nodoze@night

Iko Iko I-nay Jock-a-mo feen-o and-dan-day

2009-02-24T21:59:00.000-08:00

Krista and I were driving Sunday, listening to the radio, when an old, catchy song named "Iko Iko" came on the radio. It was the original version of the song that I remember from my sisters. Then, the radio station skipped into two more versions of the song performed by two different bands, one of which was the Grateful Dead.

Of course, when I got home, I immediately looked up the song and bought the album, by the Dixie Cups, on iTunes. It happens to also have the "Going to the Chapel" song that I recall my sister Jessie listening to about 50x per day for a couple years (she was always a huge oldies fan, oddly enough, while Heather loved alternative and chick music like Indigo Girls, Cranberries, etc.)

It's a pretty cool story, as told on the Wikipedia entry about the song. For those of you too lazy to click, apparently the band just started singing the song and playing on coke bottles during a break, and meanwhile, they were being recorded by one of the studio engineers/producers. It was a song that the ladies in the group knew from their grandparents, and is a song with deep history in New Orleans (the song was originally written in the 50s by a man named James Crawford, entitled "jack-o-mo".

There's something about history, and something in particular to me about southern history, that feels like it has a lot of texture and depth. Krista and I noted this when we were in South Carolina over break and had the chance to spend a few hours in Savannah. For some reason, Wisconsin just doesn't seem to have the same feeling of deep history (probably because it wasn't even a state until 1848.

I then happened on this video, which intrigued me as a potential reggae remix of the song. But instead, it was the same "The Belle Stars" version from Rain Man, but with a couple girls dancing to it. I looked at the comments, which said "That skinny girl is way way better. So good that you dont even notice other one", so as they danced, I kept watching to see what they meant. And sure enough, the skinny girl has some SICK dance moves. I watched the whole thing.

And then, I closed it off with this incredibly awesome video where it shows an old school american grandstand dance event with "Iko Iko" by the Dixie Cups being played. In particular, I love the guy at about 1:02 who appears to be doing some sort of samurai dance:

Best video of my life

2009-02-24T16:48:00.000-08:00

I watched this video over and over last night, and it never ceased to make me laugh. There's something about babies and puppies that makes them unstoppable together.

In particular, I love how Sofia tries to grab Mo's ear aggressively, and Jess fiendishly encourages her but doesn't quite let her get a strong grip. So funny. Thanks for uploading to youtube for me, heath!

Lulu meets Lulu (NK's rocking lamb) in Phoenix

2009-02-17T23:48:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we went to visit the Burns family in Phoenix for an extended weekend of relaxation, as I posted last night.

I'm waiting to get the more interesting photos up here on the blog, but in the meantime I'll post one from the incredibly kind and awesome party they threw for us last year after we got engaged. Here are Jen and Krista at that party:

To show our gratitude, Krista smashed one of their champagne glasses (it's become somewhat of a tradition, as we celebrated Valentine's Day with some Veuve in Phoenix; no smashed glasses of record, however, but officials are still tallying the damage. Lots of sliced wooden fruit).

For the record, here's how we celebrate things like engagements and Valentine's day without the Burns around:

They clearly up our class level quite a bit.

More photos to come! Thanks again for hosting us, and for bringing my jacket and sunglasses all the way from Phoenix to Palo Alto tomorrow AM, Adam!

Nick and Norah's Endless Playlist

2009-02-16T22:23:00.001-08:00

After a long and splendidly relaxing weekend in Phoenix visiting Jen, Adam, and Nancy Kate Burns (including a hike by Camelback Mountain, pictured above), Krista and I are back in the Bay and feeling refreshed. We're catching up on emails, watching the Alaska CruiseWest DVD Krista signed up for (hip hip hooray!), and listening to Nick and Norah's Endless Playlist, which we watched Sunday night with the Burns (and everyone loved it). Here's the trailer:

To me, one of the signs of a truly good novel/movie/story is when not every detail is 1) made ultra obvious to the viewer (this doesn't work for mainstream products, I realize, but I like it nonetheless) 2) meaningful. The second point is important, because all too often I feel like a story I am being told is made of 100% relevant details that all add up to some meaning, when life itself isn't actually like that. One of the hardest things about life, I think, is sorting things that are meaningful to me personally from those that are not, when they all may be meaningful to other people simply because of different values, backgrounds, or beliefs. Of course, a story can't be TOO full of "meaningless" details that don't feed directly into the plot, or it will just be confusing.

The music is also quite good, so I'm going to add a couple of the songs that we like best to the blog thanks to lala.com. Enjoy!

"Very Loud" by "Shout Out Louds"

Very Loud - Shout Out Louds

"Our Swords" by Band of Horses

Our Swords - Band Of Horses

"Ottoman" by Vampire Weekend (I can't remember if this is on the Vampire Weekend album I got into a few months back or not; and Lala won't let me embed for copyright reasons, I'm sure, so here's
the link instead)

Jay-z at his best--the new age rat pack!

2009-02-09T03:32:00.000-08:00

Kid on Drugs

2009-02-03T15:40:00.000-08:00

Ok, this video is HILARIOUS. And we've all been there before, which I think is why we all enjoy it so very much.

The SuperBowl: a Recap of my Twitter Frenzy

2009-02-02T23:05:00.000-08:00

My dear sister, Jessie, was in town yesterday to hang out with us en route to a few days in Oakland for work. We picked her up in the morning, then went to get brunch @ Copenhagen Cafe in Burlingame.

Then after a quick 2-14 mile hike (hard to say exactly how long it was), we returned home to watch the game after loading up on some snacks and drinks at Trader Joe's (including Anytizers; though I prefer the actual wings to the boneless "nuggets").

It took us about the first half to catchup on DVR (shameful, I know, but this is what you get when you watch the superbowl with your sister and fiance). I thought it would be a Steelers' runaway victory, so I early on started rooting for the Cardinals. But my efforts seemed for naught after the 100-yard pick-6 by the Steelers made it 17-7 at the half. Here's the TD in HD (this is pretty sweet, actually):

I'm not sure at which point I started twittering (and thus updating my facebook status, as I have linked both accounts for ease of use, despite acknowledging that they can and probably should be used for different purposes. I simply don't have the bandwidth for upkeep of both. See lack of posts to this blog in January for reference).

But once I started, I couldn't stop. And I had 3-4 responses from a distant acquaintance from college (who agreed on my point that the refs had made some questionably pro-Steelers calls), my Stanford friend's wife (and my friend of course), whose family is a die-hard Cards fan, and one of Krista's best friends from college (who asked if I could have possibly updated my status more during the game).

There were a few reasons I couldn't stop:

1. I was outraged at the horrible job the refs were doing, and finding no outlet with the two females I was watching the game with (I was mocked for saying the word "ticky-tacky"), I turned to twitter to broadcast my opinion in hopes of a more receptive audience (I found it btw, as noted above).
2. I wanted to connect with Adam and Jen Burns, but not be on the phone or IM with them constantly, to share my rooting for the Cards.
3. I felt like this SuperBowl was really a historical event for social media, and I wanted to be a part of it.

Sure enough, Charlene Li (formerly of Forrester, author of Groundswell, and social media expert) tweeted today a link to a new york times geographic map that is pretty awesome. I really like the "Go" map (I said "Wow" instead of "Go"; more neutral :) ).

Here are my tweets, in reverse order (check it out, timestamped and better organized, on my twitter page)

Also, I have to give Krista credit for catching Holmes' winning TD celebration was in honor of the Lebron (and KG and MJ) chalk ad. Someone from Nike get him on the phone!

# No way his feet are in. no way. about 21 hours ago from txt

# What a great game. about 21 hours ago from txt

# Wow now the cards have too much time almost. about 22 hours ago from txt

# YES arrington! about 22 hours ago from txt

# Love the lebron chalk celebration by holmes tho! Even if his right foot didn't come down (it didn't). about 23 hours ago from txt

# Wow big ben is a stud. We r going to OT folks. about 23 hours ago from txt

# I'm speechless. Perfect play. OT? about 23 hours ago from txt

# YES!! Wow. I think these refs have been pretty poor. So many calls that shoudln't be made. But a great game! about 23 hours ago from txt

# Yes, good personal foul call. Cards deserve that one. about 23 hours ago from txt

# @Smallwunder i know--i'm KILLING twitter tonight. gonna try for a blog post tonight. and isn't tweetdeck awesome? 10:33 PM Feb 1st from web in reply to Smallwunder

# Just checked twitter. The superbowl is the biggest day of social media to date-we have hit critical mass. So many 'omg's'! 7:26 PM Feb 1st from txt

# @Smallwunder great game. feel bad for burnsy (jen AND adam)....lot of fun though. 7:23 PM Feb 1st from TweetDeck in reply to Smallwunder

# they'll review this...not a fumble. one more hail mary still to go. 7:08 PM Feb 1st from TweetDeck

# @rentcentralpa absurd huh? 7:08 PM Feb 1st from TweetDeck in reply to rentcentralpa

# Wow. 6:48 PM Feb 1st from txt

# My sister is sitting next to me checking her iphone for my tweets/fbook updates. Lol. 6:46 PM Feb 1st from txt

# Love madden taking a stand: 'he should be thrown out for that'. Hate when announcers dont take a stand. 6:43 PM Feb 1st from txt

# Dockett is otherwordly right now.

# Shld've been a PI penalty on Pittsburgh on fitz's TD. Stupid refs. 6:27 PM Feb 1st from txt

# Loving the cards' no huddle game plan right now. Smart to treat this like there's only three minutes left. They're the anti-eagles. 6:24 PM Feb 1st from txt

# The refs have clearly been told to help pittsburgh as much as possible. The roughing qb and running into holder calls were absurd.

Jaydiohead

2009-01-26T01:33:00.000-08:00

Here's a great illustration of just how powerful user-generated-social-media is:

I was listening to the Grey Album (DJ DangerMouse's mashup of Jay-Z's Black Album with the Beatles Black Album from 2004, probably the best album made that year in music), and tweeted about it.

Then, since I've been looking to become more of a power user, I found a site to search for a grey album hashtag (#greyalbum perhaps), which is basically the way you tag things in twitter to group tweets on the same subject.

While I couldn't find anything on the greyalbum, one random tweet mentioning "jaydiohead" and saying how it was better than the grey album came up.

I did a google search for it and found a place to download it free online (the DJ's website, I think). It even has an embed tag, so I can let anyone download it straight from my blog!

http://www.mediafire.com/?4njfmnwz2yn

Pretty sick. I'm listening to it now. First song was good (not great). I'm optimistic, though, given how sick both Jay-Z and Radiohead are.

Finally, as Jay would say..."I'm BAAAAACK" from my post-holiday hiatus. I'm going to get back on the blogging trail again. I miss it as a place to put my thoughts.

Ecofont - digital green

2009-01-05T12:05:00.000-08:00

Krista showed me a pretty cool little innovation in the green space that surprised me for how clever it is: ecofont.

It's a font that has little holes punched in it that reduces ink usage by 20% (reportedly). Pretty cool little idea that could have a fairly significant effect at scale. Here's a photo of it:

Pretty awesome little idea that can have a pretty big impact on the world.

More Coffee: Devil's Tool, or Gateway to Heaven?

2008-12-22T00:13:00.000-08:00

I wrote a little bit ago that I always looked forward to the "free" coffee at sunday church. Turns out there's a lot more history behind the mixing of coffee and church.

Apparently, coffee first comes on the historical scene sometime in the 9th century, popular first among Islamic monks and later through the entire Arab world due to its energizing effects.

In time, coffee began to spread throughout Europe as well; but because it had come from the Muslim world, priests pronounced it to be the drink of "infidels". In the late 1500s, Pope Clement VIII was urged by his trusted advisers to ban the drink throughout the church's domain as "the drink of the devil" because of its roots. Instead, as legend has it, he insisted on trying it.

He loved it so much that he said something to the effect of "This drink of Satan is so tasty that it shouldn't be his or the infidels alone; we'll make it our own by baptizing it and thereby fool Satan".

Within 50 years of this "baptism", coffee shops proliferated Europe. And eventually, Starbucks came into power in the US and returned coffee to the realm of the devil...just kidding (I love Starbucks).

More fun facts about coffee HERE.

Brett Favre, the Packers, and "Zero Defects Mentality",

2008-12-19T12:38:00.000-08:00

In an agile development book assigned to me by Rob, a co-founder of mine and CTO of 750, there is a brief mention of the danger of a "Zero Defect Mentality" (ZDM) culture. Essentially, a ZDM culture cripples any organization (for bigger, entrenched companies, it will do so over time as it prevents innovation; in smaller companies or, as the book speaks of, Marine units, it will be total suicide) because it paralyzes every individual in that organization from making judgment calls for fear of being wrong.

"Demanding such a rigid standard produces timid leaders afraid to make tough decisions in crisis, unwilling to take the risks necessary for success in military operations," Perry said. "This zero defects mindset creates conditions that will lead inevitably to failure …." CLICK HERE for entire article.

In (my own) behavioral terms, the fear of making even one small mistake is greater than the reward of making a big impact.

Obviously, I think about things such as these a lot as an entrepreneur. Item one of our "culture credo", which lists out the principles that we as individuals and as a collective company work and live by, is: "We are a learning culture." Part of that is accepting that we will make mistakes. We had a great talk the other day at an all hands that sometimes we don't always seem to exhibit those behaviors, and that sometimes we seem to act as if we are deathly afraid of making mistakes. It was a great conversation to have amongst a group of new entrepreneurs, and I'm looking forward to continuing it down the road.

But I thought I'd also apply that concept to a more accessible domain: professional football. As most know, I'm a die-hard Packers fan. This year has been tough, with the Brett Favre saga, the trade, and then the 5-9 record and many "almost" games the Packers have lost this year.

Some fans and columnists have made the point that Favre's leadership is missing from the Packers, and that the Jets rise from a losing record last year to being on the verge of making the playoffs this year is due to Brett. While the stats might show otherwise--the Jets have a top running game and top defense, while Brett hasn't played all that great for a couple stretches of the season; meanwhile, Rodgers has top-10 quarterback stats, yet his team's defense and special teams seem to collapse in big moments--I wonder what effect Brett Favre has on motivating his team in light of the idea of zero defects.

Brett Favre is famous for boneheaded interceptions. But he seems to have an uncanny ability to shrug off mistakes, even if they cost the team a playoff game, a trip to the superbowl, or the superbowl itself. He always had fun, he always (seemed to) worked hard at his craft (those two go hand in hand, I believe), and he always gave it his best shot.

Goto 1:20 of this video for a classic Brett Favre throw into double coverage, just giving his receiver a chance, that Javon Walker caught for a TD

Sometimes that meant throwing up a jump ball for a receiver named Taco Wallace, who the Packers' previous GM all but called out as not having the talent to play in the NFL. Do you think Brett Favre, a hall of fame quarterback with some of the most talent a quarterback could ever have didn't know from practice exactly how talented Taco Wallace was? And yet he still threw the ball to him, still gave him the chance, still believed in him more than anyone else. Why?

Perhaps it's because he believed his talent was enough to compensate. Or perhaps it's because his search was for greatness--even at the play level--rather than perfection. Or maybe it's both of these, and more. But the bottom line is that every player on the Packers knew that Brett Favre had enough confidence in them to give them a chance to carry the team, and that they might be needed at any time. Think of the effect that has on a person's training, practice, preparation, and gametime attention to detail. Contrast it to how you felt when your boss micromanaged you on some job (it's happened to us all, and we've all done it too).

Effects such as those can't, by nature, show up in stats. But I think they are very, very real. And I think that might be the main reason the Packers are out of the playoffs and the Jets are in. That is, it is not despite Brett Favre's interceptions that the Jets are going to the playoffs, but because of them.

Recall: Brett Lorenzo Favre has the NFL all-time records for touchdown passes, yards, and completions. But he also has the NFL all-time records for pass attempts and interceptions.

Brett Favre is NOT perfect; he's great. And it's become apparent to me, as I study and analyze people who have achieved greatness in their lives, that perfection will never lead to greatness. We try to live that concept everyday at 750, as hard as it can be to be wrong. And I'm trying to live my life in the same way.

"You're sitting on a chair in the SKY!"

2008-12-16T23:52:00.000-08:00

I just saw a hilarious video from Conan on Fred Wilson's blog HERE. It's all in response to a bad seat assignment he had flying from NY to SF. It's a good reminder to all of us during this hectic, traveling, holiday season:

8track - awesome online mix maker

2008-12-16T12:03:00.000-08:00

Checkout my first mix, randomly selected today as I multitasked:

This is pretty cool; easier to use than the yahoo tool I mentioned in an earlier blog post. Although I liked the always-there functionality of the side tab with that player.

Pretty solid mix, too. Eclectic, as every good mix should be1

A Walk Down Memory Lane: The Westmorland Saints become the Polar Caps

2008-12-16T00:40:00.000-08:00

...and merge with the hated Flyers!

Growing up, I had two key aspects to my identity:

1) A student at Queen of Peace (this was made obvious in sports such as soccer and hockey, where I played with kids from public schools and other private schools in the area).
2) A Westmorland Saint (this was probably even more identifying--we had jackets, shirts, hats, and more. All my best friends were on the Saints. And some of my best memories were beating the Flyers in big games, state playoffs, and tournaments (the tournaments, out of town, were always the best).

I just found, while searching for youtube videos of the westmorland saints, that my team was merged with the HATED rival flyers in 2004. They are now called the Polar Caps.

Really? The Polar Caps? Pretty brutal name.

I had heard a while ago that the teams had become far less competitive, as their districts had remained the same size while other districts such as verona had grown in population, but I can't believe that my childhood identity could be dissolved in such a way.

Note: once I can get some pictures from my mom digitized, I'll put one up here. I think the one with Brad Winchester, Jonathan Greer, and Kurt Muchow from 8th grade will be the most popular one given how small I am in that photo.

Iraqi Journalist Throws Shoe at George W. Bush in Baghdad

2008-12-14T21:15:00.000-08:00

This is pretty hilarious (but also pretty sad, in a much larger context):

Of course, everyone is probably blogging/writing about this using the famous Austin Powers quote: "Seriously, who throws a shoe?"

Here's to a president who doesn't incite shoe-throwing.

A Shoutout to Brad

2008-12-14T00:12:00.001-08:00

props to my buddy brad for his second (first was with oil vs. blues, I have just found out) 2-goal career game...and helping keep the team in the game against the NHL's best team this year!

Fun to hang with him Friday night in Burlingame.

Link here to the espn article.

I'll put up highlight videos once I can find something to embed, but for now, they're on the Blues websites. Top shelf!

UPDATE: Here's the video. The goal at the end of the 1st (power play) which is incorrectly attributed to someone else by the announcer, and then the 2nd goal in the 2nd period on a 3-2 are both his:

One of my favorite videos of all time

2008-12-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

I remember finding this 2-3 years ago when it was first launched; I think it's a startup in NYC, but I'm not completely sure. It's incredibly funny. I desperately want our company to do one...someday.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

A Walk Down Memory Lane: Captain N: The Game Master

2008-12-09T23:26:00.000-08:00

Tonight, as I ate dinner, I pulled up Netflix to see what movies I might be able to watch instantly on my laptop.

As I browsed the movies and shows Netflix recommended, I saw some cartoon/nintendo looking video that seemed intriguing. I clicked it. After shutting firefox down once, the video eventually opened, and I was instantly tossed down memory lane in a sudden and surprising manner. Here's a hint:

The show was The Game Master, and it was during the heydey of Nintendo. Aggregating various heroes and villains from NES games, it was a show I LOVED just as much as I loved playing the various 30-40 games I had. I also loved reading Nintendo Power, and getting new accessories (such as the power pad; I never had the power glove, but after watching "The Wizard" over and over again, "I love[d] the power glove...it's so bad"). LOL. I'd sit in our basement playing games, or go play sports, or read. That was pretty much all I did. C-Chicken will probably be disgusted at me, but that's just what I wanted to do!

How cool was this scene? Actually, this was my first exposure to "California", and even now I still remember associating the giant dinosaur with California, to the point where I will look for it as we drive along highways out here. UPDATE: I found a blog post referencing this park...check it out!

And this finale was probably the most impactful movie ending I ever saw (embed disabled):

I played a LOT of video games as a kid, and I loved it. I still think our games were the best, because there was no precedent whatsoever--all these games were SO advanced for their time. And now kids would laugh at how simple they are, with current games closer to movies than anything else.

A Nintendo Power that I read and re-read over and over and over...

Getting back to The Game Master, here's the first episode, at least part of it, on Youtube:

Here's the wikipedia article for the game for further reading.

Ahh, childhood.

Walk Down Memory Lane: Idioteque by Radiohead

2008-12-04T20:13:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite songs that I listened to nonstop during my Fulbright Research time in Spain.

More to write in a few--but wanted to get the song from LaLa, and this is the only way!

A response to Dave Haase's recent blog post

2008-12-04T00:22:00.000-08:00

In light of Dave Haase's most recent blog post (for which I am honored greatly), I thought I'd write a quick blog response.

For those of you who don't know Dave, he's a good friend from business school who has been living in China for the last three months. Here's a photo that will help you get to know his personality rather quickly (that's Ashley, his wife, on the right):

Now, it's been pretty hard for our household (especially Krista, as Dave's post points out, but for me as well) to have Dave so many time zones away. Here's the top 5 downsides to having Dave in China:

5. Shaun Patterson's zingers, delivered in that classic Irish* brogue of his, just aren't as funny when they're delivered at someone other than Dave Haase. With Dave out of the country, the percent of jokes at dave's expense relative to all other jokes by Patterson has dropped to an all-time low of 50%.
4. I have no one to borrow hair "product" from any more (Harris, DK, Houghton...the only exception is Parker, and he won't share with me).
3. I haven't even heard a single mention of "the finishing move" since he left.
2. Murph cries to sleep every night, and has resorted to dressing a body pillow up like Dave in order to console himself (Chandler, you should REALLY get this under control).
1. iPhone sales are down 10% since Dave has no reason to take his out of the house (and thus risk losing it) at all. Have y'all SEEN what the economy's done since the man left?

(Click the image to expand it)

There have also been some bonuses to having Dave so very, very far away, locked behind the great firewall of china.

5. Less revving of his dad's porsche's engine in my driveway/outside my apartment (in our new house, we get enough of that already).
4. I win all warfish games because he's not able to conspire against me with Houghton, Gambrel, Burns, or Bolden. Seriously, he's probably pretty mad about this.
3. Tech support calls to the Keintz/Smaby household have dropped SIGNIFICANTLY.
2. I haven't gotten in trouble with Krista much at all recently.
1. I get more time to talk with Murphy b/c he can only iChat with Dave so many hours in any given day.

But seriously, I've missed Dave around these parts since he took off. And right before Dave took off, I sang him a favorite song of mine to help remind him to stay in touch, and to express just how much he means to me. We happened to tape it and put it up on YouTube as well--and I am just tonight sharing it on this blog post with the rest of the world (skip to 3:25 for the point at which Dave actually broke down into tears):

*Note: I know that Shaun is Scottish. But it's fun to pretend like I think he's Irish just to bug him. Try it out sometime.

Awesome music player for any website by Yahoo!

2008-12-02T23:10:00.001-08:00

I found this awesome music player on a random music blog I just subscribed to called Metaphor.

Basically, the player sits hidden on a tab on the left side of the page, and pops open when you click on it. You can easily link all music on your site to the player using the instructions on the mediaplayer site.

I'd love to set it up, but I haven't setup any place to put my own mp3s. I'm also a little leery of copyright issues in doing so...but I LOVED this music widget in concept. Nice work, Yahoo!

Lebron's "Chalk" Ad, the Power of Ritual, and Free Coffee

2008-11-30T22:45:00.000-08:00

I saw this great new Nike ad by Lebron James, where they draw from his pre-game ritual of throwing the scorer's chalk into the air to show other people bringing that ritual into their daily lives (after being influenced by Lebron, of course, and his Nike shoes). It's pretty sick, and the song (Candyman by Cornership, from their 2003 album "When I Was Born for the 7th Time", which also has "Brimful of Asha" on it, probably their most famous hit) is tasty delicious. Check it out HERE. And here's the video:

I have thought a lot about the power of ritual in starting a company and as I've continued to define and redefine the way I want to live my life. It has become particularly interesting to me through the lens of religion, as Krista and I have begun to form the habit of Sunday morning church service at a fairly progressive Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park (called the Cafe, it has a rock band and is not IN a church). Having been forced-fed religion from 1st-12th grade (1-8 at Our Lady Queen of Peace and 9-12 at Edgewood High School), I took what I liked to call a "break" from religion for the majority of college (despite attending a Jesuit school in Boston College) and thereafter. BTW, Chris Farley was a graduate of Edgewood--and my friend Steph McCoy lived in his neighborhood and has some funny stories about him.

In fact, it wasn't the abstract concept of a "God" that ended up getting me through the doors of the Cafe service. It was coffee and the fact that we had a lot of our closest couple friends who attended regularly. After the service, we'd wander Menlo Park and typically go get a breakfast and good conversation from Cafe Borrone (I call it Bor-ron, Dave King calls it Ba-ro-ney (like baloney)...who knows?). Krista would go more often than I would--I would sometimes exercise my right NOT to go, possibly just to prove that I didn't HAVE to go, as I used to HAVE to go to religion class and church at school. There's another lesson on the power of having a choice in there, but I'll leave it be for tonight.

As we graduated from Stanford, many of our churchgoing friends moved away (not all though! We still get to go with the Houghtons and the Kings every now and again, to my delight; today we were reserving seats for the Houghtons, who were running late for the service due to a last-minute-baby-schedule-adjustment, and I kept eagerly looking at the door when people would come in, hoping they wouldn't cancel entirely), and we moved a half hour north to Burlingame. But after getting settled in, we began to go back to Menlo early Sunday, and re-established our routine.

Even now, I continue to tell myself that I go in the morning for the "free coffee" (even though Krista tends to give money as we leave and I get my 2nd cup). I still haven't really opened up as much to the "God" part of it internally, but I've become really interested in the symbols and stories and rituals that the Church uses to convey messages that stick. It's also a great time for me to (try to) disconnect from my day to day startup worries, which all too often follow me all the way through the weekend, and to get a much bigger perspective of the issues I am personally dealing with.

That's the power of ritual, as THIS LINK points out so well: ritual gives structure to chaos. Whether it's a Friday all-hands meeting or Sunday morning church, it can help you when you're feeling a little lost at sea.

Final note: this post was intended as a post more about the power of ritual, but it turned into a bit of a spiritual expose. Oops. At least I know I'll get a Laurie Bolden post out of it! :)

Also, I want to point out that I am SO GRATEFUL for my educational and spiritual upbringing--I loved Queen of Peace and Edgewood, and would never change a thing about those experiences. I owe a TON to my parents and teachers and sisters for those great experiences.

Great Music: Some Badass Guitar by Rodrigo y Gabriela

2008-11-30T01:11:00.000-08:00

Serendipitously, a talented duo named Rodrigo y Gabriela that I was first exposed to at the Outside Lands Festival months ago (highly endorsed by my friend Shayna), came on tonight as I did random online reading. So I thought I'd share a couple videos about them, since they are so very badass.

Here's probably my favorite song of theirs, Tamacun:

Another great song, Diablo Rojo:

Also, I'd like to note that the videos do NOT do their live performance justice. If you were to, say, watch them perform in the late afternoon in the middle of a beautiful park in 70 degree weather with a HUGE speaker system, it would be very different than listening to them with the tinny apple headphones or laptop speakers you're currently using. :) They do this really cool camerawork where the camera shoots along the neck of the guitar so that you can see the speed at which their hands move; it's hard to describe, but incredible to watch...so what are you waiting for? See if they're playing near you anytime soon by checking out their website.

Travel for Thanksgiving...and Thanks

2008-11-26T20:52:00.001-08:00

It's 11:52 pm on Thanksgiving Eve (why don't they ever call it Thanksgiving Eve, btw?), and Krista and I are doing various errands on our computers as we get ready to call it a night.

We're in Naples, FL, with Gary and Nancy. I had to work yesterday and most of today, even though I had hoped not to, so the vacation has really only just begun (and we leave on Friday!) At least the last 8 hours has been nice and restful; Gary made "Ducat's Bucket", a favorite childhood dish of Krista's, which is a special mussel and clam dish. And then we watched the original Father of the Bride, which was almost exactly the same as the one with Steve Martin that we all know. Involved in planning weddings as I am, I

I was just reading some random Thanksgiving day facts, as well, and I learned that the average American consumes 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving. Wow. I'm aiming for 5,000.

Here's a great little video I just found that will hopefully make at least one person laugh:

Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks to all my friends and family for everything.

Just Like College Again (for a day)

2008-11-23T22:04:00.000-08:00

This weekend a couple of close friends, Mr. Jonathan Bolden and Mr. and Mrs. Timothy and Chandler Murphy, happened to be in town. Today felt like college again, as we had lunch with a bunch of friends from school in downtown Burlingame (like lower dining hall at BC), then JB and I went on a quest to borrow a replacement cellphone (from a generous Sarvesh Regmi, another friend from Stanford).

After that quick errand, we came back to our house and watched some football while we chatted, browsed stuff online, and had a beer. Soon thereafter, Krista and Jenny King came back from their own errand, and we just hung out for another hour until Dave King and Chris Harris stopped by. We watched a little more football, then walked over to Barracuda's in downtown Burlingame to meet Scott Crumrine for some sushi.

It's pretty rare these days that 1) we have friends just hanging out at our place, unplanned and unexpected (but very welcome) 2) we hang out with just 1 person in a couple rather than in precise couples and 3) we have no specific agenda and can just relax. In other words, I feel like we've gotten to the point where even our social life has become planned, rather than just going with the flow as we used to be able to do in college with 100 of your closest friends living within one mile of you.

Maybe it can't return to that type of social life, but I sure wish it could. I can just imagine living in a little gated community of all my closest friends, by a cool downtown area. It would be pretty sweet if we could make that happen.

Late Nights OR A Walk Down Memory Lane Episode 2

2008-11-20T00:11:00.001-08:00

I stayed up till 4 am last night doing work. It was getting cold, so I made myself some tea, and chatted with some friends/coworkers as we all worked into the night. I enjoyed it, actually, quite a bit. I used to do it all the time when we first started 750, but those types of sessions became more and more rare as I went from re-building apps to talking to REAL people (who like to wake up early so they can go home early, oddly enough).

I actually wasn't that tired even though I woke up at 8:30 this morning. I suspect tomorrow I will feel the real fatigue.

Tonight Krista took my computer away, turned out the light, and then noted (as I rubbed my eyes and yawned), that just as I always have joked that my mom is easy to put to sleep--just push her onto her side, and she will quickly begin to rub her own eyes and yawn--she can do the same thing by taking away my computer, turning off my music (I was listening to Ma$e before), and pushing me on my side.

Pretty funny. Which brings me to a brief anecdote (Matt would be proud) about baby chicks.

It also reminded me of one of the (many) things about my mother that always amused me. When we were younger, we had a tank of baby chics that we took care of around Easter time in our backyard. I recall then, and even later, how my mother would always say: "baby chicks are SO dumb; all you have to do is push them on their side and they will automatically fall asleep". When I was in college, I realized the irony of this statement given the fact that my mom actually exhibited the EXACT same tendencies as baby chicks.

And just check out this video--hilarious. Reminds me of college.

Dominating Haase, Harris, and Bolden (in Warfish)

2008-11-18T23:19:00.001-08:00

Turns out my favorite online game of risk, warfish.net, allows you to embed the video of your game. Check out the recent domination I had in this game.

Red: Harris
Blue: Me
Maroon: Bolden
Pink (in honor of Ashley): Haase

Please note how I toy with Bolden and Haase at the very end (note you will have to
scroll right to see the whole board--you can't shrink it to fit a page):

Corner - by Jai Uttal (& the Pagan Love Orchestra)

2008-11-18T22:30:00.000-08:00

Another song I discovered on Friday Night Lights (Season 2, Episode 4) is entitled Corner, by an artist named Jai Uttal. I can't find the song on Lala, but did manage to find it on iTunes (so still a bit of a way to go before Lala catches up to iTunes completely, I guess).

Click HERE for a sample of it on a random website.

And HERE's some more information on Jai Uttal, who appears to have a bunch of music that has been widely used for yoga (what luck!).

His specialty is the sarod, a 25-string instrument that seems similar to the sitar (picture below).

Jose Gonzalez - Teardrop (& My Obsession)

2008-11-16T22:17:00.000-08:00

I've been pretty obsessed with Jose Gonzalez recently--his music is just so cool, in a folky ethereal way. Checkout this awesome video of the song "teardrop", which has religion all over the place (the flying jesus is my favorite part)

And for those of you music buffs who said: "Hey, that's a cover of a massive attack song, not an original!" here's the original:

It's pretty compelling as a song and video. It's a fetus singing about its own abortion, according to critics. Here are the lyrics:

Love, love is a verb
Love is a doing word
Fearless on my breath
Gentle impulsion
Shakes me makes me lighter
Fearless on my breath

Teardrop on the fire
Fearless on my breath

Nine night of matter
Black flowers blossom
Fearless on my breath
Black flowers blossom
Fearless on my breath

Teardrop on the fire
Fearless on my breath

Water is my eye
Most faithful mirror
Fearless on my breath
Teardrop on the fire of a confession
Fearless on my breath
Most faithful mirror
Fearless on my breath

Teardrop on the fire
Fearless on my breath

Stumbling a little
Stumbling a little

That led me to look closer at Obama's policy on abortion, which I found conveniently summarized here.

Sort of a cool exercise. I spiraled from a piece of media into a concept into a current event about that concept, and learned some new things at every step of the way. It happens all the time to me (I was called Kurious Keintz in college for a reason), but I've never really thought through the sequence before. It also summarizes how I learn best--spiraling towards the truth. A truth spiral. I like that concept.

Also, I saw a comment on the Jose Gonzalez YouTube video that the teardrop version by the Elbows is even better, so here it is:

Girl Talk - That's My DJ

2008-11-14T14:17:00.001-08:00

I LOVE lala...the ability to embed a single song in my blog is amazing. And if they had great data around who was using that (ie, combined with Facebook...like iLike), that would be pretty amazing data for the record industry to have.

And, how awesome is this song? It doesn't start out as my favorite Girl Talk song, but at 40 seconds, combining "Bring em out" with "That's my DJ" is brilliant, and just works.

MJ: Failure leads to Success

2008-11-12T23:50:00.000-08:00

Just saw this video, somehow, on YouTube. Inspirational, to say the least.

Man, Nike makes great advertising.

And aren't sports such great metaphors for startups and life in general?

Music Review: Storm by Jose Gonzalez

2008-11-07T22:54:00.001-08:00

Over the last several weeks, Krista and I have become die hard Friday Night Lights fans. On more than a couple nights, we've stayed up pretty late (even for us) watching several episodes of the show at once, courtesy of netflix, netflix watch instantly, or hulu.

Over the last few episodes, one particular song has struck me as incredibly compelling like songs do every now and again. Eventually, I was able to locate it, and using Lala, I can now embed it in this blog post so everyone can check it out (pretty awesome service, btw. I love that the music industry just gave the rights to this company in an attempt to create a competitor for itunes :) ).

Anyways, check it out and let me know what you think. For those of you (BOLDENS) that like Bon Iver, I think you'll be impressed.

As for Krisa and I, we're off on the redeye tonight for the Packers/Vikings rivalry weekend in Minnesota, courtesy of my buddy Tim Murphy. It's going to be awesome.

Do the Bartman + History is Made

2008-11-05T00:49:00.000-08:00

Randomly, after sending out some emails to finish off the day, I had a memory of one of my favorite songs back in the day: "Do the Bartman".

So I searched for it on YouTube and here it is.

STILL so catchy. MJ at his (near) best.

In other news, America has officially elected an african-american president. It's a proud day for our great country, as Obama himself noted in his victory speech:

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."

Pretty cool.

On Beyond Zebra

2008-11-02T22:38:00.000-08:00

Over the course of MBA, Krista and I began to attend church more and more regularly at a progressive presbyterian ministry called "The Cafe", operated by Menlo Park Presbyterian Church.

I'll hold off on the full background (I was raised Catholic by schooling, sort of was in religious denial for a few years, but then found myself drawn back to the ritual of sunday church when krista began wanting to go, along with many of our good friends from school forming a community around the event), but today's sermon centered around a Dr. Seuss book that I loved.

I have come to respect religion's ability to convey meaning and teach lessons to people in such an effective manner--always through stories such as Dr. Seuss. My thoughts, as always, come back to how this can apply in my career as an entrepreneur, as a leader of a team of individuals.

The lesson about pushing beyond one's comfort zone, as shown by "On Beyond Zebra", is one that I love, especially in its ability to inspire people to WANT to push and learn more. I tend to take a fairly workmanlike approach to this--constantly seeking to improve in little ways, with little inspiration behind it--but I realize that I would probably be better served focusing more on inspiration and emotion.

Anyways, here are the words from the book:

Said Conrad Cornelius o’Donald o’Dell,
My very young friend who is learning to spell:
“The A is for Ape. And B is for Bear.
The C is for Camel. The H is for Hare
The M is for Mouse. And the R is for Rat.”
“I know all the twenty-six letters like that…
… Through to Z is for Zebra. I know them all well.”
Said Conrad Cornelius o’Donald o’Dell.
“So now I know everything anyone knows.
From beginning to end. From the start to the close.
Because Z is as far as the alphabet goes.”

Then he almost fell flat on his face on the floor
When I picked up the chalk and drew one letter more!
A letter he never had dreamed of before!
And I said, “You can stop, if you want, with the Z.
Because most people stop with the Z.
But not me!!!
In the places I go, there are things that I see
That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.
I’m telling you this ‘cause you’re one of my friends.
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!”

“My alphabet starts with this letter called YUZZ.
It’s the letter I use to spell YUZZ-a-ma-TUZZ.
You’ll be sort of surprised what there is to be found
Once you go beyond Z and start poking around!
So, on beyond Zebra!
Explore!
Like Columbus!
Discover new letters!
Like WUM is for Wumbus,
My high-spouting whale who lives high on a hill
And who never comes down ‘till it’s time to refill.
So, on beyond Z! It’s high time you were shown
That you really don’t know all there is to be known.”

“Then just step a step further past Wum is for Wumbus
And there you’ll find UM. And the Um is for Umbus
A sort of Cow, with one head and one tail,
But to milk this great cow you need more than one pail!
She has ninety-eight teats that give milk quite nicely.
Perhaps ninety-nine. I forget just precisely.
And, boy! She is something most people don’t see.
Because most people stop at the Z
But not me!”

“If you stay home with Zebra,
You’re stuck in a rut.
But on beyond Zebra,
You’re anything but!
When you go beyond Zebra,
Who knows…?
There’s no telling
What wonderful things
You might find yourself spelling!”

“Like QUAN is for Quandary, who lives on a shelf
In a hole in the ocean alone by himself
And he worries, each day, from the dawn’s early light
And he worries, just worries, far into the night.
He just stands there and worries. He simply can’t stop…
Is his top-side his bottom? Or bottom-side his top?”
So you see!
There’s no end
To the things you might know,
Depending how far beyond Zebra you go!

The places I took him!
I tried hard to tell
Young Conrad Cornelius o’Donald o’Dell
A few brand-new wonderful words he might spell.
I led him around and I tried hard to show
There are things beyond Z that most people don’t know.
I took him past Zebra. As far as I could.
And I think, perhaps, maybe I did him some good…

Because, finally, he said:
“This is really great stuff!
And I guess the old alphabet
ISN”T enough!”
NOW the letters he uses are something to see!
Most people stop at the Z…
But not HE!

By: Dr. Seuss

Also checkout "Seussville" for some more waste-time-online-fun:

this is amazing--tay zonday "chocolate rain" 8-bit covers

2008-10-27T22:57:00.000-07:00

i'm in awe of creativity such as this.

Proof of Internet Addiction: Bloons Tower Defense 3

2008-10-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

I can admit it: I'm addicted to the internet.

I spend probably my entire day on my macbook pro, alternating between emails, to reading blogs (mostly techcrunch, but others as well), to working with our ad platform, to doing our accounting via quickbooks online, to setting up google docs to do analysis.

Even at home now, Krista and I spend a lot of our time online. I can recall a year ago when we were both laying in bed, side by side, about ready to go to bed, with our laptops open, sending email and reading.

In the same way that couples sit in bed reading, we were sitting in bed surfing the web.

I often get to the point where I literally have NOTHING more I can do online at night--I've checked every email, I've read every post (mostly tech and football), I've updated all the documents, and I have nothing to do. And yet I will still search for more to do rather than go to bed. That's the definition of addiction

And now I've gone to casual games to help feed the beast. As part of research for work (looking at potential business partners), I started playing games on Kongregate and quickly became interested in Bloons Tower Defense 3.

It's highly addictive, and I should really stop. Please help!

*Note: I don't really want to stop my internet addiction, which is a lot of the problem. I do want to stop my casual games mini-obsession (not yet a full-blown addiction).

Legend of Zelda The Movie: Awesome

2008-10-23T20:24:00.001-07:00

I can't wait to see this, even though I'm sure they will murder it:

Was that Ganon in the obviously fake green costume? Maybe I'll go as Ganon for Halloween. Or Link. Or Princess Zelda?

A Trip Down BK's Memory Lane Episode 1: Henry Darger and Outsider Art

2008-10-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

I was thinking the other day about my pathetic two posts in October (the number, not the quality of the posts, which are very high of course) and decided that I should include some more memories from my past. I think that these types of posts about random memories that stand out for me but are probably unknown to many of my closest friends would be fun to put up.

The first comes from my time doing my Fulbright Research in Madrid. For the first two months, I felt constantly guilty because I had never worked in such an open ended role before. I had no teacher, professor, or boss to tell me what to do. And I struggled greatly with that much autonomy.

"What SHOULD I do today?" I would ask myself. But I never had the "right" answer.

In an effort to feel fully productive, I occupied my time researching interesting things online related mostly to digital music, various artists, writing, and art. I read and listened to a TON of NPR. And I used Skype--which had literally just been released--to talk for hours upon end, at the end of the day and beginning of the day, with Krista and my family. I was ruthlessly homesick.

One NPR article talked about an "outsider artist" named Henry Darger whose art and life had been highlighted in an outsider art museum in Chicago. Below is a picture of Henry, and his art is sprinkled throughout this post.

I was fascinated by the idea of outsider art. As defined by wikipedia:

The English term "Outsider Art" is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or Naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as Outsider Artists have little or no contact with the institutions of the mainstream art world; in many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Much Outsider Art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.

The idea of existing outside the mainstream, but creating great works of art, is an incredibly romantic concept that I loved (and still do).

On top of hundreds of fantastical watercolors depicting transgender fairies battling evil spirits, Darger wrote a 15,145 page novel depicting that same fantasy world.

Just pause for a moment and reflect on a 15,145 page book. The man spent his ENTIRE solitary life (aside from his day job as a janitor) writing the book.

15,145 pages; no recognition, no celebration, no money. Just art for the sake of art.

Here's a trailer for the documentary, which I just discovered and ordered on netflix as a result of this post:

Here's a link to Outsider Art in Wikipedia, Henry Darger's entry in Wikipedia, and the original NPR post.

amazing hand dexterity + daft punk = awesome

2008-10-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

I was just browsing through Yahoo Video's list of Memes from 2007 (looking first at a revisitation of Turtle Zombie Boy, which I think might be my halloween costume this year) and happened upon the Daft Punk Fingers guy. If you haven't seen this video before, check it out below. Some people are incredibly creative, and this guy definitely is one of them. How on earth did he think of this?

Also, here's the zombie turtle boy too. It's become a huge viral video success:

Jonathan reminds me a lot of my friend Dave Haase, for some reason.

Behind the scenes from Lambeau

2008-10-14T16:41:00.001-07:00

I was just looking at a few videos by fans at packers game, which showed some great packers footage. IN particular, a lot of soulja boy dances by donald driver, the kickoff team, and jarrett (Sp?) bush. Check out this great clip of DD. I could browse for things like this pretty much all day.

The Egyptian Magician

2008-09-26T01:00:00.001-07:00

I was reminiscing on the old school days of real prank phone calls, before caller id ruined the possibility of a prank phone call, and after some searching found a site where I could listen to the Jerky Boys on mp3 (http://beemp3.com/).

I checked out a few of the classics, including "you kicked my dog", which my buddy brad always loved, but I think my favorite by far is the one re-enacted in this wonderful, high-production YouTube video:

"And then I...light...people on fire....but it's safe." LOL.

Yoga Bonito, or my 1st day of Yoga

2008-09-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

I went to a yoga session today at 24 Hour Fitness with Tracy and Jeff, two friends from work. It started off a little rough, as I got into the class just as it began, and after 2 minutes of downward dog, was informed by a neighbor that I "took someone else's mat". So I switched mats with that poor, five-foot tall female neighbor, and found myself on a two foot long mat. That meant I could keep my feet or my hands on my mat, but not both. Here's a quick photo someone snapped of me in class:

And here's the rest of the class:

LOL. what a great idea for a video--1.5million views! As someone commented, these ladies don't look quite as adept as the ladies in my class, who definitely put my flexibility to shame in a hurry.

Back to reality: it was a pretty big workout, with my legs still sore even now. My left knee, which was operated on a while back, felt sore in a good way afterwords. And I am sure that continuing to do yoga will help my balance.

I just tried to see if www.yogabonito.com was available, playing off of the "joga bonito" marketing campaign/phrase common in Brazil. And lo and behold:

http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=yogabonito.com&prog_id=godaddy

Nike, Inc. owns it. Smart buy :) I was going to buy it and give it to my friend Catherine, yoga master extraordinaire, for her website, but no such luck.

It's official, I'm famous (thanks Nike!)

2008-09-22T22:03:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back Krista and I ran a 10k with my buddy Joe, his wife Catherine (affectionately known as crazy chicken; checkout her awesome new blog HERE), their puppy Jersey, and my other friend Tim. The race was part of the Nike Human Race happening all across the world. Ours was a small affair--30 or so people, all part of the Nike account team at Avenue A Razorfish or Microsoft--being in an unofficial city in Seattle.

Today Joe emailed me the picture below, which recaps the race. And guess who is on the cover?

Here's a transcript of our email exchange:

Joe: We just put together a recap book of the Human Race. Guess who’s on the cover looking scary.

Brett: dude, that is creepy. why my photo? random....

Joe: No idea. I couldn’t stop laughing though

Brett: i think it's because i'm really good looking even though i just ran a race. and my jay-z bracelet is pretty baller. lol. i want a copy!

Joe: I actually read it more as a good will booklet. Sort of how Nike takes kids from the Midwest and shows them better ways to maintain their health. “See this out of shape, confused, sorry looking 17 year old? We are getting him outside to breath the fresh air!”

LOL. Funny stuff. I am convinced Joe is still jealous of my wholesome, Midwestern upbringing. And do I really only look 17? I swear I look at least 20 there.

Dim Sum Sunday

2008-09-21T22:15:00.000-07:00

Krista and I went to Dim Sum at 11 am this morning at the invitation of Hunter Walk, a friend who shares my Deloitte and Stanford GSB background (as well as career in tech thereafter). It was a great crowd of interesting people.

Here's an intro to them, taken from Hunter's camera, spun around the center of the table (what is that called, anyways?):

In order, Hunter, Krista, me, Rebecca, Ethan, Sean, Olivia, and Caroline. I watched it earlier with some music in the background by accident, and I realized it was the perfect sitcom opening clip. After trying 10 or so songs, my favorite song was "Go" by Common, but I'm open to other songs that might work better.

I almost forgot to mention the highlight of the day

2008-09-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

Today I managed to combine two things I love dearly into one, leading to possibly one of the best experiences of my life.

Since we moved to our new apartment, I was forced to give up DirecTV for Comcast. This is unfortunate not only because DirecTV's navigation UI is far, far, far superior to Comcast's but because I was forced to give up NFL Sunday Ticket. The implications were severe--no Packers games on Sundays. GASP. Horrible.

But I have been able to find some resources to watch the games online, on my computer (not even using slingbox). While the quality isn't great, it's good enough to enjoy.

Right after halftime, I went to take a shower and had the brilliant idea of putting my laptop on the sink, aimed towards the shower, with the volume all the way up, so I could actually WATCH THE PACKERS WHILE SHOWERING. Pure bliss. What a great way to end a weekend.

Next up: in-shower tv!

Spend less time rapping, more time on security

2008-09-14T21:58:00.001-07:00

Apparently the same CERN crew that released that ultra-geeky, but ultra-catchy rap song I wrote about in a previous post was hacked recently by a group of friendly hackers out to expose the project's lack of security.

Aside from the rumors that this project could create random black holes around the globe, it cost $6bn. I'd hope that they'd spend at least $1m or so on high grade security measures for their computer systems. Maybe now they will, after this friendly hack.

PS, how cool is this picture? It'd be awesome to visit the site.

A Chicken and a Naked Cowboy

2008-09-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

Krista and I have been looking for a wedding photographer lately, and just today we stumbled upon a few magical examples of an engagement photo shoot. The husband-and-wife-to-be dressed up in a chicken suit (the husband) and dressed down to no clothes and a cowboy hat (the wife). Here's the top photo from it, and the link for more if you're curious (I know you are) is HERE.

I actually admire her audaciousness in putting that out there; krista was less impressed :)

Just to cheer you up a little

2008-09-10T22:58:00.000-07:00

Check out this video I found while searching "Sleeping Kiwi" on youtube, looking for this legendary and mythical sleeping kiwi that my friend Luke Baxter (from New Zealand himself!) told me used to tuck every new zealander into bed back in the days when there was one TV station. I think that was about 10 years ago, right Luke?

And here's the actual goodnight kiwi:

Education CAN be rapped, and I'll prove it to you

2008-09-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

I just saw this article on my rss reader from Wired entitled: Top Ten Amazing Physics Videos, and I opened it. I immediately scrolled to the bottom, to number 1, and watched it with Krista. I did this with some trepidation given the title, recalling a rap my father did for his company in the early 90's, which was pretty hilarious. I think he has a picture of the event on his study wall, actually, but I'll have to ask him to dig out the video sometime and get it posted on the blog.

Check out the #1 video below--there are some hilarious parts to the video itself as well as the lyrics:

The CERN rap video is AMAZING. The song itself is pretty well written and the production quality is high. The song reminds me a bit of C&C Music Factory's "Things That Make You Go HMM", track 2 on one of my first CDs ever (I think Teenage Ninja Turtles was my first, with Vanilla Ice rapping "Go Ninja Go Ninja Go!"). And then there's the "Yeah...whooo!" sounds, which as we all know, come straight from Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock's all-time classic "It Takes Two):

The video is also very powerful as an educational tool. Krista is right now reading details about the Hadron Project and all sorts of random details "when the two beams of protons collide, they will generate temperatures more than 100x hotter than the heart of the sun, concentrated at a miniscule space." LOL.

"It's so cool" says Krista. "Did you tell them that some people think it will bring on the end of the world? I think that's ridiculous. One guy thinks that it is creating mini-black holes that will swallow up the earth".

It's a pretty cool way to stir up curiosity in your life's passion, that's for sure.

Ottomans are NOT just for feet

2008-08-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

As you embark upon the journey that is living with your significant other, you tend to learn certain things that you never imagined you would ever know. What I'm about to do is share one of this amazing secrets with the entire interwebs.

A great example of this is learning that ottomans are not just for putting your feet on, they are ALSO used as a coffee table, especially now. Apparently it is now "en vogue" to have an ottoman that doubles as a coffee table. How does that work, you might naturally ask, given that most ottomans are made of cloth or leather and therefore don't have hard surfaces to put glasses and other items on in a stable manner?

Apparently the answer is a tray of some sort. For example:

For more information on this trend that's sweeping the nation, Check it out HERE.

More Thoughts on Girl Talk

2008-08-26T00:53:00.000-07:00

After thinking through what Girl Talk is doing, I realized even more that he IS resurrecting the block party that made hip hop famous. In its beginning, emceeing and deeyjaying (two of the four pillars of hip hop, with tagging (graffiti), relied on scratching records from popular artists so that the crowds could dance to them. In setting up the sound, people would simply run a line to a power line in lieu of paying for the power because that was what they had to do.

It also had the benefit of allowing the DJ to feel the crowd and change songs as necessary. At that time, it was probably every minute or so. But in today's "Instant Gratification" culture, Girl Talk has made it mere seconds, but essentially remashed the entire concert/block party experience, as you could see from the videos I posted. Pretty amazing--I thought that DJ DangerMouse's Grey Album was going to be the major rallying point for consumers and artists against the record labels. But now I think it might be girl talk (old school girl talk image below).

He'll be sued at some point, and at that point, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

What's this called, anyways, micro-deejaying?

Girl Talk, or Music for Those With Limited Attention Spans

2008-08-25T22:21:00.001-07:00

Over the last month or so, I was introduced to a Mashup DJ named Girl Talk by two peeps at work, Matt and Jeff.

Matt played a cd one day at a party, and I thought the music was pretty cool. Over the last month, Jeff has played Girl Talk on and off while we're all hard at work.

The music is awesome, in particular for a party (I'm sure he must be INCREDIBLE live, playing pop songs as he does),

but it is also fairly intense to have in the background as you work, as you can tell if you listen to an album for a few minutes. After about 3 hours of continuous girl talk (Jeff claims it was half a cd, but it's hard to believe him), Evan finally put his head in his hands, exasperated, and said: "Jeff, please, can we switch the music?".

We all laughed, and Jeff switched the song...to the next girl talk song. After about 10 seconds, Evan, by now pretty much mentally exhausted from the strain of intense concentration at work with the neuron-pounding girl talk beats, exclaimed: "Jeff...this is the SAME exact music. PLEASE change it."

It was pretty hilarious. Needless to say, not much girl talk has been played since then, although I've been listening to it today on the BART home from work and it's already given me a headache. I think I'll have to save it exclusively for parties, running, and driving around. It definitely will drive Krista nuts.

The pics above are from his albums, btw. Pretty awesome, especially the lawn on fire one--great symbolism.

EDIT: i just checked out some youtube videos, and it's no wonder that this guy is killing it. He's everything music used to stand for before it became a big business. Checkout this concert video at UW-Madison, where the front row is literally 1 foot away from the protaganist, and after a few minutes, just hops up on stage:

Then checkout the beginning of this entire concert at Chicago, where sparklers on a PC are lit and passed out to the crowd. On top of pirating every song ever popular, this guy has a few other major liabilities he's creating. But he just doesn't care. And that makes his fan care more. Isn't this what the old school block party was all about?

2nd EDIT:
here's girl talk talking through a song he wrote. He makes it look pretty simple, but I've tried to learn that before, and what he does quickly takes the untrained ear a lot longer to get right:

Moving ain't easy

2008-08-20T12:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Krista and I had a great time celebrating my buddy Mike McGoohan's wedding in Breckenridge. Unluckily, it hailed and rained all weekend, including a 3 hour hike we went on with old friends the Brackens, Andrews, Jensens, and Mr. Paul Berens.

Breckenridge was awesome; a great little town with lots of great bars, restaurants, and a crepe stand that took 1.5 hours to get a crepe (after a 3 hour raining hike!). It was incredibly fun to reconnect with old friends, see my buddy Mike grow up before my eyes, and get out of the bay for a little while.

We got back Sunday at 2:30 pm, went immediately to the Uhaul to pickup a truck, went home and packed until 9:30 pm, then moved all our big furniture to our new apartment in Burlingame with the help of our good friend Stephen Houghton (millions of thank yous would not be enough).

Monday my friend Jonnie arrived, and so I'm now juggling a move, a visiting friend, and a startup all at once...pretty nutty. But this is what makes life fun, right? Off to a meeting...

and the real olympic clip

2008-08-13T02:11:00.001-07:00

I found the linke HERE--or at least the last 2 laps.

I got the chills watching it. What a storybook moment of achievement.

Clever Clever Clever Serendipity

2008-08-13T02:04:00.000-07:00

I did a search for "400 meter relay olympics 2008 video" on google to try to find a video of the historic race that I missed the other day. I was psyched to see a video popup in google search with what appeared to be the exact result. Surprising, given I still haven't seen the opening ceremonies because they have been taken down everywhere, even the Chinese sites that are basically only pirated content (but not if it has to do with China!).

Here's the video:

It's actually pretty clever, given that he's gotten nearly 30k views on his video. And I actually thought the video itself was pretty amusing, with good lyrics and funny scenes. Serendipity at its best. So much so, I had to blog about it.

xootr race and being spit on: such a good way to start the day

2008-08-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

This morning as I disembarked the caltrain and unfolded my xootr at the corner, I noticed a fellow xootr commuter next to me, eyeing me. He quickly took off, and I followed on his tail for several blocks, swerving around innocent pedestrians, jumping cars (mostly smart cars) and curbs, and generally causing disruption on sidewalks as we exerted our scooter masculinity. Basically, it looked like the video below:

Then, as I was passing under the highway in a narrow, walled passage, finally having passed my rival, a passing homeless man leaned towards me, yelled something unintelligible, and spit on me. Now it was more a light spray than a glob of saliva, but regardless, today I was spit on by a homeless man (he very clearly was not entirely in his right mind, so I don't take it personal). It was pretty gross, but I didn't have time even to wipe it off (it hit my face right by my eye and my neck, again, lightly) for a few blocks as I put distance between me and my rival. Eventually, I slowed, but by that time my speed seemed to have evaporated the saliva on my cheek.

Not the best way to start a day, eh? But a great blog post, at least. :)

I've been practicing guitar hero a lot recently

2008-08-10T21:59:00.000-07:00

And so I thought I'd share a quick video I took this last weekend with Krista gone of a tough level I beat. It was an average session for me, check it out:

I mean, really? Absurd. My new goal in life is to get as good at a single thing as this guy is at Guitar Hero. He's the Michael Jordan of Guitar Hero, no doubt.

Also, a technical question: how is he hitting the "strings" on the right if he brings his right hand to the fretboard on the left? Or do you not have to if you just hit the fret button?

Crazy.

Best Song I've Heard in a LONG time

2008-08-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

Some songs and bands just inspire you when you hear them for the first time. It's always a treat when it happens. Some past examples from my life have been Bloc Party, Kings of Leon, Tupac, Timbaland, The Stars, and Radiohead. But today I was introduced to a lifechanging song via my friend Kamo.

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i91/aodforhire/1151543979.swf

If this isn't the most catchy song I've ever heard, I don't know what is. And the animation is great. I just listen to it over and over again. Amazing.

Top 5 reasons I love the Xootr

2008-08-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

I recently ordered a zootr, which is basically a razr scooter on steroids. Here's a photo of it:

To date, it's just been an office toy for people to mess around with because I wasn't around last week, I drove up to work Monday, and I had meetings in Palo Alto on Tuesday. But today, I rode feverishly to the Palo Alto Caltrain on it, getting there in 10 minutes (it's 1.6 miles per googlemaps), although I was sweating profusely and had very tired legs afterwards. Here's the route:

View Larger Map

I also used it to ride to the Social Security office today during lunchtime, which was more hazardous due to people, but still awesome given that I could really cruise when I was on smooth pavement on a slight downhill. And I just rode it in exactly 10 minutes to the Caltrain in San Francisco from our Office on Mission. Here's that route:

View Larger Map

It's worth the $200 just for those 20 minutes a day it's saving me over the next half month, and will be even better when I'm alternating between the BART and Caltrain every day as I commute from Burlingame. Plus it's a fun office toy, which can never be discounted in a startup. Okay, so that wasn't a list of 5 reasons, but I wanted to get good SEO on the post :)

Next (Housing) Stop: Burlingame

2008-07-20T23:09:00.000-07:00

Krista and I toured apartments and homes in Burlingame over the last couple of days, and finally found a particularly attractive apartment only a few minutes from Burlingame Ave (and Quickly, my new favorite spot, which serves tea/slush/tea+milk (as well as fresh yogurt with toppings) for cheap. I had originally ordered the unsweetened green tea with large tapioca pearls, which was about $1, but last time ordered the lychee slush + small tapioca pearls for $2.50 and found it to be much better. It might be a starbucks substitute. And with so many varieties, it will be quite a while until I've tried everything.

Because we've moved offices to San Francisco, I've graduated, and our lease ends at the end of August, Krista and I made the decision to move in between our two places of work. The logical answer is Burlingame, which has a lot of the same features of Palo Alto (cool downtown with restaurants, shops; nice Peninsula weather; and easy access to outdoors), but is much closer to the city. In particular, the 2 BR, 1 BA apartment we're looking at is a 5 minute walk to the Caltrain, and a 5 minute drive to the Millbrae BART station. I think that the best plan will be for me to walk to the Caltrain station to take it in the mornings, then to BART back to Millbrae and have Krista pick me up at night. Doing this will save me between 60-75 minutes every day from my current 120-150 minute commute. And probably some money on the Caltrain portion of the commute as well.

It will help. I found last week that I was getting worn out by the commute, in that I had no downtime whatsoever; every moment was spent working, commuting, hanging out with Krista, or at events with friends. It also created a strong divide between the city (work only) and Palo Alto (Krista only). I think Burlingame will help bridge that gap for us, and we're also going to try to do a couple events per week in the city in order to get Krista up to that part of my life more effectively (as we did on Saturday, going to dinner with friends from 750 and friends from our sister company upstairs). It's going to be a fun new chapter for us.

That's all for now. The weekend was relaxing but full of accomplishment with regards to our housing plan for next year. Our place won't be as big, unique, or outdoors as our current house on Seale Ave, but it will be a great home for us for the next year or two. And, we'll be saving some money relative to our current rent too! I've realized just how great it is to have such a low expense footprint between the two of us. We have lots of flexibility in how we live our lives, and for that I'm very grateful.

Back on the blogging track!

Gran Finis

2008-06-24T22:34:00.000-07:00

It's all over. I'm officially graduated from Stanford's MBA program. It's been a crazy, full, fast, amazing, stressful two years that I wouldn't trade for the world.

It's interesting to think back to when we first got out here. The emotional rollercoaster went a little like this:

1. Joy - At getting into school after working so hard
2. Worry/Stress - At deciding where to go (Krista remembers this time not so fondly, I am sure :) )
3. Excitement - At the promise of a new place, a cross-country adventure, a new home, new friends...
4. Insecurity - At being at a school with so many talented, driven people. At trying to find out what I really wanted to do, and how to best do it
5. Focus - At working all free hours to get to where I wanted to get, but also to try to enjoy the MBA life with friends and Krista as much as possible
6. Uncertainty - At working last summer with Rob, unpaid, on our own thing and learning
7. Excitement (II) - At having our company start to take off
8. Stress - At working full time while full time at school
9. Sorrow/Relief - At school ending, friends departing one-by-one, and having more time to sleep after doing a full-full day of work in San Francisco
10. Joy - At proposing to Krista and having her say Yes!
11. Repeat Stress/Excitement as normal part of being in a startup

What a crazy couple of years. Definitely 10 years worth of living in them. I think I lived them well, and thank everyone who joined me in the journey along the way.

awesome article on how to leverage technology to its fullest

2008-06-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

I read a great article about teenagers using Google Earth to find neighborhood pools to crash for pool parties. The linke is .http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

How cool is this? Leave it to teenagers to find an innovative use for a great technology such as Google Earth. Human creativity never ceases to amaze me :)

NYC

2008-06-02T05:37:00.000-07:00

I'm hanging out in NYC today, having spent my Sunday traveling from the Bay to Hoboken via JFK. In a few minutes I'll be heading over to the IAB User-Generated Content & Social Media conference, where I'll be part of a panel entitled "App-Vertising".

Should be fun--I'll try to post a followup after the panel, although the day will be a pretty hectic one!

http://www.iab.net/events_training/ugc2008/agenda

Followup to Bday Post

2008-06-02T05:34:00.000-07:00

As a followup to my birthday post, I'd like to point out that I erroneously neglected to include the great cards and phone calls I got from my family. It was simply case of me taking their kind thoughts for granted, nothing more, nothing less. I had expected those types of things from my family (they HAVE to like me, right?), whereas I had not expected the surprise party at all.

The same goes for my many other friends who texted or called or Facebook messaged me--thanks!

But apologies all the same--and much love to Heather, Jessie, Mom & Dad for the cards, calls, and presents!

a full, tiring, busy, stressful, happy birthday

2008-05-28T01:20:00.000-07:00

Today was my birthday--my "champagne" or golden birthday, as I turned 27 on May 27th.

The day started at 12:05 last night with a call from Krista, who had been up working on her presentation for her ABA conference in Chicago. She sang happy birthday to me, as she always does, and then we talked into the night like we used to in college. It reminded me of the speech I gave at the SERCIAC conference years back, presenting my Fulbright research. That night, Krista stayed up until very late helping me hone my presentation. I tried to do the same, but she was too prepared for that :).

After doing a few hours of work, I finally got to bed around 2:30 am. When I woke up at 7 am, I was so tired that I had a very difficult choice between skipping my 8 am class and getting extra sleep and getting up and going to class. I chose the latter, heading to class where I did my normal work, then went home to get some lunch, do some more work, then head back to my moral and spiritual inquiry class, where we discussed Camus' The Stranger, whether life has meaning, and what spirituality truly means in our lives.

After class, I headed home despite protests from my friend Dave Haase that I should go to dinner with he and his wife Ashley to celebrate. Too busy, I said, but as I headed home and reflected on microwaving a chicken poblano lean cuisine, eating alone, and then doing more work while I waited to leave to pickup Krista at the airport, I decided that it would be pretty sad indeed to have dinner on my birthday alone. So I texted Dave to see if he still wanted to get dinner, and 30 minutes later Ashley, Dave, Tim Murphy and I were enjoying comfort food at the Peninsula Creamery. Ashley and I both could use the comfort, as we had both had long, tiring, depressing days.

After, I did some work, then left to pickup Krista at the airport. We drove home, and as I opened the door--which was already unlocked, to my surprise--a mass of humanity leaped out of the darkness, screaming at me.

Screaming "Happy Birthday". It was a surprise. I nearly jumped back through the screen door and screamed myself. I was completely surprised. All my closest friends were there, at 11 at night, hiding in the dark as part of Krista's master plan.

It was quite an honor, and quite a way to turn a day around. Everyone was wearing polo shirts and hoodies, and a few (Gambrel and Murphy) even went so far as to try to style fohawks for themselves. And Gambrel even had a trendy belt and a pair of cool vans on (a good look).

(To Be Added Later)

Krista got me a birthday cinnabon, in honor of my recent cinnamon bun craving (nicole and jason will appreciate this greatly, I know). And we sat and chatted, drank some nice new zealand wine, listened to the mix cd that my local new zealand beatmaster friend Luke made for me (featuring Jay-z and Mary J. Blige), and enjoyed the deep friendships the last two years had brought each of us.

Quite a way to finish out, indeed.

Shoutouts to Luke, Scott, Bolden, Gambrel, Tim, Houghton, Harris, Jane, Ethan, Ashley, Chandler, Annie, DKing, JKing, Keith, and all the others who I know would've been there if they could've.

And thanks to everyone for the calls and text messages, emails and facebook posts.

And the biggest shoutout to the best girl out there, of course: Krista. You GOT me!

this video is hysterical...and so true

2008-05-22T18:15:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable. So True. I loved the "You can Hug people with Hug Me" comment by Facebook near the end...

amazing street art

2008-05-16T00:31:00.000-07:00

this is so cool...it must have taken forever to complete. a form of extreme artistry by someone who obviously takes pride in his or her work:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

The Last Quarter

2008-04-07T10:17:00.004-07:00

My last quarter at Stanford has begun. It may very well be the last formalized schooling I ever pursue, which is sort of odd to consider given that the vast majority of my life to date has been occupied by school.

Stanford has been a great place for me to learn and grow. I've built a ton of great relationships with people of all types and interests. I've loved how Stanford lets everyone pursue their individual passions without imposing too much bureaucracy (it has it, but every large institution has to have some sort of bureaucracy, I recognize). I've grown far more than I probably ever expected, even though I expected to grow and be challenged a lot.

Now, as we look to grow our startup, I'm challenging myself more and more every day and just trying to learn as fast as I can while avoiding fatal mistakes. It's made me better, although I have to admit that it can be stressful (what period of rapid growth isn't?) I'm trying my best to simultaneously enjoy the experience that I came out to the valley to get, but it's a learning experience like any of the tactical skills I am gaining along the way.

I've struggled a bit to share this experience through the blog and as a result have mostly stopped blogging, but I'm going to try to figure out just how I might actually integrate this experience into my blogging. If nothing else, I'd like to start blogging more about personal things to cover the gap, but because I spend so much time on the startup, it ends up being most of the "content" of my life and thus it is hard to write about much else.

Like I said, it's all a learning experience, and I'm trying to just take it one step at a time. I appreciate all the help and support I've had from friends and family along the way!

Cabo Revisited, Blogging Revived

2008-03-29T23:23:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday to Sunday I spent with Krista and a group of our friends in Cabo. I have much more to say about the trip and getting back on the blogging horse, but I'm testing some video uploading with Vimeo (private!) to see how it works for now.

Pacificaaaaaaaaa from Brett Keintz on Vimeo.

New gear

2008-03-04T01:14:00.000-08:00

I needed a new computer. The loaner laptop I kindly donated to me by my friend Adam had begun to have problems. The screen would shutoff randomly throughout the day, sometimes as frequently as every five minutes. I had been waiting for an upgrade to the MBP, and I finally got it.

There was only one problem.

The stores only stock one model--the high-end, 2.6Ghz model--with the 7200rpm hard drive I wanted, so I either had to order online for a custom configuration or wait for delivery. Neither was very appealing, although I spend some time thinking through it (Rob will say far too long. And he's probabl right). When I finally did steel myself to buy the most expensive model, I went to purchase the same exact box of the desired Macbook Pro that an associate had shown me the day before only to find that it had been sold. I was told that there was one at the Stanford Mall, but didn't go until the next day. Sold. It doesn't happen to me often, but the feeling as a consumer when you are denied purchasing something you really want is something to be avoided at all costs.

Today Tim Murphy and I went to checkout both stores only to find they still didn't have them in stock and "didn't think they had ever been in stock." (Get your story straight, apple!) He then had the associate call to San Francisco to see if they were in stock, and sure enough they were. Only one problem: in order to get it with the student discount, I had to go up there to buy it.

So I proposed the idea to Krista and she said sure. We drove up quickly, ran in the store, and then I was told by my "personal shopper" that they hadn't received any 2.6Ghz Macbook Pros yet. I nearly lost control, but instead calmly asked him to just check to humor me. He returned a few minutes later with the reserved Macbook Pro in hand and an apology for "scaring me".

In the end, I got my computer. But how much power does Steve Jobs have over his consumer base when he can get someone like myself to spend hours driving around trying to find the right computer, getting denied the option to purchase at every step, and yet STILL sell the highest margin item they sell?

Either they're crazy or I'm crazy, but either way, Apple is going strong.

pretty cool and ambitious endeavor

2008-02-07T00:15:00.001-08:00

Checkout this "top 50 songs of 2007 list":

http://udrivel.blogspot.com/2008/01/top-50-songs-of-2007.html

hmm. I'd love to do something like that, but I recognize I will never, ever get it done. Too bad. Linking to it will hopefully suffice....

Let it Snow and Snow and Snow!

2008-02-06T23:20:00.000-08:00

My dad told me last night that they were going to get 7-9 inches of snow last night, and sure enough, they did. Today, dad emailed me this photo:

In the email, he wrote:

Good evening folks,
We had a tremendous amount of snow today. When I went outside this evening, I was able to snap a few pictures of a snow angel. Enjoy.
DAD

Cute, no? I think this is his subtle way of flattering mom. Luckily I am a master of subtlety ;)

On a separate note, I've been loving this band called "Spoon". Checkout "The Way We Get By" on my Hype Machine player to the right.

Keepon dancing!

2008-02-01T01:37:00.000-08:00

This is one of the coolest, funniest, greatest videos I have ever seen. This little robot is incredible--what great insight to make it soft and therefore loveable rather than metallic and inhuman?

My favorite part is when he follows the guy who reaches for something in the vending machine. Keepon actually looks pretty curious...I want one of these for christmas next year!

Another great video....

A really cool one of how he can attend (Krista--get one for 'research')

And finally, some information on the beatbots, as they're called (great name!).

http://beatbots.org/research/

spring blog cleaning

2008-02-01T00:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, it's not quite spring, but I spent a little time tonight rearranging, reformatting, adding, removing, and updating my blog. Some of the (really really cool) changes:

1) Everything is in lower caps now (outside of the posts). I like it that way--I've sort of stolen that concept from krista over the years.

2) Blog description is changed, inspired from some googling on the term "insomniac". I didn't really like my previous description. The background has also changed. Any thoughts on nodoze@night? It's a little cliche, I sometimes think, and was toying with "insomniac press".

3) I added my loved songs on the HypeMachine to the right--which is AWESOME. it's so easy for me to goto www.hypem.com, "heart" great songs, and now just have them pop on my blog. No wonder they get 60m uniques a month. Just click a song and it will open a new window with that song. Then hit the Play button in the lower left corner or on the main part of the screen and you will be fine.

4) I moved my twitter update front-and-center but reduced the clutter so it doesn't take up too much space. I have to use this some more--but it is hard b/c I now use Facebook status so much. I'm sure there's a way to link the two, but I haven't looked into it just yet.

Thoughts?

Another great song: Enur Feat. Natasha

2008-01-29T17:06:00.001-08:00

I thought this was by Diplo when I heard it (the claps and interludes sound very Diplo) but turns out it is by "Hatchmatik Clubabria".

Enur Ft Natasha - Calabria 2007 (Hatchmatik Clubabria Remix)

One of my favorite things is to search "Remix" in at the Hypemachine and just listen to it like a radio. I always find awesome stuff like this. There is this whole subterranean layer of compelling music that people like me, who love music but can no longer spend the same amount of time he spent in college following music, can now access thanks to hypem. And that is serious value to me...what a great site.

The best song I've heard in a long time

2008-01-29T16:15:00.000-08:00

It's a remix of a Dolly Parton song called "Jolene". The beat is extraordinary. check it out...i love the low-level strumming guitar:

Dolly Parton - Jolene (DJ Soap's BAMF Remix)

every now and again a song grabs my attention like this. Damien Rice, Bloc Party, Kings of Leon, and even Kanye are examples of artists whose songs have felt as compelling as this song does to me at the moment. I just want to keep listening to it over and over.

Since this music reminds me of Johnny Cash, I think that perhaps doing something similar with his music would be equally as compelling. maybe I'll look for some around the hypemachine(the best site on the internet, after Facebook of course). See earlier posts to read more about the Hype Machine.

Back to Earth, Back to Work

2008-01-15T22:18:00.000-08:00

Weird how much easier it is for me to blog when I'm halfway around the world.

Back at school and work and life here in Palo Alto. It's been raining a lot (which I sort of enjoy when I am inside and warm, as I am now). I received a Wii for Christmas from my family, which is AWESOME. It is SOOOOOOOOOO cool (thanks heath, jess, gregg, jim, and mom/dad (?)), and we just bought Mario Galaxy and a 2nd remote. Mario Galaxy reminds me a lot of Crash Bandicoot (which my mother loved for the old ps1). Here's a sample of what the game looks like:

In other news, I was actually in the news with Rob and Dan as an outcome of our Facebook class. It ended up alright, but it's always weird to see yourself on camera/hear yourself talk. Tracy and Rob were laughing at the short segment where I'm rubbing my eyes (it's a good "we're working hard" visual, I guess :) ).

Click here for the link.

Day 20: Goodbye Mumbai, Goodbye India

2008-01-05T05:29:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in the business center at the Marriott Renaissance, killing time before dinner, a ride to the airport in a 1970's "Ambassador" taxi, and a long flight home to Palo Alto. It is the perfect time to write my final travelblogging post on this wonderful trip.

I haven't had much access to the internet recently, and so there are far more things to say than I will be able to. But I will do the best I can in the time I have, and go from there. Here goes.

I last left off, I think, heading to the backwaters of Kerala from Periyar. Unfortunately, I didn't carry my phone with me as religiously at Periyar and then at the Casa del Faunoand so will need to upload some photos from our *real* camera (how much longer will a mobile phone camera not be *real*, I wonder?) when I return. Here are some pictures in the meantime:

A photo out the front of our houseboat, where we spent the night:

Chillin' by the Taj Pool after a relaxing massage at the Spa:

Checkout at the local supermarket in Mumbai is fairly chaotic:

India Gate:

Victoria Terminal:

Moving Krista's pet elephant in the hotel at 2 am while I use the internets:

Mumbai: Last Day in India...for now.

2008-01-04T12:29:00.001-08:00

I'd write my post now, but it is 2 am and I am sitting in the ground floor of the Marriott Renaiisance surrounded by smoke from a mechanical lift that is moving an enormous elephant statue into its display location (a beautiful Christmas tree occupied the space previously) and being attacked by rampant mosquitos.

Off to read some electric city. Tomorrow is Krista and my last day in India on this trip, and I will be sure to post a final blog post before we head out. We will be arriving into San Francisco early Sunday morning, ready for the new year.

PS: Obama, Huckabee? Who'd have thought it.

India Day 12 - Munnar & Periyar Reserve

2007-12-28T22:32:00.000-08:00

After a long internet hiatus, I'm back online courtesy of the local Taj wireless. I want to post more, and have more pictures to post, but I just want to throw up a few pictures to start and comment on my music for the trip.

Recently I've been rocking out to a lot of Kings of Leon, but my new music has focused around Damien Rice's Album named "9". The songs "Me, My Yoke, and I" and "Coconut Skins" are both my favorite at present. Check them out. Also have been rocking out to some Timbaland, some Ani DiFranco, and Bloc Party. And of course, Christmas music (when Krista's at the tables).

onto the photos.

Gary Sampling our non-Kingfisher Beer Alternatives:

A Photo of the back porch of our b&b in Munnar:

The breathtaking sunset view from our back porch in Munnar:

A dancer in a religious procession through Munnar town:

Sabeeb (our guide) trying his hand at the shooting game:

Fireworks on Christmas Eve courtesy of James and Joseph!

India Day 7: Kochi

2007-12-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the 22nd of December 2007, was a travel day for Krista and I. We awoke at around 7:30 am in our hospitality house in Jaipur (Tara Niwas), which ended up being a wonderful place to stay (notably, all taxi rides from Tara Niwas were 1/6 the prices that we paid from 5-star hotels, despite being arranged by property management in all cases). We enjoyed a nice leisurely breakfast, packed our gear up, checked out, and headed to the airport around 10:15 am for our 12:45 pm flight to Kochi. On the way, I took a photo of this photo for my safety-oriented GSB friends Ben Gambrel and Adam Burns.

We flew Kingfisher Air through Mumbai to Mangalore to Kochi (when we booked our flights, it conveniently neglected to mention the stop in Mangalore. We didn't have to get off the plane in Mangalore, and it was quick, but I still found it interesting that we weren't notified of the "stopover" when purchasing the ticket). Kingfisher served great food, had awesome service, and had personal entertainment in every seat. Owned by the "Richard Branson" of India, my only disappointment with the airline was that it did not serve its own beer on the flights (it is illegal for airlines to serve alcohol on flights in India).

We arrived around 8:30 pm and were shuttled to the Taj where we were greeted by the Smaby family and a beautiful corner room on the 7th floor. We swapped stories about our experiences thus far, then went to bed around 11 pm.

The next morning we woke up early and headed to a luxurious breakfast of lychees, omelettes, dosas, and more. I was emboldened by Gary, Nanci and Katie to eat fruit and vegetables that Krista and I had to date not eaten for fear of "delhi-belly". It was AMAZING. I think I had begun to get scurvy.

Then we headed off in the A/C Bus to see the Garden Palace (I think that's the right name, but not completely sure) which had some cool artifacts. Even more exciting was the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful grounds and just walk around outside for the first time on this trip.

And yes, there was a random statue of a dinosaur that scared Krista and Katie quite a bit.

We then proceeded to tour the shops in Fort Kochi, walked along the waterway and saw the Chinese fishing nets, and then returned home where I sat by the window on this wonderful lounge chair, drank tea, and finished "The Feast of Love" by Charles Baxter (I had finished "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy the day prior. Both are wonderful reads). The view over the waterways is spectacular, and these two hours might have been my favorite of the entire trip, as fabulous as it all has been.

For dinner, we went to Commander Sam's house to dine with him and his family (he is the owner of the tour company in Kerala that the Smaby's booked through). We spent over 5 hours chatting with their family about topics ranging from travel literature to Boston to arranged marriages to entrepreneurship to teaching. The food was amazing, and the company even better. It was truly an honor to be invited into their home for a Christmas meal (they are Syrian Christians) and learn more about the people, history and wildlife of Kerala.

I just finished watching the Green Bay Packers play the Chicago Bears (and get pummelled) via the internet--truly amazing, and truly special despite the loss. To be sitting completely around the world in Kochi, India and still be able to view the Packers game...well, it was a special and unexpected Christmas gift from Father Internet. Sort of like this picture of Krista and Katie in the lobby gingerbread house.

Clearly I've become delirious. Off to bed. More lychees and coffee in the morning, then off to see some elephants at the elephant orphanage and on to the Periyar Wildlife Reserve for a few days. I don't know how internet will work there, but I will hopefully be able to connect. Regardless, I'll be calling the family via Skype or whatever! Signing off from the 7th floor of the Taj Malabar in Kochi, India.

Kochi

2007-12-22T19:57:00.000-08:00

We've arrived safely in Kochi, and are about to tour the city with Gary, Nanci, and Katie...more to come later.

The Taj Mahal and a Followup to Krista's Agra Post

2007-12-19T23:00:00.001-08:00

I'm not going to write much, as Krista did a wonderful job writing up our recent escapades, but I wanted to post more pictures and even a video to give more of a taste to our adventures.

Also, you'll have seen from Krista's post that I did end up taking a picture of an Indian child who had been begging for candy and money from us at Fahtepur Sikri. In the end, I wanted to share what this might look like with all of you. As Krista and I both commented after I took it--part of us is glad we took it, part of us is sad.

The Taj Mahal is breathtaking. In the morning when we first arrived, it was shrouded in fog and seemed to be made of pink marble. As the sun rose, burned away the fog, and more tourists arrived, it moved to an off-white color and then to a pure white. It is impossible to really understand just how breathtaking it is until you see it firsthand. My recommendation is that everyone does at some point. It is worth it.

Next, we're off to Jaipur later today via train. It will be our first time not staying at a "5-star hotel", and I am nervous to see how our accomodations end up. Jaipur is supposed to be a little more relaxed, but still fairly hectic. Internet might become more scarce, so we will post when we can.

For Ben Gambrel: Is this OSHA compliant?

I've been trying to get a good shot of one of these "hazardous work conditions" photos--although the best one was the man I saw driving an auto-rickshaw filled with propane tanks, which were sat upon by two other men, with the driver holding one tank out the side of the auto-rickshaw with his non-driving hand.

The Taj Mahal at 8 am, enshrouded in mist:

Our Modern Hilton Trident Hotel:

Near head-on collisions are a fact of life here:

Trying to upload a video of driving to show the chaos:

Agra, city of mystery...

2007-12-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Agra - city of mystery, of enchantment, and the finest merchandise this side of... (aladdin anyone?) This is your guest blogger here - krista. Brett is currently at my side sound asleep with his glasses on. His most recent comment to me had something to do with a tightrope walker. Given that it was totally out-of-context, I have to believe that he was partially sleeping at the time.

Brett sleeping at 9:15p? I know - unheard of, but given the rate we have been going, it is hardly surprising. This morning we woke up at 4:30 and got a cab to the train station. Delhi (and much to my disappointment, Agra) is covered in a suffocating blanket of pollution (imagine the smell of sulfur on fire) at that time in the morning which makes for a really visually interesting experience but for a girl like me who is so acutely sensitive to smells - it has been an adjustment...I have been craving an oxygen tank it sit with!

Our cab took us to the New Delhi train station. It was a quiet and peaceful drive - it also gave us a chance to really appreciate the beauty of Delhi. Something about the trees and the winding streets in the morning lends a magical quality to the place. The tone of our journey abruptly changed when we entered the radius of the train station. Little roadside shops were selling breakfast food to Indian travellers and the amount of cars and bikes and autorickshaws and people in a very small road did not lend itself to getting anywhere quickly. Our driver dropped us off and bk and I did our best to walked quickly through the early rising salesmen who somehow seemed to know we were tourists :)

Once through the gate however, the chaos became more controlled. Our platform was clearly marked, the train arrived on time, and it was easy to find our assigned seats. Included in the train fare (which was very reasonable) were all sorts of goodies...many of which we did not eat or drink but it was nice to be offered! Though I am usually a very very good eater, I have not been hungry here. It appears that I have a deeply-seated fear of the food - my favorite snack thus far (and the only one I have been excited about eating) is the archer farms fruit leathers that I brought with me! Thank goodness for Target!

The train ride was 2 1/2 hours during which time we listened to music and gazed out the window at the passing countryside. There is so much beauty in India. There is also so much poverty and so few toilets. Not to be crude, but rather to paint the picture honestly... The narrow strip of land running parallel to the train tracks on either side - appeared to be something of a public toliet. I'll bet I saw at least 50-75 people relieving themselves over the course of our ride. Unicef (and I imagine many others) has a strong emphasis on improving sanitation - I now understand why.

After arriving in Agra and some hassle, we proudly purchased a ticket for a cab ride to our hotel from the pre-paid booth (thank you Rough Guide!) Our driver was a very nice man who offered to be our tour guide for the next two days. We took his card and promised to call if we decided to use his service.

After settling in at the hotel, having a nice breakfast, and taking a nap we called back the driver and took him up on what we learned was a fair offer. He drove us to Fatehpur Sikri - the former imperial capital of the great mogul emperor Akbar. Highlights included our first auto rickshaw ride, a great tour guide (arranged by our driver), and the spectacular building itself. As in many places we have visited, you have to remove your shoes before entering. We also were willingly "persuaded" by our tour guide to buy a scarf and a string from a vendor for the "good price" of 550 rs to place on the tomb of the famous priest there. The vendor assured us that the scarfs would be later donated to poor widows in the village. Neither of us believed it for a second but were happy to do it none the less.

Fatehpur Sikri

Perhaps my biggest takeaway from the day however occurred when we returned to our car and couldn't find our driver. The tour guide (whose father and grandfather were also tour guides there) went on a hunt for him. He could not find him anywhere. BK and I were left to fend off the handful of darling little children asking for anything we would give them. We ignored, we politely declined, we attempted to walk away, we read our tour guide...but as if we didn'talready know it - kids are persistant. Due to the amount of time we ended up waiting I felt like we eventually established a friendly repoir with the kids. One little one told Brett his money was sticking out of his pocket and reminded him to be careful. In the next breath she and her friend suggested that he give it to them and split it 50/50. We didn't do that. Why? Not sure.

As we were getting into the car though, I took out some left over snacks and attempted to pass them out to the three "friends." Immediately one little girl grabbed all of them and ran. The quieter of the two girls looked heartbroken. It was so sad. From them I learned that to be an effective giver, fair distribution is as important as the goods. I certainly would do that differently if I could. As our car drove away the remaining 2 kids banged on our windows asking for more. I had more - two power bars - but I didn't give it to them. Why?? Not sure. I wish I had now. What is the best way to serve these kiddos. Surely random handouts aren't a solution but do they hurt? I can't imagine that they do. What I do know is that I feel compelled to do more than make my bi-annual donation to unicef.

a face to remind me of a lesson learned

We finished out our evening at the hotel. Grateful for a not-so-great shower, a clean bed, and a good meal of pizza (well pizza crust in my case) and ginger ale.

I hope that this finds all of you well! Lots of love to all of you from both of us :)

p.s. After this post I'll bet you are grateful that I am usually a private journaler - not a blogger :)

Facebook Class on Wall Street Journal

2007-12-19T04:58:00.001-08:00

The link to the article is here.

It's pretty cool, and even features our Hugs app, with Ed Baker and Dan Ackerman-Greenberg both highlighted throughout!

Day 2: The Masses and Architecture of Delhi

2007-12-18T08:35:00.001-08:00

Krista and I both slept reasonably well last night, waking around 8:30 to begin the day with a relaxing breakfast, then heading off with our driver to see the sights of Delhi.

Almost immediately, a mother with a baby and two younger children were knocking on our window at an intersection, begging for money to feed themselves. It was quite the wakeup call for both Krista and I. I wanted to take a picture so as to share the experience with everyone reading along, but Krista said no and I felt shameful anytime I thought about trying to move my cellphone into position to take it (I used my cellphone for much of the day to take photos because we don't have a cord to connect our regular digital camera). There's something that just doesn't feel right about taking picture of tragedy or suffering, even if it is meant only to share that experience with others so that they can learn from it as well. Even as I write this, I'm fully aware that the magnitude of the tragedy will only be sensed, not truly understood, simply because I can't upload a picture of it right now.

We then proceeded to travel around the city for 6 hours, seeing every sight we wanted to see (I will upload some random photos now--too tired to comment much). We didn't even manage to get lunch, as busy as we were.

Tower:

So...Thirsty...This Water is SO Refreshing!:

Lotus Temple:

The Mini-Taj Mahal?:

India Gate:

As we walked around this beautiful gate, I was poked continuously by a young street urchin (boy), who repeated "hungry" as he poked me and chased me. It was another reminder of the amazing range of wealth in this country--from our "normal" stay at the Sheraton to this.

Krista Giving The Rock in Honor of Jay-Z at the Sheraton Maurya:

Our first Naan (+ a Guinness), at Bukhara:

We ended the night at the Sheraton Maurya, enjoying tea and coffee at a cafe before dining at the Bukhara, which was recommended to us by my GSB friends Zach AND Puru. It was fantastic--but what was with the wooden slabs for menus? A little much, I thought.

Krista is already asleep, despite promising to make a guest post tonight. Ah well. Tomorrow we head to Agra via the 6:15 am train. We'll drop our luggage off at the Hilton Trident, then head to see the Taj Mahal. Off to get packed for that early morning.

India, At Last

2007-12-17T12:54:00.000-08:00

We're here, at last!

After all the preparation (most credit to Krista, of course), nearly a full day of travel (San Francisco-->Newark (4 hour layover)-->Delhi), a friend from the GSB--Puru--kindly picked us up at the airport and drove us to our hotel. It was really great to be picked up by a friendly face amidst a swarm of strangers (in particular the taxi drivers).

The flight was pretty painless, really--Krista and I had a row of three seats to ourselves, so we spent much of the flight trying to find different ways for both of us to lay down on those three narrow seats (mostly unsuccessfully). I played with my new iPod Nano -awesome, except I couldn't get the "Phase" game I bought to work - and read and slept. The coffee was horrible, but aside from that, continental was great.

Puru picked us up at the airport and drove us across Delhi to our hotel. It was interesting to see the scene at night--not the same lit-up scene that we are accustomed to in big cities in the US. The intersections were chaos--one in particular seemed to be a juncture of about 7 different roads, with no apparent rhyme or reason as to which side would go next. Sometimes, people just went. Also, although the streets are well-painted with lane lines, they seem to be optional.

After we checked into our hotel, we enjoyed a drink with Puru and his girlfriend's cousin and her boyfriend. They gave us tips on what to see, and what not to see (just as importantly). We talked about the GSB, about life, and Puru even invited us to return for his eventual wedding in India. I have been hoping to attend one of the weeklong-party-weddings, and this will be our chance.

That's all for now--I hadn't taken any photos tonight since it is dark out, but here's a picture of our room at the Sheraton--not too much different from the US!Tomorrow we are touring around Delhi, dinner at Bukhara (we've had two recommendations to visit it, so we shall), and then maybe out on the town...followed by a 5 am wakeup call for a 6 am train to Agra and the Taj Mahal. Update tomorrow, hopefully with pics! And maybe even a guest post from Krista :)

B

Behavior-Opportunity Framework

2007-12-11T17:21:00.000-08:00

Below is a framework, using the example user of my mother and the example need category of Love/Beloging from Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. This Framework was part of an assignment for Stanford CS377w--the famous "Facebook Class" that I have been fortunate enough to be a student in for the last three months.

Within the context of the current behaviors focused around Love/Belonging and Esteem needs, the following Behavior-Opportunity framework can be used to analyze which applications will work on a given social network, which users are not currently being served, and what impediments are in place that keep those users' needs from being served. The framework can also be used for other "need categories" and "user types" in developing ideas for other social networks or other online social solutions.

| View | Upload your own

The number 1, world's biggest game of Dodgeball EVER (on Facebook)

2007-11-08T11:38:00.000-08:00

My team (Andrew Gadson, Rahul Thathoo and I) have focused the first part of our Apps & Metrics class (CS377w, commonly referred to as "The Stanford Facebook Class" on Dodgeball.

The application tries to model a huge, chaotic game of dodgeball within the facebook environment. Basically, you can throw different types of balls at your friends. Those friends then have a limited amount of time to "dodge" that ball. If they get hit, they are shown a video of someone getting hit in a sensitive spot with a dodgeball. If they dodge, they are likewise shown a video of someone dodging multiple throws. They are then encouraged to throw dodgeballs back at the person who just tried to hit them. (or that's the theory, anyway).

We haven't implemented the full set of features that we want to have, but have high hopes for the app because apps with very similar features have been highly successful on facebook. We also believe that user engagement could get even higher than it already is (and it is already pretty good) once we get the throw/dodge/hit plus points/status features fully implemented.

We've acquired 10k users in just over 2 weeks, and continue to grow at a slightly viral rate. We're looking to improve our virality through A/B testing various features and product flows, and are focused on building out a robust metrics dashboard that hopefully can be (fairly easily) plugged into any application where an events table is used.

As for more information about us personally: Andrew is the front-end, php guru and Rahul powers our DB with authority. Each has about 25 job hI write the blog posts :) and try to map out priorities for us to discuss and act upon. Overall, we're a solid team, and I'm looking forward to us building this app out more and building another set of apps for our second project and beyond. We are ALL fairly annoyed with zone.net for "losing" some of our data the other day. A valuable server lesson for us all.

Best Music Site Ever; The Hype Machine

2007-11-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

I've been following the Hype Machine, created by Anthony Volodkin, since way back when it was a really basic mp3 blog aggregator. I even emailed with Anthony early on going back and forth a bit on the product and the music industry. At the time (and still!) I loved the site.

I went back to check it out the other day and they've totally built it out. It looks and functions awesome.

I've recently been using it to checkout what cool remixes there are out there. For instance, today I pushed play and let it play through until one song caught my ear: a Bon Jovi/Eminem/Timbaland mashup of Livin' On a Prayer and Mockinbird and some Timbaland flutes at the end.

Here's the original link: http://www.mashuptown.com/2007/10/wooooah-livin-o.html

This is serious value, smartly operated within the bounds of what the music industry says is ok. I love it.

----
PS, I tagged this with my prof for my facebook metrics class as a test--he's always hyper aware of his online rep!

time and perspective shifts (against the scenic backdrop of fall)

2007-10-19T00:40:00.001-07:00

I was talking with my buddy Brad tonight and he informed me that his father's (Gary) father passed away a week ago. Sad. My heart goes out to him and his family and his grandpa.

Lucky for G, he has been able to spend a lot of time with his parents over the last couple of years. They live in Calgary, and between Brad playing hockey in Edmonton and needing all sorts of parent-help and his retirement, he's been able to stop through Calgary and enjoy their company in the course of normal life.

What a treat that must have been, though I'm sure that it has only made the parting more bittersweet.

After getting off the phone with him, I started to think back to the grandpa I knew--my mother's father, who lived in the Twin Cities. Thanksgiving was our annual trip up to his house to see all our relatives. The highlight of the trip was always watching the parade on television, then going to Marshall Field's (or was it Macy's?) to get *free* crackerjack boxes and our annual Santa Bear (1991 edition below).

Though my grandpa passed away many years ago, Santa Bears live on, and we still get one every year (we used to each get one, i think). We used to put one on each staircase going to the basement, but I think we have more Santa Bears than stairs at this point--so they have been put back in the basement and are saved only for special occasions. Like this (1993 edition below--the explorer):

I also recall sitting around my grandpa's basement, replete with huge muskies mounted on the wall (he was a big fisherman; his house was on a lake--that much I do remember). I remember sleeping in one of the (small? I think) rooms off of the kitchen. I remember the smell of cigar smoke in that basement--he loved cigars--that never seemed to change. I remember not always liking having to leave my comfortable room with my toys and having to sleep in a strange room that smelled old and be around all those family members that I didn't really know all that well. I remember the circle driveway, and the hill leading up to his house. I remember the fudgesicles he ALWAYS had in his freezer in the garage--one year, they were sugarless and I felt completely betrayed. And I remember when my grandpa died, the house was sold, my uncle pulled away from my mom and my Aunt Cindy, and we stopped going to the Twin Cities for Thanksgiving. No more Santa Bears purchased in person (1987 Mr. and Mrs. Santa Bear below):

After we stopped going to the Twin Cities for Thanksgiving, Cindy started coming down to Madison to join our nuclear family for a number of years. And that became a comfortable routine--Cindy would always leave late, my dad would always be hungry before we the food was ready/Cindy had arrived, Heather and Jessie would always put my chair next to Cindy's (allegedly because they feared sitting next me. I was fairly hyperactive as a child). Cindy would always bring two pies from Byerly's, a great local bakery and grocery store: one, lemon meringue. The second was always a surprise.

But now, Heather and Jess are spending either Christmas or Thanksgiving with their husbands' families, so Thanksgiving only comes once every other year (ditto with Christmas). There's only one Cindy--so she can't make it to everyone's Thanksgiving. Probably no Byerly's pies, either, in New Jersey (No Leinie's either, to Gregg's dismay).

Fall isn't the same in Palo Alto as it was in Boston; or Madison.

But time just keeps rolling on by...and so do we.

Radiohead's new "free" album: In Rainbows

2007-10-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

Radiohead has made industry news recently by offering its new album, entitled "In Rainbows", "free" for download digitally at this site. It's a pretty amazing "shift" in the industry, as this NPR article details, and one that only a band like Radiohead could do. U2 might be able to do this and have the same impact, but they are pretty much the only other band that I think could do it and actually impact the future of the music industry.

When you goto the site you are allowed to enter whatever price you wish to pay. On top of that price, you will pay 40 pence for "delivery". I paid 1 pound 5 pence, so in the end, I paid $3 total for 10 songs, or $0.30 per song. I like Radiohead a lot, so I wanted to pay them something, but because I fall under the student category, I felt okay not paying what I would for a full album. Plus, I had never heard the album before, so I had no idea what I was getting.

But as I listen to it now, I see that I've gotten a pretty good deal. The album is superb, as is pretty much all their music. My favorites are:

15 Step: This song reminds me a lot of Hail to the Thief ("Gloaming, in particular), but much softer and more optimistic. I LOVE the driving electronica beat that is fairly harsh but because the levels are low, is softened a bit by the lead guitar.

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi: Pretty cool, listless song. Reminds me of floating underwater.

Jigsaw: this song feels darker than the previous two, by quite a bit. It feels very serious, and I recall Pearl Jam's "Spin the Black Circle" when listening to it, for some odd reason. Maybe it's just this no-sleep/caffeine headache I have going on right now.

All in all, my recommendation is to go check it out. definitely worth the $1 it would cost you to download.

Sibling Rivalry

2007-10-04T00:36:00.000-07:00

I was just doing my "homework" for my facebook class at Stanford (I put homework in quotes because this is the type of stuff I do regularly anyways, so it's just great to have it as my homework) and I read in this article in the Financial Times that Reid Hoffman is an angel investor in Facebook.

Wow.

For those of you that don't know, Reid is the Founder of LinkedIn, the very popular professional social networking site. It's become an essential tool for many, especially here in the valley. It's a great site.

Recent news has it that Facebook is planning to enable users to separate work from pleasure, so to speak. This means that it is basically trying to create a one-stop-shop, so that users don't have to have both a LinkedIn account and a Facebook account. It is, in effect, appearing to encroach on LinkedIn's territory.

So for Reid Hoffman, it's basically the equivalent of watching a foster child beat up his only son.

I'm obviously presuming that I know more about how Reid Hoffman feels about facebook and LinkedIn than I actually do, but I can't imagine building a successful company (as he has) and then watch some other startup that I helped get off the ground start moving in on my territory, threatening my baby. It would just be too hard. Especially if he is powerless to do anything about it, which he probably is given the number of other influential investors and the valuations being thrown about recently.

Interesting times, indeed.

Facebook Frenzy

2007-09-28T12:00:00.001-07:00

Or as Rob's brother called it, "The Summer of Facebook".

It's been over a month since I last posted, but it feels like more than a year. The last month has been crazy for me, with lots of different activitis going on.

1) Teaching myself to code (php, SQL, and facebook--fql, fbml)
2) Figuring out the best way to make money off of our existing apps (thus far, it's Cubics, althoguh we are going to experiment with VideoEgg and RockYou as well)
3) Figuring out "where do we go from here?"
4) Figuring out classes, clubs, priorities, etc.

Number three is definitely the hardest, but we think we've found a direction (at least for now) that will lead us where we need to go until we figure out what's next...we just have to trust that we will figure things out as we go along and that, at least for now, we're going in a high-potential direction. Here's a hint, stolen from Dave McClure's blog:

Number four has been time-consuming, but I've got a decent set of classes this quarter with at least a few that I'm excited about. On top of that list is the Facebook class being taught in the CS department. First class was yesterday, and it was totally oversubscribed with over 80 people in a class meant for forty. It's being taught by a blogger (Dave McClure) that I've gotten to know a little better through Rob, who knows him fairly well and BJ Fogg, a CS professor that I don't yet know well.

THe class was thrown together about 1.5 months ago, and so I expected it to be far more disorganized than the first class indicated. The syllabus is very thorough and covers a LOT of great topics that we have learned a bit on our own this summer but could definitely benefit from learning more from all the smart people in the room. There are a handful of other people who have already developed facebook apps of varying levels of success, it appears, so we will be able to contribute a lot but at the same time learn a lot.

Checkout the Reuters article on the class as well as Dave's blog, 500 Hats. Enjoy!

Current Obssession: Kings of Leon

2007-08-22T02:20:00.000-07:00

I'm quite obsessed at present with the Kings of Leon. Checkout this video of theirs entitled "King of the Rodeo":

The lyrics make no sense to me, but the song is catchy as hell and I love the background story on these guys.

They're coming to SF Sept 4; I gotta be there, even if I don't yet know their new album. Aha Shake Heartbreak, their 2nd album, is off the hook.

Here's a live version of Pistol of Fire, a song I love because it has so much blues feeling in its lyrics, rhythm, and tone--even though it's a fast-paced song:

ups and downs

2007-08-17T00:43:00.000-07:00

The ups and downs of this summer have been pretty strong; but i'm noticing that they're only sometimes relate to what is really going on with the work I (and Rob) am doing. Oftentimes, my mood is affected by other things; and my mood with other things is affected by things in the startup. This site is a pretty accurate reflection of how quickly things change.

It's hard to not feel generally successful as I have for most of my life. It's not that I feel as if we are failing, but instead that we aren't yet to the point where I can say: "Yes, we did it." But will I ever, I sometimes wonder? Maybe it's like a pot of gold, always just over the horizon. When do startup guys feel like they've made it to their goal? From stories I've read, it seems like some might never get there--there is always more to accomplish (Bill Gates, for example).

Krista and I had a long talk about it tonight and what the Keintz family's significant others termed "The Keintz tendency for perfection" last night at Jim's birthday dinner celebration in Hoboken. Her opinion is that this trait combined with a startup environment (resource poor, completely self-deterministic outcomes) leads to work 24/7. And she may be right, tho I don't know that I am necessarily a "perfectionist" given that I've felt pretty good about my ability to (sometimes completely) let go of things that simply don't matter to my development as a person while focusing on other things that are.

Regardless, I noticed today that my body felt really rundown; this has happened a lot this summer because Rob and I are both night-people, meaning that we oftentimes work from 8pm-3/4/5am; wakeup at 11 or so and get at it again until 5-6, and repeat. Even if you are getting 7-8 hours of sleep, going to bed that late just affects me now as it never did. And yet here I am at 4 am finishing a blog post after finishing my work for the night after feeling completely wiped out around 10:30 pm tonight.

In other news, Tripadvisor bought the "Where I've Been" Facebook app for...$3 million. Lots of chatter on the facebook developers' boards. Interesting stuff, especially since every company online is now working on building an API. Is this the beginning of a massive kingdom-building age on the internet? I think so, and I think it will create opportunity...but time will tell. Jason Calacanis seems to think that we may be in store for a bubble pop.

Apparently there IS a God reading...

2007-08-14T13:03:00.000-07:00

The Friday after my last post, which deplored the lack of changing weather (and more specifically rain) in Palo Alto, whatever divine being you might believe in responded.

It POURED on Friday, from 6:30 am when we left to drop of my sister Heather and her husband Gregg at Newark to around 1:30 am friday night when I finally made it to my bed after a full day of traveling, catching up with friends, wedding rehearsal, dining and partying.

Given that we were preparing for our former roommates' wedding the following day, people were understandably concerned. But the following day was perfect--in the 80s with low humidity and a light breeze.

The wedding was on the beach behind the square outdoor patio of a beach club in Sea Bright, New Jersey. Krista and I were both in the wedding party, since Joe and Catherine were roommates and good friends of ours during our time at Boston College. The bridal party wore sandals--black Reefs for the guys, and white J. Crews for the women--to compliment our tuxes and dresses. You can see the gazebo from the patio in the picture below, and also see what kind of day it was.

After the ceremony was a great dinner on the patio as the sun slowly set, followed by an incredible 10-piece band (with one of the lead singers impersonating MJ, complete with white glove and hat) playing on the patio until around 10 pm.

Here's a picture of the lovely bride and groom taking their first dance--they are a good-looking couple (or at least the bride is).

At 10, we headed inside to dance to a local beatmaster playing some hip-hop and other popular songs, then the father of the bride surprised Catherine by hosting a special beach bonfire complete with fire-side bar service. My classy friend Mike Thurm also brought a box of nice cigars for basically every male closely associated with the bride and/or groom.

The next day we spent a little time swimming in the Atlantic and getting some sun, then headed back to Hoboken. The weekend was incredible--one of those weddings where there are a ton of your closest friends, some of whom you haven't done as good of a job keeping up with, some of whom you have, but all of whom you remember why you were--and still are--such good friends in the first place.

I realized how much I've missed my old roommates as we moved on with our respective lives since college and I've focused myself on the NEXT big step in my career and life. It reminds me of how hard it was to leave Boston last year even though I felt it was the best thing to do. I don't know when the next time I will see some of those guys, but it was great to be back within their closed circle for at least a weekend. I've made an internal resolution to stay in better touch, but I wonder how quickly that resolution will fade as I get reabsorbed into my "new" life out West as an MBA student trying to forge a life and career in a new place. I hope slowly, if at all.

And as for the weather, I'm just happy to learn that God reads my blog--too bad Google Analytics can't locate his IP on its handy-dandy map of hit locations. Maybe that's in the next version.

Summer in the City or Am I Finally Spoiled by Weather?

2007-08-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

I arrived to NYC last night around 12:30, and as I stepped from the plane onto the jetway I was hit with hot, humid air. It was around 85 degrees, about 10 degrees hotter than a typical summer day in Palo Alto. In jeans and my favorite grey (not light blue, Burns/Kauffman) Nike hoodie, I was hot and bothered.

I've never lived in a place with a "nice" climate, and I was even a little nervous at the prospect when considering the prospect of going to Stanford. People told me (and still tell me) when I expressed how much I loved the seasons and how I truly did love the snow: "You have the snow when you want it...just drive to Tahoe".

Even this summer, I felt bored by the endless series of perfect weather...it felt like the neverending day. I missed the rain. I missed cloudy days where I could sit and read the book as a storm rolled in. I missed light drizzle on the sunroof of the car.

I wanted some variation--something to stop the "groundhog day" feeling of the summer.

But last night, at 12:30, after a 3.5 hour flight delay...the "bad" weather was a pain, and I felt a little indignant that this weather could happen during my visit.

So am I finally spoiled? I don't know. If I'm not yet, I suspect I soon will be. I just hope that I can still appreciate the other seasons in the future...

Witty blogging at its best

2007-08-08T03:57:00.001-07:00

I've been closely following Marc Andreesson's blog, "pmarca" since he started a couple months ago. His posts are (insanely) consistently interesting for those interested in entrepreneurship and tech, which is pretty impressive. Even A-list bloggers like Fred Wilson at AVC have praised his ability to create such impressive content day after day. I have both on my Google Homepage, so I read them often (along with Jason Calacanis, Mark Cuban, Luke Baxter, and Jonathan Bolden...all A-listers).

But I was taken aback by the wittiness of his recent post entitled "Next up: cheap, high-quality, fuel-efficient Japanese blogs take over the market". It's a joke in response to the purported banding-together of some leftist bloggers to create a union. It's so witty that it amuses me anew each time I open Google--incredibly witty and creative.

83, 84, and 99 Problems

2007-08-01T00:51:00.000-07:00

Krista told me a parable from the book on Buddhism that she's currently reading. Here's the story in a version I found here:

There once was a man who had a problem. He’d heard about a wise guru that had answers to difficult questions. He decided to find this man.
After a long and difficult journey, he ended up at a temple high on a mountaintop. He entered and found the guru meditating. The guru, sensing the man’s presence, opened his eyes and looked up.

Guru: Ah, I see you have a problem.
Man: Yes. That’s amazing! How did you know?
Guru: Actually, you have 83 problems.
Man: Oh my gosh! It’s worse than I thought! 83 problems! What should I do?
Guru: Solve them.
Man: OK… I guess I can work on that. When I solve my 83 problems, then what happens?
Guru: You get 83 more.
Man: @%#$@!!!
Guru: Actually, everyone, every single human being, has 83 problems, from the homeless peasant, to the leader of your country. And actually, some people have 84 problems.
Man: What’s the 84th problem?
Guru: The 84th problem when you believe that you're the only person that has 83 problems. This is truly the greatest problem.

A good story, and probably the biggest problem I and most others face in our lives. But how simple to advise "don't worry"; how hard to practice it. And what is the benefit? I read on one blog while searching for it that eliminating problem 84 helps you see and act clearly in eliminating your other problems. I think that's true, and believe it is similar to when you are 110% confident that what you are trying to do will work (or, alternatively, gaining control by letting go; saying to yourself--I'm going to take this risk at my job because the worse they can do is fire me, and that's not something I'm worried at).

What freedom is gained when you're not worried about the consequences of your actions?

For myself, the story immediately made me think to one of my favorite Jay-Z songs: 99 Problems. The video is below, but the heavy rock drumbeats produced by Rick Rubin (of Beastie Boys fame) are priceless. Who knew Jay-Z was a closet buddhist?