Freshly scrubbed, and now rebuilt from scratch, its Hammerland 2.0 - new, with a fresh lemon scent!
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)
I've created a new gallery of some of my best or favorite images for you to look at. Click on the thumbs above if you want to preview a couple of them here (yeah, I'm playing with Ajax and the Prototype JavaScript framework). Then proceed to the gallery and enjoy.
They finally did it: Param and Srivani finally got married. I've never seen Param so happy in the many years I've known him - and with good reason. Srivani is a gem and they are so joyful together. A big celebration with family in India will take place in December, but they had a wedding this week in San Francisco to assure no immigration or travel issues in December. Srivani's mom and their good friends Stephen and Solani threw a wonderful reception dinner last night at Voignierre and it was sublime.
Congratulations, you two. I know I look forward to your grand adventure together. Now, can Cherie and I talk the kids to spending Christmas in India...?
They could have picked Thomas Edison and his lab in Menlo Park, NJ. They could have chosen the Wright Brother's bicycle shop in Dayton, OH. They could have chosen Philo Farnsworth and his lab on Green St. in San Francisco. But no - they chose Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs in Job's parents' garage in Los Altos.
The good folks at PodBrixhave chosen to immortalize the young Woz and Jobs in a Lego playset, and I've got to say they really chose the right guys to immoralize. I mean, who do you want your kids growing up to worship? Marylin Manson or Woz? I mean, c'mon! Woz got his Prius going 104 MPH and he did not have any cocaine in his pocket! Seriously, very cool. I'm sure we'll have to get one for Uncle Peter as well as our house!
Click on the photos above for a slide show - click on the left side of the picture for the PREVIOUS image, on the right side for NEXT (or use the arrow keys).
Zack loves baseball and opts to play Fall Baseball rather than soccer. This is fine with us, particularly since the Fall baseball league run by Say Baseball is a much more low key affair than Spring baseball through Little League. Don't get me wrong: San Mateo Little League American is fantastic organization. It provides a well run baseball league and the kids have a fantastic time (did I mention that Zack's team won the AAA city championship this year?!), but Fall ball is a really relaxed affair with few practices, and no score keeping. It provides an opportunity for kids to play ball for the fun of it, work on their skills in the off-season, and even try out a position that they might not get a chance to play in Little League. It also means that kids from Zack's class at school can play together since they're spread across four towns, each of whose Little Leagues require their town's residence for kids to play. This year, Cherie signed up to manage the team (Whoo woo for the coach!) and yesterday was the first game.
Home field for the Demons is Trinta Field, our local Little League venue and a great park. We had a nice fair and warm morning for our 9 a.m. start against the San Carlos Tornadoes. The fields were a little wet since someone needs to let the San Mateo Parks Department know they shouldn't run the sprinklers before a 9 a.m. game! Since score isn't kept during these games, I can't relay the particulars - let's just say the nine and ten year olds on the Demons more than met their match with the eleven and twelve year olds who populated the Tornadoes. Michael Spence opened on the mound and had to weather some rough error prone play from the rest of the defense who were clearly working through "first game roughness." Wyatt Welch and Adam Janscek pitched very well, with each earning four strike outs in two innings pitched. Ted Catlin got two hits in the effort and there was a some nice plays - check out the pics! I'll try to post more through the seaon since I'm trying to get enough good shots of each kids to make them their own baseball cards again this season.
More pictures available on my Flickr page.
Editor's Note: Apparently, the user defined data times out at some point....which means you might, at some point, see a movie but without my face! Thought I'd leave it just as is!
Shutterfly's got a new piece of bait to lure traffic to their photo processing site: custom videos. Its pretty fascinating to marry a little facial recognition technology to do face extraction with some smart sprite , provided by Personiva. But the end result is a bit dodgey, I think.
I made the one above using my own photo because the two I made with pictures from my kids were too creepy! The effects used to make the eyes blink and animate the mouth are interesting, but a little off putting. What is really creepy is that they extract the faces from the pictures you upload, and don't include the person's hair. Ok, no big deal on a grown man, but very disturbing with the children. Of course, the alpha-blending required to make transparencies through hair would require more processing power than Personiva wants to throw at this kind of application. But ultimately, it ruins the effect.
It's kind of cute and funny for about the minute it takes you to upload a picture and watch the video, but then you're done with it. I'm not sure how Personiva's hot new viral marketing technology's going to "People engage with the brand in ways that extend the lifespan and reach of the brand message" in a way that actually drives traffic and picture orders for Shutterfly.
It's that time of year again: International Talk Like A Pirate Day: September 19th.
From the official website:
International Talk Like a Pirate Day isn't one o' those governmentally sanctioned holidays that shifts around to create a convenient three-day weekend. No, the date is ALWAYS Sept. 19 (Cap'n Slappy's ex-wife's birthday.) Now, occasionally Sept. 19 falls on a Sunday, and we recognize that may not meet everyone's desire for an excuse to party.
While a lot of fun can be had celebrating TLADP in a church setting (The choir will now sing, "How Great Thou Aaarrrrt!") we're suggesting that those of a more secular bent consider celebrating Talk Like A Pirate Weekend.
Cherie and I both like to cook, eat and entertain. That set of activities became a lot more fun after we upgraded our kitchen a couple of years ago. Inspired by my friend Elise Bauer and her inimitable site,Simply Recipes, I thought adding a section to my site about cooking would be fun. So I've started a "sub-site" called Wild Ginger. I've got about forty-five recipes up there (decidedly weighted toward Asian favorites at the moment), but I promise to grow it.
Check out
Today's New York Times devoted the entire Science section to honoring the 50th anniversery of Sputnik. Sputnik was a watershed event in human history - it changed everything. I wasn't alive at the time, but I can imagine the sense of awe and wonder that the little "beep beep beep" coming back from space must have made on those hearing it at the time. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik on October 4, 1957 and wasted no time trumpeting their triumph. in a stare down with the U.S. over the sites of both countries' newly crafted nuclear arsenals, the Soviets were only too glad to use this technological triumph to strike fear into the hearts of America's techological and industrial mighty.
It is Sputnik that catalyzed the creation on NASA, DARPA (and, therefore, the Internet) and the computer industry. It jump started and invigorated a technology revolution that has had enormous and mostly beneficial implications for the global economy. What the world needs now is a Sputnik for education or food production.
Visit the Times' site and view Sputnik inside and out. If you're too young to remember Sputnik, go learn why its such an important event in human history.
On Tuesday the reported that Microsoft was pursing a stake in Facebook. A year ago, Yahoo was sniffing around at at purchase of Facebook with a reported valuation of $1 billion. But if Microsoft bought a three to five percent stake in the company for $300-$500 million, Facebook would suddenly be valued at $10 billion — half as much as Yahoo. And, reportedly, founder Mark Zuckerberg is holding out for $15 Billion. Eegads.
Facebook has created something of significant value, no doubt. Not only does Facebook have millions of users, for the hottest demographic (at which Facebook is squarely aimed) Facebook has become a seminal application replacing email as the primary use of their computer. I know high school and college kids who are more concerned about getting on to the computer to login to their Facebook accounts than they are to take or make a phone call. It IS how they communicate and interact with their friends. And they've been able to create a lasting and growing entity where MySpace has clearly failed. Viacom's acquisition did not help anything there.
But does anyone know yet how Facebook is going to make money? How will they monetize all those eyeballs in the prime advertising demographic? Chances are, they're going to share that revenue with someone else, which is why they're such and attractive target for a Yahoo or Microsoft particularly since neither seem to be innovating these days, particularly on the Web 2.0 or social networking. At least Google's smart enough to be throwing some research dollars at Carnegie-Mellon for Social Stream.
What will Facebook do with $500 million if they got it? Well, despite their Facebook's constant assertions that thye've built to scale their service to be much larger, me thinks they doth protest too much and an infrastructure investment would follow. Lucky Cisco and mass storage vendors. The other piece is advertising. Online advertising is still pretty primitive in terms of matching ads to viewers. With all the data Facebook has about its highly prized users, an investment in some analytics could reap some serious advertising revenues. Headcount and Aeron chairs probably would be on the spend list, too.
Has Sillycon Valley descended into Bubble 2.0? Reached Delusional Level Red? Nah... I don't think its another case of tulip mania as it is an example of Joe Bessimer's adage (often attributed P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute... and two to take 'em."
Click on the photos above for a slide show - click on the left side of the picture for the PREVIOUS image, on the right side for NEXT (or use the arrow keys).
Today found the Demons with another early start at Trinta Field, where the sun was low and warm on the horizon. Verun B. took the mound to start the game against the Redwood City Blue Devils (ok, we have no idea what their name was - they were from Redwood City, they were wearing blue (high end uniforms, too!). Despite assurances from the San Mateo Parks Department that there'd be an abatement on early Saturday morning sprinklers, the field was a muddy mess but the boys and coaches valiently took the field. Verun K. surprised everyone in his first start - his very first start, EVER - by fanning three of four batters at the top of their line-up! Unfortunately, the Demons' bats weren't hot this morning - the boys are getting a trip to the batting cage this week!
Despite the lack of offensive luster, both Zack and Ted (the team rabbits) found themselves on base a couple of times with Wyatt and Sam getting a couple of impressive smacks on the ball. Sam looked impressive behind the plate and at shortstop. Wyatt, Miles, and Zack each had good inning as relief pitchers. Adam and Verun B. both struggled with a rough innings and each showed tremendous poise working through their innings.
Just a little retro-fun with a vintage Kool-Aid commercial. Brightening your day with a couple of teaspoons of artificial flavor and a whole bucket of sugar!
Looking for a complete new waste of your time? Perhaps a new internet addiction? Try the new Google Image Labler. As a means of generating those oh-so-valuable tags on their image file index, Google has invented a game to entice us all to provide those tags. When you log-on, you're randomly assigned a partner - another person who is playing - and you job is to match tags on pictures for two minutes and earn points. You're both simultaneously shown the same image, and you keep typing in words until you match, or both participants pass on that image. The goal is to generate as many points together as possible.
Some are easy, some are hard and the more descriptive terms are worth more. For example, matching on "man" or "actor" might yield you 50 points, where matching on "Lawrence Olivier" might garner you up to 150 points. Hooking up with a newbie or someone who just can't identify anything can be annoying, but getting a partner who is good is a real rush as you start racking up points. If you're the kind of person who easily fell prey to the black holes of time that are things like Tetris, Bejeweled or Word Sleuth, beware: for you, this will be addictive. You've been warned.
Formed in 1943, the Sugar Association was an industry trade gropu "dedicated to the role of scientific study of sugar in food and communication of that role to the public". Here's an example of their selfless quest for truth via a "Sugar Information, Inc." promotional poster.
Mary got to school early for Student Council. Her team won in gym. After play rehearsal, she'll Watusi with the gang. She needs sugar in her life. For energy. She needs energyless, artificially sweetened foods and beverages like a turtle needs a seat belt. Sugar swings. Serve. Serve some. Sugar's got what it takes... 18 calories per teaspoon and it's all energy.
Note to Mothers: Exhaustion may be dangerous - especially to children who haven't learned to avoid it by pacing themselves. Exhaustion opens the door a little wider to the bugs and ailments that are always lying in wait. Sugar puts back energy fast - offsets exhaustion. Synthetic sweeteners put back nothing. Energy is the first requirement of life. Play safe with your young ones - make sure they get sugar every day.
Is truth scarier than fiction? Well, when it comes to Michael Jackson, arguabley so! If your little ghoul is aching to scare the dickens out of their schoolmates on Halloween, steer 'em away from that nasty ol' Deatheater or Slipknot mask. For you can get this Wack Jacko mask ($30) - definitely not sold at the Neverland giftshop!
According to The Times of India, the deputy mayor of Delhi, S S Bajwa, was killed by a band of monkeys. Mr. Bawa apparently died this morning of head injuries after falling from the terrace of his house after being attacked by a group of monkeys. The city has long been plagued by monkeys attacking humans (remember Secretary Rumsfeld's trip to India in 2002?) for quite a while. Roving bands of Rhesus monkeys hav long invaded government complexes and temples and snatch food out of people's hands on the streets. The problem is exacerbated by large population of devout Hindus (who revere the monkeys as a manifestation of the monkey god Hanuman) providing them offerings of bananas and nuts.
Last year, India's High Court orderd the city to address the mounting problem. So the leaders of Delhi employed monkey catchers to roam the city with large nets (yeah, that same image you've got from cartoons of the proverbial dog catcher), but that didn't work. So what do they do? They created monkey mercenaries - they actually trained bands of larger, more aggressive Langur monekys to maraud the smaller Rhesus hordes. A municipal government is actually training (arming?) mercernary monkeys to cull little terrorist monkeys.... ok, this so surreal and reminiscent of human life my little head is about to spin off...
I was 10 years old in 1973 when I discovered skateboarding - then a quintessentially and nearly exclusively Southern California pursuit. One of my big influences was a seventeen and a half minute long, black and white, short film called Skater Dater made in 1965. I instantly recognized it as having been filmed locally, around Long Beach, San Pedro and Torrance. I could identify (and idolize) the cool kids in their stylish windbreakers hanging ten barefoot (eek! - the dad portion of my adult persona shudders in horror) and nose walking on their Black Knight decks. Ostensibly, its a pre-teen love story, but I'm pretty sure that was lost on me. Those kids were board dropping, nose walking and alley-ooping and I knew that was what I wanted to do. The soundtrack sounded like it was lifted off a Dick Dale or Ventures album, and that was cool
I probbaly haven't seen Skater Dater again since I was in junior high. What a delight it was to find it on Google video (thanks Mark Frauenfelder on BoingBoing.
This weekend was the wedding of my cousin Richard and his fiancé Sherri. Sherri is a really cool lady and she totally completes Richard. Rich is a very down to earth, very grounded guy - pragmatic, hard-working and as about as earnest a man as you'd ever want to know. He's been working with practical applications of alternative energy, wind and solar, ever since college and has a great love of the outdoors. Sherri sets Richard a little off-balance, in a very nice way. Sherri is a very intelligent, warm person with a heart so kind her eyes twinkle. She's a book buyer for Vroman's, the quintessnetial independent bookstore in Pasadena. Together, Sherri and Richard have become known as the perfect hosts, offering up casually elegant dinners and comraderie that have become the envy of my family (which appreciates being entertained).
Cherie and I packed up the kids and headed south where we joined my sister Ginny and her daughters Kelly (18) and Jessie (15) at my parents' home. It was good to see the whole famdamily, particularly "Brother" John (Rich's brother), "Uncle" John and Jenny (Rich's uncle and aunt), and the whole retinue of my cousins and their kids. Bringing the youngest generation together always is a happy thing, particularly for the aged ancestors in the family (that would currently be my parents' generation), and this weekend held much anticipation for them. It didn't disappoint.
Saturday evening was the wedding and reception, for about a hundred guests. Typical of Sherri and Rich it was simply elegant, traditional and low-key. On Sunday morning, my parents hosted a very casual brunch for the family in their backyard which included not only the bride and groom (before they headed off to Spain on their honeymoon) but Sherri's folks as well, which was great as they're really lovely people.
One really neat surprise at the wedding at was the music. I noticed a couple of guys who looked to be in their early sixties playing amplified accousitc guitar before the ceremony - it was some lovely slack-key Hawaiian interpretations of old rock songs. Turns out it was Paul Johnson and Gil Orr, famed surf guitarists (The Surfaris and the Chantays), who play as The Duotones. At the reception, they went electric, just the two of them with no bass and drums. If you're not a fan or, or aren't familiar with the surf guitar sound of bands like The Ventures, Dick Dale and the Deltones or The Surfaris, they were the roots music for guys like the Beach Boys. This is music that really showcases the beauty of the solid body electric guitar. These guys were great, and brought things full circle for me since it was Richard who introduced me to the already bygone genre when I was about 15 via The Ventures.
It's been a busy Halloween and I apologize for not getting these posted earlier, but this evening's Trick-or-Treating festivities in San Mateo Park were quite an adventure again this year. The morning started off with the Kindergarten's presentation: twenty-two adorable urchins presenting Halloween poems and songs before parading around the school to the delight of parents and the older students alike (the middle school students were literally hanging out the library window cheering on the little ones - so cool).
Amidst the sea of princesses, cheerleaders and storybook characters Zoe stuck out like a duck. I mean literally because, once again, she decided to be a duck. She asked Mommy to put more duck fat into the costume for her this year. Typical Zoe, she carried it off with her whacky charm. The Lower School (grades 1-4) held their parade in the afternoon, so it was back to school for more merriment to watch Zack and his friends do their own thing. There were a LOT of delightfully creative costumes. For my money, Adam wins for the best Elvis impression.
Finally, this evening we went to the Jancsek's for the now traditional dinner and trick-or-treating in San Mateo Park. That neighborhood is over the top when it comes to trick or treating. Its an affluent neighborhood where some families give out full sized candy bars, and others spend thousands of dollars really doing up their houses in all manner of spooky or Halloween themes. There are at least five you can count on every year to be very grand. And, boy, is it packed! Why are other neighborhoods mid-Peninsula empty on Halloween? Because everyone's on Costa Rica Ave. in San Mateo! Fun was had by all...way to much candy....and now Papa's got to go to bed because he's exhausted! Happy Halloween everyone.
You many not know of Paul Rand, but you know his work: the IBM logo, ABC's logo, Westinghouse's logo, ABC's logo, UPS' logo, NeXT's.... and on and on. Paul Rand was a giant in the world of design.
When you say design, everybody has their own definition which doesn't correspond to yours. There are many good definitions. One is: "the synthesis of form and content." In other words, without content there is no form. And without form, there is no content. A work of art is formed when form and content are indistinguishable. When form dominates, meaning is blunted. But when content predominates, interest lags. But the genius comes in when both these things fuse.
Rand was recently inducted into the One Show Creative Hall of Fame and the embedded video is a four minute film that is a tribute to his work, as well as providing Rand explaining his work (from which I transcribed the quote above.
Growing up, I wanted to be an animator. Specifically, I wanted to be a Disney animator. Ub Irwiks was my hero and I wanted to make cartoons like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Silly Symphonies. Alas, I have no talent for drawing and painting, so that dream got scuttled in one of my first painful moments of self-actualization.
However, I've always loved the art of animation. In particular, I've always loved the background scenes of animation - so overlooked, so painstakingly wrought. And while the old hand painted cartoon cells have found quite a market among art collectors, the animators have been much more retiscent about releasing the background art into the wild. Fortunately, there's the Background Animations blog site, which contains a wealth of this art from Disney Warner Bros. and others. Tickle your cerebellum with some gorgeous art.
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Click on the photos above for a slide show - click on the left side of the picture for the PREVIOUS image, on the right side for NEXT (or use the arrow keys).
I had a chance to go back to the Ferry Building this week for a meeting (can't beat a opportunity to eat at the Slanted Door), so I chose to do it on Tuesday when they have their Farmer's Market. Now, I don't suppose the Ferry Building's farmer's market is any more spectacular than hundreds of others across this country - or, for that matter, thousands across the world - but what a wonderful opportuity to appreciate the beauty of bounty. And, for a photographer in particular, a bounty of color and texture. So, just a bit of eye candy from the foot of Market St. in San Francisco.
I've never written a review for or plugged a music release on my site before, but I'm so wildly captivate by the new
I always thought it weird that the blues revival that was hard rock in the late 60's and early 70's was led by a bunch of white boys from England. That scrawny, leonine kid from the north country who loved Muddy Waters and could add a shrill bit of white soul to the Gallows Pole as the front man for Led Zeppelin was and is an oddity, and is (for better or worse) a part of my musical foundation. Teaming Plant, known for his screaching, with the ethereal angel of bluegrass was a daring move. Or was it? In fact, its this part of the hype around the project that drives me nuts. I don't think for a minute that these two didn't know that they would be great together. They'd done a tune for a tribute to Leadbelly sometime back, and it clicked. But for a whole alubm, hard part was finding the right tunes. Enter the musical genius that is T-Bone Burnett. Ever since seeing Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, for which Burnett produced the soundtrack, T-Bone's been something of my musical guide for roots music. American roots music is Plant's passion, and Kraus' metier.
The album's songs were selected (and produced) by Burnett with input from Plant and Krauss. Burnett put together the musicians (including himself on guitar) that present a haunting and rich sound, providing a diverse mix of blues, country, folk and roots rock songs from a wide range of writers, including: Tom Waits, Gene Clark, Phil and Don Everly, Little Milton Campbell, Mel Tillis and Sam Phillips. Hell, the band deserves mention, too, becuase they are a Who's Who of bluegrass/blues/roots musicians: Marc Ribot, Norman Blake, Mike Seeger, Jay Bellerose, and Dennis Crouch (Norman Blake was the first bluegrass artist I was really aware of). This album really isn't a duet album...T-Bone is more than producer and musician, but third man. And, in truth, I'm not tickeled by the couple of solo songs on this album.
I cannot stop listening to this album. Rich Woman is irresistable, Killing Blues haunting, and Gone, gone, gone and inffectious Everley Brothers romp. Dig it.
