My Hero

abrahammertens — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:17:12 -0700

[I'm joining the entire Red Room community in writing a short blog post on this week's topic: "Heroes." The form and the content of the blog entry are open to personal interpretation; whether this topic calls to mind a real-life hero, a fictional character, or something else altogether, we want to read your entry. We'll choose at least one of these blogs to be featured on Red Room's ...

The Most Wicked Plant of All

abrahammertens — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:35:23 -0700

Red Room's first book for its staff book club was Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart and I absolutely loved it. It was a pleasure to read this book. There was so much fun information in the book and the presentation of it was charming, as well. One element of the design that I particularly liked was that the paper is an aged ...

Foreshadowing of My Future Writing

abrahammertens — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:26:19 -0700

I'm joining all of the Red Room community in writing a short blog post on this week's topic: "What are your obsessions? Your passions? Your fixations?" This topic comes to us from Red Room Author Joyce Maynard; it's an exercise she does before writing a new book, in order to see what it's really about. Here are mine: 1. Self-determination about what kind of person to be, ...

My Neighborhood Bird Needs Therapy

abrahammertens — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:48:32 -0700

While walking to work the last couple of days a completely insane bird has repeatedly swooped down on me as I crossed the street in front of my house. I was able to get a picture of the offending bird, which I'm including with this blog, and plan to forward to the bird police. Look at the bird, you can tell it’s crazy. I’m really fed up with the bird, and his or her inappropriate, ...

The email to blog feature

abrahammertens — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:15:01 -0700

This is very exciting. The fact that this blog is posted on redroom.com means that users can now upload blogs simply by sending an email to redroom.com. I hope our users will take full advantage of this easy and powerful way to communicate with their readers.This feature is a way for all our users to start submitting blogs to the site from their mobile devices that have access to email. I look ...

How Geniuses Inspire Genius

abrahammertens — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:49:10 -0700

Reading the newspaper early in the morning is a way for me to awaken my imagination, connect in some small way with the rest of the world and sometimes to find small pieces of inspiration. This morning, as is true most mornings, I got up and read the New York Times on my phone. The small type and screen require extra attention and lots of scrolling with my thumb. An article by David Brooks ...

The Power of Detachment

abrahammertens — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:26:06 -0700

Today I had a meeting with Joel Kimmel, who I've rowed with at the Marin Rowing Association for years. Before a couple of weeks ago I didn't know exactly what he did for a living or that much about him. I've chatted with him many times on the water or in the boathouse about rowing but don't really know him at all.It turns out that Joel has lived a life filled with adventure, business ...

A very inspiring and exciting week - Center for the Book in the Library of Congress and GDT Summit

abrahammertens — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:00:41 -0700

I've had an amazing and inspirational week so far. This week started with a visit to Washington D.C. to attend the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress Partners Meeting and as I'm writing I'm in the middle of the GTD Summit. We also had meetings with potential partners who we can’t wait to work with. I won’t write about the partnership opportunities until they’re finalized, and of ...

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Heroic Environmental Activist

abrahammertens — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:21:20 -0800

Yesterday, I saw heroic environmental activist, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,speak before a group of NRDC supporters in San Francisco. The evening started with a documentary narrated by Red Room Author Peter Coyote. The video was moving and poignant and made me want to donate immediately. It’s amazing how the dulcet tones of Peter’s voice do that to me. It was also clear from the documentary that ...

A Hawk In Red Room's Backyard

abrahammertens — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:09:45 -0800

As some of you know, Red Room's office is in a beautiful red Victorian in Hayes Valley in San Francisco. As we work to build redroom.com, we are really lucky because we have a view of a beautiful garden the landlords built where there used to be an unofficial garbage dump.Yesterday, as I was sitting at my desk working on our terms of service and some other projects, a flurry of movement ...

Why’d They Do It?

abrahammertens — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:30:49 -0800

A couple of Sundays ago I took a bike ride around San Francisco and was both moved and disappointed by what I saw. San Francisco is certainly a city that contains multitudes. One of the things that I was disappointed by was that a couple of blocks from my house I noticed that the façade of a lovely Victorian house was still standing as a reminder of the blocks and blocks of other beautiful ...

Art Is Powerful And Contagious

abrahammertens — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:02:46 -0800

Today I was inspired by an example of the spreading of creative energy and activity that I witnessed on Hayes Street in front of the local convenience store. Two kids who were probably six and ten years old were sitting on the sidewalk in front of their parents' store painting whimsical and inspiring pictures on plywood in exactly the same way that they had seen another artist working on the same ...

UFO RESPONSE TEAM CAR

abrahammertens — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:28:01 -0800

This is my first blog. Perhaps I should have waited until something more significant happened to me, but one has to start somewhere.Across the street from our office, I noticed a decommissioned police car that read across the back: "UFO RESPONSE TEAM." I asked our engineering team which one of them had reported the UFO. None of them would admit it. Ivory took a picture of me next to ...