ivantohelpyou

Having a wonderful time, learning Czech language, culture, food, customs and more.

Almost completely unplugged for the last three weeks, will continue to be so for the next three. It's an amazing feeling, you bloggers should try it sometime.

Na zdravi!

Labels: travel

I'll be checking my SkypeIn messages from Internet café-land.

Read all about my Skype setup in the latest SmallBizResource post, and learn how you can add one of these fancy buttons to your web site:



Get Skype and call me for free.

Labels: telecom, travel, Web 2.0

For at least a couple of weeks now, I've been trying to write an article about online applications that can be used instead of Microsoft Office. But I keep running into the same problem – whenever I have an actual task to do, i.e. one that might be a good candidate for an online application, I instinctively open a Microsoft application and get to work before I realize the missed opportunity.

So now, I'm going to take a drastic step. Today, I'm going to head to the airport and board a plane for London. After a few days there, it's off to the Czech Republic. And I'm not going to bring my laptop. gasp

I'm just going to bring all the peripherals I need for the digital lifestyle using other people's computers:

• iPod shuffle
• U3 ThinkFree 1GB Smart Drive - Plug it into a Windows PC, and it boots like a CD and then mounts a storage volume. Easy access to Firefox (with your bookmarks), Thunderbird (with your e-mail), Skype (with your account) and ThinkFree Office.
• Firewire card and cable. I'll have access to a DV cam.
  
• digital camera and USB cable, plus USB battery charger
• ethernet cable, phone cable, phone/power adaptors.
  

Sure, it's a lot of stuff. But it's all REALLY LIGHT and very replaceable.

Should be easy to write that online-apps article now. Plus, I'll have enough material for a brand new article as well.

Labels: gadgets, travel

I'm preparing for a trip to Prague in June and July, to study the Czech language and culture.

Here's a SmallBizResource blog post about how I'm going to stay in touch while I'm abroad.

Link:
The Small Biz Road Warrior Kit

Labels: Czech, small biz, travel

We're too old for this. Or at least too ornery.

We never did get to see Sonic Youth or Bjork last Friday at Coachella, because we left early to avoid getting stuck in another monster traffic jam like the one we encountered on the way in. And as it turned out, Sonic Youth didn't take the stage until much later than scheduled.

But we did get to see Scarlett Johansson sing with The Jesus & Mary Chain.

The reunited Jesus and Mary Chain drew cheers from the large crowd that by now had amassed in front of the stage. Despite the fact that they hadn't toured since 1998, the band was in sync and even played new music. Toward the end of their set they brought out actress Scarlett Johansson, who did backup vocals during "Just Like Honey." There was no introduction, and it seemed as if most of the audience had no idea who was up there. Her vocals, which consisted of her repeating "just like honey," were drowned out by the guitars, and she just looked uncomfortable.

Catherine Garcia, Redlands Daily Facts, May 3, 2007

Here's a review from Los Angeles City Beat that captures the overall experience. Especially the heat, the traffic, and the fact that you either had to fight through the crowd to stand next to a high-decibel column of speakers or accept the fact that you'd have to listen to at least two bands at once.

My previous festival experience had been the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which arranges the two big stages at either end of a figure-eight loop (see map). Scattered along the way are smaller tents, arts exhibits and great food. There are plenty of options for getting to the venue, and it's over in time for dinner.

Compare that to the one road through town going to the Polo Grounds at Coachella, with an ugly merge every half-mile or so. Then, once you enter the grounds with its L-shaped layout (see the Coachella festival map), you'd get bottled up in various choke points, with very few places where you could comfortably listen to one and only one band.

We did enjoy the fire and lightning shows, the giant spider, and the various structures erected to allow people to take a break from the sun.

Anyway, here's a map of how they should lay out the festival next year.

UPDATE: Here's a review highlighting the key demographic of the festival - college kids smuggling booze.

Labels: music, travel

I was skimming a recent issue of Fast Company during the flight to Los Angeles, which included an article about how the Chinese market has influenced automotive design.

We get to PSP, pick up our car, and look at that, I get to drive a big white hearse.

In China, white is the color of death and mourning.

In Palm Springs, it's just common sense.

Labels: travel

We're heading to Palm Springs this afternoon, and going to Coachella on Friday to see Björk and Sonic Youth.

Björk was on Saturday Night Live last weekend, but Scooter made me turn it off because she didn't want to spoil the live show experience. She doesn't like watching movie trailers either. Me, I'm all for the big build-up. Plus, you can't spoil a concert by hearing a couple songs in advance. When you know a couple of the new songs already, it just makes the live show better.

On June 12, Sonic Youth will be releasing Daydream Nation as a two-disk set (also available in special edition on vinyl), which will include the remastered original album plus live versions from the tour in support of the 1988 album. Many of their live shows following the release are billed as "SONIC YOUTH PERFORMING DAYDREAM NATION." Perhaps in another couple of decades or so we can look forward to the release of a recording of the 2007 live version of the 1988 masterpiece, paired with a tribute album by the incredible Chinese bands that will soon arise inspired by SY's performances earlier this week in Beijing and Shanghai.

Labels: music, travel

A big rocket-mouse hello to Jenny the Juggler (see the video + blooper reel). Available in the Boston area for kids' birthday parties, family functions, corporate events, or anywhere else that calls for a live performer for face-painting, singing, balloon animals and yes, juggling!

Labels: travel

At the movies, preceding the feature presentation there's typically a brief segment admonishing people to be less annoying during the average two-hour film. Why isn't there a similar public service announcement before a six-and-a-half hour flight?

The airline could put together a montage of comedians doing their obligatory routines about flying ("Don't you hate it when..."), which are always funny – just like blog posts about flying, which never fail to make interesting reading.

And now a word about media consumption on JetBlue. Instead of showing a limited selection of commercial-free movies (edited for language and sexual situations) as do other airlines, JetBlue has back-of-seat live satellite television. So, instead of sitting back and passively soaking in a new movie that's not out on DVD yet, I had to become an active channel-surfer in an attempt to stay entertained. Maybe that would be acceptable if I were flying during television's sweeps week, but it's not the best tradeoff on a Saturday night featuring nothing much other than a SNL rerun that was barely tolerable the first time around; a commercial-laden, expletive-deleted airing of "Friday" on Comedy Central; or an "I Love New York" marathon on VH1 (which I couldn't even watch, since I'm saving it for DVD).

Even a bad film can knock a two-hour chunk out of a cross-country trip. By contrast, live television segments the journey into hundreds of tiny moments, "Isn't there anything else on?" *click* "Another commercial for the electric knife" *click* "Oh look at that, Anna Nicole...still dead" *click*

I couldn't even stare at the map for hours at a time, since the flight tracker was punctuated with commercial messages from JetBlue. How many times do I have to see the drinks menu? Why, when I'm trying to remember how to pronounce Couer d'Alene, should I be barraged for the 100th time with the unappetizing suggestion of a pairing between the house merlot and a bag of Doritos?

In-flight entertainment should make the flight seem shorter, not interminable.

Labels: movies, television, travel

Guess I just have a nose for champagne. I came to Cape Cod this evening, just as friend and fellow CMU troublemaker Benton Jones had an offer accepted for the purchase of a house right down the road from his Millstone Gallery in Brewster. Not a done deal yet, but exciting nonetheless.

Having arrived the day after An Event Apart, I quickly launched into a lecture on the sanctity of semantic content, using examples from Eric Meyer's CSS: The Definitive Guide to describe the serene beauty of Web standards. It clicked. Benton now knows what has to be done to punch up his site, as well as a site that he's helping some neighbors design for their kennel.

In the meantime, if you can handle the table-based HTML, you can still check out Benton's kiln-formed glass fused with metal.

Labels: art, travel

Just visited my uncle and his current project, UbU Clothing World Headquarters in Forty Fort, PA. The site, formerly a pickle, mustard and relish factory, has been converted into luxury lofts, a wholesale food distribution center, office space and soon-to-be retail establishments. It's coming along nicely, and it doesn't smell anything like a hot-dog cart.

For the past few months, I've been ramping up to build out the UbU Clothing website. It's a good deal for both sides – they'll get a quality e-commerce site, and I have the chance to get my hands dirty with developing for the Web. From last month's WebDirections North conference and next week's An Event Apart, I'll have received more than enough guidance from the leading voices in the industry to take it from the current "bare-bones" stage to a fully-functional Web standards design. In fact, the organizers of next week's event were asking people to send in links to their websites to be reviewed at the closing session. Me? Not ready yet. Maybe next year, fellas.

However, I hope to have a new and improved version up before the upcoming O'Reilly/CMP Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, April 15-18.

I like the idea of a blog as a to-do list with a public and verifiable deadline. It tells potential customers that you're a talker, a doer AND a writer.

Labels: travel, Web 2.0, web design

Well, I didn't quite make it to the AJAXWorld conference today. I'll try again tomorrow.

However, I did make it back to Montclair, N.J., the subject of a recent post on Gawker. Maybe I'll start wearing my varsity letter jacket again.

Labels: travel

• Made it to Boston with only an hour delay despite JetBlue having canceled all flights to NY-area airports, and Logan covered with snow.
• Big Dig seems almost finished, and they've taken down many of the barriers that had separated the North End from the rest of the city. It's almost possible to imagine what it's going to look like when the terraforming above ground is finished.
  
• Relatively quiet St. Patrick's Day with friends in the North End, although a few of us did a late stroll around the core of bars near Quincy Market to look at the drunk people. Kind of like a safari.
  
• Sunday, went to a parade party in Southie. I lived in Somerville for four years and sad to say, I had never even gone to Southie before let alone to the parade. More evidence of how Boston is a city of small neighborhoods. Anyway, I had a great introduction, plus a tour of the neighborhoods of Fort Point and South Boston.
  
• Met up with friends from Cambridge and Somerville, who have formed a support group for women breadwinners and the men staying at home (site to come). Society hasn't entirely adapted to this arrangement, they claim, and this Boston Globe article describes the disparate contribution to housework by women who outearn their husbands. Good thing Scooter doesn't read this blog.
• Went back to the old neighborhood watering hole. No trivia night and none of the regulars around. In retrospect, I'd have preferred to leave it in my memory as it was then, rather than as it was tonight.
• I had been giving some thought to coming back to Boston at some point. The way things go around here, it would probably look like a different city but feel exactly the same.
  

Labels: travel

Acquired in preparation for a cross-country flight on JetBlue to a city threatened by snow:

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 edited by Dave Eggers

Rising Up and Rising Down by William T. Vollman

The anthology offers an amusing collection of short stories, comics and blog entries well-suited for the time between in-flight interruptions and biological upheavals resulting from the act of hurtling through space in a winged bus. I am looking forward to the Haruki Murakami story ("The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day") along with savoring the 700 hobo names listed in the excerpt from The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman (a.k.a. "...and I'm a PC"), columnist for McSweeney's, which coincidentally is the publisher of Rising Up and Rising Down (7 Volume Set). The paperback version I will bring to the airport is but a pared-down 700-page version of the original, but it still contains Vollmann's Moral Calculus (description from the back cover) "a structured decision-making system designed to help the reader decide when violence is justifiable and when it is not."

On second thought, maybe that's not the best book to bring on an airplane these days.

Labels: books, travel

The countdown to St. Patrick's Day begins.

At Fadó Seattle they have a digital clock. Two of them, actually, running about seven seconds apart. I was enjoying a Guinness nearer to the slower of the two clocks, and so I must have been facing due east.

Next stop, St. Patrick's Day in Boston.

Labels: travel