Alex Bovee

Elephant Seals at Ano Nuevo State Park

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:42:00 -0800

Melissa, Lilly and I went to see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo state park near Santa Cruz last Monday. Our tour started at 9AM so we left the house around 7:00 just to make sure we would get there in time. As it turns out, it only takes about an hour to get there if you drive like I do, which meant we had plenty of time to hang around in the lobby area.

We left on our tour at 9 and it took about 15 minutes and a mile hike to get to the official “gate” of the park. Once there, we were given a brief safety talk, told what we could and could not do, and were then introduced to our docent/tour guide. Then we were on our way.

The beach where the elephant seals lay around was a short walk from gate. Along the way, there was some beautiful coastline and a really cool old house on an island about 100 ft from the mainland. Apparently this island used to be attached to the island before some earthquake. I’m not sure how great of a place this would have been to live given the elephant seals hang around the house a lot as well, and they’re pretty damn noisy.

The seals were incredible. We were allowed to get within 25 feet of them, which was close enough to watch them play and hear all there grunts and noises. We had the chance to learn a lot about them on the tour, but some things that stuck in my head as particularly interesting:

They’re primarily a individualistic species. Despite spending time together on land to mate, they actually don’t hang around each other at all when they’re in the ocean.
They only come to the land to give birth and to mate
The male elephant seals (bulls) get some serious alpha male action going on when they first arrive. They’ll duke it out with one another for the rights to mate with a “harem” of the females during their time on land.
The loser males just hang tight away from the harems after they’ve gotten their butts kicked. They’ll give it another go at being king of the mountain the next year when they come back.
The baby seals gain about 300 pounds in one month after being born, primarily because their mother’s milk is 50%+ fat! It’s like drinking half and half sans le cafe.
They were nearly extinct because of being hunted for their blubber. Interestingly, this isn’t because they’re blubber is some superior quality or anything like that, but rather because they’re so easy to hunt given they’re not afraid of humans and they won’t run or shy away from them.

Overall, it was a very cool trip and well worth it. The seals only come on land between January and March, so you have to book the trip to see them during this time. Also, tickets are sold online and go pretty fast, so definitely book in advance.

Tahoe Trips Round 1 - Heavenly, Squaw Valley & Northstar

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 21:57:00 -0800

Since we’ve never skied Tahoe and we’re looking to get a winter share next year, we were really hoping to check out as many different mountains as possible during 2010-2011 season. So far, so good. The first round of trips included Heavenly, Squaw, and Northstar. I’ll break down the pros and cons of each below.

Heavenly

Pros:

Amazing views of both Nevada and Lake Tahoe
Family friendly (aka Daycare for 2 yr +)
Decent, long runs

Cons:

Lots of traversing
Heavier snow (from the Nevada desert breeze)
Ok terrain

Our Heavenly trip was pretty epic - but mostly because of the team we were heading up there with. We organized a Chicago Booth reunion which consisted of about 15 folks from San Francisco and a handful of out-of-towners from Chicago and NYC. We rented an amazing house right near the lake that was about a 5-10 minute drive from the mountain. The house was absolutely amazing and actually ended up being relatively cheap at about $100 per person for the weekend. If I’m ever in the market for a 7 bedroom house again, I’ll definitely look this place up first.

The snow and mountain was ok, but not impressive. Some of this wasn’t actually Heavenly’s fault as the conditions were just completely terrible. There hadn’t been fresh snow there in about four weeks. That meant that the groomers and trail runs were decent, but any thing off trail was a literal sheet of solid ice. I actually don’t think I’ve ever been in conditions that bad. I’m also not 100% sure, but I hear that this has something to do with the warm breeze from the Nevada side. Makes sense.

Squaw Valley

Pros

Diversity of terrain (bowls, gladed runs, steeps, etc.) & lots of difficult runs
The whole mountain is your oyster
Mountain location helps keeps snow in good condition

Cons

Less family friendly
Shorter runs
Not many glades

Squaw was pretty badass. The mountain is definitely all-pro with lots of solid blacks, challenging runs, and obstacled “off-trail” runs. I say “off-trail” in quotes because there didn’t seem to be any official “trails”, just cleared paths which would eventually run you to a lift. The black diamonds on squaw were definitely real black diamonds (not the case everywhere in Tahoe). We never got around to the double blacks because most of them were closed, but I’m guessing they’re also pretty solid. I was also really impressed that despite not having snow for that long, the conditions were much better than Heavenly. I think that’s because Squaw is sitting in a little valley between a couple of different mountains and it tends to stay colder there.

The downside to Squaw for me was that the runs seemed to be a bit shorter and there didn’t seem to be many gladed runs. In fact, the mountain seemed relatively sparse when it came to trees. That’s not a deal breaker, because everything else was awesome, but it would be nice to have just a little bit more diversity of terrain. Overall, Squaw was a huge mountain with lots of space, lots of steeps, and lots of great runs.

I’ve also said that Squaw is not “family friendly”, but I should really qualify what I mean by that. Both Heavenly and Northstar had babysitting, which for us is a real plus when it comes to supporting a family trip onto the mountain. Squaw did have junior ski classes or something along those lines, but it was only for 3 year olds+, so Lilly wouldn’t be able to come with us unless we rotated taking the day off.

Northstar

Pros

Great gladed runs, lots of off-trail goodness, lots of long runs
Really great snow and good conditions
Close to the highway

Cons

Insanely busy
Insanely busy
“Flatstar”?

Northstar might just be my favorite. I say “might” because the verdict is still out for a few reasons, but first the pros.

Northstar just had amazing gladed runs and tons of off-trail routes. If you wanted dense glades, you could easily find it. If you wanted sparser glades, you could find that as well. The groomers were also great and there were tons of long, moguled runs. Overall, Northstar just had great runs, especially for cruising with friends. We skied the backside during the morning and there were several runs that were moguled for at least 400-500 yards. It’s pretty thoroughly exhausting. There was also a mountain in Northstar called Lookout Mountain that has lots of great runs, albeit a little harder to get to (and therefore less busy). That area was best -hands down.

The downsides of Northstar is that it’s just insanely busy. I’ve never seen so many people on a mountain. After riding the blue down to the town, Melissa actually commented that she was pretty sure that it was the most dangerous skiing she had ever done in her life. Not because of the trail itself, but because you were constantly ducking people left and right and skiing around bailed out snow boarders sitting in the middle of the run. Not fun. Verdict: stick to slightly more challenging runs on Lookout and the backside where the crowds are thinner.

Two more notes on Northstar:

“White Rabbit” - This is a run on the backside of Lookout mountain that drops into the backside of Northstar (I know, confusing). Apparently it’s supposed to be a rare treat if you can ever do it because it’s closed the majority of the time. Frankly, I thought it was a little overrated. The sun hits it in the early morning and it gets crunchy pretty quickly. Worth doing once, though, if you have the chance.
“Flatstar” - Maybe I didn’t hit these runs, but I’m not exactly sure what all this “flatstar” business is about. There were tons of solid runs that had lots of drop. I rarely ended up pushing myself across any traverse. I think this might just be an unfair bad rap.

What’s next?

Overall, I’m pretty impressed with Tahoe mountains. I was skeptical before coming out here, but for only being 3-4 hours from San Francisco with no plane ticket required to ski, this is a great area. We’re really looking forward to getting a winter share next year and hopefully squeezing in even more skiing during the season, but first we’re hoping to hit up just a couple of more resorts. Still on the list are Kirkwood and Alpine Meadows. I’ve heard great things about both and I’m particularly bullish on Kirkwood as I hear it’s really easy to get to and is a fabulous mountain. Hopefully we’ll get to try those out before next season so we can seal the deal on season passes early on when they’re still cheap!

Point Reyes Hike - Bear Valley Trail

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 17:15:00 -0800

Finally found sometime to catch up on blog entires today! The first of the series of updates from trips over the last few months is of our January trip to Point Reyes. We found a nice trail called Bear Valley, which apparently also happens to be the most “touristed” (i.e. crawling with tourists). Nonetheless, the rumor is that this trail is well traveled for good reason, namely, that it’s awesome. It certainly lived up to our expectations.

We hopped in the car around 8 in the morning and got into Point Reyes park at the Bear Valley trail entrance around an hour or so later. I would definitely recommend getting there early as we did, because as we learned later, the trail gets really busy later in the day. As luck would have it though, it was clear when we started. We ended up passing just a handful of hikers over the course of the hike to the coast.

Bear Valley trail starts at a nice parking/rest area with a big lodge and decent bathrooms. We jumped on the trail and started heading in with Lilly walking at first, then quickly deciding she’d rather catch a ride on dad’s back. The walk to the coast was relatively uneventful. There were some nice clearings with decent scenery and the trail was relatively flat, but overall it was not particularly eventful or spectacular. The best part of that section, by far, were these trees that were completely covered by moss. It’s was actually pretty surreal. You could see how it could happen: the area was really damp and sunlight didn’t penetrate through the canopy very well. These trees just sat there and collected moss - and when I say that they collected moss, I mean there literally wasn’t an inch uncovered. Pretty cool.

The highlight of the trek to the coast was actually reaching Arch Rock. Arch Rock is a small promontory that juts out into the Pacific Ocean and provides an un-parelleled view up and down the coast. The promontory is probably 100 feet of sheer cliff right up from the ocean. On a clear day (which we happened to have) you can see all the way up the coast of Point Reyes including the curve of the beach in it’s sickle-like shape. All of this while listening to the wave’s crash was awe-inspiring to say the least. We just soaked it up… and then picnicked.

As luck would have it, we had the promontory to ourselves when we first arrived, which meant we didn’t feel bad about grabbing some prime real estate and setting up a picnic. Needless to say after 5 miles or so of humping Lilly on my back, that was the best tasting peanut butter sandwich I’ve ever had.

After about 30 minutes of hanging out and eating, we decided to hit the trail again and start to head back. I really wanted to go back a different way then we came (and maybe do something more challenging), so we decided to head south along the coast, then up the mountain, then back down to the entrance of Bear Valley (see the Everytrail map below). Well, a challenge is what I wanted and a challenge is what I got. Lilly was sleeping by now, but it was probably for the better because otherwise she might have thought I was going to die. She got a free ride straight up the mountain on a trail that zig-zagged back and forth because of the sheer climb. It seemed like we stopped every five minutes or so to take pictures because the view was absolutely amazing. As we climbed the mountain, we just got clearer and less obstructed views of the beach, the coast, and Point Reyes.

After reaching the top of the mountain, the hike was relatively flat but we started to encounter a less welcome experience: mudholes. Apparently it had rained recently and the water doesn’t drain very well from flat trails. The mudholes were pretty awful. We did about every acrobatic trick in the book to try to avoid them, but when the worst was over, we both had soggy socks and muddy shoes. Luckily these were close to the end of the trail so we wouldn’t have to hike much longer.

A few more miles in and my feet and toenails were killing me so bad (primarily from walking downhill for a few miles with Lilly on my back) that I finally gave in and let Melissa carry Lilly. About 100 more yards and we dropped in on the Bear Valley trail about 300 feet or so from the parking lot. So, Melissa got to look like the champ that carried her the whole way - not fair :)

I’d recommend this hike in a heart beat to anyone so inclined to take on some serious physical activity. I think all in all, it was about 12-14 miles round trip. I’m not exactly sure because my phone died just shy of closing the loop, but we got most of the path mapped. I would also recommend getting there pretty early around 9 o’clock or so, like we did. We left around 1 or 2 in the afternoon and the parking lot was completely packed and the trail looked really busy. Now I know what people meant when they said that it gets really “touristed”.

EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in California

Half Moon Bay

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 23:01:00 -0800

We finally made it over to half moon bay a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, it was a bit too cold to enjoy much of a hike, but, we ran into some excitement involving a grounded ship. Apparently auto-pilot combined with falling asleep at the wheel is a recipe for disaster. Noted.

Castlight Health: Healthcare Services Shopping

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 22:31:40 -0800

Although a bit overused these days, the adage “Sunlight is the best disinfectant” seems so fitting for Castlight Health that I just can’t resist. The three year old Health 2.0 startup based in San Francisco is taking a page directly from Justice Brandeis’ playbook by shining some light on the historically opaque world of healthcare services pricing and quality. Their web based platform, only available through employers for now, allows users to search for doctor’s visits, lab work, and various other services, with corresponding out-of-pocket cost calculation and quality metrics. With a handful of companies already signed up for the service, a killer management team, and a great technology, they’re going to be a company to watch in the next few years.

Read the rest of my review here on TechCocktail

Loggly – Logging as a Service

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 19:09:00 -0800

Log management may not be the sexiest problem in IT today, but it sure is an important one – and Loggly wants to solve it. The company is building a cloud based logging service that takes the pain out of log collection, management, and processing and offers it on a subscription basis. The product is currently in private beta, but will soon be available to the general public (btw –love the signup page).

Managing and parsing log data is a problem that has existed since the early days of computers – though now, on a bigger scale than ever before. Today, even a basic application with moderate usage can generate many megabytes of data on a daily basis on aggregate across the web server, OS, and application layers. This problem only been exacerbated recently as companies have focused more and more on collecting as much data as possible on user interaction and traffic.

Read the rest of my review here on TechCocktail

AirBnb and a Lesson on Building Two Sided Networks

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:48:00 -0800

I just finished listening to Brian Chesky’s talk for Startup School from a few months ago. If you haven’t watched it yet, you’d be well advised to do so (find it here). Aside from being hilarious and entertaining, it also provided a unique view into the will, determination, and scrappiness that it takes to start a company. There were lots of great lessons, but one thing in particular caught my attention: AirBnb’s initial user acquisition model was not scalable.

An Intro to AirBnb

AirBnb is an online marketplace that helps users list and rent their most valuable personal asset: the space in their house (well, now treehouses & boats as well). The company has grown tremendously over the last few years, thanks in part to a great user experience and solid value proposition, but also due to some great marketing. They also have an incredible iPhone app (from what I hear at least, I’m on Android).

As a two-sided network, AirBnB needs two distinctly different users to go to their site: a lister and a renter. They can’t create a transaction without those two parties.

The Unique Challenge of Two Sided Networks

Having been in a handful of investor presentations, a question that inevitably comes up with marketplace businesses is: how will you grow the network? It’s a valid question, but for a startup with just an idea or barely functional prototype, it can also be difficult to answer. The founders of AirBnb had a difficult time building their network, and it’s no surprise: marketplace businesses are notoriously difficult to build. Here are just a few reasons:

They require coordination: If you build up one side of the network, and not the other, you don’t make money (imagine eBay with lots of buyers and no listings).
They can be difficult to figure out: it’s hard to get one user acquisition model right, let alone two. Often times, buyers and sellers for marketplaces must be reached through different marketing channels. This means optimizing two sets of user acquisition models. There has been lots of great thinking on how to seed one side of the market first.
They can be costly: Marketing to both sides of the marketplace costs money. Iterating through your acquisition models costs money. Two-sided networks cost money to build.

Essentially, building a two-sided network or marketplace business to critical mass means nailing product-market fit, marketing message, and marketing execution for two different groups of users!

The Importance of Non-Scalable User Acquisition

The AirBnb story caught my attention not because it’s the first time I’ve heard of marketplace companies using non-scalable user acquisition methods, but because it’s probably the fifth. Another great example that comes to mind is SitterCity.com. SitterCity is a Chicago based company that has built a two-sided network that helps connect parents to babysitters. Genevieve Theirs, the CEO, tells a story of the early days of Sittercity when initial user acquisition came from papering dorms around her campus with fliers for the service. Was that scalable or cost effective? Probably not. And although I’m sure she had no intention of moving forward with this model, it helped her get in touch with her customers and get immediate feedback on the service as well as provided a solid seed for the network.

Similarly, Brian Chesky and the AirBnb team, after working restlessly to build their two-sided network, were coached to get out and just start meeting with customers. And then something miraculous happened. Through this highly un-scalable process, they signed up new users. But, even more importantly, they learned about their customers and their unique set of needs. A few business model tweaks later combined with the seeded network that they had built, and the company left ramen profitable in the dust.

Get Out and Build your Network

Long story short, if you’re looking to build a two-sided network business, don’t be afraid to just get out, roll up your sleeves, and make something happen. As Steve Blank says in his Customer Development process: “there are no facts in the building; get out and meet your customers”.

A Case for Throw-Away Mockups

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 19:40:00 -0800

I’ve read a lot of great posts recently on the future of wireframes and if the low-fidelity mockup should go the way of the dodo. In one post, the writer advocates using the technology framework itself for creating a mockup – or in other words, producing web-ready HTML/Javascript/CSS (and corresponding graphics from Photoshop or Fireworks) to create a semi-close-to-real-world model for the end site. Another post has the perspective that low fidelity wire-framing tools do not provide the modeling capabilities for the interactivity and dynamic nature of web 2.0 sites. A central theme to both posts is that iteration takes time and that the low/medium fidelity wireframing process adds an unnecessary layer to the design process.

In general, I agree on both fronts. I can certainly understand how each of these arguments is valid given a set of circumstances. However, I do think there are cases in which it still makes sense to produce low-fidelity wireframes. I’ve outlined these below, but first, some definition:

The “Throw-Away” Mockup – Defined

I’m defining the throw away mockup as a wireframe which, for all intents and purposes, is completely unusable to produce anything that will go in production. This includes mockups that are just rough drafts done on paper, perhaps designed in powerpoint, or in a rapid low or medium fidelity wireframing tool such as Balsamiq. The outputs from these tools cannot be transformed directly into HTML, but rather are good for socialization, brainstorming, and rapid iteration. Their final drafts must later be translated into a production format (images, CSS, & HTML) which can then be staged to a developer.

When would you use Low-Fidelity Design Tools in the Design Process?

There are several reasons why you might want to use low-fidelity design tools to rapidly prototype a design. Here are a few:

When the Design Concept is Still a Rough Idea: If you don’t have a good idea of how something should work, it’s probably not smart to dive right into Photoshop. At the early stages of an idea, you’re going to go through lots of iterations. Redesigning user experience and optimizing interactions takes time, thought, and lots of rework. Unless you’re a supreme whiz at photoshop and can burn through iterations quickly, you’re probably better off starting on paper and then migrating the design to something more industrial strength later.
When the site is extremely sophisticated: I recently drafted up some Balsamiq designs for a Health 2.0 consumer web company. If you’ve ever touched the healthcare space, you’ll know it’s very complicated. There are lots of data elements and translating user flows into simple, intuitive interfaces requires thought and iteration. Creating production ready mockups in this case would almost certainly be a waste of time. Throwing out a fully drafted HTML page with CSS and Photoshop template to boot is costly (both to your time and sanity). Using a low-fidelity mockup tool helps keep the cost of this rework down to a minimum. Designing Interactive has a good, short write up on this same point.
When feedback is critical, but comes after design: In a real-time collaborative environment, feedback is immediate. Drafting up screen elements and flows on a whiteboard lends itself to instant iteration. However, there are many times when design is done independently and feedback comes after the fact. In this environment, collaborators may be much less likely to tear down your design if they believe you’ve put a lot of effort into creating it. Paper, Powerpoint, and Balsamiq mockups look ugly… and that’s the point. No one will be afraid to tell you your design stinks if it looks hand drawn.
When product owners are not proficient with high fidelity design tools: In most startups, the product is owned by the founders. Sometimes founders are great with design tools, but that’s just not always the case. Furthermore, becoming proficient with sophisticated graphics tools is not an easy task and probably isn’t a learning curve you want to tackle when you’re already biting off more than you can chew. In this case, it’s better to work with low-fi mockup tools to create good enough mockups that you can then collaborate on with designers.

You may notice that three of these four reasons could also be put succinctly: “when you believe you’ll have lots of iterations” (the 4th reason is skill centric). Before jumping in to create high fidelity wireframes, use this litmus test to think about how much iteration it might take to get the design right and select the right tool accordingly.

Opinionaided: Real-Time Advice on the Go

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 20:00:20 -0800

New Jersey based startup Opinionaided wants to help you get advice and opinions in real-time. Their platform allows you to pose questions to the world or to your personal network, and crowdsource “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” feedback instantly. Want to know whether to purchase the iPad with 32GB or the cheaper, younger brother? Or, whether it’s worth heading to the movies to watch the new Harry Potter movie? Snap a picture, type in a question, and submit the data using Opinionaided’s iPhone app or website. Within minutes, feedback starts rolling in from friends, family, and the world…

Read the rest of my review here on TechCocktail

Three Ideas for Improving Google's Hotpot

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:49:00 -0800

Hotpot, Google’s new product for local search and recommendations, was released a few days ago to mixed reviews. Some were great (Mashable) and others were less than stellar (Wired, GigaOM, SEW). Personally, I like the idea behind Hotpot and think there’s potential. Personalized recommendations for places to go to, businesses to patronize, and interesting things to do is something that would add a lot of value to my life. Furthermore, since Google has a plethora of personal and user behavior data, they’re uniquely positioned to provide accurate and interesting recommendations. Gmail, for example, is a holy grail of information about my personal preferences, hobbies, and passions.

Given the mixed reception, I sat down and thought up a few ideas on how Google could improve Hotpot. Here they are:

Idea 1 – Call out the Benefit

aka: What’s the Catchphrase?

Hotpot needs to clarify the value proposition and benefit for consumers. I felt like this was missing both at signup time and within the application. The signup page says: “Start rating now with Hotpot”. That sounds like work. Yuck. What’s in it for me? Once you’re inside the application, it doesn’t get much better. Hotpot’s catchphrase is … well, there isn’t one. Under the search bar it says: “by Google Places”. The first flip card says: “Recommendation for here or to go”… I’m not sure what that means. Conversely, a glance at Yelp’s homepage yields the following catchphrase: “Real People, Real Reviews”. That doesn’t sound like work and I understand the value that’s in it for me. Hotpot needs to do a better job of explaining what it is and how it’s going to make my life better.

Idea 2 – Provide Immediate Value:

“Now eventually you might have dinosaurs [recommendations] on this dinosaur tour [recommendation engine]?” Dr. Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Google has access to a plethora of my information via gmail, buzz, and a host of many other services that I use. But once I was on the Hotpot site, I sat and scratched my head wondering exactly where the recommendations were on this “recommendation” engine. It wasn’t intuitive even after rating a handful of businesses. I spent my first 5 minutes clicking star ratings for several of the businesses that I recognized, but nothing seemed to get better. No additional businesses popped up. No changes in my existing card set happened. After a handful of reviews, I wondered what the heck I was doing. It took me logging back in a few days later before I actually saw any recommendations. Hotpot should start providing users with valuable recommendations from the first click.

Idea 3 – Focus on User Experience:

“Think in Flows, Not Screens” Jason Putorti

Right now, the only flows in Hotpot consist of signing into the application, clicking reviews, and clicking businesses. This experience feels awkward and stuffy - like I’m interacting with a databot whose job is to suck valuable review information out of me and shove it into a large database. Hotpot is Google places with a weak social (friend connect), game mechanic (leaderboard), and input/recommendation engine (flipcards) layered on top. The application could be dramatically improved by focusing on user engagement and flow. Hotpot could initially ask a user to select a category of business they would like to explore. The user could then scroll through that category and spend time on things that are relevant and meaningful to them. That would also help avoid situations where a user is presented with completely irrelevant places. After six reviews, I was surprised to get a card for: “Encinal High School”:

I’m not in high school. I just graduated with my MBA from Chicago. My little one is 2 years old and unless she turns out to be a Doogie Howser, MD, she won’t be in high school anytime soon either. Hotpot needs to design flows that maximize value for the user and engage them relevantly.

Excited to See What’s Next

Despite some shortcomings, Hotpot did a lot of things right on this release. Signing up for the service was painless and easy. It’s layered on top of Google places and uses Google authentication, so if you already have a Google account, it’s just a few extra clicks to get started. I was also really impressed with the review aggregation functionality. They’ve sourced reviews from several different locations and boiled all of that information into an easy to understand, 5-star based review system. Awesome.

All that said, Hotpot is certainly no Yelp killer and will need some work to better engage users. Some of these changes will be small tweaks, such as clarifying their marketing message for the application. Others will take substantial investments in time and money. It will be interesting to see what Hotpot does next.

Installing Typekit on Tumblr

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:19:00 -0800

If haven’t used TypeKit yet, you should definitely try it out. TypeKit allows you to add creative and professional looking type faces to your website - beyond the basic fonts supported by most browsers/OSs. The service packages the fonts and sends them directly to the end user’s browser, enabling your website to provide a consistent visual experience across browsers and operating systems. It’s provided on a freemium basis with a step up in cost based on website traffic and number of sites supported. The lowest level service allows for up to two fonts on one unique domain with a maximum 25,000 unique page views of traffic per month. For the average blogger, this is probably all you need. To get started with an account, just visit TypeKit and use your domain to signup.

There are a couple of ways to use TypeKit on Tumblr. If you’re lucky, your theme will support TypeKit out of the box. I use a WooTheme for my Tumblr blog. It has a lot of UI supported configurability out of the box including the ability to type in my TypeKit ID under the “Appearance” tab:

To get the TypeKit ID for your website, launch the “Kit Editor” on TypeKit.com for your website and then click “Embed Code”. Your TypeKit ID is listed in the bottom right hand corner of the popup:

If your Tumblr theme does not support adding a TypeKit ID through configuration, you’ll have to add the HTML code directly. To do so, copy the included HTML in the above “Embed Code” section. Then, go to customize your blog on Tumblr, select the “Theme” dropdown, switch to “Use Custom HTML”, and paste the copied HTML into the <head> section of the document:

If you load your website and it looks good - you’re golden. If not, you’ve got some troubleshooting to do. CSS is incredibly tricky to troubleshoot, especially when multiple stylesheets are being loaded from different domains. When troubleshooting Tumblr/TypeKit integration, your problem is probably going to fall into one of these two buckets:

Domain Match Errors
Styled Elements Errors

1. Domain Match Errors

These occur when the configured domain in your TypeKit editor is not correct. For me, the problem occurred because I was using TypeKit on a sub-domain on my alexbovee.com domain. If you have a subdomain such as “blog.yoururl.com” setup, you’ll need to be sure that TypeKit references this domain correctly. You can check this by going to the Kit Editor and then clicking the “Kit Settings” link:

Here, you’ll see the domain you setup before. If your blog is on your root level domain, just make sure the domain is “yoururl.com”. If you are using a sub-domain for your blog mapped to your tumblr domain, you’ll need to be sure your domain is either “blog.yoururl.com” (where blog => your sub-domain) or “*.yoururl.com”. The wild-card domain selector will enable using this TypeKit on your root and sub-domains.

Note: Be sure to select “Publish” to save these changes and have them pushed out to TypeKit content servers.

2. Styled Elements

If your issue isn’t a domain configuration issue, it’s probably a CSS application issue. Checking that elements are styled correctly is a little more difficult. My go-to for this is to use the Firefox add-in Firebug to inspect the elements. If you don’t have Firebug, it’s an absolute go-to for troubleshooting all things browser, HTTP, and CSS related by allowing you to visually and textually inspect elements on a page, sniff HTTP packets, and more. To check an element to make sure it’s styled correctly with your font, you can right click it on the page, then select “Inspect Element”:

This will open Firebug with that HTML element selected. Next, click the “Computed” box in the Style viewer on the right-hand side:

This will give you the computed CSS style for the selected element. If you don’t see your font (as named in your TypeKit) in the “font-family” section, something is going wrong with your element styling. From here, check the following:

Make sure the font-family name you use in your styling corresponds to the style name in the typekit. You can find this style name by going into the TypeKit Editor and clicking the “Advanced” link next to the style in the “Selectors” section.

You can use custom “Selectors” in the TypeKit editor to apply TypeKit fonts using CSS that’s sent to your browser by TypeKit. You add these selectors to HTML tags or classes in the TypeKit editor under the “Selectors” section. For example, enter “h1” into the selector box and click “Add” to apply this font to all “h1” elements on your site. Be sure to click “Publish” to save these changes.
When a TypeKit is loaded, it loads a CSS file from the TypeKit content servers. You can see this file by clicking the “CSS” tab in Firebug, and then selecting it from the drop down (it will be the only css file from the domain “typekit.com”). This is a great way to determine if your fonts are being correctly loaded from the TypeKit server. If you just added custom selectors, and they’re not showing up, chances are that the file has not yet been pushed out or you didn’t “Publish” it. On the other hand, if no elements are in this CSS file, there’s a good chance that your domain is configured wrong in the TypeKit editor.

Good luck!

Twin Peaks Hike

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 20:57:00 -0800

I hiked up to Twin Peaks yesterday with Lilly on my back. We started from the East side in Noe Valley around 29th and Church. Since we got going around lunch, we stopped at St. Paul’s Market to grab a bite to eat before heading up the hill. I’ve never been to St Paul’s before, but holy crap, what a sandwich ($5 bucks for a 2” stack of meat). Lilly ate half the sandwich and then we hit the road.. half a block later, she was asleep! So much for keeping me company.

The first part of the hike is straight up the hill into the Diamond Heights neighborhood. If you’ve never walked up that hill, it’s a serious sweat buster - especially if you’re lugging a 30 lb child and 15 lbs of stuff. Noe is about at sea level (I believe Everytrail logged me at 88ft), but you end up around 900ft at the top of Twin Peaks. Roundtrip I logged a little over 4 miles, so it’s about 2 miles to the top depending on which roads you take. The hike up is absolutely beautiful, with lots of great views of the Mission and downtown San Francisco. Once you get to the top, you can then see the ocean and a nice view of the Sutro Reserve. You can also see the top of the Golden Gate bridge a bit off in the distance. I’d definitely recommend making this trip on a warm, clear day, as I’ve been up in the Twin Peaks area when the weather sucks, and it can get really cold and windy.

Highlight of the trip: There were a couple of students at the top of the hill discussing the challenges of transitioning from normal to sub-orbit flight. Seriously. #OnlyInSF

EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in the Bay Area, California

Skyara.com - "Do Something Awesome"

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 17:42:00 -0800

Just got back from a “lunch with the Skyara founders” event that I discovered and purchased through their website, Skyara.com. Well worth the $20.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, Skyara is a local-activities website where you can find exciting things to do around the city. For the moment, that includes activities as varied as marksmanship training with an army ranger, Barrista lessons, and a most-likely-to-be depressing date with this guy. Being a bit of an experience junkie myself, I love this idea. I’m always looking for fun things to do and cool places to check out in San Francisco. I find the Bay Area to have a high explorability factor as the neighborhoods are so different, the area culturally rich, and the geography diverse. So, I guess that SF isn’t just a great place to start a company; it’s also a great place to start a company that sells things to do.

The product is easy to use and impressive considering these guys have only really been riffing on it for a couple of months. You just go to the website, find something that looks interesting, pay for it, and show up on time. Pretty simple really. As the product gets built out further and there are more activities, I’d also love to see a recommendation engine. You can image with information pulled in from your social graph, Skyara could be incredibly effective at helping you part ways with your money. As for the team, they all quit their corporate jobs after getting into I/O ventures, and moved out here to start the company. True entrepreneurs, they’re cash efficient like you wouldn’t believe and are working out of the I/O office in the Summit Cafe on Valencia.

What most intrigues me about Skyara is that it could be a great platform to help niche business operators or people with creative hobbies or services to find customers - a localized Etsy for experiences instead of crafts. Right now the website has a lot of traditional outdoorsey offerings such as paintballing, cycling trips, and hiking expeditions. Although those activities are certainly valuable, they’re probably not going to make the site that interesting. More important are the unique, one-off activities - a 30 minute punch the clown session, lunch with the AirBnb engineers (to discus time travel), etc. Those will be the key to keeping users engaged and coming back to the site for more. I’m sure there will be some organic growth for these listings (as the service attracts more eyeballs, more people will think up things to list) but growing the volume substantially will require intervention. They may want to take a page out of Trazzler’s playbook by using contract writers and contests to produce content.

With a good product in place, I’m looking forward to the sure-to-be creative marketing these guys will do. They received great press last week in TechCrunch, but with so much noise in this startup environment, you could always use more. I’m thinking a contest to win a really unique experience combined with a splash of social/game mechanics could really drive registrations. I.e. the experience is won by lottery, but for every friend you refer who signs up to the site, you get an additional entry. You could spend a week brainstorming cheap guerrilla marketing activities, but I’d probably start by coming up with a catchy headline. How about: “Skyara: Do Something Awesome”.

Follow Skyara on Twitter here

Destination Wedding - Riviera Maya

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 15:01:00 -0800

This was our 2nd trip to the Riviera Maya. The first was to earn our scuba chops in Cozumel and Playa Del Carmen. This time the trip was for Meghan and Tyler’s wedding. Melissa and I have decided we absolutely love this area. Consider our retirement location finalized.

We flew into Cancun and took the shuttle to our resort, the Barcelo Maya, which is an inclusive resort located south of Playa Del Carmen on the coast. To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of all inclusive resorts. I never understood why people went to them. You go on vacation to check out the area, to eat authentic food, and to experience culture. Or, at least that’s why I usually go on vacations. But, with a kid in tow, I think I finally understand why people go to these places. It’s just easy. After you’ve paid for your room, you don’t have to worry about anything else. No tipping, no finding ATMs or cash, no planning or figuring out dinner, etc. Everything is just magically done for you, 24 hours a day. Hot damn.

We flew in Thursday morning, the wedding was on Saturday, and we left Monday morning. That gave us a solid few days to do some fun activities which included checking out Tulum, getting our beach volleyball on, and running around with Lilly at the kids water park. Tulum was just as amazing as I remembered it. The view is epic and the beach is pristine and beautiful. They had a few more areas roped off this time around, which I’m guessing is because they got tired of tourists walking all over the structures. Probably a smart move.

The best part of the weekend, though, was catching up with old friends from Texas. We haven’t seen most of this crowd in over two years, so it was fun to hang out and get the run down on everything new in people’s lives. It’s amazing how much things have changed in a short time.

Worst part of the weekend: losing/having stolen my passport. I’m not exactly sure which one it was, but I’m leaning towards stolen. It was only out of our sight for about 5 minutes, when we were at breakfast Monday morning. We were just loading up on some food before getting on the shuttle to catch our flight. All the passports were in the blue backpack which we left at the table while we grabbed some food from the cafeteria. Didn’t realize the passport was gone until we got the airport. Luckily, US Customs had a record of my departure to Mexico, so they knew I was the real McCoy and let me back in. Cool. The only bad side: I really hope there’s not people trying to cross the border from Mexico to the US right now with a truck full of drugs - using my passport to do it.

Baker Beach Presidio

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 11:50:00 -0700

Ever since we arrived in San Francisco, we had been wanting to check out the shoreline of the Presidio and Baker Beach. It’s not much of a hike and is a fun afternoon get away if you only have a few hours to kill - which we did.

We loaded up the car at about 2:30 on Sunday, packed some snacks for Lilly, and headed over to the Presidio. We parked right off of Lincoln Ave next to a World War II memorial that we had no idea existed until we drove up to it. The memorial is to honor those who were lost at sea in the Pacific during World War II and never found.

The first stop on the hike is an old coastal battery that sits mid-way down the cliff. You could see where there were previously huge guns stationed, because there is a circle in the concrete about 10 feet in diameter with large bolts every two feet around the circumference. Kind of a shame they weren’t still there - that would have been incredible. My guess is that maybe it’s a bit too ominous for cargo ships and tugboats coming into the Bay to have huge guns pointed at them. Either that, or the gov needed the steel and decided to recycle it. Probably the latter.

From the battery, we headed further down towards the ocean and ended up at Baker Beach. It was pretty cold that day, so we didn’t really hang around. But, the beach itself offered some great views and gorgeous pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. We tooled around for a few, got some pictures of the family, and then hiked back up to Lincoln road and the car.

We thought that would be the end of the trip, but thanks to Trivia Night last Thursday, I found out that the Legion of Honor is also in San Francisco. So, we added a quick stop there to our itinerary for the trip home. The building, statues, and huge steel sculpture were all pretty cool, but we didn’t get a chance to see much else as there was a wedding going on and they had commandeered most of the structure and surrounding area. We also didn’t realize it at the time, but there is a small Holocaust Memorial near the parking lot of the Legion of Honor. It was a bit disturbing, so we didn’t let Lilly see it. Eventually she caught a glimpse though and asked why all the people were laying down :(

Since we didn’t get to check out much of the Legion of Honor, it’s definitely on our to-do list for a day when it’s not so cloudy and maybe a little bit warmer.

Stinson Beach Loop

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 02:12:00 -0700

After a little research, we decided to head to Stinson beach to do the Matt Davis, Steep Ravine, Dispea trail trifecta loop. Stinson Beach is accessible via highway 1 heading west about 9 miles from Mill Valley. We got an early start and left the house at about 8:30, which put us at Stinson right around 9:15. We found great parking right next to some basketball courts near the center of town and headed directly over to the Matt Davis trail entrance located off of Belvedere St.

I had read that the loop was going to be right around 8 miles, but I had no idea the vertical was so insane. The Matt Davis heads straight up into Mt Tamalpais state park and is pretty much a 1700 vertical in about 2 miles. With the Oof on my back, that was no small task and I felt whipped about 30 minutes into the hike. But, the scenic views and the encouragement from the rider on my back kept us going.

By far, the most incredible part of the hike for me was transition through micro-climates as we hiked up the face of the mountain. At sea level, it was clear, but cold. About 400 feet up, we transitioned into a moist, damp, almost rainforest like feel tropical climate with the ground saturated as if it had just rained. At about 800 feet up, we were deep into the fog - reminding me of the cloud forest in Costa Rica where it’s cold and foggy. At about 1200 feet, the forest and views were incredible. The fog was still thick, but we were close enough to the top of the mountain that the sun shone through. This created a glowing effect as if the forest were wrapped in tissue paper with a gigantic flashlight shining through it on the outside. Finally, at around 1800 ft, the trees, we were through the fog, and we stepped out onto wide areas of open, yellow grasslands.

At this point, which was about 3 miles into the hike, we reached the parking area/ranger station where Steep Ravine and Matt Davis trail come together just off of the panoramic highway (the “1”). We were a bit relieved to reach it because for a little over half a mile, we were debating about whether we should turn around so our little one could get a nap. We took a short water break and headed right back out onto Steep Ravine trail which is mostly downhill back to Stinson Beach.

Steep Ravine is, well, a steep ravine with high walls on either side of the trail. The trail pretty much parallels the ravine down to the ocean with the occasional criss-cross of the trail over the trickling stream. The features on the trail were great - lots of fallen trees on the trail for hiking over or under, a 10 foot tall ladder to descend, and several bridges (some more suspect than others). But, since we were heading downhill though, the hike was just that much easier.

About 2 miles down Steep Ravine, we hung a right on the Dipsea trail. The trail was relatively flat and led us quickly and safely back to Stinson Beach. At this point, Lilly was more than ready to get out of her backpack, so we were kind of rushing down the mountain towards the beach. The greatest part of Dipsea was the great view of the ocean and of Stinson on the descent. Most of the redwoods were gone, so the final mile and half or so is pretty much grasslands/desert brush with unobstructed views of the ocean.

Stinson Beach Loop

San Bruno Mountain Summit Loop Hike

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:34:00 -0700

Got a chance to check out San Bruno Mountain state park yesterday with the family. Overall, I was pretty impressed. The Summit Loop trail is a solid 3.1 miles winding up and around the top and sides of the mountain. The view from the top was killer. Though, I could have just as easily have done without all the cell phone towers and buildings on the summit. Overall, it’s a great way to spend a good hour to an hour and a half if you’ve got the time. It’s just south of Daly City and you can get there from the city easily on the 101.

Highlight of trip: Lilly chugging a pint of water before getting into the backpack, soaking her diaper through, and peeing on my leg at about the 2.5 mile marker.

Montara Mountain Hike

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:49:00 -0700

Amazing weather in San Francisco and the peninsula compelled me to drag the family to Montara state beach for the McNee Ranch hike up to the North Peak. We got the gear ready and the car loaded so we could just grab the “Oof” from her crib, put her in the carseat, and head out with hopefully minimal interruption of her nap. That actually went incredibly smoothly. The drive there was about 20 minutes from San Francisco taking the 280 West/South and then jumping onto the 1 to head South towards Pacific. It was also relatively un-trafficky at 2PM on a Sunday, which I was pretty happy about.

Parking at the McNee Ranch entrance is a bit of pain in the ass and was not as easy as I had hoped. There’s space for a solid 5 (maybe 6) cars, which makes it tough. The best bet is to go just past the entrance to Montara Beach parking and grab a spot there or along the road. The only challenge from there is a walk along 1 for about 150 meters. Which, normally isn’t much of an issue unless you’ve got a little one with you.

The hike was pretty awesome with great views along the trail. The hardest part by far was the initial stretch which was a solid incline for about a half mile. Once you get past that, the rest (for at least a mile or so) is pretty smooth sailing and a gentle uphill slope. Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the top. Lilly hurt her a leg a little and was not particularly interested in getting back into the backpack. So, we carried her down and called it a day. We probably made it about half way up before turning around, and the views we did catch were amazing. We’ll definitely be back to finish it off when the weather is right again.

Muir Woods Tourist Club

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 15:59:00 -0700

Took a nice trip with the family and some good friends to the Tourist Club in Muir Woods this Sunday. If you’ve never heard of it, the Tourist Club is a hike-in members only club situated in Muir Woods. “Hike-in” meaning you can’t reach it by vehicle and “members only” meaning that you can’t get into the place except on a few key weekends when they open the doors to the general public. Generally speaking, this means that any trip to go there has to be well timed and researched ahead of time to make sure you won’t leave disappointed (to this point: this was our second trip to the Tourist Club - the first did in fact end in disappointment).

All that said, if you time it right and you don’t get lost trying to find your way, you will leave pleased. They serve several Belgian and German beers including Dunkelweizen (my fav) and hearty/salty snacks including some killer German sausages. Probably not entirely the best idea to go there and have too many drinks as the hike back would most certainly result in some sort of disaster. But, if you’re looking for a fun weekend getaway trip, this is definitely the spot.

Chi to SF - Day 3 - Yellowstone!

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:27:00 -0700

Yellowstone is the most amazing place I’ve ever been - both in terms of wildlife and landscape. Jon and I started out heading directly to Old Faithful to meet Alexis and Emily (friends from B-School). Not even half an our into the park from the Eastern entrance, we came to a dead stop behind a line of stopped cars. As we were in a bit of rush to make our rendezvous, we pulled around to pass them. Bam. Grizzly - walking along the side of the road. This was a highlight for the drive, but not the only cool sight. We also passed about 2 or 3 bison that were near or in the middle of the road.

Once at Old Faithful, we met with with Emily and Alexis, and proceeded to grab a seat by the geyser. Apparently it blows every half an hour or something like that (plus or minus 5 minutes maybe) - hence the name Old Faithful.

From Old Faithful, we decided to drive up the west side of Yellowstone to see some of the thermal features and then loop back around to Old Faithful for the night. The north western side of Yellowstone is known as the thermal feature area and the entire landscape is full of them.

If you’re looking to plan a trip, definitely get a Yellowstone map or guide with the natural features listed on it so you can plan your trip and check out as much as possible. We were really lucky in being able to get a hotel room at Old Faithful for the night because we were persistent and called frequently. However, we were literally only able to get the room for one night and it wasn’t exactly the Ritz Carlton. I’ve heard of people calling ahead a year in advance to book a place to stay.