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Kristin and I moved into our new one bedroom apartment in Santa Monica this weekend. Big thanks to Ryan Budke and Mike Rhoads for helping us with the move. After today, we have unpacked enough of our stuff so that it is starting to feel like some sort of home.

It’s nice, because we’re moving out of a 10 month stay with roommates. Married couples should never have to live with other people in a roommate scenario *ever*, no matter how wonderful the roommates (or how wonderful they’re not). It’s not been fun.

What’s not nice about the move is that thanks to the state the real estate market has been in for the past 10 months, we still have our nice 2 bedroom back in Bronxville. As a result, we’re renting an apartment that is roughly the size of the apartment we had when we first moved in together. The past 10 months were like jumping back in time to college, rooming with others. The next year is going to be like jumping ahead slightly in the past to our lives in 2003. The added expense of supporting two places will be much like the debt and the extra car we were carrying back then, but at least this time the money is going into something that will hopefully eventually get us a return. There’s been some interest from one person who came and looked at the place twice. Hopefully we’ll get an offer soon and not spend too long with the super tight budget belt.

In any case, I think we’re both going to be happier here now. I’d move back to New York in a minute if I could, but Santa Monica isn’t too bad when you have a place to call your own. I can still ride my bike to work, too.

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My brother Kevin came to visit us this weekend. We did a lot of sight-seeing and he rode a Segway. Video here:

Fun having him here, but both Kristin and I are pooped. Here’s the flickr set of pictures from the weekend Weekend with Kevin - a set on Flickr:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

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My multitalented wife has written a book. A novel, to be exact. She’s currently revising bits and pieces of it and preparing it for a publisher or an agent. Over the weekend, I helped her set up a blog. Kristin will be using the blog to promote and discuss issues surrounding the journey to publishing her novel, North Shore / South Shore. If you want to know what it’s about, I recommend that you read this post: Kristin Sample: An abstract:

Here’s how I would explain what my novel is about. It needs tightening but it’s what I have right now. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. If I can write something good now, it can be what I use to describe my book in future emails, meetings,…maybe even the occasional power lunch. (Although I don’t think I’m in danger of having to attend any power lunches in the near future.)

If you have any contacts in the area of literary agents or publishers, please point them to her blog and reach out to us. Thanks!

Now, to teach her how to use Twitter…

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So I walked into my office this morning, and instead of finding my nice office chairs, I’m met with the following:

Funny. Here’s some action shots: normal and once more with feeling.

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… first as a freelance blogger, then as Managing Editor of Netscape, and now as Editorial Director of Mahalo, I can say that Duncan Riley’s post about Jason (which I’m not going to bother linking to, b/c I avoid linking to garbage online) on TechCrunch is *totally* out of line.

I normally don’t weigh in on these types of discussions (I almost didn’t post this), because I strongly believe in not feeding trolls, whether they happen to be comment trolls, blog trolls, or good guys who normally write good pieces who suddenly fall into bad form / trollish behavior that borders on slander. I also know that Jason is perfectly capable of handling these discussions himself and my time would be better spent focusing on doing what I do well: supporting and growing my team and helping them create good online content.

However, I’m personally insulted by Duncan Riley’s post and the bile that I’ve seen online as a result of it. It implies that Mahalo is something it isn’t. That implication, in its flailing, badly formed attempt to defend the people who work at Mahalo, insults all of us, and what’s worse, distracts our audience from the good hard work we are doing, thereby potentially undermining our continued success. Don’t be fooled. None of our employees benefit from Duncan’s post. None of the families who make money at Mahalo, working hard to make search a better place, benefit from it.

I work with a great team of good people at Mahalo. We eat lunch together. Sometimes some of us aren’t in the mood for what was for lunch and we go out to get food on our own. Sometimes we work late. Sometimes we come in late. We drink coffee from the expensive coffee machine and it’s great. Some of us walk to Starbucks because some of us prefer Starbucks. Sometimes we take a walk outside in the afternoon and enjoy the Santa Monica sun for no reason other than to do so and because we can. We often go out to dinner together. Whenever we can, we all get together for a night at the movies or for some karaoke. None of us are enslaved. None of us are downtrodden. You can watch many of our Mahalo Daily episodes to see several of our enthusiastic employees having fun participating in our podcasts. I think all of us are smiling and laughing on a regular basis working hard on a great startup.

In case you have no idea what I’m blogging about: Here’s a related post from Sean Percival, one of our Guides. Here’s Jason’s original post in its original form before it was totally misrepresented by Duncan on TechCrunch. If you haven’t read it yet, you should, and you should also see this follow up post.

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Steve Rubel has an interesting post about digital curation up on Micro Persuasion. I’ve been thinking something similar since I came across Kevin Kelly’s The Bottom is Not Enough earlier this week.

Rubel mentions how Mahalo is doing digital curation, and he’s right. That makes me and my entire team digital curators. Of course, I’ve been doing digital curation for a while now, I guess. At Netscape (now Propeller), we were trying to add verified information to the wave of social news flowing in with metajournalism and original reporting on top of the news.

Even before that, I’d been blogging (on my own and with other sites) since 1999. Much of deciding what’s worth blogging and what to say on a blog is digital curation. It’s riding the stream of information and gleaning the best bits, the niche bits, the odd bits that may actually be capable of communicating something meaningful.

So I’m a digital curator. It’s a label I’m willing to take on, because I’m good at it.

And now for something completely random. Here’s a picture of Kristin, me, Marian and Curt riding on the Ghost Rider at Knott’s Berry Farm today:

Note: We bought a copy of this picture, so it’s not like I’m totally stealing it by taking a picture of the monitor with my iPhone.

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She’s the one beating the guy with the stick of bread:

My advice to Raj (the guy she’s beating) before the shoot: “Cover your eyes. She’s fierce and she likes to go for the eyes!”

More on this here: How to Propose

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Today’s my birthday. w00t! So why do I have a picture of a figurine of Wolverine angrily cutting down a Christmas tree? That’s exactly (well, except for the “a picture of” part) what I was thinking when I opened my birthday present from my brother. It was the statuette pictured above with some Skittles and Starburst candies, and I was thinking, “Why the hell would he think I wanted this?” However, when I removed the statuette from it’s box there were two video games (Ninja Gaiden Sigma and COD4 for the PS3) hidden behind Logan here, and a “card” (it was just a green sheet of paper folded up with his birthday note) from Kevin that said: “ps—isn’t that wolverine thing hilariously stupid.” Pretty awesome.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who has been wishing me a happy birthday all week. I’ll try to reply to each of you, but if I miss you don’t feel slighted. I’m a bit swamped at the moment with all the cool things going on at Mahalo.

Today will be nice, though. Kristin is coming to pick me up for lunch and then when I get off work, we’re going out to dinner at some new place we haven’t been to before but which comes highly recommended by her dance class friends.

I’m 35. Chances of making double that age, good. Chances of triple that age, not so good. I’m definitely over a 3rd done now. Lots left to do!

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This is my favorite blog post from 2007. It’s me talking about being part of the start-up life and the difference between working on a start-up inside a large corporation (relaunching Netscape inside AOL) and starting up something like Mahalo that is new and free from all the rubbish that weighs down big companies.

My start up formula: keeping things free of meaningless rubbish + 110% effort (at the least) + learning quickly from mistakes and moving on + working intelligently + being positive = success.

Several years ago, I made the New Year’s Resolution not to make New Year’s Resolutions any more and it’s the only one I’ve ever managed to keep.

Dear 2008,

You’re the last year in which we’ll have to deal with George W. Bush in the White House. Please keep him from making things any worse during this time. Also, elections are happening during your time, so please do something nice for 2009 and pick the correct next President who will be able to resurrect our failing economy, pull us out of debt, and flip off the war switch, so we can return to being a peaceful land of plenty, rather than the world police.

Thanks,

C.K.

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Yesterday, Kristin and I visited our apartment in Bronxville, which is still waiting to be bought by some lucky family out there. The market has been at a standstill for the last few months, but someone came and looked at the place about an hour before we arrived, so there seems to be some signs of improvement. Hopefully, we’ll get an actual offer soon.

It was bittersweet being there. We were basically combing over the place for odds and ends that we want to pack up and take back with us to LA, but it was sad to see all the stuff sitting there unused, all our furniture, all the things we love, all arranged the way we arranged them to make them ours. The green accent walls. My office. Man, I miss my home office.

Anyway, Kristin packed up a bunch of kitchen supplies and residual clothing. I packed up a few sweaters, one light coat that will play well in LA, and a bunch of gadgetry odds and ends that were hidden in the corners of my office. One thing, rather disappointingly, has entirely gone missing. I had the box that my Sony Reader came in, stuffed with its receipt and the warranty that we bought for it, which guaranteed upgrade to the next model for the cost of the price difference between the two. I was excited to grab it and upgrade while I was in town, but it’s not where I thought I left it, and though I looked all over the place, I couldn’t find it. Either I shipped it out to LA in one of the boxes that I haven’t yet unpacked and forgot about it, or it has just gone missing somewhere in the coast to coast move. So no new Sony Reader for me.

I did manage to grab some of my good art paper and roll it up nicely so I have some large archive quality paper to sketch on in LA (if I can only manage to transport it without damaging the paper). I wish I could bring my easel. We also grabbed lunch from J&G Deli across the street. Man, I miss their food. I miss the neighborhood.

Anyway, I miss New York and my apartment and I’ve got a head cold to boot.

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Boo.

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I woke up with a sore throat this morning. It was a good Christmas though, despite the scratchy throat. I’ve missed coming out to Long Island and hanging out with Kristin’s family.

Last night, we went to Kristin’s Aunt’s house for dinner. We exchanged gifts with them last night and I received some money (which I’m going to put towards a few upgrades for my Eee PC), clothing, and Final Fantasy Tactics The War of the Lions for the PSP. This was probably my favorite game on Playstation and I used to love Tactics Advanced on my DS, so I’m really excited about this game. It’s great portable play with nice new animated cut scenes and a few new tweaks.

This morning the remainder of the gifts were opened. More clothing, shoes, and a set of 24 Prismacolor markers from Kristin’s parents; some money that went retroactively towards my Asus Eee PC, a GorillaPod Tripod for my camera (very cool), and some more clothing from my parents; Bone by jeff Smith in one volume from Mags; Candide, some other book whose name I forget, and Blade Runner Limited Edition 5-disk Blu-ray DVD set with special case, two figurines, and story boards from the film from my brother (very cool). All in all, a very nice haul.

Christmas dinner was sauerbraten, riceballs, gravy, and string beans followed by much too much desert.

What’d you get?

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Here’s some video of my Asus Eee PC that I shot yesterday:

You can see the Eee next to my large orcish hands to give you an idea of how incredibly small it is. Also, I rather clumsily toggle through the screens to show you the cool cube effects that Ubuntu can support on the Eee. Also, while I was recording, Thatcher started barking and Misha started saying “Hello” repeatedly, so it’s half a gadget video and half a pet video. I promised Dave Caolo a video weeks ago, though, so no editing or re-shooting. Here it is in all its crappy glory.

Ubuntu is running great on the Eee. I’m really liking it. I managed to chat with Jason Ball yesterday via Skype with video and everything. Worked nicely for short bursts, but after a while (or if I had too many other things going on on the Eee), the call would drop / Skype would crash. I think if you’re going to do Skype with video calls on the Eee, you really need to devote the machine to that communication. Avoid opening multiple tabs in Firefox and switching back and forth from various virtual desktops.

For anyone considering installing the Eeebuntu LIVE installation, I’d advise just getting regular full-fledged Ubuntu and trimming it down to what you like (or build it up yourself if you have the expertise).

Also, I’ve moved from continual tinker mode with the Eee to actually using it as a laptop computer on a very consistent basis. I have to say it works great. This + iPhone = TEH AWESOME. Now I just need to tether them together and get iTunes for Windows running in Wine.

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Marc Orchant died this afternoon:

It is with great sadness that I report that Marc Orchant, Husband to Sue, Father to Rebecca and Jason, and friend to so many, passed away just a short time ago. I was notified by Marc’s brother Craig.

His family and closest friends were at his side and his favorite music was playing. Craig said that Marc’s passing was as peaceful and easy as anyone could have hoped and he left this world surrounded by love from so many people that he couldn’t possibly have failed to know how many people cared for, appreciated and respected him.

My thoughts and prayers are with Marc’s family during this difficult time. I didn’t know Marc well, but I counted him as a friend and knew him well enough to know that he was a good man and that this virtual online space where we all meet and write and twitter and blog is a lesser place without him.

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Found this via Jordan Running’s twitter earlier today. Marc Orchant Updates and Information can be found here, including a letter from Sue Orchant, Marc’s wife, updating us on how Marc is doing:

In this past day we have seen some baby steps of improvement. He has some response to stimuli and his oxygen levels and heart rate have improved. I am guardedly optimistic. He still has not regained consciousness but we will take things minute by minute.

I’m still praying and thinking about Marc and his family. I hope these first small signs of improvement are the first signs of a recovery on the horizon.

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Sad news to wake up to on a Monday morning:

Currently Marc’s immediate family as well as his brothers and parents are in or on their way to Albuquerque to be with Marc. Sue has asked me to keep Marc’s colleagues and friends in the technology community updated as information becomes available. Please do not contact Sue for updates. I will publish any information that I have in multiple venues to keep people informed of any changes in Marc’s condition.

For those of you that wish to send flowers, cards, or other gifts, Marc is at:
Presbyterian Hospital
Cardiac Care Unit Bed #3
1100 Central Ave SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106

the hospital switchboard number is 505-841-1234.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Marc and his family in this difficult time. Marc is one of the finest human beings that I have ever had the good fortune to know and I pray that Marc makes a full and speedy recovery.

Marc and I worked together at Weblogs, INC back in 2005 and met at the first large group meeting (WINStock 2005) after the sale to AOL. Since then we’ve always stayed in loose contact, commenting on each other’s blogs from time to time, and following each other’s tweets on Twitter. He is a great guy, very positive, and a force for good in the tech-blogging community. My thoughts and prayers are with Marc and his family today.

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So I’ve settled on a new design for this blog. It’s Cutline by Chris Pearson with a slight bit of tweaking (mainly with the picture). For some reason, I cannot get the template’s built in Archives to work, so I removed that page. When I tried to turn it on, it pointed to a seriously old archive of early iterations of this site that weren’t in WordPress and are sitting static over here. I tried moving that directory and then creating a blank archive page per the instructions to the template, all to no avail. The sitemap link down at the very bottom is also non-functioning, so I need to pull it still. I seem to have some old cobwebs in my .htaccess file that are mucking things up a bit. I deleted a few bits that were interfering with the layout of this design (which was odd in the first place; pulling old CSS from the old 404 page and applying it to this new design), but if I tinker too much with that file it starts throwing other things like my RSS feeds out of whack.

In any case, I am liking the new look, and especially the room for more content. I now have 3 columns and am cramming them full of Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, etc. Best thing about it, it doesn’t look crammed to me. What do you all think? Good redesign? Anything else you’d like to see?

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It’s time for some change. 3-column design, methinks. Any preferences, input, thoughts? Any favorite WordPress Themes that I should start with and hack to my will?

Update: New theme in place. What do you think? I’m editing it now…

Eh, I didn’t love it.

Update: I changed my mind. Still working on it.

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Blame my wife for this picture.

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A brand new Mahalo Daily on How To Tie a Tie:

Who is that handsome portly man at the end of the line?!

Related coolness:
How to Tie a Tie
How to tie a Half-Windsor Knot
How to Tie a Windsor Knot
How to Tie a Pratt Knot
How to Tie a Four-in-Hand Knot

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