no, really

I guess when you’re busy thinking for other people, it’s harder to do it for yourself.

In honor of summer (that starts in just a few days!!), I decided to clean up the old pic of the Fire Island Pines map.  It was atrocious and was missing a few houses due to a bad scan.

I’m linking a jpg and pdf for your convenience!  Next stop… ferry schedules

[PDF] Map of Fire Island Pines

[JPEG] BIG Map of Fire Island Pines

It’s been 8 months since I’ve been in an airport (I know, right?), and upon my arrival to the JetBlue terminal at JFK, I discover that JetBlue has heard the cries of the disconnected masses, and has put a s-itton of power outlets all over the terminal.

JB has always been ahead of the curve, tech wise, but there’s a full cafe of touch screens where you can order food to be delivered to your seat, and each seat has at least one power outlet available to it.  There are Samsung-sponsored power pillars around the airport with plugs and a little counter around each one, and in various areas, full strips of iPod-ready power ports.

This is really pretty nifty.  And sad.  When you walk around the airport every plug is consumed.  iPods, cellphones, laptops, and most notably iPhones.  If there’s one thing I hear most, it’s that the iPhone’s battery dies in no time if you use anything more than the phone and an occasional text message.

Now add to that the fact that JetBlue offers free wi-fi, and you’ve got a thousand or more iDrones not only sucking up all the power ports, but all the wi-fi bandwidth too!  Just to write this post, I had to stick in my Verizon card.  I couldn’t get enough bandwidth to open one or two web pages!

I’m sure JetBlue has better things to worry about (like getting people to pay for blankets and curbside check-in).  But it does seem that some tech innovation is in order.

Oh yeah, and it’s barely 80 degrees out, and it’s kind hot in here.  You think all these extra charging appliances are generating some heat?

It is always at this time of night that one does the deep introspection.  Perhaps it’s because the sanity of daylight is long gone, and the distractions of life are at a minimum.  That and an alcohol-induced lack of inhibition.  Throw in a visit to a pretty party, and you’ve got yourself a crisis.

I’m not insecure in my life.  I’ve got it pretty damned good, but I do see how it’s always a bit of a tightrope walk.  If I get too lazy with things, they go south.  It’s that never ending game of spinning plates-on-sticks.  Lately, I’ve had way too many plates on way too many sticks.

I’ve been trying to simplify it all so I can do better with what I have.  I think I’ve done a good job on a few fronts:  work is good, I know where I’m going with it, and have little choice but to succeed.  Love life is good: I’m single, enjoying it, but open (and ready) to whittle it down to someone special.  Home is good:  I love my apartment, my commute, my roommate(s), etc.

But there’s always room for improvement.  So I’ve decided there are three areas I need improvement in.  I’ve got some good metrics on two, but the third I’m still working on.

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I’ve been kind of casually working on getting back in shape lately.  After a very stressful winter/spring period, I did a bit of work to cut down my body fat percentage.  But since I wasn’t working on bulking up at all, apparently I lost a lot of weight.

In the past two days, two different people told me I look like I lost a lot of weight.  One told me I lost my “ba donka-donk” (which I found flattering in a post facto way) and the other (whose English is not perfect) said “You look like skin.” Plus, I was looking at pictures of me from this summer, and comparing them to last… frankly I look terrible.  I can’t imagine I weighed that much more last year, but I looked waaaaay better.

Enough.

I started yesterday doing the “phase one” exercises, and I joined the city Rec center.  This has just gotta happen because I can’t look like this anymore.

Stake it!

On my way to moving the truck the other day (I had to park it way over on Graham), I stumbled past a sign that said “Buy our coffee now” in aggressive chalk bubble letters.  It took a minute before I realized that I had never seen that sign before, nor noticed that there is a coffee place called “Variety” in that storefront.

That’s because it’s brand new.

After just having visited el Beit on Bedford, and loving their $5 (ouch) mocha, I figured why not try something a little closer to home?

Amazing.

First off, their iced mocha (it’s summer and worth the extra $.50), is outrageous, and even iced, is still less than el Beit.  Today I was a little pekkish, so I got a croissant.  Also very good.  Hurray!

Now I need to work this place into my budget…

the clouds are so pretty today

We had a call with the outsourcing firm we’re looking into yesterday morning.  I continue to be amazed at the level on which these guys operate.  Anyone who’s worked with me knows that I have an absurdly high expectation of the people that I work with, particularly in their ability to examine a problem and understand all its facets.  The particular tech lead we had the conversation with asked all the right questions.  I actually got the feeling I was a little under-prepared for the conversation.

I spent the rest of the day preparing the tools they’ll need to finish spec-ing out the project to give us a quote.  I set up a duplicate copy of the site for them to browse and poke at.  I also took the time to finish installing Trac.  At FiLife, we used Trac, and I actually learned to like it.  It may not do any of the big features amazingly well (wiki, ticket tracking, planning), but I came to appreciate the cross-links between the different feature sets.  Plus, it’s a very easy way to browse a Subversion repository.

Tonight we’re going to visit the Food Film Festival in LIC (bringing our own beverage, of course).  It’s going to be a gorgeous evening with the sunset and all, so… sangria, anyone?  I wish I could take the ferry, but there are conflicting reports about the east river ferry running.  We’re waiting for Bill’s week off to take a day trip from the Williamsburg landing to Pier 11 in Manhattan to Ikea at Red Hook!!

I’m also having fantasies about trading in the truck for a BMW 135.  SO HOT!

I love being able to be home during the day on occasion now, because there is so much life that happens when you’re not looking.

At the suggestion of Ken I stopped by Gimme! Coffee on Lorimer to pick up a cup and a pound of coffee, and good lord is it worth it.  First off, it’s exactly what you would expect of a boutique espresso joint in a hipster hood.  Excellent coffee, a bench with tables along it, overpopulated by “writers” and their $2100 Mac laptops (yes, one was an Air).

On the walk home, I saw them move the big Italian festival trailer thing that’s always parked on Metropolitan.  I assume it must serve its purpose on a regular basis, and not one of those once-a-year events.  But what could it be?  I’ll take a picture next time so you know what I’m talking about.

It was also nice to play “dog walker” for the cars and switch sides just at the right time.  And still, all of this while getting work done.  I’m so productive like this!

I’ve always done whatever it takes to get the job done, which often means learning stuff I’ve never done before.  In the past few months, I’ve done a lot of sysadmin work for myself – Ezra is rediculously amazing, but for the little stuff there was no reason to bother him.

In the past few weeks, we started moving all of Noo over to a server on MediaTemple.  We have been working with a gridserver, which felt kind of like bobbing for apples.  I mean, it can do the job, but you have to get used to having your hands tied.  Now that we’ve got a full dedicated machine, I can really stretch my legs and get things up and running, which has been a lot easier than I expected!  I’m appreciating all that I’ve learned from the talented people I’ve worked with.  They have good shoulders to stand on.

Plus, the speed increase is obvious.  I was wary of keeping Plesk on the box because it puts things in strange places.  But I’ve learned how it works, so I’m happy doing it both ways.

I’m still excited to be moving on this work now.  I can’t wait to start to see the results!!

It has been far too long.  And what a long three and a half months, indeed!  Let’s see…

• Bill moved into the apartment.  Hilarity ensued.
• I worked several ~70hr weeks at FiLife.  We launched today.
• I started working full time with Mahdad on Noo.  We got financing.

Along the way, there were some good points (Birthday bash, weekends on Fire Island), and some sad points (grandfather passing, tax nightmares).  In the end, I’m grateful for loving friends and family that have been there for it all.

So, yet again, I’m at a point of transition.  I’ll miss very much working with the FiLifers – a talented and crafty bunch who have been so much fun to work with.  I’m still tingling with excitement as I do work on Noo.  Success is within reach!

As part of my new regimen, I will get back to blogging regularly.