Barely Concealed Narcissism

I badmouth this town a lot. I’m not from here, so it’s easy.

The weather is cold (like I grew up in a tropical paradise?). The sports fans are near sycophantic (and no, that’s not better than the bitterness I grew up with). The drivers are schizophrenic (ok, sure, there’s reason they called I-76 Schuylkill Expressway the “Sure Kill Expressway“). I won’t complain about the politics though…there’s really no contest there.

But the truth is, it’s a beautiful city. It’s got a skyline that defines but doesn’t smother. The river and harbor weaves through the town, providing water views to nearly every window above five stories. And it is, I admit, my home of eight and a half years.

So when I saw the NYTimes put up a great travel review of the harbor front, I found myself getting chills (and not, for once, due to the temperature). From the neighborhood in which I live, to the path on which I run, and even the place at which I’m going to get married (to a home-town girl, of course) – I like it here.

I could try to write reasons why I haven’t posted here in a while.

I could also pretend I have an audience.

In fact, over the past six months of near blog dormancy, I have had quite the audience – at least if the comment moderation queue is any indication. These dear readers have been very helpful. Many offer free drugs. Some provide sex advice. But perhaps the most valuable comments come in the form of a free joke (followed, of course, by a link to ch3ap v1agr@!!!11).

Over the next few weeks, as holiday schedules hopefully provide a slow down to day job related chaos, I’ll be posting some work and other notes. I’ll cover Digital Out-of-home, Arduino, some photography work, and some other topics. I may even add a captcha to my comments form.

For now, however, here is as complete a list I can compile of the jokes left in my comments over the past few months…after the break.

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Some notes for this cloudy Monday morning:

- Launched Stride on MTVTimesSquare last week. Send your message/photo to MTV’s 42ft screen (Broadway btwn 44th and 45th). Then get a ‘memento’ screenshot of what it [probably] looked like. Legalese and logistics have forced this one to be kept under wraps for a while now. Hopefully we have the opportunity to improve the whole concept as it runs.

- Posting and processing my latest shots to my Flickr account last week reminded me how much I miss taking daily photographs. Doubt I will get back to that frequency, but need to make sure I keep the camera with me more often.

- Have moved to XCode for my Arduino development. Struggling significantly with decoding IR messages from the Apple Remote. Speaking of homebrew-geekiness, congrats to Mr. Saunders for some great recent work.

- Wedding planning is flying, thanks to my wonderful partner in crime. Have some initial pages posted to sg.weds.gs. Starting to think about the registry now. Extremely conflicted on this part. More on that in the future.

- Finally, I leave you with a relevant shot, taken this weekend. Sixty-three years of marriage. And counting. Too bad I’m marrying into this family; I could certainly use some of those genes.

I’ll be starting at LocaModa in Cambridge on Apr 1. Pretty excited for the opportunity.

Digital out of home (DOOH) will provide exposure to a lot of the technologies I enjoy working with, and through a delivery mechanism that’s growing in popularity and innovation.

For more on what LocaModa does, check their site and blog.

LocaModa's Jumbli game playing in Times Square

I’ve been waiting a while to write this. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I wanted to make sure I told the story of my trip once the “magic” of the whole thing wore off. But I promise – that hasn’t happened yet. I could also blame it on all the work I had to catch up on when I got back. Meh. Too easy.

The truth is I think I’ve been avoiding this because I was nervous I’d get it wrong. The entire trip was only 48 hours long, but from the moment we arrived at the airport in Boston, we knew this was something important.

Anyway – here we go. Feel free to skim, just watch the videos, leave comments (regarding the event, my vanity, or your disappointment in the Eagles).

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