Jess takes photos every day….
…and I’m really glad that she does. The last 4 weeks, from Jess’ Flickr.
We Live in Public
This title is actually twice removed from its original source – I’m borrowing it from a recent mailing list message from Jason Calacanis titled “We Live in Public (the end of empathy)“. The essay happened to come out around the same time as super-blogger Michael Arrington’s post about being spit on at a conference and both pieces raise a lot of questions about our electronic interactions. update 2009-07-15 – Arrington was not a good example to use, considering recent events: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/14/in-our-inbox-hundreds-of-confidential-twitter-documents/
Calacanis gives the problem a name: Internet Asperger’s Syndrome. My own experiences have been nowhere near as dark or damaging. However, I have found that the new online life that we lead is an emotional rollercoaster of extreme highs and extreme lows. Jess and I are very involved in the community site that we run and putting ourselves in front of tens of thousands of people every day has had a huge impact on our real world life.
One part of Calacanis’ essay that struck me was his video game analogy. “Screen names and avatars shift from representing people to representing characters in a video game”. He takes it somewhere else and I’d like to just borrow that one sentence. We see this happen all of the time. Our awareness of this game is why Someone is wrong on the Internet is funny. Personally, it’s a tough realization. Our feeling about companies that are faceless and inhuman has really shaped how we run our site, but in the end, maybe we’re just avatars and names and we aren’t really human at all?
Today’s mountain of social networks are certainly not a new thing – online behavior that differs from real world behavior can be traced back to Usenet, BBSes and earlier still. …and then you can continue back through other forms of communication. Still – it seem like something new is happening. Companies in every industry are rushing to having a social online presence where they can talk to their customers and their customers talk to each other. Is there a way to prevent it from turning into a big game full of characters and not people? I have no idea what our online lives will be like in 5 years but it’s probably safe to say that we’ll never stop looking back at “simpler times”.
edit – 30 minutes later: Melissa’s comment reminds me that small business owners around the world are struggling with this. Most small businesses have personal relationships with their customers (and most customers expect this personal treatment) but it’s not quite the same when all of your interactions are online instead of in person…
I haven’t got an ending to speak of. This is just a bunch of half-thoughts that I wanted to share. Pretend that we had a beer together at a bar – that’s when I deliver most of my half (or quarter) thoughts.
Oh – I do have an ending! This Valentine’s Day weekend, Jess, Mary-Heather and I are going to meet a bunch of Ravelers at The Knitting Nest in Austin. Meeting Ravelry users in person is one of my very favorite things about doing this for a living. Sometimes they are shy, sometimes we are shy, sometimes meetups are a little chaotic, but we love it. It is really energizing to talk to people about how what we are doing has been a positive thing in their lives.
And for luck – a third ending that is a lyric from a Regina Spektor song. “People are just people like you…Maybe you should kiss someone nice, Or lick a rock, Or both.”
Eating and Drinking in San Diego
Jess and I just got back from a stay in San Diego. We went for TNNA (the needle arts industry trade show) and stayed for a few days after the conference so that we could enjoy the nice weather and take a break from work.
We had many nice meals while we were away and a few of them really stood out. I thought that I’d write them down – you never know when you may find yourself in San Diego. Also – I know that some of you are Comic-Con people.
Caveats: We’re from Boston, not San Diego. If you aren’t sure if you trust our taste in restaurants – consider these suggestions and check out the Yelp reviews for other people’s thoughts.
Cafe Chloe
French. Jess and I are huge fans of traditional(-ish) French and we really loved Cafe Chloe. It is a cute and cozy place with a nicely put together menu and friendly staff. The food was excellent. I forget the name of my entree but it was basically a pork three ways with pork belly, loin, and sausage. I’m a sucker for a well executed three ways. (Doh. I meant… I’ll order a “whatever three ways” pretty much every time. Thanks for noticing, Jess.) Dessert was a delicious bread pudding with pistachios. We were on the fence about dessert until our waitress told us that it was made with the morning’s croissants. Mmm. cafechloe.com | Yelp link
La Puerta
Mexican. Our search for great tacos led us to La Puerta. Jess and I ended up here on Inaugration day and we had a nice time hanging out and watching the parade. We ate an assortment of their street tacos – they were all great but the achiote pork was the most memorable. Many margaritas were consumed. All excellent. I’m usually a margarita purist and I just want good tequila, lime juice, good orange liquor, and ice. For some reason I tried out a frozen margarita/sangria blend they called “purple haze”. …and a then had second one. Yum. Try it. taco619.com | Yelp link
Neighborbood
American. A small upscale beer and burger bar. Neighborhood had a really nice set of beers on tap, a nice wine list, and a menu full of interesting burgers. If you are feeling like a good beer and a good burger, look no further. Really good. neighborhoodsd.com | Yelp link
beer in San Diego
Drink local beer! Warning: I’m still on a Belgian kick.
Belgians from Lost Abbey / Port Brewing – Great. I had the Inferno (Belgian) and the Red Barn (Saison) and I loved them both. It looks like pretty much everything that they brew is a winner: beeradvocate link
Ales and IPAs from Stone – If you like strong ale and IPAs, you can’t really miss with Stone. You can get it in Boston so I didn’t drink that much of it.
? from Green Flash – I wasn’t excited about whatever it was that I tried but it looks like BeerAdvocate readers are pretty happy with their brews. Check them out.
Red Trolley from Karl Strauss – not bad. I’d definitely choose this over non-local options. Easy to drink, great if IPAs aren’t your thing and you want a regular amber since IPAs seem to be everywhere in SD.
Tagged /food, reviews, travelDude, Where’s My Life?
This month marks the 2 year anniversary of my work on Ravelry. I started coding the site back in January 2007.
For the last 2 years, I’ve worked on Ravelry for 70-80+ hours a week. At first, everything was being built and we were trying to fit as much work as we could into each day. Later, as the site grew, I found that I was spending less time on coding features and bug fixes and more time working on scaling to support more users, administrative stuff, finance, keeping up with the Ravelry-related forums, and moderating-type work. Adding to the site in a visible way makes me feel like I am accomplishing something (more than the other stuff) and for over year I have been doing the majority of my coding at night when I get home.
This situation is mostly my fault. With Jess and Mary-Heather working hard at their jobs, Erica working part time on customer service, a part time book-keeper, and hundreds (thousands?) of amazing volunteers on Ravelry that are willing to help, I think that we have enough people to run this thing. I’ve become used to burning up my day and thinking “ah well, I’ll start my *real* work after dinner”. I need to be more conscious about how I use my time, I need to avoid being sidetracked, and I need to not worry if things come up and the work that I’d like to do has to wait until tomorrow.
When Jess and I return from our mini-vacation this weekend I’m going to try to go back to a normal life. Ravelry may never be a 9 to 5 job that I can turn off at nights and on weekends and that is okay. I just need to take some of those hours back and use them for the rest of my life. It might take me a while to get the hang of it – sadly I can’t ever remember what I used to do with free time to myself. I close the computer and just sit there, sort of paralyzed. I’ve got a few ideas – mostly unused Christmas and birthday gifts from the past few years. I’ve got a banjo, an electric guitar and accordion – two of which I don’t know how to play at all. I’ve got a pile of books and I used to love reading. I’ve got a Wii Fit that couldn’t hurt, considering that I’ve been sitting at a computer for 2 years. It has been a long time since I’ve really enjoyed music and scouted for concerts the way that I used to.
Friends and family: if you feel like I’ve been in a fog and not quite there, I’m really sorry. I’m fixing that. I’ve realized that it is okay to slow down (thanks Jess, for helping me figure all of this out).
Tagged life, ravelry, work
Where am I?
I haven’t been around these parts for a while (although I hope to be back soon) so I thought that I’d leave a couple up-to-date breadcrumbs for people:
- Ravelry – I’m on Ravelry a lot, since it is my job and all. I can usually be found in the “For the Love of Ravelry” board where all of the meta chatter goes.
- Unraveled – I post to the Ravelry blog a couple times a month. Hopefully some of it is interesting to non-Ravelers
- Code Monkey Island – yep. More Ravelry. This is my tech blog. I’m still not sure who my audience is but this is where my software and architecture related thoughts end up.
- del.icio.us/casey – my bookmark pile increases daily.
- Jess’ Flickr stream – our life in pictures.
- twitter.com/caseyf, but not really. I send inane tweets out fairly regularly for no particular reason.
- upcoming.org – for expressing my interest in shows and other events
Things that have fallen by the wayside: 43 Things, this blog, cameraphone posting, Amazon wish list (my unread book pile is too large), Last.fm.
Boston Indie Film Fest 2008
The IFF starts today! As usual, the festival is happening at the Somervile, Brattle, and Coolidge Corner theatres.
Check out the complete film list.
Sadly, Ravelry ate my life and I didn’t have time to put together a little site like I did last year,
so you’ll have to Google and IMDB and YouTube on your own…
Sometimes the description is all you need to make your decision. For example: “Blood Car:
When the price of gasoline becomes too steep, mild-mannered vegan Archie Andrews discovers a gory replacement for petrol.”
…or maybe “Song Sung Blue
Captures the unexpected victories and tragedies beset upon Milwaukee’s favorite Neil Diamond and Patsy Cline tribute band, ‘Lightning and Thunder’.”
Brrr!
Boston, MA – March 9th
It is FAR too cold for Vespa riding.
Jess, you were right. Thanks for being a good sport and not punching me in the back much.
We’ll try again in May.
What, no blogging?
Things have been quiet over here at nerdle lately, but I have been blogging regularly in a couple other places:
- unraveled – I post about Ravelry.com related stuff a few times a month
- code monkey island – a newish blog where I dump my computery thoughts. Hopefully of interest to the geeky crowd.
..and I’ll continue to write here. I’ll will be nice to keep the work and technical stuff on those other blogs.
