Dave Aiello

In Memory of Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T19:37:58Z

I don't know why, but I was shocked when I heard about Steve Jobs' death last night. I think my iPad alerted me five or six minutes after Apple released the announcement.

Nobody can put a death this significant in context the way that Steve Jobs did himself. His Commencement Address at Stanford University in 2005 is a monument to the man and how he thought:

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important."

I didn't agree with Steve politically or religiously, so what am I doing quoting him on the meaning of life?

Just like he has for most of my adult life, he saw the future and made the implications of it seem like a feature. I can figure out what to think about it for myself.

Kathleen and I were rooting for Steve to defy the odds that came with his diagnosis, and are truly saddened by his passing. We've always appreciated the creative way that he designed products and inspired people.

Our prayers are with Steve's family and friends, that they will find peace and comfort, and one day know how many lives Steve's work touched. May he rest in peace.

My Hockey Season is Over

2011-03-24T05:06:59Z

I officiated the Great Northeast Collegiate Hockey Conference championship game between New Jersey Institute of Technology and Muhlenberg College on February 27. That was my last game of the 2010-2011 hockey season.

I had the opportunity to officiate several other important games before and after that, but turned most of them down since the beginning of February because I was too busy at work to take the time off.

I hope to be able to officiate more games, more often next season than I did at the end of this season. But I have no way of knowing how After6's business will evolve, and what our staffing options will be at that time.

From Zero iPads to Two

2011-03-24T04:32:23Z

Kathleen and I had wanted an iPad for a long time. I hadn't purchased one at Christmas because I knew that the original iPad was late in its product life.

When the iPad 2 release was imminent, I was on a business trip to Western Canada. This was the first business trip I had taken for my full-time job since before Jimmy was born, so Kathleen and I did what we could to keep the family in touch with each other with daily Skype and FaceTime calls.

On a red-eye flight from Seattle the night before the iPad 2 was released, I considered what would happen if I bought an iPad and took it with me on another overnight business trip. Jimmy would be heartbroken and would want me to leave the iPad at home. At that point I knew that I would have to buy two iPads so that one would always be home no matter where I was.

Having two iPads feels extravagant to me, but the total cost of purchasing two iPads is less than what I would spend on a notebook computer for my business use. The value proposition of this version of the iPad made the decision to buy two a fairly easy one for me to make.

Introducing After6 Services LLC

2011-01-12T04:07:19Z

After two years working at Six Apart, I was offered the opportunity to take over Movable Type Pro support for the world outside of Japan if I created an independent company. So with a great deal of support and assistance from Kathleen, I started After6 Services LLC.

After6 was soft-launched in the softest way possible. For technical reasons associated with several contracts on which the business was initially based, I was unable to form the company until January 11, 2011. However, I began working on the business that became After6 on November 1, 2010 when I left Six Apart.

The business has really taken off in the past few months, and we are very optimistic that it will turn out to be a good investment of our time and resources.

Swingset: Finished!

2010-08-25T20:05:51Z

I haven't been keeping up on the status of the swingset lately. I'm sorry if you were depending upon posts to this site to see the progress. The swingset is finished. I finished it back on July 5, and Jimmy and Peter have gotten a ton of use out of it.

I think it's safe to say that I learned a lot about carpentry tools through the process of assembling this kit. Toward the end, I was able to drill some holes myself that hadn't been properly piloted. I wouldn't have known where to do that before I started such a large assembly project.

The best part of doing this, however, is that Jimmy and Peter have a great backyard playground assembled at a fraction of the cost of most comparable swingset kits we compared. It is possible for a geeky dad to build a kit like this from the ground up. Thanks to my brother Scott and to Kathleen for their help with parts of the job.

The Swingset

2010-06-04T21:21:16Z

Around Jimmy's birthday, we purchased a new swingset for the backyard. This has been a big hit already, despite the fact that it isn't finished.

A number of people have asked whether we got an iPad when that product was released. My reaction was, "That swingset is my iPad." It's about the same in terms of cost and it's a platform for a lot of interesting new adventures for the family. It has no electronic components so far. I guess that's the biggest difference.

Since this photo was taken, I've added a set of steps to the front. I hope to get the slide installed this weekend. We'll see how that goes.

A Great Christmas

2010-01-22T06:25:42Z

The Aiello family had a great Christmas and are having a happy new year so far. We had time to spend with our family and closest friends on Christmas Eve at our house, and on Christmas Day at Kathleen's parents' house.

Peter and Jimmy got a lot of terrific gifts and we're thankful to our family and friends who gave many of them. We limited the number of gifts given within the family in the hope that Santa would be able to bring us a new HDTV on or just after Christmas. Luckily that happened for us.

This was a tumultuous year for us as a family. We were thrilled to welcome Peter into our lives. None of us will forget Kathleen's medical situation at the beginning of 2010, and we are all thankful that she has continued to recover her strength and energy.

Kathleen and I both enjoy our jobs immensely. We are fortunate to be doing things that we really enjoy in our professional lives. That makes a huge difference in our quality of life.

I'm still pulling together a Christmas 2009 Photo Set, but I've finally posted several good photos of the family and some of our experiences.

We wish all of our family and friends a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy New Year. We look forward to seeing you in 2010.

All in All, A Nice Halloween

2009-11-01T05:20:24Z

Although we struggled a bit as a family, we had a nice Halloween that we'll remember as a fun time.

Jimmy certainly had a great time. He participated in two parades: his preschool's Halloween Parade on Thursday and the Newtown Halloween Parade on Saturday. He also got to watch the Goodnoe School Halloween Parade on Friday, as he did last year.

Peter and Kathleen have had a tough time for the last few days. They've both had the flu, and Peter was still somewhat under the weather on Halloween. In spite of that, they ended up having a good time.

It seems like everybody in the Philadelphia area is rooting for the Phillies, so this Halloween will probably go down in history for a home loss to the Yankees. But that wasn't as big a part of our night as it was for some people in our neighborhood.

Our Summer Vacation 2009

2009-10-29T23:43:47Z

We had a great time in Stone Harbor at the beginning of September. I've been meaning to post a story linking to some of our photos of the trip, but I've been busy.

Jimmy and Peter loved the Jersey Shore this year. Peter enjoyed sitting on the beach blanket and playing with his toys. Jimmy loves the water and digging in the sand.

The biggest problem of the whole week was that the ocean was rough. That meant that Jimmy had to be in arms length of one of us while he was in the water, even on the guarded beaches.

I tried to disconnect from the daily rat race as much as I could during the week. I posted to Twitter minimally. I didn't do much with Facebook either.

I got online for a little while most nights after we put Jimmy and Peter to bed. But it was never a priority. It was the right decision.

Did I mention that we love firetrucks?

We Love Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in Our House, But...

2009-07-31T16:08:47Z

Jimmy's favorite television program at the moment is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Playhouse Disney. He doesn't watch it that much, but the dialog from that show has really pervaded his consciousness.

Jimmy: Can I have a cookie?

Kathleen: What's the magic word?

Jimmy: (Thinks for a moment.) Meeska Mooska...

Kathleen (interrupting): No! It's "please"!

Here's Jimmy eating his homemade Mickey Mouse cookie.
[ Photo: Kathleen Aiello ]

The 89th Annual Bucks County Firemen's Parade

2009-06-13T18:00:32Z

The 89th Annual Bucks County Firemen's Parade was hosted by the Newtown Fire Association. The entire parade literally passed in front of our house. So I tried to take a photo of every group and piece of aparatus as they went by.

The parade took almost 90 minutes to pass our house. Over 200 trucks passed by, from hand pumpers from the early 1800s to Newtown's Ladder 45 truck that went into service in 2008. You have no idea how happy my son Jimmy was.

You can see all of the photos in my 2009 Bucks County Firemen's Parade set on Flickr.

"Action Streams" Integrated into DaveAiello.com

2009-05-28T14:35:16Z

The first major change I implemented to DaveAiello.com is the integration of Action Streams into the home page. Action Streams is a Movable Type plugin that Six Apart released over a year ago. It lets me pull in the information I post on Twitter, Flickr, Delicious, Vimeo, and other social networking sites that I use and display it along with the blog posts that live on this site.

I'm implementing Action Streams now because I've wanted to provide a more complete picture of what I'm doing on the Internet to people who aren't on following me on Facebook or Twitter.

Let me know what you think of these changes by dropping me an email at dave [at] daveaiello.com. I haven't turned on comments or trackbacks on this site yet (and I'm not sure I will) , so email or direct messages on Twitter are probably the best way to give me feedback.

Making DaveAiello.com More Interesting

2009-05-26T05:10:24Z

I want DaveAiello.com, my personal website, to be more interesting. On the evening of Memorial Day I made some administrative changes to the site to make it easier to upgrade.

The first step is a realignment of sorts. I separated DaveAiello.com from CTDATA.com for the first time. These two sites aren't supposed to have much in common, so they probably shouldn't share the same hosting account.

My goal is to give both sites a clear purpose and to make them both more interesting. I'll be working on changes to DaveAiello.com first.

Peter is Eight Weeks Old Today

2009-03-18T15:29:24Z

Peter is eight weeks old today, so I thought that now was a good time for a quick update.

Peter is a very strong baby who has already rolled over in both directions on more than one occasion. He doesn't yet sleep through the night, but he has a very regular sleeping and feeding schedule, which makes life a lot easier for his parents.

Now that the weather has started to get warmer and Kathleen is able to begin driving again, Peter and Jimmy are getting out more and more. This has helped life around the house immeasurably.

More photos of Peter, Jimmy, and the rest of the family are on my Flickr account or on Kathleen's Facebook or my Facebook accounts. If you want to see the Facebook photos, please friend us.

Happy Birthday, Peter!

2009-02-02T11:38:40Z

Peter Aiello was born on Wednesday morning, January 21 in a nearby hospital. He was 7 pounds 15 ounces and 20.5 inches long at birth. Peter did fine at the hospital and since he has been home.

Although both Peter's and our older son Jimmy's births were via caesarian section, they couldn't have been more different. The c-section for Peter was scheduled, but there were some significant complications for my wife as a result of the surgery.

Kathleen experienced heart failure as a result of peripartum cardiomyopathy and ended up spending five days in the cardiac care unit of a major Philadelphia hospital.

That experience wasn't fun, but Kathleen has made a tremendous recovery and is close to getting back to her old self. The doctors, nurses, and technicians that treated Kathleen did a great job.

Kathleen has been home since Monday night, January 26. We've been very fortunate to have tremendous support from our families and friends, and a very cooperative little baby who sleeps a lot. Jimmy (who is 2 1/2 years old) loves his little brother, and is getting as much attention as we can give him.