vanderwal's blog

The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution

nobody@vox.com(vanderwal) — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:26:19 -0400

The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution

Alice Waters

I picked this up in January and it has become a favorite very quickly. It is simple recipes with great background for understanding the food.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Travel Habit

nobody@vox.com(vanderwal) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:35:02 -0400

I am realizing I have been travelling a lot so far this year, as being home and in the office seems really strange.I really enjoy hanging out with the kid on a daily basis, but I am missing the conversation of hanging out with like minds. But I am also missing wonderful cities. I really miss Portland, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Vancouver, London, Oxford, and Brighton. I am also missing Sydney, Boston, New York, Innsbruck, Chapel Hill (Raleigh), Paris, Lyon, and Berlin.

I am off to Toronto this week for a real business trip, in Wednesday night and have all day meeting Thursday and out Thursday evening. I really would enjoy looking around Toronto and seeing the geek friends that live there (those I have met and those who have just been digital friends).

I really love cities and exploring them and hanging out with local friends. I am always seem to find the local flavor, which is increasingly hard these days. The changing of social rhythm is something I really enjoy.

This summer I will have lived in one rough location more than any other location in my life. The odd thing is I am not a huge fan of the Washington, DC area. It seems to be a really good place to raise a kid, but I am not so sure it is a good fit for me and I never really have been sure. I am not sure if it is a suburbia thing (there is a huge amount of suburbia in the DC area) or just an odd fit. Many of my friends I have in the DC area have moved away over the years.

At the moment I don't know that I have an image of stationary life that I can live with, which is a stretch as I could easily see myself back in the SF Bay Area (home) or the UK (a social home thanks nearly all of my day care solutions growing up run by British women and my last semester of undergrad was there as well).

I had cut my travel back to work on the book, but last week was a writing vacation (to some degree) to Hershey, Pennsylvania. This week Toronto for a really quick trip. I have a trip to Mexico City that may be in store in the near future as well as a trip to the shore (this depends on how the book is progressing).

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

QotD: Jury Duty

nobody@vox.com(vanderwal) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 13:37:03 -0400

Have you ever served on a jury? What was your experience?
Submitted by jacolily.

I have my first jury duty coming up in a week or two. Not sure how I have made it this far with out being requested to serve where it is valid that I serve (been requested a 2 times after I moved away).

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Have not forgot

nobody@vox.com(vanderwal) — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 08:45:12 -0500

I have not forgotten about Vox, it is just that I have been sharing the bits I would put here in my "friends only" Twitter. Vox homepage is in my start-up tabs for my Firefox browser, but after a quick scan that tab moves on to Flickr and stays there. The homepage in Vox is my biggest downfall, I want to see the "Question of the Day", but the other things important are thing you share and comments from you (yes you is being used in the plural and were I from Brooklyn like a former boss it would be a proper use of yous, or my occasionally adopted Southern Y'all).

I wish I could share my "friends" Twitter feed to my friends here on Vox (a wonderful solution for a real social network and not to difficult to do with OpenID actually, just surprised it has not been done).

I am off to SXSW tomorrow and hope to see many of you Vox friends there.

I will be back around these parts soon. Until then, drop a line, would ya'?

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

QotD: MmmCookies

nobody@vox.com(vanderwal) — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 08:33:46 -0500

Did you order Girl Scout cookies this year? What kind?

Thin mint and peanut butter (peanut butter w/ chocolate have a different name on the East Coast (if I could find the box I had two cookies but seems to have been hoovered I would tell you).

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

My Secret Fun

nobody@vox.com(vanderwal) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 22:55:57 -0500

I am not sure why, but I get a lot of pleasure out of marking out of office e-mail messages in listserves as "report spam" in Gmail.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

QotD: Can't Type It Rihgt

nobody@vox.com(vanderwal) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 09:08:22 -0500

What word(s) do you always make a typo in?

Frustratingly, I continually mis-type information as informaiton. I really hope that one day I don't mistakenly add the misspelling to my spelling dictionary.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Where I was in 2006

nobody@vox.com(vanderwal) — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:35:50 -0500

Following other's lead I am trying to capture where I went in 2006. This may get updated as memory comes back to and I get my calendars functioning again.

Seattle, Washington, USA
Redmond, Washington, USA
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Austin, Texas, USA
Longbranch, New Jersey, USA
Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Vero Beach, Florida, USA
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Innsbruck, Austria
London, UK
Brighton, UK
Spring Lake, New Jersey, USA
Portland, Oregon, USA
San Francisco, California, USA
Sunnyvale, California, USA
Cupertino, California, USA
Mountain View, California, USA
Los Altos, California, USA
Strasbourg, Pennsylvania, USA
Sydney, Australia
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
Stockton, California, USA
Lafayette, California, USA
San Anselmo, California, USA
Berkeley, California, USA

A many of these places were visited more than once. Some of these seem like a second home as they are that familiar. So far for 2007 it looks like it will be similar with travel the first 4 months already on the schedule, with 2 or 3 trips in March and possibly only home for a week in April. There are a few things that have not been blocked out in this time as of yet. How did 2007 get so crazy? I am still not going to make it to ETech this year and bummed again about that news.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

QotD: Just Can't Get Enough

nobody@vox.com(vanderwal) — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 12:43:02 -0500

What is one of your addictions?
Submitted by Paperheart.

Coffee is my main addiction. It is one I really would hate to give up. The morning coffee, either a 4 shot americano (iced or hot with little water) or a large mug of dark, thick, pacific island arabica will do the trick. I am a huge fan of the coffee in the Netherlands, although I enjoy it in a larger quantity.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Updating Vox

nobody@vox.com(vanderwal) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 22:51:33 -0500

I realized I need to peek in here every now and then, as Vox is where many of my friends are sharing what is going on in their life. I missed a friend who left his job, an engagement, a few illnesses, some good news, and sad news. I finally found the RSS for my neighborhood and hope that will keep me in the loop. I did keep Vox open in a browser tab, but the front page still really annoys me and does not work for keeping tabs on friends and sharing with them. I really don't care about the collective I care about the selective.

Me? Since I got back from Australia I was sick for nearly two weeks with all energy going toward work. One of my clients has been keeping me busy and there are many projects that are very close to kicking into start mode. Word has been trickling around about how helpful the Come to Me Web, Personal InfoCloud, Local InfoCloud, and Model of Attraction have been. I have one of the last people to know of the successes my work has been. But, the word of mouth is bring in new clients.

The Personal InfoCloud has been quite helpful to many as they try to break through the user-centered design to get to software and web apps that are really useful in people's lives, that is from the perspective of the person wanting and needing the information and or application (web or otherwise) to improve their life. A story from rural India about developers who worked on building voice crop price checks on mobile phones for farmers who are illiterate and needing the best information about when to harvest to get the best price (the developers used the Model of Attraction (MoA) framework to better think across devices and personal information needs based on what skills the people needing the information had at their disposal). Another from the UK about a service informing people about health issues across media (posters, television, web, e-mail, radio, etc.) was aided by using the MoA framework and the interaction between the Personal and Local InfoClouds to ease the foundation and public's money in developing the safety campaign.

The week after I was back from Australia I was to have gone to the San Francisco Bay Area to follow-up on project interest and meet with organization that have had the word of mouth reach them. That trip finally came this past week, due to illness, people being flooded with work, and working around family schedules.

I realized how much I really miss the Bay Area. Most everywhere I travel I enjoy, but the Bay Area is home to me. It is where I was born. It is where I became who I am (for the most part). It hold memories, but also has many friends and acquaintances who are of like mind to me. Leaving the Bay Area is always tough (this time I was there 5 days working), but this time it really felt like home and like I had not left (other than there have been many changes).

I really wish San Francisco and Europe were closer as I have projects there (and some new ones starting in the near future) that I really enjoy. There are many places that feel like home (I wonder if I moved if the DC area would feel like that when I returned, as it really never has felt really like home). I have a few new projects starting in the DC area in the near future too. Most of my projects are not long term or require deep time commitment (a few days a month or a week or two of concentrated work is the commitment of most things).

Well this is disjointed, but an over due update.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend