Category: Living

Best wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving!

What a delightful late November it’s been this week in the San Francisco Bay Area. Out walking the dog yesterday afternoon, warm and sunny – even though the sun was down low as it always is this time of year. Today dawns crisp and sunny. We’re so spoiled — and have so much to be thankful for!

Parade, the Sunday newspaper magazine supplement, has an article on podcasting (and blogging) in this morning’s edition. Talk about taking podcasting to mainstream America! Unfortunately, no link possible because Parade posts its articles online a week after the newspaper edition — a very weird policy IMHO for a publication like Parade. They say it’ll be posted here on November 28th.

French press. I recently got a small French press for making coffee — we are a mixed decaf/caf family and the regular pot gets devoted to decaf. During the week, I solve my problem by stopping by Peet’s on the way into the office. On weekends, a quick three scoops of Peet’s Ethopian Fancy into the French press, a bit of fresh boiling water, and 4 minutes later a delightful cup of great coffee in hand.

Was reminded this morning about Ole Eichorn‘s classic Tyranny of Email post from a couple of years ago. An oldie but goodie – another thing (and guy) to be thankful for!

Some miscellaneous ramblings on a Sunday evening at the end of October…

Read Richard Clarke’s new book yesterday — and sold it used on Amazon.com in about 2 hours this afternoon! Really enjoyed reading the story — after hearing him on Terry Gross’ Fresh Air last week. Don’t want to spoil the story for you — the plot is great — but this is a first novel and Clarke’s use of dialogue could use some work.

Spent some time today with Flickr. I’d signed up early on but hadn’t uploaded any photos. Tried uploading some today — and almost immediately ran up against the 20 mb monthly limit for free Flickr accounts. When I think about Flickr, I’m reminded of what Phil Greenspun (and friends) did with photo.net. But Flickr exploded in terms of community interest while photo.net just “perked” along. Why? Flickr’s ramp and “buzz” attracted Yahoo! — leading to its acquisition by Yahoo! earlier this year. Flickr became an almost perfect Web 2.0 “flip” example. Lots of food for thought here.

Unfortunately, I missed the Internet Identity Workshop last week. Was looking forward to it — but client work got in the way! One of my partners attended and she came away impressed with the Microsoft InfoCard strategy.

Daylight savings time fell back in the wee hours early this morning, and tonight feels much later than the clock says.

New header graphic posted from this morning’s walk around Sharon Park. Such a beautiful morning and the ducks were all lined up, waiting for the sun to get them moving I guess. Just felt like it was time to retire the Maui beach shot as fall starts getting serious around here.

Tomorrow’s Halloween. Put your mask on and have fun!

An ordinary instant, a New York minute. It happens so quickly.

Read Joan Didion’s After Life in today’s New York Times Magazine. She loses her husband — author John Gregory Dunne — and shares the experience very personally with us with some amazing writing.

John Flinn reminds us of Mark Twain:

“Twenty years from now,” Mark Twain once wrote, “you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

Former HP CEO Lew Platt died last Thursday.

I met him once, almost fifteen years ago – as an HP client wanting to learn more about HP’s leadership. We had lunch. It was one of those rare lunches you remember, savor – like with an old friend. We talked about a lot of stuff, family, work, life. One of the best business lunches I’ve ever had. The HP Way, I guess.

More recently, I’ve seen Lew a few times in the past few years across the tables at Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park. Hard to believe he’s now gone – such a good and decent man.

Judy Richter wrote a great article for the San Francisco Chronicle’s Home and Garden section today on how three generations of a family in Fairfield, California pooled their resources to build a family “compound”.

In planning the house, “we saw it as a marriage of families” and a way “to be there for Mom and Dad,” Steve Lavell said. “This isn’t an experiment. We’re going to make it work.”

George Curry agreed. “No matter what happens, we can work it out. It’s a more impressive family than it is an impressive house.”

Wouldn’t it be great if we could all end our days living with our family just down the hall?

One year ago today, I followed my usual morning routine — checking email and browsing the web. Just like this morning. One of my usual first stops is Dave Winer’s Scripting News. I saw his posting:

6:15AM: Bill Seitz reports that a plane has crashed into NY’s World Trade Center.

I turned on CNN — and learned just how the world had changed.

A day to remember. Always.

Yesterday was a very important day in the Loftesness household. Our son Dave Loftesness married Penny Campbell in a wonderful celebration close to home. Dave and Penny both work for BlueMug in Berkeley.