Saturday night, I found myself covered in baby throw up.

Well, not sure if she is still a baby, it has been 458 days (or 15 months). So I had "toddler" throw up on me Saturday night.

I was covered.

It would have been funny if it happened to someone else, but it happened to me.

We both survived and we are both doing well. Thanks for your concern.

I am sure many parents can relate.

Oh, how awesome is that picture? Click on it to read the story on Flickr.

Posted at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (2)

Today is my birthday and today I turned 30 years old.

Not sure what I can say about that, other than I am 30.

I can, if I want, go to Wikipedia and source some interesting tidbits on 30, such as:

• 30 is the sum of the first four squares, which makes it a square pyramidal number.
• The atomic number of zinc is 30
• Messier object M30, a magnitude 8.5 globular cluster in the constellation Pegasus
• I can now become a U.S. Senator
• The code for international direct dial phone calls to Greece
• The designation of Interstate 30, a freeway that runs from Texas to Arkansas (image above)
• The designation of U.S. Route 30, a highway that runs from Oregon to New Jersey
• The number of tracks on The Beatles' eponymous album, usually known as The White Album
• I am still a young adult
• 30 is one of the more common numbers worn by hockey goaltenders (along with 31).
• Plus lots of events happened on March 22

So I turned 30 today.

Looking at my life at 30, I am pretty happy - I am very lucky.

Posted at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (9)

Yesterday, I spent a portion of the day baby proofing my house.

Pretty much, all the electrical sockets have a baby proof piece of plastic insert. Many of the kitchen and bathroom floor level cabinets have those baby latches. And some of the drawers have those clamps, as shown in the picture above.

I also purchased two baby gates. One I hooked up already and it works well, the other, I am not too sure about. The other goes at the top of the stairs and it has to be done right. But the way my stairs are, it just doesn't seem this or any will work right. So I need to figure out a different solution, maybe a less optimal solution, but a safe solution.

We also spent money on one of those diaper genie types of cans. I don't like to air my family's dirty laundry, but at a certain age, those "poop" diapers really smell bad, really.

In any event, it is amazing watching kids grow - a lot of fun and joy.

Posted at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Homey | Comments (2)

As you know, Sukkots is around the corner. I got my Lulav & Esrog and I have built my Sukkah. I bet this is an interesting for non-Jewish people to see Jews practicing (people shaking trees and fruits and living in a temporary house, outside of your real house - real weird, no?). In any event, I finally finished my first Sukkah last night and I wanted to show it off.

On September 13th, I put up the frame with the help of my father and brother. I don't have pictures of that, but here is a picture of the metal polls fitting (snapping) together.

Then this past Sunday, in a light rain, I put up the nylon walls. They basically velcro onto the metal frame. Here are some pictures of the walls going up:

Tuesday night, I put up the roof (known as S'chach), which consists of bamboo. I got the roll out mats of bamboo to make my life easier. I had three mats to put up. I first took wood polls, laid them across the top of the frame and then rolled out the mats on top of the wood polls.

Last night, I put up the lights, as you can see in the picture above as well. I also hung the few decorations we have. But the decorations are very tasteful. They are basically arrangements of fake grapes and a fruit, next to the grapes. Here is a picture of one:

I then wired up the lights to the outdoor timer box and tied down the wires, so they are out of the way.

This is a continuation of my previous Sukkah posts, including o Sukkah shopping, planning the sukkah, finding out it was two inches too long and you can also see my Sukkah in Google Sketchup.

This is my first Sukkah. What do you think?

Posted at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Homey , Religion | Comments (1)

For this years Rosh Hashanah holiday we went to the in-laws (my in-laws) via aircraft. That means, we had to fly with a baby, since I am now a dad. No, I couldn't leave her behind - nor did I want to. :)

So, I am a bit nervous about how the flight will go. You know, no one wants to sit next to a crying baby on a flight, be it 30 minutes or 30 hours. I am sure most of you have all been on a flight with a crying baby. The next flight you go on with a baby - you give the parents 'that look.' You know, the "ugh, you are on my flight" look. I am sure I have given that look to others, even though it likely was not intentional.

It was my time, my time to get the look. And yes, I felt like I got the look. I am pretty sure I really did get the look from some people. Giving the look and getting the look, um... looks different. It looks like, a little smile and then as they turn their head, they roll their eyes up slightly. Yea, I saw a couple of those on the departing and arriving flights.

But in the end, we showed them. My little girl was an angel. She, with the aid of her mother, feel asleep on take off, and slept throughout the two hour +or- flight. Not just on the way there, but on the way back.

In fact, we even got compliments from other passengers on the plane. Not only did she complement how cute she was. She is cute. But how they didn't even notice a baby was on the flight, since she didn't make a peep 99% of the way.

So next time you see a baby on a flight - hold off on giving "the look" until it is actually warranted!

Posted at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Travels | Comments (6)

Yesterday was my first Father's Day as a father. I wanted to remember what I did on that day, so I figured I do a blog post that documents it.

(1) At 1am, I wrote a Father's Day post at my search blog.
(2) Woke up relatively early for a Sunday.
(3) Went to Doctor to check if I am still sick
(4) Got an okay bill of health a couple hours later
(5) Went to work where I blogged more, did payroll, taxes, and misc work
(6) Got home at about noon and greeted family
(7) My baby got dressed in the onesie that I have a picture of above (nice wife)
(8) My baby gave me a Father's Day card
(9) Went to my Dad to give him his BBQ grill for his Father's Day
(10) Spent two hours building it
(11) Went to Babies R Us
(12) Back to my parents for a Father's Day BBQ on his new grill
(13) Came home
(14) Had evening business conference call
(15) Went to sleep

That was my day, if I remember it correctly.

Overall, a nice first Father's Day!

Posted at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (1)

In my last Search in Pictures column, I showed off a Google Baby Hat, and then tweeted that I would love one of those for my baby. Well, Adam Lasnik of Google, sent over a Google onesie and baby blanket. I assume it is from the Google search quality and webmaster central team - so thank you all!

Adam, I know you tried to get the hat and I appreciate that. I am sure my wife and the baby will prefer the onesie and blanket over the hat. Here is a picture:

Thanks so much!

There are many of you who actually sent me gifts. I didn't blog about most of you, but trust me, thank you. I may blog about some of the other gifts, like the Chocolate Bassinet from Oh Nuts or Best of the Web onesie and some of the other wonderful gifts the search industry sent.

Thank you all so much!

Posted at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Category: Buddies , Family | Comments (1)

I know prospects and clients read my personal blog, even though I go out of my way to not tell most of them about it. In fact, I blogged about the risks of blogging when clients or prospects read my blog.

I did not tell you that I found out, that over the past months/years, that kids are reading my blog. Not just any random kids, but my nephews, nieces and kids in the community.

• My brother-in-law on my wife's side told me a few weeks back that his oldest daughter goes to my blog and reads it every now and then.
• My nephew (Sisters kid) told me that he reads my blog and so do the others.
• A mother in my community who goes to the same synagogue as I do told me his son reads my blog every day.

When I hear stuff like that, I first thing --- I hope I didn't write anything not kid appropriate. There is a lot of risk knowing what you write can be seen by kids, and not just any kids, but family and kids you know.

I guess if there was anything I said that was not appropriate it would be more up to the parents to know about it and stop their kids from reading my blog or any site that they don't feel is appropriate. But at the same time, then I have parents and family thinking that what I do or write is not kid appropriate, which can be bad.

All in all, I don't think I have that issue on any of my blogs - so keep on reading!

Posted at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Category: Blogging , Buddies , Family | Comments (1)

Last night was the first time I played basketball in about four weeks.

When I became a dad, about four weeks ago, I really didn't realize how tiring it would be. Don't get me wrong, my kid is great. She doesn't complain a ton, only when she wants something. But new babies are a handful.

Last night I got some pretty good sleep - thanks to the wife. In fact, the wife does most the heavy lifting all day and all night. But I guess I am a light sleeper and any noise kind of wakes me up. Last night was good though.

Back to basketball. I normally play at nights and for the past four weeks, thinking about going out to play ball at 9pm was beyond a possibility. Last night, I thought I wouldn't make it, but I did. I didn't play all that much simply cause I was running down the court and sleeping at the same time. But things will get better and I am glad I went.

Hope to keep the basketball streak going now.

Posted at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Sports | Comments (2)

I have been tactfully avoiding the diaper change for about ten-days now. But this morning that all changed when my wife seemed dead tired and begged me to change the baby's diaper. I felt bad and guilty, so I did it, I changed the kid's diaper.

I was hoping to be one of those dads that don't change diapers. Well, maybe I will now be one of those dads that rarely change diapers.

The process wasn't bad. Here is how it went:

1. Grab kid in one arm
2. Set up materials using other arm
3. Place kid down on changing table
4. Remove kid's bottom cloths
5. Slowly take off spoiled diaper, while leaving bottom half on.
6. Clean area with baby wipes
7. Slide diaper off completely
8. Slide new diaper on asap
9. Make sure everything is clean
10. Put on A&D ointment
11. Secure new diaper and flare out parts around legs
12. Put back on cloths
13. Throw trash away
14. Return kid to mom
15. Go to work

Now, it was only a good process because our kid is typically (so far) calm and happy when we change her. Very grateful for that.

Now, if I can only master changing a diaper and using my iPhone at the same time, then I would be set.

FYI, click through on that picture - it is pretty funny stuff.

Posted at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (10)

Since I am already a dad for over 5 days now, I feel like I have the experience and wisdom to now give new dads advice. Since I would classify myself as a geek, cause I earn geek points with the wife, I geek travel, I got geek pants, I have an LED license plate, I only buy shirts with pockets for my phone, amongst other things, I figured I share some of my advice.

• Sleep as much as you can prior, during and after delivery. The nurses tell you this, but you are too wired and excited or nervous to actually do it. But do it.
• Make sure your wife does the same, it is even more important for her.
• Take many pictures and sync them up to your mobile device, this way you have them when every other person asks you for a picture.
• Bring a laptop and make sure your hospital has wifi (or bring wireless with you
• Don't Twitter or blog the delivery if your wife doesn't want it
• Put away all computers and phones when the time is right (probably when contractions get heavy).
• Don't take them out until you get an approval from your wife
• First use them only for baby purposes (i.e. pictures, calling family, etc.)
• Practice holding baby like object (dolls maybe at first) and using computer and mobile devices (comes in handy later)

I am sure there are more tips, but since I am only 5 days into this, I am a bit exhausted, which makes it hard to think - plus I am only 5 days into this!

I would like to thank everyone for all the wonderful comments via the blog, email, IM, phone, Twitter, and even snail mail. For those that sent flowers, cards, baskets and gifts - thank you so much.

It was not necessary but it shows my wife that being a geek is not only part of my job but shows there is a community of geeks out there that care about you.

Isn't that onesie incredibly cute? Oh, that is not a hint to buy it for me - trust me. I am not sure if my wife would want 20 "My Dad's a Geek" Onesies.

Posted at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (3)

Baby Girl!!! More later...

Me with my baby:

Posted at 5:58 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (104)

Last night I was thinking about my life and how I blog a lot (yea, very deep stuff) and it occurred to me that my wife married a blogger. I was blogging well before we got married. Not many bloggers I work with can say that.

My blogging obsession (including my work obsession), was something she was aware of before we got married. Some spouses can say, you weren't like this when we were married. Not my wife. ;-)

I was justing thinking of the married crew at Search Engine Land and the majority of them were married before "blogging." I think Danny was a journalist before getting married, but there wasn't such a thing as blogging back then. Chris Sherman, Greg Sterling, even Matt McGee, I think were all married before blogging. So it is cool if their wives complain about their constant need to post things to a blog.

But my obsession was pre-marriage, so no complaints. ;-)

Honestly, like I have said time after time. I am a lucky man. My wife is extremely patient with me, extremely good about my obsessions and very supportive. I am not suggesting that my wife complains, she never does. It was just a deep thought by Barry Schwartz from last night.

And since I am a blogger, I had to blog it.

(Oh, the picture above is from me blogging while driving, which I have done many times.)

Posted at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Category: Blogging , Family | Comments (6)

I wouldn't call myself an uber-geek, but I definitely strive towards that label. That being said, my wife was in my office one day and I had to earn some "husband points." I forget why I needed points, but all married men always need to tally up the "points" whenever they can.

So in my geek way, I decided to label her email folder. The folder I keep her emails related to her and us in, as ♥ Yisha. To do so, I looked up the HTML entity for a heart and copied it into my mail folder name. It looks like this in HTML entities ♥

Not only did it bring her folder at the top of my personal folders (i.e. making her #1 to me), it also put a heart near her name (i.e. showing all that affectionate stuff).

Only problem with me blogging this is that she will now read it and I will likely lose all the points I gained from doing it in the first place, plus get point deductions. So I am sacrificing my points to help other geek husbands out there.

Posted at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (11)

Remember when I wrote, It's Official: I'm The Short Stumpy One? Yea, the story about my wife's sister getting engaged? Well, last night they got married. The wedding was extremely nice. Awesome food, awesome ambiance, awesome music, awesome everything.

Mazol Tov to my sister-in-law and officially new brother-in-law (excluding all names here)!

Here is a picture someone took of me and my wife walking down the aisle. I won't tell you who took the picture, but it does make me look like we are running really fast down the aisle.

No, I did not run down the aisle.

Posted at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (2)

I have pretty big news that I am finally able to share with you all. I am pregnant. Well, I'm technically not pregnant, but my wife is, so we are pregnant. This would be my first child and I am incredibly excited.

Not sure if you Twitter followers remember, but back on September 4th I twittered "OMG!" at 10:48 AM (EST). That is when I first found out. Then to be safe, we did another test at 6:08 PM, where I said "OMG!" again. Yes, it was positive again. Then the following morning, we tried one more time on September 5th at 2:27 AM (that seems way too early, I think it was later) and yes, it was "OMG!" positive! The final "OMG!" was when we got the confirmation from the Doctor at 11:18 AM that we were indeed pregnant!

So now, it is five months later and thank G-d, every thing looks to be healthy. We went for the hour long sonogram today and we saw the whole body including nose, eyes, head, ears, legs, fingers, toes, heart, belly, etc etc. It was a very rememberable experience.

In summary, we're pregnant. :)

FYI, the picture above is a random picture from Flickr that came up for the keyword search "sonogram."

Update: Here are many of the Twitter responses to this post. To see them, click here and a new window will open with them.

Posted at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (67)

Last night we had our annual family Chanukah get together. This year it was at my brother's house, around the corner from me. We first light the menorah, I used my iPhone Menorah (which is not legit, I lit again when I got home). We then ate dinner which consisted of pizza, lasagna, tuna casserole, salads, chips, and dunkin donuts.

After the food, we gave out the presents. Presents are given out in age order, from youngest to oldest. My family is big into giving presents, we go overboard sometimes.

In any event, let me share with you what I received:

I first got these awesome NY Jets Slippers by Reebok. I needed new slippers and I really like the Jets (they better win this week). Here is a picture, they are much better than my $1.99 Ikea slippers that work on any feet:

I then received an iHome for my iPhone. This is perfect because I have a billion wires on my nightstand by my bed. So this replaces my alarm clock, which I have been using since I was 13 or so and this replaces my iPhone USB charging cable. So I got one less thing plugged into my wall. I then can cleanly dock my iPhone on the top while it charges, which again, de-clutters my night stand.

Feature wise, it has bluetooth integration. So I can dial and answer calls via the speakerphone of the device. This is a time saver for me, cause in the past, whenever I got calls when in bed, I had to either lean over to talk slanted on the phone (cause the charging cable was very short) or disconnect it from charging and the cable would fall under my bed and I'd have to fish it out. Now, I do it wirelessly. It also plays my music from my iPhone, or via AM/FM. It also has two alarm clocks (I need t mess with that more). Anyway, here is a picture.

Oh, I also got a donut!

Thanks for the gifts!

Posted at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Religion | Comments (3)

Over a year ago, I blogged about beating my nephews at Monopoly. Well, over this past holiday, they wanted a rematch - so I gave it to them and I lost.

My oldest nephew used my strategy against me. He bought up a lot of the properties before I even had a chance to purchase anything. In fact, he put hotels on the first two properties right away, and I landed on them at least 6 times on my first 8 turns around the board. After that, I just couldn't get into the game. So I got killed and my nephew beat me.

Part of losing, I had to blog that he beat me. He really played well. So now, the score is 1 to 1. We will need to play again, one day.

Posted at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Family | Comments (0)

Over a year ago, I blogged about beating my nephews at Monopoly. Well, over this past holiday, they wanted a rematch - so I gave it to them and I lost.

My oldest nephew used my strategy against me. He bought up a lot of the properties before I even had a chance to purchase anything. In fact, he put hotels on the first two properties right away, and I landed on them at least 6 times on my first 8 turns around the board. After that, I just couldn't get into the game. So I got killed and my nephew beat me.

Part of losing, I had to blog that he beat me. He really played well. So now, the score is 1 to 1. We will need to play again, one day.

Posted at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Family | Comments (0)

Today is the day that I say goodbye to my original iPhone. I am shipping it out to my brother, who lives in Israel.

I had my original iPhone 376 days. I had my new iPhone for only 10 days. In fact, I got my old iPhone on July 11th and my new one on July 11th - just realized that now.

In any event, I don't think Israel is a supported country for the iPhone. So what he does with it there, is up to him.

I know people in Israel have the iPhone and use many of its features. I do hope Israel begins to support the iPhone officially, soon. I hope I can get AT&T at a normal data rate when I travel there sometime in January 2009 - for SMX Israel. ;-)

Goodbye original iPhone. I am sending you to a better place now and I am sure you will be treated well. ;-)

Posted at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Category: Apple Macs , Family , iPhone | Comments (5)

See that guy on the right of these letters? That is my brother-in-law, my wife's sister's husband - AJ Schreiber.

He is the CEO of a company named Chorus, they provide clinical, practice management and financial software for health care providers. His company was written up in CIO magazine yesterday. The article is named, Everyone Works at Home at Chorus, Part One.

How a small software company is saving money, reducing employee stress and improving productivity and customer satisfaction by closing its offices and going virtual. The first of three parts.

Pretty impressive, a three-part series in CIO magazine about his company, on how he moved his company into a virtual office.

Anyway, I am impressed in a few ways.

(1) Many companies are "virtual" or semi-virtual, but he was savvy enough to get CIO write up his company's pursuit to becoming virtual. The deserves major kudos.

(2) This is not just one article, but seems to be a three-part series.

(3) There are signs on page three, that I might convert AJ not only into a Mac user, like I did in March, but possibly also an iPhone user (like Danny and even Gary Price switched yesterday). On Page three it says:

Most employees already had cell phones, but Chorus put together a policy and expense guidelines for all employees so that they could get BlackBerrys or Windows Mobile-compatible devices to use as a back up in the event their IP Communicator goes down. (Chorus also supports the new 3G iPhone.)

Congrats on the write up and success, but most importantly, the iPhone. ;-)

Posted at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (2)

Last night, my wife's sister got engaged to a wonderful guy she has been going out with for almost two years (I think that it's been almost two years). So last night, we had a small party for the family, to celebrate. I won't get into the details of the party or stuff like that but I will tell you that it is now official --- I am the short and stumpy one. Yes, I am leading myself up for some fun comments below, but hey - it's fun.

Here is a picture of the (now) three brother-in-laws:

I masked their faces because I didn't obtain approval from them to post the picture and it is actually funnier this way.

Okay, guess who I am... Yea, that is me on the left. Then the most senior brother-in-law, in the middle, who has taught me a lot and guided me through joining the new family. Then the new brother-in-law, who is still skinny and tall (that will change) is on the right. Notice the progression. Typically, I should be in the middle, since I was married for a shorter period of time - but I break the rules.

So there you have it. My fate has been sealed. I am the short and stumpy brother-in-law and son-in-law. But I am proud to be in that position. At least I don't fall in between and no one notices me ;-).

In any event, Mazol Tov! Welcome to the family and I look forward to squeezing into my tuxedo at the wedding!

Posted at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (7)

Why I was sitting in the You&A With Matt Cutts session at SMX Advanced a couple weeks ago, I twittered "mattcutts so reminds me of my older brother." Matt then asked me about that twitter the next day - but I couldn't really give a good answer. The other day, I was thinking about it...

Before beginning, I am not sure how Adam, my brother, is going to like this post. I doubt he will mind, but I am sure he won't like to be the spotlight of a blog post here. So, I am sorry in advance.

Adam, my older brother, is a Rabbi in Israel. He works with teenagers who are not exactly on the right path. In a sense, he is somewhat of a social worker or guidance counselor. From what I know, he balances the line of being part of "the law" and at the same time, being friends for these kids. I know there is a line, but from what I understand, many kids trust him and go to my brother for advice and support.

Adam has learned over the years how to speak with these kids. He uses words that reach out to them and it is his hope that they use his words in daily practices. Kind of like a "moral compass" but not exactly.

Just picture how careful he has to be with his words. He can't jump down these kids throats or else they won't trust him and won't come back to him for advice. So when talking, he kind of has to be somewhat of a diplomate and be sure not to touch on sensitive points in the wrong way.

Matt Cutts, the famous Googlers, who deals with webmasters and SEOs all day - is kind of in the same position. Each day, he has to be careful how he words things, as to not harm his relationship with the webmaster community. Matt has earned the trust of many webmasters. He, like my brother, has earned the respect, trust and friendship of many of those who practice actions that are not in accordance with Google's terms of service (TOS).

When Matt talks to webmasters, either publicly or one-to-one, I hear that same out reaching voice of concern. When it comes to certain tactics that webmasters can deploy to trick Google or the searcher, you can hear it in his voice. You can hear how his appeal is genuine, genuine to the industry and to the betterment of the searchers world.

Matt has to balance his speech to make sure he draws that line in the sand, that he is "the law." But at the same time, he wants to keep the line of communication open so that there is a healthy dialog between webmasters and Google. This way, he act as the "moral compass" in his venue.

I am not sure if this makes much sense. I really think it is about the tone I hear in their voices when they both have to balance on that line. They both know that line is easy to cross over and once they cross over it, it is really hard to get back on it.

Posted at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Category: Buddies , Family | Comments (4)

Today is my second wedding anniversary. It feels a lot longer then just two years. Not in a bad way, but in a good way. Kind of like I feel I have known my wife for my whole life but it has really been less then four years (two years married and the rest dating).

I am not going to get all "sappy" as Shoe did. Last year, on my firstyear anniversary, I wrote a long detailed post of the past year events. So, I figured I would highlight some of the past years events, only events I wrote about in the past.

Okay, so for last year's anniversary, my wife got me a pretty cool tie rack, I still use it today, although I rarely use the motorized component of it. Today, I am hoping to get one of my favorite dinners tonight, hopefully with lots of ketchup and maybe fries, maybe. ;-)

Did you know that at our wedding, I walked down to Bron-Yr-Aur by Led Zeppelin, did you know that? I rule! ;-) Back to the past year events.

I first put up my Monsey Condo for sale the month after our wedding anniversary. So technically, I lived their for just over a year and then got out of there. Not because we didn't like it, but it was time for a home for other reasons. I then soon began house hunting, one of the most stressful times I had outside of the business world. I had my home inspection which taught me a lot. But part of the decision was deciding on an internet provided, which turned out to be FiOS, which rocks. But thinking ahead to the cost of being an observant jew really scared me. I finally moved into my house and sold my condo. But I learned a lot, things like installing a mailbox, alight fixtures, a ceiling fan and more, paper shades, as well as keeping my heat costs down, cutting my grass and cutting down a tree.

Other topics of interest include: I got an I hope to get the 3G model soon. Oh, the iPhone cost me a fraction of what it cost many others due to my AMEX credit and apple credit. I was a Kvatter not once, but twice, cause I got a new nephew. Yes, I also got a brand new niece this year also. My oldest nephew was bar mitzvahed, in Israel during my conference...

I announced the first largish SEM event for Israelis, sold out and even overbooked, but the event rocked and we hope to do a new one this coming year. You can watch some of it, if you want to see my intro.

A cop hit me with his car, it all worked out for me, but he had to pay for the damages. I was on the cover of Wired magazine, for real - kind of. I was coined a notable SEO but Wikipedia - does that count for anything? I did make it into a card game, which is fun. I launched a search video cast. But what meant a ton to me is winning the opened a kosher place by my office - still loving it today. I met a famous Jewish book author, Rabbi Hanoch Teller. But soon after that, I began seeing floaters, not a good sign. So I decided to get some aid and I pre ordered a pleo, which I cancelled later. Unfortunately, more birds flew into my window and died from it - at least it wasn't like this was and on crack cocaine. My car was broken into and I got a partial parking refund for my troubles. Eventually, I got a new car, which is saving me a lot of money. Oh, did I tell you ashar caught on fire, my elementary school. I also met Danny Sullivan's wife for the first time. I also managed to finally pay off a surprising electric bill.

But probably most importantly, I revisited one of my all time favorite posts on the leaning tower of snapple.

Posted at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (11)

Today was the day that my new nephew had his brit milah, or circumcision. I did my best in taking a picture of the male reaction at the actual second you hear the baby cry from the snip snip of the procedure.

The problem was, the baby was crying a bit before hand, so I really did not see the usual full affect on people's faces. But those up close had a better reaction then those in the back. Here is a picture, with my annotations (sorry for the blurriness).

My wife and I were honored with being the Kvatter again, so that was really nice.

Mazol Tov again. Oh, his name is Judah.

Posted at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (4)

Almost a week ago, I received a new nephew. This picture shows the baby at about 8 hours old.

This is actually my first nephew on my wife's side. That side has been relatively consistent with having girls for the past couple generations until now. That is, until now. Congrats for breaking that 'stigma'. ;-)

In any event, this is my fifth nephew. My sister has four boys.

This weekend, we all (the family) packed into my wife's sister's home, the day after she came back from the hospital, to spend the weekend there. Basically, when an orthodox Ashkenazi Jew has a boy, the Friday night after that birth, a "Shalom Zachar" takes place. Basically, at about 9:30pm, dozens and dozens of men (some women) come to the house and celebrate the birth of the son. They celebrate by singing, speeches, desserts and lots of alcohol. Of course, the woman who gave birth is not in any mood to see all her friends and extended friends a couple days after giving birth. Nor does she necessarily want to host friends and family in her house days after giving birth. But nevertheless, it is done.

After midnight, the last of my brother-in-law's friends left. We helped clean up as best we could and then we hit the hay.

Tomorrow is when the baby gets a bris. Yes, a circumcision. Snip, snip. I'll be a tad late tomorrow morning for that event. If I can, I will try to take a picture of the exact moment when the mohel ("circumciser") does the snip. I will not take a picture of that area, instead, I will take a picture of the male audience, to show you the faces on every single male at the moment you hear the baby cry from the pain. We all feel the pain with the kid, just not at the same level.

Mazol Tov!

Posted at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (4)

Last night, I conned my wife into coming with me to one of my favorite restaurants, because we were only 5 minutes away, and I was starving.

When we got there, we reviewed our choices and the waiter came by. I had my wife order first, because all polite men do that. ;-) Then I told the waiter my request. He asked, would you like mash potatoes, backed potatoes or french fries with that. What did I say?

"French Fries"

My wife then looked at me and said no. Then the waiter smiles and he looks at me for my next move. He was shocked to hear me say...

"French Fries"

My wife said no again, but with less emphasis, which I then looked back at the waiter, smiled and said...

"French Fries"

The men who read this will think what I thought. This is one small victory for all man kind.

The women who read this will think another thing. Men are so stupid.

Posted at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Food , Just Funny | Comments (6)

Remember my Nephew's first goal? Well, his coach posted a video of him checking the coach in the boards on the ice. Pretty funny.

Posted at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (1)

My brother's kid had to come to the office today for an hour or so. During that time, she ended up playing with something in my office.

She then got up, walked into the corner of the room and laid down.

Seconds later, she was out cold. Sleeping away. So my brother first tried offering her a pillow but that didn't work out too well. He then grabbed my camera and snapped some pictures.

Now, how often do I have kids falling asleep in my office? This is the first time. I am sure, some of you have home offices, and this may not be uncommon for you - but very uncommon here.

Anyway, she then woke up 15 minutes later and looked around. She seemed a bit frightened, and I told her that her dad was in the office next door. She walked over there and then seconds later, I hear a big cry. I scoot over to his door and close it.

Why did I close the door. People were on the phone with clients, and it might sound weird hearing a kid crying in the background.

Posted at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Just Funny | Comments (7)

A name plate. My birthday was recently and my wife and my brother's wife (remember, I am a twin) had to think of something to get us.

I pretty much have everything I would want, I am a lucky guy and blessed. So what did they get us? Name plates:

First thought was... "Cool, I have a name plate for my door." But then I thought, "hmm... I feel weird hanging it up on my door." I was never in to titles, i.e. CEO, etc. Labeling myself makes me feel weird. Plus the factor that we have five doors in our office, two will have name tags, one is the company tag and the rest are unlabeled now? Will this help confusion when people come into my office? Where is the utility? I guess there is some.

All in all, it was a very thoughtful gift. I will hang it up and maybe I will add a no soliciting sign to my personal office door as well.

Posted at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (4)

I have written about him time and time again in the family and RustyBrick categories, most recently the post named My Brother & Sister-in-Law Had a Baby Girl Last Night.

In any event, Taylor Pratt wrote about The Secret to Becoming an SEO Celebrity and mentioned something about me possibly having "an identical twin" or a "clone" of myself. Although I don't have an "identical" twin, I do have a twin brother. The guy in the picture in the post.

He and I own and run RustyBrick. He is basically the behind the scenes man at the company. He actually came up with the name RustyBrick in high school, based on his initials are RBS, so it was RustyBrickSoftware until we formed a real business and wanted to keep it short and made it RustyBrick. More on our old name and old web sites over here.

So, yes, I have a twin that helps me tremendously. He handles the day to day RustyBrick stuff. I get the client, get them going and then he is the one who gets his hands dirty with the day to day. I would not be able to do all the blogging I do without him.

I can talk a lot more about him but I'll spare you all. For those who did not know, now you do. I got a twin brother.

Posted at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (3)

I skipped Friday from Thursday, because nothing really significant happened Friday day. Now, although Avi was officially Bar Mitzvah'ed on Thursday, Shabbos (Friday night and Saturday) was a continuation of that celebration.

The plan was for many of us to meet at the kotel and pray Shabbos night services there. Many of us took taxi's prior to Shabbos beginning and got there early to prepare for services. When we arrived, we secured a place to pray in about the same location as on Thursday. As more people came, we decided to start. If I remember correctly, Avi lead services for both afternoon and evening services.

The thing is, soon after we started two new groups formed in front and behind us. The ones behind us were a Carlebach group, extremely loud. Then in front of us was a "mission" from the US. Great cause, they basically take a group of children who are ill, to Israel for a week or so, to experience it. So that group, although very nice, was a bit loud, as you can imagine. It was almost impossible to hear Avi lead us, but we managed.

After services, we walked back to the area of our hotels. It was about 20 - 30 minutes to walk, but it was a bit hilly. My sister and brother-in-law reserved the OU Center in Jerusalem for the shabbos meals. They had a caterer and more at this place, and it turned out very nice. They hosted meals for Friday night, Saturday day and Saturday night. Shabbos morning, we held services at the OU Center, where Avi read the whole Parsha Trumah, as opposed to just the first Aliyah, which is done during the weekday. He read perfectly and he wasn't nervous. When I did that, I was extremely nervous. Yes, he was only in front of 30 or so close friends and family, while I was in front of hundreds who were looking for me to make mistakes - but still, impressive for a 13 year-old.

My wife wasn't feeling well, so after the meal, we went back to our hotel and tried to sleep a bit. Then came back to the OU center for the third-meal. After that, we were pretty much done with Israel. It was time to go back to the airport to catch our flight to Newark. More on that later...

Posted at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Religion , Travels | Comments (1)

Last night was an exciting night for me and my family. My twin-brother, who is the co-owner and founder of RustyBrick (which some of you may or may not know, he is the behind the scenes guy) and his wife had a little baby girl last night.

My brother left work a bit early in anticipation of the delivery. I get a call that it is likely going to happen. That night, my sister-in-law's mother and aunt were coming in from Texas. My brother was the one who was going to pick them up, but obviously he could not. So I offered and drove to pick them up at Newark (yea, I have been to Newark Airport a lot this week). About 10 minutes from driving back home, we find out they had a baby girl.

So instead of taking them to Ronnie's home, I take them directly to the hospital. I drop them off in front and then park the car. I then go up to the room to check out my new niece. Of course, I snap a picture on my iPhone - the one you see above. The mother, father and baby are all doing well.

I then snapped a picture of the fresh foot prints. We literally got there within 30 minutes of the baby being born, so the ink on that paper is still wet.

Cute kid, no? That makes for a second girl!

Posted at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (5)

Thursday was Avi, my oldest nephew, Bar Mitzvah - the day he became of age to be counted as a man in the Jewish world.

We all met at the Kotel, Western Wall, in the morning. I had to hunt down a representative that would secure a table for us to use during morning services. I finally found the guy, he brought me a table amongst the masses of people (keep in mind it was a new month and a Thursday, so lot's going on at the Kotel that day). He told me to stand and guard the table until more people came. But then they needed me for pictures, so we got someone to take my place while I did some pictures. Then we all went to the Kotel, by the table, for morning services. We got a position near the men and women dividing wall (mechitza (spelling)), so the women can see what was going on.

Avi's brother, second oldest son, Jeremy lead the introductory part of the morning services. Then two of my brother-in-law's friends did the rest of the services. The picture above is of Avi reading the Torah. I was honored with one of the alyiahs. He did a great job!

During all of this, we had a very loud group behind us. It was this Carlebach group behind us, and as some of you know, they can get loud. But we survived and finished up services. After services we all either walked or took a taxi to the event hall for the party.

When I got to the event hall, I helped my sister set up her computer to the projector. The first problem we had was that there was only one outlet and we had two things to plug in. So they got us a plug that expanded into two. Then when I tried out the outlet, I noticed the power wasn't working. So I asked them for an extension cord so we can try an outlet that was further away. They didn't have an extension cord, so they built one on the spot for me. When that was built, I was a bit afraid to plug the devices into it, cause it can fry the computer and projector. I took my chances and it worked out perfectly.

The party was very nice, the food was good, the music was good, the speeches were nice as well. The dessert was also very good. And yes, there was dancing and more pictures. I was very impressed on how well everything went.

That was the Bar Mitzvah, after the Bar Mitzvah - we did a few other things to extend the event. More to come on that in later posts.

Posted at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Travels | Comments (0)

To continue my documentation of my Israel trip... Monday morning, my wife visited her friends in Bet Shemesh, a city in Israel's Jerusalem District, home, as of 2006 to 68,400 people. While she visited her friend, I was allowed to do some work that morning.

Then after work, I met my nephews, brother, brother-in-law and father in Mesharim where they did a tour of places like the Mir Yeshiva and other historic places in Mesharim. From there, we took one taxi and my brother's car back to his home in Beitar Illit, where my wife met me. All the kids got together and my nephews saw their cousins home for the first time. It was cool.

My wife and I left around dinner time to meet friends. We ate at a place not far from our hotel, while the rest of the family ate in Beitar.

The picture above is of the Rosh (head) Yeshiva of Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel, Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel.

Posted at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Travels | Comments (1)

To continue my documentation of my Israel trip, I'll pick up from leaving beitar. So we take a taxi from Beitar to Jerusalem with my parents. I know I am getting a good deal on that taxi ride because my brother or sister-in-law speak the language and if you speak the language, you don't get ripped off.

The guy drops me off at the hotel, the bellhop takes our piles and piles of bags (99% of it not being mine). They initially tell us our room isn't available but then a minute later, they said it was now available. So instead of leaving our stuff with the bellhop, he brings it up to our room. I give him some US dollars, which is now not worth as much as it was a year or two ago in Israel. We put our stuff down, I lock my precious laptop in the safe and we head to Cup O Joe for drinks and free WiFi.

I order something to drink and my wife does as well. I then pull out my iPhone and I see I can connect to a network for free. I connect and download emails to my iPhone. A guy then comes over to me and asks me if I was using an iPhone (the first of many comments on my iPhone while traveling in Israel). Oh, forgot to mention, Israel's airport as some sweet fast Internet, downloaded email there as well. We continue to drink, while I mess around with email - knowing that WiFi is a security risk but willing to take the risk at that time.

After Cup O Joe we go to both Geula and Ben Yehuda street to do some "shopping." That is where I found the touch of Google in Jerusalem, by the way...

I quickly learn that not only do I hate shopping in American stores, I also hate shopping in Israeli stores. I get this tiring and sick feeling going into a store, hard to explain. Anyway, as my wife looks for stuff to buy, I try to pick up free Wifi spots in town. The most popular network I was able to find was Unwire Jerusalem.

We go into a few stores and my wife buys some stuff from one of them. Now this guy is a smooth talker. Everything 50% off. I like you, this costs X but Ill give it to you for Y. No tourism, need to make a sale... Etc. Etc. The whole time my wife is saying, what a great deal and I am thinking, we are getting ripped off. In any event, thinking like that while on vacation is not healthy, so we buy some things, which in hindsight, were probably good deals.

Then I finally convince my wife to head back to the hotel. As we begin to walk back, we bump into my parents who are going to lunch. So, being frugal, I latch on and score a free meal at a popular restaurant in town. Then we all walk back to our respective lodges.

At that point, I sign up for a week's worth of Internet at the hotel. The hotel speed is grossly over prices and incredibly slow. I do some email processing, some feeds, etc and then I think we go out to dinner, just the two of us, at a nice place.

Anyway, I learned that day - that shopping in Israel also makes me feel ill.

Posted at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Food , Shopping , Travels | Comments (7)

So after my my flight to Israel, my brother picked us up in a van and drove us back to his home in Beitar Illit. Beitar Illit is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, just outside of Jerusalem. It is also known as one of the most Jewish orthodox communities in the world.

As soon as we arrived, my two nieces and sister-in-law were waiting outside for us. So were several dozen other kids, who happen to be watching a broken down bus in front of my brother's home. After we made our way with our bags past the heard of children, we said our hellos. I then skipped into the room with Internet and began working. Pause...

My brother just upgraded to a higher connection 5mbps or something like that. The new ISP controls his wireless router, and uses mac addresses to give access. The issue is, my computer would not connect, so I used a hard wire. But when we called to ask the ISP why, we got a weird response. So here is that story...

My brother calls his ISP. After telling the tech rep the story, the tech rep decided to get his supervisor on, since he couldn't figure it out. His supervisor comes on and starts talking to my brother. My brother tried to tell him what the issue was, but the supervisor would not listen. So the original tech guy told his supervisor to listen to my brother. Then the supervisor told the original tech guy, "you don't tell me what to do!" and hung up the phone. The original tech guy said, "hello, hello, are you there" to his supervisor and then hung up. We were left without an answer. That is typical Israel for you. :)

Since I arrived late, I was unable to do the billing that day. Instead, I just did the feeds for Danny, which was good timing for him. I then did some forum stuff and organized a trillion emails. Then an hour or so later was shabbos. We showered before shabbos and then turned off our work stuff and went to synagogue (shul). At shul I saw a childhood friend that moved to the community there, so that was a nice surprise.

Then we came back and my sister-in-law fed us like we never ate before - yes, I was in heaven. :) Then some chatting and then sleep. Then the same thing Saturday day.

Shabbos ended and I went back on the computer to do more email (all the emails from the Friday workday), tons... Then after email, I did all the billing. After a couple of hours, I was then able to finish billing and then did some of the feeds and more work. Felt bad but it had to get done. Then I went back to the family to do family stuff.

Sunday AM we left Baitar to go to Jerusalem and our hotel. More on that later...

Posted at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Travels | Comments (2)

Last night was a historic night for my oldest nephew, Avi. As reported on the ASHAR Hockey site, my nephew scored his first goal ever, in an official elementary school game.

And I quote:

The big goal of the night came late in the game from defenseman Avi Borgen who took a pass back at the point and lasered it towards the net passed a screened Aaron Turkel.

Avi Borgen, he is my nephew. Congrats Avi on the goal!

I actually always hoped Avi would be more into basketball but his father influenced him in a different direction - Hockey. Well, I guess that is his father's problem now, since hockey is a much more expensive sport to be involved with. Joke is on you!

I guess hockey is your sport and it shows! Congrats again and I am sure you will be scoring plenty of goals this year and throughout your life!

Posted at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Sports | Comments (7)

This morning, my oldest nephew put on Tefillin (תפילין) for the first time. It took place at his elementary day school, the same place I put on Tefillin for the first time. But yes, times have changed a bit since then at that school.

What is Tefillin? The picture above shows what they look like. Wikipedia has a bunch of pictures showing people wearing Tefillin. Orthodox Jewish males above the age of 13 where it every day except for Shabbos and special holidays. We wear them during morning services.

My nephew turns 13 in about a month. He will have his Bar Mitzvah when he is 13 in Israel. Yes, my trip and the SphinnCon Israel event coincide with the Bar Mitzvah for a reason. It is customary for a Jewish boy to put on Tefillin about a month prior to his Bar Mitzvah to learn how to properly wear and hold the responsibilities of the mitzvah.

In any event - they had some dunkin donuts at the end. :)

Posted at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Religion | Comments (2)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Now, how did I get in there?

Image warped from this site.

Posted at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (1)

Mr American brother-in-law sent me an article named Children's Day: 30% of Israel's Jewish Population are Children. It basically explains that 30% of the Israeli Jewish population are kids. Looking at other countries, Israel is not too far off. 25% of the US population are kids also.

But then I read deeper and the kid to adult ratio is unusually high in the city my brother lives in. My brother lives in one of the most Jewish orthodox cities in the world, it is named Beitar Illit (ביתר עילית‎). Beitar has tons of children, actually 63% of the population there are kids.

I've been to Beitar to visit my brother, my sister-in-law and their two kids a few times. I didn't particularly notice an overwhelming number of kids. But when I go in February, I will make sure to be looking for it.

Wikipedia has some stats but I can't confirm it is 100% accurate:

According to Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), in 2001, the ethnic makeup of the city was 100.0% Jewish, consisting of 8,900 males and 8,400 females. The predominantly Haredi population of the city was spread out with 62.9% 19 years of age or younger, 18.1% between 20 and 29, 14.6% between 30 and 44, 3.4% from 45 to 59, 0.4% from 60 to 64, and 0.7% 65 years of age or older. The population growth rate in 2001 was 9.6%. According to the statistics from the Ministry of Interior, the population figures for January 2007 there are 34,427 members listed on their computers and 29,404 citizens that are listed as active.

For more on Beitar, I guess check out this web site.

Oh, one more tidbit from the article that Tamar may enjoy....

As in the past eight years, Noa was the most popular girls' name, and has become even more so. It was given to 3.4% of the baby girls born in 2006, compared to 3% the year before. The next-most popular names were Shira, Maya, Yael, Tamar, Sarah, Roni, Agam, Michal, Adi and Talya.

On the SMX Israel front, I should have more good news on that shortly.

Posted at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (0)

Wow, it was so weird sleeping in a new house yesterday. We moved from a small place to a fairly large home, so it was just weird.

After a long day of moving (which I will blog about later), you finally put everything away and then get ready for bed. Then it hits you. Wow, this is mine, this house, well - it is mine in 30 years, I guess.

My parents brought Chinese food over for dinner last night. We ate in our new kitchen. It was very nice. kind of surreal. Until one of the RB servers started acting up. But then the server issues got better and I was able to enjoy the moment again.

Waking up this morning at 5:40 am (EST), was weird. I look around and its not my old place. But then I go through the routine and get out of the door normal time. I then learn that I am 7 minutes further from my synagogue than I once was, so I now need to set my clock 7 minutes earlier. I will miss those seven minutes, but its for a good cause.

Thank Yous:

My mother was absolutely outstanding. She was with my wife and I most of the day. She helped with all our packing. She was there when the movers came and loaded the trucks. She was critical in last minute packing. Then she was there to unload us and unpack with my wife. She bought us dinner and even more importantly "shepped nachas" from my wife and I. I can't express enough how much we both appreciate that.

My wife. Well, she did most of the packing with my mother. She actually got the whole house done the same day we moved. I woke up this morning and my clothing was in the dressers. Wow. I would say 99% is done, expect for the 1% that I have to finish. So huge thanks to the wife for doing this all and taking the leap to the new house and community.

Also need to thank my dad for helping at the end and at the beginning figuring out all this house stuff. He has helped countless times with this move.

Sister and brother-in-law for the garbage cans, tables, misc items and welcoming us in to their community. Oh, I am sure we will be eating over by them on Saturdays very often. So lots of pre-thank yous for all of that.

My brother and sister-in-law in Israel for providing halachic guidance during this time.

My brother and sister-in-law in America, my brother was critical in helping set up the network in the house last night. Which got my online with FiOS and got my phone line working with Vonage.

The in-laws for their support with all of this. As well as my sister-in-laws and brother-in-law. Friends. Cable guy, Verizon guy, movers... I hope I didn't forget anyone or anything.

Next up, the moving experience.

Posted at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Homey | Comments (3)

Some times, my wife asks me to give her a wake up call.

Back when I had my Treo, that required me to make a new event or use a 3rd party alarm application. This resulted in me often forgetting to call my wife to wake her up at the time she specified. She learned to not trust my wake up calls.

But now, that I have the iPhone, I am now a trustworthy wake up call specialist. She gives me a time, I plug it in, it buzzes and me, I call and we are all very happy.

The iPhone, a device that makes for happy marriages.

It is pretty cool how it works. You go to the clock application, then click on the alarm icon at the bottom. Then you add a new alarm and you can schedule it to repeat on specific days, customize the alert tones, add if you want a snooze option and then scroll the little time pad up and down to the time you want the alarm to go off.

It is pretty neat.

Posted at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Category: Apple Macs , Family , iPhone | Comments (5)

The other week, I was looking for a way to email private photos to a friend without requiring them to sign up with Flickr.

Remember I was upset in the past that there was no way to do this? And then the founder of Flickr told me it is on its way...

Well, it is here and has been here for a while now and I didn't even know!

On November 20, 2006, Flickr released a feature called Guest Pass.

Basically, you can email a photo set to up to 50 people, granting them access to that set or more for an unlimited or set time frame.

To share photos, you must add those photos to a set. After you do that, click on the set and click "Share this set."

Then it will take you to a page like this, simply fill it out.

Click send and presto. Yes, you can invite people to see pictures even if they are already contacts, which is nice for those who forget their passwords. :)

What is also nice is you can view your "guest passes" and send them again, see if they were used and also "expire" them so they no longer work.

You can do that at your Guest Pass History page.

I cannot believe I missed this feature until recently.

Flickr now totally rocks!

Posted at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Rambling | Comments (0)

My wife works with children who are hard of hearing.

This video demonstrates some of the social and political challenges the deaf community has gone through. It also shows the achievements.

Posted at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (1)

The whole doctor being poor post got me thinking a bit about costs.

Specifically, what it costs to be what is called a "Modern Orthodox Jew" in the New York Tri-State area. Now, I do not have a family yet, so I don't have these costs. I also do not know exactly how much each item costs, but I took educated guesses in my numbers.

The biggest item is tuition. I would guess if you had four or five kids in private school, they would give you a break on tuition. Imagine $60,000 a year for four kids, $75,000 for five kids. I assume you get a discount as you keep adding kids. Keep in mind, all your kids are not the same age, so then you have High School and college.

Another thing about being an orthodox Jew and living in New York is that you have to really live in a "Jewish neighborhood." Homes are simply not cheap in NY, especially in areas where there is demand set by having to be in walking distance to a local synagogue. A typically home in Teaneck, NJ would go for a $800,000 to $1.2M on average. Out by me, maybe $600,000 to $850,000 on average. Brooklyn, Manhattan, forget about it. Figure your mortgage will cost you at least $40,000 per year with taxes, if you bought now.

These numbers may be off, but I think the approximates are not bad. I can be wrong, if so, feel free to correct me.

Honestly, these numbers seem too high. Something doesn't seem right...

Posted at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Religion | Comments (15)

I blog so much that even my family members and friends want to know if they will be on the blog soon.

If I am with friends or family and we are doing something interesting or even ordinary, they joke. "So will this be on your blog today?"

In fact, this happened a few times in the past week. Once when I was at a "guy's night out" last week, they asked if I would blog about it. I did not, but I guess now I am. It also happened with family this weekend, where one family member asked if I would blog about the meal I ate.

So although I decided not to blog about those two events, I am actually blogging about those two events.

Makes you wonder...

Posted at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Category: Blogging , Family | Comments (7)

Yesterday, my inlaws flew in from STL and are staying by my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's home in NJ. So we drove there to celebrate July 4th.

My brother-in-law cooked up tons of meat on his BBQ. There must have been five full chickens, two dozen hamburgers, six or more steaks, and these huge hot dogs.

I personally ate two large pieces of white meat chicken, two burgers, and a few piece of the hot dogs. Great job - broinlaw! Oh, nice job cleaning up also.

Then the home made brownies came out - ouch!

Oh, there were salads and stuff like that - but it just took up space on the table. :)

Makes me hungry now thinking about it.

If you missed the Search Engine Roundtable's July Fourth theme, here is a screen cap:

Posted at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Food | Comments (2)

Remember, this Friday I posted My Condo For Sale in Monsey - Home For Sale?

There I said, I was hoping to achieve top rankings in Google for terms like [condo for sale in monsey], [monsey condo], [apartment for sale in monsey], [monsey home for sale] and so on.

Well, I checked Saturday night, and I am doing pretty well.

- condo for sale in monsey

Notice the Flickr results are mine also, so I have three of the top four results for that search.

- monsey condo

Top four listings here

- apartment for sale in monsey

That is Tamar mocking me moving to a house, which links to my post.

- monsey home for sale

#2, not bad.

Will it last? I doubt it. Since this is fresh content, Google will give it some love for some time. Hopefully by then, I would have sold.

So step one, complete. I will send any leads to my agent.

Step two, is to sell.

Posted at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Homey , SEO Tips | Comments (5)

Who knew that when I bought my condo in Monsey that I would be looking to sell a year and a half later?

Well I am potentially looking to sell my condo now. It was a scary decision but I think the right one.

Why is it scary? Well, I simply bought at the peak, so I will have to take a loss on the condo. But at the same time, I don't think the loss will be more than what it would have cost to rent for the past two years or so.

We are just ready to buy a real home and it is exciting but at the same time - a bit scary, as I said.

The good thing is that our condo is in great condition to sell. It was completely renovated two years ago before we moved. I mean completely! The condo management did all the work themselves, so it was done right. They knocked down the walls, gutted all the piping, redid the whole kitchen and wood floors. I had them add a small room for a washer and dryer, which required them to install a new circuit breaker and water lines into that area of the condo. I also added two new air conditioners that are both energy efficient and powerful. In addition, the condo has one of the largest, if not the largest, patio of all condos. The neighbors are nice and friendly also.

I put a lot into the condo and I expect to make less of the purchase price of the condominium. Yes, this is sad. But it is currently a buyers market, so I am on both ends. I am selling and buying. The location is where most people in Monsey want to be. I live in a very orthodox Jewish area - in the heart of Monsey. I would be moving far out to a less Jewish dense area, but into a full home (hopefully about an acre). No, I did not find a home yet, I won't until I know I can sell the condo.

Here is a picture of the condo I took at about 6am this morning from the outside (a bit dark outside then):

Any tips for a first time home seller?

OH: If you are interested in buying this condominium or know someone who is interested, let me know. How? I guess use the RustyBrick contact form and I will get it.

Posted at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Homey | Comments (9)

Yesterday, we had exactly and hour to spare, so my wife and I decided to drive to Bear Mountain, up by the west bank of the Hudson River.

It is about 20 minutes away from us, so we drove up, and took Perkins Memorial Drive to the top. We parked, got out, my wife took this picture of me next to the bear. We got back into the car and drove back down.

The drive was nice (especially with the top down), so I suspect we will go back. There is a lot to do there, but I am not really the nature or outdoors type of guy. My Treo did work in most areas, so that was good to know.

I know my wife wants to take her parents here when they come to visit from St. Louis.

Plenty to do, like: Biking, Boat Rentals, Dockage , Fishing, Food, Gift Shop, Hiking, Ice Skating, Museum/Vistor Center, Nature Trail, Picnic Tables, Playground, Playing Field(s), Pool, and X-Country Skiing.

We then drove for a birthday/fathers day BBQ.

Posted at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Travels | Comments (3)

My brother and partner at RustyBrick, Ronnie, purchased an electric drum set a while back. He bought it because the neighbors did not like the noise from his real drum set.

Well, eventually, he had to move it to RustyBrick, because his kid was kinda getting to it and breaking it.

He actually hooked it up to his iTunes library on his computer so that he doesn't need to sync his iPod anymore.

Posted at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Music , RustyBrick | Comments (2)

Yesterday, I had to unfortunately fly to St. Louis last minute. Late Friday afternoon, I got word from my wife that her grandfather passed away. Although the passing was expected, one is truly never fully ready for such an event. I won't talk more about the funeral, because some things are best kept private in some situations.

My brother-in-law, the same one who mistakenly thought "The Algorithm" was Google, booked the flights. He booked his flight and my flight on the same schedule.

The whole immediate family in New York flew in to St. Louis on a Sunday morning flight at 7:55am. The funeral was early afternoon. The funeral was over at about 3pm. On the way back from the funeral, we looked up the next flight out. It was at 4:10pm. Our flight was scheduled for 7:20pm. So we decided to go to the airport and see if we can get on the 4:10pm flight. Why? Well, it was raining and there was a chance that we would not make it back at all that night. Just my brother-in-law and I were scheduled to fly out that night. When we got back from the funeral, there were tons of people in the house. One of the people offered to drive us to the airport, so my brother-in-law, my wife (who came for the ride) and I took off to the airport.

We arrived at the airport about 3:40pm, asked the lady if it looks good for standby on the 4:10. She said, there are about 25 seats open, so it looks good. We got to the gate after going through security (I picked up some geek travel tips) and the guy at the gate said it should be no problem. Ten minutes later, he called folks on standby and we got on.

Now get this....

We ask for a seat together, they give us the first row behind first class. Row 7. In addition, there was no person between us in the 3 row seat. Wonderful seats. I am not done.... Typically, if you are sitting in the higher rows, your "Group Number," the numbers they call when they board you, is the last one. So folks in the back of the plane have group number one, while folks in the front of the plane have group number six. We actually got group number one.

People are walking by me while I sit in row 7, and I feel like I cheated them. I always wonder how so many people get on before me, and are sitting so far upfront, when I should be in a higher group number. Now I was one of them!

In any event, it was a nice flight. Seats were excellent. Landed at 7:30pm as opposed to 11pm (which rocked). This was my first flight where I went and came in under 12 hours. Had a nice conversation with my brother-in-law. And the drive back was pretty decent.

All of this in light of a sad day.

Posted at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Travels | Comments (4)

As you now know, today is my first wedding anniversary. I will be leaving work shortly to spend the rest of the day with the wife.

I wanted to share with you what she got me for an anniversary present. Well, she asked me what I wanted, and I said, a tie rack. I always kept all my ties on hangers, it was a pain to get to ties that were under an other tie. So yesterday, she bought me the ultimate tie rack.

The Sharper Image PowerTie Motorized Tie Rack. This thing either operates on batteries or AC plug. It goes in both directions, and has an emergency, detachable flashlight, if needed. It mounts on all different closet types. I installed in already and my wife put all my ties on, in some logical order that I don't fully appreciate.

So now I can browse through 72 ties in 20 seconds! Except on the Shabbos. :)

Thanks Wife!

Posted at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (2)

A little over a week ago, I posted that it was my Hebrew Anniversary: 1st of Sivan (סִיוָן). Well, today, it is my English anniversary. A year ago today (it was a Sunday), my wife and I got married in St. Louis, MO.

A lot of the history of how I about barry page. But let me revisit some of the past year, at least things I publicly wrote here.

On October 2, 2005, I proposed via Ask Jeeves to my wife. It got lots of buzz and inspired others with ideas on how to propose to their girl friends. On May 25, 2006, I went off to get married, which took place the Sunday after, on May 28, 2006.

The shopping began, returning stuff to stores, yada yada. I expressed my dislike to shopping. I also expressed my appreciation to my friends for the BBQ grill, a sweet wedding present. Another cool gift was the Philips 7FF1AW Digital Photo Frame and I have to thank Matt Cutts for his donation. I also can't believe how much stuff I had to move to get my wife moved in, but it turned out not to be that bad - or was I wrong!

I talked about our great adventure to see one of the world's largest Amoco signs, but does that top my Leaning Tower of Snapple story? Talking about great blog posts, my post on scoleciphobia took off pretty well, ahem...

Anyway, since getting married, I not only traveled for business, I traveled for pleasure. So it started adding up. I blogged about The Traveling Geek and then followed it up with an analytical comparison of Traveling With The Wife Vs. Traveling Without The Wife. Deep, deep thoughts... But sometimes, I was able to convince my wife to join me on business, here is a nice picture of my wife, Danny Sullivan and myself at Google (note: I also visited Google NYC thanks to Vanessa. Once, we saw Jesse Jackson at the airport. But then, my wife thought it would be fun to travel with out me - no fun. I then encouraged my wife to come on business again but she really just wanted to see her friends.

Then came weight issues. I knew I had a serious problem with my addiction towards Super Double Big Gulps, I guess admitting I had a problem was the first step. I then started my new no soda diet, which now means just drink Fresca at home. Oh, apparently, I also have a dressing problem. I think the diet caused my to break out in hives but who knows for sure? I know it wasn't from wearing a wedding ring, because I don't do that.

We even expressed credit card fraud - yes a true sign of a successful marriage is when you get through not having a credit card for a week and still remain married. ;-) But then we almost got Cell Phone 9 Scam but it turned out ok. But all was good, I was able to buy Leopard slippers for my wife. But then I was invited to Hugh Hefner's Vegas Suit in Palms Hotel, which required me to buy a robotic cleaning pet to make sure our home was in order - which is was. But one of our worst traveling days together, turned out to be awesome - which I was too happy about.

Any who... How fitting is it that our first year of marriage, my favorite baseball team loses to her favorite baseball team in the playoffs? I.e. Mets lose to Cardinals and Cardinals won it all, which was great. Even thought it may be considered the most dangerous city in the U.S., I was still proud.

After that, Danny, Chris, myself and others made the move from Search Engine Watch to Search Engine Land.

My wife and I went out our honeymoon on January 7, 2007. Here is the picture of the plane that took us to Israel. We looked at my old soccer field, we visited the kotel, almost got scammed by a woman, then almost died from electrocution, visited a client who has a picture by Bucky Schwartz (no joke), saw Israel in miniature form, went to the zoo, and finally yad vashem. I was happy that Canon fixed our camera as a honeymoon present, thank you Canon!

Since then we have been religiously been going out for Thursday night dinners, I always look forward to them. Even when my car gets stuck in the snow time and time again. But then I realized I need to hire a sidekick so I can free some of my time up - has it helped? Yea, a bit and should help more and more as time goes on. Where will I spend that time? Wife? Well, I did get a new PlayStation 3. Just kidding. I had a birthday, where my wife took me to one of my favorite places to eat, I like simple food.

Well that was our first year together. At least the stuff I blogged about.

Get ready.... Here is some mushy stuff...

In all honesty, people say the first year of marriage is a couple's hardest. I can honestly say, this was the easiest and most enjoyable year of my life.

Posted at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (0)

Today is the first Hebrew anniversary for my wife and I. The Hebrew day is the 1st of Sivan (סִיוָן), also known as Rosh Chodesh (1st of the month) Sivan. We got married a year ago today, which was May 28th (a week and two days) from now in the English Calendar.

More about our wedding at the about barry page.

My wife and I really don't celebrate this anniversary but it is easy to remember, since it is on Rosh Chodesh. But we will celebrate, some how, our english anniversary.

It has been a good good year.

Good weekend all.

Posted at 7:16 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (2)

My wife asked me to mail a couple cards last night, but we didn't have any stamps at home. So I took it to work where I have a Postage Meter from Pitney Bowes.

I stamped the cards already but is it impersonal to send cards via the mail addressed with a business meter?

I mean, there is no way you would send out wedding invitations with a postage meter stamping them all (although I think that would be the best way to do that). So in this case, did I do something wrong?

Posted at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (7)

Monday and Tuesday, my wife and I will be at my parents for the last days of Passover.

For you SEO people, I will be off the blog until Wednesday. The other authors will be writing, plus we will have live SES NYC coverage Tuesday.

I will be joining the rest of you at SES NY on Wednesday.

See you there!

Happy Pesach!

Posted at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Religion | Comments (0)

My sister, brother-in-law and their four boys are at my parents this week for Passover. I was there this Friday night through Saturday night.

So I played Monopoly with my two oldest nephews. I think they are 12 and 9.

I totally destroyed them.

I bought several properties. Then I made an offer to my 9 year-old nephew to purchase St. James Place and Ventnor Avenue for two of the railroads and $100. He agreed and I was then able to purchase hotels on the orange properties, which I did right away. It paid off, I earned enough money back right away to purchase several homes on the yellow properties, and then finally enough to purchase hotels on that properties. It was then just time until the 9 year old was bankrupt. Then it was on to the 12 year old. He landed on Marvin Gardens with not enough money to pay the full amount. So he sold me States Avenue for $200. I purchased hotels on the purple properties and then waited.

I am ruthless...

Posted at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (6)

Last night I had to do an airport run. My brother, sister-in-law and two nieces were flying in from Israel (via Air France). I volunteered to pick them up.

The problem is, the Air France web site doesn't update their flight status page too often. So when I got there, I was not sure if they landed. Some web sites said they did land, some said they did not. So as I approach terminal 1 and JFK airport, I glide by the terminal looking for those familiar faces. I do this a few times, going out the terminal 1 exit, back into terminal 1 and then back again.

At some point, I see if I can sit and wait. I tried several positions. Up in front, in the middle, at the end, double parked, in the itty bitty corner --- none worked. So I continue my drive in circles.

Finally I spot them and they hope in the car with their two dozen suitcases for the 1 hour and 15 minute drive home.

They are in the states for the next month or so.

Posted at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (0)

Diamond Vues points to a Binary Wedding Band from GreenKarat.com.

The ring in the picture reads "A Marriage of Values."

But you can have almost any message you want on your ring, well - in Binary.

I would wear one of these puppies, just like I would wear the anniversary reminding ring.

But honestly, I would prefer the binary ring, if I had to wear a ring. Which I do not.

Funny, because I just came back from the bank. The banker asked me if I was married. I said yes. He asked, you don't wear a ring? I said, correct.

Posted at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Just Interesting , Shopping | Comments (3)

I kind of turned it into the night I take my wife out for dinner.

Past few weeks, I convinced my wife to go out for dinner on Thursday night. She accepted most of the times. And now, my wife emailed me from work, asking "are we going out to eat on a date?"

I replied, "Are you asking me out on a date? ;-)"

She said, "Yes, but no electronics allowed."

Hmm... Made me pause for a minute.

But she deserves it. And I look forward to it.

Posted at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (4)

My brother, Ronnie, sent me an invite to Geni, a site that is basically a linkedin concept, but for family. The site is very cool and a lot of fun. It works where you (1) build out your own profile and (2) build your family tree.

What is it in short?

Geni is a website that allows families to collaboratively build their family tree. Family members can then use the tree to learn more about each other, share knowledge about common ancestors and relatives, and stay in touch with each other.

(1) Your own profile is information about you such as, where you work, how tall you are, your education, methods to contact you and your interests.

(2) Your family tree is where it gets cool...

It builds out this Web 2.0 enabled (Flash tools) family tree, where you can keep adding branches too. For example, look at this screen shot...

Here you see a picture of me, and you see I clicked on the left arrow. That opens up a branch for me to add a brother, sister or wife. So I went ahead and invited my wife, who is now on my right (but you don't see that). My brother invited my other siblings, so I didn't have to invite them. Above me you see my dad on the top left and my mom (I blurred her out) on the top right. My dad can then add his brothers and sisters, plus branch up to his parents (if he wanted to plot that information).

The cool part is that if my wife branches out, her family tree can then grow and I can see it. This grows virally and what is best, it up keeps itself, by user participation. So far, I think it rocks.

There is a complete FAQ over here and you can check out their blog here.

Posted at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (3)

My wife are now married around 7 months and we are going to be going on our honeymoon. I will be away for about ten days. I posted a programming note with Search Engine Roundtable coverage schedule for the next ten days or so.

I actually hope to post stories and pictures here during the honeymoon. We will be in Israel, Jerusalem, specifically, for most the trip. But I do have plans to meet with clients and possibly visit Google's office (if time allows) while in Tel Aviv. Both my wife and I have family and friends in Israel, and we hope to connect with most of them.

Last time I was in Israel was after SES Sweden in late October 2004. I actually flew to Sweden, from NY to Denmark, then stayed in Sweden overnight for the two day conference. I then flew from Sweden to Denmark, to London, to Israel. I stayed in Israel for the weekend. I then took a direct flight back from Israel to New York. I can tell you, I was so tired after all that flying.

This trip will be more relaxing, just two flight, both direct. It is still a long flight, but direct is nice.

Before my October 2004 trip, I was in Israel twice before. Once for another brief visit. But I did spend a school year in Israel, after I completed high-school, but before college. For half of the school year, I spent my time in the Old City the remainder of the year, I spent my time in in Jerusalem still but in a area named Geula.

So it will be nice taking a break. I am a bit nervous about leaving everything here, just my nature but I will try to relax about it. I am sure I will enjoy the trip, it will be fun and the best is my wife gets me to herself (except for two hours per day of Internet) for the whole trip.

Posted at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Travels | Comments (7)

I hear that my nephews, sister's four boys, have discovered this blog. So I wanted to say hi to Avi, Jeremy, Zachary and Aaron.

Avi is the oldest, in about a year, he will celebrate his Bar Mitzvah.

Jeremy is second line line, when he was born, I was stuck watching Avi. I decided to dress Avi in black jeans, a black thermal undershirt, black shoes and black sunglasses. I think that is how he met his first brother, dresses all in black. (I may be wrong)...

Then came Zachary. Hey Zachary! He was born in my sister's and brother-in-law's new house. I didn't have the privilege of dressing him to meet his youngest brother (to come soon). But I think I did my share of watching over him, I remember too many times where he wouldn't go to sleep when I was responsible for watching him.

Finally, there is Aaron, the youngest. He gets away with a lot, being the youngest. But don't all babies in the family get away with stuff? I am told I did, and I am the youngest in my family.

Welcome to the blog guys!

This post is approved by their dad.

Posted at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (2)

Thanksgiving is my most favorite holiday. I am a huge turkey fan and that is what this day is about for me. Turkey! Football is a plus, but the Jets rarely play on Thanksgiving...

Gary Price sent me a link to the US Census Facts For Features: Thanksgiving Day - Nov. 23, 2006. Here are some highlights:

265 million
The preliminary estimate of turkeys raised in the United States in 2006. That’s up 3 percent from 2005. The turkeys produced in 2005 together weighed 7.2 billion pounds and were valued at $3.2 billion. (Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service at )

45 million
The preliminary estimate of turkeys Minnesota expects to raise in 2006. The Gopher State is tops in turkey production. It is followed by North Carolina (37 million), Arkansas (30 million), Virginia (22.5 million), Missouri (21.5 million) and California (16 million). These six states together will probably account for about 65 percent of U.S. turkeys produced in 2006. (Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service at )

$1.07
Cost per pound of a frozen whole turkey in December 2005. (Source: Upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007.)

Thanks Gary!

We spent Thanksgiving this year at my sister-in-law, the in-laws came in. Some good Turkey...

Posted at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (0)

Bloomberg reports that St. Louis, the birth city of my wife and the home of my in-laws, is the most dangerous city in the United States of America.

The Missouri city topped a list of 371 metropolitan areas in an assessment of 2005 FBI statistics for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft.

What is most upsetting is the rate of change in crime seen in St. Louis.

The Midwest experienced the steepest increase in violent crime, 5.7 percent, in the U.S. in 2005, according to FBI figures released in June. The murder rate in St. Louis jumped 16 percent compared to 4.8 percent nationally.

To me, it always seemed like such a nice and friendly place. Maybe since I don't spend my time downtown?

Posted at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Travels | Comments (7)

I am not a huge fan of wearing accessories, i.e. rings, watches, hair styles, designer cloths, sweat bands, etc. But one accessory I would wear is this high tech Anniversary Ring. Judah at Diamond Vues reports via Gizmodo that this ring heats up to 120 degrees fahrenheit for "10 seconds, every hour, on the hour, beginning 24 hours before" your anniversary date.

Not only is it stylish, but it is also extremely functional - making it a geek's dream ring.

Posted at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Shopping | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (1)

Like with ראש השנה I will be traveling to the in-laws for the Sukkot (סוכות) holiday that begins Friday night. Blogging will be light this Friday and also I won't be able to blog Monday AM until after about 11AM (EST). I will try to schedule posts to go live tomorrow AM, like I did last time, but I cannot promise that. Also, I will try to connect via my Treo and MacBook, if it works this time. Who knows maybe we will see Jesse Jackson at the airport again? :)

So Sukkot, what is it about? Here are some good resources for you to learn about it.

• Aish.com
• Judaism 101
• Wikipedia
• OU.org
• Ask.com Results

Posted at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Homey , Travels | Comments (1)

Rosh Hashanah (ראש השנה), the Jewish New Year, is this Friday night. My wife an I are flying to St. Louis tomorrow morning, to spend the weekend with her family. Blogging will be light this Friday and also I won't be able to blog Monday AM until after about 11AM (EST).

In any event...

Google has put up a Google Doodle with a Shofar in it. The Shofar is typically blown during Rosh Hashanah services. Aish HaTorah has a good article on Symbolism of the Shofar.

You can currently see the logo at google.co.il.

Happy New Year to all you Jews. :)

Posted at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Category: Family , Homey , Travels | Comments (4)

After over three months of not getting a hair cut, I finally got one. Why didn't I get one earlier? Well, I never have the patience to sit in a chair and get a hair cut. Normally I have someone who bugs me to get a haircut. But my wife didn't mind the longer hair. Recently, she wanted my hair to look more "put together," so we went to the haircut place.

Guess what? After the haircut she was a bit upset that I had less hair. Go figure? :)

Anyway, the whole process reminded me of a Crosby Stills Nash & Young song from the Déjà Vu (iTunes link) album named Almost Cut My Hair (Amazon link here.

Anyway, I now have less hair and I also shaved (don't worry, I still have the goatee).

Posted at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (2)

This morning I drove my wife to Newark Airport, she is flying to Chicago for the weekend. One of her good friends is getting married and she is going to be a bridesmaid. The wedding is this Sunday afternoon, but there is this little weekend the bride and bridesmaids are having before the wedding.

So I drove Yisha to the airport, about 45 minutes each way, this morning. I was shocked, I was expecting a boat load of traffic. There was not one patch of slow down, outside of the tolls. So I drove back and forth in less than an hour and a half. It would have been quicker, but I had to make a pit stop 15 minutes from my office, on the way back, due to a Big Gulp I had prior to leaving. Note to self, go for a little gulp next time you drive long distances.

So what do I do the whole weekend when my wife is gone?
(1) I will be spending about 24 hours of it at my parents, I think the miss me (do you?)
(2) Saturday night, Ill play basketball until well after mid-night (normally do that anyway)
(3) Sunday morning, I do RB work (normally do that anyway)
(4) Sunday afternoon I am suppose to hang up some new light fixtures - let's see how far I get
(5) Sunday evening I will be picking up Yisha at the airport

What will my wife be doing?
(1) Getting her hair done
(2) Getting her make up done
(3) Getting into her dress
(4) All that wedding stuff
(5) Having fun with friends at a big party

So how was that? Two new posts, with personal stuff. :)

Posted at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (3)

It is the slow season for my wife at her work, I think it runs for about two or three weeks in the summer time. So she has been checking out this blog over the past few days. She complained to me twice already that I do not update it enough with personal stuff that she is interested in. You know, she isn't into that search stuff... Heck, it is that search stuff that is and will be changing our lives and how we live them every day - but whatever. ;-)

So I am now going to write more posts about personal stuff, or at least try to. But at the same time, bring in search topics, as often as I can.

Honestly, I have a list of about 15 items that are off search topic to write about. Whenever I think of something that I think will be cool to share, I write it down in a little note pad (text edit) on my computer.

Oh, did I tell you how my wife mocks this blog? Whenever something funny happens, she says --- "Why don't you blog it?" in a sarcastic tone. One day I will record the voice she uses, it is funny. So babe, I just blogged it. :)

Posted at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (0)

How can I best describe this....

Traveling With The Wife = Two Duffels

Traveling Without The Wife = One Carry On

As some of you know, my wife is coming with me to SES San Jose. We should be arriving tonight. I have never prepared so much for an SES before in my life.

We are taking a huge duffel, one big cooler bag, two large carry ons and of course, my computer bag.

Curb-side checkin, here we come. :)

Posted at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Travels | Comments (0)

The other day I complained that Flickr is Just Too Hard to Sign Up With. Well, since then, Tim Mayer of Yahoo! pointed the co-founder of Flickr, Stewart Butterfield towards this entry. Stewart commented stating that they are aware of the issues and will be working on an "email a friend" feature to make it easier for family and friends to view private photos.

Whooo hooo!

In any case, you shouldn't need to have an account to see private photos if the person who uploaded the photos wants you to see them - we are working on a way to securely share private photos without requiring that your in-laws have to have a Flickr account.

(Finally, we don't have a simple "email to friend" feature right now, but that is coming as well.)

I simply cannot wait! Go Flickr!

Posted at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Category: Family , Rambling | Comments (0)

My wife and I made it to St. Louis. We have a funeral to attend tomorrow afternoon. It is a sad day but thank god all immediate family members are doing well.

We appreciate all the emails and such left for us.

We are really OK and thanks again for the support.

We don't get back until Sunday. I hope to take share some of the more joyous and happy parts of the trip with everyone. Right now, we will see. But I hope to keep my wife in good spirits this week, if that is possible.

Good night,

Barry

Posted at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (0)

I never used to take pictures, really never. But after getting married, things change - oh yea, you think you won't change but some things do. My brother and sister-in-law got me a Canon camera, small, quick, and has some cool features. So now I take a lot more pictures. Deal is, family and friends want to see the pictures and I don't want to email them all over.

So I signed up the with up and coming photo sharing service, Flickr. Flickr has tons of cool features, all my buddies use it, including Danny Sullivan, David Naylor, Tim Mayer. Yahoo bought them, yes, Yahoo has its own photo service named Yahoo! Photos. My brother uses Yahoo! Photos. But Flickr is Web 2.0, how can I go with anything else, they have tags and tons of AJAX features - common!

Getting non-tech savvy family members to sign up with Flickr is a pain! I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with my in-laws helping them sign up. My wife, well, I gave up with her.

To sign up with Flickr, you need to be invited to view photos. Then you need to decide if you ever signed up with Flickr in the past. If you have, was it before or after Yahoo bought them? If it was before, then try to remember your Flickr password, if it was after then you need to remember your Yahoo and Flickr passwords! If you didn't sign up, then you need to sign up first with Yahoo and then with Flickr.

Heck, everyone once upon a time signed up with Yahoo. So then you must remember your Yahoo ID and password. But no one does. So you sign up with Yahoo again, damn that ID has been taken, I took it, but I don't remember my password. So you make up a new ID that you won't remember. Then after you fill out all your info, you need to give them secret password recovery tips and enter in a security access code (what is that?). Finally, you created a Yahoo! account!!!!

Continue to view pictures at Flickr. Please sign up with Flickr the screen blinks at you! No!!! New Flickr account name and password need to be given. Finally, I think, you have a Flickr account.

Then explaining how to navigate to the photos you just put up. Um, I'm tired. And I bet this post doesn't even read well, being that I typed it within 3 minutes.

Yahoo, Tim, Flickr? Can we check off images from our collection and click "email to friend" like the other photo sharing services have?

Posted at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Category: Family | Comments (3)