Visiting Dave and Jaymee

Mon Ami Gabi

Dinner on James's 21

Uh Oh

James 21 Birthday

Jams and Cam at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.

Georgia and her twin

Robin and Lila

Eating breakfast at Lanas.

Georgia being good

A much prettier face.

Georgia Being Bad

Not a very pretty face.

Stevie Wonder Concert

Just getting in our seats and are ready for the show to start.

Lila Carseat

Romance in the Napa Valley Wine Country

Romance in the Napa Valley Wine Country.
I made a request on HubPages for some information on planning a trip to Napa Valley for our 10 year wedding anniversary. I'm still thinking about the French Laundry, but I think you'll find this useful.

Julia's Braids

Robin braids Julia's hair.

Lila sucks her thumb

Lila found her hands and now soothes herself while she sleeps.

Sink Bath

Lila gets a bath in the sink.

Unpacking This Weekend

We moved to Burlingame this weekend. Been busy unpacking.

Country Culture Yogurt

Robin and Cecily eating yogarts on a very nice SLO day!

How I Met Your Mother

Georgia was impressed that Robin and I knew each other as little kids today.

Overhead Projector

We are at the Burlingame Kindergarten orientation tonight. They still use overheads.

Food Faces

My lunch kind of reminds me of Wilson from Castaway.

All My Girls

I'm heading off to work and the girls are hanging out at home while Robin has a cup of coffee. What you can't see is Maggie on the floor next to Georgia and Julia to the far left. Man I have a lot of girls. Wonderful.

Bye San Francisco

Moving the family out of San Francisco in two weeks and saying hello to Burlingame.

Birthday Cake

I loved this cookie covered giant cupcake cake. Perfect for a two year old. Even better was watching each kid take and eat one of the giant cupcakes.

Taking the Girls to Dance

Julia and Georgia in their dance outfits.
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Grandma Glenna

Grandma Glenna, Lauren, and Lila

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Meet Lauren Edmondson

Mark and Moe had a baby girl today.  Lauren Edmondson 8 pounds 15 ounces and 20.5 inches.
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Aunt Joan's Outfits

Georgia and Julia in their new outfits from Aunt Joan.
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Lila Muriset Edmondson

Born at 8AM.  8lbs 6oz and 20 inches long.
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Super Tuesday

Do you wear the I Voted! Sticker?  I do.
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Rain Today

I got hit with a soar throat today.  Yuck.  Driving to get a burrito.
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Watching the Girls

A friend is coming over to watch the games today with me and the girls.  Robin is heading out to do some shopping.
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Catching Mice

Man. My garage is full of mice. The little critters got into a bunch of stuff. And. Have wreaked havoc. Last night I took the girls to the store to get mouse traps. We baited the mouse traps with jack cheese. No dice. Not one mouse. So I searched on line for the best bait for mouse traps and am now trying peanut butter.

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Julia Swinging in the Park
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Blogworld

Listening to Matt from Wordpress talk about bloggers. He had one
great line. Blogging is one big padded room.

I laughed when I heard it, but it's very true.

Salty Pig Parts

I saw this and said, I'd like to try that. My wife said, yuck.

Do you think it's good marketing?

Baby Safety

I started putting together a few Hubs on examples of baby safety for things like wifi and wireless baby monitors and the best baby gates.

I'm thinking of doing tips on outlet covers, child safe drawer locks and baby thermometers. All of it is good preparation for our new baby coming soon!

Georgia Rides Her Bycicle

Georgia rode her bycicle to Mitchell's for an ice cream this afternoon.

Sisters

This weekend at the pumpkin patch, the girls went for a pony ride.
Here they are sitting. Waiting. Together.

Kids Cut Their Hair

I know I cut my own hair as a child. Georgia gave her self a little
hair cut today. There's a good dent in the side, but she likes it!

Julia Eats a Donut

Julia just eats the frosting, but Georgia puts the whole thing away.
I'm wondering if this sugar rush will send them through the roof.
Maybe they'll burn it off on the walk home.

Driving To SF

After spending the weekend with our folks, we drove back to San
Francisco. My wife snapped this from the car just a little outside
Paso Robles.

Georgia Climbs a Tree

Georgia climbed her first tree today.

Avila Beach

It's a gorgeous day in Avila Beach, Ca. Having lunch here today with
my family.

Cake At A Birthday Party

I've never seen kids pay attention like they so when they are watching
a birthday cake cut.

Baby Hair-Do

My wife isn't very happy with Julia's hair-do this morning. I slicked
it back and put it in a ponytail. Then used a little hairspray to
give it a little hold.

Golden Gate Bridge Photo

I've been trying to get a good photo of the Golden Gate Bridge. With
a little more light, this would have been a nice picture.

Fleet Week San Francisco

The girls are watching the Blue Angels fly their jets at Crissy Field.

Family Walk

Taking the family to Walter Haus Park.

Dress Code

In case you missed the memo. The dress code is goggles and rain boots.

California St

Heading down California Street in San Francisco.

Bomb Sniffing Dogs

I've noticed that there is frequently a german shepherd in BART that
is sniffing for bombs.

I asked the policeman handling the dog about it and all he would
whisper is that he is a bomb sniffing dog.

I've also seen more of them at the airports like the one photoed
below. I snapped his picture at the Ontario Airport last night.

I've always enjoyed seeing animals work. Only if the Iphone had a
video camera, then I could have captured this one on the job.

It's a Boy!

After two girls, I heard somewhere that it is an 80 percent chance
that third baby is girl as well. It looks like we bucked the odds.
It's a boy.

When Can You Charge for Listings

This is continuation on classifieds. In order to charge for listings
the site has to have one of two compoments - that are really one
thing. Buyers.

People pay to list on eBay, even though there are a zillion free
places to post because eBay has an enormous community of buyers and
the likelyhood of selling your item is good. With the exception of
craigslist, there are few places that offer this.

So, if your sites new or lacks an established traffic flow of buyers,
then it's nearly impossible to sell listings. Unless the listing fee
is used to attract buyers.

If I was going to try and start a paid classified website, I'd try and
build a community first. Microsoft tried to launch a free classified
website on the strength of its funnel. I doubt that this service has
the stregth to take on craigslist. However, Facebook launched a
classified site on top of its community. I think this has a good
chance of becoming the dominant classified site.

Classifieds

Craigslist turned local classifieds for newspapers upside down.
Cutting prices to the low cost of free for most types of listings.
This has caused a serious financial issue for newspapers.

Today I learned that a large piece of the online ad spend growth is
expected to come from online classifieds in four big categories. Jobs,
autos, misc and real estate.

eBay has been succesful with the pay per listing model, but I'm not
sure that this market isn't headed towards free.

Also, the trend is heading for decentralization of the listings. Sort
of like YouTube for classifieds.

The killer solution seems like an API that accepts listings and a
service that pushes it everywhere you would like it to be posted. For
example, I want to fill out one form, post it to ebay craigslist etc,
have an option to post it to PPC search engines and gives me a widget
to post it anywhere.

Pets on Muni

I don't know if pets are allowed on Muni in San Francisco, but I see a
lot more of them these days. Yesterday, there was a giant lizard, but
I couldn't get a picture.

This little dog joined us for the morning commute.

Messaging

Messaging on a website is communicating benefits, highlighting a new
feature, providing help and alerting a person to other important
information.

The key to messaging is providing it at the right time. As products
add features the messaging becomes increasingly complex which makes
delivering the right message more difficult.

The interesting thing is its hard to find a website that consistently
delivers messaging across the site that is effective. On HubPages we
have used a right hand nav that highlights as you change boxes. We
have placed the answers to the top customer support issues in the
boxes. However, it hasn't cut down the inquiries. I wonder if the
best messaging is simply a big button with a phone number that is
answered quickly and answers questions accurately.

Fundamentals and Innovation

If the 80/20 rule holds for creating a viral website I'd say it's 80
percent fundamentals and 20 percent innovation.

Fundamentals are the core skills of running a site like customer
support, and making the app scale. Don't underestimate fundamentals.

Innovation is what makes your site standout. It differentiates you
from the noise. And its what people talk about when they describe
your site.

My advice is to innovate, but remember that successful innovations are
built on top of fundamentals. If Magic Johnson couldn't two hand chest
pass, he'd never be able to throw a 92 ft no look behind the back
bounce pass through a defenders legs and over the next persons head
for a perfect alley-oop

Beating Costco

I drove by this tire shop in Mountain View yesterday and there's this
BIG sign that says we "We Beat Costco."

What I didn't get in the picture is a we're hiring for $10/hr sign
right next to it.

See, Costco pays higher wages and that attracts talent that is
knowledgable about tires. Plus they have the best return policy around.

It takes a lot more than cheap prices to beat Costco.