Blog Master G

Due to a recent bicycle crash wherein I saved a bottle of champagne, but jacked up my cell phone display (it still works fine), I was tempted to buy the Motorola Q. And damn am I glad I didn’t! (The $80/month service cost quickly changed my mind — more than Jen and I pay combined for our current service with Sprint.)

Why?

The iPhone, of course. Assuming the Cingular monthly service fee is reasonable, there might very well be one of these in my future. I really believe this thing is going to change the way we live our mobile lives. It’s a widescreen iPod (music, TV, movies, photos), cell phone, and Internet-ready device in one — it even runs Mac OS X and Safari, so it’s like having a Mac in your pocket. And it even has an integrated 2 megapixel camera.

What more do you need?

Oh yeah, and there’s no keyboard or any kind of external dial. You operate the whole thing via new generation touch screen.

It’s incredible. Check out some of the demos on the Apple site.

Wow.

Although not quite the start of the new year, I just implemented my Google Analytics code into the Blog Master G header file.

So even if I don’t stick with Media Temple for hosting (since they’ve really been sucking in terms of reliability and their customer support isn’t that great), I can take all my stats with me.

Rock on.

This global warming thing is getting crazy now. Here it is January 6 in the Northeast and it’s 61 degrees and sunny today. What the hell? It snowed once a few days ago, but the snow had all melted by the next day. My grass is still as green as it was in October when I thought a long, snowy winter was just around the corner.

Maybe it’s just unseasonably warm, but spring-like conditions in January? At least we’re making the most of it, and our heating bill will be low. I actually turned off the heater this morning, and Jen opened a bunch of windows.

And since I haven’t been able to go skiing (yet), I’ve gone rollerblading around the neighborhood and have done some laps at the local rec field the past couple days. Today will be Day 3 of that workout regime.

I’m still making my way through my last blog backlog list, but it seems that it’s suddenly 2007 and I have another huge backlog of photos and reminiscing ahead of me to post, so here it is for the record:

• Jen’s Birthday in Montreal
• Karaoke at Seth & Niki’s
• Ugly Sweater Party
• Forno Dinner with Mom
• Christmas Eve in Kinderhook
• Christmas Day in Saratoga
• New Year’s Eve Party

It’s been a hell of a Christmas season, and one I’ll never forget. Oh yeah, and it feels more like spring than winter — we got a bit of snow the other day, which I’m glad my bro got to see before he left yesterday, but now it’s all melted and sunny today.

Happy New Year!

It’s been a crazy and wonderful Christmas week. My whole family was here for Christmas, and my mom and brother are still in town. I’ve been really happy to have them all here. My dad flew home the day after Christmas.

Who knew Christmas could be such a party? Along with my immediate family (together for the first time since Thanksgiving 2003), we were joined by my mother-in-law and our extended family, Hugh and Jami. And we partied and were merry all day and all night (from about 11am to 4am).

My dad was here the shortest duration (24th through 26th), and it was great of him to make such a long trip from California for such a short time. It seems like he was gone in a flash. He was here long enough to join us for dinner and a candlelight service with the in-laws in Kinderhook (I only dozed off once).
Peter will be here through New Year’s, so he’ll be able to party in 2007 with us. He, Justin, and I tore up the town with just another crazy Tuesday night this week, with stops at Brindisi’s, Esperanto, DA’s, T&L, and The Bullpen, which was an unusual stop since we never go there; I think my excuse for dancing actually scared all the Skidmore girls off the dance floor.

(Random side note: Last Friday night we took my mom to dinner at Forno, where Justin joined us, too.)

Merry Christmas to all!

Last night we briefly attended a laugh-filled neighborhood get together at Melissa’s place, which was really cool since she’s one of the few people on our street who’s in our age bracket but we’ve never really hung out together. She told everyone about the first time we met when Eric and I showed up on her door step with cigars and beer following the 2004 Saratoga Wine & Food Festival and invited her to play bocce ball with us. Apparently it made a real impression since it’s not every day that two fine (single-looking) guys show up on her door step.

Then it was off to Albany to pick up my mom from the airport, who arrived from California. We ate pizza, drank wine, looked at photo books, and shared memories of Christmas stories past into the night. It’s great having my mom here, and I’m psyched for my dad and brother to come tomorrow, too.

I’ve been reading a great personal finance blog lately called Get Rich Slowly. It’s full of useful and interesting tips, and has an active community of readers.

While browsing some archives via my feed reader the other day, one of the entries from back in May 2006 that really struck a chord with me is one that’s not even specific to personal finance, but is a practice at the core of a successful career and personal life — something I’ve always aimed to have myself — responsiveness.

Get Rich Slowly | The Secret of My Success:

Your actions affect how other people see you. If you’re unresponsive, people will look for other ways to get their job done. If you’re an unresponsive salesman, your customers will call somebody else. If you’re an unresponsive manager, your employees will work around you, not with you. But if people know they can count on you, they’ll seek your assistance in the future, and you’ll be rewarded with increased reputation and responsibility.

J.D. then quotes Michael Hyatt’s “What’s the secret of your success?” (as he does throughout the post):

The truth is, you are building your reputation — your brand — one response at a time…You can’t afford to be unresponsive. It is a career-killer. My basic rule is this: respond immediately unless there is a good reason to wait.

Words to live by. Factor in the methods learned in books like Getting Things Done and you’ll succeed in everything you do.

It’s been a while since I logged my last Kodak EasyShare Gallery photo count and since I was just emailing with Tom about online photo sites, I figured I’d go ahead and log today’s count here for the record, too.

As of today, we have 15,430 photos in our Ofoto / EasyShare  account. Not too shabby.  That’s an increase of 1,935 photos since I last logged it back in August 2006.

Although I’ve also been using Flickr for online sharing, Kodak EasyShare is still the “master” online backup / storage location for all our photos since I like having everything in one place, we use it for ordering photo books / calendars / etc., and we have archives going back to 1999.

I just finished watching An Inconvenient Truth. If you haven’t already seen it, please do. Then take action. And encourage others to do the same.

Here’s what I’ve already done in the past 5 minutes or so to help make a small difference to make the air we breathe and the planet we live on a better place for future generations:

• Planted 50 trees by donating $50 to American Forests
• Updated all archives from my old domain to encourage others to plant trees, too
• Signed a MoveOn.org petition to encourage the incoming Congress to take action on the climate crisis

And I’m proud to say that Jen and I already do (and try to do) many of the take action suggestions at the end of Al Gore’s life work:

• Use energy-efficient light bulbs
• Walk or ride my bike whenever I can
• Use an automatic thermostat
• Keep the temperature no higher than 61 degrees Fahrenheit all winter long
• Recycle
• Have a 0-mile commute 🙂

What are you doing to reduce your carbon footprint?

Just after Thanksgiving, we were delighted to have a visit from my uncle, aunt, and cousin from Ohio. We don’t often see each other (though more so now that we’re living on this coast), but we always enjoy catching up and are glad to be living closer to one another these days.

And earlier th at day, it was time for the annual trimming of the Christmas tree and photo shoot with Happy the Reindeer.