Yesterday, I went to the Yahoo! Burbank offices for the first time (along with the MyBlogLog guys). I found it remarkable that the Yahoo! offices there are in walking distance from the airport — walking distance! It felt strange to leave the terminal and stroll to the office — no cab, no train.

I had a brief interest in city planning (mainly from reading Jane Jacobs seminal work The Death and Life of Great American Cities), and the proximity of air transport to actual office space seems like an anomaly in a world of misguided modern city planning — but a fortunate one as far as I’m concerned (not that the area around the Burbank airport is a vibrant city, but still. . . . )

I realize that you’re supposed to write a reflective post about the past year before the actual new year, but I’m just getting around to it now. I didn’t want 2006 to completely pass without noting one thing: it was the absolute best year of my life!

I don’t say that lightly. I couldn’t be any more appreciative of what a great year 2006 was. Two years ago at this time, I was absolutely relieved that the door was closing on 2004 because it was easily the worst year of my life from a personal standpoint as I experienced a few serious tragedies in rapid succession (though work hummed along, thankfully — I think personal crisis gave me some professional focus). Fast forward two years to 2006, and things are so all-around amazing I can hardly believe it. (I say this not to gloat as much as to offer hope to those for whom 2006 was a bad year. Time does heal all wounds.)

Best of all in 2006, I got engaged to Nancy, which still blows my mind. It is truly amazing what a great woman can do for your life.

Some other highlights from 2006:

• going to Paris to pop the question
• playing with friends’ new babies
• working on the internal Yahoo! Hack Days
• making my first trip to India for their Hack Day
• opening Yahoo! up with Open Hack Day
• working with an amazing cast to pull the whole thing off
• watching the presenters at Hack Day (internal and open) show their creations with geeky passion (Mo’s “saved by Patrick Stewart” presentation is the stuff of legends)
• bringing Beck to play Open Hack Day and meeting him (not to mention the puppet video)
• winning a Yahoo! Superstar Award (Jeff Boulter, another winner, explains what that’s all about)
• working with the Yahoo! Developer Network team on dozens of big and small things

It’s been a great year. To friends, family, colleagues, and others who made 2006 the year that it was, I offer a heartfelt “thank you.” Here’s wishing that 2007 will be the best year of your life.

I am currently visiting my soon-to-be in-laws in Appleton, Wisconsin, which happens to be the home and burial place of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the self-proclaimed birthplace of Harry Houdini (he was actually born in Hungary), and home of the first enclosed shopping mall in the United States. Appleton has roughly 75,000 residents and the pace reminds me of my hometown of Greenville, NC — not too small, but not big either. I’m just plain enjoying it. Mike Albo pretty much nailed how I’m feeling in the NY Times earlier this week (“Stultification: How Sweet It Is“):

Now I am 37 years old and I can’t wait to go insane at Christmas in that comfortable padded cell known as “home.” Instead of being tedious, going home has become an indulgent retreat from my fried-out issue-driven city life. It is a place where I line my mind and body with the fatty lard of my suburban youth and experience not one moment of regret.

I’ve been laying low, and I knew just how low I was laying when I asked one of my future brothers-in-law this question 10 minutes into a movie we were watching: was this straight-to-video?. Then I watched the whole thing. When the plotline is described on IMDB like this: “when a high school burnout discovers he’s been rejected from every college he’s applied to, he creates a fake university in order to fool his overzealous parents,” and the star of the movie is the guy who is the Mac in the “hi, I’m a Mac, hi, I’m a PC” commercials, my critical defenses are gone — sign me up and pass the cookies.

I love the Bay Area, but Wisconsin is a nice break from the day-to-day madness. The good people of Wisconsin are making my first visit here a really pleasant one.

On the subject of big city madness, be sure to check out Douglas Rushkoff’s account of his recent mugging at gunpoint in Brooklyn while on his front stoop taking out the garbage, and Barbara Rushkoff’s (his wife’s) reaction on her blog “A Girl Grows in Brooklyn,” a blog described as follows: “from preschool applications to park-bench gossip, nothing escapes the gimlet eye of this Park Slope magazine writer.” The blog started up earlier this month as a window into hip urban parenting and was duly noted by BoingBoing, but the mugging experience seems to have made Barbara question the whole idea of the urban parenting struggle: Yes, I’m upset, and yes, I may be overreacting. But man, I am too old and tired for this. We outta here. So what do you do when you’ve started a hip urban parenting blog and one of your first posts is about a seemingly firm decision to leave and give up the fight? Both posts are fascinating, and the comments are probably moreso.

Cody got me.

Here are five things you probably didn’t know about me, with some extended commentary for some of them:

1. My sophomore year of high-school (circa 1986-87), I formed a hip-hop (or “rap” as we called it) group and entered the high school talent show with some friends. We laid down some beats with a $25 Casio keyboard and rapped about the Brady Bunch. I think my stage name was “Chucky D.” I do remember that one of the other guys was called “McDLT” after the short-lived McDonald’s hamburger. Instead of a luxury car emblem around my neck (think Beastie Boys), I ripped the plastic AMC Pacer logo off my friend’s car and wore that.

Much to my surprise, we actually won the talent show against some heavy competition from “real” hip-hop groups, at least one metal band that went through the trouble of hauling an elaborate mail-ordered drummer’s cage (think Tommy Lee) onstage for their one song, and a few Whitney Houston wannabes. I don’t even remember what the prize was, or if we even stayed around to get it. As soon as we were crowned the winners, everyone was threatening to kick our asses: the hip-hop guys because we so completely violated the form, the metal guys because we brazenly mocked the heavy metal umlaut in our name (another story), and the Whitney Houston wannabes because, well, we sucked and they could actually sing.

I am not making this up. Sometimes I rationalize this whole thing as some kind of Dadaist experiment or performance art, that wearing the Pacer emblem around my neck and naming one of the guys after a McDonald’s hamburger was some kind of statement on consumerism, branding, and American absurdity — but I think it was actually just really all-around stupid.

2. My first job out of college was as a Pizza Hut delivery driver in Raleigh, NC — and it was one of the most interesting jobs I’ve ever had. I had actually graduated with honors from Duke, but had zero idea of what I wanted to do when I graduated. I figured that driving pizzas around all over town would give me some time to think about what to do next and listen to some good music at the same time. The plan worked. Before I left, I was given a “Pizza Hut Delivery Top Gun” pin to wear on my hat, and I still have it. I posted about the pizza delivery experience on USENET in alt.society.generation-x back in March 1994 and had visions — never realized — of writing a short story about some of my experiences (code name: “Hut of Darkness”). Back then, many people my age thought our generation was getting screwed and would never have things as good as our parents (oops! thank you, Internet Boom). One quote from my 21-year-old self makes me chuckle today and long for the time when politics were a little more entertaining and a little less dire:

Ross Perot’s comment on pizza delivery illustrates the relevance of the topic to this group (I paraphrase): “Why is it that everyone who delivers a pizza to my house has a college degree?”

Related story: while I was washing dishes one night, the guitarist from my favorite local band just happened to walk in (Lisa Cooper from Picasso Trigger) and we became fast friends (Lisa, are you out there?). At their height, Picasso Trigger opened for Sonic Youth in Chapel Hill on their Dirty tour (an album which featured a song named “Chapel Hill,” so this was ultra-cool). When I read this sentence in the Trouser Press review of their last album (Bipolar Cowboy, 1995), I have to crack a smile:

everybody’s feeding back, everybody sounds like they’re out of their minds with caffeine and hate, everybody’s barging ahead with the song whether the rest of the band is ready or not and nobody gives a shit.

3. In college, I had the best work-study job in the world: running the Duke Coffeehouse, the only student-run restaurant and music venue on campus. Most Duke students avoided the Coffeehouse and thought of it as a place for campus freaks and random locals to hang out — which is exactly why I liked it. A story last year described the Coffeehouse like this: “The Coffeehouse hosted the humble early days of local musicians who would go far, like Superchunk and Archers of Loaf, and traveling bands like Guided By Voices, Royal Trux and Beck.” I was there for that. In fact, I’m proud to say that my work running the place in 1992-93 made all of that possible. In 1992, the Duke administration was about to shut the place down when I stepped in and asked them to give me a few months to fix all of the problems. The prior managers had embezzled money into secret off-campus bank accounts and there was nothing but debt, angry creditors, and frustrated administrators for me to deal with, but I thought the Coffeehouse had so much unrealized potential. I implemented systems to take student meal plans (it was cash-only before) and profits went through the roof. That’s where I learned the old adage is true: sales fixes everything. All of the angry vendors were paid back in short order and I won the confidence of the administration. I leveraged that confidence to buy and install an awesome sound system and stage that Beck and the others played on (apparently, bootlegs of the Beck show are available, and Beck seemed to genuinely remember the place when I asked him about it at Yahoo! Open Hack Day). Anyway, I left a profit and no serious problems for the next manager and I’m still very proud of that.

4. I had quite a political career in high school and was class president my junior year and student body president my senior year. As student body president, I did all the morning announcements over the intercom, including the daily lunch menus. Chief among my accomplishments was a very successful fundraiser for the school library. Here’s how I did it: I convinced a local hog farmer to donate a pig, then went to the best BBQ restaurant in town to ask if they would cook and season the pig for the school so we could sell BBQ dinners before a football game. They agreed, and all we did was buy paper plates and plastic utensils. In the end, we couldn’t even fulfill the demand, and our margins were at least 98%. Success! (Note to my California friends: yes, it was what you would call “pulled pork,” but no one there ever calls it that — it’s barbeque.)

5. My first car was a rapidly-deteriorating 1980 Buick Regal (a bit about this car on USENET). I taped a photo of Willie Nelson to the dashboard and scrawled “American Hero” on it. I still feel that way about Willie.

It’s looking like this meme is getting a little played out, so I’m going to have to think a little about who I’m going to tag. . . look for an updated post soon.

OK, so I’m tagging Gordon, Cameron, Kaustubh, Ryan, and Greg.

I’ve written about transcedent shaving on this blog before, talking about my trip to the hallowed halls of shaving at Truefitt & Hill in London, where I got a truly elegant Mach3-compatible razor in July (lovingly pictured at right). I wrote then: My Mach 3 has never felt so classy. As close as I came to touching the face of the shaving gods in London in July, I just experienced a serious karmic shaving reversal, and it’s kind of shocking.

It all started a few weeks ago when I made a bulk order for 52 (!) Mach3 cartridges from an Amazon seller. The product page said: “Stock up and Save! 52 Blades in one package. Enought [sic] to swap to a new blade once every week.” Imagine. . . not having to buy Mach3 cartridges for a whole year. Who among you Mach3 users have not dreamed of a near-endless supply of sharp-and-ready Mach3 cartridges? Sold! I don’t think I’ve ever waited for a box any more eagerly than that one.

When I got the box, there weren’t 52 cartridges — it was a few short. “Oh well,” I thought. “I’m still good until August 2007 and I don’t have time to deal with it, so I’ll just eat the difference.”

I still had a few of my existing cartridges left, so I didn’t dig into my Mach3 motherlode until last week. After tossing the last one I already had, I attached one of the not-quite-52-pack to my gorgeous Truefitt & Hill razor, did my usual old-school routine, and on the first stroke: OUCH! I thought maybe I hadn’t lathered enough, so I lathered more, and it still hurt. I eventually got the hair off my face, but I’m pretty sure a cheese grater would have worked better. It says something about a deep trust in brands that I wasn’t even aware of in myself, but I kept trying all last week, just not believing that my trusty Mach3 blades could work that poorly, and maybe it was something wrong with me.

After another horrible shaving experience with a “new” blade today, it suddenly struck me: are these things fake? A quick search for “counterfeit Mach3” made it clear that these were not my beloved Mach3’s. Enter the public servants at fakeblades.com to lay out in excruciating detail just how screwed I (and many others, apparently) were on my bulk Mach3 purchase. Shocking.

My search also led me to testimony by Richard K. Willard, Senior VP and General Counsel for Gillette before the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. Senate. Some quotes (definitely read the whole thing, though):

While corporations that sell well-known, branded products are the obvious and direct victims of counterfeiting, this illicit activity also poses a real threat to the livelihoods and lives of workers and consumers, though many may not realize it.

When the average American thinks about counterfeit goods, he or she may think of phony Rolex watches, fake high-fashion handbags, or cheap knock-offs of designer T-shirts. The purchasers of these items usually know the products are not originals, so they may readily conclude that buying a fake is no big deal, no harm done. What many consumers do not realize, however, is that this benign and somewhat limited picture of counterfeiting could not be farther from the truth. Counterfeiting is far more pervasive and dangerous than street vendors selling fake luxury items. In fact, only a minute portion of counterfeit goods are luxury items; most product counterfeiting has a far more immediate, and sometimes devastating, impact.

. . .

Consider for a moment the consequences should the counterfeit batteries wind up in firefighters’ flashlights and fail during a major rescue operation? The counterfeiter, a criminal, is the only one who stands to gain.

My battery example involves just one package of one product at one company. The magnitude of the problem at Gillette alone is staggering. Our lawyers are working alongside law enforcement agencies worldwide to identify and arrest counterfeiters. Recently in China, over the span of one week, we seized more than 1.5 million fake Gillette products that were destined for France, Russia, South America, the Middle East, and English-speaking nations. In one province, we seized a substantial amount of fake packaging for several of our products. In another, we recovered 100,000 counterfeit razor blades, 400,000 fake disposable razors, more than one million counterfeit Duracell batteries, and 40,000 fake Oral-B toothbrushes. Again, all of this is in just one week, in just two Chinese provinces, and involving just Gillette’s products. Imagine how much bigger the problem is for all U.S. manufacturers and for manufacturers around the world.

. . .

The danger of counterfeiting goes beyond mere financial harm and theft. Organized crime and terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit goods to raise money for illegal activities and violence. The Basque separatist group, ETA, has been linked to the sale of counterfeit clothing and handbags. Paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland have funded terrorist activities through the sale of pirated products, including copies of Disney’s The Lion King. Protection rackets in Italy no longer demand just money from retailers; instead, they want shelf space to sell counterfeit goods. Most alarming is that those who aim to terrorize United States citizens look to counterfeiting to help them achieve their deadly goal: Seized Al Qaeda training manuals recommend the sale of fake goods as a financing source for its terrorism.

Did you know that your shaving-related purchases could be unwittingly supporting terrorism (gasp!)? Mach3 counterfeiting must be stopped — we definitely need to move all those law enforcement resources focused on the Microsoft Windows piracy beat over to this one. A stolen copy of Windows XP never caused facial irritation and general discomfort.

It’s a strange feeling when you glimpse into a world of deceitful corruption that you didn’t even know existed.

I’m headed to my local Walgreen’s right now to pick up some new Mach3 cartridges. I guess I’ll get back to buying them 12 at a time and keep my eyes peeled for terrorist toothpaste.

Update: I also found this document (PDF) entitled “Global Protection of Patents,” in which the Mach3 is mentioned. Check out slide 33 (just after slide 32, which states “Let Your Lawyer Loose Across the Business”), which begins a few slides about the “The Most Successful Consumer Product Ever” and the 63 patents protecting the Mach3. This appears to be a presentation from attorneys from Ernst and Young, Johnson & Johnson, and Gillette at the Advanced Patent Law Institute in November 2005. Having now shaved with a fake Mach3, I have a little more respect for patent enforcement.

On a quiet Friday, I decided to see just how many emails I get in the course of a day at work. At 2:45pm, I passed the 100 email mark just for today. I agressively filter mailing lists, bulk mailings, etc. so these are 100 “real” emails.

Reading all of these, of course, is untenable if one hopes to get any “real work” done. Answering them all would be tantamount to dereliction of my real duties. So, for all the kind people out there who have sent me email and are awaiting a response, my apologies — I love you all. (There’s a certain asymmetry about email anyway — the more you answer, the more you get).

Check out this post in January where I had gotten my inbox down to zero. So long ago. . . . now my inbox is at 6400 emails.

Time to declare email bankruptcy?

Update: My Yahoo! colleague Cody Simms offers an “apology” for putting a few of those 100 emails in my inbox. No problem, Cody — yours were awesome. 🙂 One thing that I didn’t make clear in the original post is that the biggest problem with the email deluge is that most of them are interesting things from interesting people (seriously). I actually really do wish I could get to all of them (ok, well not all. . . . )

As of today, I’m splicing my del.icio.us feed into the RSS feed for this blog (Feedburner makes it really easy — not sure why I’ve waited two years to do it). I don’t blog every day, but I do bookmark a lot of things during the week. Enjoy.

I decided to do some long overdue cleaning of my spam folder (which is teeming with 11,000 messages — need to set up the auto-delete on old spam) and I was quickly scanning the names of senders to make sure no one I cared about got caught in the trap, when the name of my 4th grade teacher jumped to my attention — a name that isn’t common in the least, but there she was among “Alphonse Barnes” offering me discount pharmaceuticals, “Alvin Gardner” offering a hot stock tip, and “Andrea Parham” offering me help for. . . well, let’s just put it under the umbrella of “man problems.”

So what was my 4th-grade-teacher-turned-spam-robot trying to say to me? Don’t think youth can’t be returned. Freaky — I don’t think I’ve ever hit the delete key so hard.

Don’t think youth can’t be returned. Spam, in its sheer randomness and volume, has moved from easy plays on broadly-shared insecurities to messages that resonate with my own specific memories.

The spam monkeys are typing on the existential typewriter of my mind.