In LA

My brother seems to have developed a habit of saving lives every time he goes to Minneapolis. Earlier in the year he resuscitated an older relative, this past weekend he was in Mpls for my wedding shower and started taking a series of drugs meant to stimulate his bone marrow in preparation for this week’s bone marrow donation.

He doesn’t know who his marrow’s going to, and the recipient won’t know where it came from, it’s all anonymous, and it’s all good. To donate marrow, you’ve gotta be lucky enough to be a match for someone who needs it. –a rare thing. He took some drugs for a few days that stimulated production of stem cells, and then was hooked to a machine that extracted them from his bloodstream. It wasn’t a completely painless process, but in his mind it was well worth it.

I hope if one day I come down with leukemia and need a marrow transplant that there’s some similarly generous individual in the registry who’s a match for my marrow. Coincidentally, today I read that Amit Gupta, the man who started Photojojo and Jelly, came down with acute leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. He’s encouraging South Asians to register in bone marrow drives, as their marrow has a better chance of a match for him. He needs help, and I’d urge anyone out there who is South Asian to go register. Registration is super-easy and can be done by mail with a cheek swab. He explains how to register, and tells the story of how he received his diagnosis, in the blog post linked to this sentence. I’d also recommend everyone else, regardless their ethnic origin, to go register. You never know when your marrow might show up as a match for someone in need. I think my brother was in the database for years before his number turned up. I’ve been in the database for probably 15 years.

I hope the best for Amit. I’m proud of my brother, and I’ll be proud of you if you go register with the marrow registry.

Rachel and I were driving along Coldwater Canyon Blvd in Studio City this morning when we spotted something that’s a not-infrequent sight around here: Jay Leno driving one of his very cool vintage cars down the road.

I grabbed her cell phone¹ and snapped a couple of pictures. He did the same. I don’t think he has a blog in which he posts photos of people in the act of taking his picture², but if he does you’ll now be able to find a photo of me on it.

1. It’s an iPhone 4G. I’m pretty impressed by its camera’s image quality. I don’t think I gave the phone enough time to properly set its exposure for that 2nd shot, there’s likely have been better highlight detail had I waited a couple of seconds. [↩]
2. which is something I’d definitely do if I were any sort of celebrity [↩]

5/19/2010 4:43pm Edit: I’ve been told this feature was in the previous version of the app. I just never happened across it

The official iPhone Twitter client is finally up in the app store, today, now. The app,”Twitter”, is actually version 3 of what used to be called “Tweetie”. Twitter bought Tweetie, and what was previously an excellent commercial app is now free and improved.

The “Nearby” feature of Tweetie v2, which showed a list of nearby recent tweets, has been updated for v3. It’s more difficult to find this feature in the new version of the app, as it is accessed via an unlabeled button, but it’s there and has been significantly upgraded. Now one can see not just a list of nearby tweets, but tweets in any area, overlaid on a Google map.

On the one hand, I’m all about openness, and it seems pretty cool to be able to see what people in a given area are tweeting, overlaid on a map.

On the other hand, the ease with which any of us iPhone Twitter users¹ can now be tracked down by stalkers, paparazzi, their mothers, and other ne’er-do-wells is a little scary.

Change. Scary and neato, at the same time.

1. iPhone Twitter users who opt-in for the app’s location feature when asked, that is. [↩]

Well, I didn’t feel like signing any autographs yesterday anyhow. (photo taken at Poquito Mas in Burbank, CA)

I don’t remember who asked me whether there were any baseball scorekeeping apps for the iPhone, but a quick search shows that there are several, including a highly-rated one called “iScore Baseball Scorekeeper”.¹

Were I a journalist, I’d note the existence of this and other such apps and would try to spot some pattern that said something about the pace of technological progress, society, our selves. Something about holding fast to old traditions while updating them to take advantage of the devices on which we increasingly depend in this day and age. I can almost hear the report, the calm NPR-commentator-voice, talking with old folk in the stands at Wrigley Field, the sound of peanut vendors hawking their wares carefully mixed into the background to provide a sense of place to underscore the sounds of pencils scratching away, recording the last play.

Since this is a blog, I can and prefer to take the path of cynicism, of snark, and instead I’ll say the following: “Can apps for dedicated trainspotters be far behind?”²³

1. If you’re curious about Baseball Scorekeeping, this Wikipedia article may be of use. [↩]
2. If you’re curious about Trainspotting, there’s a Wikipedia article for that. [↩]
3. OK, I admit that in the past I’ve thought that it might be enjoyable to learn how to mark up a baseball scorecard, but that was just the OCD talking. [↩]

The winds of change. They feel like the Santa Anas.

Note to friends and family: I am officially back in Los Angeles. Working in Burbank for the moment. Hope to see y’all soon.

The shuttle picked me up at 8:25. After tying up loose ends and packing a bit, I fell asleep around 4am. The sooner I can get on that plane and nap, the better.


Traffic heading South on the 405¹ approaching the 10, at around 9am, was ridiculously clear and fast.


I checked one bag, which cost me $20. I thought it might have been over the weight limit, but it was almost exactly at the limit of 50lbs (3.5 stone). I rarely check luggage these days, but I don’t think I’d want to bring only a couple shirts and one pair of pants for a 3-month trip.


The abbreviation for Grand Rapids (international?) airport is “GRR”. That’s incredibly cool. I wonder why more airports don’t adopt whimsical abbreviations.


I arrived at the airport 2.5hrs before my flight, and then the flight was delayed 40 minutes. So there was time to stop for a delicious and nutricious breakfast of carbs with barely-flavored high-fructose corn syrup as a condiment. In LA, such a meal is an act of defiance.


And now I wait for boarding. With any luck I’ll have enough time at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport (An airport which desperately needs a new nickname. I can’t even pronounce “MSP”.) to hang with my cousin Andy for an hour.

1. or “I-405″ for you non-LA-residents. We drive so much that our freeways have nicknames [↩]

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