DanRochman.com

I am sad to report that Karl, our pet cockroach, passed away very early this morning. He died peacefully, surrounded by his favorite things - his hollow log, his food bowl, and a tender morsel of fresh bread. I don’t know that he had a long life, by cockroach standards, because we don’t know how old he was when we adopted him. But I hope that he had a happy life, and I know that he’ll be remembered fondly. There will be a very private service in our yard some time tonight.

Good-bye, Karl.

In case you haven’t heard, it was discovered a while back that most (all?) Kryptonite U-Locks with a “cylindrical locking mechanism” can be opened in a few seconds, by almost anyone, using nothing fancier than the barrel of a Round Stic pen. [One of my favorite pens, by the way - preferably a Medium point, with black ink.] Engadget even posted a video clip of Phillip Torrone opening his own Kryptonite lock with a pen barrel, which was an overnight sensation in the blogosphere.

So, a lot of noise was made about it, and a class action suit was filed, and Kryptonite, humiliated beyond belief, settled but quick. The upshot is that if you own a Kryptonite U-Lock with a cylindrical locking mechanism (and who doesn’t - there’s one on my bike, and another just like it on Em’s bike), and you live in Canada or the United States, then you want to head over to the Kryptonite Settlement site and read through the PDFs. Among other forms of relief, you can exchange your lock for a similar one that does NOT have a cylindrical locking mechanism, with postage paid both ways.

Once you’re fully briefed on the legal situation, head on over to the actual Kryptonite Lock web site. The Claim Forms link on the Settlement site is useless, but there’s actually a very simple lock exchange registration page (pages, actually) right off the Kryptonite home page. Although of course I’d rather (proudly) say that I’ll never own or use a Kryptonite lock again, the reality is that any other replacement lock would probably set me back forty or fifty dollars. And I’d *like* to think that all of the negative publicity and public scrutiny that arose from the “pick with a Bic” fiasco will translate into the replacement lock actually being (relatively) secure. Or, to be more cynical about it, no bike lock on the market (that isn’t worth more than your bike) will stop a professional thief, so why sweat it? Go get yourself a shiny, new, pick-resistant (?) Kryptonite lock. And in the meantime, have fun picking your old one with a pen barrel - it’s both fascinating and depressing to confirm that it really is as easy as the Engadget video suggests.

This has been a public service announcement from DanRochman.com.

Em’s become obsessed with Flat Stanley. Our friend Deb was over the other night, and she asked us if we would help her out this weekend. We’ll be taking pictures of a Flat Stanley that her little brother had crafted and mailed out to her. Easy enough, and it seemed like a cute idea - like the old Garden Gnome prank, but for kids. Plus the kids each make their very own Flat Stanley, so it’s extra-cool for them. And it’s a whole lot easier to mail a paper doll than a garden gnome. But we had NO IDEA just how huge the whole Flat Stanley project is - the public Picture Gallery is fantastic. Check out Flat Stanley’s visit to the White House. It’s hilarious to see all the places on Earth where a particular style of paper doll has been photographed.

I’ll put our Flat Stanley pictures up in the gallery once they’re done. The majority will be kid-safe, since the whole idea is to send prints back to Deb’s brother’s school, but I suspect we’ll keep back a few select pictures of Flat Stanley’s “lost weekend” in San Francisco. Don’t tell the kids.

Welcome to the latest issue of DanRochman.com - possibly the world’s first *quarterly* blog. Sigh.

Where to begin. I can’t even remember my last post. I can’t look it up right now, either, because I’m working offline. At least I’m offilne in San Francisco, for a change - I’ve been doing a *lot* of business travel over the last few months. I got handed a new assingment at work, and with very short notice (and no fanfare) I ended up shadowing a counterpart at a company we’ve just partnered with, and learning my way around a stack of software I’d never laid eyes on before. The partner company is based in Minneapolis, and the job site where the initial collaboration took place is in Winnipeg (during February and March - just my luck). It’s been challenging in a lot of ways, but on the plus side, my utilization numbers went from “adequate” to “over 100%” pretty much overnight. And I get to keep all the air miles and hotel award points.

The scary part is, there’s plenty more travel to come. The week-long trips to Winnipeg are behind me (for now), but I might end up spending every other week in Everett (just north of Seattle) for a little while. And beyond that, I’ll probably end up doing more travelling in general, since the client base for this product seems to be everywhere BUT Northern California. Eventually, other people will be brought on, so I won’t have to travel as much, but in the near term I’ll continue to be a road warrior. That mostly sucks, and it’s certainly not what I signed on for, but I can deal with it for a while. Mostly I miss Em, and she *claims* to miss me, too - I try to make it up to her when I’m back in San Francisco.

Another side effect of all the travel is that I haven’t had much blogging time - or else when I have had time, I just haven’t felt like doing it. Somehow, living on the road sucked the blog right outta me. This morning, for no real reason, I finally decided to fire up w.bloggar and compose a post - so it goes. Maybe it just took me a few months to get my rhythm back.

When I haven’t been travelling for work, Em and I have been entertaining some travelling friends at our home. Carlos came down MacWorld in January, and (unlike the LAST time) actually stayed around for a visit once it was over. And just a couple of weeks ago Arnon & Rowan spent some time visiting friends in Santa Rosa (a little ways north of here), and then spent a few days with us in San Francisco. Our friend Ducky came into San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference around the same time, and we got to spend some quality time with him as well. Living in San Francisco is cool like that - people want to visit.

On the travelling-for-pleasure side, I have officially taken the plunge and purchased two tickets to Burning Man 2005. After six years of living this close to the event, Em and I are FINALLY going. I’m sure I’ll blog more about that as the start date (August 29th) approaches. And Emylene has taken a smaller plunge, and purchased the Lonely Planet guide to Brazil, which has apparently just made it to the top of her our shortlist of “places to spend our next vacation”. We haven’t set any dates for that yet, but it’s nice to be able to start daydreaming about it now…