For tools, I’ll be using only my Android phone and free apps that are readily available in the Android Market (all of which are also covered in my forthcoming book).

First, and most obviously, I’ll be tweeting from the road. My Twitter app of choice is Twidroid, with the additional google maps 4 twidroid plug-in to add my current location into each tweet and allow all fans to pinpoint our team’s progress on the course:

This app combination uses my phone’s built-in GPS to insert a Google Maps link to my precise location:

Anyone following along from home can click the link in my Twitter stream to go straight to the map:

So, that’s how you’ll know where I am, but I know you’ll still miss my smiling (hopefully) face and still want to hear from me about what and how I’m doing. So, I’m going to try to stream live video from the race course using Qik. It’s pretty easy to use. Just launch the app, go online, and start recording. The video feed will start streaming to my personal Qik page, and I can configure my settings to post an update to Twitter when I go live. Here’s what it will look like on my phone:

And here’s what it will look like on the web, all nicely geotagged and everything:

But I won’t be just a talking head. You can participate too. See that “Share your thoughts…” box in the previous screen? Whatever you type there will show up on my phone screen, allowing me to “take calls” during the show. Finally, if some episodes are good enough to save or publish for posterity, I’ll tweet its archived URL or embed it on my Facebook wall:

For other media (audio, photos, or video I don’t intend to stream live), I’ll use Pixelpipe (okay, the free version gets you photos only, but the Pro version is only a dollar):

I’ll send media to my blog, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever, so keep an eye on all outlets of my online media empire for minute-by-minute updates (for as long as my stamina holds out).

Thank you, Donny.

When I read Infinite Jest, the 1,100-page book required two bookmarks to read: one for the body text and one for the 100+ pages of end notes, which actually advanced the plot and were not considered supplemental to the text. I would have loved to have a more convenient way to access these endnotes where they occurred in the main narrative, popping them open to read them and collapsing back to the main text when finished. And the end notes were in a tiny font, which I would have loved to increase to read more easily. And the book weighed more than an iPad, so reduced weight would also be a feature, not to mention an easier form factor (have you ever tried to hold open a 1,100-page book for reading over an extended period of time)?

With regard to the endnotes, I could see many different ways of handling the content in ways much in the spirit of DFW’s intent. Here’s one approach that The Atlantic took for an online version “Host,” a print story by DFW that included heavy footnotes (linked as pop-ups on the page).

As a comparison, here’s what the story looked like in print:

What will it look like on the iPad? I don’t know, but I’d be willing to bet that I’d read the whole book again to find out.

UPDATE 4/15: Here’s what the sample looks like in iBooks, but selecting the endnote takes me outside the scope of the preview, so I’m not sure how it’s actually integrated into the experience:

Does it just shoot you to a page in the back? If so, is it easy to get back to the page you were on before clicking the link? I don’t see any “Back” button in the iBooks interface.

UPDATE 5/19: I’m reading Outliers now, and I like how it handles endnotes:

Note: I’ve coauthored a book on Best Android Apps. I’m running this post simultaneously on my support blog for the book and at O’Reilly’s Answers site.

Last night, I needed my Garmin to get somewhere important, but when I reached for it in the glove box, I remembered I’d loaned it out to the other car in our family and hadn’t gotten it back yet. What to do?

No Garmin in the glove box, but I did have my G1 on me, and the directions on Google Maps had saved me on numerous occasions, so I fired it up and plugged in my destination:

That Navigate option was new to me. I’d remembered hearing about Google Navigation coming to phones running versions of Android below 2.0 (my G1 is running Android 1.6, but note that Navigation is still not available for my Motorola Cliq, which is still back on Android 1.5), but I hadn’t had the chance to look into it yet. So, here was my chance. I pressed Navigate …

Turns out I wasn’t quite ready to roll yet, because Navigation required an additional (free) text-to-speech download to work. The download process was a little buggy, which forced me to install it a couple times, but I after I closed Maps and started back up again it seemed to work. I pressed Navigate again …

Here’s what my new turn-by-turn directions and route map now looked with Google Navigation turned on:

Ready to get driving, I switched over to the turn-by-turn map screen, but I could have used Street View if I’d wanted (it’s neat to look at but not as usable for actually driving, especially since I actually had a real-time street view right in front of me):

I also could have turned on a selection of layers to show gas stations, banks, traffic, and parking along my route:

All of these bells and whistles are great, interesting, and good fun, but for my phone to actually serve as a viable replacement for my Gamin GPS, it would need to speak to me, telling me when to turn. Well, it does, and in my experience, it worked just as well as my Garmin, and all for free. If you’re looking to buy a GPS unit for your car but already have a phone running Android 1.6 or higher, at least give Google Navigation a try first. You might just save yourself a few hundred dollars.

But what does Google Navigation Lady sound like? Take a listen:

Whether out of embarrassment, hesitation to speak ill (or say things that might be interpreted that way, just because of the content) of a previous employer, or just because of a need to put the experience behind me, I’ve been publicly silent on the topic of my brief hiatus, but enough time has gone by that I think I can safely tell the tale to a wider audience. Still, because I generally intend this blog to be appropriate for all audiences, I think I’ll use the “Continue Reading” link for the first time ever on this particular post.

Though I was happy in my current job in April 2007, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by an ad I noticed for a Crafts Editor position:

Talented, creative, experienced crafts editor needed to lead a crafts program of approximately 15-20 titles per year. Proven success in idea generation, hands-on editing from concept through finished book, and established knowledge of the crafts market required. We’re looking for an editor with great taste, exceptional creativity, and the skills necessary to make innovative and sophisticated books that will appeal to the newest generation of crafters. Minimum 2-3 years of craft book editing experience and a working knowledge of both hard and soft crafts required. Personal passion for crafting preferred.

For reasons I outlined at the time, this looked like a logical next step in my career, a way to combine my private passions (crafting) with my profession (editing). So, I applied and was soon called in for an interview. The first few questions I was asked included one that would set the tone for much of the ones that would follow: “Are you easily offended?”

It turns out that this question really needed to be asked early, as a few previous applicants had ended their candidacy for the position at the point in the interview when they learned about the publisher’s core business line: “highly illustrated, sensual lifestyle books,” a mission that Boston Magazine would later praise (?) as “smut for sophisticates” in an article you can preview here without having to follow the link:

Yes, though the photographer and cofounding publisher is tremendously talented at what he does with a camera, as demonstrated in his SFW work on the books I would eventually edit (for example, see his pictures in my knitting and origami titles):

I learned in my interview that his specialty (and the publisher’s previously defined niche) is a little more along these lines:

Well, I guess I’m not easily offended, or I just really wanted the chance to edit craft books, because I made it through the rest of the interview and was offered the position. My belief that this was a good career move for me did require some convincing at home, along with a discussion regarding the inevitable issue of what friends and family would think when they visited the home page for the “craft publisher” I told them I would now be working for, but I have an understanding spouse who wants me to be happy in my profession, so she ultimately left it up to me.

For the most part, my job was as tame as you’d expect for someone acquiring books on sewing, card making, and collage jewelry, and aside from sitting through editorial pitch meetings with language that would make a sailor blush (at some places, it’s hard to imagine what a sexual harassment lawsuit would actually look like when sexual objectification was part of the premise of the business), I didn’t have much involvement in the day-to-day dealings of the steamier side of the business. Everyone liked to laugh at me as the up-tight prude in the office, the only one actually not expected to be viewing porn during office hours.

Still, as much as I insisted to people who knew me that I was completely uninvolved in this part of the business, the context did tend to breed incorrect assumptions when I told friends I was working on a book titled Sensual Knits. To be fair, though, I could see their point. I mean, the same studio in which the cover for that book was shot also saw a fair amount of the “humpy humpy,” as it was sometimes known on office shoot days. But many books of this sort were actually shot on location in fancy places I wasn’t invited, and the studio door was always closed (right behind my cube) when unclothed models were present, so my usual 9 to 5 was less lurid than my friends would like to think.

Of course, that truth didn’t make it any easier for me to explain to my five-year-old niece, my neighbor’s young girls, and the parents of other models for our Jellybean Tiaras (a great kids craft book on how to make jewelry from candy, which I’m sad to see will likely never be published) photo shoot what photos like this were doing on the walls of our studio cum office (no pun intended):

And when I say that the humpy humpy didn’t really have much impact on my day-to-day work, I don’t mean to imply that I don’t have my share of stories to tell of the occasions when that side of the business inevitably crept over into my cube. For example, my boss’s office has a pretty big window, so it was kind of hard not to notice simulated sex on her desk (for a “quickies” book) from where I sat.

There was also the time when I received a batch of projects from the author of Switch ‘N Stitch (another book–on turning old sweaters into new wearables, home accents, and accessories–that was completed but will probably never be published) and questioned the size of one of the cardigans. It looked rather small (mostly because the felting process was a little more extreme than the contributor probably expected) and I was wondering if it would fit any of the models we’d booked for the shoot. Good thing it was humpy humpy day at the office and one of the models was about that same size.

Over the pizza we’d ordered in to serve during a break in shooting for models, stylists, etc., I expressed my concerns to my boss (the photographer), and he called over the model, who was reclining in a bathrobe with her pizza over by the window (shades open, mind you). As she approached, my boss held out the tiny cardigan and said, “Here, try this on to see if it fits.” A real pro, used to taking directions, she nonchalantly nodded her head, put her pizza down, and dropped her robe, leaving her without a stitch on. As my mouth dropped (along with my eyes, briefly, before quickly darting back up upon seeing a piercing that was never intended for the public), she leisurely attempted to close the cardigan around her small torso, while someone pulled her robe back up and someone else made a frantic dash to the window to close the shades that faced the exterior of our giant office park. Anyway, the important part, which is all I really felt like relaying when I got home, was that the garment did not fit, so I’d need the author to come up with a replacement project.

And our poor editorial assistant … Wait, scratch that. Who am I kidding? Here is a guy who truly loved his job. When he wasn’t throwing cats (for a gift book called Catapult) or finding inspirational quotes online (for another gift book, which bears his nom de plume), he was following around naked models, watching porn, and taking trips to sex shops. A computer technician once came in to fix his machine and had a very confusing conversation with the boss before leaving.

“I was looking for an Ethernet cable and I found … er … sex toys in his drawer. I just though you should know,” he said in a very serious and embarrassed tone. To which the boss replies, “What?!? He should have returned those dildos weeks ago! I told him that we wouldn’t get a refund after 30 days!” The guy practically ran screaming through the door, leaving an office full of laughter in the cartoon-style cutout shape of his body. Good times.

Alas, the good times (along with the bad, which I don’t feel like dwelling on in this space) are gone. After laying off all staff and closing up shop in February 2008, the company no longer really exists in more than just name, but the owners have since gone on to found a smutty-romance-novel ebook company. The wave of the future. One hundred percent electronic! And I wish them well. For whatever else I might have to say about my time at their other failed business, they certainly supplied me with what you’d have to admit are some pretty good stories that have made me laugh to beat the band. Parts anyway.

Exactly two weeks ago today, I started a new training videoblog. Beyond moving all running-specific chatter away from my main personal site here, I had another specific purpose in mind, which I didn’t reveal at the time because my plan required acceptance of an application I’d filed on that same day. I received that acceptance today, and I’m excited to share the news with my followers here, in the hopes that you’ll also follow and support me over there.

First, a little background. Training for and running the San Francisco Marathon this year was incredibly important and rewarding for me, and the experience made me want to use a similar opportunity to do something even more important for others. I want to take on a challenge much bigger than anything I could accomplish solely for myself.

As you may also know, Kristina has participated in the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge twice, and each time she inspired me by her commitment, passion, and success. Her athletic accomplishments inspired me to run San Francisco, and now that she’s not applying for DMFC herself this year, her charitable achievements have inspired me to carry the torch that she started. I have been truly moved by her work for DFMC, which has highlighted the research her contributions have funded. It’s an effort I want to be a part of myself.

So, I was thrilled and honored to be selected among many applicants to run the Boston Marathon in April to raise money for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Though I must raise at least $3,250 to support research that will help eradicate cancer, my personal goal will be significantly more ambitious.

The DFMC raises funds for the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The DFMC directs 100% of funds raised to the Barr Program, which enables gifted young scientists at the leading edge of discovery to achieve better cure rates and to enhance patients’ quality of life.

I hope you will support my challenge by giving a gift to my run and, in doing so, help bring an end to the challenge of cancer. I haven’t been assigned a donations page yet, but I’ll post it to my sidebar and my About page as soon as I have it. Please consider following me there, as my training blog also begins to document my fundraising efforts for this cause that’s so much bigger than my own humble performance. Thanks in advance for any donation you’re able to make, and I look forward to seeing you around there soon (or, actually, you seeing me around there, I suppose). I truly appreciate your support.

Now that the whole thing is up, here’s a roundup of all the pieces:

• Scratching My Seven-Year Itch
• San Francisco Marathon Dramedy, Act I
• San Francisco Marathon Dramedy, Act II
• San Francisco Marathon Dramedy, Act III
• San Francisco Marathon Dramedy, Act IV

Thanks again to everyone who supported me throughout my training, followed me during the race, and left such thoughtful comments for me on Twitter, Facebook, email, etc. I really appreciated it and know that all many of you wanted in return was to actually hear how it went. So, these posts are for you (you know who you are).