everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Year: 2005

  • SF Fisherman Survive 8 Hours in Icy Waters

    The SF Chronicle Bay Area section is always good for a personal interest storty or two. Yesterday’s paper had an amazing tale of two rough cut fishermen who survived the capsizing of their fishing boat a couple miles out beyond the Golden Gate. They clung to their overturned boat through the night in freezing water as wave after wave soaked them in the freezing water. Despite the dire circumstances, they kept their sense of humor:

    “But we hung in there. After our first few swamps we got a routine down: We’d duck, and the wave would go over us rather than swamping us over. And we were trying to encourage each other: ‘The city’s getting bigger.’ ‘No, it isn’t, you’re just blowing smoke up my ass.’

    They finally got close enough to make the swim to shore and staggered through traffic until they finally got the attention of someone that lent them their cellphone so they could call 911.

    When he reached the emergency dispatcher, “They said, ‘We’ve been looking for you.’ I said, ‘You have? We’ve been looking for you too.’

    They love their work and are looking forward to saving up the $15k they need to buy another boat and get back out there.

  • Exit Stage Left, Fade to Yellow and Purple

    Exit Stage Left, Fade to Yellow and Purple

    Friday was my last day at Six Apart. On the 26th, I’ll be driving down to Sunnyvale for the first day of work at Yahoo (they even sent me a t-shirt & hat just to remind me!). Turn another page.

    It’s been 13 months since I pulled the ripcord at Factiva and moved out to California to join 6A. Life in a start up is like running through strobe lights, the time has been super-sharp-focused but also fleeting. The company has come a long way and looking back on where we’ve been is like turning around after climbing a mountain, “Wow, look at the view!” We started in what used to be a dentist’s office in San Mateo. We shared a single phone line and our mail server used to be in the supply cabinet next to the pencils. Now there are leather couches, a receptionist and even a sign. The crowd at the weekly all-hands meetings is beginning to overflow the room in which it’s held.

    The devotion of people at Six Apart is inspirational; I’m humbled by the talent of the engineers and feel lucky to have had a chance to put my shoulder into the yoke for a time. It’s sad to leave such a great crew of people but they’ll manage and opportunity knocks. The roar of innovation and buzz of excitment down in the Valley was just too loud to ignore and Yahoo is very much in the thick of it. More details on exactly what I’m doing later, give me a few weeks to get settled.

    Yahoo is in an excellent position to take advantage of the various content and services that are connecting themselves across the web. Their open and well-documented APIs give independent developers the chance to to extend and innovate on top and around Yahoo content. Furthermore, their install base of over 200 million members allows them to provide a very compelling and highly contextual personalized experience. They’ve been around ten years so they’ve matured and have got a good business sense about them.

    Lots of folks that I respect have made the move over to Yahoo and when you read their posts on why they’re moving, you can see why I too am excited about joining them.

    Danah Boyd
    Neil Budde
    Chad Dickerson
    Christian Lindholm
    Jeffrey McManus

    I’m really looking forward to it, we can build some useful things. It’s going to be lots of fun.

  • The New Yorker on DVD-ROM

    Every issue of The New Yorker since 1925 is now available on DVD-ROM for $100 from thenewyorkerstore.com. Don’t you wish they would put all these articles online via Yahoo Subscriptions or Factiva?

  • The Baseball Collector

    Six Apart has a partnership with Major League Baseball to enable their fans to keep blogs. It’s been an amazing glimpse into America’s #1 obsession to see how many different perspectives people have on the sport. Every now and then I check back to see what’s new and today see that they’re featuring a blog by a guy that’s collected over 2,600 baseballs. He gives tips on the fine art of getting yourself a game ball.

    I can usually tell where a ball is heading by the way it sounds coming off the bat. During batting practice, I sometimes have to ignore the batter for a pitch or two to label a ball that I just caught. While I’m looking down, I listen for the crack of the bat, and I know whether or not I need to look up. There’s a distinct difference in the sound between a ball that’s pulled versus one that’s hit to the opposite field.

    The Baseball Collector

  • The Ultimate Disclaimer

    I read & review quite quite a few legal agreements in this job. If you do too, then you’d appreciate The Standard Catchall Universal Disclaimer Notice. The fine print includes such nuggets as:

    ADVISORY: There is an extremely small but nonzero chance that, through a process known as “tunneling,” this product may
    spontaneously disappear from its present location and reappear at any random place in the universe, including your neighbor’s domicile. The manufacturer will not be responsible for any damages or inconveniences that may result.

    This should cover you for just about anything.

  • Sack Artist

    Julia has taken to wearing an eyeshade when she goes to sleep at night. We have a couple of them from trips taken on Virgin Air. This one says “cat nap”

  • Brushed Metal gets the boot from iTunes

    There are quite a few Mac fans around the office. There was even a white board where people put up their guess as to what the big announcement from Apple was going to be about on Tuesday. Nano? Love it. Rokr phone? Nah. The designer geeks were all over the cosmetic changes to iTunes which are best expressed in this hilarious exchange between “Brushed Metal” and his agent on Daring Fireball.

  • Cal Football Opening Day

    Our friend Michael Karp scored tickets to the Opening Day of the football season at UC Berkeley and invited Tyler and I to join his son Nicholas and Ethan on the 50 yard line. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit it but for some reason I never went to a Cal football game while I attended Berkeley. In fact, this was the first live football game I’ve been to since watching the ASJI Mustangs play when I was in 7th Grade.

    I’ve forgotten what a pageant it is, the cannon that fires off every time Cal score a point, the chanting crowd, students on one side of the stadium chanting “Go!” answered on the other side by the alumni “Bears!” The marching band, the cheerleaders, Oski the Bear – all the rah, rah stuff. It was a beautiful Bay Area Day, and in the end, our Bears creamed Sacramento.

  • First Day of School

    First Day of School

    Tyler’s never been one to dread the classroom and despite having had only one month off for Summer because of his two months at Japanese public school (shhh, he still doesn’t know that the rest of his friends had three months off), he was eager to get back to see his friends and crack the books.

    This year Tyler is going into the 1st Grade and knowing parents have told me that this is a big step. The first few weeks are ok as they just review what they did last year. This shouldn’t be too taxing as they spend 26 weeks covering the alphabet taking an entire week to explore and savor each letter. After the review, the whip comes down and things get serious. It gets darker in the mornings and the days seem longer – the kids get tired and they have homework that actually challenges them. All this makes them cranky and even a bit sarcastic.

    We’ll see if this happens to young Tyler. I just can’t imagine a sarcastic Tyler, he’s still so wide-eyed and genuinely inquisitive. We’re going into the Labor Day Weekend and over breakfast he asked, “What does labor mean?” to which I replied that it meant “to work” and then I knew what was coming next.

    Tyler at Edison Elementary

    “Daddy, why do you have a day off work on “to work” day?”