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I have spent the past few days working from Beautiful Seneca Lake, which has been enjoyable, for sure! It’s interesting (especially in my line of work) to witness which aspects of my workflow continue uninterupted and which pieces are all messed up. For example, I am ALOT more responsive to emails now, because I am not ‘down the hall’ or in a conference room, etc. However, my ability to connect with people is diminished. I can’t storm into someones office and demand that they answer my questions. I am also out of sight such that when the bossman comes looking around for a voluteer, I’m off his radar.

Marc, if you’re reading this, I’m sure that I’ll still be on YOUR radar… man… I’m speaking more generally.

I enjoy stretching the norms and seeing how things work when people are not necessarily co-located. I think that’s an aspect of potentially large cost-savings as the workforce moves away from tablets/chisels and towards laptops/cell phones.

I am planning to work remotely (except for a couple days) for the entirety of August and the beginning of September. So far, I’ve been wearing the same blue bathing suit and occassionally sunglasses (when an email is REALLY bright). I have a small networking project that would bring WiFi access to the beach. The ultimate goal of the summer is to work for an entire day without needing to leave the hammock — except for the occassional swim… of course.

Did I bike past Senator Webb today?

On my ride into work this morning, I was riding down Mass Ave (which I ride every morning) between Thomas Circle and 7th Sts. I pulled up to a stop light and noticed a weird looking all black towncar. The plates were from Virginia and read: Senate 2. All of the windows were tinted and I couldn’t get a good look inside. However, from what I could tell, there was only one person inside, the driver, wearing a tie and jacket.

I voted for you and then I beat you off the line with my 12 speed!

It occurred to me this week that my posts have been pretty sparse this fall. I figured out a good solution, blogging by email, which I’m trying out now. Anyways, there’s lots of stuff percolating on the brain right now, but nothing that I’ve wanted to blog out for a while. I did look over Mary’s shoulder at an article about Jason Bateman (yes, it was In Style). He had a funny quote about having a 300 pound man inside of him just waiting to get out. Hence, he does an hour of cardio everyday to keep everything in check. I have been feeling like a bum this spring because I haven’t logged any sizable distances (read: anything longer than 2 miles). Also, the frequency of runs has been down as well. I do enjoy riding to and from work, but am actively trying to NOT work up a sweat during the 20 minute ride. Ergo, this cannot be counted as cardio activity.

Seems like what I’d need is some serious motivation to get out there everyday. I have been using the busy-ness of work as an excuse, but things are starting to lighten up and I’m not taking good advantage of that, yet. Today, I will make the separation from work and sweat it out for an hour — just like Jason Bateman.

During May, I managed to bike to work on 19 of 31 days in the month.

Of the 31 days during the month, I worked 20 days and walked in on 1 day.

At the end of the month, I biked to work a total of 19 days.

During April, I managed to bike to work on 14 of 30 days in the month.

Of the 30 days during the month, I worked 20 days. I drove one day and totaled 5 days walking.

At the end of the month, I biked to work a total of 14 days.

Yesterday, I headed into Bruegger’s newest store, located about 2 blocks from my office in Chinatown. I was only there for coffee, but the bagels line looked solid enough to prove them a quick star. Of course, nothing less would be expected from another quality Rochester mainstay (cough, cough, Wegmans, cough… there I said it). It’s awesome to have a proper bagel place in the neighborhood and will be a delicious alternative to the Friday munchkins (doughnut holes) that seem to magically appear from the Dunkin’ Donuts on 7th St.

The thing that I’m excited about most is that Bruegger’s brews Green Mountain Coffee, roasted in Vermont near Ben and Jerry’s. The Green Mountain Coffee from Bruegger’s is certified fair trade, delicious and $1.93 for a large. For that, I say: Welcome to the neighborhood!

There is interesting news about Clinton’s seemingly desparate “kitchen sink” negative attacks on the Obama campaign in today’s NYTimes. Also, I find excitement in the potential to break a record in political campaigning of all sorts: One Million People donating dollars to Obama’s campaign. As I am writing this post, the graphic displays that 988,199 have donated (2/26 @ 14:36).

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Comments below if you see it differently… I’ve been watching the number grow by leaps and bounds since last Thursday (2/21). Will you donate to become OneoftheMillion? Consider it.

One of the podcasts that I’ve subscribed to is sponsored by Nozbe (an online task and getting things done site). I checked it out and signed up for a free account at Nozbe.com. I’ve only played with it last night and this morning, but it seems to finally crossed off a task on the Web 2.0 Todo list — namely, tasks. You can set it up in about 10 minutes on their website and the free account comes with plenty of bells and whistles. Emails can go straight from your outbox onto any ‘Project’ that you specify, using your nickname, a pin and the project name. Also, the task context can help you stay productive even when a computer is unavailable. GUI features that I enjoy from Google (gmail, iGoogle) are also available on Nozbe, like stars, double-clicking and drag-and-drop.

I haven’t had any chance to actually get things done, but will take it out for a test drive over the next couple of days. One thing from Slashdot Review’s podcast is that Nozbe can also print out your todo list for dash and carry tasks where even a cell phone is impractical. I have been considering a data plan on my cell and think that a task would be in order to evaluate Verizon’s costs/plans.

Drop a comment if you’ve used Nozbe or are interested in checking it out.

During my parents weekend visit to DC, we happened upon a stellar restaurant that recently opened in Dupont at 2100 P St. NW. Less than 100 feet from their hotel, Residence Inn on P., we stopped in to check out the menu after our crowd was drawn in by Cafe Trope’s sign celebrating the Caribbean/French fusion. Everyone seemed satisfied by the looks of the menu/ambiance and we snagged a reservation for 8PM with about ninety minutes notice. We showed up a bit casual in our tourist jeans and sweaters, but did not seem to stick out sorely. The place is certainly urban casual inside where ladies can wear (seemingly) anything and men are as likely to have a casual jacket as they are to dry clean their party jeans.

Menu: Cafe Trope by Howsoon Cham

Given the price range it seemed to be a bit of an older crowd than any place in Adams Morgan or U St. There were some middle age men impressing their trophy gals and two groups of girlfriends out for a night on the town. By 8:45, the restaurant was full, but we had plenty of room to pass dishes and swivel around our 6 person table. At its fullest point, we still seemed able to hear one another, but then again, we’re not a quiet bunch. Drinks came along and we cut our deals on the side to share plates and swap tastes of the wide selection. Waiter-man described the plates as being 5-6 bites each, but I’d say they were something more like 8 bites per. Most ordered an appetizer and 2 plates, surmounting to 3 courses and the girls saved room for dessert.

My dad started with the Oysters, which he raved about — twice to our server, once to each of us individually and then again the next day after lunch. He enjoyed the filet, but seemed most enchanted by the four large, Plantain-Encrusted Oysters served over a bed of spinach. Laura had the Truffled Goat Cheese and Macaroni with the Pumpkin and Spinich Quinoa. I had a bite of both and was very pleased with the French twist on the traditional Mac-and-Cheese. Mary choose wisely with the Butternut Squash soup, which was creamy and delicious, if not very filling for its size. She also ordered the Pork Tenderloin served over sweet mashed potatoes and collard greens. At odds with her entree, I thought the sweet potato was much too sweet for inclusion as a pre-dessert accompaniment. They seemed as if they’d been drizzled with maple syrup.

Merritt agreed that his side of potato puree was much closer to comfort than the sweet potato version. He also ordered the rack of lamb, which came after I was filled up on my own yummies. I thoroughly enjoyed my starter of Marinated Squash and Garbanzo Beans. Never having too many garbanzos, my second course was the curried chick peas and spinach, which kicked the flavor up into a tasty zing. Having read the reviews online, I tried out the seemingly signature Jerk Chicken Lollipops, which lived up to their rep as both delicious and spicy. Things would have been troublesome had dinner’s spice been reversed, but instead offered an increasing glow on the pallet. Finally, my mom started with the Pear and Roquefort Salad, moved on to the Butternut Squash and Wild Mushroom Pilua, which brought out the harvest flavors which seem difficult to reach during winter months. Her entree, wild salmon, was an honestly sized 6 bites and seemed a well placed culmination of the aromas and flavors passed round the table.

It did appear that the staff was still growing into their roles on the floor. Our waiter did seem a bit confused about his surroundings and had a couple oversights on what was still available. While we did get everything that we’d ordered, the timing was a little disjointed, thrown by a table mix-up with the runners. Also, gravity seemed to be an issue with several glasses biting the tile and utensils occasionally clanging across the room or down steps. However, our water glasses were full and wine was delicious. The fine food more than made up for the oversights in service and we are all confident that Trope can work through any staffing issues and their overly powerful gravitation pull.

With another month of practice, Cafe Trope could rival other area restaurants for DC’s finest.

Santa brought an iPod Nano [(Product) RED] and I had no idea just how much I’d wanted to join the iPod bandwagon until now. First, it’s big enough to literally hold a metric ton of music and podcasts. Also, it will play video that is crystal clear and large enough to provide real comp over audio only podcasting. However, I’ve also started using iTunes, which comes with it own set of features and pros/cons. I set up windows to automatically auto-run audio CDs into iTunes and to rip new content into mp3 format. I trust that iTunes lives up to its agreements saying that it doesn’t add DRM, but figure that mp3’s mean that I’ll only rip my music library once.

It’s slick how it will grab and display your cover art, name your tracks from CDDB and interfaces seamlessly with the seemingly limitless content available from the iTunes online store. One thing that all the tech podcasts seem to buzz with is the addition of TV and movie rentals to iTunes. It seems like the cabling costs $50 to connect my iPod to the TV and play downloaded videos in the living room. This could be a huge intersection between portable downloads and bringing online video into the family room.

Anyways, I got some time to sit on the couch and checkout some podcasts available for subscription. I’ve signed up for the CNET news podcasts and some other geeky stuff. One thing that I didn’t find right away is some sort of aggregation of Slashdot stories. Essentially, I am looking to take the 10 most popular stories from any given day and grab a quick summary of what-I-missed-while-I-was-working-instead-of-staying-ontop-of-my-RSS-feeds for Slashdot and my other favorites. Something that would be cool is an application that takes any RSS feed, audio-tizes the most popular content and then loads onto your device daily. It would seem to me that you might not skip a beat with a service like that. I now have way more podcasts to evaluate than I’m sure I’ll ever subscribe to, but for now am very happy to notice the huge quantity of freely available content.