Moldy Business

Alright everyone, laugh it up!

Haha. Actually this is so insane it's sortof hilarious. (And if it's not funny, check out the picture of me "Haz-Mat" style. :)

Anyway had a mold problem in the apartment due to lack of air circulation and natural sunlight in here. Spent some time spraying it down today and took some major extra precautions - face masks, safety goggles, gloves, the works. It was probably overkill (and so was spraying the entire closet), but it seemed a better idea to go fierce once and try to take care of everything rather than do it in incremental steps.

So I totally SWAT-teamed the mold in my apartment today... IN, SPRAY DOWN, OUT.

Then let the apartment air for a couple hours before coming back to wipe down all the walls. Now that's all done and it's pretty good. The apartment is still an insane mess but this gives me an opportunity to throw out a bunch of stuff I don't need and do some general cleaning. Oy gevault!


The aftermath of completely emptying the closet


Me ready to obliterate this mold

iMenorah: iPhone Menorah Application: Smaller download, no WiFi needed

http://imenorah.mikejutan.com/

Smaller version coming this week, that won't require WiFi to download.

Installing a Media Reader in a Dell XPS 630...

...is a LOT easier when Dell sends you the right cable, and when you know how to open your computer!!!!

Managed to get my Media Reader installed finally. Looks like Dell originally sent me the wrong cable, the missing pins were in the wrong location. Tonight I opened the computer and had it installed in 3 or 4 minutes, and it works. Rockin'.

iMenorah: Charitable Donation details

When deciding to write iMenorah, my co-developer Matt and I discussed lots of details about our approach. One of the first items we discussed is that no matter how commercially successful or unsuccessful iMenorah is going to be, one thing is certain: we want to donate a portion of the proceeds to our community.

We have made our decision and would like to share it with you now...

By downloading iMenorah, you are also supporting San Francisco's local Jewish Community.

A minimum of 10% of the proceeds (in multiples of $18) from iMenorah will be donated to the San Francisco Jewish Community Center (JCCSF). The JCCSF has a real sense of the importance of spreading knowledge, of learning, study and discussion. They are incredibly well organized, and they are doing great things for San Francisco (and for SF's Jewish Community, too). We'd like to support their outstanding efforts.

These donation details have been posted to our website (http://imenorah.mikejutan.com/) and to our iTunes purchase page for iMenorah.

Matt and I thank you for supporting our development efforts, and for supporting San Francisco's Jewish Community.

Wall-E on The Simpsons - on YouTube

Sorry folks in Canada. I forgot that you can't see Hulu videos in Canada.

Reposting the Wall-E video from yesterday in a Canada-friendly YouTube format. Enjoy!


Wall-E on The Simpsons

iMenorah articles!

There have been several very kind reviews of our App, and I am so happy to hear from all these people who love our work.

Jewschool just posted some very kind words about our app! The opening line to the article: "Come on, you all wish you’d thought of it first" is just sooooo nice. We were really jazzed up when we came up with the idea, and we're really glad that people around the world are feeling our excitement too. :)

The article also mentions some more specific details about our choices for the charitable donations we will be giving. Once we finalize those choices, we'll post the details to our website.

For more information, or to download iMenorah... please check out our website!
http://imenorah.mikejutan.com/

"Wall-E" on The Simpsons!!!!!!!

This is just so freakin' hilarious.

A Wall-E look-alike was on The Simpsons last Sunday. Amazing!!

Wall-E is Time Magazine's #1 Movie of 2008

Wall-E is Time Magazine's #1 Movie of 2008!!!!!

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/top10/article/0,30583,1855948_1863826_1863827,00.html

iMenorah - iPhone Menorah App: Video now on YouTube!

Check out iMenorah - our iPhone (and iPod Touch) Menorah App!
Video is now on YouTube.

Finally watching "Lost"

Nick told me that I need to be ready to start Lost Season 5 in January, so I gotta play catch-up now. Started on Season 1 tonight, this is NUTS! Lots of crazy/random stuff going on, and you can see how they are setting it up with lots of strong characters with strong personalities so the sparks will fly in later episodes. Pretty intense so far!!

John Oliver's Literature Rodeo: Apocalypse Edition

Rob Kutner, Daily Show writer and chief legend of awesome has a new video out of John Oliver (from The Daily Show) doing a few important/noteworthy things:
1. Being really British
2. Pining after the siren sauce of Applebee's boneless chicken wings (haha?!??!!)
3. Giving some love to Rob's hilarious new book, "Apocalypse How"

Check it out. Very Daily Show-y, and thus amazingly glorious.


John Oliver's Literature Rodeo: Apocalypse Edition

iMenorah has been Urban Kvetch-ed

iMenorah has been featured on the awesome blog "My Urban Kvetch"!
See the story here: http://estherkustanowitz.typepad.com/myurbankvetch2005/2008/12/hanukkahs-musthave-iphone-app.html

Best line ever:

You use your iPhone religiously, but do you really use it RELIGIOUSLY?

Haha, classic.

Thanks to Esther at My Urban Kvetch for a hilarious review and for giving us some sweet props.

Interactive Video Object Manipulation

Ans just sent me this, this is freakin' cool.


Interactive Video Object Manipulation from Dan Goldman on Vimeo.

iMenorah - iPhone Menorah App now on the iTunes Top 100 Lifestyle Apps list!

Amazing news!!!!!!! In just 6 short days, iMenorah (our iPhone Menorah Application, also available for the iPod Touch) has made it onto the Top 100 Lifestyle Apps list on iTunes!

By downloading iMenorah, you are also supporting San Francisco's local Jewish Community. We will be donating a portion of the proceeds to a local San Francisco Jewish charity. Please stay tuned to our website - more details will be posted once we make the donation.

For more details and a link to the download on iTunes, please see the webpage here:
http://imenorah.mikejutan.com

Matt and I thank you for your support, and for supporting San Francisco's Jewish community.

Muir Woods with Tim and Molly

Sunday was fun, I took Nash to the airport after a long day out at Muir Woods and in Sausalito and bootin' around a whole bunch, it was a lot of fun. We went to Muir Woods and Muir Beach and then to a great breakfast place in Sausalito (for lunch at 3pm) and then to a great lookout for the GG Bridge before heading back into San Francisco.

These 2 are self-proclaimed "eco-geeks" so it was awesome to hang out nature-wise with people who are really excited and knowledgeable about the forest, ecology stuff, "conservancies" (what that means, I'll never know), and other cool non-Computer Science stuff. It's also weird NOT to talk about Computer Graphics and Animated Films all day long. :)

I guess I balanced that by driving directly to Matt's place after dropping off Tim, picking up him and his computer, and going to my house to finish an update fix for iMenorah until 2am. Busy weekend!


Nash in his element


This was gorgeous


AMAZING!!


"The San Francisco Giants"


Sweet


I love this one too


Awesome-o power


Ah buuuh!!!!!


Tim and Molly just lovin' it


We decided my house should be the one with the huge windows


Muir Beach


Tim and Molly


House boats?!!!


Haha, these are so weird. This one had a spiral staircase, and I really wished it had a spiral slide into the water instead!


Siiick 'ol school Masterati


Amazing Ferrari!!!!!!


Nash and I at the GG Bridge viewing area


Great times!!


I love this city!!

Thanksgiving 2008 Party!

On the Friday after Thanksgiving I threw a huge party at my apartment, it was nuuuuuuts!!!!!! R.Rose came over super early to help out which was nice cause I really needed a lot of help. We all cooked and cleaned the apartment for about 7 hours straight, and then people started to arrive around dinnertime. It worked out amazingly well, I somehow managed to have enough food for 18 people to eat dinner, which was insane but somehow we pulled it off. Great times, and great to see J-Kiz and A-Griz too. Funny to have so many Texans in one room!! :)


Me and Gabe-rielle


Me and Frizzle


Tim mashing the potatoes


And so the food begins


Hahaha


Molly, Suzie and Tim


haha


Turkey is alllmost ready!


Everyone running for the food


J-Kriz


Hip hop flava


Haha, A-Griz!!


Frank and Kurt... in a room at the SAME TIME?!


Cabernet giving the food a hearty thumbs up


Chillin'


Word


Woop!!!!


F-Griz


Orion looking alluring


Hahahaha!!!!!! Matt eventually descended into absurdity and started making the sock monkey dance


Then K.C. the Cat and the sock monkey started doing square dancing with each other


Matt laughing at his own sillyness


Serious bongo times


Haha, Gabrielle looking mad about something

Thanksgiving Dinner at Nick and Jenn's place

On Thanksgiving evening, Kurt, Tim and I went to Nick and Jenn's place for some glorious, glorious, glorious, glorious food and some (almost) equally amazing Rock Band video gaming! Jenn and Nick were amazing hosts as always. It was great, and maaaaaan the food was amazing. I tried a Quorn Tur'key Roast too, which is some sort of mushroom-based Tofurkey kinda thing. It was good! The sweet potato stuff they had was SO AMAZING.


Kurt's here! And paying his bills!


Kurt making faces, and Tim fast asleep


Ready for food!


Sooo goood

Ah crap. Mold.

I get excited about a lot of stuff, but I think we can safely agree that I don't much care for mold.

Last week I found a not-so welcome surprise of a bunch of mold growing on some baseball hats in my closet. So that was annoying, but I washed them a presumed that meant I was all set. Well, after all the bazillions of people in my house at my party last week, and my apartment that is painfully devoid of any decent ventilation... I wandered into my closet this week and found a ton of mold rockin' fierce on some of my important clothes (read: tux jacket) Ah, craaaap.

So the solution is I am going to re-wash everything in my closet. Most of it is probably fine but mold spores grow and are airborne, so I want to eliminate as much as possible.

The main problem is most likely the humidity level in my house due to lack of ventilation, and the fact that I don't open the windows as much as I should cause I live in a noisy area.

Anyway long story short, I gotta go dry clean a few things. And then I gotta clean up a bunch of stuff in my closet, and re-wash everything in there. Man, what a pain.

So I read a bunch that mold can't grow without moisture (thank you, EPA's "A Brief Guide to Mold, Moisture, and Your Home") so I gotta make sure I ventilate this place more. I should probably get a dehumidifier too.

A good rule of thumb it seems is that if your windows have moisture on them, you should open them and ventilate the house. I notice moisture on the windows often, especially if there are people at my house... so I gotta make sure to keep the windows open!

This is a massive annoyance, but at least I learned something I suppose. :) Also I guess now I gotta go find out where the nearest dry cleaner is to my apartment too.