Vacation Roadtrip

Tomorrow Rhonda, Tori and I begin a road to the Bay Area. We are staying in San Jose, and will visit Cupertino, Berkeley, Monterey, and San Francisco. Probably have beers with some peers at Lab126, and lunch with a Larry at the Googleplex.

Larry ran the company that Rhonda and I worked at when we built schedule and control software for ATM/SONET gear and video conference muxes. I gotta say at much fun as it was to control such large pieces of hardware, I kinda like making software for devices like the Kindle.

I do look forward to seeing Larry again, it's been 14 years I think. Tori does not remember too much from back then, being at the office and playing video games. Come to think of it I miss working daily with Rhonda too.

I look forward to meeting the fine folks at Lab126. Now if I could just find a way to join in on a yoga session at Apple's One Infinite Loop campus. (Hint hint, Steve in case you are reading this ;-)

MyLife 3.0 - Scene 4

I must say that when I read The Long Tail by Chris Anderson I was excited by the notion that there could be so much diversity in products and demand. The concept is that when merchandising moves away from the limits of store shelves to the infinite shelf-space of the internet and searching, an infinite number of product variations can exist and be sold.

This exercise of selling media from our bookshelves has been quite the validation of that. Each day, Tori receives orders for between 2 and 4 books. I am also excited to note that our books have condensed to the shelves in just one room. I estimate that we not have about 60 linear feet of books on shelves.

I am most curious to see if the pace continues until all the books are gone, or if it tapers off. And if it does taper, which books will remain?

Cooking by Kindlelight

I spent 5 days in Whistler Canada sharing a house with some friends. After skiing hard all day Saturday, I returned exhausted. After medicating my very sore muscles with some excellent Belgian beer Laura bought, I opened my Kindle to use the cookbook I bought. The recipes I had already bookmarked. The menu was avocado soup and lemon Dijon sole from "The Simpler the Better." I found cooking with the convenient and easy. I also liked being able to search on an ingredient and locating all the recipes that used that ingredient.

In the picture to the right I am holding the beer and the Kindle. In the background is Laura doing perhaps a Vulcan mind-meld to Mark. Laura was my ski buddy for the day, and I must say was very gracious in not laughing at me as I must have looked quite silly learning to ski backwards. (And since I have been asked, this means facing uphill while skiing downhill. Though if someone has a way to try skiing uphill, I am all ears!) (Photo taken by Geoff)