Events
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Sunday, September 23rd, 2007People get older and fatter – I now realize just how much it’s happening to me. My friends Akiva and Shae are getting married today and while getting I discovered that none of my slacks fit any more. It’s been years since I’ve worn them so I’m not entirely surprised that they were no longer tailor fit, however I was a little surprised (offended, repulsed, aghast) to discover by what margin they no longer fit. It’s not even a matter of being slightly too small – the clasps are now inches away from each other, straining in vain to connect. Oh well – it happens to the best of us.
Oh yeah: have a fun life and a great marriage Akiva and Shae – Congratulations!
Spontaneous car combustion
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
While driving slowly home on 520 today the car in front of me literally CAUGHT ON FIRE! I smelled gasoline and was wondering if my car was leaking when the car in front of me suddenly erupted into a fireball. Luckily the big ball of fire was short lived and it quickly subsided enough for the occupant to escape. A passerby had a fire extinguisher and the fire was mostly out long before I got the opportunity to inch around him fearing for my precious paint-job.
I managed to grab a few snaps with my iPhone while trying to stay out of the way of the people present who seemed much more capable of dealing with a flaming SUV than myself. I’m glad nobody was hurt and I certainly can understand that it sucks for the poor lad who’s car this was – but it’s not every day you get to see a car catch fire!
“Spontaneous car combustion” by sparktography
Steve Jobs: PR ninja
Thursday, September 6th, 2007Not only can he keynote like a rockstar, not only can he make the right technology and style choices to please consumers, and not only does he understand and connect with his customers but Steve Jobs knows how to make brilliant business moves. Yesterday he rocked the digital media ecosystem by releasing a whole new line of iPods for the holiday season, but he also dropped the price of the 8Gb iPhone by $200 and dropped the 4Gb iPhone entirely. This move will help move units and solidify Apple’s place in the cellphone marketplace early and strong.
Unfortunately a lot of early adopters were a little peeved to have paid a $200 ‘early adopter tax’, but again Steve managed to turn this around and make it into another business gem: in an open letter to iPhone customers he has promised a $100 store credit to all early adopter iPhone purchasers. This move not only appeases the early adopters, but will help capitalize on the iPod/iPhone halo effect (many Mac switchers introduction to the world of Apple has been an iPod) by encouraging more new-to-Apple consumers to spend a little more money. Yes it’s $100 that Apple won’t make in profits, but how much do you want to bet that a majority of these new customers are so impressed with their iPhones that they go the extra mile and put the $100 credit towards a new iMac, Mac Mini, or Macbook and give OS X a spin as well. Given the margins Apple makes on their computers a $100 hit cuts into profits in the short term, but will likely increase profits in the long terms as more and more consumers “join the Mac club” and help grow the Apple user base.
Bravo Steve, bravo!
A triptych of mini-reviews
Sunday, August 26th, 2007Twitter – I first experienced Twitter back in February and didn’t really get into it at the time, letting my Twitter page fade into distant memory. Recently I got the unlimited SMS textng plan from AT&T and decided to give it another go via my mobile phone – a much better experience all in all. I’ve been having much more fun with it of late – not only are more of my friends on Twitter, but I’ve found new meaning and writing inspiration in the art of concisely crafted content fitting within the 140 character confine put in place by the medium.
iPhone – I still love my iPhone! I’m really surprised at how long the honeymoon is lasting – I’ve had my iPhone for about two months now and I still find myself quietly gibbering about how cool it is. Most gadgets have a 2-3 week honeymoon phase with me before I take a flight of fancy to some new toy, and the best of gadgets sometimes make a month – my iPhone has not only blown past that limit, but doubled it. What makes it so worthy of praise I ask myself: a fun to use, well implemented device that does pretty much everything I need it to.
PAX – The Penny Arcade Expo happened this year in the Washington State Convention Center, a big improvement over the overcrowding of last years shoulder to shoulder overly-olfactory cluster of un-bathing gamers. The extra breathing room this year helped make for a more open experience – much easier to get around. When compared to other technology conventions I’ve been to PAX has a certain charm in that it’s much more focused on the consumers (gamers in this case) than the technology. This leads to a more causal vibe than so many other events.
Well, that’s another year gone by
Sunday, August 5th, 2007Well it was bound to happen sooner or later: I turned 26 and I’m now in the last year of my mid-twenties. 26 doesn’t seem any different from 25 was, or even the year before. Change in my life seems more gradual these days, a side effect of getting older I suppose; each year being less tumultuous and seeming shorter given it’s comparative length is shorting as my life experiences lengthen.
My actual birthday was last week, but I didn’t celebrate too much on that day so as not to make the next day at work not be a living nightmare. Brien bought me 300 on HD-DVD and took me out for a nice dinner. I did crack a tooth at dinner (on Pad Thai no less?!) which did manage to put a bit of a damper on things, but overall it was a great end to the first quarter century of my life.
Yesterday was my annual birthday movie marathon. Some very good friends came by to have a drink, watch movies (this years theme was Action!), and celebrate the passing of another year. After a number of flicks (and much berating of Judge Dredd – how blasphemous) we dined and I went home to snuggle in bed with Skype.
This morning I took a photo walk with my lensbaby while in quite the strange mood. All of my shots today feel very experimental for me – not what I would typically look for in shots. I like what I got – check out the the all of todays photos, or see my two favorites below.
This poor abandoned TV got quite a few treatments and this ended up being my favorite. Blur effect done entirely in camera with the Lensbaby. I keep feeling like this photo makes some profound statement about the grand life-cycle of technology, but capturing that statement and writing it down eludes me.
“Televised” by sparktography
This shot is another in my sticker series. I’m highly amused by this angry little cloud. It was taken on the side of a Seattle Weekly newspaper box, and recently it looks like someone spilled some bright red/orange paint down the side putting this poor sticker in jail.
“Cloud in jail” by sparktography
A new perspective
Wednesday, July 18th, 2007Today sucked for a variety of reasons. I had a court appointment for a speeding ticket at 9am at the Walla Walla District Court that didn’t turn out like I had hoped, spent more than 6 hours driving in my car, got ambushed with presentation duties in a meeting upon returning to work, and to top it off there were several accidents on 520 on the way home making my commute worse than normal. I’m tired, hungry, very glad to be home.
That being said I feel pretty damn good about myself! Sitting in court for 2 hours waiting my turn at justice roulette gave me an opportunity to see a stream of inmates from the state penitentiary, and various other dregs of society parade before the judge all with problems far worse than my own. There is something highly sobering about seeing a man brought to court for a list of charges so long that it actually made sense to alphabetize them, and see the ridiculous scuffles neighbors get into aired out for the world to see in public court.
It’s days like today that remind me that I really do have a good life – I might get stressed out from time to time, but when it comes right down to it I’m a productive member of society, I have a decently paying job, I’m father to the worlds coolest dog, a ton of great passions, a mortgage, car payment, and in general have my life together. Things could be worse – much worse, and it’s good to be reminded of that from time to time.
Mirror
Saturday, July 7th, 2007My non-vacation vacation is turning out beautifully! Yesterday I had a bunch of friends over for my ‘drinking and driving’ event featuring 2 Xbox 360′s, 2 Xbox 306 Wireless Racing Wheels, Forza 2, and Project Gotham Racing 3, and a pair of displays for some drinking, driving and mayhem!
Today I decided to go for a walk downtown with my camera. I walked down Olive, around Westlake center, and then back up Denny. I found the below shot of a worn down sticker on a power transformer:
I took a couple of other shot’s including a nicely framed Space Needle iPhone wallpaper, an antique power connector, and a neat stack of chairs.
“Mirror” by sparktography
Non-vacation
Thursday, July 5th, 2007For the first time in a couple of years I’m enjoying a non-vacation. I took Thursday and Friday as vacation days, and combined with the holiday on the 4th of July it makes for a 5 day weekend. The last few times I’ve had any real amount of time off I’ve gone home or to CES and not really had a chance to just kick back and relax, hang out with friends, and take some photos.
I’m also taking the time to write up my proper iPhone. I still love this thing and am interested to note that it’s gained Cingular AT&T over a million activations. As much as having Apple as a partner can have it’s downside the iPhone has certainly proven that it will make it worth AT&T’s while for all the two year contracts they just signed.
Mindcamp 4
Sunday, July 1st, 2007Although Mindcamp 4 was smaller and shorter than previous Mindcamp’s it was in no means inferior. Due to the difficulty of getting a good venue and crowd on the July 4th holiday weekend there were less than half the attendees we normally get, and the event was shortened to 11 hours from it’s normal 24.
I personally was glad it was changed in such a way – being as tired as I’ve been of late meant I likely wouldn’t have gone had it been the full meal deal. Doing most of the day however was perfect, and I got to go get my geek on with fellow Seattle techies without straining myself.
One things that surprised me this time was how well Apple is hitting their target market with the iPhone. Mind camp was 2 days after launch, and more than 15% of the attendees had one. Admittedly world has been waiting for this phone for quite some time, but it was still rather shocking to see that many of them all together at once. There were a lot of discussions of not only what a world changer this device will be (and of course nerdy details as to help enable this through cool use of it’s technology), but also a good explorations of its weaker points.
More to come on the iPhone – I’m still wrapping my head around all the little details and don’t want to go into the full rundown of my opinions quite yet, but suffice to to say most of it will be positive!
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