February 2012
2 posts
3 tags
The Real or Onion Lite App
This week, we released the new, free version of Gelf’s Real or Onion iPhone app. Lucky for us, it coincided with the hilarious news that Louisiana Congressman John Fleming thought that The Onion’s story about the Planned Parenthood Abortionplex was real. (We would never have included that story in our own game, as it’s just too ridiculous.)
If you dont have access to an...
January 2012
3 posts
Sports States: My New Sports Blog
Beginning in 2010, I started making a daily pilgrimage to ESPN.com to vote in the SportsNation poll on the front page of the site. Not because I necessarily cared about the issue being voted on, but because by voting I would get to see a US map of results of that poll, broken out by state. In many ways, sports fandom is one of the few vestiges of isolationism left; much of the rest of our...
Grate Reed: Homonym Puzzles
One of my favorite current projects is Grate Reed, a new blog about homonyms. My wife’s grandmother Laura Beck used to create fun homonym puzzles to help students in her remedial English classes. We’ve taken some of those and turned them into a visual puzzle blog. The reader gets two pictures, like those below, and has to guess what the homonym pair is:
In this case, it’s Fowl...
WatchThe video for the new Real or Onion app. This was made for us in less than a week by the supremely talented Andrew Iyageh.
December 2011
1 post
Iron Horse Trail Walk
The Iron Horse trail is an awesome rail trail connecting Pleasanton and Walnut Creek in the East Bay. We were able to cruise the 20 miles pretty quickly, especially considering Ava got out of the stroller every few miles to join the walk.
I think I’m trying to convince Ava to smile in this photo.
November 2011
1 post
Mt. Diablo Hike
Carl and I climbed all four peaks and about 16 miles in Mt Diablo State Park in the East Bay. Weirdly, the highest summit is indoors in a ranger station. Hardest part? Racing back in time to pick up Sara from work. We did not make it.
Lookin’ good at the top of the mountain.
September 2011
1 post
July 2011
1 post
Manhattan Chocolate Walk
Along with Alistair, Carl and several other folks, Iwalked roughly 13 miles visiting 15 chocolate shops and rating them on a one-to-five finger scale along the way. The fact that the stores got progressively lower scores as we walked is probably more a testament to the fact that I shouldn’t be eating 15 servings of chocolate than the actual quality of said eateries.
April 2009
1 post
24 hour, 100 km Walk
Definitely one of the harder things I’ve ever been a part of. We left Park Slope at 8 pm on Friday and ended up in McCarren Park 24 hours later. We fought through blinding 3am rain in lower manhattan (see photo below), counting kilometers all the while.
January 2008
1 post
Lower Haight to Mt. Tamalpais Walk
After hosting a party the night before at our house in the Lower Haight, Sara and I set off around 6 am with Carl, Cynthia, Nate, and Brannan for a 25-mile walk to the top of Mt. Tam. Highlights included the Presidio, Muir Woods, and of course finishing. Lowlights included feeling hungover for the first 5 hours of the walk.
October 2006
1 post
3 tags
Manhattan Pub Crawl
Starting at noon, Carl and I walked roughly 18 miles, stopping every mile or so for a beer. What’s that? You want a detailed breakdown of everywhere we went, how long spent at each place, and what we consumed along the way? Ok, weirdo. Here you go.
January 2005
1 post
Go Hiking in Other Countries
on top of Mt Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (before everything melted). Here’s the PDF of an article about my trip in the New York Times Magazine.
on top of Mt. Stanley, Uganda, DRC. Here’s the PDF of an article about my trip in Uganda’s New Vision newspaper.
With Rich Wright on the top of Volcán Concepción, Nicaragua.
Teach Zambian Poachers how to Farm
I spent a year in Zambia working with the Wildlife Conservation Society near South Luangwa National Park. One of our projects involved teaching former poachers how to be better farmers so they didn’t have to risk their lives to feed their families.
Here’s an article I wrote about my work for Wildlife Conservation magazine:
Here’s an article I wrote for Legal Affairs about...
Study Monkeys and Chimpanzees
I studied macaques in Puerto Rico, capuchins in Nicaragua, and chimpanzees in Uganda. Here’s the Journal of Virology article I co-wrote with my BFF Jane Goodall.