah, yeah ... old habits die hard. At least it's not homemade ramen) and stir frys, mostly, and have enjoyed doing both. But thus far, the nicest thing has been the experience of cooking for other people. It's really fun to take a bunch o' fresh vegetables, chop 'em up and chitchat while you're marinating this and steaming that. (Oh, and you can drink wine at the same time, too.) What can I say? I know lots of people who love to cook (I mean, God knows Richard can channel Martha Stewart when he's in the kitchen), but it's taken me a while to get bit by the bug. I'm groovin' on it. Anyone got any cool vegetarian recipes they'd recommend? (Oh, and Keith - thanks for letting me experiment on ya. You're a real pal.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 21, 2006 9:20 AM. January 1, 2006Happy New YearHappy new year, everyone! May your 2006 be full of life, love, and surprise. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated January 1, 2006 10:18 AM. December 23, 2005Dell Comes ThroughWe've got a happy ending, here, folks: Rich Barrett got his Dell PC before Christmas. I just got the following e-mail from him: ...yesterday we actually received the machine. We're still working out compensation; they want to apply something to a future order and I want them to make good on this one. We'll see. So: a few details left to settle, but at least the machine is here. I'm very glad to hear it. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 23, 2005 9:43 AM. December 17, 2005Dell Hell FollowupFollowing up on Rich Barrett's nightmare with Dell, Cintra sent me a link to a recent article on Clickz ("Blogs and Dell's Enduring Hell"): A highly public discussion of Jarvis' troubles with his Dell laptop computer this past summer leapt from dialog on Jarvis' Buzzmachine site to other blogs, and even into mainstream media. The result is a population of links on search engines such as Google. In this case, postings on Buzzmachine and MSN, as well as other blog and news sources, surpass Dell in terms of "information influence" in terms of customer service issues. My friend Char posted a bit in the comments section of my original post; if you're following this at all, it's worth looking at. Rich: any news from Dell? Anything? Here's hoping it gets handled. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 17, 2005 6:05 PM. Alcatraz Is A No-GoWell, phooey. Jeff and I were waiting to see if we could get in to the Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon this June, and it looks like the answer is no. We each put our names in for their random drawing (too much interest, too few slots), which was held yesterday. We're not on the list. Suddenly my early summer is free. Anyone got any cool, Olympic-distance triathlons they'd recommend instead? UPDATE, December 31, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. UPDATE, December 2, 2007: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 17, 2005 10:43 AM. December 12, 2005Dell Customer Service HellMy friend Richard Barrett paid for a new Dell laptop back in early November, and the machine's not here yet. Making matters worse, he's getting the runaround from Dell's customer support department ("Uh ... the machine's in the mail. Uh, yeah.") Well, it is the age of the Internet, so he's got a blog up to detail what's going on. You can check it out here. Anyone know anyone in power over at Dell? I suspect the people in charge of the business would be none to pleased to read that this is happening to a (formerly) happy customer. (Alternately, if anyone has any other horror stories about Dell to share, I'm sure the guy wouldn't mind some company.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 12, 2005 3:53 PM. December 4, 2005"Napoleon Dynamite" Idaho ResolutionOK, so after much urging by friends of mine (who I otherwise respect), I saw "Napoleon Dynamite" a few months ago. And didn't hate it, really, but didn't love it the way some do (I mean, the film is a cult hit. You can't escape it). But did the Idaho Legislature really need to pass this resolution? WHEREAS, the State of Idaho recognizes the vision, talent and creativity of Jared and Jerusha Hess in the writing and production of "Napoleon Dynamite"; and It goes on for a while. Turns out Idaho politicians are fond of the movie, too. Or they're just bored in Idaho. UPDATE, January 1, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 4, 2005 4:04 PM. Math GamesI sometimes get little flashes of insight in the strangest places. This particular one came toward lunch on the Thursday MLR session. We were talking about market basket analysis, and the lecturer asked a simple question: "Let's say we have a store with a thousand different products in it. How many different combinations of products could we sell at any one time?" After soliciting various answers from the students, he then said, "A half million." And I sat there, going, really? And then, how'd he do that so fast? The problem is a classic set problem, right? Any given basket could be Product #1, or Product #1 + #2, or Product #1, #2, #3, and so on. So the total amount of combinations is equal to the sum of the series. And I was suddenly noticing that half a million is really 500,000, which is 500 times 1,000. And 500 is half of 1,000. And then that little insight thing, going, "So is it a universal rule that the sum of any series of numbers is the upper bound times the midpoint?" If you try it with 1 through 10, you get 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 +9 + 10 = 55. So the solution doesn't work. But it doesn't work in a possibly-obvious way: in addition to multiplying the upper bound by the midpoint, you also add the midpoint. So let's try it again. Sum of the numbers between 1 and 20? 20 x 10 = 200 + 10 = 210. Checking it in Excel ... and it works. I tried a few more combinations, and they all worked, too. It looks like a neato shortcut for solving these types of problems - midpoint times upper bound, plus midpoint. It also means the "market basket" answer was not "half a million", but rather "500,500 combinations." I think we can let the lack of precision slide. Does everyone know this trick already, except me? It seems too obvious that it wouldn't have been in common use before now. I love stuff like this. When I was a kid, I worked a summer job in a soils lab at a local concrete company. My job left me with lots of time to myself while the lab machines did their thing, and one day I realized a kinda-cool bit about exponential powers, specifically:
Turns out it works forward as well. If we square 5, we get 25. So the square of 6 would be 25 + 5 + 6 = 36. Which is true. And it seems to work for everything I've thrown at it (which doesn't constitute a proof, but certainly keeps one feeling semi-clever while toiling away in a soils lab at age 15 1/2). Anyone got any other cool math insights they want to share? Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 4, 2005 12:12 PM. November 21, 2005Death To Clutter!A November 4 SF Gate column by Mark Morford ("Why Do You Have So Much Junk?") has been making the rounds, and I found its sentiment to be oddly synchronized to both my life outlook and my weekend activities: Have you seen that riot of old towels and curtain rods and board games you haven't looked at in three years? The old guitar and five pairs of mangy boots and a pile of old T-shirts and two disposable Epson printers and a teetering stack of empty Amazon boxes and four dumbbells and ancient college papers and a power drill and a bunch of old coats and classic porn VHS tapes and an underused Mesa Boogie guitar amp and assorted wrapping paper collected since the Clinton administration? Oh wait, maybe that's my closet. People who know me know that I'm a minimalist. I hate clutter. Hate, hate, hate. (In fact, if I really thought about it, I might realize I'm mildly O/C about it.) Richard's running joke is that my furniture is "a bundle of twigs in the corner"; he's not too far wrong. My basic rule is simple: if I'm using it, and I love it, then I'll keep it. Everything else goes. And if it's got dust on it from not being touched in a year, then that thing's on eBay or at the Goodwill, no questions asked. I spent a chunk of my weekend going through old files - bank statements, insurance paperwork, the works - and doin' some shredding. If you're not acquainted with this particular pleasure, let me tell you: Morford's right. It's a great feeling. So. Step one: look around your place, spot the knickknacks (you know the ones you like; I'm not talking about those), and put 'em in a box. Step two: write "June 1, 2006" on box and put box in closet. Step three: On June 1, 2006, if you have not used any of the items in box, take box to Goodwill (do not pass go, do not collect $200). Trust me. It feels great. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated November 21, 2005 1:14 PM. "The Rules of Distraction"Another Monday, another Slate Daily Podcast - this one covering the out-of-control use of WiFi in college classrooms, and how it's distracting from learning: But now that 42 percent of American college classrooms have wireless access - and more and more students are using Wi-Fi-enabled laptops each year - administrators and professors are having second thoughts. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal noted that administrators at UVa, UCLA, Stanford, the University of Houston, and others have considered "devices to block wireless access in the classroom after faculty complaints of out-of-control Web surfing." An October news feature in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution sympathized with college instructors across Georgia who "are trying to figure out how to get students to log off their computers long enough to listen." Although the article takes a position that these new distractions aren't any worse than old distractions (passing notes, daydreaming, doodling), I must say that I've found goofing off on my laptop during lectures (and, for that matter, meetings) to be negatively correlated with my retention of anything that's being discussed. Deets, Jo and I used to blow through hours of evening marketing classes, snarkily typing to one another on IM about this or that - heck, the game was to see which one of us would start laughing first (and, sadly, I usually lost ... Dietzman is the Sphinx with stuff like that). WiFi laptops are the new cell phones - we're not yet sure what's socially acceptable, and everyone's in this gray area. Should teachers request that students close their devices? Well, OK, but then you penalize those who are taking legitimate notes. Cut off WiFi in the room? Well, that robs people of the ability to look stuff up online that's relevant to the discussion (something I've done when I'm not joking with Deets and Jo). My solution? If I'm a teacher or lecturer, I'll encourage students to have their laptops open and ready. But if I see you typing on your notebook while I'm talking, you have a big, red "X" mark on you for me to do the cold-call. After all, if you're taking notes the cold-call won't be a problem. And if you're checking sports scores at ESPN - well, let's just say the moment could get uncomfortable. A social problem needs a social solution, neh? Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated November 21, 2005 9:13 AM. November 10, 2005Hey! Look At This!Richard and I have been in something of a running debate lately about the "blogosphere pile-on", wherein Web Site "A" will feature a cool video, thought-provoking article, podcast, technology demo, etc., at which point this video/article/podcast/demo will be noticed and posted to some site like BoingBoing. From there, dozens or hundreds of blog entries will sprout up, all pointing to this V/A/P/D, saying, "Hey! Look at this!" ... thus clogging the blogosphere with the same meme, over and over and over again. I certainly don't deny that this happens (I obviously do it, too), but I don't seem to think of it as The End Of Civilization the way Richard does. His argument is, effectively, that one's blog should be a vehicle for adding new comments, thoughts, and whatnot to the greater discourse. Simply saying, "Hey! Look at this!" doesn't pass that test. And it annoys him because his newsreader quickly fills with the same link ("Hey! Look at this!") across almost all the sites he's subscribed to. For my part, I like sharing V/A/P/D that I think are particularly funny, thought-provoking, or relevant to my interests. It's no different than going to a cocktail party and starting a conversation with someone with, "So, did you see that op-ed piece in The Stranger on the monorail?" But I confess that I might be off on this one. What do you say, dear readers - are "Hey! Look at this!" articles something you like, or something you'd rather do without? I'm all about feedback, here. Bring it on. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated November 10, 2005 7:39 AM. September 28, 2005Make Up Your Mind! =)Less than 24 hours after her first post (and qualifying for some kind of record, I'm sure), Char has moved her blog from MSN Spaces to Blogger. If you're reading her, be sure to update your links. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated September 28, 2005 6:54 PM. One More Reason To BlogWant another reason to blog? How about ... cash? I stumbled across two articles today (both from Wired) about how bloggers and podcasters are seeking to profit from their efforts. "Podcasting Gold Rush Is On": GrapeRadio podcaster Brian Clark is now gulping down about $1,000 a week from sponsors of his show for wine hobbyists. Grant Baciocco of the fiction serial The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd sells show-themed buttons and T-shirts and offers guest-voice roles for $50. "Can Bloggers Strike It Rich?": [Jason] Calacanis employs 120 bloggers and publishes 90 blogs -- including Engadget (which covers consumer electronics) and Blog Maverick, typed by billionaire entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban -- with his writers making anywhere from $200 |
One of the things I'm most grateful for in my life is that - somehow - I've managed to retain great, strong friendships with people from just about every stage of my adulthood. I'm still in touch with people from high school (and junior high!), college, jobs, startups, graduate school. The planet is full of great people, and I'm humbled by how many of them I get to call my friends.
You know something? Going for a Sunday drive is a lot of fun.