I’ve had the idea for HumbleNerd for a couple of months. I had the site ready to be published for more than a couple weeks. This is something that I’ve always wanted to do, something I’ve always hoped could lead to something bigger and better than what I’m doing now. I was procrastinating on actually launching the site. For what reason, I don’t quite know.

I’ve been a listener to Dan Benjamin’s podcasts on 5by5 for almost two years now. The shows cater to the nerds, people who follow Apple and technology in general. I’ve always admired his back story. He worked as a “corporate stooge” for years before he decided that that lifestyle was no longer for him. He started 5by5 because he always wanted to do talk radio. Even after being told by those in the industry not to pursue his dream, he did it anyway. Now he has a number of different shows on his podcast network. On my commutes to and from work, I’m more than likely listening to one of his shows.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, a new show debuted, one that he didn’t pre-announce. The show is called “Quit!”; a show about “helping people sort out their lives, reevaluate their options, kick their crummy jobs, and start something awesome”. It’s exactly the type of motivation I needed to push me over the top. I launched HumbleNerd on that Monday because I wanted to do something that I have the passion to do. I hope that this will be a recurring series where he shares his different experiences with his listeners so they might not make the same mistakes that he made. If you’ve always had the urge to do something different, something awesome, I recommend listening to this show. I also recommend listening to Back 2 Work with Merlin Mann, especially this episode where they discuss the quarter life crisis/Saturn’s return phenomenon. I know they can and will motivate you to do something awesome.

November was a very busy month. In one month:

We moved from Redwood Shores to San Carlos.

We celebrated Mary’s birthday in Napa.

We spent our first Thanksgiving in the Bay Area, away from our families.

We explored our surroundings.

I launched a side project.

I’ve always said that I don’t have a real direction for this site. I started blogging back in 2001 and it’s evolved, but not much, since then. For the last couple of years, I’ve posted a mix of personal entries, reviews (product and music) and linked posts. I’ve wanted to keep this site as a personal blog so I’ve decided to cut down on the reviews and technical posts. I still would like a place to post those types of thoughts. It’s still an active hobby of mine and I don’t plan on giving up on it at all.

So I’ve decided to start a new site. I’m happy to announce HumbleNerd. I’ll be posting all of my tech related thoughts, links and reviews at this new site. All my personal thoughts will stay here. I know friends who follow this site wouldn’t really care about the tech links I like to post and fellow nerds who stumble upon this site from Twitter won’t care about what I did over the weekend. Keeping things separate made the most sense to me.

While HumbleNerd is the name of my new site, it is also the name of my new side gig. I’ve long been the guy that family and friends turn to when they have a tech related question. I don’t mind doing it and I love helping people. I also miss having the supplemental income I had in the past. I believe that people are willing to pay for simple, honest tech advice. So I’m starting HumbleNerd to help people who don’t want to deal with Geek Squad or busy Apple Stores, to help pay the bills, to do something that I love and because I want to.

This is something I’ve thought about for a long time and have been putting together for the past couple weeks. I feel now is a great time to launch it with the holidays (and gadget gifts) coming up. Please check out the new site and don’t forget about this one. Thanks!

I think I’m due for a semi-long, thoughtful post.

I stumbled upon this article, as I always do, and maybe a year or two ago, I could relate on some level. I’m glad I came across it today as it truly hits home.

I had a pleasant childhood. I had two parents that worked jobs so that they could send my brother and I to private schools, a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. My grandmother also lived with us and helped my parents by taking care of me and my brother so that they could both work. I played outside with neighborhood kids and had plenty of family and cousins to spend time with.

My parents and grandmother all did their best to raise my brother and me. They taught us things we should and shouldn’t do. They also, without their knowledge, taught me things that still linger with me today. My grandma would always get on us for cleaning up and washing the dishes right after we ate. It was the worst thing ever. Being a teenager, it really was, but I grudgingly did it anyways. Now, I see a sink full of dishes and always have this urge to clean them rather to let them sit and clutter the kitchen.

Since we split time with Malia with her dad, it’s hard to raise her the way Mary and I would like to since there’s no continuity. We do our best and at times I feel like we really get through to her. I feel I’ve come a long way in my relationship with Malia. I’m not her dad, her real dad is still in the picture but I am definitely in a parenting role. It was hard for me to figure out what I was going to be to Malia and how I was going to do it.

I can’t take on everything a parent does. Disciplining a child, especially one that is not yours, is a very fine line that I don’t want to straddle. I tried putting her in time out couple times and it really wasn’t helpful. She ended up being scared of me which is not what I want. I’m better leaving that up to her mom. What I did find was helpful and the most useful was explaining why she got in trouble in the first place. I found what works the best is that I speak in a firm, but clear tone. And I’ll always ask her questions to make sure she understands, instead of just telling her what we expect from her. To hear her tell us helps me know that she understands the lesson that we’re trying to teach her instead of going in one ear and out the other.

I read this article and noticed that even though we directly teach Malia what we believe is right and wrong, it’s also the things that we unconsciously do that she will learn from us as well. We always eat together at the table. We don’t watch TV while we eat. We’ll try not to play with our phones at the table. We pray before we go to sleep. I’ve always made it a point that whenever we pick up Malia, whether from school or from her dad, I’ll ask her how her day was or how her weekend was. I want her to know that we care about what she does at school. And even though I’m not too fond of her dad, it’s important to me that she knows that I do want her to enjoy her time while she’s there.

During the week, Mary leaves work early to pick Malia up from her dad. Whenever my phone rings shortly after the 5 pm pick up time, I know it’s Malia wanting to talk to me (which is a big deal by itself). As usual, I ask her how her day was and ask what they were doing. Yesterday, however, was the first time that she asked me how my day was. I was already having a great day but that just made my week.

Whether you’re a parent or not, after reading that piece, I think you can appreciate all the little things your parents consciously and unconsciously taught you.

Two weekends ago, Mary and I took a quick day trip to a small town called Healdsburg. It’s a small town about an hour and a half north of San Francisco. We went to Moustache Baked Goods, Bear Republic Brewery (home of Racer 5 IPA) and on our way back we stopped by Lagunitas Brewery in Petaluma. Here are a few pictures from that day.

Over the weekend, my girlfriend launched the website for her makeup business. I couldn’t be more proud of her. Makeup is one of her passions and I’m so happy that she’s following it.

I’m also proud to say that I had a helping hand in launching her website. After she locked down her clever and surprisingly available domain name, we had to figure out where we would host and how we would build the site. We wanted to get her site up quickly and while we could use WordPress, we’d have to set it up, come up with a design or choose a theme and then hand code each individual page on the site. While I’m probably capable of doing all this myself, it would probably take longer than we would like. The podcasts I listen to daily bombard me with ads for Squarespace so I decided to look into it. While I’m always one who prides myself in building something, especially a website, on my own, the lure of Squarespace’s clean templates and easy site building was too much to pass up.

We signed up for a two week free trial and I started poking around to see what we could do. Our goal for the site was to be simple and clean. The most complicated page on the site was probably the portofolio and the contact form. Squarespace had templates for both. We slowly put together the majority of the site within the two week trial and cleaned up all the little details over a weekend.

I know a lot of my friends and peers are getting married. If you need a talented makeup artist, I can refer you to a great one.