…just can’t be beat.

I know I haven’t written much, but with the weather the way it is, I choose to enjoy life.

Back another day.

Having been on the road for a couple weeks now, I’m obligated to insert a little plug about my iPhone.

Best traveling device. Evar.

Let’s go over what the iPhone does…

I’ve discovered on this trip that every hostel has WiFi now and that means I can check my e-mail, read the news, check in for flights, and book hostels all without fighting for position on the hostel computers. In fact, HostelWorld even has an iPhone-optimized site now.

An iPod is an iPod, but the iPhone happens to come with a speaker as well, which means if I want a little background music to start off my day, I can! The quality is paltry, but it’s worlds better than nothing at all–puts a little spring into my step.

And of course, it’s a phone. Mine is of the jailbroken and unlocked variety, so I’ve been plugging in various SIMs as needed.

All this thing needs now is Skype–hopefully the upcoming iPhone SDK will provide.

My roommate Bram, took off for an exciting two+ weeks in Patagonia this past Tuesday, having just landed a new job at a Seattle startup. I’m really excited for him and a little jealous—he’ll be going down to Buenos Aires, home of the fun steps of tango that I love and Patagonia—the furthest south you can go without touching Antarctica.

My friend Tina happens to be in Buenos Aires right now, more than halfway through her nine month stint in South America. I mentioned this to Bram and minutes before walking out the door, sent Tina a Facebook message.

Moments after Bram walks out the door, I start getting IMs from Tina (which is fairly rare in itself!).

Tina: Hey, Bram just sent me a message on facebook–is he like in the process of leaving Seattle RIGHT now?

me: hey!

yes

he flies out at noon

any chance you have a number I can give him?

Tina: Sheize!!! If I only would have known…

I just sent him my cell.

me: you’re not going to be there?

Tina: I totally wanted to see if I could get someone from the states to bring me a new digital camera.

Purely selfish reason.

Tina’s last camera was stolen and though willing to spend money on a replacement, she was finding that all the models being sold are thee years old and overpriced. I called Bram immediately, hoping he might have some time to duck into one of the overpriced but-in-this-case-cheap airport electronics stores and caught him right as he was unloading at the airport. He agreed, but needed to check in first.

Tina and I end up chatting on Skype for a little while and catching up, me taking advantage of the webcam I picked up a few weeks back. So much fun—video adds so much to a conversation. J Eventually Bram calls my cell, tells me his flight is delayed, and is standing in the shop right now looking at cameras. I start relaying what Bram’s looking at to Tina on Skype when Bram comes up with the genius idea—”why don’t you just conference me in?”

Brilliant. And that’s when Skype bridged cities, countries, continents, and even hemispheres to put Tina, Bram, and myself on the same line for a drastically inexpensive rate. Bram read me the camera models he was looking at, I looked them up on DPReview, Skype IM’ed them to Tina with my opinion, and Tina chose her new camera. I’m sure she has it in Buenos Aires already.

How cool is this?

A couple of things I came across this morning surfing the Internets…

SMRT:
This guy tries to firebomb a night club in the UK. Epic failure. Caught on CCTV.

SMART:
Violinist Sirena Huang, then only 11, gives a dazzling performance, both technically brilliant and emotionally nuanced.

A month into 2008 and when I look at my life I find myself deeper and deeper into a British cultural dive. I’m watching episodes of BBC’s Top Gear (which are absolutely hilarious), BBC’s Planet Earth (thanks Sarah!), and most recently, BBC Radio Documentary Podcasts.

Yeah, I’m hooked. I think a trip to London is in order. No no, no solid plans yet, but I’m thinking hard…

Anyway, another favourite (that’s with an ‘ou’!) Top Gear clip! Car Soccer!! I wonder if we can have a morale event around this…

As Philip Richardson, my co-worker and fellow coffee snob, wrote about on his blog yesterday, a few of us in the office got together for a cupping of the Kopi Luwak coffee. Philip received this as a Christmas gift from a partner and I was totally thrilled that he was willing to share it.

It’s not surprising that you probably haven’t heard of Kopi Luwak coffee. For one thing, only 500 pounds of beans are produced a year. For another, it’s about $200/lb and upper crust espresso shops sell it for about $50 a shot. To
top it all off, the coffee is literally collected from the shit of an Indonesian cat called a Luwak, which lives in trees and eats coffee beans.

No kidding. The little sheet of paper included in the package says…

The resulting coffee is said to be like no other. It has a rich, heavy flavor with hints of caramel or chocolate.

Other terms used to describe it are earth, musty, and exotic.

Musty?

I had originally suggested to Phil that we get in touch with Dave Schomer of Espresso Vivace, arguably one of the best baristas in the world. Turns out we needn’t look outisde the halls for talent and equipment. Terry, our CRM Perf Test Lead, is a fellow coffee fanatic. He showed up yesterday with a Brewtus Expobar (as recommended by David Schomer), a Mazza Mini burr grinder, and something that totally blew my mind: a gram-weight scale. When it comes to coffee, the CRM team doesn’t mess around.

Terry was measuring 23 grams to the shot and with a quarter pound each of bold and medium roasts, gave us exactly ten shots. Enough for each person to get a shot from both roasts.

The Bold. It was go big or go home, so we started off with the bold. Damn, these guys aren’t messing around, this is good coffee. The pull started dark and evened out quickly, staying a rich brown all the way through. Taste was good, with full expression of all the oils in the bean, but I wouldn’t have paid $50.

The Medium. Realistically, I’m not ever one to pay 50 bucks on a shot of espresso, but this one might change my mind. Stunningly better than the bold, it was absolutely fantastic with a rich caramel color and a thick, thick, thick shot from top to bottom. Not a single hint of bitterness with a delicious sweet taste coating the inside of my mouth at the end. I dare say it cleanly beats Vivace, though at the price…

Wow. Pretty good for something that came out of the tail end of an Indonesian cat.

iflickr

Originally uploaded by nanoflux

Days like today I’m really glad I bus to work. It’s well known that Seattle shuts down when it snows even an inch, but today is really exceptional. Last night we were hit with snow showers–very wet snow that’s on the edge of becoming rain. We accumulated no more than an inch, but it dropped below freezing last night, which means all of that turned into solid sheets of ice. Walking down sidewalks produces this cool *crunch crunch* sound, but it equivlates to a disaster in traffic terms, especially with all the hills here.

More from the Top Gear circuit…

James from Top Gear takes the new Fiat 500 through my favorite European city (Budapest) in a race against a pair of amazing BMX bikers. I never saw anything like this on my visits there…clearly I’m going to the wrong spots. I recognize several of the streets, but where the heck was that underground garage thing??

I recently discovered a “cache” of Top Gear episodes that I’ve been watching today in the last bit of R&R time I have before returning to the office.

Formula 1 cars are the pinnacle of car engineering and the source of most modern car innovations–engine design, exhaust design, gearbox design, etc. Richard Hammond takes an F1 car for two laps…just two laps…on the 8th episode of Top Gear’s 10th season.

It blows me away the engineering tolerances that are part of this car. Naturally, F1 cars are designed to be driven at speeds greater than 150mph, however, things don’t really work unless you’re over 100mph. The tires won’t be warm enough, so they won’t grip. And because the tires won’t be warm enough, the brakes don’t work. Amazing.

RTM baby, we’re done!

Let the party begin!