Why I Oughta...

Natalie and I celebrated the 4th of July up in Coloma Michigan on Paw Paw Lake. It's an (almost) annual tradition that includes a sunset boat ride that leads to 360-degree fireworks. Pretty sweet. Yesterday, on our way to Meijer to pick up some supplies (meat, beer, etc), we saw a new Steve and Barry's store had opened in Benton Harbor. Natalie immediately noted that we NEED to stop there because the new Sarah Jessica Parker line of clothes is only sold there. I told her that we used to have a Steve and Barry's on campus in Champaign and they were the store that sold "Buy one Illini t-shirt, get 2 free". Times had changed, she said. They've apparently expanded their offerings immensly. Their strategy seems to be one of filling up the space of older midsize boxes in commercial areas. Think of the space that JCPenny's would occupy. Or Sears. We pulled in and boy, was I surprised. I'm definitely no clothes horse, as anyone who works with me

As a few others have pointed out, FeedBurner became FreeBurner a few days ago. I'll claim it's because we're patriotic and we're celebrating our country's independence, but it's mostly because we have the ginormous resources of Google behind us that allowed to give up our MyBrand and TotalStats features for free . This is the first of more things to happen as a result of the acquisition. MyBrand is especially important to publishers who want to ensure that they maintain total control of their domain, brand, and name. Freeing it up is the first step. The next step is implementation. It's not simple, but we're here to help. Here's some tips on executing it.

Natalie's been very "in to" our wedding planning lately and it's becoming a little contagious. She's been writing blog posts over on the wedding blog and just this week, she unveiled what I will call her wedding "touchstone". She calls it her "inspiration board" . It's basically a bunch of reference points. She's done a great job of pulling together the details (which are more and more everyday). She's even gone so far as to participate in the wedding blogosphere. One way or another, Nat had her inspiration board featured on one of the more popular wedding blogs called Style Me Pretty. Natalie was really happy with seeing her work over there and reading all the comments about her style. I'm really proud of her. We didn't have a ton of traffic, but a pretty steady stream of regular visitors (friends and family) and quite a bit of search traffic (brides to be, I'm guessing based on their search terms). The past f

ESPN made a great decision this week. No...it wasn't that they're going to move away from their East Coast bias and stop burying the Big Ten in the middle of SportsCenters. They've decided that they're going to take their wildly popular pre-game show, College Gameday to Blacksburg Virginia, home of the VTech Hokies on opening day . The games a dud against Eastern California, but it shows that someone's thinking out in Bristol. "Virginia Tech is a special place and the community is one of the most respectful and passionate we have visited," said Norby Williamson, ESPN's executive vice president of production. "Our coverage will be considerate of the emotional day facing the students, faculty, and people of Blacksburg and the country." Virginia Tech football head coach Frank Beamer added, "Every time College GameDay has come to Blacksburg it has been exciting. This time, I think there will be a greater togetherness than ever before.&quo

I have a confession. I've been going to McDonald's. Yup. Guilty. I'm apparently not alone. The Sun-Times Ted Pinkus writes that McDonald's profits are soaring and has widened its lead as the world's largest restaurant network with an all-time high market cap of $60 billion, vs. $17 billion for Yum! Brands, $3.52 billion for Burger King and $3.18 billion for Wendy's. Natalie's hooked, too. No, we're not scarfing down Big Mac's and Fries, but we're there a few mornings a week picking up iced coffees and yogurt parfaits for her and the BIG 42 oz soda for me. The article speaks to the methods in which McDonald's has really spread out it's offerings and they've done things to appeal to folks like Natalie and I. The drive through also helps, as our Starbucks doesn't have one. I'm not going to go out to McDonald's for lunch anytime soon, but they've filled a nice niche in our eating lives. Kudos to them for figuri

With my new role at the new company, I've taken on some additional responsibilities when it comes to travel. At FeedBurner, I'd make the occasional trip for a conference or to call on a customer, but it wasn't a constant. From the looks of it, we'll be here in NYC quite often and maybe even a trip every once in a while to visit Rick and Don in Mountain View. I've had other roles with different organizations that required traveling (for those keeping score at home, I used to sell Drywall Screws in a 5 state territory), so it's not something I have to get comfortable with. There's all the normal headaches of travel like delays, bad beds, lack of exercise, etc. With plenty of things brewing on the homefront, it's a little harder to get away this week. We have some major decisions coming up that give me pause, but there are also just the little things that aren't any fun missing. Yesterday, one of those little things came and went. My little girl,

Last week, just like my colleagues , I spent some time in the New York Office. There were plenty of things that were mentionable, but one item struck me particularly: in the cafe, they listed on a grease board all of the local farmers where their food supplies arrived from. They were boasting about the "Localness" of their offerings and for good reason. Serving the volume of food that they do, a company of our size can have an impact on local growers. I'm glad that they're so proud of helping bring local food and produce to the employees. There's a movement afoot in places like South Carolina to try to bring more locally grown food to residents. Sometimes it's hard to determine where things are coming from. Unless you go to your local farmer's market, it's difficult to know for sure if something is local or not. In South Carolina though, things are changing. Agriculture officials there have unveiled a new effort to brand locally grown produ

If you're looking for something to spend a few minutes of your online advocacy time on, this seems to be a pretty good cause . Give them a hand by sending 3 simple emails. Montana’s Department of Livestock is planning on trapping and slaughtering 300 wild buffalo – including calves as young as a few weeks, and their mothers. The agency plans to begin the roundup on Thursday, May 31. For extra credit, make sure that you tell Governor Schweitzer that he "could" be the Vice Presidential Nominee in 2008, but this won't help him. Seems that the emails have already helped stall this terrible thing. They've put off the vote until next week. With your help, they'll reconsider.

Did you come just to start a fight? A Punchup at a Wedding Radiohead Hail to the Thief

Over on our wedding blog , we're trying to gauge people's honest opinions on these "buttons" for our rehearsal dinner. I think they're cute and a good way to get folks talking to each other. We'll probably have a pretty big sized rehearsal dinner, so we don't want people to not socialize. It's one of many posts that Natalie and I have collaborated on. Natalie is clearly the more clever, quick one of us. She wrote the punchline, which I think is pretty funny: Buttons that have been rejected from the list include: "I slept with the grooms's mom," "I used to be the bride's sister, but now I'm her brother," "I'm just here for the booze," "I got a pity invite" and "I love lamp." Go on. Head over to the wedding blog and give us your vote. I'm hoping that we'll get these done. We probably won't do buttons as much as we'll probably just do nametags run through a printer.