Category Archives: Personal

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Rachel and I have been living in our house for almost two years now. Last year I found a neat little online startup (out of Denver, I later learned) called BrightNest that helps us take care of all the chores and things we never quite knew we should do (plus the ones we did) around here.

Throughout the year it has a great set of “must do” reminders for things like cleaning your oven, testing your smoke detectors, disconnecting your hose bib from any outdoor water spigots. Plus, it starts to ask questions about your house and give specific suggestions tailored to you, for example: we have tips on how to fix scratches in our hardwood floors and a reminder check our sump pump in the basement every spring. Every todo has an estimated time for completion and describes the benefit to you and the house (cost savings, for example).

BrightNest also asks you to tell it about your various appliances and provide make and model number information to not only keep track of this information in your “Homefolio” (I had no idea what kind of fridge water filter we had) but also directly link to online resources like PDF manuals and guides that it can find.

I’d highly recommend BrightNest as it’s another tool that allows both Rachel and I to offload some of the worry and “to do list” that comes with a house. In fact, it allows multiple accounts to share a “house” to help split up the work. Sign up for free at brightnest.com*.

* This is a referral tracking link, as far as I can tell I get no benefit from this

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Ben Bleikamp, a designer with a very respectable and enviable design career:

I respect founders immensely—I’ve worked for them my entire career. But me not founding a company is not a question of risk, a lack of ideas, or that I don’t want to change the world. I simply value other parts of my career more.

If you find the right group that’s well established and a fun place to be (culture, again) then why isn’t that seen as a success? Why must everyone be entrepreneurs to be successful?

Rachel, it has been 365 days of bliss. Here’s to many more years on our journey together…

Friends and family, thank you for the continued support and friendship. We’re both quite lucky…

Worldwide WordPress 5K

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The folks at Automattic (who run WordPress.com) schedule an annual 5K run/walk. Not the kind where everyone shows up at the same place but one that is scheduled simultaneously around the world for everyone to participate in.

During this worldwide 5k week I participated in two:

1. Weekly Running Club

Every Tuesday the Denver Beer Co. hosts a running club where nearly a hundred folks all take off and run a 5k together around the Confluence Park area. Rachel and I plan to be there every week if possible.

2. March of Dimes

Every year Rachel and I walk with a family friend at the March of Dimes and this past Saturday it was at City Park in Denver. It was a great way to spend an early weekend morning.

I’ve become more and more accustomed to running over the years (and Nike Running is a fascinating athletics-turned-technology company story) so I hope to document more of these over time.

My Year in Review

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I’ve not really been known to think reflectively (or much, for that matter). I’ve seen people like Alex and Joe post a “year in review” and Matt always does one on his birthday. As I read them I thought it was valuable, if not, fairly interesting. So here we go…

  • Rachel and I experienced our first full year of home ownership (technically we took control in December 2010) which included plenty of projects (replacing attic insulation, planting trees) and plenty of purchases (couches, new bed, desk).
  • We got married in July.
  • We visited the best Colorado dude ranch for our “staycation” honeymoon, it was amazing.
  • I turned 25, which almost seemed like a “quaterlife” milestone but turned out to be just another year…
  • At Crowd Favorite, I helped work on dozens of web design, development and other consulting projects. Notable launches included the AMC and WEtv websites, and the Annotum WordPress theme.
  • I helped contribute very minor patches to WordPress versions 3.2 and 3.3 and released my own plugin, small steps to contributing to open source development
  • I started blogging a bit more regularly again thanks to the soon-to-be-released FavePersonal theme from the team at Crowd Favorite.

This past year I also traveled, what I would consider to be, the “right amount” for both business and pleasure. Although Dopplr has been abandoned since Nokia bought the site, it’s still my favorite way to visualize my trips:

  • Visited San Francisco a couple times for client meetings and the WordCamp San Francisco conference, it’s still a fun and novel place to stay
  • Spent a few days in New York, twice, for client meetings
  • Slept through the SXSW conference in Austin
  • Experienced Vegas for the first time as an adult
  • Spent a few days in London for a client project and had time to wander around and take in the sights
  • Traveled to Portland (Maine) to experience the Monktoberfest conference (and beer tasting)
  • Rachel and I visited Monterey and Carmel where we surfed for the first time, spent time on the beach, and visited some vineyards
  • Spent a quick weekend in Florida (my first visit) to participate in WordCamp Orlando

Overall it was a good year but I think there’s room for improvement in 2012, here are some things I’ll try to track towards:

  • ski a lot more and be more adventurous (less ‘routine’)
  • spend more time traveling with friends and family
  • continue working on interesting projects and products at Crowd Favorite
  • explore our neighborhood and the surrounding businesses
  • work on the landscaping projects in early Spring
  • participate more in the WordPress community and give back where possible
  • average reading one book per month (I slipped this year..)
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As soon as I saw Facebook’s new “Ticker” (a.k.a. Facebook within Facebook) I wondered if Facebook was smart enough to “surface” the right stories to me. MG Siegler at TechCrunch:

But while all the competitors were busy making that button, Facebook was busy making the button obsolete. Today’s Open Graph changes represent a world where the button isn’t needed. Sure, it will continue to exist for certain types of content. But it will be more like an on/off switch.

Once I saw the long term plan (with the new Timeline), it became clear that the Ticker is the new Beacon. Facebook is told about everything you do. Then between a mix of curation (updating my Timeline) and algorithm (Facebook determining what is important) the stream of updates within Facebook will become meaningful again.

Or, at least, thats the hope.

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Speaking of dressing like a grown up, [Ramit](http://iwillteachyoutoberich.com) introduced me to a helpful service called Trunk Club. In short, you pick out outfits on their site that match your style, chat with your own consultant about the clothes you want, and then in a few days you receive a big box full of great (high end) clothing. If you like it all, keep it. If you don’t, put those pieces in the box and send it back. If you’ve looked at catalogs and said “well, I like that look” but then arrived at a store only to fail at picking out outfits, this is a no brainer. Ramit summed it up best: “It saves me HOURS of time and gets terrific results”.

My favorite gadget: JAMBOX

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I’ve been using the JAMBOX from Jambone since January and it’s become one of my favorite gadgets that I didn’t know I needed until I started using it.

What is JAMBOX

The JAMBOX is a portable bluetooth speaker that is about the size of a 20oz soda bottle. You can pair it with a handful of devices including phones, laptops, iPads, etc. The sound quality is tremendous. It’s no Bose but it’s leaps and bounds better than the built in speakers on the aforementioned devices. You can charge it through a wall adapter or a USB cable and holds a charge for weeks. I typically use it for 10 minutes every morning and an hour on the weekend and only recharge it once a month. It comes in multiple colors but black is the only acceptable color, in my opinion.

Why and when do I use it?

I love music, podcasts, and NPR programming (mostly the news). JAMBOX allows me to have this in a variety of scenarios I usually wouldn’t, or where headphones aren’t appropriate.

  • Getting ready in the bathroom: after a shower in the morning I like to put on the morning news from NPR while I get ready for the day. I just grab my iPhone and pull up the NPR app. It sounds much better than the iPhone speakers and I can even hear it in the next room.
  • Trips to the mountains in the car: we don’t have an auxiliary input in our car so our choices are listening the radio (not always available in the mountains) and CDs (we never remember to make new ones). This allows us to listen to anything: podcasts, new music, streaming music, even TV shows or movies.
  • Conference calls at home: it’s pretty awkward for two people to crowd around a cell phone and yell into it when having a conversation with someone on the line. This has a great microphone and excellent sound quality for a true conference call solution.
  • Watching laptop in bed: we have a laptop that runs Hulu and other movies at the other end of the room hooked up to a monitor but the sound from the laptop isn’t loud enough. By simply pairing the laptop with JAMBOX we can have the speaker rest on the headboard behind us and watch in comfort.

All in all, it has become a very handy music solution. This summer I expect we will use it outdoors on our new patio for entertaining and lounging.

What about Sonos?

We have two Sonos systems which are great but the JAMBOX can be taken anywhere and isn’t tied down to a pair of speakers. Plus, I can use literally any audio source on my iPhone or iPad (which have Bluetooth) which the Sonos does not.

All in all, this is one of the best audio devices to have and would recommend it to anyone.