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Luke Melia

Whither Tekserve

The New York Obeserver has an interesting read about NYC’s old reliable Mac support shop, TekServe, and its future in the face of Apple’s retail expansion here.

In the market for a phone?

If you’re in the market for a new cell phone and service, this looks like a pretty sweet deal. From dealmac

The “next-generation” Sony Ericsson T637 Cell Camera Phone from AT&T costs $69.99 at Amazon.com. Mail-in rebates of $120 and $150 yield a net profit of $200.01. (“Profit” excludes the very significant cost of the plan.) Plus, get a 3-pack accessory kit for free via coupon code “FREE3PACK001”. It’s the lowest price we’ve seen since January. A two-year agreement is required. The T637 features Bluetooth, Java-based instant messaging, 540 minutes of talk time, 3.26-oz. weight, tri-band GSM/GPRS, and Apple iSync support. (AT&T Wireless is now part of Cingular.) Offer ends March 9.

Soba Salad

Jeanhee and I had dinner with April tonight at Meriken. She’s in town briefly for a summer internship interview as part of her business school experience. It was great to see her. April has a great spirit… thoughtful but enthusiastic, delightful politics, and a curiosity about life that is contagious. I like talking to people in business school — the thinking process and the interview experiences and the intimate awareness of company’s products and strategies engage me.

As my sushi-crazy family would surely agree, there’s nothing like catching up with a friend over a soba salad and spicy yellowtail roll…

Life, travels, bookmarks and blogging

Ah, a spate of life on the blog. Nice to see you, too.

Lots going on here. More on that soon, but first… recent trips.

We just returned from New Haven, where my one of most long-time friends got married. The weekend was slightly chaotic, and a whole lot of fun. It was great to hang out with Don’s party-hardy college crowd, and wonderful to see many of my closest high school friends. And most heart-warming, of course, was helping Don and Kristie celebrate their love for each other. A few pictures…

The previous weekend, my colleague Sebastian and I went snowboarding at Bellayre, close to Andes, where Jeanhee and I had a big party last August. It was my first time out this season, and I had nearly forgotten how much I love that feeling of gliding, the thrill I get out of getting some air and sticking the landing. A bump and some extra speed, wind on your face and adrenaline in your veins. If only we got some good action pictures…. We’ll have to settle for mostly posed shots.

I created a del.icio.us account, and am going to start keeping new bookmarks there. I don’t know too much about what’s possible yet, but it seems like a simple, useful, tool. Here’s a link to my bookmarks.

Finally, I’ve been mulling over a blogging dilemna. Some of things I’m most interested in lately are specific to work, especially around C# and opensource tools for .NET. Do I want to post that stuff here? If not here, where? Maybe it’s time to branch out into some post categorization. Maybe I should just post everything here and let you sort out what you give a crap about. Maybe I should get one of those slow ASP.NET-based blogs…. I’m leaning towards posting everything here. I strive for a holistic approach to work and life, so that seems to make sense. If you have two cents, feel free to drop it in.

Photography

Anthony points to a great collection of photography.

Speed, by Sean Tubridy

Meanwhile, my friend Michael’s Foley Gallery is currently hosting the work of Bart Michiels. His simple, brilliant idea: photographs of landscapes that were sites of past battles. Once war-torn, now healed. Simple, powerful and moving.

Waterloo 1815, The Fall of the Imperial Guard, by Bart Michiels

In related news, my camera seems to have forgotten how to auto-focus. Uggh. World… so… blurry….

Zipcar

Last Tuesday, we took our first voyage in a Zipcar. We had a brief excursion to Brooklyn planned to help the inimitable Santino celebrate his birthday, so we thought it would be a good excuse to exercise our new Zipcar membership. It was just as advertised.

The concept behind the service is this: you get the luxury of having a garaged car in New York without the hassle of ownership or garaging fees. The company has cars that live all around the city in garages. You sign up as a ZipCar member, and they send you a user account and a shiny white card. You login to their website, and reserve the car you want for as little or as long as you want it using a cool little timeline. At the time of your reservation, you show up at the garage, wave your card in front of the windshield sensor and the ZipCar unlocks itself for you! Get in. Go.

And it was literally as simple as that. This probably sounds like a commercial, but I write it because (a) it’s an environmentally friendly concept perfect for urban living, and (b) it’s so refreshing to have a company shoot straight and execute so well on their business proposition.

LukeMelia.com created 1999. ··· Luke Melia created 1976. ··· Live With Passion!
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