Nothing But Words

• Finally got the NoMeansNo Tour EP 2. This song is a little masterpiece – song: http://t.co/rSWsnVNZ – lyrics: http://t.co/GtwwLueW #fb #
• Great interview – Luke covers a lot of usability topics – RT @lukew: Thinking about mobile? I think this will help: http://t.co/gTfLCkO8 #
• Writing code fast and messy will ultimately slow your project to a crawl. This cartoon explains it perfectly http://t.co/h3TuSbqV #
• RT @Jtsternberg: http://t.co/9Fzk2aKu – amazing letter from a former slave, replying to his former master's request to come back #fb #
• Wow, I didn't know the Muppets did press conferences – Fox News should know better than to mess with Miss Piggy http://t.co/bai8QTBb #
• I need to figure out how to work back near Penn occasionally, so I can satisfy my craving for a Hemo's chicken sandwich http://t.co/ZjtDQ6ii #
• RT @jtsternberg This video made my day! http://t.co/p3hM8Ny7 #fb – mine too #
• Just responded to another batch of Shashin support requests. I deserve a prize, or some donations (cough, cough) http://t.co/1Orx8brr #
• The boys & I have been re-watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. I mean the amazing anime series, not the awful movie http://t.co/ZQkYkpmQ #fb #
• @speno for the kids we kept it simple – some onigiri had shiso salt and others had green tea salt. For the teachers, we used saury fish in reply to speno #

Onigiri for the kids in Eidan's class View at Picasa Onigiri for the kids in Eidan's class02-Feb-2012 23:25, Canon Canon PowerShot SD780 IS, 3.2, 5.9mm, 0.067 sec, ISO 640

For Eidan’s kindergarten class this week, our parental duty was to bring in a snack for all the kids that starts with the letter “O”. So last night Maria and I made about 30 onigiri:

Onigiri (お握り), also known as omusubi (お結び) or rice ball, is a Japanese food made from white rice formed into triangular or oval shapes and often wrapped in nori (seaweed). Traditionally, an onigiri is filled with pickled ume (umeboshi), salted salmon, katsuobushi, kombu, tarako, or any other salty or sour ingredient as a natural preservative. Because of the popularity of onigiri in Japan, most convenience stores stock their onigiri with various fillings and flavors. There are even specialized shops whose only products are onigiri for take out.

justbento.com has some wonderful pictures of the many forms onigiri can take.

We made the traditional triangle shape, and thanks to the 69th St. H-Mart’s dazzling array of nori selections (half an aisle for nori!), we were able to use the nori that comes in individial plastic sleeves. The sleeve keeps the nori dry, so we could get them to school with Eidan and not worry about them getting soggy. You then remove the plastic sleeve right before eating. Of course someone has posted a video on YouTube to illustrate. Ingenious product packaging from the Japanese – what a shocker

Final snack - onigiri and lemon water before getting on the plane back to the US View at Picasa Final snack - onigiri and lemon water before getting on the plane back to the US08-Jul-2010 20:43, SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.02 sec, ISO 100

When we lived in Japan in 2007, the boys and I would stop at a convenience store for onigiri almost every day. It’s a cheap, healthy, and filling snack, and the boys never got tired of it. There’s a huge variety of fillings to choose from, some of which the boys liked (such as salmon) and some which they didn’t (like umeboshi – pickled fruit). So to make sure I didn’t buy the wrong thing, I learned to go to the stores that labelled the onigiri in Hiragana, which I could read, and to avoid the stores that used Kanji, which I couldn’t read.

• They say good painting is 80% preparation. Getting this room ready to paint is enough work that it feels more like 280% preparation. #fb #
• The Japanese reaction to the SC Republican primary results: Newt-o? Newt-o? dono yoo na namae daroo? #
• Just finished catching up on Shashin support questions, and made a bunch of updates to the Shashin documentation http://t.co/1Orx8brr #
• "Kodak acted like a stereotypical change-resistant Japanese firm, while Fujifilm acted like a flexible American one" http://t.co/s7caSAbG #
• I'm doing some Facebook integration for a site and just discovered the URL "localhost" has 2K "likes" on Facebook. I just added one more! #
• With @williamsba and @zamoose, setting up for tonight's WordPress meetup, and getting an early start on the pizza http://t.co/pNmUBLCs #
• US drops way down to 47th for press freedoms, mainly for the many arrests and beatings of reporters at OWS protests http://t.co/S1i7dOTR #fb #
• Nice work! RT @somiswebteam: Our Site is Now Responsive http://t.co/XsoBOyPO #

Ad for a show by Maria's father, Tony Toyoda - The Miami News, Dec 20, 1965 View at Picasa Ad for a show by Maria's father, Tony Toyoda - The Miami News, Dec 20, 1965

I just found an old ad from the Miami News in 1965 for a show by Maria’s dad, Tony Toyoda (click the picture to see it full size). Google News search is a wonderful thing. The trick is to exclude Akio “Tony” Toyoda from the search, the President of the Toyota car company (and a distant relative of Maria’s family).

I also found someone is selling one of his old publicity photos on eBay and here’s a great article I found a couple years ago, which is a profile of him and the members of his show “Tokyo Scene”, from 1971.

• If you've added a comment to my site or sent me an email for Shashin support, I haven't forgotten you. I'll catch up over the next few days #
• Fixed my first Extensible HTML Editor Buttons bug. When http://t.co/Gi0D4ZfY's SOPA blackout ends, you can download it http://t.co/Ts0c3kGX #
• The limits of Google search: how do I give users an embed dialog in the Google map on my site? I already know how to embed the map itself. #
• …Turns out another reason why it's hard to find in search is because that feature isn't available in the Google Maps API! #

• Great article on my brother's organic farm in RI (half-brother, if you're wondering why his last name is different) http://t.co/6zwBJH10 #fb #
• Maria was surprised to see my shower and shave this morning, like working at home would instantly turn me into a feral creature #fb #
• …I am wearing the same clothes as yesterday though #fb #
• @hakjoon ask me again in a week in reply to hakjoon #
• I am deeply honored that the great philosopher and poet of our time, @Mikey_Hanson, is following me #
• Working at home means IM overload: I'm now on AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, IRC, and Skype. I almost need a separate monitor just for IM! #fb #
• My http://t.co/REx8Dr7j "about" page was 5 years out of date, so I finally updated it http://t.co/RGHbohnr #fb #
• No one beats the Japanese when it comes to putting English words on signs without having any idea what they mean http://t.co/LWWIXjdb #fb #
• Damn, I will miss this by one week RT @AtTheDriveIn_ We are playing Coachella Sun April 15 & April 22…See you there!! http://t.co/B8wTzV4x #
• My new WordPress plugin, Extensible HTML Editor buttons, lets you add custom buttons to the WP HTML editor http://t.co/Ts0c3kGX #
• Making my Extensible HTML Editor Buttons plugin flexible enough to support any possible custom modal dialog was a real adventure in jQuery #

This past summer I started attending the Philly WordPress meetups, which led to an opportunity for me to speak at Philly WordCamp, which led to an amazing opportunity to work at WebDevStudios, with an amazing team. Today – Monday – was my first day on the job. I’m doing custom development work and soon I’ll get involved with project management. I’m starting with some enhancements to Baja.com. Friday was my last day at Penn, so my head is spinning a bit from the transition.

I’ve been part of the web team in Penn’s School of Medicine since 2004, and I’ve been Director for the past 2 years. My team had a lot of demands placed on them, with the need for projects outpacing what we could provide. One of the first things I did as Director was learn Agile practices so I could teach them to my team (and I brought in a scrum coach to help). These two graphics illustrate the two primary challenges we faced – not enough staff, and too much chaos:

Blue represents available SOMIS staff, red indicates how many people would be needed to complete the desired work View at Picasa Blue represents available SOMIS staff, red indicates how many people would be needed to complete the desired work

Illustration by Esther Derby showing a not very well functioning development process View at Picasa Illustration by Esther Derby showing a not very well functioning development process

For many months my work spilled over into nights and weekends as I tried to move things forward. I can’t say we entirely solved these problems, but we made a lot of progress, and got the wheels turning in higher levels of administration to address the situation (“turning the aircraft carrier,” as one of our project managers put it – change is not easy to implement in a huge institution). Deciding to leave was hard, but an opportunity to turn my WordPress plugin development hobby into a job, to work with Brad (@williamsba) and the WebDevStudios team, and having the flexibility of working at home… it was too good to pass up. I’m especially looking forward to having more time to code again. If the past 2 years have taught me anything, it’s that I have a passion for software development, and always striving to do it better.

• Maria and Kai at the Skatium yesterday (after living here 9 years, we finally went the 5 blocks to get there) #fb http://t.co/KNLrzLnU #
• And 7 years after I put in new drywall, I'm finally putting in the trim and baseboards (I'm re-using the old ones) http://t.co/cDLe1j2s #

• This David Sedaris bit is fun, especially his singing "Away in a Manger" the way he thinks Billie Holiday would sing it http://t.co/JOlCD1uZ #
• Newport docks in the winter – quietly empty http://t.co/COgBdDqK #
• The 19th century railroads -funded by corrupt gov't subsidies- was hardly the golden age of capitalism some wish it was http://t.co/9mfENja2 #
• Newport's People's Credit Union closed & is now the People's Cafe, with a big bank vault right in the middle of it http://t.co/5WNlFzml #
• It's great how none of the highway signs in Rhode Island acknowledge the existence of Newport #fb #

• Eidan and I have arrived in Newport. I think he was playing "stupid zombies" for the entire drive here. Maria and Kai arrive on Saturday #fb #
• @olmillos Please give me a link to your site so I can see. The most common problem is Google Anaytics plugins messing with Highslide. in reply to olmillos #
• @olmillos I looked around and found http://t.co/9i2iWGiX and that page looks ok. Can you give me a link to the page where there's a problem? in reply to olmillos #
• A beautiful December day in Newport – Eidan and I had the playground to ourselves #fb http://t.co/2UQepEKG #
• I'm not a boat expert, but if I were, I'd tell you this is a fine example of a mid century something or other #fb http://t.co/4iYaBzha #
• The Newport Bridge on Christmas Eve http://t.co/QLCE1bIG #