Blog

  • Bald Eagles on Sammamish Pathway

    Our morning walk took us past two bald eagles sitting in a tall tree with no leaves so we had a great view. The NW Rocks!

  • I'm Apple'd

    I spent some time with Marc Andreessen and Naval Ravikant yesterday which was a lot of fun. They’re both Apple converts and Marc is a recent convert. So today I decided to take the jump. I’ve had a macbook lying around for a while that I use as a dev server but my dev server is now sitting in a cosy hosting facility so I grabbed the macbook, bought Office:mac which was surprisingly cheap at about $150 and – what the hell – bought an iPhone while I was at it.

    So I’m all Appled up. Of course I’m waiting for my iPhone to activate – I got a lot further than Kerry did before she got stuck, but based on her experience I’m expecting the worst so maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

    Update: I was pleasantly surprised. The trick is to enter a ZIP code that is in the same area code as the cellphone number you’re trying to transfer. That’s what caught Kerry and I didn’t make the same mistake and my number transferred without a call to AT&T. SWEET!!

  • The Kennedy's and the Obamas

    Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, has an excellent op-ed piece in the NY Times tomorrow titled “A president like my father” about why she supports Barack Obama. Here’s a quote:

    I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

    If you saw Barack’s victory speech in SC this evening (transcript) and it didn’t give you goosebumps then you’re probably dead. [The video is on cspan’s website but you have to have realplayer installed]

    If you haven’t already donated, here’s the link.

  • The best coffee houses in Seattle

    Courtesey of Sam Tingleff on the Seattle Tech Startup mailing list, here’s a map of the best coffee houses in Seattle:

    http://tinyurl.com/2y657u

    And here’s the list:

     

    Uptown Espresso

    525 Queen Anne Ave N Seattle, WA 98109 (206) 728-8842 more info »

    525 Queen Anne Ave N
    Seattle, WA 98109
    (206) 728-8842

    more info »

    Caffe Ladro

    600 Queen Anne Ave N Seattle, WA 98109 (206) 282-1549 more info »

    600 Queen Anne Ave N
    Seattle, WA 98109
    (206) 282-1549

    more info »

    Zoka Coffee Roaster & Tea Co

    2200 N 56th St Seattle, WA 98103 (206) 545-4277 more info »

    2200 N 56th St
    Seattle, WA 98103
    (206) 545-4277

    more info »

    Verite Coffee

    1101 34th Ave Seattle, WA 98122 (206) 709-4497 more info »

    1101 34th Ave
    Seattle, WA 98122
    (206) 709-4497

    more info »

    Cupcake Royale

    2052 NW Market St Seattle, WA 98107 (206) 782-9557 more info »

    2052 NW Market St
    Seattle, WA 98107
    (206) 782-9557

    more info »

    Fuel Coffee

    610 19th Ave E Seattle, WA 98112 (206) 329-4700 more info »

    610 19th Ave E
    Seattle, WA 98112
    (206) 329-4700

    more info »

    Tougo Coffee Inc

    1410 18th Ave Seattle, WA 98122 (206) 329-2869 more info »

    1410 18th Ave
    Seattle, WA 98122
    (206) 329-2869

    more info »

    Caffe Umbria Retail

    320 Occidental Ave S Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 624-5847 more info »

    320 Occidental Ave S
    Seattle, WA 98104
    (206) 624-5847

    more info »

    Cherry St Coffee House

    103 Cherry St Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 621-9372 more info »

    103 Cherry St
    Seattle, WA 98104
    (206) 621-9372

    more info »

    Essential Bakery

    2719 E Madison St Seattle, WA 98112

    2719 E Madison St
    Seattle, WA 98112

    Fuel Coffee

    2300 24th Ave E Seattle, WA 98112 (206) 328-0700 more info »

    2300 24th Ave E
    Seattle, WA 98112
    (206) 328-0700

    more info »

    Caffe Vita Coffee Roasting Co

    1005 E Pike St Seattle, WA 98122 (206) 709-4440 more info »

    1005 E Pike St
    Seattle, WA 98122
    (206) 709-4440

    more info »

    Victrola Coffee

    413 15th Ave E Seattle, WA 98112 (206) 568-2086 more info »

    413 15th Ave E
    Seattle, WA 98112
    (206) 568-2086

    more info »

    Top Pot Doughnuts

    2124 5th Ave Seattle, WA 98121 (206)

  • Facebook widgets slow your site?

    Not to give widgets a bad name… (ours are FAST!!) but a friend is on the front page of Delicious and his facebook widget has just slowed his site to a crawl. It looks like badge.facebook.com is down right now.

  • Startup tip: Buy from Dell at end of quarter

    Dell’s fiscal year ends Feb 2nd. If you want the best deal on servers negotiate with a Dell sales person at the end of a quarter. This one ends in a few days so you’d better hurry if you’re going to place an order. If you want slightly cheaper prices and same day shipping (Dell takes 2 weeks to ship) then email me – I’m trying out a guy who resells “previously ordered new” 2950’s in Florida.

  • Oh Wesley!

    Even if Wesley Snipes is right about not having to pay his taxes, he’s missing the point. If you’re enjoying the fruits of government infrastructure then you’re morally obligated to pay your taxes. My guess is he’s really not that naive. He’s just fell in with the wrong crowd and dug himself a hole so deep that he has no choice but to go to court.

    Of course if he wins and we’re all not obligated to pay income tax… now that would make for interesting times what with a recession looming and all that.

  • Fly tying

    I started tying flies yesterday just for fun. here are my first few. The small dry fly is an Adams with a body who’s dubbing could have been a lot more even and with wings that are too narrow (I used 16 hackle on a 12 hook). The furry black one is a woolly bugger and the big fluffy dayglo one is my own invention called a Ziggy Special (named after my cat).

  • Memo to Bear Hunters

    I turned on VS today to check if there was anything on fly fishing showing. I watched a father and son harvest a bear. They were dressed in hunting camo gear. Dad had the tripod and video camera set up and son had a high powered rifle with high powered scope.

    A big black bear came sauntering out of the forest to take a drink at the waters edge about 200 ft away. After much giggling anticipation son took the shot and the bear took the hit, ran off and died a short way away.

    I have a few questions about the whole affair and maybe a few bear hunters can help me out:

    Is this sporting? Taking a shot at 200 ft from a high powered scoped rifle doesn’t seem like much of a challenge. The world record sniper shot is almost 4000 ft (and it killed an armed human enemy combatant).  There’s no stalking involved in bear hunting – especially when you consider there’s son and dad standing in the open 200 ft away with the bear ignoring them complete with VS channel film crew standing next to them with broadcast quality film gear.

    Is it a right of passage? I’m not sure what son learned from the whole experience. To take the easy shots? That bears don’t really give a shit about you until you shoot them?

    Is it an impressive feat that will give son the street cred to start life? When your guests come over and sit in your family room  next to your bear rug to watch your home video of an easy shot and the death of a beautiful piece of American landscape that was trying to get a drink of water, I doubt they’re going to be impressed.

    Does bear meat taste particularly good? No, it tastes like greasy beef and it tastes like crap if the bear has been eating dead fish. And I doubt you’ll be eating 300 to 500 pounds of greasy bear meat.

    And why call it “harvesting” when it has nothing to do with subsistence and all you’re really doing is getting kitted out in the latest Cabela’s catalog gear and playing cowboy in the forest with your video camera.

    So really this looks to me like a fashion statement. Look tough with gun, shoot big bear on TV, pose with big bear for closing shot. Skin and decapitate bear for bear rug and trophy to show girls how manly you are and leave carcass to rot.

    I guess I’m a little confused about why this is on the ‘sports’ channel.

  • The Denver Fly Fishing Expo

    I spent the day in Denver at the AFFTA fly fishing trade expo. It was awesome. I spent most of my time stalking Lefty Kreh (fly casting god in case you don’t know). He’s about to turn 85 and the guy still casts like a champ. He gave a talk on general fly fishing tips including how to stop snapping your 7x leader on big fish and how to cast with a knot in your fly line. He also did a casting demo where at one point just to prove how effective it is to use your whole body, he split a rod in half and used the top 4 ft to cast a line 70 ft.

    I bought myself a little birthday present – a set of Cloudveil waders and Simms wading boots – so I’m all set for winter steelhead.