I am a founder and the Chief Executive Officer of MindTouch, a popular open source business application and collaboration platform used by millions. Read more.
Last week Tara and I took the kids to Disneyland for Ashby’s 4th birthday. We stayed two nights and thanks to a friend who works at Pixar we had our hotel for a fraction of the price. The whole trip was nothing short of magical for Ashby and the entire family.
I was amazed by the quality of service and professionalism at the park. I had not been to Disneyland since I was about 10 years old. It was the first time for everyone else. I’m excited to return.
Tara, Ashby, Roesevelt and I spent a long Thanksgiving weekend in Big Bear. We were surprised Saturday morning with several inches of snow and then more again on Sunday. Total accumulation was over a foot.
We stayed at the Cozy Hollow Lodge. I recommend it. Very clean. Also, they have a pleasant playground for the kids.
My Thanksgiving tweets in anti-chronological order:
Oops meant to add #thanksgiving to last tweet. 5:46 PM Nov 26th
All the MindTouchers for being brilliant and hard working. Especially @honging and @wheatstraw for sticking with it thru early lean years. 5:45 PM Nov 26th
Lastly, my awesome biz partner @bjorg. #thanksgiving 5:24 PM Nov 26th
Roesevelt, my sturdy and reliable son. #thanksgiving 3:58 PM Nov 26th
My dynamic daughter. My favorite travel companion. #thanksgiving http://twitpic.com/r2vff 3:00 PM Nov 26th
My wife. An amazing mother, partner and great benefits too. Oh she’s hot too. #thanksgiving http://twitpic.com/r2v41 2:58 PM Nov 26th
Bubbles are fun to photograph. Children with bubbles is even better.
We attended a birthday party at Mission Bay Park. I haven’t been to that playground in over a year. I remember taking Ashby here as a very small child. Time flies by so fast.
Ashby is really into Princesses. Personally, I’m not fond of Disney or Disney Princesses. Especially older Disney, which depicts women as submissive and is often quite scary to children. If Disney being scary surprises you then you haven’t watched Disney as an adult. Nonetheless, when I saw there was Disney’s Princesses on Ice in town I was excited to take Ashby. I knew she would have a fantastic time. I was right and so too did Tara and me.
Prior to the event, Tara and I took Ashby to the new Corvette Diner at Liberty Station in Loma Portal. We had been to the old location in Hillcrest, but I wasn’t fond of it because it just felt dirty. I really like this new location though.
After dinner we drove to Sports Arena for the show. Once in the venue we loaded up Ashby with a new wand and snacks. Our seats were amazing. We were on the ice, front row. Indeed these were the best seats I have ever had at any event. I could have picked a Princess’ nose every minute were I inclined. The actors would occasionally step off the ice and interact with the audience. Ashby was too shy to engage them, but this made it even more fun and exciting.
Here are my two favorite princesses of the evening:
Cinderella wasn’t bad either, yowza…. 
Ashby was mesmerized by the show. I suppose we all were. The skating was amazing and the costumes were equally impressive. The best part of the show was witnessing the awe in Ashby’s face and in those of the children around us. We had a fantastic time.
Thank you Sarah for watching Roesevelt for us so we could go.
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world be turnin’ our way
Tara and I took the family on the road to San Jose for an open source software conference where I was speaking and my employer was exhibiting.
We took highway 5 North to my hometown Morgan Hill. From San Diego it took 6 hours and 45 minutes. Not bad. We spent most of the week at my sister’s place. Ashby was ecstatic to see her cousins Skyler and Owen. Who also were pleased to have Ashby there to paint with make up and play with.
Because my employer was making a product announcement I was very much heads-down on work items through the week and then busy during the conference. Friday morning we headed South again, but we took Pacific Coast Highway 1 this time.
We stopped in Monterey and visited the aquarium. I have many fond childhood memories of Monterey Bay and the aquarium. We had a wonderful time. We only managed to take in about a third of the aquarium in the nearly two hours we spent there. The place is huge and it has gown significantly since I was last there over fifteen years ago.
In Monterey there is also one of the most amazing children’s playgrounds that I have ever visited. This is on the North side of the city and is well worth stopping by if you have little ones.
After Monterey we stopped at Carmel by the Sea. Tara had never been and we took lunch there. Yelp led us to Hog’s Breath Inn, which was once owned by Clint Eastwood. Over lunch Tara used the retro Bluetooth handset I won by answering a trivia question correctly at the Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards party the previous evening. Needless to say Tara got some curious looks. The trivia question: what are the most commonly used colors in flags? I’ll provide the answer at the bottom of this post.
The above photo of Tara talking on the aforementioned Bluetooth handset was taken from my iPhone while she speaking on my iPhone using the handset. Isn’t technology wonderful?
After Carmel we spent a night in Big Sur. Big Sur has it all: giant redwoods, mountains, the pacific ocean, beach, waterfalls and a fantastic trail system. Alas, with two little ones we did little more than hole up in a modest cabin. It was a bit too cold to camp with Roesevelt as we had intended.
The next day we headed further south to Morro Bay. Yet another town that indelibly charmed my psyche during my adolescence.
Unfortunately, we returned home the following day. Tara and I both ached for another week of vacation road trip. In a couple of weeks from now we fly to Florida to visit my family. This will have to do. I’m most excited about being able to get back on my father’s 1700 cc Victory (that’s a big ass motorcycle). Some day perhaps I’ll own my own motorcycle and sidecar for the kids. 
The complete photo set of our road trip can be found at Flickr. So too can the OSCON (open source conference) photos set.
The trivia question: what are the most commonly used colors in flags? Red, white and blue.
The in-laws are visiting from Duluth, MN. My father-in-law is attending a conference and they’re staying at Paradise Point. We spent the day at the beach and pool. Unfortunately, it was unusually cold and overcast in San Diego today. We still had a wonderful time. I was able to grind through a few hundred emails that had piled up form last week’s travelling and spend time with the kids too. Ashby is so much fun.
This kid is hilarious! She’s only three and she is smart well beyond her years. Her wicked intelligence and amazing sense of humor aside she is scared of homeless people. Not a bad thing really; although, I think Tara has over done it a bit. In Tara’s defense, there are a lot of homeless people in San Diego. Anyway, we’re at the pool and Ashby wants to use the restroom, but she’s concerned and asks: ‘is it clean’. She is somewhat discerning when it comes to bathroom cleanliness and was assessing whether she should use the bathroom nearby or wait to use the one in the room. Smart, right? So, I told Ashby these bathrooms were clean because they make homeless people clean them at this resort. LOL. She thought that was hilarious. Of course, she totally knew I was full of it.
In other news. My body has healed remarkably fast from my recent bicycle mishap. Case in point, the day of the accident:
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Look at me here about a week later:
Everyone, including myself, is amazed at how quickly I’ve healed. I believe the rapidity of my convalescence is due in large part to taking Vitamin E. I started taking it when I was running and since I damaged my knee I’ve just kept on taking it, most days. Today, I’ve had almost two weeks of healing and most of the road rash is gone. Gone from my face at least. Alas, I do have two hard nodules under my skin. One is on my chin and the other on my right cheek. They’re noticeable if you know what you’re looking for. If I were clean shaven the one on my chin would definitely be noticeable. Hopefully these too will heal.
I’ve not been able to run due to a knee injury so I’ve been biking as much as I can fit in between work and family. Biking poses a greater challenge than running because I have to spend 3x the time to achieve a similar workout. Nonetheless, this week I managed to sneak in 66 miles. I realize 66 miles would be far more impressive were it not spread out across 7 days, but it’s hard for me to find time to do 15 miles in a day.
I’d like to post my routes. I use a Garmin Forerunner 405, which means in theory it’s possible. Alas, I’ve tried countless times to get the Forerunner to synch with my computer (Windows Vista 64 and two Windows XP laptops) with no success. It’s terribly frustrating because I’ve sent several emails to Garmin support and have even tried to reach them by phone for help. No response. Bottom line, the Garmin Forefunner 405 is decent hardware. It does a good job of keeping satellite connectivity even in the city. I’ve had some problems with the touch bevel when I’m especially sweaty or it is especially hot, I’m not sure which. Perhaps a combination of both. I’ve confirmed the Forerunner is remarkably accurate by using Google Maps to map my routes. Impressive for such a small device. However, the software is complete trash and the fact that I can’t get it to synch with my computer is a huge disappointment for a ~$275 device. The engineers should be embarrassed. Finally, the fact Garmin has absolutely no desire to help their customers is totally inexcusable.
At any rate, back to my biking. I frequently bring my camera along with me and in San Diego there is no shortage of photo opportunities. A random sampling plucked from my flickr stream:
On our family walk through Mission Hills this morning I snapped a few photos.
Here is a local market near Ashby’s pre-school that always stands out for me as being oddly out of place. Also, it has “Hommus” on the front window.
It’s not as attractive as the previous photo would imply. Here’s another flattering photo, and I write this with a modicum of sarcasm. As you can see the building is oddly shaped, which makes for a great contrasts of light and shadow, but it also has an odd number of advertisements…errr…proclamations?
And now, a big ass bee. This thing was the size of a silver dollar and looked like it was from the Triassic period. That’s right, pre-Permian extinction.
And for a finish, Roe and me.
Parenting is awesome.
Here is Ashby near my office with a penguin she adopted that was meant for Roe and was given by Steve and Brigette. We were having a wonderful father – daughter Saturday a couple weeks ago.
Brother and big sis.
Laaaaaadieeesss….
Awesomeness
Enjoy.
9 months pregnant. Roe is due in just a few weeks.Tara is uncomfortable and she is “R E A D Y”.
We’re all excited. Ashby attended a “Big Sister Class” yesterday. It makes her feel special and was nice for her to hear from others what to expect. Tara is still running a couple miles a few days a week. As you might imagine, she gets a lot of looks.
