The Beach is Back!

This year, the rainy season was nothing. Last year, it was immense. It rained so much here that the Marin section of Highway 1 got rocked pretty hard. California had to close the road down and give it some serious repairing. The 'slide-ravaged stretch' just reopened. We celebrated by taking it for a test spin and checking out Stinson Beach. The road looks great (as always.)

Last time we were at the famous beach, it was rather foggy; today it was gorgeous, warm and a total blast. I posted a few photos on Flickr and will probably put up more later. I'll likely rely heavily on Flickr for images for a while, as Blogger/Google are starting to hand out size allotment.

The most upsetting blog post of the young blogging world

If you follow the elite, smart blogging people world (especially in the marketing sphere) ... you may know about this already. It's about how Kathy Sierra started receiving horribly offensive and devastating death threats through her blog, e-mail and on message boards.

Kathy's blog has been at the top of my thinking blogs link list for quite some time. Her brilliant insights into the world of creating technology for users is highly applicable to so many industries and just life in general. She always pushes things that kick-ass, that are positive, that try to make the world a better place. So, this is INCREDIBLY upsetting. I just hate it.

As Seth Godin points out on his blog, anonymity and the web are not really a good thing. I don't remeber where I first saw this link, but it is perfect. And if perfectly normal people get that bad ... imagine what happens to the truly nasty people of the world.

I do worry about living my life online. I have been around some people who are very secure about their information, and I understand why they do it. Especially (unfortunately) for women and children. I do worry about exposing my family sometimes. Unfortunately, Russell Davies (also on my thinking blog list) had to separate his blogging lives because of offensive material posted by others in regards to his personal life.

Ironically, the concern over my personal life is what keeps my blog so personal. I keep a blog that only mildly interests me and my family ... it is for checking up on activities. I don't have any desire to drive random people to my blog. I admire those with the strength, conviction and ego to do so.

WIRED this month is all about being "naked." About how businesses need to expose themselves in order to succeed right now. It is a wonderful idea, but what about mean people who just plain suck. They are always going to be around to screw things up for us.

I don't have anything insightful to add here. As I mentioned, I save worthwhile insights for other places. I just hope Kathy comes back and the offender finds his ears filled with bugs.

Flickr love goes here.

Countdown to Opening Day

It is almost here. Baseball. The horizon is aglow with Cubbie blue and infield green. The cracks of the bats and the stating of the stats will soon fill my ears.

My fantasy team is ready to go in this seventh year of Gorilla Ball:
Batting lead off: Johnny Damon
Followed by fellow (unfortunately) Yankee: Derek Jeter
Batting securely at third, the best hitter of my generation: Albert Pujols
Followed by this year's Comeback Kid, the team perennial: Mark Teixeira
On massive clean-up duty, Mr. Can-he-do-it-again (I hope so): Jermaine Dye
Does the power in this line-up stop? No. Cause here comes our Prodigal Son: Aramis Ramirez
Fighting out for the seventh spot in the line-up are two amazing prospects: Delmon Young and Nick Markakis (frankly, I am hoping they both prove amazing and we can knock Damon into trade bait)
Playing anywhere on the field will be Julio Lugo (but he is shaking in his boots ... will he be able to hold his position at 2nd with surging Howie Kendrick waiting on the bench)
Catching and closing out the order, yet another Yankee: Jorge Posada

The team will be anchored by strikeout masters: Ben Sheets and Cole Hamels
A lead won't be lost past the 7th with our relievers extraordinaries: Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera
Then we'll have a hodgepodge of fellow pitchers: Greg Maddux (of course), Dave Bush, Ervin Santana (to help me deal with a Johan-less team for the first time in 3 years), Ian Snell, John Patterson and Scott Olsen.

Ladies and Gents: Your 2007 Double Barrel Fantasy Team!


{Crowd goes wild}
{Reality set in}

time to go to work...

Very Short List

I love beer, but I don't think about it EVERY day. I do read my Very Short List e-mail every day though.

a sunday @ home

My wife is quite lovely. For many reasons. One reason is she is always happy to slice up fresh fruits and vegetables. This morning, she sliced up some pineapple:
"a part of a this balanced breakfast"
Sam (aka Patch) was a big fan of the pineapple; he chomped it down while talking about wood-working.
Sam has officially become more useful than me should we have a massive zombie attack. While I am perfectly trained in the art of understanding the motivations of people, this won't be necessary during a zombie attack. 1) It won't do anything to save our lives; 2) we already know the primary and only motivation for zombies ... brains! However, Sam has been learning in after-school care how to make things like wooden daggers (while blunt, I'm sure he could sharpen it in no time.) He actually started explaining various woodworking tools to Mary and me. Here is some of his handiwork: Fully fueled, we headed to our "backyard": Ring Mountain. It has grown remarkably green since we first saw it covered in brown grass in June and July.
Sam leading our fellowship of the Ring Mountain.
I found this strange box tucked in a boulder. It is part of this cache of this geocaching sport. Eureka! I have learned something new today. Using GPS devices for entertaining, adventurous hunts... huh? We did not fill out the log, because I didn't want to jack-up someone's game, but I may go back ... cute little goldfishes. We may have to use our GPS and check these things out.
It was a good day to watch the city take the fog...
The flower season is on us in full force.
Same place, Same people ... 7 months later; Sam is turning into a young man quite quickly!

Much better...

So, yesterday, I was pretty frustrated about not getting my playtime with Sam lately... nothing cures that better than some good ole Justice League cartoon watching, paper airplane gliding and TMNT action. I'll share the high-excitement, most exhilaratingly action-packed, kick-ass part of the day ... No, not the most powerful superhero team of all-time ... and no, not those silly, ultra-trained, genetically-altered fighting turtles. I'm talking about the paper airplanes:

Sam knows ... Double Barrel always works best!

My Dell FSI Flyer.

Dixie is checking out the action from above.

While the parking lot was a great place for the dart planes, we wanted something better for the gliders. Sam taught me how to make some pretty impressive gliders.

Wild child among the wild flowers.

This Anise Swallowtail was a patient poser. (It is worth clicking on image for larger size.)

Sam guides his glider through the "trees."

The bottom of our hill on a windy day proved perfect for the gliders. My "creative brief glider" was better at launching into the air than it turned out to be a launcher of creative. I'm glad I found some use for it. Sam is chasing it down here; see it hovering in front of him?

Sometimes we had to chase them all the way to the ditch.

Sam records my expert form. "Watch Sam..."

Uhhhhh ... well...

A green, fun time on the hill with just a couple pieces of paper and a serious updraft. All good.

Ahhhhh .. when I blogged.

Where oh where have I been? I used to be such a frequent traveler of the blogosphere, now my updates are happening only weekly. While I am quite happy at work, I miss my interaction with this blog.

It's true ... I am quite happy with work. I even told the planner survey so. (Way to go Heather! This survey went from casual project to industry forefront in 3 short years... I knew the survey when ...)

I just got back from a work trip in Austin (Wed-Fri) and it is interesting to be working for a client going through so many public changes. I read articles like this one and see phrases like:

A search for a new chief marketing officer is currently under way, according to Dell. The moves to centralise Dell's consumer business, operations and marketing functions reflect a frustration with slow decision-making and bureaucracy at a company best known for its hard-charging competitive streak.

I do so love the agency business... getting to work with companies like Dell and Starbucks and GM and Xerox and Jack Daniel's and Verizon and others; to see what is going on inside while these very public opinions are swirling around. Everyone making guesses (educated at times, foolish at others) about the business.

These articles talk about companies and various positions of employment ... but, these are actual people who are running these companies, running these campaigns, making these decisions. People who want to make things better for everyone.

We find it so easy to give up on the human element of business. I constantly deal with it as a planner ... thinking about the consumer. I start to think about them as they interact with communications, the brands, how they shop, how they make decisions, how they buy...

I think of myself, and how I shop and how I buy ... how I make decisions. For instance, why am I blogging when I could be hanging out with Sam and Mary?

For instance, I didn't take these top three pictures, I took the bottom one.

So, later blog ... see you later.