2008
- At Intro to iPhone Development session.
- At Screw You, LAMP presentation from Dan Grigsby.
- At WordPress as a CMS session.
- Really missing espresso.
- Riding on school bus with Mazie.
- Wondering if Jim has had coffee.
- Wanting something…
- Pouting after Jim hurt my feelings.
- Maybe I should drink less coffee.
- Starbucks people are using wireless headsets.
- Stranded in New York Tweets
- Tammy declares that I cannot wear my new fishing shirt to work…
- iPhone Day via Twitter
- Finished cleaning most of the dog puke in minivan.
- Drinking amazing espresso…
- Sitting at my desk, sweating.
- I need a ship.
- Watching Charlotte’s Web with Mazie.
- At the Dolphin Show with Mazie!
- Having lunch with Mazie at Yum!
- Holy crap! Apple TV’s now show up as AirTunes remote speakers.
- Back in hotel room. TV doesn’t work in this room.
- Just calculated that I have 7,624,000 pixels on my desktop.
- Chase just ate half-loaf of banana bread off the counter!
- Just baked three loaves of banana bread. Yum.
- Mazie to Dad using iPhone…
- Updating Vista to SP1. Wish me luck.
- At a dinner with at least 10 doctors.
- Life Tip #845
- I wish time didn’t go so very fast…
- The question isn’t if…
- Feeling fairly stupid…
- Why is it so predictable…
- I sent this tweet four hours ago.
- Drinking from a jug marked XXX.
All Day on I-94
Today we loaded up in the Honda Odyssey and started our big trip.
Packing was a bit last minute, we weren’t really done until just shortly
before leaving. It was a pretty busy weekend.
Today was spent entirely in the van except for two quick stops for food. We went about 15 miles from our house and got on I-94 and didn’t let it leave our site the whole day. Mazie did a great job all things considering. We fired up a bunch of different music on the new iPod Classic that we got for the trip. Mazie enjoyed a full watching of Charlotte’s Web as well. Tunes for the day included Son Volt, Willie Nelson and Frank Sinatra among others.
In 24 hours we leave for our 6-week trip around the western US. Much to do before leaving.
Gibber Jabber
Yesterday we had a birthday party for Mazie. Her actual birthday is a few weeks away and we’ll be in Las Vegas on the Summer of Love trip at that time. So, we had this one so she could celebrate with the family. She had a great time and really got into the birthday celebration. She also likes to make up words. Here she is having a great time doing just that for the camera, and Uncle Max joins in the fun as well.
She had just eaten all the frosting off of her cake. 🙂
I keep thinking that I need a license for Yep. It does a great job. I’m not sure why I sit on the fence about it so much.
Battling with iTunes and my new iPod Classic 160G to get it to take my DVD rips. Just wont go and everything looks fine.
Have now officially begun travel packing for Summer of Love - West Coast.
Just saw Iron Man. Great flick. Definitely one to see in the theater.
40 Under Forty Award
I got the exciting news a couple of weeks ago that I was selected to be one of the recipients of the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal’s 40 Under Forty awards. The process to be selected involves a nomination process. The editors receive letters from people and then sift through those to figure out who to pick. My sincerest thanks to Dan Grigsby who threw my name into the ring first, as well as everyone else who suggested me for this award. Lastly, thanks to John Riedl for taking the great quotes. Thank you! The Business Journal has been doing this award for at least 11 years now (2006 Winners, 2007 Winners). Dan Grigsby is also a winner this year. Looking in the past years I see Andrew Eklund of Ciceron. Going all the way back to 1999 shows my friend and founder of BigCharts, Philip Hotchkiss. It’s great to join such company.
This is a great way to cap off the last decade as I transition into the next chapter. A cherry on the top if you will.
There is a dinner tonight at the Minneapolis Club for this event. Looking forward to meeting everyone else!
Walking the Dogs
I always feel bad that Izzy and Chase don’t get enough exercise. We are pretty bad at getting them the walks that they really could use. One of my commitments for the summer is to get into the habit of getting them out every day. We’ve done some nice 60 to 90 minute walks the last three days.
They love it. Its good exercise for them. And I can certainly use any exercise I can get as well. It definitely mellows Chase to get a good walk in. Izzy is still her usual hyperkinetic self, but maybe a little better.
Taking Mazie to School
One member of our family sure is happy to have Dad home this summer! Mazie has been Daddy-this and Daddy-that. It’s awesome. She keeps asking me if I’m going to stay for a long, long time. You bet. Here she is before we went to school this morning.
Cute isn’t a big enough word. :-)
Themes: The Worst of the WordPress Ecosystem
This is frustrating. I’ve spent the last couple of hours trying to find a new WordPress theme for Tammy’s blog, Smaller Than a Redwood. This is so frustrating.
First, she can’t do it herself easily because the look of a theme is completely unpredictable of its functionality. I would argue that a theme that doesn’t support sidebar widgets and tags right out of the box, should just be deleted. Why do we still have this junk floating around the Internet?
Worse still is the volume of themes that are just purely broken. We found a theme and I started to “fix” it, meaning add tagging support, and then found out several of the themes own images were not in the download and cannot be found on the Internet.
Argh! Now, back to Google to try to sift through thousands of piles of crap and see if I can find a workable theme.
Minnebar 3
See also Minnebar collection.
New 130GB iPod has been syncing for two hours and it’s half-way done. Wow.
Nearly done with tomorrows (errr, todays) Minnebar session materials.
Wow – 50 sets of handouts in full color is $170. Black & White of same, on 100% recycled paper, $27. Pass on color.
Power WordPress Presentation Materials
I’m doing my Power WordPress presentation at Minnebar today. I decided to do the presentation today without any slides but instead give everyone handouts with the relevant tips & tricks. To share the wealth here are links to the PDF files for the three sections I’m covering, Performance, Plugin Review and SEO Basics.
MarketWatch Farewell Video
Last night was my absolutely amazing farewell party at the Bernard’s house. The gang put together this awesome going away video for me. It’s just great. Thank you so much everyone. Who would have ever thought reading “twitters” could be so funny! There is an amazing, completely unexpected and inexplicable cameo at the end. But don’t skip to it! Sit back and enjoy…
That is just great. I’m speechless. 🤩
Links to most messages read:
Just turned in SecurID, company ID, American Express card, etc. whew…
Completely overwhelmed with all the heartfelt comments from people on my last day.
Last tweet from my Dow Jones office. See you on the other side!
I think that one of the four ports in this USB I have doesn’t get power. Stuff works fine on the other three, but not that one port. Odd.
MarketWatch, Dow Jones Chapter Closing
Today I’m closing a very long chapter in my career. This is my last day at Dow Jones/MarketWatch. This transition has been in the works for a while. It was announced in January and over the course of the following months I’ve been able to wrap-up some projects, transition others and most importantly work to get my replacement hired and up-to-speed. I’m happy to leave on a Friday, and have a new CTO start on Monday to take the organization forward. My replacement will be in New York which I think will be immensely helpful. I’ve been able to do a lot from Minneapolis, but moving to New York isn’t in the cards and it was time for me to do something different.
The past 10+ years have been amazing. This chart is a great representation of all the twists and turns that have occurred over that period.
This is a tough day. It’s filled with a lot of emotion. I’ve found myself reflecting a lot over this week. Remembering a lot of past colleagues, all the great projects and even some of the bombs. It’s been amazing to see an organization grow and change through so many events. I’m incredibly proud of everything that has been accomplished by such this great team.
I’ll be taking a respite this summer and enjoying a great number of trips with my family. Stay tuned right here for news on those travels!