My immediate family (parents, siblings, etc) were visiting to see the new baby, Jordan.  My mom is holding the baby in the yard, sitting under the plum tree.

All of a sudden, it hits me.  I’ve seen that picture before.

Sure enough, I whip out my iPhone (yes, I have a lot of photos on my iPhone), and quickly flip to the photo.  It’s the ultrasound from January (when the baby was about 20 weeks along.

Kind of amazing.  I remember remarking back in January about that little sharp nose.

While we’re still adapting to life with three kids in the house, I thought I’d note the tech milestone as well.  When my first son was born, we had a birth blog to commemorate the event.  That was less than five years ago.  Clearly in just that short time we’ve moved on to newer modes of obsessive documentation.

I guess that answers the question on whether Twitter competes and/or substitutes for blogging.

In any case, welcome to the world Jordan.  Our first Twitter baby.  (In fact, one of my colleagues at LinkedIn was kind enough to reserve @jordannash for him…)

Posted in Blogging, Family, Twitter ]]> http://blog.adamnash.com/2009/05/12/jordan-my-first-twitter-baby/feed/ 5 adamnash Jordan Jordan Jordan Jordan Tweet http://blog.adamnash.com/2008/12/29/holiday-gripe-family-picture-digital-camera-paparazzi/ http://blog.adamnash.com/2008/12/29/holiday-gripe-family-picture-digital-camera-paparazzi/#comments Mon, 29 Dec 2008 06:48:30 +0000 Adam Nash http://blog.adamnash.com/?p=1022 ]]> Since it’s just a few days before New Years, I thought I’d share my absolute, number one pet peeve from this year (and every year’s) big family party: the family picture digital camera paparazzi.

No, my family isn’t so famous that actual Paparazzi stake out my grandmother’s house and hound the streets and yard for photos.  In my family, we are our own paparazzi.

You see, every year, we have a huge family party, and there is a distinct moment in the party where everyone gathers to take photos.  This family.  That family.  The cousins.  The aunts & uncles.  The kids.  The grandkids.  Etc.  It’s a complex form of set theory.

In any case, instead of there being just one camera (a good one) with a photographer, everyone has to have the shot taken “with their camera”.  Sometimes, you get 10 cameras taking the picture at once, with everyone in the shot looking in a different direction, like some sort of carnival funhouse picture.  Other times, one person has several cameras dangling, saying, “OK, now with this one!”

Ridiculous.  At first, it was just annoying.  Then it became upseting.  Now, I just get pissed off.

You see, digital cameras should have solved this problem.  But they didn’t.

One camera.  Many shots.  Files can be shared for free.  Everyone can get their pictures.  There is absolutely no reason for multiple cameras to be used (especially when you have iPhone cameras without auto-focus competing with full digital SLRs).

Yet there they are, every year.  In fact, every year, it seems to get worse.

One theory is that most people don’t know how to download or get digital photos developed.   So they use their camera because they know how to get those pictures.  Problem is, in my family, I know for a fact that many of the people with cameras have never, ever successfully downloaded or developed their own pictures either.  But maybe it’s a safety net… they know that someday, they’ll figure it out.  And then they’ll have those pictures on their camera.

Historically, the only way to really get a picture was to have the negative.  You couldn’t count on someone else getting the role developed and sending you the shots you were in.  So that could explain why baby boomers express this behavior – it’s an anachronism.

But what explains my Gen Y cousins and siblings doing the same thing?  (Besides the obvious upside of irritating me, of course.)  My guess is that the current social assumption is that everyone has a camera, all the shots are terrible, but all are uploaded and shared.  In this worldview, not having “your photos” to share almost means you don’t have an opinion, a voice, something to contribute.   So, once again, everyone has their camera, even in situations like group still photos, where one camera is a much, much better solution.

I’m probably more irritated than most because, in general, as long as Eric isn’t around, I typically am the one that everyone depends on for “high quality” pictures from these events. And it’s sad to find out later that, because everyone was looking a different direction, there is no good picture of one of the families this year.

When I am not irritated, however, I do think about how, despite all these integrated photo editing and uploading services, we’ve still failed as an industry to really solve the photo sharing problem for families.  They are all too techie, all too hard to really use.  And that’s a piece of why, to this day, everyone insists on getting “one more with my camera!”

I’m thinking of banning any other cameras in 2009.  Too heavy handed?  How do other people solve this problem?

Happy Birthday, Jo Jo!

This may not sound like a typical LinkedIn success story, but it’s an important one.  LinkedIn saved my wedding photos.

In all fairness, the great folks at ScanCafe actually saved my wedding photos.  I read about ScanCafe in a great piece in Money magazine earlier this year.  ScanCafe provides a service where you send them negatives, slides, or photographs, and they scan them and return them to you in digital form.  They even have very high end services, like photo restoration or professional-caliber TIFF file support for true enthusiasts like myself.

After reading about ScanCafe, I was intrigued.  Our lack of wedding photos is a tragic story, dating back seven years to a extremely poor choice of wedding photographer.  Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that my wife and I ended up thousands of dollars poorer, with no wedding album whatsoever.  However, as a ray of hope, we did eventually get the original negatives.

Scanning single-cut medium-format negatives is not for the faint of heart.  It can take 5-10 minutes per photo, and that’s without touch-up work.  We had 400 negatives.  ScanCafe seemed like our savior, with affordable rates and support for all sorts of negatives.  But could they be trusted with our only hope for wedding photos?  Our original negatives?

Fortunately, trust is exactly where LinkedIn shines.  I typed “ScanCafe” into the search box on linkedin.com, and was delighted to find out that an old colleague of mine actually works for the company.  I sent him a LinkedIn message, and within a week I had his assurances and help in submitting my order.

Last week, for the first time, ScanCafe posted the results on their online website for me to review.  It was truly an emotional moment.  Wonderful photos and memories captured and restored, and now, with digital images, the freedom to finally share and publish wedding albums.  As we speak, 81.4GB of high quality TIFF and JPG images are on their way to my house.

I don’t think I would have had the courage to send our precious negatives to anyone without a personal reference and assurance, and I never would have known I had such a close contact at the company without LinkedIn.

Here is a particularly funny shot, that I didn’t even realize was funny until we saw the photos.  What can I say, it was a Zoolander moment…

Found this picture, had to post it.  Estimated date on this photo is late 1987 or early 1988.

Today, I discovered “The Spitoon“, the blog from 23andMe, the company dedicated to personal genomics.   Really interesting material.  I found this article particularly eye-catching:

SNPwatch: One SNP Makes Your Brown Eyes Blue

I’m curious about this, of course, because while I have green eyes, my wife Carolyn & my two sons have blue eyes.  It seems that this isn’t even due to a single gene – it’s literally a single nucleotide pair.  From the article:

Three recently published papers (here, here, and here) report that a single SNP determines whether a person’s eyes will be blue; every blue-eyed person in the world has the same version. The findings also suggest that the blue-eyed version of the SNP can be traced back to a single ancestor that lived about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.

It’s been known for a while that eye colors like green and hazel (deviations from the brown color found in the majority of people) can be explained by SNPs in a gene called OCA2. The protein made by this gene is involved in the production of melanin, a pigment found in the cells of the iris. This is the same pigment that gives your hair and skin their color. Darker eyes have more melanin than lighter colored eyes.

But none of the known variations in OCA2 could explain blue eyes. The new research seems to have solved the mystery. A SNP near OCA2, but not in it, determines whether a person will have blue eyes.

The SNP, rs12913832, is actually in a gene called HERC2. Scientists think that instead of affecting HERC2, the SNP controls how much protein will be made from the nearby OCA2 gene. Low levels of OCA2 protein, caused by the G version of the SNP, lead to lower levels of melanin, which in turn leads to blue eyes. 23andMe customers can check their genotype at this SNP in the Genome Explorer or in the Gene Journal (Note: In the Gene Journal you’ll see other SNPs also associated with eye color. The combination of these SNPs with the blue-eyed version of rs12913832 can end up giving a person green eyes instead of blue).

What a great blog.  Sign me up for that feed.

As a side note, Michael Arrington has posted his account info from 23andMe on TechCrunch, so you can live vicariously through him in case you are short $1000.  I have to admit, seeing those results makes me jealous – I’d love that kind of genetic detail on myself & my family members.

This snapshot is now the earliest known couple photo Carolyn & I have.  Friday, August 22, 1997.  At this point, we had been dating all of 12 days.

This is also, I believe, the very last Apple ATG Picnic, since this is also the year that Steve returned to Apple and officially disbanded ATG.

So a little nostalgia on the blog tonight.  Big thanks to Eric for the great picture.

What was interesting this year is that this may have been my first “Social Networking” birthday.

Normally, I’d expect to get 10-20 notes, email and cards, from the subset of close friends and family who decided to take the time to do something.  This year was different, however.  I think I got over 100 messages, at least.

While I’d love to say it’s because I’m getting more popular, I think that there is something else at work: the social networking effect.

Let’s say you have about 50 close friends.  If about 25% of them remember your birthday, then you get about 10-12 messages.

Social networking, however, has changed that.  Skype knows my birthday.  Geni knows my birthday.  Facebook knows my birthday.  Even InCircle knows my birthday! (LinkedIn does not know my birthday… yet.)

If these sites let people keep track of 100, 200, even 1000 friends, then even a 10% sampling from these groups can lead to over 100 messages.  What’s more, these sites and applications make it incredibly simple to send a note, post on a wall, etc.

The strange effect is this:  On the one hand, you get more messages than ever before.  On the other hand,  the notes from your really good friends are obscured somewhat by the avalanche of notes from more distant friends who now can more easily keep up on these things.

So, overall, I’m feeling pretty good today.  It was quite a few notes to go through, and my apologies to everyone if I didn’t respond to them all yet.  But there is a little part of me that misses the implicit intimacy of knowing who actually took extra time to remember my birthday, the old-fashioned way.

I guess that nostalgia is a sign that I am getting old. 

The argument in the video is largely predicated on what other artists get (authors, song writers), as well as the idea that there was an agreement to raise residual rates eventually in the 1980s agreement.  Mostly, it plays to the issue of “what is fair” by making the amounts sought by the writers as really trivial (always good to show little bars vs. big bars in these type of diagrams).

It’s really well done.

It takes a lot to get me up to San Francisco.  But last night was worth it.

For our anniversary, Carolyn & I went up to the city to catch the last night of Avenue Q.  It was phenomenal.

I think it goes without saying that every musical would be better with dirty puppets.  But I honestly don’t think that five seconds went by at the musical where I wasn’t thoroughly enjoying myself.

If you haven’t seen Avenue Q, you need to find a way to see it.  It’s that funny.

As a side note, there was one unrelated, surreal experience at the Orpheum Theatre last night.  At intermission, there was literally no wait for the women’s bathrooms (there are three).  But there was  a line at least fifty guys long for the one and only men’s bathroom in the basement.  I barely made it back to the show on-time.

More that one woman commented on how strange it was to see no line for the women’s room, and this huge, wrapping line for the men’s room.  There was visible and audible snickering, and I think some form of revenge fantasy play going on.  I have to admit, I was immensely frustrated.  I guess I’m just an “equal opportunity” rather than an “equal outcome” kind of guy.

I’m sure the Orpheum was well intentioned, and  decided to alter their design to accomodate women, but they over-shot.  For all I know, maybe they’ve decided their most important customers are women, and making them happy is the top priority.

In any case, Avenue Q was phenomenal.

Either version is true – today’s post on the LinkedIn corporate blog is from my mother, Dr. Sharon Nash, Ph.D. After my initial post on the corporate blog, I was surprised at how many people sent in comments about the fact that my mother was on LinkedIn. Since she is a relatively new user to the site, and a professional expert on relationships and people, we thought it would be an interesting user story to tell.

Considering that it is her first blog post ever, I think she did quite well. In fact, I think the bigger dilemma for her was picking the right picture to use.

The fact that my mother has enjoyed LinkedIn so much that she has recommended it to over 85 (and counting) colleagues and friends is incredibly validating. I spent four years at eBay trying to break her of the typical e-commerce habit, and never succeeded. Not even eBay Express, I’m afraid.

I’ve become increasingly convinced that the opportunity for LinkedIn goes far beyond the site as it stands today. There is a very real human interest in connecting with your trusted colleagues and friends in a professional environment. We have only scratched the surface of the interesting and useful applications for professionals built over this platform. Right now, most software and web applications are still based around a model that assumes that data & information are the basis for getting things done. However, in the real world, most problems are solved by referral and advice from the people that you trust & respect. LinkedIn enables exactly that type of model, and that makes me incredibly optimistic about the future for the site and the platform.

Or if you don’t believe me, ask my Mom.

For this post, I thought I’d just put up some pictures to reflect on.  I’m very lucky.  I have two wonderful boys, and my father & grandfather both live nearby.   Very lucky, indeed.

Here are some recent shots of me with Jacob & Joseph (May 2007):

Here are some shots of my Dad with his grandsons, Jacob & Joseph:

Here is a picture of my Grandfather, with his great-grandsons, Jacob & Joseph:

And here are some nostalgia moments, pictures from Father’s Day 2005 & 2006:

So Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there, and a special thank you to Carolyn & my boys for making this my day also.

For example, my son is likely one of very few two year olds to clearly articulate when he wants to play Nintendo Wii, as he will say “Wii” and then run to the drawer where the Wii-motes are kept.

Jacob also is a huge fan of “Apple TV”, and will say so and then run to the bedroom waiting for us to play one of his favorite movies. We have about half of his favorites ripped to iTunes now, and he knows it.

Besides, it turns out that “Apple TV” is the combination of two things Jacob already knew how to say. “Apple” is his favorite snack and juice, and “TV” is unfortunately also a favorite of his.

Jacob’s vocabulary isn’t huge yet, although he does suprise us with full sentences now and again. Two year olds often love to repeat the same word or phrase over and over again. As a result, I’ve made up my own little game where I make up a joke around the phrase Jacob is repeating, and then he says the punchline.

Example:

Jacob: “Apple Juice. Apple Juice. Apple Juice.”

Adam: “Jacob, what do you call Mac-users who go to synagogue?”

Jacob: “Apple Jews”

Two year olds are fun!

Now, since I’ve taken a lot of flack in some circles about actually owning a minivan, Carolyn forwarded me this great spoof video on Youtube called “Mom My Ride”.

I’m posting it here as just a little bit of love for my friends at eBay Motors.

Enjoy.

How else could you explain the lovely birthday present that he gave me yesterday?

I’ve placed my order already to the Apple Store for:

• Airport Extreme Wireless Hub (802.11N)
• HDMI to DVI cable
• DVI to RCA Video cable

The last two are essential because the AppleTV does not ship with any cables to connect the device to your TV.  Even if it did, the TV I’m going to hook up first is the one in the “playroom” for Jacob, which doesn’t have HDMI or Component inputs.  It’s a *gasp* regular, analog television.

There are some exciting hacks already online on how to put a larger hard drive into the AppleTV, install a terminal server, and add support for other codecs like XViD.

I’m obviously very excited to get it up and running.  So…

Thank you, Daniel.  I love you, too.

I have come up with a solution:  replace Sanjaya with Jacob.  Jacob loves American idol, and what can I say?  He has the talent and the personality to win.  He’s unique and memorable.  He’s got the whole package.

Remember to vote!

Part of my promise to post more “baby & puppy” pictures to the blog.

Saturday

• Woke up (8:00 am)
• Had breakfast with Jacob
• Watched Joseph
• Helped give Newton & Darwin a bath (my specialty is drying the beagles as they go through “Beagle frenzy”)
• Went to lunch in Los Altos at Tour Eiffel with Carolyn & Jacob & Joseph (Vietnamese Pho)
• Took Jacob to get his haircut
• Got coffee with my Mom
• Listed about 8 items for sale on eBay
• Ate dinner with my parents
• Put Jacob to bed

Sunday

• Woke up (8:00 am)
• Had breakfast with Jacob
• Read the NY Times Sunday Business & Week in Review
• Went to lunch at On The Border in Milpitas with Carolyn (Jacob & Joseph napped the entire time!)
• Spent a couple hours online
• Went to my parents house for dinner with my brother & sister, parents, and grandparents.
• Blew out birthday candles & opened presents
• Went home late! Put the kids to bed.

Monday

• Woke up (8:00 am)
• Had breakfast with Jacob
• Watched the two boys alone for an hour or two.
• Watched the first two hours of 24
• Went to lunch at Chili’s
• Went to Costco
• Set up my new GPS unit for my car
• Went out to a movie, Children of Men, with Carolyn (alone!)
• Came home, ate dinner.
• Put Jacob to bed
• Packed & Shipped the 12 successful items that closed on eBay over the weekend
• Blogging

My time with Jacob & Joseph is so precious. They are growing so fast. This weekend was filled with so many great and simple moments with them. Even a trip to Costco is fun when you’ve got Jacob in the front of the cart, and you’re racing down the ramp. I’m not sure how it could have been better.

And that’s how I celebrated the big 100000 (binary), or the big 20 (hex).

At least, they are on Dogster. Some days, I feel like all I am doing is accepting “Pup Pal” requests from other dogs, mostly beagles, for my giant beagles. I say giant because although they are papered 13″ Beagles, they have somehow ended up on the large side. Well, if you consider 17″ and 50+ pounds large.

I had read that Dogster had become a fairly popular site, with good revenue from ads. But I had no idea how many people find it entertaining to “connect” their puppy with other dogs.

In any case, if you have dogs, and you want to connect with Newton & Darwin, here is your chance.

However, she said for a personal blog, I’m not including enough “Baby & Puppy” pictures.   Which is fair since I’ve posted at least two posts about my tomatoes from my garden, but no puppies.

Well, here’s a teaser picture.  A great image, captured by the famous Eric Cheng, of my son Jacob (2) and my first Beagle Newton (4).

Enjoy.

If you are not familar with 529 plans, you can think of them as 401k plans, but for college savings. They are an outgrowth of the original state-based, pre-paid tuition plans, which have since been adapted to become generic savings vehicles for college with significant tax advantages. There are other vehicles available, but none offer the combination of significant savings limits, tax benefits, college financial aid benefits, and control that the 529 plans offer.

Almost every personal finance journal now does annual reviews of each state-based 529 plan. Here is a great one from Money magazine that reviews them state-by-state.

When choosing a 529 plan, it is worth keeping the following things in mind:

1. You do not need to choose the plan from your state. This is really important, because some of the state plans are terrible, with high expenses and poor fund choices. The ability to pick any state plan is a really great option for investors – imagine if you could pick among not just your company’s 401k plan, but the 401k plan from any company!
2. Check to see if your state offers you tax advantages. Some states allow you to deduct 529 contributions from your state taxes. I live in California, which despite having a sky-high income tax rate, does not let you deduct anything. This is important, however, because in states with tax benefits, it might be worth sticking with the in-state plan.
3. You can open one for almost any family member. Most people think about college savings only for their children, but 529 plans can actually be opened for anyone under 30. The whole point is that the person who opens the plan controls the money, but it only has tax advantages if used towards the college education of a person under 30.
4. You are not locked in! You can actually change dependents on a plan once a year, and change state plans once a year. Don’t let the complexity stop you from opening a plan as soon as possible. It is very easy to change. Interestingly, you can use this ability to open a plan for your unborn children! Just open a plan for someone else, and once your children are born, switch the plan to them. A great way to get more than 18 years of compounded interest towards saving for college.
5. The sooner you start the better. In the past 20 years, college tuition rates have grown at a compounded rate of 8%. The only way you are going to keep up with that type of growth is to save early, save often, and use the high expected return of investments like stocks to meet your targets. Compounding works best the earlier you start. The money you contribute in years 0-4 is likely 2-4x more valuable than the money you contribute in years 14-18.
6. Expense ratios matter! Expense ratios are your enemy. This is money that is taken out of your investments, regardless of your return. A difference of 0.5% might seem small, but on $10,000 that is a loss of $4377 over 18 years. That’s real money. 529 plans often charge fees three different ways: on the funds, on the plan, and for the fund management firm.
7. Save big dollars like a 401K, but withdraw tax-free like a Roth IRA! 529 plans really are the best of both worlds. You can contribute up to $12,000 per year (with a special $60,000 if you want to bundle 5 years of contributions at once). But if you use the withdrawals for qualified education expenses, you will pay zero tax on the earnings. So this isn’t tax-deferred saving… this is truly tax-free saving on all gains in the account. More details on this site.
8. Save for retirement first. You can borrow money for college, but you cannot borrow money for retirement. College savings plans should only be put in place once your retirement savings plan is in place.

More tips from Money magazine and SmartMoney magazine are available.

When my son Jacob was born two years ago, I decided to open a Nevada 529 plan through Vanguard. Vanguard is known for its history of running low cost index funds, and for its tireless advocacy for investor rights. Vanguard actually runs plans for 13 different states, but the Nevada plan is the one that is fully integrated with Vanguard, which is an added bonus if you have retirement accounts with Vanguard (I do).

The expense ratios for the Nevada plan are good – depending on the fund, anywhere from 0.6% – 0.8% total. They also have a wide selection of investment choices.

However, last year I was disappointed to find out that Utah has an even cheaper plan run by Vanguard, with expense ratios closer to 0.4%. Of course, Utah charges a $25/year fee for out-of-state investors, but still, I started to think about moving Jacob’s plan over.

Then, yesterday, I get this letter from Vanguard. Given their commitment to low fees, they have reduced the expense ratios on the Nevada plan to 0.5% – 0.7%, still with no annual fee.

This is why I love to do business with firms like Vanguard. Their entire marketing message and differentiation is low fees. Like a company that always raises dividends on their stock, I firmly believe Vanguard is always working to lower the prices of their investment alternatives. They are like Wal-Mart for saving.

So, I’m sticking with the Nevada plan, and I’ll be opening one up for Joseph just as soon as I get his Social Security number. If you are interested in researching plans, CNN Money has a great set of recommendations (Utah, Nevada & Michigan top their list).

Update (1/21/2007): I’ve posted a new article on how to take advantage of the ability to change beneficiaries for 529 plans. Check it out.

So far, I’ve been really good about this, but I’m about to write a post about picking college savings plans, and I realized I’ve never posted anything about my children. This is particularly problematic since my wife and I were blessed with the birth of our second son less than two weeks ago, on October 30.

So, without further ado, here are my top two priorities, in order of age:

Jacob Monroe Nash, with a pumpkin for Halloween

Joseph Isaac Nash, resting at one week old

I myself still use My Yahoo to keep track of most of my blogs, although that is definitely having scaling issues.  However, now that I have my own blog, I’ve realized that most of my friends and family don’t have any sort of regular, blog-reading system.

Sure, if I send them an email, they’ll read my most recent posts.  But they have no daily process to “check up” on a blog, or to receive notification when a new post arrives.

To them, the web is still something you use when they want something.  They have nothing set up to receive a “push” from a site to let them know something interesting is available.

Well, I think I found a solution.  Feedblitz is a great little service that makes it easy for people to subscribe to an RSS feed, like a blog, via email.  It even allows the feed owner to customize the output in some very interesting ways.

I’ve set it up for this blog, and I hope that means that more of my friends and family who are not “blog savvy” will be able to read my posts.

I’ve added the link to my right column, but if you are interested, just click the following link to subscribe to this blog via email:

Click here to subscribe to Psychohistory via email

Let me know what you think.

As with our first son, I will likely have a Baby blog up so that family & friends can follow the action remotely.

You can look for updates on the Baby Nash website.  There will be updates there when we are ready.