Ideapad

We moved into our apartment one year ago Sunday. To commemorate the occasion, I made a narrative collage of some of the many lovely details of our century-old home, which we strived to reveal wherever possible.

Our apartment is full of little surprises that make it fun to occupy: patterned glass transom windows, thick solid-wood doors and inlaid wood floors, the huge Magic Eye peephole, restored leaded-glass bathroom windows, and call buttons for the maid/butler in the dining room floor and master bedroom door frame, which make us marvel at how space has changed: once upon a time, our relatively humble 1000 square feet or so housed an owner and his help.

The collage can be viewed here. Enjoy it. We do.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I turned 35 Saturday.

Tough birthday, really, leaving the coveted 18-34 demographic, barely a year after becoming a homeowner, gray hair fully on display, fatherhood looming large.

But whatever. I've got my Wii, I frolic with my dog, I maintain a youthful exuberance whenever I can. Heck, I play with Facebook for a living. I can stay young.

Facebook, on the other hand, has my birthday in its database. It knows the truth. And first thing Monday morning the site starts serving me ads like this:

Posted by David Wertheimer at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ripple effects, the story of my newly replaced iPhone, on the Ai blog.

My del.icio.us feed hasn't posted here the last few days, a glitch I need to investigate. It's a good excuse for me to remind my less geeked-out readers (hi, Mom!) of the numerous places you can find me online. In 2008 it's not enough to blog... you also have to

...twitter: sporadic, text-message-length observations and wisecracks

...be del.icio.us: this is where I store links I find interesting, often with comments (the "links for" posts on this blog come from here)

...have a second blog: AIAIO, the Ai company blog, where I tag-team with Loren Davie, our director of technology

...flickr: an assortment of photos, usually one-offs taken by my phone

At some point I'll harness the proper use of FriendFeed and Tumblr and get everything in one place. In the meantime, feel free to explore and follow along.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Ah, the babymoon! Had a great time.

First, an explanation. A babymoon is the last-hurrah vacation taken by a husband and wife expecting their first child. We've been using it for weeks to describe this most recent vacation, but no one's ever heard of it. (Kind of like furnident, which at one time was on the Internet solely on netwert.com.)

So: the babymoon. St. John. Pretty terrific. Water bluer than blue, weather pitch-perfect most of the week. Went from a good resort to a great one and ate like kings. Snorkeled, then snorkeled with a prescription mask, which was quite the upgrade. Sailed, windsurfed, stargazed, relaxed. I think I even got something resembling a tan.

Thus, the babymoon, with small suitcases and days on our own agenda. Now we're home, entering the stretch run of life as DINKs (we all know that term, yes? double income no kids?) with birthdays bookending the next three weeks, one last self-indulgent gasp before our slice of life evolves. Which, if the kicking is any indication, it already is.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shiloh Baptist Church is a 69,000-square-foot facility housing a 100-year-old congregation of African-American Baptists in Plainfield, New Jersey.

In short, exactly not the place you'd expect to find two pale Manhattan Jews on a Sunday morning.

Yet that's where we were, as my wife and I attended the dedication ceremony of an old friend's son yesterday. Impeccably dressed and smiling, we attracted curious, friendly gazes from ushers the instant we walked in, then sat down in the balcony to watch the service.

This was my first Baptist experience of any color, and frankly, it was pretty great. Shiloh's pastor is expressive and upbeat, and the congregation participates vocally and cheerfully.

The whole service was a visual and aural treat. The pastor was loud and soft, happy and sad, unfailingly optimistic. The sterotypical "get a witness" and "amen" utterances were in full effect. People clapped, waved, assented, took notes during the power-of-positive-thinking sermon. A farewell ceremony to a retiring volunteer nearly moved the pastor to tears ("Can I get a tissue before I cry up here? ... thank you God amen"). The choir, 40-strong and accompanied by a three piece band--organ, drums, sax--sang with smiles and moved in unison.

At the end of the regular service, the baby's dedication was called, and our entire party marched down from the balcony to stand in front of the pulpit, in solidarity and ceremony with the family. I felt, well, white. But I also felt proud and warm to have been invited and participated in the ceremony. The pastor knows my friends and has an obvious love for children. He wore a huge, genuine smile throughout the dedication as he held the baby. The rest of us did, too.

After the service, we all went to lunch, where I met up with my gang, the first time in a long while that we've all been somewhere together. We toasted the baby, saw each other's kids, congratulated one another on new jobs and promotions and pregnancies, and made plans to do it again, for the Super Bowl this coming weekend.

Congratulations, then, to Jerome Lonnie Jones III, and to his parents and grandparents, who have brought their first child into a wonderfully loving existence. I could hardly imagine a more uplifting day.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I go whitewater rafting most every summer with my friends from high school. Some years back, a bunch of us bought baseball caps to commemorate the trip. Mine is red with two oars and, in big letters, "HUDSON RIVER." I wear it often, particularly on weekend-morning dog walks.

Walking in Riverside Park yesterday, with a calm Hudson River a few feet away, it occurred to me that my hat now lacks a certain panache.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For the third straight year (and prompted by Jason for the third time as well) here is my list of travels for 2007. Per tradition multiple-visit locations are denoted with an asterisk:

New York, NY * (home base)
Livingston, NJ *
New City, NY *
Palisades, NY
Miami, FL
La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Playa Conchal, Costa Rica
Half Moon Bay, CA
Dallas, TX * (N.B. I flew to Dallas four times in 2007, and never stayed longer than 18 hours)
New Paltz, NY
Marco Island, FL
Lake George, NY
Rockport, MA
San Francisco, CA
Yountville, CA
Healdsburg, CA
Mystic, CT
Edgartown, MA
Chatham, MA
Palm Beach Gardens, FL

Last year I was able to extend my streak of international travel to five years (and seven of the last nine) thanks to the Costa Rica vacation. I'm probably not straying too far in '08, though.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 09:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Tonight is New Year's Eve, and for the seventh consecutive year, Amy and I are doing very little.

This year, in fact, we'll be up to even less than usual: for five years we were relaxing in Florida with family; last year we toasted with my brother and sister-in-law in their apartment. This year, we think we may see a movie, then get some tastily greasy Chinese food, break out the Monopoly board, give the dog a bone and chill. I'd put 50/50 odds on Amy even being awake at midnight.

For years I've had mixed emotions about this. I have been quite happy not to bother with pricey restaurants and myriad "what-are-YOU-doing" conversations. Yet while being in Florida over the holiday week was nice, I will admit to also feeling like a bit of a dweeb watching Julie Andrews movies with my half-asleep nephew on New Year's Eve. I'd been culturally intimidated: during the western world's communal party, I had elected to stay home.

At last I am past the hang-up. Tonight, a cold, boring Monday after a week's vacation, is not a big deal, even if I am part of "the only species on this planet that celebrates not the passing of time, but the way it has chosen to mark the passing of time."

This year I learned about big deals. Finding, buying and moving into a new apartment, assuming jumbo-mortgage-level debt for the first time: now that's a big deal, not to mention stripping paint and caulking and installing closets and learning all new restaurants and shopping routes. And that was done way back in April.

Transitioning into a terrific new job opportunity and a chance to redefine one's career--and no longer waking up with work headaches in the morning and putting on suits for an hour-long intra-Manhattan commute? That's a big deal.

And it goes on. Wife gets a promotion, a commercial on the Super Bowl and work nominated for an Emmy. Brother gets married. Father-in-law has successful heart surgery. A close friend passes away at 33. These, dear reader, are big deals. (And the biggest deal of all doesn't even hit until next summer, although you can take a guess.)

So: no more internal apologies. This evening it's roast pork mai fun and Guitar Hero 3, and tomorrow we'll enjoy a nice, uneventful day off. Not a big deal. But a nice one, a peaceful, happy end to what has been an amazingly eventful 2007.

Update: The two of us wound up at the movies and eating dinner at "low key and local" Cafe Lalo in an unexpected and fun night out (and home before midnight, woo!). For the curious, yes, the theater was jam-packed at 10 p.m. on New Year's Eve.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have been married for four years and cohabitating for five. My wife and I have bought and raised a puppy together, traveled around the world and integrated with each other's families. We share a home, a computer, chores, jokes and our deepest, most emotional thoughts.

Through it all, we have had separate CD collections.

This afternoon we had two 9' tall bookcases installed in our living room. The one on the left has the express purpose of holding music, for despite my embrace of technology--including a first-generation iPod and an extensive MP3 collection--I still maintain a library of 1200 CDs, the majority of which are in our apartment. Amy, to her credit, has a few hundred discs of her own (and also to her credit, she tolerates the sheer bulk of mine).

So it was sensible enough when, as I began carrying music from my old racks to the new bookcase, my wife said, "Let's keep all our CDs together."

You'd think we'd have tackled this years ago. After all, we share a common iTunes library, Amy having given up on a her-only subset on her side of the Mac.

But even today, I paused. My collection is going to cheerfully swallow hers. The crazy category system I created, to avoid alphabetizing a thousand CDs, will turn my wife's Cheryl Crow discs into "female vocal" and her Melissa Etheridge into "rock/alternative." I suspect Amy will never even attempt to find her music in the sea of CD spines, much less succeed in locating her albums.

And her tastes create confusion in areas I had reconciled on my own. Peter Gabriel? For me: classic rock. To her: "Classic rock? Really?" Where does her Maroon 5 disc go? Seal? Barry Manilow? (Seriously, Amy--Barry Manilow?)

So far I've managed to integrate her classic rock with mine (though not, it should be noted, her Peter Gabriel discs), which has already thrown my organization out of whack, as the category has doubled in size. It's kind of fun. And terrifically nerve-wracking.

My wife and I are deeply connected in our values and desires. We do not share much in the way of musical taste. But somehow, in some way, her Deep Forest and my Kiss CDs are going to find a way to coexist.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Going from a conservative consumer-products company to an Internet agency is about as startling a contrast in work environments as one could imagine.

Number of people not wearing jeans today: 1 (me)

Number wearing leather-soled shoes: 1 (me)

My office welcome: an interoffice email announcing my hire, which included a photo of my dog that the office manager grabbed from this website, followed by several enthusiastic replies from coworkers with photos of their own dogs

Suggestions from the team: install any apps I want on my computer; ask for anything at all from the Staples catalog; install AIM right away so the office can IM you

Number of challenges to play foosball and Guitar Hero: 4

Common space: the table and chairs behind my desk are called "belly dancer corner," so titled because of the belly dancer hired for the co-owner's birthday who performed on the table

Prominent page on the Ai office wiki: "Rubik's Cube Solution Times"

I have office whiplash. In such a good way.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I am pleased to announce that I report for work tomorrow as Director of Strategy for Alexander Interactive.

Ai is a boutique agency based in the Flatiron District of Manhattan. Founders Alex Schmelkin and Josh Levine have built a fast-growing, fun-loving company around their individual talents, Alex as a developer, entrepreneur and client contact nonpareil, and Josh as the talented and dedicated creative director. I have been their client, colleague and friend since 2005 and am delighted to join their company.

My focus will be multifaceted, including but not limited to client business analysis, project vision, and information architecture, and a little corporate strategy as well. I'm also going to dive headfirst into the Ai blog, giving tech lead and coauthor Loren Davie a run for his money, and bringing the company into the greater industry conversation about online trends and opportunities. All of this is remarkably close to my dream job description at this phase of my career. Plus they have a foosball table.

The adjustment to a new business culture is going to be pleasantly overwhelming: jeans instead of suits, cubicles instead of an oversize office, 70% male instead of 80% female, and a shift from the geekiest person in the company to one of the least geeky. I missed the dress-your-coworker Halloween party but I did crash bowling night a few weeks back. It's gonna be a blast.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is my last day as Director, Internet Marketing for Clarins. I start an exciting new job on the 19th which will be getting lots of coverage here shortly. Between now and then, I'm getting away from the Internet: no random surfing, no obsessive checking of email, no social networking pings. It's not often one can "get away from it all" without deliberately going on vacation and leaving the BlackBerry at home, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity. See you in a few weeks.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 06:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

My Smart Experience class has an official date, time, and location. (Some content will be posted to the site soon, too.) I hope to see you on November 15. Interested in attending? Contact me for a discount rate.

(Previously: Back to school)

Posted by David Wertheimer at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am pleased to announce that I'll be teaching a class in Victor Lombardi's new Smart Experience professional school.

The class, Managaing the Online-Offline Partnership, derives from my career in "traditional" offline organizations and the great challenge many of us face: bringing the value and importance of Internet activity to an organization whose focus isn't in the online arena.

The challenge is one I've tackled with brio over the years; indeed, "evangelism" has even been a part of my job description on multiple occasions. The task is as fascinating as it is complicated. When you have colleagues running an eight-figure business, and the Internet represents barely 10% of your readership or your revenue base, it's easy for said colleagues to dismiss your initiatives as a side project, even when those initiatives' impact has a much lengthier reach. The challenge is bringing that reach to light, and creating excitement and momentum in what to others may be both marginal and frightening.

I plan on hosting a fully participatory session, with light case studies, some role playing, and lots of input from the assembled. SmartEx is new, so class is entirely what my students and I will make of it. My readers are invited to join me in my session, as I make my humbly triumphant return to a classroom setting. (I last taught in the 1990s at open-i media, back in the days when HTML had to be coded by hand.) I'm looking forward to it.

Ideapad readers are eligible for a discount for enrolling in my class--contact me and I'll pass along the code.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 09:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am more than a little proud to report that my talented wife Amy has had a recent commercial, "Pinball" for Pepsi, nominated for an Emmy.

This is the second time in three years that her work has been Emmy-nominated; two years ago her "Drink" for Aquafina also received a nomination. Amy is doubly honored this year, because she worked on the GE "Jar" spot that was also nominated for outstanding commercial. Not bad to have two nominations at once, and right on the heels of her first Super Bowl work, too.

The author of this page is one proud husband.

• Pepsi: "Pinball" on amywertheimer.com

Posted by David Wertheimer at 08:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Having done this last year, I'm presenting another summary of my travels for the year. As per Kottke, destinations with multiple visits are denoted with an asterisk.

New York, NY * (home base)
Livingston, NJ *
New City, NY *
Palisades, NY *
Santa Barbara, CA
Paris, France *
Rio Grande, Puerto Rico
Lake George, NY
Chicago, IL
Hyannis, MA
Nantucket, MA
Edgartown, MA
Rockport, MA
Ann Arbor, MI
Atlanta, GA
London, England
Longboat Key, FL
West Palm Beach, FL

If only my wife were a blogger: her list would include most of mine, plus stays in Baja California, Alesund, Norway, and multiple cities in China.

Posted by David Wertheimer at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)