I’ll admit, I hesitated. It is a constant theme in my adulthood to follow my favorite sports teams with caution. I fool myself into thinking it is some sign of maturity to not let myself get wrapped up in the emotion. In reality, it is self-preservation because me wrapped up in the emotion is no fun for everyone. Whatever you want to call it, I tempered my expectations of the USMNT, reminding myself that we are, after all, American and this is soccer we are talking about. Or is it football?

So despite all my talk of dropping a benjamin on a fresh-off-the-press Onyewu jersey, I held myself back. I didn’t even wear my Donovan branded Everton away kit to any of my treks to the bar at 10am to watch our matches. But then the shot happened. After nearly 2 hours of agony and impending heartbreak Landon finds the ball at his feet after a rare rebound seemingly inches away from the back of the net. In reality it was a very missable distance – a distance, in fact, that we had missed from multiple times throughout the match. But Donovan – and US soccer and its followers – would not be denied. This was a team – and Donovan a rejuvenated man – of destiny! Or so I thought.

And so I bought.

Fearing an overloaded Donovan bandwagon (and counting my aforementioned Donovan Everton kit a rare, unique gem), I shied from ordering the white US #10. So I was torn. I berated Onyewu for the entire tournament (it was probably too soon), Bradley was the hot pick, and Dempsey, well quite frankly I should have landed on Dempsey and his #8 that once adorned my junior varsity jersey. Wanting to pay homage to my fellow defenseman, I settled on the #3 of Carlos Bocanegra.

The wild popularity of the USMNT’s success caused a bit of shortage of official jerseys and so only just today I arrived home to a freshly minted Bocanegra Jersey awaiting me on my doorstep. It wasn’t with me when I watched us stage an incredible comeback against Slovenia. It didn’t suffer through numerous missed opportunities and the one more that it took and was taken. And it wasn’t there for me to wipe the tears from a crushing defeat. Although it’s 4 weeks late, I wear it with all of the joy in victory, agony in defeat, and pride in accomplishment that I felt for those two emotional weeks. Here’s to the World Cup and, more importantly, to the US Men’s National Team! Thanks for the ride!

In thinking about my professional life and the career paths that lie ahead I am fearful primarily of compromising the set of values that have come to define me or that I hope one day will define me. I’m afraid of what I might become without them and what I may never be given the opportunity to become because of them. I am too young a professional to slow down but I wonder how much older I can become and how much farther down the path I can stroll before it is too late to turn around.
July 5th, 2006

I miss all my compadres at my former employer, but I am so glad I made the career change when I did.

Two things to note: 1) I titled the post at the beginning of the evening, not after the game was over. We’ll see if he truly ends up leaving. 2) I was expecting some help from a co-author, but the co-author bailed on me as usual.

8:50pm: The wife just showed up with dinner. Gotta take a break.

8:47pm: Why is Garnett still on the bench with 0 fouls? Not that it really seems to matter at this point.

8:46pm: They just called Ray Allen an old man and it was supposed to be a compliment. Watch it, fellas, Ray got game.

8:44pm: I almost named my new dog Rondo. I didn’t want to have to explain it to the wife.

8:42pm: Mo Williams is on pace for a 40-4-4 line tonight.

8:40pm: After 12 min, the Celts by 3. That’s it, it’s confirmed. The Cavs will have to outscore the Celtics over the last 3 quarters by at least 3 points in order to keep their season alive.

8:38pm: Whoa Michael Finley is still in the league? If I was keeping up with the BS report, I’d probably know this.

8:35pm: Mike Brown just got skeerd with ‘Bron picking up his second foul and took him out. It’s a chess match out there. Apparently Brown doesn’t read kottke.org

8:34pm: ‘Bron doing “other things” for his team and the Cavs are on an 8-2 run

8:33pm: Since I’m cable-less, I’m listening to the game via NBA.com (WEEI in Boston) and using the ESPN “TV Companion” for stats.

8:29pm: I’m a little late to the party, but ‘Bron is 2/7 from the field and just got charged with a turnover.

One of the prevailing questions that lingers even a week after the initial shipment of the device (and even the punchline of a Weekend Update joke on SNL last night) is what exactly is the iPad and what does it do? While I’m not qualified to provide a conclusive answer to that question, I have had a chance to play around with an iPad for a bit and feel like I can provide some vague insight into the “brilliance” of the device.

The first “brilliant” feature of the iPad (and perhaps the most obvious) is the screen. Most detractors claim that the iPad is just a giant iPhone/iPod Touch which is a simultaneously astute and petty dig. In the most basic terms that is true, but considering the fact that the iPad’s screen is three times the size of the iPhone and costs less than the original iPhone did at launch (with more memory) I think it’s a notable achievement. Okay, so technology has gotten cheaper, big deal. But really consider the statement – the iPad is really just a bigger iPhone/iPod Touch! Isn’t the iPhone platform considered one of the greatest innovations in mobile computing? Doesn’t more screen real estate and increased processing power open up a slew of opportunities for this platform? Or is this one of those platforms that only subscribes to the smaller is sexier line of thinking? Aside from the bigger is better discussion, the screen is actually quite striking. It does suffer from some glare issues in various lighting environments but overall the color and richness of the viewing experience is fantastic and the touchscreen is incredibly responsive (responsive enough to allow me to type this entire post in landscape mode without feeling like I want to give up and move to my iMac).

The second brilliant feature of the iPad is it’s overall size. While it is a bit heavier and a little more “awkward” to hold than a typical e-reader, I find it to be a great improvement over previous attempts at similar devices. A couple of years ago, circa 2007, Intel along with a slew of partner companies introduced a line of portable mini computers known at the time as MID’s or Mobile Internet Devices. Anyone could point to a number of reasons for the platform’s failure, but a leading candidate might be the size of many of the devices developed by the hardware manufacturers. At that time, laptops were getting smaller and lighter, cell phones were getting smarter and even the most mobile of professionals and consumers didn’t see the need for a clunky yet supposedly more “mobile” device – especially when the devices had similar price points as low cost laptops. If you are going to charge a premium for a new device, you have to convince the consumer that either a) the new device replaces one of the consumer’s current “must haves” or b) the device is a “must have” whose benefits outweigh the cost of carrying an extra device. Ironically I think Apple is attacking both approaches with the iPad – they’re not trying to tell you the iPad replaces the iPhone (in theory phone calls would be possible via an app like the Skype app), nor do they want you to forget about their line of MacBooks. (It appears they are doing a good job of convincing at least a few of us that either a) or b) is true. When I started writing this review, about 300,000 iPads had been sold. Now as I finish writing, the 3G iPad has been released and Apple has confirmed 1 million iPads have been sold.)

The third, and perhaps most brilliant feature of all is the potential of the iPad. As with the iPhone, there are many who questioned the need, form, function, and eventual longevity of the iPad. Many Apple and technology followers have been waiting for a long time for an Apple branded tablet device because of the reputation that the folks in Cupertino have of churning out innovative, functional and easy to use products. I mentioned earlier that there are a lot of naysayers disappointed with the fact that Apple didn’t really bring anything new to the table with the iPad. I disagree with that perspective. The App Store is what eventually made the iPhone a “must-have” device. While the App Store is not new with the iPad (and the iBookstore is not poised to have the same effect with the iPad), what is new is the form factor: increased screen real estate + increased processing power + general improvements in technology and software = new possibilities. All Apple really needed to do with the iPad was figure out how to get a powerful platform into a small package. The rest, as they showed with the iPhone, could be left to the thousands of developers out there to unlock the full potential of the platform.

Note: I started this post on April 12th and finished it on May 4th, following the release of the 3G iPad.

New Soap, Old Bottle takes used plastic bottles and resells them filled with name brand soaps (hand soap, dish soap, other cleaning supplies – all natural options are coming soon). GOOD posted a blurb about these about a year ago, but this only recently came to my attention. I don’t know that it’s an ideal/perfect solution but it’s a good idea. And they take it a step further (or perhaps theoretically a step back) by selling their special “bottle fitting” spray, pump and squeeze tops and allowing you to partner with them by selling your org’s used bottles.

I’m not the best grocery shopper – I tend to make many “just-in-time” trips rather than a weekly “get-it-all” trip so I don’t need an army of re-usable shopping bags. I currently have a large bag and a small bag that I try to keep in the back of my car all the time. A friend of mine recently recommended the MY ECO Shopping Bag System. It’s a set of four bags (small, large, x-large, and insulated medium) that all fit inside a storage tote. Each bag is also labelled with suggested contents to help you organize your stuff as you deal with the stress of bagging your stuff while the guy buying a case of beer and a bag of chips impatiently taps his foot behind you at the self-checkout.

Everyone has their vices, and right next to tech stuff at the top of my list are bottles. It started in college when I would buy a bottle of Dasani and then reuse/carry it around for a week. Word got back to me that wasn’t such a good idea so I broke down and jumped on the Nalgene bandwagon. Then BPA joined every other multi-moleculed substance in being shown to cause cancer/health problems in humanoid lab rats, so I had to update my large bottle collection with BPA-free bottles. Now plastics in general are on the outs and since no one is building anything, there’s apparently a surplus of steel lying around. This now brings us the rise of companies like SIGG and Klean Kanteen. I currently have a couple of Klean Kanteen options in my arsenal, but I’m looking to add this. It’s not economical ($30), but I love that it’s wide-mouth and that it would fit in my cup holder (I have a non-insulated version of the same bottle and it’s tops in my collection as far as I’m concerned).

That’s it for now. I’d love to hear about any “green” products that you’ve discovered and now can’t live without.

Before I go on, let me interject this short story. There are a lot of things that you know are going to change when you get married, especially if you don’t live together before the union becomes official. Never in a million years did I think one of the changes I’d have to consider would be getting rid of my rice cooker. Then I come to find out that Beth is anti-specialized kitchen appliances (like quesadilla makers, waffle makers, bread ma— well not bread makers apparently because she has one of those) and suddenly I’m trying to think of how I can cook hot pockets or grilled cheese sandwiches in the rice cooker. I remember being in college and seeing Dan pour rice into a pot on the stove and thinking, “What the heck are you doing? You don’t cook rice on a stove?” How in the world was I ever going to enjoy steamed rice again without my trusty rice cooker? In the end, the rice cooker got to stay in what can only be described as God’s amazing grace.

Ok so where did I leave us? Oh yes, the venerable conventional rice cooker! Well one of the things I’ve always wondered but never really explored was how the rice cooker works. I mean how does it steam rice so perfectly? I’m somewhat curious, but not really mechanically or electronic circuitly inclined so poking around the apparatus has yielded somewhat shaky results. Because the heating element has a sort of coily, springy action to it I thought maybe there was some weight factor involve but I never could resolve the physics of that. I’ve heard some suggest that it is a simple timing mechanism, but that seems to breakdown in my mind when different volumes of rice are possible. Well as it turns out, the mechanics are fairly simple (though they can be “fuzzy“). The heating element also includes a temperature sensor. When the sensor reaches a certain temperature, the rice is done! (follow the links for the explanation).

Who knew something so great could be so simple?

(hat tip to cigamerisedi for leading me down this path)