personal
Saturday, August 30th, 2008
by Brian Daniel Eisenberg
My day started at Zoka Coffee in the University District.
Coffee, breakfast, and some light coding / app config. Then bailed for home, which is where I’m at right now. As it’s a holiday weekend, where many our out squeezing in one last extended summer weekend, I’m pretty well tied up with the reality that are my unavoidable deliverables. I’ve got no problem spending my weekend this way, as I know I am working hard towards something much bigger. So with that, here’s a list of what I’ve got on tap this Labor Day weekend.
What are you all doing? @infinitelymeta me on Twitter or *Like* this post on Friendfeed to get in on the conversation. That’s where I tend to hang out on socnets these days.
Happy Labor Day everyone!
Brian’s Uber List
- New range/oven delivery for unit 2214 (one of my new tenants stove broke so I replaced it with this:
- Put out For Rent sign for my soon to be available 1BR apartment in Eastlake, Seattle WA 98102. It rents for $1400 and is the entire lower floor of an historic Victorian home that was built in 1908. An excellent spacious unit with great lighting. Email eastlakeassociates at gmail if interested or call 206.328.3379 and leave a message.
- Java/JSF/AJAX - I’m putting the final interfaces and code tweaks in place for a project that I’ve spend a quarter working on. Final interfaces in place, but still have 75+ line item bug list. Need to go code complete by Monday evening to begin FTP transfer of Development VMware image from one side of our network to an internal only host. Still have A LOT of work ahead of me to finish this project and go into team only beta next week with Public Beta (internal corp net) on Sept 8.
- Landscaping & trim to prep for fall. Luckily, I really enjoy this task. Especially when my 5.5 yr old nephew Logan joins me. He makes some pretty good coin and he’s a GREAT helper.
- Working with my friend Thom, the Ichthyogenius on our latest project, Reef In A Box that we are looking to launch in the coming months.
- Working on the YTranslate.us engine. Coding in PHP/mySQL/Python/etc. Toying with new SMS gateway (thanks to Mona’ Friendfeed post).
- Meeting with contractor on some fix-r-up-r projects for 3 of my apts in preparation for Fall/Winter.
- Looking for electrician to install some motion-sensor aware lighting in my back alley and in between my building to deal with my unwanted-persons-on-my-property challenge.
- Water changes & general maintenance on my 300 gallon reef tank.
- Prep/meet with GC on new reef tank project. Wait till you see what I’m going to build. It’s gonna pop!
- Shade garden v2. Part of the landscaping stuff I suppose, but definitely worthy of mention.
- Replace fire extinguisher in common area to be in compliance with recent Seattle City Fire Department inspection.
That’s all I can remember for now.
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
by Brian Daniel Eisenberg
As I continue to juggle what is roughly the equivalent of three full time jobs, I’m starting to run up against that magic barrier that is the space - time continuum. I’m going through a significant amount of change right now at my day job, am having to go through an eviction process with one of my tenants (night job), and I’m still feverishly trying to get Infinitely Meta and YTranslate off the ground. Needless to say it consumes nearly every waking hour of my life. I’m not complaining, as I am already hyper-efficient in managing all of the things I CHOOSE to spend my precious time on.
I think right now I need to continue to focus, not lose track of what is most important, and constantly assess and re-assess my priorities in how I spend those 24 hours each and every day.
With that, I’m off to meet Sarah Lacey and friends for her User Generated Book Tour - SEATTLE.
Tomorrow I have a VERY special meeting with one of my advisors who is going to give me a personal tour of what he is working on. I’ll take lots of pics, ask questions, and blog it when I get back. Then it’s off to the Tweetup and finally the Gnomedex 2008 kickoff.
Hopefully this torrential rain will let up soon. Currently looking strikingly similar to the Pineapple Express weather pattern that we had back in 1997. Time will tell. Personally, I don’t mind the rain. What I do mind are the CRAPPY Seattle drivers who seem to not know how to drive in it.
Onward!
- ∞ +
Monday, July 21st, 2008
by Brian Daniel Eisenberg
After reading this conversation thread on Friendfeed, I started to comment, but did a quick cut and paste into this here blog post. What follows was my original comment (not posted) that I would like to expand upon here. Then I’d like to get your feedback on Friendfeed, Twitter, or whatever stream you like to post your comments to. I really could care less where you reply, just make it findable!
Regarding my use of Linked In -
“I must admit that I have a LI account, but I have not updated it in probably 6 years. I’ve been working with the same team for 8+ years, having weathered 4 M&A events and countless reorgs. I’ve come to ignore Linked In because after having gone through the first M&A event, the only time I would get Linked In email would be when friends are riffed and forced to move on to other new positions in the industry.”
*Expanding on comment here*
This became a recurring pattern after a while, where the only times I’d ever get email updates From Linked In were from people who were let go or less often just quit for other opportunities. I found myself trying to avoid accepting any of the “friend requests” or whatever their term is for adding people to your network, and I just stopped using it altogether.
I haven’t logged into my account in years and if you check out my profile, you’ll see that the last position I posted was “Senior Product Manager”, which was 2 companies and three job title’s ago.
I’m tempted to login to Linked In and update my profile, just so my stuff is accurate, but I have this recurring fear that all those people who tried to “friend” me and all of my CURRENT colleagues are going to come out of the woodwork and start picking my profile apart.
Many of my professional colleagues are not on Twitter, Friendfeed, or most of the other social networking sites I use regularly, and I’m not sure that I want them to “invade” the communities that I participate in outside of my dayjob.
I’m all for transparency, but I’m having a very hard time figuring out the right balance between personal vs my professional uses of these socnets.
What do you think? I’m very curious to hear what other people think and where I’ll find the most valuealbe advice.
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
by Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Just a quick post to bump my last one, as it’s been a while. Just got back from San Francisco after an amazing week of fun, work, and great conversation. Met a TON of GREAT new people and made a lot of new friends. Here’s a quick list of amazing things I got to do while visiting friends and meeting new ones over the past week:
- Streaming the iPhone launch from Apple Store on Stockton St.
- Buying new iPod Touch, upgrading to 2.0, loading Pandora and other apps from the AppStore
- Discovering my new addiction at the Blue Bottle Cafe. Siphon Pot coffee is unbelievable. Check out my Flickr pics.
- Super secret meetings with some very big names that I can’t really talk about.
- Rocked the Mechanicrawl, met Terry Lindell (uber-master of the Mark IV TDC).
- Attended Gary Vaynerchuk’s party for taping of the WLTV 500th Episode (insane energy and good vibes at that event). Ran into old friends like Scott Beale (@laughingsquid) and an old college buddy - Brad Murphy - who is VP at Revision 3. Got to meet/talk to Kevin Rose and many other notables in the local tech scene.
- Attended the Freshbooks Tweetup at 21st Amendment. Geeked out with fellow iPhone/Touch enthusiasts. Drank 9.2% IPA that was out of this world.
- Attended Social Media Camp San Francisco. Met some AMAZING people at this event. Met Erica O’Grady. Hung out with @danielbru and the Qik guys. Got to meet @Corvida and a lot of other awesome people.
- Attended Mashable SummerMash San Francisco. Met Pete Cashmore, ran into lots of friends & met new ones. Met Steven Fruchter, CEO of Stickam. Discussed some ideas / opps for collaboration.
- Dinner with Yeshi Govindas Friedland and drinks with Brad Murphy. What happens when you get together with 2 college buddies who haven’t seen each other together since around 1996? A late night that ended at 2:45am this morning.
- Upgraded to First Class on Virgin America flight from SFO -> SEA and had the absolute pleasure of meeting and talking with Actor Peter Coyote (wikipedia him). Overhead voicemail on ride from SEATAC (he offered to share his driver) from Matthew Modine.
That about sums it up. Tomorrow I attend a day long course by one of my true idols, Mr. Edward Tufte.
I have a crapload of stuff to do between now and next Weds, when I fly to Albany, NY and head up into the Adirondack Mountains to a little area where there is still no mobile phone coverage. There I will continue work on one of my engines. This is a VERY exciting time for me right now.
Thanks to all my new friends, followers, and supporters!
Onward & Upward.
–Brian
- ∞ +
