Space Ninja

I am eating well, learning a lot, and taking hundreds of photos. I’ll write up a review of An Event Apart on Wednesday and post more photos, but I had to share this one today. In the meantime, I’ve been posting on twitter.

• Staff Sergeant Sig
  My friend Sig discusses the mixed feelings he has about being promoted quickly.
  Tags: staffsergeant, sig9, military, nationalguard, army, sergeant, promotion, rank
• Newly released files show Julia Child was a spy
  Woah.
  Tags: juliachild, spy, oss, cia, history, shocking
• Reference Check
  Christina: "The facility I did my CNA classes in is looking to hire me and I listed you as a reference. They may be calling you." Justin: "I will tell them that you are a HUGE batman fan and that sometimes you wear your costume to work."
  Tags: coworkers, popart, christinagonzalez, justingarrity, batman, costumes, work, references
• Memos from Tiger Oil Company owner Edward Mike Davis
  "Do not speak to me when you see me. If I want to speak to you, I will do so. I want to save my throat. I don’t want to ruin it by saying hello to all of you sons-of-bitches."
  Tags: edwardmikedavis, tigeroil, abuse, swearing, office, culture, ceo, owner, management, memos, communication
• Small Talk with a Web Designer
  Uncomfortably close to the truth.
  Tags: smalltalk, flowcharts, graphs, infographics, diagrams, webdesign, jobtitles
• An Open Letter to Pirates
  "My day job–and the industry as a whole–is famous for its abundance of pirates. It may appear that pirates have ninjas outnumbered but most of us live in secret, either undercover as pirates or underexposed as ninjas."
  Tags: ninjas, pirates, openletter, personality, culture, undercover
• Deep Inside NORAD
  "Yesterday, I traveled back in time to the Cold War: …I got a special tour of NORAD, the fabled military command center located in a vast cavern dynamited into the base of Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain. The top-secret base, protected under 2000 feet of solid granite mountain, was built to be an emergency command center in the event of nuclear attack."
  Tags: norad, cheyennemountain, coldwar, military, base, commandcenter, mountains, caverns, emergency, nuclear, war, scifi, stargate
• The Art Of Braid: Creating A Visual Identity For An Unusual Game
  "In this fascinating deconstruction, artist David Hellman explains his collaboration with Jonathan Blow to create the evocative, painterly art for acclaimed downloadable game Braid… on Xbox Live Arcade."
  Tags: braid, games, gamedev, davidhellman, jonathanblow, painterly, painting, development, xbox, 360, microsoft, inspiration, creativity, process, illustration

Milo and his parents are visiting us this week, so I thought I’d post this video of a game Milo was playing with Dave at the park a few weeks ago. Milo would pick up a handful of bark chips, and then chase Dave around trying to throw them on his shoes. When he threw them, he would walk back to the play structure, get another handful, and start over.

• Leta as a Cupie doll
  Adorable!
  Tags: babies, dooce, leta, photography, adorable
• California State Supreme Court rejects noncompete clauses
  "Californians have the right to move from one company to another or start their own business and can’t be prohibited by their employer from working for a competitor in their next job, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday." - Awesome. Now can we please get the same common sense in the rest of the nation?
  Tags: california, state, supremecourt, court, legal, law, noncompete, business
• Todd Levin on Coffee Shops
  "It is not an especially laborious or costly service, and it is the barometer by which I measure the quality of any coffee shop. To provide simple syrup to customers is more than a courtesy; it is an act of understanding and compassion. Its exclusion is like a softly whispered ‘fuck you,’ and tells me a lot about a coffee shop’s priorities vis a vis customers vs. profits."
  Tags: toddlevin, coffee, starbucks, simplesyrup, customers, customerservice, priorities
• Video: Fun Town Auto: Agressive Dealership Ad
  NSFW - Offensive, stupid, and hilarious.
  Tags: video, autodealership, salesmen, advertising, aggressive, nsfw, hilarious, offensive
• Distorted Signage
  "In Melbourne I developed a way-finding-system for the Eureka Tower Carpark. The distorted letters on the wall can be read perfectly when standing at the right position. This project won several international design awards."
  Tags: distortion, typography, signage, ui, melbourne, carpark, design
• Breed ‘Em And Weep » The Facebook Facebeg Experience
  "Everyone else has friends… Everyone else has notifications. Everyone else has mail. And they’re getting poked. Some are getting SuperPoked. …What are you doing now? …Answer the status prompt. You will be expected to change your status AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE."
  Tags: facebook, parody, summary, status, socialnetworking
• Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win
  "The meeting leader said, ‘I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won’t have a vote on whether you want a union,’" said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said.
  Tags: politics, obama, democrats, unions, strike, wal-mart, vote, warning, labor, laws, bullshit

For the fourth of July, we got Zoe dressed in her adorable little patriotic outfit and headed to the family cabin at the beach. Every year, people get their fireworks and set the off on the beach, and if you take a lawn chair down, you get a pretty good display. From the beach by our cabin, we can see the “big” fireworks display from Rockaway and have a good view quite a ways up and down the beach to dozens of other families setting off their fireworks.

It was Zoe’s first time watching fireworks, and because it was so late, we were a little worried that it would freak her out. A couple hours after she went to bed, I put her in the front-pack and we all walked down to the beach. She woke up as we walked, and when we got our chairs set up, I undid the pack so I could turn her around to sit in my lap and watch. I expected that she would either get scared, or she would get excited and want to get down and play in the sand. Instead, she was just interested enough to stay awake and watch, but tired enough that she never really moved, just pointed every now and then and said “pretty.”

We also got to try out the fireworks setting on our new camera, which works suprisingly well considering that we were hand-holding it instead of using a tripod.