Author: josh

A Million Parachutes

Like a million parachutes
The snow’s coming down
I lock up the front door
And turn the lights down
In the glow of the street lights,
I see them descend
Like a million parachutes,
Small men on a mission

I miss the warm,
And i miss the sun
And i miss the ocean,
I miss everyone
And i miss the bridges
That span across the bay
Tonight it seems like ages ago

Like a million parachutes
The snow still falls
The dogs are asleep now,
There’s no one to call
I put on some records
And wait for the light
All those million parachutes,
Now a blanket of white

I miss the warm,
And i miss the sun
I miss the ocean,
I miss everyone
And i miss the bridges
That span across the bay
Tonight it seems like ages ago

Credit: “A Million Parachutes” by Sixpence None The Richer

Going Home

When Steph and I first moved out to California in June of 2002, we were both in agreement that we’d probably move back to Minnesota in a year or two. Certainly, we thought, the Pacific Ocean and earthquakes had nothing on our snowmen, our hotdish, our Ole and Lena jokes.

Obviously we weren’t correct in that guess, and for good reason. Apple has treated me fantastically over the last six years, allowing me to grow and learn in directions I had never imagined when I first arrived. Somehow I still feel like the Apple fan I was in high school, even though I’m a part of that magic now. Hyde Middle School brought Stephanie to new levels of excellence in teaching and even indirectly encouraged her to get her Master’s degree. The friends we made at work and at PBCC drew us in, convinced us to put down some roots, and gave us good reason to stay. And here we’ve been to this day.

But it turns out we were right that we wouldn’t stay forever.

A few months ago Steph and I decided it was time to go back to Minnesota. Caleb was a large part of that decision, but not the only part. I started looking for jobs in Minnesota a few weeks ago, and last Friday I accepted an awesome job offer as a web developer for a startup called Enclarity in Minneapolis.

So, what now? Yesterday I gave Apple my two-week notice. February 15th will be my final day there. (Appropriately near to Valentine’s Day, I think, since leaving Apple will for me be like breaking up with a long-time girlfriend.) We’ll be packing all our worldly possessions into a PODS unit in our driveway over the next two weeks, and on the 18th we’ll kiss the West Coast goodbye and board a plane in San Francisco, headed for good ol’ MSP.

If you’re in The Valley, take a moment to come see us if you can, or just send us a quick email or leave a comment below. We don’t have too much time to say goodbye, and we’d love to see you one more time.

If you’re in The Cities, make sure you’ve got that Swedish meatball recipe ready and turn on some Prairie Home Companion. We’ll be stopping by soon for a little lunch.

HeartBreakers: Yum!

Heartbreakers: Yum!

HeartBreakers have been my favorite candy for the last few years. I’m a bit worried that they seem to have become seasonal like Cadbury Eggs, and thus much harder to buy. Still, when I saw them in Target’s Valentine’s Day super-candyliscious-yummy-blowout-sale aisle, I grabbed more bags than I’m willing to publicly admit and made a beeline for the checkout.

Yum. Seriously, so very yum.

(This photo and the other, worse ones that I took in the series have also taught me how hard it is to photograph food. And I can only imagine this is the easiest type of all food photos.)

Coffee Break Machine: 1967

In 1967, Jim Henson created a short training film for IBM called “Coffee Break Machine” in which a bluish-green, furry monster slowly devours a machine as the machine plays back a recording that describes its own parts. Later that same year, the sketch was performed on The Ed Sullivan Show. That performance was recorded, of course, and it’s on YouTube now.

Enjoy the genius of Jim Henson.

Note: two years after this was filmed, a slightly modified version of this puppet appeared on Sesame Street, this time being brought to life by a 25-year-old puppeteer named Frank Oz.

We all probably prefer Oz’s additions to this character to the version we’re seeing here, but I have to say that Caleb laughed more at this video than he has ever laughed at me, so kudos to this performance, for what it’s worth.

Comment Extravaganza 2008!

Three years ago I got tired of only publicly mocking blog spam and took the relatively extreme preventative measure of shutting off comments on all entries that were more than a month old. I even wrote a script called No Comment that would help you to shut off the comments on all your old posts if you so desired. By my logic at the time, if you arrived at my entry more than a month after I wrote it, whatever you had to say was useless to me, and the probability that you were a spam bot was simply too high.

Well, I’m feeling risky in 2008.

I’ve decided that for at least a few days, and perhaps weeks or months depending on the outcome of my experiment, I’m going to open all comments back up again. I’ll be very interested to see what kind of non-spam comments I get, if any, and where they’re located. In the mean time, expect that blocked-spam counter at the bottom of the page to rocket past 25,000 in short order.