May 6 2012

Reading List to Instapaper Update

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I got a little bit giddy when I had the first couple of people follow (and comment on a couple of stupid bugs) my GitHub repository of my “Reading List to Instapaper” tool.

This whole social coding thing sort of works.

I made some small changes to clean up the code a bit (and comment it a bit better). Nothing dramatic—it still works the same way, but simply got rid of a requirement on Rails, which was needlessly in there.

The next step is to try to make a handy auto-installer, so you don’t have to play with launchctl yourself. But, in the meantime, check it out if you use Instapaper and you’re on a Mac.

May 1 2012

Treat Yo Self … To Some Ice Cream

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Quite often, I really love living in a reasonably trendy area.

For example, here’s a simple sign promoting ice cream. Nothing spectacular.

Ice cream

But look closer. How are they promoting their soft serve?

Treat yo self

Tom and Donna say …
Treat yo’ self!

Awesomesauce.

April 26 2012

Closing a Chapter

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A couple of weeks back, the first company I ever worked at was seemingly sold off for spare parts.

It’s not terribly surprising. I’m not really sure what Sensable has been doing for the past few years. The endeavor into dental seemed like it was maybe working, but it was hard to say because the company has changed focus 8 times since I left nine years ago.

Shit, has it been nine years?

From a pure technology perspective, Sensable was an awesome company and an awesome place to work. Cool technology, incredibly smart people (legitimately, some of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life), a large enough niche to be self-sustaining (academia), with a couple of other niches to keep the lights on. Not being a business expert, nor privy to the financials, I’d guess the big issue is that when you take $40ish million in funding, you have to find a way to pay that back.

Unfortunately, the revenues never got there, and the leadership, in later years, seemed to be more interested in digging a deeper hole than finding an exit. (I’m just speculating; I don’t actually know anything.)

In early April, the Sensable I knew ceased to exist. I’m sort of ok with that. I’m not sure if I know anybody who still works there—everyone has gone onto other things, often bigger and better—nor do I have any clue what the company was really doing these days. In reality, I haven’t been clued into Sensable for years.

So, given that, why does this pain me a little bit? It’s the close of a chapter of my life. Even though I’ve been gone for nine years (again … shit, that makes me old), I still see folks from Sensable from time to time. There are still emails and occasional get togethers. These are people I root for, as they were, to a person, almost all really awesome.

But that thread that tied us together—which had frayed and grown bare but not broken—finally broke. And that makes me a little sad. But, I’ll still keep up with the folks I worked with and watch as they do new, awesome things.

(If the second company I worked for disappeared off the face of the earth, I’m not sure I’d really care. In fact, I know I wouldn’t. That place was sort of a cesspool. Actually, not sort of; it was a cesspool.)

April 15 2012

Spring is for Concerts

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Spring is for concerts

That’s a famous quote, eh?

Actually, it’s not. While “Spring is for” turns up something like 2.3 billion results on the Google, “Spring is for concerts” turns up two. And, coincidentally, one of those results happens to refer to a different stop on of a tour that spawned this post.

Did that make sense?

Regardless of the nonsensicalness of the previous couple of sentences, I’ve seen a bunch of shows this spring (both with and without my wonderful girlfriend). Much of that has been documented on ye old Twitter and previously on ye old blog.

But, we lucked into some good seats to a couple of really great shows, and felt that it deserved a bit of verbage.

A little over a week ago, I saw Nada Surf play for the fifth or sixth time. As always, they were just fantastic. There are bands that just know how to play to a crowd and they connect in that way where it’s not just the music, but you feel like you’re actually hanging out with a big group of people and experiencing something unique (even if it’s quite likely they pull off the same schtick in every city). Nada Surf is always like that.

This time did feel a bit more unique, as they covered a tune by The Gravel Pit (a Boston band they toured with back in the day), which probably doesn’t happen everywhere (though, judging by setlists, at least happened in New York as well.)

Nada Surf

About a week later, the girlfriend and I went to see Snow Patrol. There’s a bit of backstory here. This was sort of our “bonding” band, as 2005-era Snow Patrol was a perfect bridge band between poppier music and “indie rock.” So, they’re kind of a foundation for our relationship.

Go us.

A few years back, we got ok seats to see Snow Patrol open for U2 at Gillette Stadium. We left super early so we could get to our seats and catch the opener. What could go wrong?

3.5 hours of traffic (on what should be a 40 minute drive) got us to the arena in time to have Snow Patrol leave the stage.

Perfect.

Cut to a couple of months ago. Snow Patrol sold out The Orpheum, but I found some “obstructed view” seats on StubHub.

Turns out, we were obstructed by the stage. Probably the best seats I’ve ever had for a “big” show. And, with the exception of not playing “Spitting Games”, Snow Patrol were another band that made a big, likely routine for them, show feel somewhat unique and intimate.

Being in the front row didn’t hurt.

Snow Patrol

Lights!

April 15 2012

You Dig My New Threads?

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I’m sort of continually looking for a simple WordPress theme that will let me get most of the cruft out of the way, and just focus (mostly) on the text. I generally (stress generally) dig Tumblr’s themes because they’re, quite often, “here’s a picture, here’s some text”. Simple. (Except when someone MySpace’s their Tumblr up and turns it into a sea of icons and badges and animated gifs.)

Anyway, wp-svbtle came out, based on svbtle.com. Me likes.

So, I grabbed it off GitHub, messed around with things a tiny bit, and here we are. I’m sure I’ll tweak it a bit more, and then get bored by it and change it again in three months. But for now, I’m happy with my new clothes. It’s spring, the weather is nice, and it feels like I’ve just done a bit of spring cleaning on the old blog.

Feels like this, really:

Spring!

(This is my street. Walking out to go to work some mornings can be quite inspiring.)