(continued after the break)

What I often come back to are those stories of the dads who know they are dying and so they record messages for their children to listen to later. They want to show their kids something of how they lived, what life means, and try to cram all the life teaching they were planning to do into a series of letters or videos. I keep wanting to do that myself. Even though I’m not dying, what if I did die suddenly. The fathers who suddenly die in a car crash don’t care any less for their kids, but they don’t get the chance to let their voice be heard later in the same way.

I don’t want to be too morbid about it. I don’t want to be so worried about death that I miss living with my sons in the moment. But I’m trying to find those opportunities to record my thoughts and parts of my life that I can so that if something did happen, Christy would have something she could show them later. Just last week I recorded a ‘day in the life’ video of my traveling to Austin for work. Nothing profound. Not very well done (I’m not even sharing it with other family). But it’s there. It’s a record of what I did that day.

The upside I’ve realized from this is that whether I die prematurely or not, these traces of me as I am now can still be valuable. I’d love to have a recording of how my dad (who is still alive) spent his day at various stages of his life. Not just the highlights that might survive in his memory or my mom’s, but the really mundane details like if traffic was good or bad on his commute or the kinds of things he ate for lunch. Besides which, figuring out how to be a dad to two little boys is hard work, and every little detail of how my dad approached raising a 2-year-old me would help.

The great part of course is that social media as it exists now makes this even easier. Facebook’s timeline feature is a great example, but so are archived twitter feeds and the 7000+ pictures on my Flickr stream. But I’m also hoping to go even deeper occasionally. To share my thoughts on issues of the day. Not in a semi-filtered blog post for public consumption, but in a way that my boys will be able to really see not just what their dad thought, but how. I want to teach them how to let the world teach them. Show them how to be the best men they can be – themselves. And I want them to hear it from their dad – even if I’m not around to say it.

For those that haven’t seen, our oldest son, Ian, is a huge Predators fan (like his parents, of course). One of his favorite parts of the game is the starting lineups. He cheers loudly through them, and frequently asks us to play intro videos from YouTube when he’s playing. Then a while back we started introducing him like he was a hockey player (I think my parents started it, actually). He loves it and frequently asks for us to do it “a-gin”. Over and over again. (Sometimes he also introduces himself)
See the video below for an example:

So with @i_nich‘s 2nd birthday coming up, wonder if we could get @predpapaul to record a game-style announcement for our own little #9 :-)
03/03/11

And Paul quickly replied:

@pwnicholson I’d be happy to… send me the details and I’ll send it back in email… OK?
03/04/11

So I did.
And this was the result!

AWESOME!!!
I keep telling Paul that they really need to sell these. Offer them to Preds Kid’s Club members for at least $5-$10. Shouldn’t take much time if they knock them all out monthly in sessions and re-use the real players. I know we’d have bought one for double that price.

Thanks again, Paul!!

The corner 24 hour store will stop having eight pumps offering gasoline and go down to four, then to two, then just one. It’ll be situated ’round the back and you’ll have to go inside and ask the cashier to turn on for you. Eventually that’ll be gone too; finding go juice will start to become a challenge.

Those stores will go from serving gas (which they all say they make no money on to begin with) to just being the convenience store. And between the Walgreen’s and CVS already on every corner, the need for other shops will be greatly reduced. (Now of course we will still need filling stations if (or more likely when) a move is made to hydrogen fuel-cells as the most common source of electricity for cars.)

That got me thinking: what other types of obsolete industries have been totally (or almost totally) dried up by the advancement of technology? What others are at risk?

Certainly there are industries that are endangered by the march of time in general (style: try to find a dedicated haberdashery in your town), but it has been a remarkably long time since an entire industry was threatened by technology. Last one I can think of was the blacksmith being replaced by the auto-repair shop. Even then an argument could be made that many smiths and livery’s converted to working with automobiles themselves (Perhaps a better argument would be feed stores?).

Most others I can think of have been able to adapt: Libraries aren’t being replaced by the internet, they are embracing and taking advantage of it. Libraries certainly look different and librarians have different skills now than 50 years ago – but they are still around. Fewer people are farmers today than 150 years ago and farms certainly look much different – but they are still around in fairly large numbers.

To me this is remarkable because technology has certainly advanced at an amazing pace. In the last 150 years. Countless new industries have been created by that advancement. And we frequently hear about how technology threatens certain ways of life when it comes in (and I won’t argue that). But it is remarkable how few times and entire industry of people has been left suddenly in the lurch when technology rapidly changed society.

Can you think of any other industries that my grandfather or great-grandfather would have found ubiquitous that have been rendered extinct by technology? I ask the question because i’m sure there are many (and there are certainly many if you include your search going back 300-500 years), but I’m having trouble thinking of any industries that vanished due to technology.

Not too long ago I was watching Jeremy Cowart do a cool online workshop (free when streaming live thanks to CreateLive) on experimental portraiture (read: doing weird stuff and seeing what looks cool). At one point when answering the question “how do you get out of a creative rut”, he said something which was fairly obvious after the fact: change what you’re taking in. Listen to different music, follow different people on twitter, watch different TV shows, etc. That got me thinking: lately about 90% of my twitter feed has been either NHL hockey or Dell (work) related. That’s all fine and good, but that’s not where I want to be going. I’m a hockey fan, and my job is a nice one, but the direction I want to be going is marketing and/or photography, and more so the latter. So lately I’ve been looking for more Nashville area photographers to follow on Twitter, Flickr, blogs, etc…

(continued…)

One of those photographers has already given me another idea. Leslee Mitchell is not only a great photographer, but she’s the queen of self-promotion. As she put it herself not too long ago “self-promotion is the art of spreading ideas, concepts, and a greater vision.” Among other things I’ve seen her doing lately is a “best of 2010” gallery of her work. She created the gallery on Facebook and has been voraciously linking to various pictures in the gallery with comments on why she liked the photos. I realized that it wouldn’t hurt for me to do the same. If I expect anyone to ever take me seriously as a photographer, I have to take myself seriously first. Not to mention that some self-examination and critical analysis could do me some good.

Since my son David was born last week, I’ll be more than a bit busy for a while. So for the moment I’m going to post a slideshow if my current favorite pictures from my portfolio (all taken in 2010). Soon I hope to post a few individual entries on them with commentary. Hope you enjoy.

Turns out there is a movement for men’s health – I caught on too late to do join last year, but I won’t miss out this time. And yes, I’m asking for a donation…

(continued after the break)

Mustachioed Me

Thanks to a movement that started in Australia a few years ago I will joining thousands of men across the world growing a mustache to help raise awareness of men’s health in the month of Novemeber Movember. The idea being that mustaches aren’t very common and people will ask “why are you growing a mustache?” and give me a chance to spread the word. I have created a Movember team for Nashville Predators fans (assistant coach Peter Horachek was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer), but of course I’m inviting anyone to join and/or donate. So far my team has grown to 5 members and already raised $70 in just a few days. All proceeds are divided between Livestrong and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

So how can you help?

Well, first off I’ll warn you that though the cause is great, the website for Movember still leaves something to be desired, so bring your patience: First, visit my Movember page .

If you simply wish to make a donation, click on “Donate To Me“. It will then prompt you for your name and email address, then for your credit card/payment info on the next screen. You can choose any donation amount you wish to make. Thank you!

If you want to join my team, click on “Join My Team“. It will then ask you if you want to be a team captain, team member , or an individual. Choose “Team Member”. Then fill out the form with your name, email address, etc. Submit that form and that should be it.

Thanks to all for your support!

And yes, due to popular request I will be going fu-manchu with my ‘stache. Be warned.

I feel like I’ve been a bit of a jerk lately. I know don’t exactly have a reputation as being cuddly. Most of my life I’ve heard the criticism that I’m too sarcastic, too quick to voice my opinion of others and their work, and too casual with my communication of said sarcasm and criticism. But lately I find myself regretting more and more that has been coming out of my mouth or fired off on Facebook/Twitter, etc.

I suppose for those that aren’t up to speed, I should backup provide a bit of a preface before I proceed.

(continued after the break)

My wife, Christy and I are pregnant with our second child. Our son Ian is 17 months old and doing great.  About 3 weeks ago Christy started having a few symptoms that the doctor decided were best checked out with an unscheduled visit. 1 surgery, 5 days in the hospital (in two sessions), and 3 weeks later Christy is doing fine, as is the baby boy, but she is on strict bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy – approx 4.5 months if it goes full term. That has left me as essentially a single parent in terms of work load, etc. Christy has been incredibly supportive emotionally and verbally, but the work is still there to do.

To say this has been challenging would be an understatement.

Now, it is also worth mentioning before I go on that we’ve had no shortage of assistance offered and even provided by friends and family. Both my family and Christy’s live in the area and they have frequently assist in vital ways (Christy’s mom is retired and comes over 8-5 every MWF, my parents frequently run errands for us). Many of Christy’s friends have come over and brought food and visited with Christy or watched Ian for a while to give me a chance to catch up on laundry, etc. My employer has been amazingly accommodating as well. Thanks to the flexibility of my position I’ve been able to take what is normally a 15-20% travel job and cut it down to zero. I’m also working from home 90% of the time, and able to take off ‘long lunches’ to take Christy to weekly doctor appointments when needed and ‘flex time’ that work into the evening. All of these things have been a huge help. But even this can be a mixed blessing when it comes to our mental state. Christy and I are both introverts of a sort – meaning that we ‘recharge’ best with time spent alone – something neither of us is getting very much of. Even from each other, much less all the family/friends visiting. Of course, take away the visits and we very quickly get stir crazy and lonely in the house by ourselves. Just one of our many conundrums.

But overall I’ve really been surprised that this hasn’t been such a horrible experience for me. Sure, the first few days (while we were bouncing in and out of the hospital and getting no sleep and were not sure if we would lose the baby) were complete hell. I broke down and frequently cried every time I was alone for a couple of days there. But now that we’ve settled into a routine it really isn’t bad. I’m spending a tremendous time with my two favorite people in the world and any given moment, any given request really isn’t a burden. I’m able to stay positive in the moment.

But I’ve started to realize that it is really wearing on me. My first indications are that I have no idea ‘how’ I am. You know, when some one asks “how are you?” – I have no idea. I just sort of stare blankly back at them as if to say “I don’t understand the question”. My second indication is that I’m being a jerk. More than usual.

It might be worth explaining that both of these things are already something I have to work at. I’m not going to go into the whole story now, but sufficed to say many years of therapy and a whole lot of good, patient friends have helped me recover a sense of self-awareness and sensitivity that were not natural to me. I’ve had to learn how to identify myself in the mess of facades I used to throw up for everyone else to see when I was growing up. I’ve had to learn coping skills that help me vent my personal frustrations in helpful ways rather than lashing out with critical barbs at friends and loved ones. Sure these are all things most people have to do when they grow up. Maybe I’m no worse than others. But for me these are things I have to work at very diligently. It takes conscious effort to maintain basic life skills that (I can only assume) come naturally to others. But I’m usually pretty good at it these days.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had much extra energy or time to put into those efforts. I am awoken every morning when my son wakes up. Immediately get into gear and get him changed, fed, dressed. Feed Christy. Hand off the household duties to whoever is on deck to help. Then head to work. My day job I mean. Throughout the day my “breaks” from work are to come upstairs and check on the family. Make sure everyone is doing ok and answer questions for whoever is helping run the house that day (Don’t get me wrong, I prefer the questions to assumptions. More on that later). As soon as I’m off work, I have to relieve my assistant and take back over. Make dinner for everyone, keep my son’s curiosity and energy semi-contained. Try to get some amount of time with my family. Then put my son in bed. Usually then do the dishes and clean up the daily chaos. Try to get in some time with my wife. Then go back to work for an hour or three. Finally around 1:00am I crawl into bed and sleep. (note this blog is being posted and edited well after 1:00am)

I do try to take breaks. To do some of those things my therapist calls “self care” to keep myself sane. I’ll make time to play a few minutes of a video game. Read up on hockey news. Take, edit, and post photos. But all of it is crammed into the small amount of time in between running from need-to-need in the rest of the house. I know that every minute I spend away from one of those chores is just getting me further and further behind, and having to schedule and be that thoughtful about the activities makes them feel like just another chore themselves.

Now, I’ll make yet another aside here to cover what I know some of you are thinking: why doesn’t he get more help around the house. Let someone else do the dishes, the laundry, etc. I do. Some. Both grandmothers come will occasionally do a load of dishes or fold laundry when they come over. Unfortunately I discovered very early on in this ‘adventure’ that I was rapidly losing any sense of identity, pride, or adult-hood that I had if I handed my house over to someone else. Again: maybe that’s nuts, but it’s me. It’s great to have the help, but I found myself very frustrated when everything in the kitchen started moving around on me. Things were washed differently and put away in the wrong place. The food in the cabinets and refrigerator was not ‘mine’ – it was stuff that I would never buy that someone else (very graciously) bought for me. People rearranged our laundry into ways that made sense to them but weren’t how Christy and I did things. These are all OK in small doses, but I realized that I could not hand my home over to one person, not to mention a varied group of other people, each with their own systems and ideas – none of which were the one’s Christy and I had been running our house by. Fortunately I’ve been able to slowly let go of a few of these things and the grandmothers in particular have been great about being patient and understanding with my very specific, nit-picky requests (you should see the grocery lists complete with brands and sizes that I give to my mom). So that is getting better. Improving.

But all of this still leaves me with so little time. And so much on my mind. Which leaves room for little else. In particular I mourn not being able to spend more time on my main creative outlets. Cooking and photography.

I rarely get to cook much anymore and when I do, I don’t have the time to allow myself to be creative (side note: not to mention that my pregnant wife’s stomach is not nearly as willing to indulge my culinary experiments). I have a box of Thai coconut curry broth that I’ve been dying to try something with. But every time I look at it in the pantry I just think “I’m not even sure where to start, I sure as heck don’t know where it’s going” and put it back on the shelf. These days a really good cooking session involves making my own, well established recipe (but tasty) for hashbrowns along with following the instructions on the box for making waffles. Even then every other waffle comes out burned because I’m trying to multitask too much. At least I have the pleasure of knowing that Christy enjoys the cooking I do get to tackle and requests some of my recipes specifically. That at least reminds me that someone thinks I’m still good at what I’m doing.

As for the photography… I’ve always been a photo hound, but ever since my parents gave me a D90 last Christmas I’ve really gone for it. I’m finally using gear (especially the 50mm 1.8f lens) that allows me to at least get close to capturing the images I see in my mind. m really proud of some of the shots I’ve been able to pull off. In particular I’ve really loved shooting Christy and my son. But right now Christy just tolerates my pointing the camera her way to document this time for our family, but she’s not really in a position to be my primary artistic subject at the moment. If I had all the time in the world and the money to go with it, I’d be buying more gear to do work with them and others. And there’s the real secret: I’d love to do work for other people. I’d love for someone else to like my work enough to request that I shoot for them. Even for free. Only once before has that happened (a paying gig actually) and that was before I had my new camera. The results were decent, but rushed and nothing like what I know I was capable of and nothing at all like what I could do now. Recently I even looked in to taking a photography course in the area. Ha. Who am I kidding that I could work that into my schedule. For now, I just get to shoot what I happen to find in life around me – which is still quite a lot.

So…

all that to say…

I’m sorry.

Sorry to my coworkers, and most importantly, my friends who I have hurt with my thoughtless jabs or wise cracks. Many of you I consider dear friends – then I get too ‘comfortable’ and feel like I can make a sarcastic jokes at/with. But when I think about it, 1) we aren’t as close as I think because I don’t have time to invest in many friendships right now and 2) what on earth makes me think it’s OK to make hurtful comments only to the friends I care about. Yeah… that’s how my mind works when it’s fried.

And I am fried right now. I don’t feel like it from moment to moment. And I may tell you everything is fine. But I’m just gonna be running on fumes for a while.

This isn’t an excuse, just an explanation. And apology. And request that you provide me a little grace and don’t judge me as harshly as I know I sometimes judge you. I love you all and despite the messages that dominate my verbal jabs, snarky Twitter replies, whiny Facebook posts, and sarcastic blog comments: I never mean to say anything to belittle you or take away from the value of who you are or what you do. I never mean to. But I know sometimes I do. Thank you for being my friends in spite of that fact.

I will leave you with a slideshow of some of my Flickr photos. I really am rather proud of them.

The recent signing of Ilya Kovalchuk has brought the controversy of GMs “gaming” the current salary cap rules in the NHL. There are a few other bad examples of course – the other prime example being Henrik Zetterberg.

If you aren’t familiar, the current NHL collective bargaining agreement which put in place a salary cap for the league uses the average of all the years of a contract to calculate a player’s “cap hit”, that is, how much they count against the salary cap for the term of their contract. This means a player like, say, David Legwand can have a 5 year contract that pays him 5.0, 4.5, 4.5, 4.0, and 3.5 million in each year – yet counts as $4.5mil every year of the deal when it comes to the cap. So the Preds have to cut him a $5mil check in the first year, but he only counts $4.5 mil against the cap.

(continued after the break)

David Legwand

So when Henrik Zetterberg wanted to sign with the Red Wings, who had plenty of money to pay him but had to worry about keeping salary cap space free, he agreed to a 12 year contract worth $73mil. Trick is, each year paid out as 7.0, 7.75, 7.75, 7.75, 7.5, 7.5, 7.5, 7.5, 7.0, 3.35, 1.0, and 1.0. So of course that’s really a 9-year deal worth an average of $7.5mil per year after which Zetterberg will most likely retire – but the extra 3 years on the end make the cap hit count as $6mil, saving the Wings $1.5mil a year in cap space to go sign some nice 3rd line grinder.

Some are offering that the solution to this problem is to limit contract terms to 5 years. That, combined with the  “100% rule” (which states that there cannot be a reduction of the total compensation from any given year over a three-year period by more than 100 per cent), would certainly make it more difficult to game the system (see Martin Erat’s initially rejected contract in 2008 which violated this rule).

However, I have no problem with signing up a player for life. If a team like the Caps want to sign Ovy to a ‘lifetime’ contract they should be able to. If a team like the Islanders wants to throw away their future on Rick Depietro’s gimpy legs, go right ahead.

The real solution to this problem would be to put a rule in place requiring that the minimum salary for any one year of the contract cannot be less than 50% of the value of the highest payout year. Maybe even make it 75% if you really want to get tough. Example: If Hank’s contract peaks at $7.75mil in any one year, the minimum any other year could be would be $5.8mil. Sounds fair, right? Still gives teams room to shift money around in a contract, but not too much.

But that’s not why I’m writing this post. The title of the post is how the Preds could win the Stanley Cup in 2011. So – how does all this salary cap mess, an issue that mostly affects teams with more money to spend than the cap allows – help the Preds. Everyone knows the Preds are one of several teams with a “soft cap” put in place by ownership who cannot afford to write checks for more than a certain amount – no matter what the league cap is. In fact, if the Preds want to continue to receive full revenue sharing from the league they must not spend over the salary cap midpoint according to CBA rules. But that’s just it – they don’t have to.

All David Poile needs to do is reverse what Henrik Zetterberg has done. Find some valuable, talented free agent forwards and defensemen that the Preds could never normally afford to all sign at once – and go for it. Sign them all to rich (but not ridiculous deals). Trick is to front load them with pennies. Tell the players up front: you won’t get much this year in base salary, but we’re going to put together an all-star team, you’ll make a bundle in performance bonuses when we go deep in the playoffs, get your name on the cup, then we’ll trade you away. Next year’s UFA class includes Brad Richards, Joe Thornton, Zedeno Chara, Ed Jovanovski, Alex Semin, and yes even Tomas Vokoun. Sign each of them to deals with a $1mil base pay in year 1 of the deal so the Preds ownership can actually afford it. Then all the following years are signed at true market value. The cap hit doesn’t matter to the Preds ’cause they have cap space to spare. The contracts will still be movable with players of this caliber. The players have a blast, make history, then move on. Heck, they could even have clauses where they get to choose which team to go to, so it’s almost like they’re UFA’s again the next year.

Will this ever happen: no. Of course not. But under the collective bargaining agreement it could. It could even happen under a CBA that limited players to just a 5 year contract. In fact, it would be much more plausible under that sort of term than a 10 year monstrosity that other teams would be hesitant to pick up.

Point is, the CBA needs a clause to limit the difference between minimum and maximum years of the entire deal – not just regulating the length or rapid decreases from year to year.

The interesting thing to me about information portals like this is that many people (myself included) assume that the business model should be one of two things: either pay for content or ad driven. Not both. I’d be fine with paying for something that is worth it if it means never having to see an ad on the site again (see: Pandora), and likewise don’t mind visiting a site with ads if it means I get good content for free. The interesting thing of course is that traditional dead-tree editions of the paper had both: pay for the paper, still has ads.

(continued after the break)Having said that, I do think the newspaper industry has drug its collective feet in lurching into the 21st century and there is still plenty of room for innovation when it comes to a business model. And the New York Times’ “metered model” is not the one to go with.

Here’s the trick though: right now I’ve only seen a subscription-based pay model really work on a practical level. Users are denied access to all but a few articles and everyone else pays a large quarterly/annual fee for access to everything else (see: The Nashville Post). That’s not what the old papers used to be. I used to be able to not worry about picking up a copy of the paper unless it had something that interested me. If it has a quality piece or something really worthy of being read I could grab a copy for a very nominal fee. Right now there’s no site that I’m aware of that lets me pay $0.50 to have access to that day’s content. Or $.10 for a single article.

Why?

2 reason:
1) Some blogger out there is going to either straight plagiarize and repost the article in 30 minutes (or at least summarize it well)
2) Micropayments are still not common enough or well supported online.

In the meantime, with a subscription model, we are left having to shell out serious cash (usually in the $75+ range at least) for an annual subscription to a paper that is 90% filled with content that I could get for free just about anywhere else. Just so I could read a single article that looked intriguing?

Meanwhile we have the New York Times’ “metered” model. First off – this isn’t metered at all. Metered would be as described above with micropayments. Something which I think would work and will work someday. The world just isn’t ready for it. No, the NYT’s “metered” model is supposed to somehow keep track of an individual users access to the site and allow unfettered access to content up to a certain intake level. Once a given user accesses content more than a “certain amount” (nothing has yet specified where this magic wall will be), they will be forced to pay a full subscription fee to have access to more content (presumably for a month?). The trouble with this of course: how are you keeping track of users? If it is by login on the website, then this is an utter joke. All I have to do is log out and continue browsing if I want to access more content. If it is tracked by browser cookies, likewise easily avoided (clear out cookies, switch browsers all together, or use the now ubiquitous “private mode” on your browser of choice). Track by IP address? My DSL connection has a dynamic IP address, as do most people’s. We haven’t even mentioned the various different ways people access content now. I split my browsing almost 33/33/33 between my work laptop/connection, my Android smartphone, and my home PC. The chances of running into this “magic wall” and needing to pay for content sound slim for someone like me.

So they have a pay model for their shareholders to feel warm and cuddly about. “We have a revenue stream identified!”. Too bad it is going to be a fraction of what they probably forecast.

There’s a lot of work left to be done in the pay-for-content world. It will be no easy task.

Here is my wish list of things that I thing Google and others should tackle to make my life easier (in no particular order). Hop to it!

1) Flickr/Facebook integration: I really wish Yahoo would go ahead and buy Facebook so they could integrated it with Flickr. Flickr finally got around to letting you tag people in photos (years after Facebook did), but it is still limited to your Flickr contacts (not even just other Flickr members) and so few of my friends and family are on Flickr that this amounts to very few people being available for tagging. Facebook on the other hand has a massive adoption rate and just about everyone I know is available for tagging. But Facebook’s photo service is just bad. Images are compressed and resized to horrible quality, you can’t tag photos on maps, group them, etc. If I could tag my Facebook friends on my Flickr photos…[sigh]. That’s a world I want to live in.

(continued after the break)
2) Improve Google Calendar on my Android phone: The GMail and Calendar experience is far better on Android than any other mobile platform, but it still has some pretty huge gaps considering the development teams sit down the hall from one another.

A) Invitation Handling – Invites opened in GMail on my Android phones just open a cludgey web interface and don’t link directly to the Calendar app on my phone. Difficult to manage.
B) Show other attendees on events in the Calendar app. If I have an upcoming call for work, it would be nice to be reminded of who will be attending the call.
C) Invitations! Allow me invite others when creating an event on the Calendar app. I can do it from the web, why not the app?

3) Fix Pandora User Login:
Instead of using browser cookies like every other website in the world, Pandora stores user login info in some special way that is apparently stupid. Maybe within the Flash app itself? My wife and I use the same desktop login and same install of Firefox, but use different profiles within Firefox. Each contains our own bookmarks, cache, and set cookies for the dozens of sites we use everyday. Every site on the web works fine – except Pandora. If I log in to Pandora, then close Firefox, then Christy brings up Pandora under her profile, it will be logged in as me. If she logs out, signs into Pandora as herself, then closes the browser and we load my Firefox profile, Pandora will still be on her login. Why?!?

4) Contact Categories in Android: Smallish nitpick here, but for some reason the categories that are created and used for organizing contacts on GMail (over the web) don’t sync to categories on Android phones – just the default 3 categories (Friends, Family, Coworkers). Any custom made contact groups do just fine on web-based GMail, but don’t sync to my phone, so really, what’s the point?

5) Facebook Live Feed Sticking: Why would I want Facebook to select just a few posts that it things I’d like to see from my friends and then display them in a random (non-chronological) order? That’s what the standard Facebook feed does now. Of course they make the “Live” feed still available (everything friends are doing in the order they do them in) but I can’t get Facebook to give that to me by default. Sometimes when I pull up Facebook it remembers my last view settings, but sometimes it doesn’t. It also won’t pass the “live” view to the Facebook app on my phone, just their hacked up version of my feed.

6) More Functions in Google Spreadsheets:
Being able to add cells together does not a spreadsheet make. Beyond lacking more advanced features like macros, pivot tables, and beyond (which I can kinda understand) Google Spreadsheets lacks some fairly common and basic commands. From VLOOKUP to SUMIF and COUNTIF, very usable features are just missing. I understand if Microsoft has some goofy copyright on those exact phrases, but the function isn’t copyrightable or patentable. Refac vs Lotus was one of the first cases I studied in Copyright Law and it is all about spreadsheet formulas and software patents. If you want individuals, businesses and schools to seriously consider using Google Docs as an MS Office replacement, Spreadsheets has a long way to go.

7) Expanded manipulation of picture data in Flickr: I can add tags in bulk, place pictures on a map in bulk, add people to photos in bulk, add and remove photos from sets in bulk, add photos to a group in bulk, etc, etc. You can edit a photo, crop it, flip it, change the saturation, etc. But a few things you can’t do because they would just be too darn useful-

A) Edit “Date Taken” in bulk- Flickr stores two dates for every photo on the service: Date/time taken, and Date/time uploaded. If a pictures has EXIF data with a date/time stamp, it uses that to determine time taken. If there is no EXIF data, it assumes that it was “taken” when it was uploaded. So if you upload of bunch of pictures today from, say, your wedding in June 2002 ago and there’s no EXIF date data because they were scanned in, Flickr will set the “date taken” date to today’s date. If you want to change all the “date taken” data to be the correct date – settle in for a long night. You have to change all of them one by one because Flickr won’t let you change dates or times in bulk. It’s not like Flickr has some objection or technological restriction for being able to change the dates – they let you change them. Just not in bulk. Huge pain! Holy crap!! I just figured out where they added this. I swear it wasn’t a feature just a few months ago the last time I tried. “Change all to same day” is now an option in the Organizer!
B) “Date Uploaded” vs display order- Obviously this is similar to the above objection, but slightly different reason. The “Date Uploaded” date/time is how Flickr determines the order the pictures display in your stream. If you want to change the order of the photos in your stream, you have to edit the upload date. If you upload a bunch of pictures in set A, then upload more in set B, but you want the photos in set B to show up earlier in your time line than those in A, you once again have to manually edit each individual photo’s upload date/time. Just silly. Of course this could be fixed by having a new “display order” property for each photo. That way the upload date could be kept accurate and real and you could still change the order that your photos displayed. Another annoying glitch this would help get rid of: Flickr won’t let you set the “Date Uploaded” date to anything before you create your Flickr account (which I understand would be impossible, but if you’re going to let me change the upload date then reality clearly doesn’t mean that much to you). The upshot of this is that if you uploaded something the day you created your Flickr account (which most people do of course), you can never have anything display before it in the timeline without not only moving the new picture back, but moving the old picture up. Huge pain.

8) Bring back the Facebook social timeline: Small one here too. Facebook used to have this cool tool where you could see your “social life” at a glance on a timeline. When you went to school, started jobs, became friends, got married, etc. I always found it really interesting to see and fascinating to see other people’s timelines. A few years ago they took the feature away with no explanation, even though they left in the ability to identify where and when you became friends with people (though few actually use the feature anymore). Seems like a flip of the switch to add it back. (…and yes, i already joined the Facebook group asking them to add the feature back)

UPDATE — 9) “Mark as read” in Twitter: Like most people, I use Twitter from several different access points. Twidroid on my phone, Twhirl on my work PC, and BeTwittered on my iGoogle home page. I follow quite a few people on two different accounts. I’d love it if Twitter supported the ability for me to mark ‘where I left of’ on my Twitter feed. Right now I have to just scroll through until I start seeing familiar tweets. Twidroid has a feature that will mark my place in my feed, but that doesn’t carry over to other apps so unless I go Twidroid exclusive (not happening) it won’t work. My guess this would have to either be a totally new API feature and/or some kind of OMPL implementation on top of Twitter.

That’s all I can think of for now. I’m sure to think of more later, so watch this space for more brilliant and original life changing ideas for improving the web. After all, I’m sure I was the first to think of all of these improvements.

Oh – and please feel free to contribute more of your own suggestions, or better yet, if you know work-arounds for any of the above issues, please share in the comments!

Second, many of you keep asking me (as someone who’s been using Android for almost a year already with my 1st gen G1) what apps you should install.

So, here is a list of the apps I currently use, in no particular order. I’ll try to update the list occasionally, but no promises. If you want my latest recommendations, hit me up on Twitter. Also, keep in mind I’m using a 1st-gen G1 with Android 1.6. Those of you lucky enough to be using a phone with 2.0 or 2.1 will have a different experience. Some of these apps will not be necessary since the OS has features built-in, while others may not run if the creators haven’t ported it up to 2.x

APPS

• Advanced Task Manager – One of the few pay apps I run and worth every penny. Allows you to manage which apps are allowed to run and which ones aren’t, etc. One of Android’s biggest features is also one of its drawbacks: multitasking. Much like WinMo devices, it can run multiple apps at once but many of those apps don’t “quit” when you leave them. They simply go to the background. This costs you battery life and CPU cycles. Sometimes that’s a good thing, other times not so much. This app lets you kill apps that need killing and even lets you schedule regular termination to squash some pesky apps that auto-start periodically in the background. I got an immediate boost in battery life and performance with this relatively inexpensive app.

(continued after the break)

• AK Notepad – One of dozens of basic notepad apps on Android. Nothing special, this just happens to be the one I picked.
• AndroZip – Basic file manager app that obviously also handles compressed files of various types including .zip archives.
  
• Barcode Scanner – used for one thing: Scanning QR-Code barcodes for hours of fun.
• Bloo – Best Facebook app I’m aware of. For a long time it was better featured than the official Facebook app. While the official app has finally caught up in features (inbox access!), it weighs in a several MB and is slow. Bloo is slim and trim under 1MB install. I found it worth paying for.
• Toggle Widgets – A set of widgets I put on my desktop that let me turn on/off features of the phone. I use the Bluetooth, Wifi, and Brightness Toggle Widgets. They look nice and function perfectly.
• Bookmark Manager Free – For some weird reason the default Android browser bookmark system arranges your bookmarks in the order they were created and cannot be re-ordered. This app lets you rearrange your bookmarks however you’d like.
• Bookmarks 2 – allows you to create shortcuts straight to any of your browser Bookmarks on your homes screen with prettier icons. Even allows you to take/crop screenshots of the webpage as the icon if no favicon, etc is available.
• Kaboodle – Tiny little app that just gives me an “Add to Kaboodle List” option on the “Share” menu for any browser page. Lets me quickly add things to my Kaboodle wish lists from my phone.
• mAnalytics – Great mobile interface for Google Analytics web stats
• wpToGo – WordPress authoring/editing tool. Doesn’t allow you to manage your WP dashboard, but is a remarkably good editor for WP posts.
• Contact Owner – Very simple app that adds your basic contact info to the lock screen. That way if you lose your phone someone knows how to contact you even though they can’t unlock your phone.
• Facebook Sync – Syncs all my Facebook Contacts’ profile pics and sets them as the caller ID pic on my phone. Pretty cool :-)
• Flashlight – Very basic app that just turns the screen all white and the brightness all the way up. Turns the phone into a pretty effective flashlight. Returns all settings when the app exits.
• GPS Tracker – Basic app that lets me record raw GPS data for recording where i am and have been, but more useful than that it also has a mode where you can setup a special SMS code for your phone. Then if you lose your phone, just use another cellphone to send your phone a SMS message with that special code. When your phone gets the message it will turn on GPS, find out where it is, then text the GPS coordinates back to the phone you texted from. Boom, found your phone!
• Google Goggles – If you aren’t familiar with this you should be. Take a picture. It will turn any text found into a search, will translate any foreign language text, and best of all – can identify buildings, posters, etc and display information about them.
• Google Voice – The official app that is a must have for anyone with a Google Voice account and an Android phone.
• gTask – very small “app” that is a glorified shortcut to the mobile site for Google Tasks. Makes it a little faster and easier to load though.
• Layar – Augmented reality app. Very cool. Just try it out. Trust me.
• Listen – Google’s “official” podcast app. Best podcast manager/player out there, but unfortunately it doesn’t let you easily add any link for a podcast. It has to been one in a preset (though admittedly large) directory of podcasts. Also doesn’t support video podcasts. Still my preference compared to other options though
• LukLuk – simple app that lets you watch a selection of movies and TV shows streamed over a 3G connection. I’m sure this is all perfectly legal and licensed…
• OI Safe – password safe. If you have to remember a huge set of passwords that constantly have to change (like i do for work) this is a must-have app
• Pandora – Lets you listen to (and create new) Pandora stations on the fly. This app is a MUST
• PdaNet – this one isn’t on the Android market but can be found on the web. Simple tethering app that lets you use your phone’s 3G data connection on your laptop/PC. Mileage may vary as supported by your carrier.
• Pure Calendar Widget – Lets you put your day’s calendar on your home screen. Very useful for me to stay on top of my day.
• Qik – Live video broadcasting from my phone. I also use the uStream app occasionally, though i like the Qik app a little more.
• Rings Extended – By default Android only lets you use certain built-in sounds for many notification events, etc (though you can set ring tones to just about any MP3 on your phone). This lets you use any sound file anywhere on your phone for any sound event.
• Ruler – gives you an accurate ruler on your screen. Kinda useful/cool.
• Shazam – Lets you hold your phone up to a speaker playing any music anywhere anytime, then identifies what you’re listening to. Great for when you hear some song on the radio and want to know who it is, etc. Also lets you then buy that song on AmazonMP3, search for the artists on MySpace/YouTube, etc. Very cool
• Shop Savvy – Lets you scan the barcode of any product anywhere, then searches the web for the best prices online and in stores, gives you reviews of the product, and lets you save products to a list. Amazingly useful. Amazon also has an official app (that is a huge bloated piece of software) that lets you just take a picture of the item and supposedly identify it but it doesn’t work so well. This app uses barcodes and pulls from more sites than just Amazon
• Skype – Simple app that lets you see who is online and text chat with them through Skype. Unfortunately doesn’t allow for voice or video chat right now.
• Snap Photo Pro – first app worth paying for. The built-in camera app on Android kinda sucks. This one gives you TONS of options (including the ability to edit/crop/adjust levels) and lets you take much higher quality pictures. Worth every penny to buy the full version
• Spare Parts – Kinda like “power toys” for old versions of Windows. Just opens up settings and tweaks for the Android system that are normally hidden.
• Stopwatch – Basic stopwatch app.
• Seesmic – Free Twitter client. Allows for multiple accounts to be managed. Fast. Easy to use. Can handle lists and other advanced Twitter features. I think we have a winner… for now.
  
• TripIt – Very cool app that imports travel itineraries and stores all useful info in easy to use formats for offline access (flight numbers, check in info, etc)
• Voice Recorder – simple voice recorder app
• Voicemail – T-Mobile visual voicemail app.
• Yammer – App used to access my internal/corporate Yammer feeds.

GAMES

• Battle for Mars – Awesome realtime strategy game. Worth paying for if you like RTSs at all.
• Phit Droid – Fun, simple puzzle game.
• Chess – Um. It’s a chess game.
• Mahjongg
• Friction Mobile – really addictive, very fun little arcade-style game.
• Droid Mini-Golf
• Labyrinth Lite – marble maze game
• Shot – another fun, simple puzzle game
• Nesoid – Nintendo Entertainment Center emulator. Pay app but worth every penny.
• Snake – old time snake game
• Solitare
• Trap – fun little arcade game

Old Apps I don’t use anymore:

• ASTRO – File Manager. Worth noting that the pay version of this app also has some task management features like “Adv Task Manager”, but I prefer that apps features to the one’s built into ASTRO. ASTRO does allow you to backup any free apps to your SD card (though sadly not run them from the SD card unless you have rooted your phone) and copy/paste/move/rename files like any good file manager program should. Good app, but got to be a little too bloated with scope creep.
• Base Toucher Lite – Cool app that reminds me to call and talk with friends. Sounds lame, but I’m just that antisocial sometimes. This lets me set 5 friends with “touch” frequencies. Reminds me to touch base with them every X number of days so I can maintain those friendships.
• SportyPal – An running/jogging/biking, etc tool. Just started using it myself. Looks cool and supposedly helps me keep track of how much I’ve been working out, etc. A little bloated, but very nice.
• G-Mon – a war driving app that simply scans the area for any WiFi access points (open or not) and then tags them on a map with GPS. Set it to running, drive around your neighborhood, then go home and load the map in Google Earth. Very cool results :-)
• GPS 1 Click Direction – Turn-by-Turn GPS with outloud (voice) directions. Obsolete now that Google has built-in Navigation for Google Maps. 1 Click was a great app to fill the gap though. Just not needed anymore.
• T-Mobile Hotspot Connect – only useful for those of you on T-Mobile of course, but lets me find and get on any T-Mobile HotSpot around the US
• Home++ – Best Home replacement app out there. Allows for more home screens, features a great quick-access bar and a few other features. Best part is that it is faster than most other home replacements, smaller install, and FREE. Did I mention it was FREE. Only downside vs. other home replacements is that it doesn’t allow skins, but I’ll take free and more features over skins any day. Note that I said “faster than other home replacements”. Relative statement. It is still going to slow down the performance of your phone. That’s why I don’t use it anymore.
• FTP Server – yes, an actual FTP server for serving files off my phone on the web. Don’t use it often, but has served me well when needing a way to get files off my phone wirelessly. Awesome if you need it, but I never used it, so I uninstalled after a while.
• Metal Detector – Turns your phone into a metal detector. Not a very useful one, but cool for showing off your phone
• NewsRob – Google Reader client. I just use the web-based Google Reader mobile site. It has improved a lot recently so this is one more app I could clean off my system. Good for what it does if you need off-line Reader capabilities though.
• SportsTap – shows me scores, summaries, and box scores for just about any sports/team I want.
• StreamFurious – lets me listen to any ShoutCast server on the web. Cool, but with Pandora out now it is really unnecessary.

• Talk To Me – Think universal translators from Star Trek. Talk into your phone, select the language you want, it says (out loud) what you just said in the language you selected.
• twt – the smallest/lightest/most basic Twitter client i could find. I use it for quickly checking my work Twitter account occasionally.
• Twidroid – Speed has improved since early versions and the feature set just beats all other Twitter apps. Keeps all caches on the SD card rather than in system memory like TwitterRide and allows for multiple Twitter accounts to be managed from one app. Also supports the new ReTweet function and Lists better than any other Twitter app. Costs more than it should, but some find it worth it. Bloated compared to Seesmic in my opinion.
• Weather – basic, small weather widget for my desktop. The Weather Channel app is cool, but huge and bloated. This does everything i need in a weather app in under 500k
• Xtremelabs Speedtest – lets me test the speed of the network I’m on at the time (EDGE, 3G, wifi, etc

New Indiana Jones Collectible Item

(I’m going to assume everyone reading this has either seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or does care about a spoiler for a non-plot related action point early in the movie. You are hereby warned.)

They, like so many before them make fun of the scene where Indiana Jones climbs into a lead-lined refrigerator to survive a nuclear blast at relatively close range. They essentially use to the term “nuked the fridge” interchangeably with “jumped the shark“. They incredulously reject the scene as silly, unbelievable, and out of place in an Indiana Jones movie.

(continued after the break)

Here’s the thing: I still find it funny that people get so bent out of shape about the fridge scene (or the monkey/vine scene) in Crystal Skull because it didn’t fit in the trilogy…or whatever we have to call it now that there are four movies.

Do none of these people remember Indy using a rubber dingy to survive a drop from an airplane into the mountains (and subsequent safe journey through a series of convenient caves and valleys) in Temple of Doom?. Or surviving a fight with a big Nazi brute near a taxiing airplane while surrounded by HUNDREDS of other Nazis ready to shoot him the moment he turned to run if he won the fight? Or surviving ridiculous jumps and turns in racing mine cars – to me the most ludicrous scene in any of the four Indiana Jones movies by far. Seriously, forget the issues with physics, etc: why would anyone ever build mine cart tracks with those kinds of dips, climbs, and turns? Silly.

To me this scene really fits more in the same category as using a several hundred pound stone crypt as a floating shield from a surface fire in The Last Crusade (yeah, no way that would sink before they ever got underneath it). Not only does it show him as tough as nails and athletic, but smart. And not just knowledgeable about ancient civilizations, but brainy smart and street smart.

Seriously, go watch all of those scenes (I linked to a few of the clips above). Tell me which scene stands out as the most difficult to buy to you. I’d bet it isn’t the nuked fridge.

It’s not like the Indiana Jones series is meant to be realistic. It was based on ridiculous, over the top serials from the 1930′s. Crystal Skull absolutely fit right in to that mold. Of course it is stupid that Indiana Jones could survive the nuclear blast (much less the fight that preceding it at his age). But he’s freaking Indiana Jones. That’s the POINT!

Did Crystal Skull break Spielberg’s promise of as little CGI as possible. Absolutely. Were the CGI groundhogs, etc annoying. Sure. But the movie fits. I’d easily rank it above Temple of Doom over all (though still behind Last Crusade and Raiders), and it has solid rewatchability. Do i have concerns about them trying to make a 5th movie? Oh yeah. Lucas/Spielberg barely got away with not ruining a classic trilogy the way Lucas had already done with the Star Wars prequels. I don’t know that we’ll get that lucky again.

But Crystal Skull is fun, and it belongs just as it is.

I just got through seeing the Toy Story 1 and 2 in 3D double feature. Those that know me, already know that i’m a huge Pixar fan, so i won’t go into a long review of the movies. They are amazing, life changing events and you should see them (though amazingly, i think i was in the theater tonight with several people that had never seen either movie). This is more a review of the 3D-i-zation of the movies.

Interestingly i was both very pleased and disappointed. In that chronological order. I also made a discovery that i had often wondered about but never gotten the chance to test. It explains why i have always gotten a bit of a headache when i’ve watched just about any 3D movie.

First a little background: “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2″ were, of course, not originally created for 3D presentation. They were originally created using 3D computer animation (“Toy Story” of course being famous as the first feature length all CG film), but rendered to flat 2D images for traditional exhibition. The great thing about this process is that, of course, Pixar still has the original files they used to create these movies so it was a relatively easy process to re-render the movies in 3D (after making lots of minor tweaks to lighting, etc). This means old movies in 3D, but in true 3D – not kinda hacked apart and “spatialized” like we’ve been hearing George Lucas threaten to do with Star Wars.

(continued after the break)
That i could tell, no other major changes were made to the first movie. Obviously the detail in the picture was more apparent in a beautiful digital movie theater than on the old SD DVD release i have at home, but i didn’t notice any major re-working of backgrounds or textures, etc. If it was there it was very subtle. There was still a detail jump from Toy Story to Toy Story 2, as well there should be.

The practical upshot of them making no serious modifications to either movie was that a very ‘old’ and basic computer animated movie was thrust into the present and re-rendered in 3D. This meant that some of the more basic techniques used in that movie were preserved and stood in stark contrast to some of the more “advanced” techniques that were present in Toy Story 2. The most obvious of these differences, thanks to the 3D presentation, was artificial focal depth.

(We’ll take another detour for explanation…) When you take a picture using a standard camera (still or video), the lens system focuses at a certain depth. Objects that are much closer or much father away from the object being focused on will be blurry and out of focus. On the other hand, a computer generated image, like any artificial image, doesn’t naturally have any actual focal depth. Objects in the foreground, objects in the middle of the scene, and objects in the background are all perfectly in focus. So, when rendering the film, movie makers will create artificial focal depth and intentionally blur objects in the background and foreground to simulate the focal depth that happens naturally on a photographed (or filmed) scene in the real world. This is all well and good when the movie is being rendered down to a 2D presentation. We are used to seeing the blur of focal depth in 2D images on screen and it helps the scene feel more “real” – like it was photographed – and have much more depth perception than if everything was in perfect focus. A clear example of this artificial focal depth and how it is used to trick your eye into perceiving depth and scale can be seen on my Flickr stream using a process known as a fake tilt-shift.

So… originally Toy Story didn’t have much if any focal depth added. As you can see in the shot below, the details of the writing on the cardboard boxes in the far distant background are just as in focus as Woody’s face (see another example shot here).

"Toy Story" shot showing no artificial focal depth

Toy Story 2 on the other hand used the snot out of this technique of artificial focal depth, as it was all the rage and becoming common at the time of that movies production. It made for a more immersive and “real” feeling movie at the time. You can see an example below of the extreme focal depth blur added to this shot from Toy Story 2. It is most pronounced on the writing of the Buzz Lightyear box in the far right of the screen. (see another example here)

"Toy Story 2" shot showing artificial focal depth

The trouble is: when you combine focal depth with 3D presentation, this equals headaches. Literally (for me anyway).

You see, the human eye is used to everything it looks at being in 3D, and everything it looks directly at being in focus. Simple enough. When you’re looking at a photograph or a traditional 2D movie, both of your eyes are seeing exactly the same perspective of that image and, though you can recognize depth in the shot, your eye/mind isn’t really trying to interpret depth since both eyes are seeing the same thing. However, in 3D your eyes are seeing different images. That’s how 3D works. Whether in the real world or watching a 3D movie, you perceive 3D because your eyes are seeing slightly different pictures. (Here is yet another example from my Flickr stream of basic 3D photography). 3D movies basically basically trick your mind into thinking you’re seeing a real scene, not a photographed image.

Thanks to the 3D perspective being provided by those fancy glasses, your mind expects to be able to look around “the room” in the shot and focus on whatever it wants. In “Toy Story” my eyes could do that just fine. No focal depth blur was added, so you could look around the room and your eyes could focus on the wall at the “back” of this scene and be fine with it. You percieve the depth in the shot because of the different images going to each eye, just like in the real work, but you’re able to focus all around the room, just like in the real world.

The trouble starts if you look off into the background and attempt to focus your eyes on objects in the distance, but artificial focal blur has been added, like the house in the distance of this shot. Your eyes assume they can look around this room where they are perceiving depth through different images like in the real world. But they can’t focus on the background. Try as they might to focus back there, the movie makers have made sure it will never work. As a result i had a headache through most of “Toy Story 2″, which never appeared in “Toy Story” and quickly left as soon as i walked out of the theater.

So there you have it. I have headaches because my eyes are trying to focus where they can’t and my brain can’t deal with getting “double” information on depth (different images to each eye on top of focal blur).

Sadly this means i will probably get headaches as i watch just about any 3D movie from here on out, unless the movie makers suddenly realize this issue and decide to make/render 3D movies differently in the future. I’m also not sure how movie makers are supposed to fix this issues for live-action 3D photography other than to use very short lenses with very broad focal depth so that most everything in the shot is in focus on the film.

But a few times lately I’ve been getting the urge to write more and more. I also began to recognize how cathartic it was for me to express myself – even if it was about hockey, much less something else. And so much the better when anyone actually reads it (especially considering my writing is nowhere near what Christy’s is) though that’s almost beside the point.

(continued after the break)

Getting some distance from my blog also helped me realize what an absolute mess it had become. So many widgets and cute little things added to sidebars. Trackers and flickr badges… oh the clutter. I was very proud of my hacked 3 column layout, but it just went against everything I ever tell my clients about design. It was embarrassing. So I resolved to give the blog a face-lift before bothering to write much more. Trick was I didn’t have the time or patience to code my own layout and I couldn’t find any templates that looked good enough. I wanted something “different” whatever that meant. But couldn’t even find a template worth modding.

Then I found this one.

With the ‘magazine style’ layout and simple design it was exactly the breath of fresh air I was looking for. The front page columns juxtaposed with the full page post view also provide a good reminder to let the content be flexible and not format it for any one presentation – very important since such a large percentage of people view content through RSS on a myriad of devices and feed readers these days. Of course moving to WordPress also provided me a plethora of plug-ins and other options – like static pages (see my About and Blogroll pages as examples). Simple little things I never had on Blogger because it didn’t support them. All of these combined for a much more user-friendly (and SEO friendly) blog.

So here it is. Hopefully this, combined with a WordPress app for my Android phone and a renewed desire to get back into photo taking, will get me blogging more. We’ll see. I’ve said this before ya know.

I am so proud of what she did with the store, both in the good it did for so many people, and the awareness it raised about fair trade – but also of how she was able to run the business. Outside of some starting capital, the business very quickly supported itself, which is something most businesses can’t say in good times, much less in this economy.

The good news for all of you is that she has a FABULOUS sale clearing out her remaining inventory. Great time to do a little early christmas shopping if you ask me :-)

Check the clearance sale here – www.shopghia.com