Recently in Friends Category

My friend Bill has been sitting on a secret project at his work for a year or so now. I knew he was hyper-excited about it, but the little scamp wouldn’t give me a clue about it. Eventually he clued me in that it had to do with blogging, and only recently he gave me some access to the system with some dire grumbling that I keep my big yap shut.

Today he pointed me to their first public product blog, and said I could post about it. Weee! Check out the first Quick Blog at http://www.onlinequickblog.com/.

Bill works for Go Daddy up in Scottsdale, AZ, and is on the Quick Blog team there. He wrote a lot of the specs and was the first developer working on it. The tool looks really good, supports all the usual features, and is free (with ads) to current customers who have domains with Go Daddy. There is also a cheap ($2.95/mo) option (for anyone!) that gives you multiple blogs, multiple authors, and no ads.

Update: The BlogHerald picked up the story.

See, this is what happens when you realize that a good friend has had an RSS feed all along and you finally subscribe.

Mark (bork!) links to Passive-Aggressive Punctuation. Ah, the joys of email.

My old buddy Nate (nullgel) has gone and gotten himself married!!! OMG OMG! As I IMed him…

Con-frikkin-gratulations, you old coot!

Nate is so very much TEH mAN. He builds amazing things out of LEGO, including flags and working robots.

Incidently, the link above goes to his new wife’s blog (nullgal) because Nate is too much the introvert to blog it himself. I love you man.

Jim Roepcke’s weblog: Finishing what I started

Jim has been a great friend to me over the years, from mailing-list-co-member to development mentor to friendly acquaintance, to real friend. I’ve watched him go through some really hard times and tried to stand with him as best I could.

I am so stoked that Jim is headed back to school, and has gotten himself out from under all the debt he found himself in as a result of the aforementioned hard times. Jodi and I are trying to do the same, tightening our budget so that we can retire some long-standing debt. It’s incredibly freeing.

Proverbs 22:7: The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

It’s the truth, folks.

Congratulations, Jim and Cheryl! Good luck with your studies Jim, and Cheryl - we want pics of Cyan and Wavie! :-)

I’m in beautiful Victoria, BC this weekend, visiting Jim, on of my best friends. I’ve been hanging with Jim virtually since 1996, and had the pleasure of meeting him several times. This time I got to meet his lovely wife Cheryl, and two astonishingly adorable kids, Cyan and Xavier. Yay!

According to Rogers Cadenhead, Anita Rowland is recovering from surgery:

quoteIn the space of two weeks, weblogger Anita Rowland has been diagnosed with diabetes and probable ovarian cancer and undergone surgery, for which her doctors are “cautiously optimistic,” according to a friend.endquote

Anita has been an occasional visitor and commenter on this site, and her blog is always an interesting read. Please keep her in your prayers.

I had not seen yet the Anita herself had posted about her diabetes and possible ovarian cancer diagnosis. Get well soon, Anita!!

Jodi and I took a real-life vacation this weekend! We drove out to Yucaipa, California, about 6 hours west of Phoenix. We saw the salton Sea (HOT and humid and boring), windmill farms around Palm Springs, got to go sailing with friends on the Pacific (launching from Long Beach) and go hiking in the mountains of San Bernardino National Forest.

Pictures coming soon! Happy Labor Day to all of you who celebrate it!

Nate is building a robot out of LEGO and custom-built electronics, and it is amazing. It’s radio controlled right now and has a radio transmitting video camera. Check out this video of it in action (12.8 mb Quicktime). Go LEGOMAN!

Scoble says: “I’m glad I’m not in Silicon Valley right now, though. I heard it was 107 in my dad’s car in San Jose yesterday. Whew.”

Hey Robert, be glad you’re not in Phoenix then! It was a pleasant 110° in the shade today! Cars usually get 15 or more degrees hotter.

Of course, we’d still love for you to come visit - hey, it’s my birthday tomorrow - we’re having cake and ice cream at 7:00pm. Stop on by! I promise it won’t be too hot! smile