If you feel a wave of bliss flowing in from Holliston this morning, you can thank Sadie. She decided to sleep until 6:30 in the morning, instead of the more traditional 5:00.

Everyone else in the house applauds this update to our schedule. The sun is shining and the birds are singing. Hallelujah.

We have a ton of stuff going on right now, so I apologize for the lack of linky goodness posting. I’m going to try to get back into a daily routine. We’ll see how long that lasts. Anyway, here we go.

I’m sure you guys can deal
My only power trip at work is that I ban sending bad news by email. If there’s the least chance the recipient will react badly to your message, you need to deliver it in person. Even worse are all the examples up at PassiveAggressiveNotes.com. All the posts are worth reading, but this one is expecially funny. I hate when the servers melt.

Awesome sed reference
If the word ’sed’ means nothing to you, you can safely skip this.

Color palettes from art masterpieces
Really interesting examples of color palettes derived from art masterpieces. I still have my trusty Color Index book, but this is another good way of brainstorming color schemes.

It’s a renter’s market on Cape Cod this summer
Not really an issue for us, but interesting to see the dynamics around that market.

Holliston Triathlon
So, this is what was blocking Norfolk Street last weekend. A five-mile swim, followed by a fifteen-mile bike ride and five-mile run would be a good day’s exercise for anyone. One journalistic note, though: the article doesn’t say who actually won the race.

Passive-aggressive notes from roommates, neighbors, co-workers and strangers
Very funny pictures of passive-aggressive notes. My general rule of “never send bad news by email” goes double for little pieces of paper.

Tool Snob
Jay’s new site, detailing the latest and greatest in the toolshed. I have a feeling my $19.95 Home Depot power drill will not make the cut.

The right ride
Interactive maps showing safe bike rides in and around Boston. Play around with clicking on the pushpins to get hints about what you need to look out for. The Central Square notes are all spot-on.

Natick Mall beating
Egads.

Inside the monkeysphere
Why we are how we are. And why you yelled at that guy on the Mass Pike this morning.

7 reasons the 21st century is making you miserable
More from the writer of the monkeysphere. Very interesting stuff.

Knowing that life in launch mode is going to suck doesn’t make it any more pleasant to live through. I cannot wait for this project to launch.

I never really drank coffee before the baby arrived. Now, I’m up to five to seven cups each morning at work.

Welcome Ewan Thomas Bazar Brewer. Congratulations, Jay and Maya!

The baby woke up at 4am. I am not a fan of daylight-savings transition days.

I’m in launch mode at work, and we’ve got a ton going on outside of work. I will resume writing soon.

Maybe when I should be sleeping.

Maybe only in my dreams.

We’re still here, believe it or not. We’ve been straight out for the past three weeks, with a massive family-wide illness, a trip to New York and a vacation all bundled in.

Life returns to normal on Tuesday, and I will soon resume regular posting.

Jason Varitek now holds the Red Sox record for catching the most games in a Red Sox uniform, surpassing Hall-of-Famer Carlton Fisk.

Congratulations, Jason! You are the core of this championship team and, like Dave Roberts, you will never have to buy a drink in this town. More pictures of Jason Varitek.

So, I’m 34 today. Another year. Another set of adventures.

I’m not sure how 34 could possibly top 33 (or 32) (or 31, for that matter). I can’t wait to find out.

A. goes to back to her office Monday, and Sadie begins full-time daycare. We’re all figuring out how we’ll adjust our schedules to our new realities. Sadie will get to make all sorts of new friends and I’ll spend my evening drive down route 16 calculating the likelihood of a speeding ticket vs. the amount of the daycare’s late fees.

We’ll see how it goes.

This transition, among other things, has been killing my writing time, mostly explaining why it’s been awful quiet in my little corner of the web. I’ll try to get back on a more regular writing schedule soon.

We have a wonderful life right now, and it’s very well structured. If we didn’t have our routines and patterns down, we’d spin off into chaos. Still, at this point, I can’t imagine what my life was like four years ago, when I would come home after work and just hang out with friends, play on the web, maybe watch a little TV. I’d kill for that kind of unstructured time now, when my list of attractive side projects is longer than it’s ever been. Alas, youth is always wasted on the young.

Someone is definitely enjoying the return of spring.

I’m back out in San Diego for Adicio’s annual user conference. It’s always good to see some of the other papers and learn more about the future of recruitment classifieds. I’m taking the red-eye back on Friday night, a flight I’m sure will be sheer bliss.

It’ll be hard for this trip to compete with the last time I was out here, though. In January, 2004, I came out here and was joined for the weekend by my sweetiepie.

We stayed at the Hotel del Coronado, walked the beach, ate at fine restaurants, went to the zoo. Saw a polar bear:

Three weeks later, we were engaged.

Yep, it’s unlikely this trip will live up to the last one.

I’m going to try to spend a little more time on the linky goodness. I’ve been a little lax in how I’ve been stashing my links and notes, and I want to get back to posting the interesting stuff every couple of days.

To make that happen, I’m just leaving an Emacs window open all day to my linky goodness file. I’m dropping items in as I think of them. We’ll see if this makes a difference in how well I can make this work.

So, here we go.

The art of the board meeting
I’ve been reading Guy Kawasaki’s blog for the past few weeks, and I find it consistently entertaining and informative. Here’s a posting about how to compose a board and run a meeting.

WeSmirch
Memeorandum creator Gabe Rivera applies his secret sauce to celebrity news.

Massachusetts home-buyers turning to auction
If you can’t sell it the normal way, try selling it at auction.

Realtor commission structures under siege
Bradley Inman takes a look. Very interesting comments. (Via the New York Times’ Real Estate blog, the Walk-Through)

Boston Baby doesn’t deliver
This is why we ended up skipping all the baby stores and going to Pottery Barn Kids for our crib and Babies ‘r Us for our glider. I’d love to support small businesses, but sometimes (especially when dealing with the baby) I long for a little ruthless corporate efficiency. P.S., we love our crib and glider. (via Universal Hub)

Philip Greenspun’s Tips for Startup Companies

Why the Edgerrin James deal is a disaster for everyone
“When Arizona inked Edgerrin James to a four-year, $30 million deal Sunday, it marked one of those rare and remarkable meteorological moments when clueless management, disenchanted player, greedy agent and pathetic, delusional franchise all conspire to create the perfect storm of dealmaking.”

How to rattle a college basketball player
Invent a love interest, then pass out the incriminating instant messages before a game. Inventive social engineering.

AskMe: Where’s a good place to get an apartment in Boston these days?
I lived in Central Square from 1998-2005, and it definitely got sketchier over the past couple of years. It’s still reasonably safe, but it’s a little creepy at night. Porter and Davis are less scary.

Interesting reminisces about Will McDonough

It’s almost time to head back to Fenway. Makes me nostalgic for one exciting night in Fenway’s Monster seats.

Two videos came across the transom this weekend, videos you should watch, videos that may make you cry a little.

1. An autistic boy get his chance to play basketball. Glorious mayhem ensues.

2. General McArthur leads the final Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in the bay of Tokyo, ending World War II. Google Video has put up hundreds of hours of video from the National Archives. You could lose yourself for hours in this archive.

Update (2/28): CBS apparently send YouTube a nastygram, so they had to take the widely-distributed, incredibly viral autistic basketball player video off their site.

Nevermind that it was the first time I’d watched any CBS news in years. Not a smart decision on their part. Here is CBS’ position.

If one of your employees is prone to cutting elevator lines, annoying fifteen or so potential customers, then perhaps you should suggest she not wear a brightly-logoed WebSideStory shirt. It may degrade your brand equity.

I used to run conferences for a living, traveling around the country, staying at beautiful hotels, pounding pavement, tempting fate. I closed down the Tonga Room at the Fairmont in San Francisco, singing in harmony with two friends, blowing kisses to the maiden on the stage. I carried a co-worker down Bourbon Street at three in the morning, helping her through the after-effects of one too many hurricanes. I once checked my dinner at the Rainbow Room and two of us drained three bottles of champagne while dancing to the old-school swing band.

This week, I’m in Orlando at a conference. I have not left the hotel. I’m going to bed at 7:30pm, trying desperately to cure my baby-induced sleep deprivation.

What a difference a decade makes.

Technorati Tags: parenthood

I’m in Central Florida for the next few days, attending the Newspaper Association of America’s Marketing and Classifieds conference. The next four days will be chock-full of panel presentations and trade-show schmoozing.

I flew down from Boston on JetBlue, excited to fly them given all the buzz they generate. It was “fine,” but I wasn’t blown away. Flying is flying, and startups like JetBlue can’t do a whole lot to change the basic experience. I did enjoy interacting with reasonably pleasant employees, though, as opposed to USAir’s trademark insta-surlies.

Technorati Tags: NAA, JetBlue, Orlando

I know I’ve been away from the blog too long when I start getting the checking-in emails, calls and visits. So, quick update (and maybe a couple of posts).

So much to do, so little time. The baby’s growing well, turning into quite the little jabberer. She’s not shy about her opinions. Kinda sweet, except when we’re trying to get her to sleep.

Work is heating up. Now that I’ve been there four months, we’re starting to launch all sorts of fun stuff, and we’re working on redesigns. I’ll bore you all with shameless plugs in over the next few months

I’ll try to get more posts up more frequently…

2003 brought A.

2004 saw us married.

2005 brought little Sadie into our lives.

I’m really looking forward to 2006.

Let’s see, what am I forgetting? Need to make sure we write down everything we’re going to need for this trip…

This week on Survivor, Cindy won a car in the competition over the other four players. The producers then gave her a choice: keep the car or give the other four people cars of their own.

A. (my fabulous wife, the tax lawyer) looked at me over the baby and said, “You know, if Cindy gives the cars away, that’ll have pretty serious gift tax consequences.”

I replied, “Interesting. We’re likely the only couple in America having this conversation right now.”

We’re hiring a designer. Could it be you? Here’s the job description:

Ever want to transform a Web 1.0 company that makes money into a Web 2.0 company that makes money? Ever want to help people find jobs? Wish you could improve this very site? Here’s the opportunity. Boston.com is redesigning its BostonWorks site, and we need an outstanding interactive designer to help us dominate the Boston recruitment marketplace.

Strange things are afoot in the recruitment space. Monster.com is strong; Yahoo HotJobs keeps getting better; CareerBuilder does great things with its guided search; vertical search engines like SimplyHired and corporate-cousin Indeed are shaking up the industry business model. Many are experimenting with different ways of connecting job-seekers to employers, but no one has really nailed it yet. Chaos reigns.

But, in chaos lies opportunity, and Boston.com is well-placed to stake its claim as the powerhouse in the market. We have the most job listings in Boston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom and the ability to localize and customize in a way our friendly national competitors can’t touch.

We need someone who can think through an interactive design that will win, someone who can design a site so useful that job-seekers love it, employers will give us lots of money to be on it, a site that’s just so damn good it’ll shoot onto del.icio.us/popular when it launches.

We have a strong position to build from. We have the rest of the team on board. You are the final piece.

So, who are you?

You love the web and its endless possibilities. You play around with websites for fun. You’ve likely already done your own Google Maps hack, just to see what it could do. You have your own domain to show off your work. You don’t use a Hotmail address.

You like the idea of being able to help tens of millions of monthly visitors, help regular folks trying to improve their lives.

You were writing XHTML before it was all the rage. You know the ins and outs of box-model hacks. You curse IE, but make it work.

You have a strong presentation and design skills as well as familiarity with web usability. You know your way around Photoshop and know how to translate your designs to the web. You have an eye for design and a respect for the information you are trying to communicate. You can wrangle a roomful of opinions into a thoughtful, accessible and dazzling design. When you spill your coffee, your first thought is “command Z.”

You can spell. You write emails in full sentences with proper capitalization.

You believe in the power of the media (Boston.com, The Boston Globe, The New York Times) to improve our community.

You believe the Standells when they sing “Boston, you’re my home.”

You believe in doing right by the job-seeker.

You know there’s more than one way to do it.

So, what’s the job?

You’ll start by designing the BostonWorks.com website. The building blocks are all here, scattered on the living-room rug. You get to put the design the building and help put the blocks together. You’ll handle the visual design (with help from the rest of the design department) and plan the interactive design (with help from our developers and product people). You’ll get your hands dirty (in a good way).

After launch, you’ll keep working on BostonWorks, but we’ll also find you more worlds to conquer. Recruitment is only one of our many sections.

So, is this right for you?

Can you design an application that does right by the job-seekers and the employers? Can you design in a way that accentuates our unique strengths and differentiates us in the marketplace?

Can you do it in a collaborative atmosphere?

If you’re really interested, we’d love a thoughtful letter telling us why. Please write us a note, along with your resume and (most importantly) links to interesting things you’ve done. We run a job board, so believe us when we say we can smell boilerplate a mile away — it’s worth a few minutes to think it through

It starts with a little squeak, then a grunt. The bassinet shakes from her thrashing.

Uh oh, the meltdown is coming. I can see the little clock in my head ticking down: 24 seconds until screaming…23…22…21.

Run over. Is it food? Diaper? Random fussiness? Must think quickly…10…9…8.

Ok, pick her up — support the head!…5…4.

Woo Hoo! Meltdown averted.

Until next time.

I’ve changed the site banner, the image that shows up at the top of each of the weblog pages. For those of you reading in a newsreader, you’ll need to click through to the site to see it. You may have to refresh a time or two.

By far the best music we’ve found for soothing the baby is Thelonious Monk’s Solo Monk album. I highly recommend it for the baby’s room.

It’s also a pretty fabulous record for grownups, too.

I can’t believe how hard it is to actually order 3×5 prints online.

We’re putting a picture of Sadie in the envelope with the birth announcements. A. took care of all the hard pieces; all I had to do was pick the picture and order 60 prints to ride along with the cards. Little did I know this would turn into a 45-minute adventure.

I went to Ofoto and uploaded the picture. I then went to order, but they didn’t give me an option to order 3×5. So, I went to Shutterfly. Then Snapfish. None of the main providers of prints will sell you a 3×5 print. Eventually, I found dotPhoto, a site kind enough to actually allow me to buy prints from them.

I’m really surprised that none of the major sites support this size, because 3×5 is still a pretty standard card size.

Still no baby. She’s likely coming tomorrow. In the meantime, we’re trying to handle today like any other day, starting with a hearty breakfast.

And yes, we are a “two laptops at breakfast” family.

This baby is never coming out. Entering the forty-second week, our baby girl is perfectly comfortable right where she is. Her mother is somewhat less comfortable.

We went back to Metrowest Medical Center (nee Framingham Union Hospital) this morning for our second non-stress test and AFI of the week. Everything is still perfect, operating within normal parameters, etc. Tomorrow, we’re back to the doctor’s office for our regular appointment. If nothing’s happening by Sunday morning, the doctor will bring us back to the hospital and induce labor.

By Monday morning, I may have some exciting news to post here.

Here are more pictures from my parents’ recent trip to Brazil. These are pictures of Cristo Redentor, “Christ the Redeemer,” the 100-foot-high statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I really love the mood of the long shot.

I’m still jealous of my parents’ recent trip down the Amazon in Brazil. Here’s one of my favorite pictures of theirs from the trip, a black-and-white picture of a small Brazilian crocodile.

My phone rang at 7:04 this morning, and on the other end was the stupidest person in the world.

I say, as I generally do, “Hello.”

She demands “Who’s this?”

I’m not sure of the etiquette in other parts of the world, but here in New England, that’s considered pretty rude. You called me.

“This is Jason. Who’s this?”

“Where’s Mark?” she replied, apparently looking for Mark Ryberg, the previous owner of my phone number. We’ve gotten a ton of calls over the past 10 months looking for the Rybergs, and our patience with these calls is starting to wear thin.

“Mark doesn’t live here anymore,” I said, assuming that would be the end of the conversation.

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met him, I just got his phone number.”

“Did you move into his house?”

“No, I bought my own house.”

“Did you kick him out?”

“No, I just got his phone number.”

“How did you get his phone number?”

“Well, the phone company only has a limited number of phone numbers available, so they recycle them. When I bought this house, they assigned me this number.”

“Can you give Mark a message?”

*click*

For propriety’s sake, I’ll not reveal the caller, but if they call back I’ll let them know about the magic of caller ID and reverse lookup.

Our NSTAR gas bill jumped this month, not only because we put the heat on for the first time, but also because NSTAR raised the rates. I’m not looking forward to this winter’s bills.

On the plus side, NSTAR just helped us install insulation in our attic, insulation that will likely save us hundreds of dollars this winter. They have a plan which allows homeowners with gas heating to re-insulate their attics and walls, and they’ll rebate 50% of the cost. Thanks to them, our $1,100 insulation job only cost us $550.

If you qualify, you should definitely check out NSTAR’s insulation program.

Weatherization Rebate
Thinking about adding wall insulation, attic insulation or air sealing to your home? If so, you might be eligible for rebates up to $1,500 from NSTAR for such home upgrades. Call 800-654-5833 for more information.

She’s a stubborn, stubborn little girl.

We went over to Framingham Union this morning for additional testing, and she’s perfectly fine and perfectly happy, just not ready to come out. Oh well, if nothing’s happened in the meantime, we’ll induce her on Sunday.

We hope she comes out on her own, though. From what I’ve heard, pitocin is not our friend.

Many months ago, the baby told me that she’d be arriving on Friday, November 4th. I took her at her word and blocked out today in my calendar. It’s now the fourth, and I’m just sitting here at home drumming my fingers and waiting.

Turns out she was using the project-management definition of “it’ll be done by Friday,” meaning “it’s not really due until 7:59am Monday.”

New job. Long commute. Impending baby. While tending these new demands on my time, I may have allowed a thing or two to slip through the cracks. Yardwork, for example.

Can you pinpoint the property line?

As it turns out, there’s actually a fairly big difference between one centimeter dilated and one *inch*.

Oops.

So much for me sounding like an intelligent father-to-be in front of the doctor.

Yes, it’s been a while. We’ve been killing ourselves trying to get everything squared away before the baby arrives, an event that could happen any time now.

One of the last things on the list is complete. I now have an official will and estate plan. I’m such a grown-up.

As it turns out, it’s pretty handy having a wife who is a trusts-and-estates lawyer.

Now that I’m back in the media biz (at Boston.com/The Boston Globe), I have a whole new set of competitive challenges. Today’s New York Times does a good job outlining the problems newspapers face today.

I’ve pretty much made tech.memeorandum.com my browser homepage. They are doing an outstanding job summarizing the top technology stories of the moment. If you’re in the business, this should be one of your favorite bookmarks.

If you lean more to the political, regular memeorandum is pretty good too.

We’re 30 days to our target launch date. We’ve moved obstacles off critical path and outsourced non-core components. Our nightly war room meetings address showstoppers that came up that day. I’m already working on the FAQ.

We hope the launch date (11/4) doesn’t slip. We’re 36 weeks into a 40-week project; now we just need to deliver this baby and bring her home.

For the past several years, some friends and I have shared Red Sox season tickets out in the bleachers.

Each spring we get together at Flattop Johnny’s, have a few beers and draft our games. My number one draft pick this year: Saturday, October 1st vs. the New York Yankees. It seemed like a pretty good bet back in March that this game would mean *something*.

Today should be a fun day.

The little-girl-ification of my house is proceeding in full throttle this weekend. Yesterday afternoon was the the big run through Babies ‘r’ Us. Today, we’re putting together her room.

Starting with her little nightlight…

Only a few more weeks until we get to meet her.

Wow, I have a lot going on right now, with the new job, the impending baby and the 2.5 hours of daily commuting. My writing schedule has suffered.

I’m still going to keep writing, but I need to figure out how to fit the time into my new reality. It should be an interesting juggling act.

I was very cranky when I couldn’t get ViaVoice to work on 10.4. I installed it and followed all the instructions, but no matter what I did, the system wouldn’t recognize the microphone.

Here’s how I fixed it:

* Go to System Preferences

* Choose “Speech”

* Turn “Speakable Items” on

* Go through the ViaVoice Setup program again. At this point it worked for me.

I hope this helps you, Dear Google-visitor from the future.

I’ve been using Tinderbox for years for managing all my information, planning and GTD work. It’s an incredibly powerful piece of software for knowledge management.

If you’re on a Mac, you should go check it out, especially as it’s on sale now.

I’ve been playing around with Ruby on Rails over the past week or so. It’s pretty amazing. If Rails had existed last year, I’d have implemented Life Times Voice in it instead of in PHP. Rails automatically generated plumbing code that ended up taking me about a month to write last year.

I need to redesign JPButler.com soon; maybe I’ll do it in RoR.

I’ve been playing with Pandora for most of the afternoon; it’s really pretty neat.

Pandora will take any artist or song you give it and generate a radio station based on your selection. For example, I created a channel based on “Tangled Up in Blue” and Pandora has given me “Simple Twist of Fate,” “Friend of the Devil,” a couple of Neil Young songs and one from Townes Van Zandt, an artist I’d never heard before but liked immediately.

They give you 10 hours for free; after that, it’s $36/year. I’m not sure I’ll pay that, but it’s an intriguing alternative to the uber-mix.

Haven’t posted in a while, blah. Lots going on. I’ll start again now.