Zeigen

Today, March 31st, is the last Friday in March, which means it’s Blue Moon day.

A little over seven years ago, I started working at TiVo. It was March 2. When I started, things were very chaotic: Everyone was running around, huddling together and whispering in little meetings. My boss was not ready for my arrival: I had a cube, but in it was only a tiny half table, no chair, a PC without a monitor, keyboard, or mouse, and eight trash cans stacked together. Finally I learned why everyone was running around so crazily: Just yesterday, March 1, then-CEO Mike Ramsay had told the company that we had promised we would ship in Q1 of 1999, and that was the end of this month, and that’s what we were going to do. Competition was breathing down our necks in the form of Replay. Mike was convincing in arguing that whoever was first to market would have a huge advantage. We had to ship on time.

Now Bullwinkle and Pony tell this story better because they were at that meeting, and I missed it by a day. But basically everyone looked at each other with the same thought: We aren’t ready. The software wasn’t ready. The hardware wasn’t ready. The customer support wasn’t ready (you could only log cases in a system we hated and couldn’t use; customers couldn’t order; we couldn’t fulfill). Accounting wasn’t ready. The service wasn’t ready. The Showcase team wasn’t ready. Marketing and Sales weren’t ready.

Since every project needs a codename, Bullwinkle pointed out that there were two full moons in March. In common parlance, people call a second full moon in the month a “blue moon.” It’s usually happens only a few times a year, and thus that generates the phrase, “once in a blue moon.” (To be totally pendantic, the true definition of “blue moon” is different, but that older definition is no longer common.)

So, shipping the world’s first DVR became Project Blue Moon. And if I thought it was chaotic that first day, things got worse from there. (My own project name pick would have been “March Madness.”) Basically everyone in the company set aside everything else and started working like crazy. Twenty-hour days, sleeping on couches and in cubes. No weekends. I’d see engineers literally working around the clock — one engineer (Steve Lacy) at 6am briefing another engineer (Brian B.) about what he had done last night during his all-nighter, then collapsing in a couch in Dan’s cube while Brian picked up where Steve had left off. I remember seeing the first demo of the live guide, proudly being shown by Howard and Kyrie after David B. prototyped it and developed it in two days. I remember Rick P. coming in as a new employee the day after I did and creating the manual recording system and screens in one day. I remember Ric M. sitting down and drawing the first map of how many machines would make up the service, and ordering them on the phone in front of us while people shouted out specifications.

We had two IT guys and one facilities person. We were hiring like crazy. This e-mail to an old co-worker from SGI captures a little sense of that. He had written me back to point out my e-mail’s time stamp was off, and I replied:

Yes, things are a little quirky here. There are wires hanging down from every ceiling, cords going everywhere, people crammed into small cubicles and sharing computers — and apparently our e-mail server’s Time Zone is wonky… one of many things that is being worked out, I guess! It’s such a different world here.

For my team I remember us bringing in new employees to be agents, teaching them to use the crazy systems we were cobbling together to be able to take and ship orders and record cases. Every day brought new policies and systems: Okay, here’s how activations are going to work. Here’s how creating an order will speak to a monitoring system and then send activation information to the service. Here’s how to handle prospective customers and convert them to customers once they order. Here’s how to record a case. Here’s how they can switch billing options. We spent almost as much time in meetings doing decision-making and training as we did at our desks doing the work.

We all wore multiple hats. For example, I wrote the setup chapter of the first manual. And we were all in focused testing committees assigned by Bullwinkle (who was in charge of QE back then).

Finally, things took shape. The deadline was drawing closer, but miraculously bugs were being closed, hardware runs at the factory were starting to pass diagnostics, the service moved from being a few machines in someone’s cube to an actual hardware room with a UPS. Our fulfillment tests (shipping empty boxes) started to be successful. We decided how the serial numbers would work. We finalized arrangements between accounting and service and all steps in between. Full page ads across the country were taken out in major newspapers and we started taking real orders (on backorder of course).

I remember doing one all-nighter on March 30 to get the final first batch of orders ready and transmitted. At a company meeting earlier that day, Mike had told us the launch plan idea. We would all head over the factory and watch the first non-prototype units rolling off the lines. Then, some of us would head to the warehouse to watch the orders be fulfilled. And then take the rest of the day off, no exceptions (well, except customer support) and enjoy the weekend. So we all had a small party at the factory, dressed up in blue lab coats, and I still remember the thrill of seeing the units pass diagnostics — and the stack of completed units being packed up and shipped off. The very first box we took aside, and everyone signed it. It’s still on display at TiVo HQ. (I had to convince Mike not to sell it to a random customer when we ran out of inventory later that year!) Later at the factory we saw the orders printed, the units picked, and then packed on to UPS trucks to be shipped out. Blue Moon had been a success.

(And nine months later — a batch of nine or so Blue Moon babies were born!)

At a later meeting, Mike declared his gratitude for our hard work, and because of our incredible accomplishment in shipping TiVo by Q1 of 1999 as promised (and long before any other DVR ever shipped), he declared the last Friday in March would be a “national holiday” from that point on. Thus the Blue Moon holiday was born.

Oh boy was the experience rough. Far from perfect. Even though we had exhausted ourselves for the big first push, our work was really just beginning.

One of the first customers was my brother Rob — I bought him a 14-hour unit ($499) and Lifetime service (then $199) both because I wanted him to have a unit and I wanted to see directly what a customer would go through. Keep reading for an e-mail I sent Kyrie (who was then in charge of the user interface team at TiVo) about my brother’s “OOBE” (out-of-box experience).
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This, ladies and gentlemen, is Sammy’s “Don’t bother me as I consume my very first biscuit” look.

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Thanks to everyone for your support. The cortisone injections into my back yesterday were icky, but effective. I accidentally saw the long, long needle before I passed out, and then woke up to see the spreading black squid ink on my live x-ray. It does feel a little better now, and it will improve over the next two weeks. The hard part is remembering to avoid doing everything the way I did before, because that is what got me into this situation in the first place. Sigh. However, this is the best I have felt in six weeks! Yippee!

I took Kimi to El Camino Hospital today for a “surgical procedure” (which is to say in this case, an injection) to address her herniated disk.

After trying different types of medication (that have had various side effects) as well as massage, acupuncture, and other treatments, ultimately nothing has helped the extreme pain she’s suffered in her sciatic nerve post-Sammy. She’s always had back pain, but it’s gotten much worse. I was surprised to learn how common sciatica is experienced by new mothers. Sammy’s nearly eighteen pounds, so that seems like the proximate cause.

The procedure itself takes ten minutes. But with all of the driving and checking in and poking and prodding and waiting (waiting waiting waiting waiting), it ended up being about four hours (instead of the two we were told to set aside).

We were in El Camino’s Willow Pavilion, for outpatient surgical needs. Every other patient we saw seemed to be at least sixty years old.

The first nurse who worked with us was very pleasant, and I was impressed by how practiced her motions were when putting in the IV. The most vivid image in my head is two tiny drops of scarlet blood on the white hospital blanket, these two drops escaping despite the nurse’s smoothness.

Kimi’s pain will actually likely increase over the next few days (if the post-treatment sheet is to be believed) but then gradually over the next two weeks we’ll know if today’s procedure has helped relieve her pain. Here’s hoping.

I have mixed feelings about hospitals. I’ve never stayed in a hospital overnight (unless I did once when I was a small child; I seem to have a memory of doing so, but can’t remember when or for what). But I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals, especially around the time of mom’s aneurysm in 1995. Hazel is a true story I wrote from that time.

Kimi cannot operate heavy machinery for 24 hours. Sorry, sweetie — your hardhat job with the cranes and bulldozers will have to wait a day.

Saturday morning, Kimi woke up feeling horrible and was weak and ill the entire day. We debated whether or not she would be able to make it to Taff and Rachel’s evening wedding in the city, but since Taff was the officiant at our wedding we really didn’t want to miss it.

The ceremony was at the Swedenborgian Church on Lyon St., and while the location was perfect, the service was amazing. I’ve rarely laughed as much at a service. Our friend (and Reverend) Debbie Lee was the officiant, and she did an excellent job. The ingredients ranged from an adapted passage from Nick Hornby’s About A Boy, to Taff’s mother performing a blessing in Latin, to Rachel’s relating of Taff’s less than enthusiastic cheerleading during her basketball games (”Nice effort!”) and a performance of the classic Irish ballad, “Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms.”

The flower girl, practicing.

Taff in his custom-designed pink tuxedo jacket, in front of the wedding trolley

Afterwards (with a cable car-style trolley to transport the guests), the reception took place at The Atrium on California. We were seated with Rich P., Greg K. and his wonderful girlfriend whose name is regrettably escaping me as I type this, and Doug C. as well as meeting some new folks at our table (Evan and Marcy, a very nice couple). Since Rich has a daughter, Talia, about Sammy’s age, a lot of our conversation was about parenting.

I also had a chance to catch up with Roxanne and Ocean, Kris and Daniel, Kevin (flying in from Canada), Sacha and Oded, and Mike G. By coincidence Kimi had happened to read the article in the latest Wired about “Spore.” She’s read exactly one article about video games in ten years, and that happened to be it. Of course that was the game that Ocean (a veteran of Maxis) was working on — and in fact had been laboring on for over four years. So I had a chance to see Kimi talk knowledgeably and with interest about a video game, a rare event indeed. Ocean remains one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met — he’s wonderfully well-read, very philosophical, and as a painter as well as graphical designer, he is something of a Renaissance man. After talking to him, I can’t wait for Spore.

By the time food arrived, it was 9:30 and Kimi was fading fast. I had the vegetarian ravioli and enjoyed it, but Kimi could not even touch her salmon.

Kyrie graciously had been watching Sammy, and we were looking at an hour drive back to Palo Alto. We were worried about disrupting his sleep too much (he is too light a sleeper to be transported from Kyrie’s house to ours without waking). So we had to make our goodbyes early — before the toasts, cutting of the cake, dancing, and other fine wedding rituals.

Taff and Rachel shared one strategy with Kimi and me from our wedding: Convincing Jennie to do the cakes. They looked incredible.

Taff looked ecstatic and Rachel looked radiant. A beautiful evening, marred only slightly by Kimi not feeling well. Congratulations to you both, Taff and Rachel.

I heard a news report on the radio and tracked down the source: According to an IT company called SITA that apparently handles baggage tracking for the airline industry (wow, there’s a job description for you — “I’m Senior Director of Tracking Down Lost Luggage Data Processing”), 30 million bags are mishandled annually, and 204,000 of those are lost outright, out of 2 billion passengers.

They don’t say how many bags are carried by those passengers (they’re too busy flogging their services), so let’s assume each passenger checks an average of 1.5 bags. So out of 3 billion bags, 1% are mishandled, and 0.68% of those (or less than 0.01% of the total) are lost.

Those figures are a good match to my perception and my experience. I believe I’ve flown more than 100 times (50 trips over 38 years), and I’ve had my luggage delayed exactly once — and it showed up within the 31 hours they say is average. But, I have met people with a very different perception — it seems to me that the common perception is 5-10%, resulting in behavior changes (people using bulky carry-ons rather than checking bags purely for fear of losing the bag rather than because it’s faster) as well as unnecessary stress.

I think the perception difference is due an error of weight on the incidents. Everyone knows someone who has had a bag delayed or lost, and many people have experienced it themselves. If I know 1,000 people who have flown in an airline one or more times, and 100 of them have at least once had a lost or delayed bag, then the simplistic calculation is that this is a 10% problem. But those 1,000 people have probably flown 100,000 or more times, and 99% of the time they haven’t had an issue.

Because comedians and others may play up the idea of how frequently bags are lost, that reinforces the perception that this event is more common than it is. So it becomes a PR issue — the airlines should be able to combat that perception. But they can’t, because when it comes down to it, 1% delayed bags is a terrible stat. On an average flight of 600 passengers (assuming perfect distribution), six bags will be delayed.

99% may be good enough for some metrics, but if our servers at work had only 99% uptime we’d be in trouble; if airlines only landed 99% of planes safely, very few people would choose to fly.

In conclusion, the problem seems to be less bad than it’s perceived to be, but I’m surprised by how bad a problem this is.

(In response to this article…)

The weekly news magazine pioneer faces competitive assaults on all fronts.

March 23, 2006. One of the biggest losers in the ongoing acceleration of Internet dominance for news and other services is a magazine that is well-loved by those who donate to public television: Newsweek. One of the gritty pioneers of the weekly news magazine format, it was founded in 1933 as “News-Week” with a circulation of 50,000 and a cover price of 10 cents. It was acquired by The Washington Post Company in 1961. Today it has a worldwide circulation of 4 million and a cover price of $3.95.

These are grim times for Newsweek. Seventy-three years since it went on sale, there are only 4 million subscribers — a tiny fraction of the U.S. population who reads news. Even worse, Newsweek’s subscription level and income is declining. In their 2006 Q4 earnings, the Washington Post reported:

Revenue for the magazine publishing division totaled $344.9 million for 2005, a 6% decline from $366.1 million in 2004; revenue decreased 6% to $99.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2005, from $105.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2004. The revenue decline in 2005 reflects the weak domestic and international advertising environment at Newsweek, particularly in the first quarter of 2005; overall, Newsweek advertising revenues are down 8% for the year as a result of fewer ad pages at both the domestic and international editions of Newsweek.

Operating income totaled $45.1 million for 2005, down 15% from $52.9 million in 2004; operating income for the fourth quarter totaled $19.0 million, an 11% increase from $17.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2004. The decline in 2005 operating income is due primarily to the revenue reductions at Newsweek discussed above, weaker results at the Company’s trade magazines and a $1.5 million early retirement charge at Newsweek International, offset by a reduction in subscription acquisition, distribution and advertising expenses at Newsweek’s domestic and international editions, and an increased pension credit.

Newsweek still has a few tricks up its sleeve. It has a bunch of cartoons and that Periscope feature people like. And you can subscribe at a 93% discount off the cover price. Eventually they may choose to just start giving it away free, as they do if you donate to public television during a pledge drive, and as they do for schools and teachers.

Saturday night, after Sammy went to sleep, John and Yvonne came over and it was movie night. John stayed home to watch Sammy and graded papers, while Kimi and Yvonne let me pick the movie, per my prize for the Oscar contest.

Munich was my first choice, but we couldn’t find any nearby theatres showing it. So my fallback was V for Vendetta.

As a former comic geek, of course I had read the seminal series by Alan Moore and David Lloyd (in 1988, when the DC series came out). And since I read Boing Boing, I saw their post about an interview with Alan Moore wherein he talked about why he wanted to remove his name from the movie. (Interview by Heidi MacDonald.) The interview made me nervous; it did seem like the filmmakers had a fundamental misunderstanding of what the comic book was about. When I heard Joel Silver’s name was attached, I was prepared to hate the movie. But seeing the high user ratings and good reviews (Ebert & Roeper, Peter Travers from Rolling Stone), I became interested again. This is the first time in 2006 that Kimi and I have gone to the movies.

Overall, I recommend the movie. While the English accents (from Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving) are a bit unstable, and the oversimplification of the plot is regrettable, I’m surprised they didn’t dumb it all the way down. The average American moviegoer doesn’t know who Guy Fawkes is, and may not even want to see a movie set in England (especially an alternate history near-future England). Visually it doesn’t resemble the Matrix movies very much (which is good, because I had suspected the Brothers Wachowski had but one trick), and the impenetrable pseudo-philosophy from the Matrix trilogy is fortunately absent as well. Less successful is the reinvention of Evie as a viewpoint character, but that’s now comparing the source material to the film and I almost never prefer the film version when I do that.

If you are not a comic book reader, I imagine that there is really little to tell you that this is a comic book movie. That’s a good thing, since most comic book movies are terribly dopey.

I think Yvonne liked it as much as I did, but Kimi liked it far less than I did, perhaps due to some of the more violent knife-fighting scenes (some of them more or less filmed in Matrix-like bullet time).

How daring for a movie, post-911 and in this political climate, to depict a terrorist-like anti-hero as the main character and establish sympathy and rapport for him. And by defanging the fascist English state portrayed (as Moore asserts was done), you really are risking audiences to rebel against watching a main character in a mask who blows up buildings. I suppose that without Natalie Portman’s character that gambit would not have succeeded at all.

In other news, on Sunday night, Kimi and I had dinner with Nancy at Mike’s Cafe in midtown Palo Alto. Poor Nancy, laid up with a broken foot. With Sammy in his stroller and Nancy in her wheelchair, we took up a lot of room. But I really like Mike’s.

I got a letter from Budget today saying that when we returned the car that we rented on our Tacoma trip it was not full, so they’re charging us for three gallons times $6.19.

First, that gas price is absurd. But second, I refueled the damn car at a gas station right next to SeaTac. The gauge read full. I rarely get upset but I’m now furious at Budget. I tried to call them but 5:20pm Pacific is obviously far too late to contact customer support. So I used the feedback of their web site to write a note demanding a reversal.

If they don’t give me satisfaction, then I will urge all readers of this blog to boycott Budget. Stupid Budget.

UPDATE #1, 24-Mar-06: They replied saying they wanted a copy of the gas receipt. I wrote back a stern note. (I didn’t get a copy of the receipt.)

UPDATE #2, 27-Mar-06, 1:25pm: All resolved! Budget wrote the following today:

Thank you for contacting Budget Car Rental. As a courtesy we have removed the gas charge, and you will receive a credit in the amount of $18.57 back to your credit card. In the future will will require a gas receipt showing the name of the gas station, date purchased, and time. Thank you for choosing Budget.

In conclusion:

1. Moral: Demand satisfaction and you just might get it.
2. Budget made the right decision here. $18.57 is not worth losing a customer over.

Overall, Budget is a fine company and I recommend readers of Zeigen continue to patronize them for their car rental needs.

One more, I can’t resist.

Sammy has cut out his 4am feeding (since Kimi has stopped breast-feeding and Sammy’s now a solid food and formula kid), which means he sleeps through the night. Thanks to his six-month checkup today and other hectic activities, Sammy only napped two hours the entire day. By seven-thirty (a half-hour before bedtime), he couldn’t keep his eyes open and zonked out on Kimi’s shoulder. As I put him in his crib (and snapped the above), I’ve never seen him so deeply asleep.

Which reminds me: There was a morning last week where all three of us weren’t feeling well. Sammy normally gets us up at 7 or so, and I sometimes don’t set my alarm since Sammy is such a reliable wake-up call. Well, this particular morning Sammy slept straight through until just before 9am. Kimi leapt out of bed in a panic and got ready for work in almost no time. Me, I took a lot longer. Sammy went right back to sleep, and almost immediately fell into REM sleep, his eyes moving in every direction under his lids, and his face moving into tiny smiles that lasted for only a moment. Of what does a six month old dream, I wonder? Not breast-feeding or eating, since he wasn’t moving his mouth. Not walking or crawling, since those are unknown to him. I suspect he dreams of faces, his books, and endless infinite games of peek-a-boo.

At work today, we had a beer bust and (slightly early) St. Patrick’s Day party, leading into our first-ever Talent Show. Six brave acts, mostly musical, dared to perform in front of a tough crowd, tough crowd.

The HR, facilities, and mail room groups did a great job turning TiVo Town Center into a nightclub lounge (even more so than pictured, when the lights went down).

I was somewhat inspired to perform next year but it really has hit me that I have no “talents,” per se. I can’t juggle. I can’t dance. I can’t sing. I play no musical instruments. My impressions are mostly very bad. I can do no impressive magic tricks (”Is that your card? No? Hmm.”). About the only thing I can think of is standup (but I have no material), or a skit. I actually proposed a skit to my team, a takeoff of the Tom Stoppard Samuel Beckett play “Waiting for Godot” with a TiVo twist (”Waiting for TiVot”) — about a meeting that never gets started. But no one liked the idea, not even me.

Nova says she’s going to blog some of the photos and acts, so if you’re curious you can find out more about it when she finishes her article. In the meantime, if you have an idea for me for next year, I’m very receptive.

Sammy is six months old today. I’ll review his progress of milestones later, but he’s at 50% for weight, 75% for height (the doctor’s say he’s 27 inches, but our very scientific photo here proves 25, tops, although there might be some angles working against him), and still only 10% for head size. We’re to feed him a lot more solid food now. Although just three months ago they were saying don’t feed him solid food until after he’s six months. Good thing we didn’t listen to that.

We also have to get him waving and clapping his hands, and he could still use more work in the rolling over department.

A few more photos in the anniversary series (that I started a month ago) and I’ll start mixing together a montage. But in the meantime, here’s a bonus photo of Kimi and Sammy.

Dig that crazy hair, man.

Spring is less than a week away, and while the weather cannot make up its mind, the snow is gone.

Rich T. did manage to take a picture, which he sent to me today:

I believe Rich took this from the levees behind our parking lot — it’s quite normal for folks in a one-on-one meeting to take a “levee walk” for some privacy, fresh air and exercise.

When you land in Oahu, they hand you a floral ley and a glass of pog. When you land in SeaTac, they hand you an umbrella and an espresso.

Ha! Joke’s on them. It didn’t rain the entire time we were in Tacoma. And I don’t drink coffee. (Well, except for that white mocha at Mandolin Cafe, but white mocha is more like dessert than coffee.)

I ducked out of work a bit early on Friday. Kimi and I hadn’t packed until the last minute, but we didn’t have any trouble making our 7:30 flight from San Jose to SeaTac — this despite the hail at SJC. The flight was jammed full, and I was feeling miserable, and Sammy pretty much squirmed for the two hour flight (although at least he was pretty quiet). And the flight was delayed for about an hour because there was ice on the wings. SJC did have a de-icing machine, but apparently it gets so little use that no one knew it was broken. You could feel the despair throughout the cabin when they announced we were waitiing for the de-icer mechanic to arrive.

(I imagine that the San Jose airport de-icer mechanic works 2 days a year, tops. The rest of the time he sits at his barstool, staring at the sun, praying for hail. The one day it did hail, he was so stunned he drank himself into a stupor. Well your prayers were answered, you jerk, and I hope you’re miserable for the rest of 2006 as a consequence.)

Oh! And further annoyance: I get our checked baggage no problem while Kimi is in line at Budget. I join her just in time to hear the instructions: “Go right over there to the right, take the elevator up, walk across the walkway, then take the elevator down, and go to the right, the keys are in the ignition. So that’s right, up, over, down, right.” Simple, right? Except when we take the elevator down to the first floor (the only floor labeled for rental cars), we walk the half mile to Budget’s parking area, there’s no space marked S103. We double check. We triple check. I run all around trying to find our car. There’s not a soul around to ask except for some porter who has no clue. I try calling, and after finding two changed numbers and voice mail hell, I finally get through to the counter, where she snippily says she told me it was the second floor. What! You told me no such thing, and the second floor is distinctly NOT marked in the elevator. With Sammy crying and Kimi exhausted, I run up to the second floor, find the rental car, drive down to the first floor, so mad that I’m snarling and blocking traffic, and throw our stuff in the back. Fortunately I didn’t have to wrestle with the car seat for long or else I’d really have blown my lid. Finally we get underway. It’s not until after midnight that we arrive at Tomi’s. That’s eight hours for travelling 800 miles. It would have been cheaper to drive and only a few hours slower. Curse you, Budget!

The reason for our trip is two-fold: To attend my niece Kira’s third birthday party on Saturday, and for Sammy to meet his grandfather and uncle on Sunday.

Because I’m still sick, Kimi lets me sleep in a bit Saturday morning, although Sammy gets me up at eight anyway. The party is actually pretty fun — Kimi’s sister Tomi is the organized type, and she has everything on a schedule. The kids (ranging from 3 months to 8 years) participate in a variety of activities, the pizza and quiche and cupcake-cones and ice cream bars are consumed, and many presents are opened. Louise (Tomi’s husband John’s mom) makes dinner for us, and we have a family-only party with more presents and more cake. After the kids are in bed, John and I rent some DVDs and we watch School of Rock (one of the few Richard Linklatter films I hadn’t seen) and that goes over very well.

Sunday morning Kimi lets me sleep in for real, and when I get up at 11, I’m actually feeling like I’m on the road to recovery. We get to Kimi’s parents place in Lakewood by noon, and Kimi’s mom Hon has created a huge feast: kim chi, chicken soup, twice baked potatoes, yams, salted fish, egg rolls, other baked goods, and more.

Sammy is in a good mood and gets along well with Hon (my mother-in-law), Gordon (my father-in-law) and Sam (yup, Sammy’s namesake is his uncle, my brother-in-law). He has met Hon before when she came out to help us not long after Sammy was born. But Gordon and Sam are new to Sammy. The whole visit goes very well.

We got up very early Monday morning to make the flight back, and it takes a while before we get in to San Jose, but it was definitely an easier trip back than there. As I write this on Tuesday I can finally say I’m feeling better for the first time in weeks. And the sun is out and the world seems more back to normal.

Driving in this morning, the hills east of 237 above Milpitas (do these hills even have a name?) were covered in snow. I knew it was cold last night, but I had no idea that last night’s heavy rain would turn into so much snow.

I didn’t have my camera with me. I asked Rich T. if he could take a picture, but by noon when he was free, the continued rains (or, per Harry, hail if you live in Marin) washed the snow away.

Nonetheless, Rich T. pointed me to this beautiful photo at Flickr.

I was born in London, where it snows reliably, and I even used to go to school on the bus in the snow wearing shorts. Third form and lower, you see, must wear shorts; that’s the uniform. You had to be in Lower Remove to wear long pants. Those were the rules at King’s College Junior School near Wimbledon. And we are, after all, a society of rules.

Now I usually only see snow in Tahoe. So it was delightful to see snow on the hills on the way to work.

TiVo made a number of new announcements today as part of the Q4 results conference call. One of the things announced was some new pricing options. (Check out the press release or official TiVo.com blog entry if you want to read more.)

Unlike KidZone, this one I was very involved with, and my team has been working hard on this for months. So I was very proud to hear our CEO, Tom Rogers, explain it in the conference call and later send out a great big internal thank you e-mail that included my team.

So, what did we announce? How does this work? I won’t talk about that here. But, bottom-line, starting mid-next-week, you can purchase a brand-new 80-hour Series2 with no upfront cost and a low monthly fee.

I’ve been answering questions about it all day, so I’m a bit fried (and I’m still sick, so my head is killing me). Since I’m answering questions elsewhere I’ll disable comments for this entry. If you want to comment, head on over to the TiVoCommunity forum.

I made a summary of what we announced here.

FAUX LEGALESE: The above comments are unofficial and are not a substitute for the genuine terms and conditions. This is just a private blog, don’t hold me accountable. These are not the droids you’re looking for. More disclaimers available, free of charge.

[21:53] MyBrotherRob: You need to blog more
[21:53] MyBrotherRob: I'm changing my answer for how often I check
[21:54] MyBrotherRob: I reassesed my actual behavior, and I check
like 3-5 per day
[21:54] MyBrotherRob: I realize now, that the answer I gave you
was based on how often I check and then read something new
[21:55] MyBrotherRob: Don't even respond to me, I'm leaving now
anyway, take all that energy and write something funny in your blog,
for all of us to enjoy
[21:55] MyBrotherRob: Feel free also to use my masterful styling of
long flowing run-on sentences
[21:55] MyBrotherRob: peeps love that
[21:57] Me: Heh, sorry, was away
[21:57] Me: I'm actually writing a post now
[21:57] MyBrotherRob: good man
[21:58] MyBrotherRob: don't let me distract
[21:58] MyBrotherRob: you
[21:58] Me: Can I quote you on this?
[21:58] MyBrotherRob: sure, quote away
[21:58] MyBrotherRob: but, allow me to ask this question, how
could you be away and writing a post at the same time?
[21:58] Me: I started a post
[21:58] Me: I went away to do an errand
[21:58] MyBrotherRob: LIAR!
[21:58] Me: I came back to find you AIMing me
[21:58] MyBrotherRob: ok, your story seems to add up, I'll let it
pass for now
[22:03] Me: blog updated

I hate being sick. Most of the weekend I felt really run-down and low-energy, with a nasty headache and weak joints. Saturday night we had Rob and Kelly over for dinner, which was nice, and Sunday we had Yvonne over to watch the Oscars, which was also nice. Both events were low-key enough that I could handle it, and I really owe it to Kimi for taking the load off me to let me recover even though she’s in a lot of back pain herself.

As I write this, I definitely am fighting something. And poor Sammy — when I picked him up from Jen, his nanny, his nose was running and he too is now under the weather. He hated being horizontal and feeding him was hard due to his congestion. Fortunately after a bath he settled down for the night.

Anyway — I was posting this to talk about last night’s Oscars. We ordered Thai food from Amarin, and all three of us filled out our ballots to make a game of it.

Since if you’re reading this you might well be a DVR user, and there is some chance you haven’t yet watched the Oscars, I will hide the rest of this entry behind one of these “click here to read more” thingies. (more…)

Sammy has been eating solid food for a couple of weeks. Here, his reaction is, “Thank you, mater & pater, but, for the moment, I have consumed all of the sweet potato that my tiny little body can stand.”

Sammy is 5 and a half months old, and he won’t begin watching TV for another year and a half. (Kimi and I are doing our best to limit his TV exposure, per the 1999 American Academy of Pediatrics advice to not allow children under 2 to watch TV; a PBS FAQ covers most of the issues and is fairly balanced, even when you consider the source.)

Almost all the shows I watch won’t be appropriate for him to see until he’s at least 12 — if not 18. But I do think it’s ok for him to start watching certain shows and movies when he’s old enough. In anticipation of that TV watching, I’m starting to get familiar with some of the shows that are popular for young kids. I hope to steer him away from Barney, because I suspect we’ll both enjoy other shows more — but what shows? I have no idea what the best choices are. And once he knows how to use the peanut remote, I don’t want any chance of him accidentally switching on CSI or Sopranos.

Well, today TiVo announced a suite of new — and free! — features for standalone boxes (to be released later this year) that will help parents decide what their children should watch. You’ll also be able to create a safe zone that hides your shows, creating a sandbox for your kids to play in. You can read the official press release about KidZone, as well as the new TiVo KidZone page, as well as Nova’s blog entry about it (from the official TiVo blog). Pony was heavily involved in this, and he’s been chatting me up about it for months. (He’s off in New York today helping with the demos and press conference.) Believe me when I say that a lot of thought was put into the features, and the demo is killer. I’m really excited that we’re doing this.

My team wasn’t directly involved in this initiative — it’s more of a client change than an operations change. So although I didn’t get to help design or deliver this project, as a new parent, I’m happy TiVo has bolstered our already-really-good parental controls with something special and unique. (I haven’t seen any other DVR offer anything remotely similar.)

Parents already know that TiVo is a lifesaver (new parents really need TV on their own idiosyncratic schedule, not the networks’ regimented schedule) but now I think TiVo’s even more of a necessity for a family.

There’s quite a bit of coverage of this announcement: Dave Zatz, Thomas Hawk, Engadget, PVRWire, the New York Times, C|Net, and others. I’m not really pleased that it was pitched as a “major announcement” ahead of time (although a new free service feature honestly should be considered big news) — because people expect a major announcement to be about a new partnership, or a new hardware platform, or a new revenue model. So while I am excited about this announcement, I can see why someone who isn’t a parent would be underwhelmed.

I’m also upset that someone at TiVo leaked it a day ahead of time. Leaks really undermine our ability to work with the bloggers and press. Shame on you, whoever you are.

Already I see that we’ve taken a little criticism that this feature is for standalone TiVo DVRs only, and won’t be available on combo DVRs. But that’s not up to us. DIRECTV controls the feature set for the DIRECTV with TiVo Receivers, so call them (1-800-DIRECTV) if you want to see this feature on your combo box and let them know how you feel.

The other criticism is that we don’t strip out commercials. I think that’s absurd. We’d probably get sued out of existence if we tried to strip out commercials, and besides, those commercial-skipping algorithms are both unreliable and expensive to license. Fast forwarding through content you don’t want to see — whether it’s commercials or credits or a segment you don’t like — is easier to understand and use, at least for me. I’ve seen two-year-olds fast forward with the best of them.

(EDIT at 3:45pm) Finally, there’s criticism of two of the partners available at launch who will be available to recommend shows: Common Sense Media and Parents Television Council. Folks, these are just recommendations. These groups will NOT in ANY sense be controlling what you or your children watch. Instead, you can choose to see the list of shows that these (and possibly other groups) recommend, and if you like their recommendations, then you can record the shows and try them out.

As far the PTC goes, I’m not a fan of their boycott campaigns, but c’mon, if this organization does approve of a show for your kid, you can bet it doesn’t have any objectionable content. If you choose to use their recommendations that doesn’t mean in any way that you endorse their politics or methods. And you certainly won’t be forced to use their recommendations. While I (and others) may not care for the PTC’s politics or methods, there are a great many of our customers who trust and respect this group, and my bet is that we only selected them after doing some market research and surveys.

. . .

In other news, today is my seventh anniversary of starting at TiVo. It’s startling to read what I wrote seven years ago about starting at TiVo (as part of Jef Morlan’s now-defunct Posi-Web project).

. . .

In other other news, it’s clear I’ll never be a so-called “A-List” blogger — I’ve been in meetings all morning (it’s review time), so I didn’t comment about our 8am press release until after 2pm. The blogosphere likes its updates faster than that. (And besides that, I write about myself and my family way too much to be A-List.) Good! I’ll stay on the Z-List. Who wants A-List pressure? Sounds like a headache to me.