28 December 2004

First!

I uploaded some new data to the Internet that you might be interested in perusing:

• The Nat Friedman city guide. From my feverish life experience to your eager retinas.
• The Nat Friedman donation guide. In this season of giving, some free software related projects to which I have given money.

We plan to launch several other Nat Friedman related web sites in the coming year. Stay tuned.

Creepy white balance mistake.

I’m going to be spending every second or third week in Provo for the next six months, so I got an office on the second floor of building H. My nomadic status is now official.

I will be reporting on cool things to do in and around Provo, such as the Cinemark dollar theater in Provo, Brewvies in Salt Lake City, or catching one of Theta Naught’s shows in the area (highly recommended).

Getting my cast removed in Salt Lake City.

Garrett and I had a pretty good time hanging out in Utah, despite the fact that we both left the office pretty exhausted after some extremely long days. And Dave may spend some time in the area the first couple months of next year, so I’m going to make a point of rooting out the fun activities, including the more active ones, like dirt biking, once my soft tissues have finished recovering from injury and the five subsequent weeks of total quiescence.

The other bit of good news is that San Francisco is only an hour and a half from Utah, so I’ll probably be out here pretty often as well. Which is great because I can see my sister Peach, go out with friends, and pick up really cute, politically active girls, thereby eliciting hysterical levels of jealousy from Alex, etc etc.

In other words: same shit, different city.

I got to meet Peach’s boyfriend, Erik the other day.

Erik, Alex and Peach. Alex and Peach got the boy band point-stance down pretty well, but Erik went for more of an astronomy thing.

The early part of the week was rife with hijinks. We went to Zeitgeist (where Jamie took me for my 21st birthday, God love him), and by the end of the night were jumping up on the tables and singing and dancing.

Later, Peach, Alex and I threw a little get-together at her house.

We ate brussel sprouts and cheese.

Jeremy Bornstein came, and brought his son Ezekiel.

Z is highly lovable.

Later in the week, the rest of the Friedman clan arrived in town and I spent a lot of quality time with my little sister Victoria. If you call watching 27 episodes of The OC in four days “quality time.”

The San Francisco treat!

Many other things happened, including a nice dinner with Zack Rosen, a clever guy. After I showed it to him, Zack suggested that lots of people could make personal city guides like mine, geocode them, and then readers could aggregate their friends’ guides based on location.

But it is late and I am going to Mexico in the morning.

Short summary of 2004:

• >30 cities
• Many books, but only You Shall Know Our Velocity was memorable
• Released a nice desktop product
• Found out what a broken arm feels like (it feels like 14mg of morphine)
• No girlfriends (I’m in a refractory period)
• Etc.

You will not hear from me for some days. Be still! I will come thundering back. Next year.