Teich.Net :: All In

As I (Oren) have started to blog more, this blog has been overrun with off-topic shlock.  Although all in (as in everything, not poker), a bit more focus couldn’t hurt.  So, I’m moving my stuff, plus aggregating my work and personal postings, to a new site.  See you over there.

Great, you’ve got a bunch of photos. I’ve got 15,790 (who’s counting?). What do you do with them?

For years I’ve posted them to the web. Works great, but darn if people aren’t analog junkies.

After coming home from the most recent wedding, Olivia and I decided to give the bride and groom a photo book as part of the wedding gift. There are a ton of different sites for doing POD (print-on-demand) photo books. Overwhelming really. I decided on SharedInk.com after researching, and especially after this article at Nikonians.org. Requested access to the pro-program, and away we go.

In the process of creating our first book, I ran into a few various “learning experiences”.  I can’t escape without a mini-review however. Sharedink is for people who know what they are doing. It is not a replacement for iPhoto. If you can’t use photoshop, stay away. They tell you how many pixels the page is, the gutter size, and that’s it. You’re on your own. All the rope in the world to hang yourself. You upload (preferably via FTP) a ZIP of JPGs. Their website is almost a joke - it’s Web 1.0 old skool, but not in the cool way. It’s fast enough, and it works. The book, is awesome.

First, I want to call out the cover and binding. It’s a thing of beauty. Beautiful linen, a real hardcover book binding. It’s basically perfect, there’s not at thing more I would ask for. I read online all the time that people find this the #1 issue in books. I wouldn’t know - this is the only book I’ve ordered so far, and it’s ideal.

The interior quality is wonderful as well. The paper is thick (so thick the book won’t lie open. Check out the photo below - I had to bend the book >180 degrees to get it to stay for a few seconds). The printing is really nice - sometimes a bit dark, sometimes a bit light, never as good as a inkjet, but good enough that I’m ordering many more!

What did we learn?

• You must consider the righ/left page interaction. On a few pages, I have one photo on each, with one slightly taller or shorter than the other. It looks dumb.
• A corollary: on my 8″ (tall) x 11″ (wide) book, the vertical dimension is MUCH more noticible. Play with the width, but make sure the vertical stuff aligns.
• Second corollary: Careful how you bleed. Many of my pictures were wider than the page, so I bled off the left and right, and left a bit of white on the top and bottom. If there’s <0.5″ on the top or bottom of the page, it just looks like I made a mistake in printing. Interestingly, the same is NOT true for the vertical pictures, probably because they have more whitespace on the sides than the horizontals do on the top and bottom.
• 20 pages = 40 sides. As you go through and lay things out, you begin to feel like maybe it’s all repettive, and try and come up with new designs. Don’t. Pick a few, and use them. It’s OK to repeat. By all means, be creative. Go crazy (some of those worked out great!) But don’t do it because you think the book will be boring, it won’t be.
• That linen picks up dirt! I ruined this first book in <10 min. Water, a touch of grease, anything, the Linen seems to suck it up. This spot is after we tried to clean it up. The cover has a few spots too now. Just be careful.
• I love how the dual-page spreads work out! Full bleed really works well, and being slightly asymmetrical really pays off. As with anything, don’t overuse it. And be aware that the middle part will dissapear. In this picture, there are 5 bridesmaids, but only 4 show up in the spread!

Good luck! This was super fun, the results are great, the costs not unreasonable. Maybe after 5 years I’ll finally do something about my own wedding photos!

Part of why I like traveling so much is the perspective you gain on yourself. 5 days in Buenos Aires, 4 nights in Mendoza were fantastic overall, with high points, low points, and some interesting perspective. This post is for BA, more to follow on Mendoza and wine!

First off, for personal travel cities aren’t O and my first choice. Second, if you’re going primarily becuase ” X is the Y version of Z” (BA is the Paris of Latin America), chances are I’d prefer to just go to Y.

In this case, Buenos Aires is a fun and beautiful town. We really enjoyed walking around, hanging out at the cafe’s, seeing some shops, but weren’t blown away. Various thoughts include:

• The walking tours from MPtours are FANTASTIC. These unequivocally were one of the highlights of the trip. We bought all three, put them on two ipods, and walked around together. They are expertly done, perfectly timed, informative, and just plain fun. 1:30 or maybe 2:00 each. Don’t think about it, pay the $45 and just get them. I really hope they do more cities.
• Just take a taxi. It’s cheap. Getting cross town is < $15 US. We took the subway a few times. It’s clean, but hot. Just wasn’t any point really.
• La Boca is as turisty as everyone says. Good for photos, good for 20 min, then keep going.
• La Cabrera was the best we ate. Really the only must go place we went to.
• Went to a fancy Tango show. The dancing was good and showy. The food and wine was really really really bad. We did the VIP package. Food looked the same, the wine was possibly better, but the real difference was you get a private transport to/from, and you get some elbow room. Lots more elbow room. The standard seats are packed like sardines, the VIP gives you plenty of space. It was worth it for us, but we’re antisocial.
• Food was good, not great. Look for follow up posts.

BA is clearly a place to go if you like late night partying. Which we don’t really, we’re old. People do eat late - 9:30 or 10:00. Good for staying out till breakfast.

Overall, I’m very glad we went, though 5 night was too long for us. 3 would have been perfect. I’m also very happy with the way that the photos turned out.

In Buenos Aires.  Raining today, which puts a damper on things.  Some brief notes:

• Surpringingly casual so far.  Most people are wearing jeans and flip-flops, polo shirt.  Even at night, people seem pretty casual for a big city. 
• Yeah, there’s a lot of beef.  Went to La Brigada for dinner.  Fun note - they definitly play favorites with seating.  We waited ~25 min for a table.  Some people who came after us got seated before, some people who came before us got seated after.  Super duper casual place (jeans & t-shirt for most people).  Good food.  Good wine.  nothing mind blowing.
• We’re gonna run out of things to do here before 5 days are up.  Probably wind up taking a trip out of town for a day or something.  Debating heading an hour out of town to watch a polo match
• Park Tower hotel is nice.  Location is central to the city, but far from anything really cool.
• No point in taking the subway.  Taxi’s are CHEAP.  15 min taxi ride is ~ $3 US. 
• I’m bummed I didn’t find Dan Perlman’s site sooner.  Casa Salt Shaker sounds cool, but sold out while we’re here.

More to come later.  In the meantime, my initial impression of BA is a bit mixed.  I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but I’m a bit disappointed all the same.  Still having a great time though!

A simple topic, but one that I spent altogether too much time thinking about - Happiness.

Go check out this video of Dan Gilbert giving a talk at Feb 2004 TED.

Thanks to those who were concerned. We have not actually dropped off the face of the planet. Just off the blogosphere. And just for a little while. But we’re back, or at least I am, (Oren is in Vegas for the next few days) and we have stories. We’ve been to Montreal, New York, and New Jersey, with a quick jaunt (my first) out to Long Island. We’ve snuck in some fine dining in San Francisco. And we’ve even visited some old favorites and scoped out the source of some hype in Berkeley. (Maybe you noticed the comment on the last in the series on Ici belying our visit?) So, stay tuned for brief picks and pans from our travels and whatever else I can muster before friends and family descend again on Friday.

It’s hard to believe it was a year ago that I first wrote about Dine Downtown Palo Alto. It’s back this year, again with special menus at participating restaurants on Monday nights in August. I wish I were more enthused, but frankly, the Palo Alto restaurant scene has been a bit lack-luster recently. Perhaps this will be my excuse to finally revisit Osteria and Mantra.

A few of this year’s home-made chocolate truffles.

Wishing you all a very happy holiday, whether you’re enjoying it in peace and quiet or family chaos.