Kendall Card 2.0

A while back I posted a video from New Belgium about their Fat Tire Ale. In the video the guy looks happy, really happy about riding his cruiser that he built.

Yesterday it dawned clear skies and cold, but by noon when I went to the rec center for my swim work out it had warmed up considerably (from low 30’s to low 60’s).  As I rode home from swimming on my new-to-me Schwinn Continental circa 1970 baby blue ride, I felt that same happy feeling portrayed in the video.  That of riding a bike on the perfect autumn day, the warm air and sunshine soaking me to core.

So instead of stopping at home I rode on by, went to the post office, cruised main street Kamas, stopping by7 the nursery to check out some bushes and trees that might be on sale. As I finally made my way back to the home office, I couldn’t help but smile as I weaved back and forth on my bike, just like a kid again.

And that’s what riding a bike can often inspire – the kid like feeling that so often escapes our norm as adults.  While it won’t entirely ease the current pain of the economy, it sure feels good.

Don’t call me at noon today, I’ll be out on my new ride.

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About my bike

I picked up this gem from my friend Bill Krause who works in the Cloffice at the Salt Lake Visitor Center.  He had cleaned and restored this gem and let it go for a fair price.

I further outfitted it with a 1970’s Pletscher chrome bike rack that has a spring loaded book holder latch, formerly mounted on my late father-in-laws trusty steed that he used to ride to BYU from Orem.  They were going to throw his old bike out (complete with old school Campi components, gear shifters in the drops and the Swiss made bike rack) so I rescued the entire thing.  A perfect winter project for my newly completed shop.

Google is huge, HUGE!  But I’m sure you realize this.

While I’ve used Google a number of times for self gratification by googling Kendall Card or my alias “powstash”, it’s surprising when I’m not looking for myself that I find myself.

Case in point:  I was getting ready to write a blog post for a client, Utah Vacation Homes, about the many outdoor stairways/walkways that can be found in Park City, I did a Google image search for Park City Main Street Stairs and then one for Park City Utah.  As I was looking through the images on page 1 I spy this photo which looks all so familiar:

The reason being, is that there is me!  The photo is probably 6 years old taken by my friend and photographer Erik Seo one morning on Murdock Peak at – ready for this – The Canyons!  Which technically  isn’t in the town of Park City.

So yea, I found myself when I wasn’t even looking.  Anyone else had that surprise?

I really liked this video about the up coming vote that I believe speaks to every Christian regardless of their interpretations or gospel precepts that they follow.

When you hear the word “Bluebird“, what images does it conjure up in your mind?  Any specific memories? If you’re a skier there’s no doubt you’ve had a few bluebird days that have etched their way into your cerebral cortex, never to be removed.

One specific memory that I have of Bluebird is from a photo that my friend Bryan Rhodes took of me skiing “the Driveway” in 2 feet of new powder with a deep, dark blue sky behind billows of white dry powder as I was flashing a turn.

If I close my eyes and think on that day, I can still feel those turns and see that deep blue sky, the sun reflecting so brilliantly off the freshly fallen snow.

I started thinking about Bluebird from a tee-shirt contest that Bluehouse Skis is running right now.  It was interesting to see what some of the entrants have come up with.

My favorite so far is the entry below from Nick Flynn.  I hope it wins and is made into a tee. If so, I’ll surely buy it.

Check out the other Bluebird designs for the Bluehouse tee-shirt contest.

The weather outside is 80 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and my options for today was a century ride, plant grass, go for a hike….but alas, I’m indoors today, all day.

All day?  Yep!

I’m currently at Word Camp Utah (being held at Novell) which if you walked into the room would look like a ‘geek’ conference.  I know this because when the asked for programmers and designers to raise their hands I almost rose my hand so that when they asked for “others” that I wasn’t the only one.

But it’s been really cool and time very well spent.  $20 for this conference with a T-Shirt, a hearty lunch and snacks = I SCORED!

So far I’ve heard from:

1. Matt Mullenweg – Co-founding developer of Word Press.  Lots of great things coming, including a new version of WordPress (2.7 due out in November)  with a new dashboard that is customizable.  Matt did a demo of it and I’m really stoked for this.
2. Richard Miller – He spoke about using WordPress as a CMS tool.  Really interesting stuff here and some great examples of how some sites use pages and others use posts.  I personally prefer posts since they are fed through RSS while pages don’t have that advantage.

3. Cameron Moll – I would have paid $20 to just hear him speak.  His presentation was entitled Good vs. Great Design. One of the biggest take aways from his presentation was this idea (from my notes) 

   Homogenecity vs. Heirarchy:  What is the visual heirarchy of your site/page?  Let the prominant stuff stand out and the secondary stuff follow.   Try this with your next web/e-mail design:

   1. Grey scale your web page/document
   2. Blur it in photoshop
   3. What stands out?
   4. This will tells you about where people are looking and what is the real focus of your site/e-mail.
   5. Adjust your design accordingly to make the most important elements stand out or draw the eye.
4. Thom Allen (currently speaking) – Thom is in the above image as he introduces his topic of Podcasting.  Good stuff for sure.

2 more speakers to go, one who is talking about SEO for blogging and the last one about writing plugins.

If WordCamp comes to your city and you do anything with blogging and in particular Word Press, you NEED to attend.

Rethinking things that are ordinary and customary is either over done or seldom done.

The desktop on your computer is a great example. Why is it that it’s organize the way it is?  Icons, all the same size, general colors, etc.  Here is my desktop below. It’s a mess isn’t it? Part of it is “organized” by groups of things I need to work on (like blog posts or images to resize) and some of it is left over from doing the “arrange by type.

(image by Grant Gunderson)

To organize it (which isn’t all that often) the options are:

RIGHT CLICK – Arrange Icons by – Name, Size, Type, Modified.

What about importance or MUST get done today!?

Enter BumpTop.  Watch this!

This type of fresh approach to the ordinary and continually accepted “way it is done” can be applied to many things around us and the results could be very lucrative, not to mention challenging.

I was at the Outdoor Demo today for the Interbike Convention here in Las Vegas and it was H O T !!  The high in Kamas yesterday was 65 while the overnight low tonight in Vegas is 69 with the daytime high in the mid 90’s.

So in the midst of the heat and with the ‘need’ to demo a number of next years mountain bikes for FeedtheHabit.com, I got after it and left it all out on the trails.  By the end of the day I was spent.  When I took off my helmet my buddies saw some rare stalactites of salt as evidence of my efforts.

Evidence:

Thanks to Jonny Aand Dustin for spotting them and taking the photo.

Somehow the idea of a taco stand as the backdrop for this year’s flex video for the new Bluehouse Ski lineup stuck so we made it happen the other day at 8th and State in Salt Lake. I’m so stoked on the line up for the skis.

After the video shoot Shane and I got 8 tacos and two Mexican sodas for $9 – just how I like it!

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Bluehouse Skis pre-season sale is happening now through Oct 3 (despite the misprint in the video)!

We all belong to at least one community of some sort, whether it’s formally organized or not. In my work and in my life away from work I participate in and bring value to a number of communities. Some are huge, some are small, but the approach is the same when looking to build a community.

If you’ve thought about being part of a community or perhaps starting your own for your company or brand, this video from Barry Libert, Chairman of Mzinga, is a great starter on the 7 rules of creating a community.

I like #6 – Relinquish Control. You’ve got to trust that the community will guide the direction and creations (or destruction) as a collective.

As I see it my role in building a community is to be the enabler, looking out for ways that I can help them, not the traditional “how can they help me” perspective that is so easy to fall prey to (often the result of a number cruncher who demands traditional ROI on community efforts)

Check it.

It’s rainy and cool today.  Water droplets are streaming down my window, the drops playing a pin-ball game as gravity pulls them downward.  The watery window makes for a nice backdrop frame for my laptop, the water streaks leaving a blurry image of greens and grays beyond.

With the cool weather comes a re-acquaintance with clothing we’ve not considered in months.  Annapurna came to my “office” a few minutes ago having been reintroduced to her green sweater and beanie combo that was a hand-me-down from Chloe our fabulous neighbor.

She insisted I take a break from the computer to come outside with her.  Fortunately there was a break in the storms.

In her anxiousness to go outside and having grown accustomed to walking around barefoot, the moment her bare feet came in contact with the moist cool deck she said “brrrr daddy” and bolted for cover.  I was able to snap a couple of pictures before she made it inside.