Supertrain

This has been a bit of a crazy day. Up @ 3:45am, asleep, up, attempt to sleep, work, up again - within 24 hours.

We went to Supertrain (model train show) today. It’s an annual tradition now for us (3 years running). Bring a donation for the food bank, discuss about how silly it is that we have pay separately in order to each get $1 off our admission because they money-takers can’t figure out that 2 donations = $2 off 2 tickets, feel dumb that we’re cheap enough to do that for a whole $1, proceed to coat check with shiny new $1, look at the layouts, eat some mini donuts, briefly look at the selling booths… ahhh…

All in all a nice relaxation. Your only job for the 2-2 1/2 hours you’re there is to look at things people have spent an immense amount of time working on and admire. Well, I guess you have the job to submit a ballot of your favourite. Still, it’s a nice change of pace.

This year’s pictures are truncated as we went with a new (read: untested) memory card in our digital camera. Though the card supposedly holds 350+ images, after getting 15 pictures and 2 short movies (sorry, no easy way to get the movies onto this blog) we perpetually got a read error. So we diligently re-formatted the card on the spot and re-shot a few of the pictures only to have the same problem.

I honestly don’t remember which display these pictures are from. I think 3 - 5 are from the layout we both voted as the best and the others are from our 2nd favourite. After the card was misbehaving I put it away and tried to enjoy my day despite it (and the thought of having to contact someone via eBay to return/exchange it). Electronics are just not our friends these days (my PocketPC needs work, I have been slowly wrestling with our second computer for the last 5 weeks to get it up to 100%, and now this).

Maryruth and I both enjoy models so this is an enjoyable excursion. The amazing details can stop us for hours—in the movies you get to see brake lights go on as a car “stops” to wait for the barricade to come down as the train passes.

Recent Pictures

Closeup: Detailing
(You should really see this in the full captured 5.3Mpixel glory - it's amazing)

Recent Pictures

Recent Pictures

Recent Pictures

Town Scene
Recent Pictures

Recent Pictures

Closeup: Deer

Deer Closeup
Recent Pictures

Coke & Google

3:45 am MST

Can’t get over the news I read last night. Sure most people won’t even know (or care) what it means but to me it’s huge. Here’s the title:

“Measure Map sold to Google”

That says it all.

It was a beautiful summer day last July 13. Not too hot downtown San Francisco. Not so hot that you grimace upon entering a parked car but nice enough to roll up dress sleeves and be relaxed. Shortly after three in the afternoon I walk into a somewhat plain building—well, plain except the lime green paint job—to join someone for coffee. We walked outside, across the street, down the block and through the park to the coffee shop. He had coffee, I had a Coke.

Jeffrey Veen told me about this cool new product they were working on. It was statistics for bloggers. It was a very different venture for their company, Adaptive Path, as instead of consulting with clients, it was building a product for customers.

That product is Measure Map. Not out of the gates last July, currently not out of private beta, and no longer part of Adaptive Path’s fold.

Why is this so big? Well, a lot of acquisitions are happing in that area (both that area of the world, the Bay area, and that area of development, Web & Blogs). I can’t get over it because of how real it seems to me.

Maybe I need to explain. I have twenty good ideas in my head (some in my head, a few in an Outlook note, some in a Word file in My Documents, and a few started and living invarious states of un-done-ness). Of those twenty or so projects, maybe seven will see the light of day. Of those seven maybe two have the can be really, really, great products. Of those two, maybe 2/3 of one can be acquired…

I’m not dreaming up good ideas to have someone else buy. That’s not the point. The acquisition here is really more of a large “stamp of validation” on an idea. And someone that I had coffee with last year, told me about an idea that this past week got a big stamp of validation.

I need to get moving on my ideas, that’s really what is keeping me awake. Our current product is going well but still far short of being “done.” We need to further that, for sure, and get a little more traction, then start moving on something else in addition.

Links:
Jeffrey Veen’s Blog (where I first read it)
Adaptive Path news
Official Google Blog

Midón, Coffee, Tea

I got a coffee at Starbucks this morning. In order to get to work more quickly, I’m not going to the gym this morning but this afternoon (still going strong @ the gym - my squash game is definitely improving).I mention the gym only because I normally go right after dropping Maryruth off. If I were going to the gym, I wouldn’t get coffee first. Yes?

It’s -13 C or something like that with snow blowing around. Seemed like a good day for a coffee. This is my sixth of 2006 (I believe five of those, including this one, were/are from Starbucks). Well, maybe six and a quarter (the quarter being a free sample at Safeway [and no, I didn’t chase the sample lady down... well, not down multiple aisles anyway just across the entire bakery department]).

As I waited to order my drink, I saw a CD: Raul Midón, State of Mind. Not that this is by any means exhaustive but I explained to Ryan the other day as:

“obscure musician. blind guitar guy. Jazzy-funk-folk style. From New Mexico I believe.”

I heard & saw him on Bravo the other night (must have been last November or something). Really interesting. Having checked through his discography now, I don’t love all his stuff... but it’s different that’s for sure. I do like “State of Mind.” The song, that is - haven’t listened to the complete Starbucks disc.

The thought that struck me was: “now everyone will know him.” That is, lot’s of people will now know who he is and more people will hear his music. That’s a good thing, I know. But putting aside the fact that he has a couple albums (2 or 3, don’t recall) and was on Bravo - this to say that obviously he has some measure of following already; I had “discovered” him. No one introduced him to me, I didn’t hear him on Pandora (though Pandora has introduced me to some new music recently that I really like). I just stumbled upon him and like some of his stuff.

I remember reading something about Tazo tea (probably around 2003 that I read this). Tazo is, of course, the brand that Starbucks serves (and owns). It is also available in Safeway, and probably other grocery stores as well. But it didn’t start that way apparently. It was a small little brand, not owned by Starbucks, not served in Starbucks, though the owners likely had been to Starbucks at some point... maybe.... Anyways, part of its “charm”, went the article, was that you were one of the few people who knew about Tazo; enjoyed Tazo. With Tazo, since it is tea, it seems even more appropriate that you had to “discover” it (tea historically being hard to get: long treks to the “Orient” and whatnot).

I think the article was talking more about the marketing angle. If you have a product that people are used to “discovering” (marketing lingo: small distribution) and it is suddenly available everywhere, that changes the nature of the interaction, it changes the experience. Therefore, the “product” (including the buying experience) is different.

All that aside, I was just thinking about me: I liked knowing Raul Midón and having not many people knowing him. Obviously it’s great for him as an artist and great for others to hear more work that stretches them musically. But in a very globalized, marketing-saturated world, it’s nice to “discover” different products. It’s kind of like having traveled to the Far East, acquired two-dozen pots’ worth of a new tea—the world’s greatest Oolong—and, upon arriving home in London sixteen months later, finding out that Captain John brought back a fleet full of it last month and every merchant in the square is selling it for less than the price of sugar. Kinda: except with less bartering and no financial impact to me.