A lot has changed in the online world since I got my first email address in 1995. A lot has changed in my own expectations of a creative and successful career. My day job is working as a Project Manager for Pearson Assessment. My main job is being a dad to two little boys, and wooing my wife. All of my creative projects are thus relegated to “side” projects, pretty much all of them online at this point. The metrics for what makes a successful project (or even a good day spent online) are somewhat subjective and personal to me. I don’t go by pageviews or hits (unless they were all astronomical numbers & I had ads – then I would care!), so here are a few things that make me happy online:

– when one of my Metafilter comments or posts gets 100+ favorites

– when Emily Gould “likes” one of my posts on Tumblr

-when one of my Tumblr posts ends up on the Tumblr radar or Staff Blog

– when Hari Kunzru retweeted one of my tweets (though he doesn’t have as many followers as @sarahw or @goldman or @noradio who have also retweeted me). I’ve also had twitter interactions with people I admire like Craig Newmark, Anil Dash, and Rogers Cadenhead.

– any time my name appears on kottke.org

-a pic I post on mlkshk gets 1000+ views or 100+ likes

Maybe this is gauche to admit, maybe it’s not cool to admit you like “favorites” or stars or karma or whatever, but I don’t care. This is me.

Recent Update

I haven’t updated this site for a while because of a bizarre WordPress error, but all seems well now.

I’ve been busy the past six months! I’ve posted a lot of new things at SimpleRanger.net, tons of new images at Apres Garde, and started posting a lot over at mlkshk. I’ve started one mlkshk for Breaking Bad (new favorite show) and one for modern homes. I think I only have one new post up at GoogleSightseeing, but I have a couple more in the works.

I was quoted in this CultureMap series about the DFW archives at the Ransom Center in Austin (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5).

And just a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Arlo’s first birthday!

Goings on

I’ve been busy lately! Last month I was interviewed for this article on the Wall Street Journal‘s Speakeasy blog:

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/15/david-foster-wallace-his-secret-life-as-a-philosopher/

If the movement to which Eckert is alluding has a head, it is probably Matt Bucher of Austin, Texas, whose day job is editing textbooks at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. For the past eight years, Bucher has administered Wallace-L, the largest list-serve connecting Wallace fans across the United States. … Bucher explains that Wallace-L spun off from a Thomas Pynchon emailing list in the late 1990s. It has swelled from about 100 members in 1996-97 to 1000 at present. Bucher, who started monitoring the list in 2002, reports that there was a roughly 25% increase in membership in the months following Wallace’s death. Though generally pleased, Bucher complains that some of the information online has gotten less reliable.

Also, I was mentioned in this article in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Afterlife-of-David-Foster/125823/

Meanwhile, Sideshow Media Group, run by an independent Wallace scholar named Matt Bucher, just published Consider David Foster Wallace, a collection of critical essays born out of the first academic conference on Wallace, held at the University of Liverpool in 2009. (Another Wallace conference took place that year at the City University of New York.)

In Street View news, my Apres Garde blog was mentioned in this Italian news article: http://notizie.virgilio.it/esteri/blog-fotografici-da-google-street-view-fenomeno-web-2010_142053.html

Over at my other site, Simple Ranger, I’ve posted some things that weren’t right for Apres Garde:

Street View Essay – Macau

Vending Machines of Yokohama

And a bunch of “Best of” Apres Garde posts that collect thematic posts there:
Best of Apres Garde – People
Best of Apres Garde – Roads
Best of Apres Garde – Fields
Best of Apres Garde – Darkness
Best of Apres Garde – The Sea

Lately

My Apres Garde blog was mentioned in an Italian news article about Arcade Fire’s video project involving Google Street View. It was also mentioned on a Swiss site called 20 Minutes Online.

My latest post at Google Sightseeing is on the distilleries of Islay.

Also, on October 16 I’ll be moderating a panel on David Foster Wallace at the Texas Book Festival.

Recent activity

Here are some of my recent articles posted at GoogleSightSeeing.com

Antarctica: The World’s Largest Desert

Masonic Temples Around the World

Capulin Volcano National Monument

In other news:

I was quoted in this story for the Knoxville News Sentinel about group reads online and Daryl’s efforts leading Infinite Zombies.

I’m on the planning committee for this David Foster Wallace event to commemorate the opening of the archive at the Ransom Center.

My Apres Garde blog of Google Street View images was recommended on the Tumblr Staff blog (at the same time as The New Yorker‘s tumblr!) and received a nice write-up on LemonDrop.com.

David Foster Wallace and Infinite Jest

Here are a few things I’ve written about David Foster Wallace and Infinite Jest:

Why Read Infinite Jest
http://infinitesummer.org/archives/148

How to Read Infinite Jest
http://infinitesummer.org/archives/215

The Royal Tenenbaums and Infinite Jest
http://www.kottke.org/09/04/the-royal-tenenbaums-and-infinite-jest

Infinite Jest Character Profiles
http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/profiles.htm

Remembering David Foster Wallace
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/dfw/memories.html