My latest random idea — want to rent an iPad?

Yesterday I went to a tech conference here in San Francisco and to be quite honest it was pretty much the same ‘ol same ‘ol. But, one thing did end up sticking with me after I left the networking/panel/keynote filled fun and that was that the iPad is a KILLER demo device at events like the one I went to. Many people (including me and my co-workers) were not only telling people about what we do at isocket, but we were not able to easily show them what we were doing, too. The iPad allowed us to do this quickly, easily and instantly and it allowed us to interact with interested people on a whole new level.

So, after seeing all of this go down yesterday, I started thinking about how everyone will eventually need to carry an iPad at events (and I think that people at booths will be using them, too). But, most people don’t want to drop $500 or so on a device that they’re only going to use one weekend at a time, which is why I thought that there might be a market for renting them instead. This is why I thought of coming up with an iPad rental service called The iPad Borrower where people who need an iPad for these specific situations can rent them instead of buying.

Right now I am simply gauging interest for the service and if I see that there are as many people out there wanting to rent iPads as I think, then I’ll push the idea farther along. So, I guess only time will tell and I’ll update soon if anything comes of it. If you have any questions or ideas about renting an iPad or how iPad rental would work, please feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Adventures in *almost* trashing a wedding dress with the Gaupers

A couple of days ago Ryan and Holly Gauper rolled into San Francisco after driving across the US for a few weeks, flying to China for a couple more and hanging in Hawaii. If you don’t remember the Gaupers, they are the amazingly awesome husband and wife photography duo who shot all of the amazing pics from our wedding about 6 months back. They’ve been taking some time off to see some of their family, friends and have also been setting up some photography workshops along the way. They’ve been at it for a couple of months and are now finally getting ready to start the drive back to their home state of Michigan so that they can get ready for another crazy-packed wedding season.

Before they took off and headed back home both Holly and Ryan wanted to take Stephanie and I out for a shoot around San Francisco, which we were more than happy to do yesterday (ok, we were giddy like little kids to do it). Of course, with Holly and Ryan there’s never really just a ‘normal’ photo shoot and this time was no exception. When Stephanie and I went home for Christmas Holly told us to have Stephanie’s mom ship out her wedding dress to our place in San Francisco so that we could have a trash the dress shoot. If you’ve never heard of a trash the dress shoot, it’s basically just like what it sounds — the bride gets photos taken of her literally trashing her wedding dress. This usually consists of the bride jumping in water, standing around in something messy or some other type of thing that brides aren’t supposed to do while wearing a pristine, white wedding dress. It’s become pretty popular with brides here the past couple of years and it only seems to be getting more and more popular as time goes on.

We were planning on doing something a little more on the extreme side to Stephanie’s dress (like chopping it up with scissors or covering it in paint), but as Stephanie, Holly, Ryan, Nic and I started running around San Francisco together we ended up spending so much time getting shots of us not trashing the dress we didn’t end up actually doing the trashing that we initially set out to do. I’m totally ok with this as I was honestly a little sad about the fact that we were going to ruin the dress that reminds me of the best day of my life, but I’m sure that it’s just a matter of time before we get to doing what we initially set out to do yesterday. That dress is trashed, it’s just going to take a little bit longer before it happens.

Like I said, we didn’t trash the dress, but that definitely doesn’t mean that we didn’t get some freakin’ fantastic shots. We ended up spending about seven hours driving all around San Francisco and the photos that we ended up getting out of it are really cool. Check out a preview of what we came back with below and be sure to keep an eye on Holly and Ryan’s blog for more photos and video (and the video is HILARIOUS).

Unplugging on a Sunday afternoon at Muir Woods

From what I’ve heard around the Internets lately it’s now officially Spring and in celebration Stephanie and I decided to make a trek out to Muir Woods, which, unbelievably is less than 20 miles away from our crib in San Francisco. Actually, the reason that we went to Muir Woods wasn’t really because it was Spring (that just sounded like a great intro), we actually ended up going because the only thing that Stephanie loves more than walking is walking in a park.

Although we don’t get out to explore some of the amazing parks that the Bay Area has to offer as much as we probably should, this wasn’t the first time that we’ve headed out to hike among Northern California’ s amazing Redwoods. We had a lot of fun hanging out with them at Big Basin a little more than a year ago, which you can probably tell if you watch the video we created from our little excursion.

It was an amazing day to go for a hike — check out that sun!

Whenever Stephanie and I end up going hiking there are a few things that are pretty much guaranteed to happen:

1. We’re going to have a ridiculous amount of fun running around the woods together. There’s just something about us being out in nature that makes us even goofier than normal. I’m not really sure why it happens, but it always does.

2. We’re going to get an awesome workout. I think that most people tend to take their time when hiking through a place like Muir Woods, but for some reason we really like to get after it — even to the point to where we’re breaking a pretty solid sweat. It’s not like we don’t like to take in all of the sites, but I think that we both like to keep up a pace that’s faster than most. We passed at least 10-15 people while walking the trail, which I think shows just how fast we were moving along.

3. We always get lost when we go hiking, but it always seems to work out for the better every, single time. It’s sad, but true — we always get lost. I’m sure that part of this is due to #2 since we’re moving through the trails so quickly, but I think that the fact that we get lost has only helped us do even cooler stuff that first expected. For example, we somehow made our way off of the trail that we were supposed to be following, which then led us to meeting a guy who told us all about an awesome lodge called The Mountain Home Inn. We ended up walking over there to check it out and really loved the place. I even had enough cash in my pocket for a quick beer to hold me over until we made it back down the trail.

The Golden Gate Bridge on the ride home from Muir Woods

All in all our trip to Muir Woods was a lot of fun and a great way to spend some time on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We got a great walk in, we were able to see one of the nations most beautiful National Forests and we even found a great, new place to hang — sounds like a great day to me.

A great night for a walk in San Francisco

We’re not really sure why, but the weather here in San Francisco was BE-A-UTIFUL tonight. So nice, in fact, that Stephanie and I decided that it would be a waste if we didn’t take advantage of it by taking a nice, long walk. Pulling ourselves away from the TV/laptop for the night gave us a great chance to catch up with each other after being gone from each other the past couple of weeks (I was in Austin, TX for South by Southwest Interactive and Stephanie was in Hawaii visiting her friends).

We took off not knowing where we were going to go and ended up walking nearly 3 miles and talking about all kinds of different stuff along the way. After getting back we both agreed that we should definitely do something like this much more often.

Check out where we walked in the map below.

Taking Frank to Fort Funston in San Francisco

One of the most obvious benefits of living in the Bay Area is the beautiful beaches. Duh, that’s pretty much a no-brainer and although Stephanie and I probably don’t take advantage of this fact as much as we should, we have definitely spent our fair share of time in the sand.

But, this past weekend was the first time that we’ve ever been to Fort Funston, which is one of San Francisco’s only dog beaches. I call it a ‘dog beach’ because unlike most beaches where you can walk around your 4-legged friend only if they’re on a leash, this beach allows them to run around as free as the day they were born. This, paired with the fact that beach is ridiculously beautiful, results in a beach that is literally covered up with dogs and the humans that happen to bring them there.

We had a lot of fun taking Frank there and even though he got stuck in the sand after the tide caught him (and myself) off guard (which really freaked out Stephanie), I’m sure he’d be more than happy to make another trip back there anytime we’re willing to take him.

Check out the video of our day at Fort Funston below or over here on YouTube and also be sure to take a look at the shots of Frank that I snapped at the beach. Just when you thought that the little sausage link couldn’t get any cuter….geez.

Check out Four Paws Photography (because pets need great pics, too!)

You know, with all of the technology that us humans have access to these days we tend to take it for granted that we can take some ‘Facebook profile worthy” photos of ourselves at practically any moment. We all have cell phone cams, digital cams and video cams that can fit into our pockets, so getting a great pic or video of ourselves only takes a few seconds. Then, a couple of moments later they can all be uploaded, emailed, tweeted and sent to any family member, friend, co-worker or whoever else we want (and potentially don’t want) to see them.

But, what about our pets? When do they get some photo love? I mean, don’t you think that your dog, cat, iguana, rat, pig or whatever else you have hanging around in your life deserves to get some fantastic shots taken of them, too? Of course, we can snap a few pics of them here and there, but what if they want something that’s a little bit nicer than your average snapshot? What can you do then?

As far as getting the most amazing photos of your dog goes (and I’m sure other pets, too if you asked nicely), I know the perfect person who can help you out. Especially if you happen to be in the bay area. Amanda Bradshaw, owner of Four Paws Photography, is the best dog-loving, great-picture-taking pet photographer that I have ever met and if you need some proof, just check out her blog The Daily Puglet. Yep, Amanda’s a fellow Pug owner and as you’ll see on her blog (and below), she takes some incredible shots of both Puglet and her Dalmatian, named Dutch.

Here are a few of my favs that Amanda has posted on The Daily Puglet:

A Pug named MoonWalk that was decked out for Christmas

Amanda’s non-Pug, Dutch

Amanda’s Pug, Puglet, shows off his incredible will power

Pug twins? Frank on the left and Puglet on the right

So, if you’re wanting to get some sweet shots of your non-human best friend, give Amanda a shout and she’ll take care of you. Be sure to tell her Hup and Steph sent you.

Coincidence? I think not…

The past few days have been a little crazy around here due to the fact that Stephanie’s family is in town as well as her best friend and boyfriend. We always love having people visit so that we can go do some of the more touristy stuff that we never seem to get around to doing when we’re just hanging out together (as well as stuff we’ve done before, but still love doing again).

I’ll get more into all of this later in posts that are soon-to-come, but I will say that the highlight has definitely been finally getting to go check out Napa Valley yesterday. Napa is an amazing place and the fact that it’s only about an hour or so away makes me wonder why we had never gone before, but thanks to our family and friends being in San Francisco we were able to finally cross it off our to-do list.

The one thing that I wanted to post up really quick (after that somewhat lengthy introduction), is a pic that I shot on my phone as we were cruising through China Town today (which is always a good time). As we were looking though some of the many cheap trinkets, souvenirs and other odd things we found a rack of small, California license plates that you can buy with your name on them. After a few seconds of looking through the racks for our names, we ended up finding them at the same time. See the pic below to see what they looked like.

Coincidence? I think not.

Checking out the amazing sign spinners from Aarrow Ads

One of the great things about working up here in San Francisco is that I get to walk into the office, which means that I pretty much get to see something that’s interesting, odd, weird, cool, crazy or just down right gross every single day. For some of you out there that might seem like a bad thing, but for me it’s one of the things that makes it awesome to live here in the Bay Area. Pretty much anything goes and just when you think that you’ve seen something that couldn’t possible be topped, it always does — and that’s pretty much the essence of living in SF. After a living here for a while it’s funny how pretty much nothing ever really makes you do a double-take anymore.

Well, almost nothing.

On my way into work each morning I walk past the Moscone Center, which is the HUGE convention center here in San Francisco and every few days there is a new event coming into town that attracts literally tens of thousands of people. Last week the big event to hit Moscone was DreamForce, which is SalesForce.com’s yearly, global conference. Well, if you’re not into the events and conference scene (which, I’m guessing most of you aren’t), basically what happens is a bunch of people pay a lot of money (or their company does) to go meet, mingle and ‘network’ with others who are also in their same line of business so that relationships can be built and some big deals can go down in an old-fashioned, face-to-face sort of way.

Along with the thousands of people who attend these conferences, several businesses also buy up really expensive booths (usually several thousand dollars a piece) as a way to promote their businesses in hopes of working some serious deals as well. It’s a very interesting sort of business eco-system that has gone on for years and years.

Anyways, these businesses that invest their money into getting some booth space are always trying to find new ways to get more and more foot traffic. Some rent semis that pull billboards with their booth number prominently displayed, some hire booth babes to promote their goods and some have even gone as far as attaching tiny banner ads to real, live flies and letting them fly around the convention center (for real).

As with anything else in San Francisco, just when I thought that I had heard or seen all of the crazy ways for these businesses to promote their booths, I ran in to a couple of out-of-this-world sign spinners who were hired from Aarrow Ads, a company that specializes in taking ‘holding a sign’ to a whole new level. After seeing them do their thing for a few minutes, I couldn’t help but stop and get some videos of the guys who were literally causing a scene on the sidewalks outside of Moscone Center. Check out these videos and you’ll see what I mean.

p.s. if you couldn’t tell, the company that was promoting themselves was Jigsaw (who were apparently in booth #1112). I thought that I should at least give them a mention since they paid for the entertainment.

Showing our Indiana heritage on Halloween with some hillbilly love (kissin’ cousinz)

Considering that we didn’t end up doing anything last year on Halloween (yeah, we were super lame, but still OK with it), Stephanie and I were both looking to kick it up a notch this year in the costume department. After thinking about different options that we could potentially pull off together as a couple, we came up with an idea that we felt would not only pay homage to our Indiana roots, but would also be able to stand out here in San Francisco (which, as you can probably imagine, isn’t very easy). The costume that we decided to go with was a good, old-fashioned hillbilly theme, which we modified to be ‘kissin’ cousinz’, since Stephanie and I are now officially husband and wife (doesn’t that sound awesome?).

When becoming a believable hillbilly there are a few things that you need to make sure are part of your outfit as they are practically critical to your overall redneck transformation. These things include:

1. Billy Bob teeth
2. Bad hair (mullet for the guys, overly dyed blonde for the ladies)
3. Lots of cut-offs (jeans, shirts, etc.)
4. Real-world props (6-pack of Budweiser tallboys, Marlboro Reds, paper bags for you beers, bad makeup)
5. A redneck swagger and accent (this is hard to perfect if you have never been or been  around a hillbilly)
6. Wife-beaters, camouflage anything and bandannas (anything with the American flag on it is a plus)

So, after we got all of these various things together and got into the mindset of being a true redneck, we were ready to go show San Francisco a little bit of our hillbilly side. Check out the video below or over here on YouTube to see us in action and yes, of course we stayed in character for the entire night. You’re not really a true hillbilly if you only look like one! Yeee haw!

Social media makes it more than just a fight between two women on a Muni bus in San Francisco (my thoughts on this whole crazy situation)

Today one of my co-workers IM’d me a video of two women that got into a fight on a Muni bus here in San Francisco yesterday morning. It’s funny because when I saw this video just a couple of hours ago I started wondering how long it would take before it took off virally through the interwebs. It has all of the elements of viral video gold: violence, undercover cams, no one helping out and to top it off some nice racial tension as one of the women in the video is Asian and one is African American. Put all of these together along with today’s connective technology and you get more than just another fight on a bus (yeah, it happens all the time), you get a newsworthy topic that will be seen by way more people than who were riding on that bus yesterday morning.

Check out the video below or over here on YouTube and then read some of my comments below to see what I think about this whole user-generated content fueled, crazy mess.

First, here is the original video that was shot:

Yeah, it was a pretty wild scene, but probably nothing that most of the people who were riding that day haven’t seen before. Even if you watch the video you see that the reason that the guy shooting the video didn’t want to break it up was because he was assaulted on the same bus just a couple weeks before.

Here are a few things that I have noticed thought about and picked up on since I first saw this video today:

1. The video was only watched just over 1,000 times when I saw it around 4:30pm today and now at 7:30pm it’s been viewed over 111,000 times. Yeah, crazy news travels fast.
2. It’s amazing that all of the people that were standing around these two women didn’t break this thing up way before it got to the point where they started throwing fists. Coming from Indiana, this is what blows me away about a big city. No one is willing to step out of their comfort zone to say hello, to help someone out or in this case to break up a fight.
3. Just a couple of days ago I was talking to someone about Muni and they told me that Asian women are very particular about how they should be given an open seat if there’s one available and how any younger Asian people always get up and give up their seat when older Asians need somewhere to sit down. I guess they were right.
4. This video was uploaded by a new iPhone 3Gs that had video, which shows you just how much more video is going to be uploaded now that they’re video capable (and how most people won’t even know that they’re being recorded). Big brother is definitely watching now.
5. The video is already being teased for the 11 o’clock news here in San Francisco and it’s also already on their websites. Yeah, that was quick.
   
6. The video has already been re-uploaded and translated so that we can all know what the Asian woman is saying the entire time. That particular video has already been viewed over 20,000 times. If you want to know what really was being said, check it out below or over here on YouTube.

All of this in just a matter of hours and from a guy with an iPhone. Pretty wild, huh?

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