rebron.org: Everyday Life, Work, Ironman Training

A friend of mine was telling me that the prettiest money she ever saw was the Dutch guilder.  I had to look it up and I now have to agree.  Wouldn’t be a bad collection to framed up on a wall somewhere.

Top of lift six, Cornice Express at Kirkwood.

What a great snow year in Tahoe!  We’ve been up a few times, wished we could have gone up more.  We’ve really only gone to Kirkwood which gets a ton of snow early in the season and it got dumped on this year, so we just kept going there.

Here, I’m all Burton-ed out.  Jacket is from the Shaun White collection.  Shirt is a snowboarding shirt from Burton too.  Snowboard pants are denim (goretex but it does still get cold and wet so good for warm days…but they do look cool).  Boots are Burton Hail.  The helmet is Giro, the bindings are Flow, the sunglasses are Oakley, the cap is from Rapha.

I’m more than happy to model Burton’s 2011 collection next year…Call me :-)

[Apologies for the lack of writing, going back to writing now, hopefully a post a week if not more].

Great job!  Lot of great changes to help move the web forward.

Check out http://hacks.mozilla.org to test drive our new toy.

Palm Pre looks pretty good, probably will wait for the next version though.  Even with the iPhone 3GS, it’s probably the right upgrade path from a Treo.  A lower price/plan, better battery life would have knocked the Palm Pre out of the ballpark, but still good.  Walt Mossberg’s review

Other stuff I’ve been playing around with:

• an unlocked G1 phone (w/ Android 1.5, fun to play with)
• mobile wireless via Sprint (though heard AT&T’s was 3x faster)

I check out the Netbooks every once in a while and I like the Dell Minis but there’s so many out there now.  It’s an interesting (and confusing) product segmentation — second laptop, ultralight for business travelers, kids.

home

• still on track for a bathroom remodel this Summer, uncertain on the details
• no matter how we calculate solar panels, it makes no sense for us so evaluating led lights, attic insulation, solar attic fan
• Rikyu updated their menu — it’s our go to restaurant, *great* food
• When it’s out, will probably go with the Palm Pre to replace  a 2+ year old Treo for the boss lady (I still think *smart* phones are gadget overboard)
• Couple of interesting pop culture links: Susan Boyle and YouTube symphony

work

• Thunderbird 3 launch – going to be very fun
  
• SpreadThunderbird – slowly coming along
  
• GetSatisfaction/Thunderbird – customer support for software is certainly challenging
  

travel

• nothing planned yet for fun or for work, maybe a weekend side trip

volunteering

• landscaping project at Santa Fe elementary school

books

• struggling through The Intelligent Investor but already made some money just reading through the first 3 chapters
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

training/events

• finally starting marathon training for SF marathon in July
• planning to struggle through the Marin Century in August
• Berkeley pow wow May 2
• Stanford pow wow 8 – 10

At some point got caught up with finding nice bed linens.  Eventually settled on the following:

• Thomas Lee sheet and pillow set — a flat sheet, fitted sheet, and two pillow cases.  They’re 500 thread count cotton sheets which seems fine to me, neither arbitrarily too high or too low.  In any case, sheets are comfortable and reasonably priced.
• Libeco Belgian linens — have a couple pillow cases and I like their linen sheets
• Rough Linen — haven’t gotten anything from here but local company and I like the simplicity of their products
• Pacific Coast pillows and comforters — very comfortable, got the firm and ‘luxury’ down pillow

If you’re going to spend 6 – 8 hours a night on your bed, might as well make it comfortable.  We’re still sleeping on a $200 Serta mattress from 1999, it’s still very comfortable — so it’s not all about getting the most expensive, just what’s comfortable.

Some good ideas for a vegetable garden (especially for people with a new empty backyard).

Square Foot Garding from Frugal Dad

Another cool photo.  Discovery launch — supposed to launch in two days if the weather cooperates.

The Last Great Race on Earth

Thought this was a neat photo set from The Big Picture blog.  There are some crazy races out there, the Badwater Ultramarathon is up there but the multiday endurance races in extremely cold or hot weather are the ones that are even crazier for me.

Green collar jobs are blue collar jobs in green businesses – that is, manual labor jobs in businesses whose products and services directly improve environmental quality (Pinderhughes, 2006). Green collar jobs are located in large and small for-profit businesses, non-profit organizations, social enterprises, and public sector institutions. What unites these jobs is that all of them are associated with manual labor work that directly improves environmental quality.

Here’s more info:

• Green Collar Jobs Executive Summary [.pdf]
• Green Collar Jobs [.pdf]
• Oakland Green Job corp
• The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones
• Raquel River Pinderhughes

We’ve been hearing about Green Collar jobs in Oakland for quite some time — because of Van Jones and the Ella Baker Center which is on 40th Street, a little over a mile from where we live.  The rest of the country is going to hear more about it so might as well link to the source of the Green Collar job concepts.