I Quit
I have left my job at Amazon, and I don’t have another one lined up. It’s time for a career break, my first time spending more than about a month between com...
Articles
- 2024 9
- 2023 9
- 2022 8
- 2021 7
- 2020 18
- 2019 5
- 2018 7
- 2017 7
- 2016 14
- 2015 5
- 2014 9
- 2013 4
- 2012 5
- 2011 4
- 2010 3
- 2009 5
- 2008 13
- 2007 30
- 2006 42
- 2005 1
2024
The Amalgamated Compassion Fund’s New Baker’s Dozen
I spent some time around Thanksgiving taking a look at the annual grants that I make from the Amalgamated Compassion Fund, my donor-advised fund, to charitie...
Ten-Year Technology is Great for Everyone
Many of the high-tech products that I own are lasting longer than ever before. Even if they won’t last forever, I’m impressed by how long companies and volun...
Five Years of Being a Seattle Election Map Guy
Since 2019, I’ve been visualizing elections in the Seattle area on my Tableau Public account. It’s a hobby that I’ve been proud of, and it’s opened some unus...
Electric Vehicle Edge Cases in Eastern Washington
In my first three months as an electric vehicle (EV) owner, I’ve put nearly 2,000 miles on my Chevrolet Bolt EV. Seven hundred fifty of those were on a long ...
First Impressions After 1,000 Miles of Electric Car Ownership
After about two months of being a car owner again, after almost 17 car-free years, I haven’t yet internalized the basic features of personal car ownership. I...
I Own a Car, After Almost 17 Years Without One
Back in 2007, a year after I moved to Seattle, I crunched the numbers and made the rational decision to sell my car. I just used the same spreadsheet to revi...
I Wrote a Book Two Years Ago
Two years ago, I published the first edition of Personal Finance for People in Tech, exclusively on Kindle. People often ask how the book has been as a “side...
Stores I Struggle to Explain in 2024
I recently read Gary Weiss’s very good 2022 book Retail Gangster, about Crazy Eddie, a discount retailer that was well-known in New York for its high-pressur...
2023
Not Every Problem Needs a Solution
This past year, I’ve received some difficult pieces of news at broad and personal levels. I’ve made it a goal to be mindful of it all, without taking everyth...
I Can Drive I-5
At the risk of sounding like a bad urbanist, I’ve made it a priority this year to start driving a car again.
The New Costs of Not Traveling
I had planned to visit JupyterCon, the global conference about the projects I work on for a living, in Paris this past week. AWS was a key sponsor of Jupyter...
Protect Your Identity: Create These Accounts Before Someone Else Does
As U.S. tax season draws to a close, everyone should stay vigilant against scams and identity thieves. There are a few accounts that every U.S. worker should...
Airalo Helped Me Fix My AT&T Phone, Using T-Mobile
Late last year, I decided to finally buy a 5G-capable smartphone, but I never got 5G reception on AT&T in Seattle or New York. For $1.50, I used Airalo t...
Beware the “High-Yield” Savings Account
When I wrote the first edition of Personal Finance for People in Tech nearly a year ago, it seemed silly to include material about cash savings. At the time,...
It’s Time For Seattle to Fund Social Housing
Seattle needs thousands of housing units for low- to middle-income earners. House Our Neighbors has sponsored Initiative 135 (I-135) to create a public devel...
Reflections on Twenty Years in Tech
After twenty years working in the tech industry, I’m looking forward to more time spent building products and services that are good enough to pay for — and ...
Twenty Years in Tech
I started my first full-time job on January 20, 2003. Twenty years on, I’ve decided to look back at what’s changed and what hasn’t in my world of software de...
2022
Personal Finance for People in Tech’s Second Edition Is Now Available
Earlier this year, I published my first book, Personal Finance for People in Tech. After some positive reviews and requests for more content and more formats...
The Internet’s Past Was Distributed. Will Its Future Be?
Given the recent chaos at Twitter following Elon Musk’s long and successful quest to buy it, I decided to set up an alternative micro-content account. With s...
You Should Watch Competitive Nintendo Tetris
Last night, the Yankees played a must-win playoff game, and under normal circumstances, I’d have been glued to the screen. Instead, I was in a giant windowle...
A New Look for This Site
Starting today, I’ve upgraded this web site to use newer software and style, and to feature some more information on the front page. I hope it makes this si...
The New Costs of Travel
In the summer of 2019, I redeemed some frequent flyer miles for a vacation to Scandinavia that I intended to take during the following spring. I postponed ...
First World Problems in the Deep: A Year of Seattle Kraken Fandom
My employer, Amazon.com, sponsors the Seattle Kraken and holds naming rights to its home arena. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy owns a stake in the Kraken. This articl...
The Pandemic’s Third Year
It’s been over three months since I started my new job and I have spent zero days in the office. I continue to work from home (WFH) every day and I expect ...
2021
The Bus Has Never Been Such a Great Value
The last time I flew out of Seattle, last week to visit family for Thanksgiving, I opened the Lyft app on my phone. For the roughly 18-mile trip to the airpo...
Boomerang!
Earlier this month I said goodbye to Tableau after 7 years of service. I accepted and started a new position at Amazon Web Services as a Senior Front-End Eng...
Doing Normal Things
I spent last week in New York visiting my family, the first time I had seen my parents and brothers in person since December 2019. Aside from a trip to Man...
Half-Vaccinated and Fully Ready to Rejoin Society
At Amazon’s large “SuperVax” site in Seattle last month, I got my first COVID-19 vaccine dose. My second dose is coming up later this month. I’m already lo...
Old Games Mania and My Box of Nostalgia
Despite, or maybe because of, the COVID-19 pandemic, people with money have been buying all sorts of investments with money they might otherwise spend on t...
One Year of Work From Home
The opinions in this article are my own and do not reflect those of Salesforce.com.
Social Media Are Great. I’ve Used Them for Most of My Life.
I’m still working from home every day — for 11 months and counting — with no end in sight and very little face-to-face contact with other people in real li...
2020
Grounded
For me, 2020 has been a year more notable for what I didn’t do than for what I did. In making it through this year alive, well, and employed, I didn’t leave ...
The Amalgamated Compassion Fund and Racial Equity
Among the many important subplots of 2020 are a rise (after major volatility) in the stock market and newfound attention to injustices in the United States...
The WFH MVPs, Part 3
Following my first and second posts on the WFH MVPs, the Most Valuable Players of my year spent largely working from home, here’s the third and final (for ...
The WFH MVPs, Part 2
To follow my post last week on the WFH MVPs, the Most Valuable Players of the 8-plus months I’ve spent working from home daily, here are a few more product...
The WFH MVPs
November, the grayest month on the Seattle calendar, has seen some encouraging news for the world. My Internet-troll president is on his way out and we may ...
I Still Believe in the City
The poison air has mercifully left Seattle. Autumn has begun with a mixture of rain and sunshine. Now is a great time to go outside, weather permitting, es...
The Poison Air is Back
Seattle has heavily polluted air with fine particulates (PM2.5) more than triple the maximum safe levels. Wildfires pose no direct danger to Seattle, but t...
Nothing Better To Do
I’m still working from home every day. All my 2020 travel plans are postponed, cancelled, or otherwise not yet booked. Local events, with the exception of ...
Andrea Betza, 1981–2020
Andrea Sappe Betza, my nursery-school sweetheart and one of the most extraordinarily unlikely people I’ve ever known, died on June 23. She was 39.
Three Months at Home and a New Crisis Outside
It’s been three months since my company switched most employees to work from home (WFH) daily. King County, Washington just yesterday went to a “modified P...
Two Months of Self-Isolation
King County, Washington remains largely locked down due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Non-essential businesses are closed, state parks are just startin...
It Would Be Nice to Have a Car During a Pandemic
Back in 2007 I sold my car just one year to the day after I moved to Seattle. The COVID-19 pandemic marks the closest I’ve come to regretting that decision.
The Top of the Curve Is In Sight
According to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), we are less than 2 weeks from a peak of both hospital usage...
Morbid Curiosity
Every night, usually around the time I go to bed, I get a recap of the day’s COVID-19 news from Public Health — Seattle & King County. The two key stat...
Seattle in Good Spirits as it Nears a Lockdown
I’ve been sniffling and coughing, but not feverish, since Friday evening. I took the afternoon off today after working on some paperwork in the morning. I’...
Social Distancing and Cognitive Dissonance
I’ve worked from home for a few days in Seattle. My company, like many others, closed its Seattle-area offices for the month of March and is having many of...
Work-from-Home City
Within an hour of my declaring Seattle “Alive and Mostly Well” yesterday, I received a notice from my employer to work from home for the next several week...
Seattle is Alive and Mostly Well
The Seattle metro area is the United States’s ground zero for Coronavirus disease 2019. As I write this, 10 people of my area’s approximately 3.8 million h...
2019
The Amalgamated Compassion Fund Class of 2019 Focuses on the Homeless
It’s the end of a banner year in the stock market, which is good news for the Amalgamated Compassion Fund, my donor-advised fund that makes regular grants ...
Ending Homelessness Is Hard. Talking About It Is Harder.
This article does not represent the opinions of my employer.
Seattle Bikeshare at a Crossroads Again
I’m a big fan of free-floating transportation. When I sold my car in 2007, I pivoted to using cars rented by the hour from Zipcar and, later, to cars rented ...
Life on 59½th Street
I held a housewarming party recently for my new townhouse in Ballard. As friends and colleagues admired the view out towards other neighborhoods and all t...
Ballard Bound
The year isn’t even two months old and I’m placing a big bet already: I’m trading in condo ownership for townhouse ownership, in so doing bidding goodbye to ...
2018
The Amalgamated Compassion Fund Thinks Long-Term in the Class of 2018
When I graduated from college in 2003, my commencement speaker was Teresa Heinz Kerry. She was introduced, a year before her husband John would run for the...
Changing my Microcontent Diet and Job Criteria
Like many Americans with too much time on our hands, I tried an experiment earlier this year: I significantly reduced the time and energy I devote to mains...
How “Pokémon Go” Convinced Me to Pay and Win
Thanks to my recent trips, I have a new side job: I’m a Pokémon importer.
Weill in Japan 3: A Trip to the North
On a mild Saturday evening strolling through Sapporo’s Odori Park, I felt an emotion I don’t often experience on a tourism trip: I was sad to be leaving.
Making Big Bets on Housing in Seattle
The Seattle metropolitan area continues to grow at a torrid pace, adding over 1,000 new residents a week, yet the city remains largely opposed to building ...
A Half-Female Software Development Team, Company Culture, and Unintended Consequences
This article represents my own opinions and does not reflect the views of Tableau.
Seattle’s Big Bikeshare Bounceback
Just six months after Seattle’s Pronto! Cycle Share ceased operations, America’s second-hilliest city started its second experiment with bikesharing. First...
2017
Be Generous When Others Are Fearful: The Amalgamated Compassion Fund Class of 2017
Warren Buffett made a lot of money investing based on the adage “Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.” He famously stayed a...
Seattle Steelers Meetups Visualized
I took over hosting Seattle's Pittsburgh Steelers Meetup, the 5th-largest Steelers club in the U.S., before the start of the 2017 season.
Utilities, Hotels, and Tech Companies
Every software company where I’ve worked has aspired to build “platforms.” A platform is a way of turning specialized software into a generalized offering ...
An Appropriate Level of Outrage
In July 2016, as the New York Times gave Donald Trump about a 50% chance of winning the Presidency, I wrote “At Peace With Politics.” In that essay I wrote...
YIMBYism, the Movement to Bring Seattle Out of the 1960s
I love my adopted hometown of Seattle. As the city grows, though, I’ve started paying attention to the difficult conversations and lengthy acronyms that fram...
The Digital Bouncer
A few months ago, Amazon with great fanfare announced Amazon Go, a new concept for a physical retail store. Its introductory video, which includes appearanc...
A Pronto! Bike Share Success Story
Seattle’s Pronto! Cycle Share is on its way out. The system let people borrow bikes for 30 or 45 minutes at a time to ride between a small network of stati...
2016
On Optimism and Gratitude
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obliga...
The Amalgamated Compassion Fund Class of 2016
In the 9 years since I started the Amalgamated Compassion Fund, my charitable gift fund, I’ve granted money to dozens of worthy causes. This year stands apar...
Happiness Is The Company You Keep
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obliga...
In Seattle, Everywhere Is an Art Gallery
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obliga...
Where Sports Are What You Make of Them
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obliga...
Seattle’s Dogs and Their Owners
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obliga...
Reconnecting Cable Long After Cutting the Cord
Over nine years ago I cut the cord, getting rid of even basic cable TV. Earlier this month I officially came crawling back to Comcast. My reason: live sports...
The Unsung Genius of Microsoft
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obliga...
How the Old Amazon Cafeteria Got Me To Like Mexican Food
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obliga...
Multiculturalism In the U.S.’s Fifth-Whitest City
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obliga...
Validating Every Stereotype About Seattle and Coffee
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obl...
The Many Ways of Getting Around Seattle
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obl...
Seattle Has Citizens, Not Just Residents
10 Years, 10 Things to Love Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obl...
Seattle: 10 Years, 10 Things to Love
Prologue Part 1: Citizens, Not Just Residents Part 2: The Many Ways of Getting Around Part 3: Obligatory Coffee Article ...
2015
The Amalgamated Compassion Fund Class of 2015
It’s been an exceptionally good year for the Amalgamated Compassion Fund, my charitable gift fund. Over the last 8 years or so I’ve been seeding my gift fund...
Unsolicited career advice: Be excellent all the time
A year ago today, I got an offer to leave Amazon.com for a new job at Tableau Software. I’m enjoying my time at Tableau and I’ve also been thinking and readi...
Seattle: Build more, build bigger, be patient, and forget rent control
It’s an election year in Seattle and rents are soaring. Some of my neighbors and politicians are calling for rent control laws. As someone who wouldn’t reall...
Exiting the Pittsburgh real estate market
I bought a 1200 square foot carriage house in Pittsburgh on April 28, 2005. After 10 years of owning it, 9 years to the day of not living in it, and multiple...
On having lived next to an aPodment for over two years
I bought and moved into a condominium on Seattle’s Capitol Hill in the summer of 2012. At a time when most properties on the Hill sold within a week or two, ...
2014
The Amalgamated Compassion Fund class of 2014
Back in 2007 I established the Amalgamated Compassion Fund, a donor-advised fund where I contribute cash or stock and make grants to charitable organizatio...
Kinder Surprise eggs, Customs and Border Protection, and you
When I was in college my friend Joe was obsessed with Kinder Surprise eggs, small chocolate treats with a miniature toy inside. Since Kinder eggs are not a...
Farewell to Amazon, Hello Tableau
After eight amazing years, I’ve decided to leave Amazon.com and take a Senior Software Engineer position at Tableau Software.
Weill in Japan 2: Acknowledgements and plugs
My return trip to Japan was long overdue. After 12 years apart, my language knowledge had weakened. There were many places, attractions, and types of restaur...
Weill in Japan 2: Kyoto
On my last full day in Kyoto I remember being underwhelmed by seeing another temple from the 9th century. “This is pretty,” I thought, “but is it worth $5 to...
Weill in Japan 2: Hiroshima
I felt a profound sadness walking through the streets of Hiroshima on my last night here. I hadn’t been to the atomic bomb memorial yet, but it was already o...
Weill in Japan 2: Tokyo
I had forgotten about the toilets.
Weill in Japan 2: Prologue
It is 2014 and I am finally returning to Japan.
On falling off the trivia wagon
“Boys never grow up. Their ego, their competitive spirit, their ‘Mum, look at me!’ never really goes away. And nothing brings that male ego like a quiz.” ...
2013
The Amalgamated Compassion Fund class of 2013
For a few years now I’ve been funding the Amalgamated Compassion Fund, a Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund. The fund lets me contribute in cash or securities; Fi...
Seattle, still rising
The city of Seattle continues to grow in 2013. Since I wrote “Seattle, rising” last March, the only thing going up faster than new residential buildings is ...
A new home page in the cloud
My new web site is now live on the Amazon cloud. Welcome! After using my ISP's hosting, hitching a ride on a friend's domain, and for over 10 years paying ...
car2go, car rental by the minute, arrives in Seattle
I drive, but I don't own a car. Seattle just gained another option for my kind of lifestyle: car2go has made its debut, offering Smart cars rented by the min...
2012
The Amalgamated Compassion Fund’s Class of 2012
I've made it a goal to give at least 5% of my salary to charity every year. To centralize this effort, I started the Amalgamated Compassion Fund a few years...
A Trip to an Apodment Complex
More than a dozen new buildings in my Seattle neighborhood of Capitol Hill have an uncommon trait in common: they're "microhousing" buildings. I stopped by f...
The question I asked a Ponzi scheme operator
When you hear about modern Ponzi schemes, you usually think of wealthy networkers like Bernie Madoff or con men who bilk people in their local communities by...
On becoming a homeowner for the second time
Effective today I'm the owner of 308 Summit Ave E #401, a two-bedroom condominium at the Alpine Villa building on Seattle's Capitol Hill. After six years as ...
Seattle, rising
Eleven stories above a former parking lot, construction workers are hanging windows on Arizona, the capstone of Amazon.com's 11-building headquarters in Sout...
2011
Where every social networking service is wrong, and how to do it right
You join a new social web site. You invite all your friends. You rejoice that all your friends are here. You multicast some information. You lament that some...
In Search of Online Video Standards
Over 4 years ago I cut cable out of my monthly bills: I downgraded from the $80 basic digital cable package to a $13 option that includes little more than lo...
What I’ve Been Doing For the Last Year, Non-Work-Centric Version
In 2006 I had the good fortune to pick an apartment that's a 20-minute walk from every building I've worked at in Seattle — including one that wasn't built w...
What I’ve Been Doing For the Last Year
Just over a year ago I changed jobs at Amazon: after nearly four years in Email Platform (as it was known when I left), I transferred to the Kindle Content S...
2010
How to Use the Internet to Save 15% on Your Rent
When I moved to Seattle in May 2006, the housing market was inflating by the day. Many apartment buildings were converting to condominiums, stranding tenants...
Kiva: A Microcredit Post-Mortem
In 2006 I dipped my toes into the world of microfinance with two investments: one in Kiva, a non-profit that specializes in the developing world, and Prosper...
What I learned from the XXI Olympic Winter Games
I spent an amazing week in Vancouver at the Olympic Winter Games. Andrea and I rented a studio apartment, the Dohm Home in Kitsilano, and attended six events...
2009
I’m a PC, and I’m Not a Criminal
Microsoft has been praised, by others and by their own ads, for improvements in Windows 7. One thing hasn't changed: their awful, mandatory product activatio...
As someone who caucused for Barack Obama, you might like to vote for …
Last year I participated in my first-ever Washington State Democratic Caucuses. In other states, I had been used to primary elections conducted very much lik...
1 vs 100 Beta on Xbox Live: My Impressions
Yesterday I got to play in the Xbox Live 1 vs. 100 beta, the first live game show playable on a game console. The game worked incredibly smoothly considerin...
I’m going to the Olympics
I'm going to the Winter Olympics up in Vancouver in February. It's been a lifelong dream of mine to go someday. I never made it as an athlete, but the ingots...
I Can Has Roethlisberger!
I Can Has Roethlisberger!, originally uploaded by charness. Presenting I Can Has Roethlisberger?, a new site blending the LOLcat phenomenon with 2008...
2008
Snow showers Seattle; city surrenders
Update Jan. 5, 2009: "For the first time in more than a decade, salt was being used to de-ice Seattle streets Sunday night." The city finally came to its sen...
Seventeen07: From pretentious to desperate
Update Oct. 20, 2008: The auction was yesterday. Matt at Urbnlivn reports that 14 of the 17 units sold, while 3 were held back. No word on prices yet. Updat...
NFL teams by Presidential last names on their rosters
As I watched the Steelers' disgraceful game against the Eagles yesterday, I had plenty of time to think. "Why," I wondered, "do the Steelers have so many sta...
Ten-letter phone number shortcuts
"Some companies like to spell out words so you can remember their names, but they use too many letters. 'Give us a call at 1-800-I-LOVE-BRAND-NEW-CARPET.' I ...
When Starbucks competes with itself
At my local QFC supermarket there's a Starbucks counter just inside the entrance. They sell coffee beans for $10.49 a pound, in bags of a pound, pre-measured...
Weills in Italy: Venice
Venice was our final stop on my family's two-week visit to Italy, and as tourists we were in for one touristy ride here. It amazes me that people actually li...
Weills in Italy: A Trip to Tuscany
With the keys to an Opel Zafira in hand we were free to leave Rome and head on to explore Italy's picturesque center. Gas and tolls notwithstanding, we had s...
Weills in Italy: Attractions in Rome
In between jaunts on tiny electric buses and superfast expressways, we got to see a nice little chunk of Italy during our stay. We spent time in Rome, Siena,...
Weills in Italy: Transportation
If you're thinking about traveling to Italy and renting a car, here's a tip: don't. Take buses and trains. They're cheaper and they involve less yelling. You...
Weills in Italy: Prologue
As I returned the rental car to take a taxi to the Amtrak train to the Long Island Rail Road to the AirTrain, I thought, "this is no way to earn 13,000 frequ...
I’m Pulling Out of Prosper
In August 2006 I put $1,000 into each of two new microlending institutions. Kiva facilitates loans to entrepreneurs in countries such as Uganda, Ecuador, and...
Planning a trip the 21st-century way
(The map above is interactive. Double-click the left mouse button to zoom in, double-click the right mouse button to zoom out, and click any of the pushpin...
Water polo players for Obama?
There's a car in my neighborhood that has a small circular sticker in its window bearing the logo of the USA Water Polo Association: Every time I see it I...
2007
Alive but damp
On Saturday, December 1, I was shopping in downtown Seattle when huge snowflakes started to fall. I was overjoyed -- we never get snow! Not much of it stuc...
Amazon’s Christmas Decorations
I work at Amazon.com in the e-mail team, which manages mail-related applications for six of the countries where Amazon does business. This means that some d...
Flexcar and Zipcar Will Merge
Big news today in the world of car-sharing: Cambridge, Mass.-based Zipcar and Seattle-based Flexcar will merge. The combined company will be called simply Z...
Living in a Missile Silo
Real estate is much more pricey in Seattle than in Pittsburgh, but a bargain hunter can always find a good buy. Seattle Bubble, a great counterpoint to the ...
How I Built an LED Confession Board
text confessional: it works! Originally uploaded by Lele McLeod. Earlier this year, a co-worker pitched to me the McLeod Residence, an off-b...
Prosper at 1: On Being a Victim of the Credit Crunch
It's been one year since I invested in Prosper and Kiva, two microfinance organizations that pool contributions from individuals to lend sums of money at low...
The Weirdest Local Candidate Ever
Tomorrow is Seattle's local primary election. I received a pamphlet in the mail but hadn't intended to read it or vote -- the election is only a primary, and...
Auditioning for Temptation
You win this round, Hollywood.I’m in LA staying with my cousins who have graciously offered me room and board during my effort to get myself on a game ...
We’ve Noticed That People Who Spy On One Person…
A couple of months ago, my co-worker David came to me with a question. Our boss, Dan, wouldn't tell him his birthday. David asked if I could find it for him...
L.A. Doesn’t Take “No” For An Answer. I’m Going.
Remember that noncommittal pap I wrote three days ago about saying no to visiting L.A. on one week’s notice to audition for a game show? Well, the cas...
Temptation Auditions in Los Angeles Only
One of my old favorite game shows, $ale of the Century, is being remade as Temptation. Now that I’m old enough to try out, I found an ad on-line and r...
The Media Box Has Arrived!
After two months of delays, the hatbox-shaped Sony VAIO VGX-TP1 PC is finally shipping. Mine arrived last week, and I took a few photos of the various comp...
I Am Car-Free
As of tonight I am no longer a car owner. I sold my 2000 VW New Beetle, which I got brand new nearly seven years ago, to a co-worker. Flexcar meets my need...
All you ever wanted to know about coffee in 3 hours
At 9:00 AM this past Sunday, I made my way down to Victrola Coffee Roasters on Pike Street for their first monthly cupping session. We started with an intr...
TV Without Cable: April Review
Last month I spent just under $20 on Internet-delivered video versus $70 for my typical cable TV bill. Year-to-date, my spending is $127.14 versus $280 for ...
Happy Birthday to E-mail Spam!
On this day in 1978, the very first unsolicited commercial e-mail message was sent. It promoted a DEC product presentation and was sent to hundreds of recip...
Coffee Cuppings at Victrola on Pike
Victrola Coffee Roasters’ new location on Pike Street is located only a block from my apartment. They do public cuppings every Wednesday at 1:00 PM. ...
Amazon EC2 to Encode Video?
I just got an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) account. With EC2 and Simple Storage Service (S3), I think I can convert my DVDs into iPod-video-sized file...
What the Hell is Twitter?
After days of holding out, my co-worker iseff finally got me to join Twitter. Twitter is the newest trend among techies, and there are already many thousand...
TV Without Cable: March Review
As my DVD stockpile has grown and as I've spent more time at work, I didn't buy very much video in March. In fact, I'm still working through the $50 of iTun...
Coke Blak: Today We Mourn a Coffee-Flavored Cola Drink
Reason #1 your coffee drink won't sell: Even in Seattle people don't care for it. Coca-Cola in 2006 ceased production of Vanilla Coke, which I thought was O...
Podcast on Kibbutzim
Mark of BicycleMark's Communique wrote to me last week: he found my writings about Israel last year and asked if I would like to talk to him about the experi...
TV Without Cable: February Review
February has come and gone. 24 is getting more intense though I still like season 5 better than this season. The Office continues to stand out as a great s...
On Passing the One Less Car Challenge, Level 1
It is now March and I can drive my car again. Back in December I decided to take the City of Seattle's One Less Car Challenge. In exchange for $100 worth o...
TV Without Cable: January Review
In January I spent $61.94 on video, all of it from the iTunes Store. Compared to a baseline digital cable rate of $70.00, I've saved $8.06 year-to-date. Mo...
Flexcar: Time vs. Money
"Flexcar 2.0" launches this Thursday. It is a total revamp of the fee structure from before: Instead of a flat rate per hour, cars now have "peak" and "of...
Joost Looks Amazing
The Joost user interface features several unobtrusive widgets that disappear when the user stops using the mouse and keyboard. (enlarge) The folks who broug...
Plop Down in the Jason Weill Auditorium Seat
Unlike the vast majority of cross-lake commuters in Seattle, I was out on the roads this afternoon. At Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Carnegie Mellon ...
Media Boxes: No Good News at Macworld
Today was the hugely-anticipated keynote at the Macworld Conference & Expo. As expected, we saw the final version of the iTV (now called Apple TV) which...
Woot! Bag of Crap
I was lucky enough to snag one of Woot's famous "Bags of Crap" on Christmas day 2006. It arrived today. For $3.00 plus $5.00 shipping and handling, I got ...
2006
2006 In Review
What started in the East will finish in the West. This was 2006, a momentous year that saw me celebrate a Steelers Super Bowl victory only to leave the firs...
The Cost of Nothing: Cutting the Cable
I'm already starting work on my first new year's resolution: I'm cutting cable out of my expenses. Comcast quoted me a promotional rate of $30 a month for d...
Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout Ale
I made my first trip to a PCC today to do some grocery shopping the all-natural organic sustainable way. (I actually went there expecting to get some Afri-C...
All Presentations Should Be Five Minutes Long
Last night I attended Ignite Seattle, a technology gathering unlike any I've seen before. Imagine 200 people packed in like sardines to watch a list of a di...
A Reunification 19 Years in the Making
"This is by a wide margin the least likely thing that has ever happened." -- Leela, Futurama episode "Godfellas" I'm not normally such a spiritual man, but ...
Halloween as a Series of Tubes
Today I went into work dressed as "the Internet" in the form of a series of tubes. The homemade costume was made of 12 cardboard mailing tubes I bought o...
Google Says to Cross the Highway
Google made its Transit feature available for Seattle, though it's still in "Labs" (Google-speak for "alpha") form. I can see why: to go from my office to...
AAAAAAAAAAGGGG
This bizarre graphic pretty much sums up my reaction to tonight's Steelers-Jaguars game on Monday Night Football. The Steelers lost 9-0 on a national ES...
Exploring Media Box Options
I do own a television. During the week I usually watch about an hour's worth of TV a day, give or take. Beside the TV is a small storage unit with about 50...
Microfinance For Profit with Prosper
It's been about a month since I signed up with Kiva, a microfinance organization dedicated to providing loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Sinc...
Nintendo DS: To Feel 9 Years Old Again
Tetris DS High Score Originally uploaded by genericman. The first game system I ever owned was an original Game Boy. Its pea-soup-colored s...
The Most Patriotic Hotel Ever
Last weekend I traveled back to Pennsylvania for the first time since my move to Seattle. The occasion: my friend Jeremy's wedding at the German Cultural He...
Lending a Little at a Time With Kiva
Recently I came across Kiva, an organization dedicated to microcredit. In short, Kiva works with local lenders in developing countries to get cash from indi...
Warning: Seattle Contains Nudity
A few weeks ago I was detoured off Pike Street by several dozen people riding bicycles naked through the city, shouting slogans about our energy policy as th...
Low-Tech Mail Checking with MailCheck®
I've had a mailbox at a local UPS Store, formerly Mail Boxes Etc., since I moved here a few weeks ago. It's proven very useful for receiving mail and packag...
I, Seattleite
There's an apartment with my name on it in First Hill. My car and other possessions are making their way into town and should arrive this week. My first we...
Leaving Pittsburgh
As of Tuesday, May 23, I no longer live in Pittsburgh. I'm typing this from a temporary apartment in Seattle's International District within sight distance ...
Weill in Israel: The Rest
During the week of May 1-5 I lived on Kibbutz Givat Brenner in Rehovot, Israel, and spent a little time seeing the sights in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. For mor...
Renting the Slate
In less than 24 hours all my things will be packed up and I'll say goodbye to my current home. After putting it on the sale market for a while I've decided ...
Weill in Israel: Jerusalem
Two weeks ago I visited Israel for the first time. I lived on Kibbutz Givat Brenner with some of my distant relatives and visited some of the sights in Tel ...
Weill in Israel: Tel Aviv
I spent a week in Israel recently, living on Kibbutz Givat Brenner while seeing some of the sights Israel has to offer in the major cities of Tel Aviv and Je...
Weill in Israel: The Kibbutz
Last week I spent six fantastic days in Israel, my first visit to the Middle East ever and my first international travel since visiting Japan nearly four yea...
Ask.com Maps and Earth
I've been playing with Ask.com Maps (use Firefox or Internet Explorer; Safari isn't supported) for a few weeks now and I've been pretty impressed. It suppor...
Selling the Slate
It's been just under one year since I became a homeowner, and now I'm in talks with the same Realtor who sold me my home. The house is now the same as it wa...
I’m Going West
"Be prepared to accept a wondrous opportunity in the days ahead!" -- fortune cookie, April 10, 2006 I'm going to Seattle in late May to accept a position wi...
Photos are Getting Flickrized
Earlier this year I finally gave in and signed up with Flickr, the popular photo-sharing site now owned by Yahoo!. (I'm genericman on Flickr if you want to ...
Camouflarage
Term of the moment that I just made up: camouflarage. camouflarage (cam'-oh-fluh-raj'') n. The decreased amount of attention paid to a residential house tha...
VZ Navigator First Impressions
Right now I'm at 1177 North Highland Avenue in Pittsburgh. How do I know? My phone told me. Actually my phone, a Motorola v325, is wrong. Enrico's Tazza ...
When an Athlete Goes Catty
I'm glad someone collected a smattering of quotes from the U.S.'s very outspoken figure skater Johnny Weir (whose name I keep mistyping as "Weird"). Being i...
Gray Days in Austin
I've been 25 for a little more than a week now. We celebrated with what has become a tradition among my friends: an outing to Green Forest, a Brazilian-styl...
I’ve Got a Date With the Couch
Tonight I had a party to burn off all the extra food I had from Super Bowl Sunday in the guise of an "Olympics Opening Ceremonies" party. Partway through th...
Victory!
All around my house you can hear fireworks going off. It's indescribable to stand outside in the cold and snow holding a Terrible Towel in one hand and a gl...
Best Dumb Spam Yet
I don't often read my spam folder, but when I do, I appreciate gems like this: Sm0k1ng is not a bad thing when you are smoking decent ñigarettes. Smoking ma...
Pittsburgh’s Going to the Super Bowl
Oh, Pittsburgh's going nuts right now. The Steelers are going to the Super Bowl! After beating the first, second, and third seeds in the AFC, the Steelers ...
LiveJournal Owned
Apparently my LiveJournal account was hit by the recent "bantown" cross-site scripting attack. Thanks to Mav for pointing this out. Apparently my interests...
Instant Updating Stock Quotes
Visit this news story between 9:30 AM and 4:00 PM EST during a weekday. I really don't care about the content of the story -- I'm just amazed that those sto...
Dear Comcast: Your DVR Sucks
While watching the season premiere of 24 last night, my Comcast cable box (a Motorola DCT6412) froze up on me. This is not new behavior, and it is not behav...
Everybody Poops at the White House
While I was reading a Yahoo! News story I decided to click on the "President Bush" link to see what Yahoo! would suggest as search results. The second link ...
eBay Alert: Broken Palm III
I'm selling my dad's old, broken Palm III on eBay. Bidding starts at 99 cents. If you're handy with little electronic gizmos, you could have a working unit...
Chocolate Waffles
Tonight I made chocolate waffles using a recipe from Good Eats. They're pretty rich. I still have about half the batter left over. The recipe includes thr...
Wild Eep!
I am happy tonight. My PowerBook now eeps with displeasure. I found a link to the Mac OS Classic Sound Pack which includes all the classic sound effects th...
College Football: Why Do I Try?
I went to an NCAA Division III school after graduating from a high school that didn't care about football. I actually made an effort today to watch the FedE...
2005
What I Learned in 2005
It's been quite an eventful year in 2005 as I reflect from my family's home in New York. The last twelve months have further established my future in Pittsb...