This past weekend I had a chance to make it down to the 2012 Washington Auto Show, a yearly event at the DC Convention Center. Of course, they had an amazing spread of about everything you could imagine; including the latest models from both domestic and foreign manufacturers, select concept cars, and models (girls) + iPads galore. Similar to many, I imagine, a graduate student stipend doesn’t necessarily reconcile with one’s auto preferences. Despite this shortcoming, it was very cool to see all the beautiful vehicles on display.
For the auto geeks amongst us, my favorites were the newest BMW M5 and Audi RS5. A few photos.
If you haven’t read about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) or PIPA (Protect IP Act), please do so now. These bills propose harmful changes to the way the web works, and how some of the most innovative companies operate. They remove due process, promote needless and expensive lawsuits, and [mostly] they entirely miss the mark on doing what they say they are supposed to — stopping piracy.
Look around the web today, and you will see things a bit differently. Wikipedia, Craigslist, and WordPress are dark. Numerous others have put up education and protest links. Can you imagine a day without Google, or Twitter, or Facebook?
Read more about a few selected individual efforts below, and make your voice heard.
- Google
- Flickr
- Vimeo
- Arstechnica
- et. al.
Another catchup blog, but an important one. I recently turned 30, doh. We took it in as best as we could. In fact, Amy turned 30 also. The bigger news is that we coupled it all into a fabulous weekend get-away to Napa, CA…and we got engaged! Whew!!
It was a pretty incredible story. The date was easy enough to remember; we flew out to Napa on 11/11/2011. After a bumpy/rainy flight in, we made our way on the one hour drive from SFO to Napa. The next morning we awoke to a perfectly blue sky (and it stayed that way the rest of the weekend). We visited a number of amazing vineyards, including: Cakebread, Inglenook (i.e. Francis Ford Coppola’s Rubicon Estate), Robert Mondavi, Domaine Chandon, Behrens Family Winery (my favorite of the lot), Keenan Winery, Schweiger Vineyards, Artesa Winery and Gustavo Thrace. So just a few. We may have also brought back [more than] a few bottles to remember the occasion.
As always, plenty of photos to share! It couldn’t have been a more perfect time to visit. More on my Flickr.
And of course… a couple of pre- and post-engagement shots.
