October 2004 Archives

Today was my first halloween as a homeowner. Living on a street with a lot of little kids, it was my responsibility to supply plenty of candy! And that I did. In the end I had maybe 20-25 little guests who got 2 pieces of candy a piece. Lucky for me (or maybe not), there are plenty of leftovers.

My pumpkin was carved at the last minute and was low budget. Thankfully I didn't cut off any fingers in the process.

I'm nearing the one-year anniversary of moving to Brentwood and will have some reflections on that this week.

I went over to the Audi dealer today, hoping my car would be there. I find my salesperson who tells me that "the computer says it was delivered, but it's not here". So apparently it really hasn't been delivered (or the truck driver is enjoying it). It may arrive over the weekend, but even if that happens, I still can't pick it up until Monday. Sigh... I've been waiting patiently for so long (over a year!) but these last weeks have been tough!

Back in college I worked with a guy from Lodi, CA. That's about 30 miles northeast from here (as the crow flies) and I've always figured it was another Stockton, Modesto, etc. So after an unsuccessful photo trip in Stockton I remembered two things Ben told me about Lodi: it's not that bad, and it has a lake. So I drove north to Lodi, drove through the town (much nicer than Stockton) and into the country. It reminded me a lot of Napa Valley, just flatter. Tons of grapes growing there. I gave up looking for the lake and on my drive back, there it was. And it was nice, too! Very tranquil. So to the people of Lodi, I'm sorry for thinking that you were a dump for all these years.

The next seven days should prove exciting... I'm expecting to get both my new car and new TV. I'm sure I'll rave endlessly when they get here -- hopefully no ranting.

I forgot to mention this last week. Just when you thought things couldn't get any stranger, this happens...

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I'm healthy again after a not-so-fun week. Over the weekend I took the above shot (with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX7) at Stanford.

Free toothbrush with purchase of huge bag of candy? Okay...

Speaking of candy, I did stock up on a few bags for halloween... I'm hoping I don't get too many visitors so there are plenty of leftovers for me! It's awfully hard staring at the bags without eating any... right now my stomach doesn't want anything.

Man, I haven't seen it rain this much in one day in years. Things quieted down for a few hours and now it's pouring again. My street is starting to look a little like a river.

I won't need to water my plants for a week!

The stomach flu diet! Lose 6 pounds in two days! Of course that's mostly water. I feel like crap and have had one meal in 36 hours: toast. And that was yesterday.

I've been meaning to write about this for a while but haven't done so until now.

A little over a month ago I had a meeting with a friend in the print media business to sort out some work-related issues (which still haven’t been resolved). This person has been in the print and online business for a long time and I have tremendous respect for his opinions. After a while the topic turned to my website/business and where I was planning to take it. I told him that I didn't know. And to be honest I still don't.

There are two main things that I'm really unsure about:

1) How long do I want to do it?
Unless something unexpected happens, theoretically I could spend the next 30 years writing reviews of digital cameras. I don't see them going away and if something better comes along I could probably transition to it. Then question is: do I want to be doing this for the next 30 years? After nearly 7 years of working on the DCRP site I'm pretty sure the answer to that question is "no".

So then what? Do I close up shop one day and just let it die? Sell the site? Get a successor to take over the business?

If I leave, then what do I do with myself? Another desk job? Something good for humanity? It would be hard to give it all up because, to be honest, it pays very well, I'm my own boss, and I feel like I'm helping people (though not in the right way, IMHO).

2) Getting help
Over the last 7 years my workload has increased and along with that, my stress level. In order to keep myself sane while continuing to grow the site, I'm going to need to hire help at some point. The question is, what type of person and when do I hire them?

Who I need:
- Salesperson
- Grunt worker (takes pictures and product shots, gets cameras to review, etc)
- Writer

The problem is, I can't hire all three. I've thought about getting an intern for #2, but I'm 30 miles from a real university and I need them here where all my equipment is. A salesperson would certainly be nice, as well. But the real questions arise about a writer. My fear is that if I have someone else writing that my site will "lose its voice". I believe that DCRP = Jeff Keller and changing that could be asking for trouble. Not everyone agrees with me on this, though. Another person suggested hiring someone (a partner with a real vested interest) to help out and over time they would acquire "my voice".

A related issue is what happens if something bad happens to me. If I was "out of commission" for a while, that could be the end of my business. I don't like to think about that scenario, so I'll just say that it would be nice to have someone take care of things while I'm on vacation.

This may sound selfish, but I'm hesitant to hire someone because I'll have to pay them, which takes money away from my "buy a house closer to civilization fund". Once that's taken care of (hopefully by the end of next year), or if my income goes up again, then I would be more willing to hire help.

Obviously I have a lot of uncertainty about the future of my business (and my own life as well), and I need to figure it out at some point. The friend whom I had this conversation with initially says that I should think about it now, rather than waiting for something to happen which will force me to make a decision.

I don't think everything will be resolved by writing a blog entry on a site where I normally complain about less important things, but maybe some wise soul has words of advice.

I was making my way from Brentwood to the freeway when I saw something that almost made me drive onto a light post. It was a sign that said "Coming soon, 136,000 sqft Lowe's Home Improvement store". Now you're probably thinking, so what? Well, what shocked me was that they're building this store directly across the street from Home Depot. Not just any HD, either -- when it opened last year it was the largest in the world (137,000 sqft). So now we have two HUGE hardware megastores right across the street from each other. HD is in Brentwood while Lowe's is in Antioch. In a way I'm glad to see Lowe's, as I hate Home Depot passionately. But this is only going to make traffic congestion on the main drag there even worse. How about some decent places to eat instead?

Update: Turns out the Lowe's is acutally 163,000 square feet. My God!

Audi billed me $1983 for going over the mileage limit on my lease. I should be able to get about $200 of that back, but still... ouch.

Last week I was singing the praises of my hibiscus plants. While watering today, I saw something I just had to take a picture of:

(Click for larger image)

(click for larger image)

The leaves are starting to change and it's beautiful. Not really here in Brentwood yet -- the photo above is from Berkeley.

Is it possible that maybe one day the marketing geniuses at the various camera manufacturers will see the value of websites like mine? While they're watching reality TV in their big suburban homes we're busting our butts, often during the weekend, covering their products at no cost to them. Yet so many of them treat us so poorly! Is it too much to ask to get information and review units without having to ask, get ignored, ask again, escalate, and finally get somewhere? As one of the top four (and probably top three) camera websites on earth, you'd think they'd go out of their way to get their products on my site. Send me the stuff I need and I'll do a nice job of promoting your product -- assuming it's not a bad one of course. Is that too much to ask?

Oh, and I'm not just speaking for myself -- I'm well aware that my cohorts in the website business are frustrated as well.

Update: Oops, I already complained about this back in May.

Apparently this article will be in SmartMoney magazine... no word on if I'l get mentioned in the WSJ as well. I think it's a great honor to be mentioned alongside the "big kahuna" of camera review sites, DP Review.

There's a big fire about 100 miles north of here. At around sunset I could see the smoke in the sky to the north and west. Tonight (at 11:30pm) I can step out and smell it...

Today I went to the Audi dealer to return my car and then borrow it right back until the new one arrives. That process was fairly easy... now I just have to keep the car in one piece. The new wheels will be here in early November (pushed back a week.. boo!). We worked out the pricing and it will be about $1000 under MSRP. That's the good news. The bad news is that the monthly lease payment is higher then expected... no discounts on this hot new car.

But the real highlight of the trip was driving the new A6! It was the same color combo as mine except this was the V8 and it didn't have the same options that I ordered. What a difference between a little 2-seater and this monster! TONS of power from the big V8... I'll have quite a bit less on my V6. The gas pedal was a bit sensitive... guess that takes getting used to. Once on the road it was a piece of cake to drive. Maneuverable, fast, fairly smooth ride (though not as much as expected). Plenty of gadgets and crazy features too. I'll have a full report and decent pictures when I finally get the car.

You'd think that in a world in which science has given us (at least) three prescription drugs for "ED" that someone could make a tortilla chip that doesn't crack in half the instant you dip it into the salsa.

My two favorite plants in my backyard at my hibiscus plants (trees? bushes? I dunno). Every day I know that one of them will have at least one beautiful flower. My original yellow plant is doing quite well, and now I have a new multi-colored one as well.

I spend a lot of time in Berkeley these days working in coffee shops instead of sitting at home in Brentwood. Every time I'm in Berkeley I walk past Zachary's pizza... and if you know Bay Area pizza places, you know this is the best. Thankfully I'm not a fan of dining solo so I don't stop in... but boy, is it hard to resist. The smell from across the street is almost hypnotic.

After riding BART into the city, I met my mom for dim sum at Ton Kiang in the Outer Richmond district (right by where Amit used to live). We waited for about 30 mins and then it was time to get down to business. That place is great, even if the service was slow.

After that we went to the old Sutro Baths, where I took a few pictures. We parted ways at the windmill near the beach, and I proceeded to walk the entire park (minus the panhandle), ending up in Cole Valley, where I took the "N" back to the BART station. I figure it was a 4-5 mile walk since I sort of wandered around instead of taking the most direct route. I'm not sure why I wanted to do this... I guess I was looking for some inspiration, though I'm not sure what for, exactly. Maybe it was artistic inspiration (which is why I brought a camera) or personal inspiration (being that I'm frustrated with some things these days) -- who knows? I don't think my walk had the desired effect... but it was nice to get out anyway.

Click the link to see a few pictures I took along the way.