When you talk to most parents about what it’s like having kids, they’ll tell you that it’s a beautiful and fulfilling experience. That’s not a lie, exactly. It’s like that sometimes, but that description does exclude a lot of the truth.

Let me preface this with the fact that I love my kids and am so glad I have them around, but, short of working in a slaughterhouse or public sanitation, I think folks are utterly unprepared for the amount of bodily fluids they’re going to have to contend with while raising children. Let me paint you a picture of this morning.

I’m having a nice Saturday morning at home with the family. My boy was watching cartoons and I was bouncing the baby and snuzzling her belly to make her giggle. That’s when things when horribly horribly wrong. The moment when I realized she had puked on the top of my head was when I went blind. This was initially a result of it running down my glasses, but soon the burning effect of semi-digested formula on my corneas has shut vision down entirely. I was still holding the baby over my head so I decided it was time to holler for help.

Still blind, I could hear my wife coming from the kitchen. My hope was that she would either relieve me of the baby or at least wipe my face off. Instead, all I heard was footsteps heading in the wrong direction. My brief optimism that she’d gone in search of a towel was dashed as I began to see the camera flashes through my closed eye lids. My further attempts to request assistance were squelched by a combination of her laughter and the fact that the vomit had run into my mouth (Note: if you have a baby’s vomit in your mouth, do not attempt to breathe through your nose. The rest of the day will be spent with everything smelling like baby vomit). Eventually, the baby was taken and I got to spend some alone time in the shower wondering if I could ever really get clean again.

So kids, if you’re out there thinking, “I’m gonna have a baby because it will (a) love me, (b) fix my relationship, and/or (c) give me an awesome tax deduction”, remember that the truth involves a lot more vomit than you’d imagine.

I know I’ve been off of the radar since I left MySpace, and I’m happy to finally be able to talk about my newest project: gravity.com. We’re officially out of stealth now, and it is a great feeling to be able to now talk about something I have been pouring my heart and soul into over the past six months. We’ve assembled an amazing team here, and today we’re unveiling the site and the problem we are tackling.

The online conversation space has been historically undeserved, with outdated tools that create fragmented and unwieldy discussions. Our mission is to help people engage in meaningful conversations about their passions. Be it gadgets, cooking, Voltron, or whatever you may fancy, Gravity will provide users with a place to have discourse with other people who share their interests. Traditional tools like forums, group email lists, and collaborative blogs haven’t offered users with simple, functional, and fun way to interact and share. When we talk about what we’ve built, we like to describe it as a turn-based conversation site. This isn’t about allowing for chatter, but instead about creating a destination where we provide a framework for people to better share and communicate. We’re focused on building out the Interest Graph for the web to help people connect with their passions and discover people and topics that are personally relevant. Additionally, we’re embracing the distributed nature of the web, current movements in open API’s and technology, and are looking at how we open up our technology while inter-operating with others.

Please check out this TechCrunch post that delves into more detail on the company and our mission, and be sure to follow us on Twitter at: @gravity. This is an exciting moment for me personally and professionally, and I can’t wait to share more about the project, and more importantly, give everyone a chance to play with the product and tell me what you think.

The duck tale

One of my college roomates is getting married next month in Phuket, Thailand. As a gift to him and his wife, I’ve designed, fabricated, and painted a pair of stylized Korean wedding ducks. Before I jump into the details, I have to give a big thanks to Steve for providing the idea, guidance and resources that were necessary to achieve a tangible outcome.

So why Korean wedding ducks? Apparently it is a Korean tradition to give a pair of ducks as a wedding gift. Aside from being cute decorations, the ducks are a way to visualize the current state of a relationship: a happy couple points their ducks face to face while a not-so-happycouple points their ducks away. There are some pretty intense ducks out there.

The process got started two weeks ago when Steve and I picked up a band saw from Westwood. Look how happy he is:

Three days later, I met up at Steve’s place to learn the fine art of band sawing and earn my woodworking badge. Here is a shot of Steve showing me the ropes:

Band saw, meet wood. Wood, meet band saw.

Steve’s ducks are on the left and mine are on the right. We proceeded to smooth the corners and faces with a Dremel and fine sand paper. Here is what the ducks looked like post-sanding:

We proceeded to stain the ducks and let them sit overnight in Steve’s garage:

Four days later, I met back up at Steve’s place and saw the dried ducks in all their glory:

Fast forward to this morning when I decided to paint the ducks with acrylics:

I ended up mixing white, orange, and light pink and went to town on the ducks:

I then went ahead and mixed orange and pink together to create some highlights and stripes:

Here is a top down shot:

Here is another shot showing the patterns from the other side:

Making these ducks made me realize how out of touch I am when it comes to working with wood and fabrication in general. Overall, this was an amazing experience to attempt a radically different project. I hope the couple keeps their ducks endlessly pointed at each other.

Anyway, the show was awesome, but you’re probably asking yourself, “Hey, did they mess with some of the super dorky costume crowd?” You bet we did.  Here are the pics from last night.

We ran into some Jedi. Kunal felt the need to rock out with them. I felt like the little one needed a hug.

We ran into a couple of Han Solos.  Larry Solo was pretty amazing.  He had the steady calm of a Jerry Lewis, and the rogueish charm of Ben Afleck in Daredevil.  I assumed that he’s probably pretty lonely in his personal life (just a random guess), so he got a hug too.

Here’s our other Han Solo.  Let’s call him Enrique Solo.  Enrique brought his whole family.  The kid was an awesome Jango Fett (expect for his Go, Diego! backback).  The wife, on the other hand, should probably retire the gold bikini.

We ran into some rebel pilots.  Got the group shot and the obligatory MySpace self-shot.  I wonder which one of them was supposed to be Porkins.

Now I can hear some of you saying, “Hey Steve, it’s not cool to tease the costume crowd. They need something to fill the hole that not dating leaves.”  Allow me to rebut. We had three extra tickets from folks who couldn’t make it.  Rather than find three hot chicks that had less good seats (sorry Kunal), we gave them to a dad and his two kids outside who couldn’t buy tickets to the sold out show.  So I’m a lovely person and can poke fun at whoever I like.  Hurray for karma being a zero sum game!!

What shall the redeemed wear?  This handy tome from CVS Pharmacy shows the way.  Let’s consult Leviticus 47:92, “And lo the Lord spake unto them, ‘Thou shalt dress as thou did in the 80′s. And bedazzeling shall also be ok. Go forth, and be uncool in My name.’ ”

Yup, that’s Obama with an ice cream head

Kunal made a new friend on the Promenade.  They wandered off together.  I hope he’s ok.

Earlier, we helped Kunal buy a wetsuit. It seemed to turn him immediately into a ninja.

I’m glad Verizon finally has a marketing program that speaks to me.

I previously had dabbled in Azerbijani fetish footwear and Nigerian palm oil and gin.  This time I decided to listen to the sound advice doled out by the financial experts who appear on morning news shows (they wouldn’t let them on at 6AM if they we’re really legit) and diversify.  I was thinking about putting a little bit of funding in a few different loans, but then I came across Familia Unida Group.

These Bolivians are not fooling around (as if Bolivians ever do).  They are involved in:

• Construction materials
• Coca leaves (yeah, you read that right)
• Beer
• School supplies
• T-shirts
• Fruit
• A brick laying school (the trick is to buy the brick dinner first!   *Note: even I am a little disappointed  with the previous joke.  I wish I had something better but Ben keeps trying to stick Cheerios in my ear and it’s the best I can think of at the moment.)
• Sausage and french fry production
• Soft drinks
• Flower stands
• Computer graphics
• TV advertising
• “Tropical Rainbow”, probably not Bolivia’s lowest rated television show

As an expert in the Bolivian economy, I can authoritatively say that some of these probably have some sort of profit margin.  I’m bullish on the potential for the Familia Unida Group. I give it a strong Buy rating.

I’d like to send a special thank you to the automated CRM systems that have already sent me birthday wishes this morning. Way to generate a form letter with a nightly chron job fellas.  I love you too.

Question: (From Meraj M./M/Iselin,NJ — online now)
**fellowships**
how should I position myself for getting a hematology-oncology fellowship?

Answer: (From me)
Try something like “Hi, I’m Meraj. I like blood and cancer.”

Let’s talk about the elements of this piece that I find the most troubling (when I say “troubling” I mean “keeps me up at night because my brain can’t quite process the experience”).

1. Why is his shoe untied?  Is this some sort of commentary on the inevitability of his being caught and consumed? Or is it perhaps a function of the poor craftsmanship of the artist?
2. Is the lower hotdog nub functioning as a third leg (no double entendre intended) or is a hinderance?
3. I’m undecided whether his expression is one of steely determination or resignation to mastication.
4. At $40 I can’t believe I didn’t buy it.

I love you Mr. Hotdog.