The last night.

We both knew this had to come to an end. I should have caught it earlier when we continuously danced around the fact that this wasn't a healthy way to live. Looking back we definitely had fun times. I'll never forget the ship and it's huge kitchen on the ocean, the fancy bathroom in castro with heated floors and the three-headed shower, and the opportunity to pet my first Maine Coon.

We had our ups and downs, but overall, it was a wonderful 118 nights.

I'll miss you Airbnb,
Dustin

1/4

After three months of exploring San Francisco still leaves much to be discovered. The people here are friendly. Different. Inspiring. Most everyone I've met introduces themselves under some tech acronym. Node, UX, Developer, Designer. Everyone is busy, everyone is chasing their dream. Day-to-day life brings me lots of walking, lots of code, lots of thought, lots of challenge.

It's still warm. Afternoons hover around 15c with evenings dipping their toes below 10c. I've seen my breath twice. You can wear the same clothing all year round. A light sweater, shirt, and jeans are fitting for most occasions, most times of the year, most days of your life.

Food is incredible. Yelp is your best friend. It's easy to find a good bite of food not far from anywhere.

San Francisco has brought many new ideas, challenges, loves, and thoughts into my life. The experience has been that much more now that my life side-kick has acquired her US Citizenship and has joined my explorations.

I'm thankful the opportunity to live in a new city, in a new country, surrounded by new people.

I wanted to share my personal approach to backing up my data. This is an incredibly inexpensive solution and has worked great for me so far.

My primary work machine is the MacBook Pro in the middle of the diagram. Every client document: invoices, statement of work, information architecture, brand guidelines, etc lives inside my Dropbox folder (the blue circle). The Mac Mini to the right runs headless and is also connected to Dropbox. Whenever a file is added to my Dropbox folder on my MacBook that file automatically gets mirrored on my Mac Mini (over LAN if I'm at home). That gives me two physical backups and one cloud backup for every file thus far. Since Dropbox has a mobile app I'm able to access my backed up files on my iPhone. I also create symbolic links from various folders on my MacBook to my Dropbox folder: font folder, application backup files, etc this allows me to have folders outside my Dropbox folder also backed up.

Beanstalk (the green circle) is where all of my code lives. Every line of code I write, from personal projects to client work, lives in source control. This allows me to have revisions of all code changes offsite, automated deployments, etc. I'm not going to get into the benefits of source control. Use it. (Note: none of my code is in Dropbox, it lives on my local machine, in Beanstalk, and in Backblaze)

Backblaze is in charge of backing up the entirety of my MacBook Pro. This includes: Dropbox, Beanstalk, system files, etc. (you can see what Backblaze stores here: http://www.backblaze.com/remote-backup-everything.html). They offer unlimited storage and various restore options.

Where does this leave us?

- All client files have two physical backups: Mac Mini & MacBook Pro, and two cloud locations: DropBox & Backblaze
- All code has one physical location: MacBook Pro, and two cloud locations: Beanstalk & Backblaze
- I don't have to do anything to have my files backed up. All services monitor changes on my MacBook Pro and sync accordingly

Costs:
- Dropbox: $9.99 / month for 50GB
- Beanstalk: $25.00 / month for the silver plan
- Backblaze: $5.00 / month for unlimited storage

Total: $40 a month (equivalent to about six fancy Starbucks drinks)

Notes: Once iCloud comes out of beta all of my music will live there. For now, I don't back up my music. I'm a bit of an exception that all music in iTunes was ripped from the physical CD which collects dust on my shelf. I have an external hard drive which stores any photos I take.

I wish there was a "merge all" for my various Apple accounts. MobileMe, developer, itunes, etc.

http://dustinsenos.com/articles/customErrorsInNode

I've created a home for my photo efforts as of late. I try to take a least one photo a day durning my walk to and from the office. Walking with the intention of taking a photo keeps me aware of my surroundings and prevents me from zoning out. It also encourages me to walk different routes in order to keep my surroundings fresh. Feel free to check out my photos over at: http://photography.dustinsenos.com/

Thanks!

I uprooted my life and moved to San Francisco one week ago. Below was a brain dump / train of thought rambling on my experiences as of yesterday.

Day 6

On Saturday September 16th my girlfriend dropped me off for the 6pm flight from Kelowna BC to Vancouver. The plan was to spend a night in a hotel close the Vancouver airport to allow enough time for my early morning visa application. I spent the majority of my adult life in Kelowna, a resort town with just over 160,000 people, 18 golf courses, a ski hill and flourishing wine industry. With leaving Kelowna's semi-arid climate comes leaving some of the best friends a person could ask for. I remind myself that when good things end, other amazing things open, and I know that Kilometers won't be enough to end friendships.

Sunday morning, 7am Vancouver — Visa Application I approach the customs officer and explain that I'm applying for a TN Visa. The scary part of TN Visas is that you apply for them when you're entering the country, flight ticket in hand. He escorts me to Immigrations Screening Room B where I sit and wait for 40 minutes. After four separate questioning periods about my schooling, past projects, past employers, future employer, and living situation, I leave with a smile and a 3 year TN Visa in hand. I shook the immigration officer's hand and thanked him, I wasn't sure if that was illegal. Thanks to Jeptha and Amy from Obvious for helping me prep for a successful application.

Sunday afternoon, 1pm San Francisco — My New Home I chose to live the first month in San Francisco on a boat. A 140 foot ex-cargo boat floating just south of AT&T park. The boat will act as temporary residence while I look for a place for Kim and I to live. Other occupants on the boat include a NASA Rocket Scientist, a 20-something chasing his own start-up, an ex-phone systems engineer, and a New Zealander going to school for his MBA. The boat's interior is large open spaces with prints of galaxies on the metal walls, a kitchen where one wall is a hatch that opens to the ocean, a rooftop hot tub surrounded by astroturf, and small cabins sprinkled on the first of 3 stories (small, as in 50sq feet small). I'm welcomed onboard with beer and chicken wings by Paul who's habited the vessel for the last six months. Paul is in charge of Wi-Fi on the boat.

Monday morning, 11am San Francisco — First Day of Work I take the carpeted elevator the the 8th floor of Obvious' temporary office on Mission Street. For the non-SF'ers, the mission neighborhood seems to be the place to live. It's filled with Taquerias, small bars, street people, hipsters and bikes. The Obvious team is incredibly welcoming, on my desk is a basket full of tech toys, a bottle of Springbank 10yr, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 and a 13" MacBook Air. Thank you. I spent the majority of the morning learning about the american health care system, california taxes, and finalizing my visa with the human resources consultant.

Wednesday afternoon, 5pm SF — Engineering & Beers I sit on a gray L-shaped couch with the rest of the Obvious engineering & product design team. We're a small group, six at this point. The Lift team of three, whom Obvious is incubating, joins us. We openly discuss the technology stack we've chosen, future proofing our products, scaling, continuous integration, TDD, and programing paradigms. I can't help but think about how smart the people surrounding me are, seasoned, experienced, smart people. I'm honored to be involved and can't wait to learn. As they say, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

Saturday afternoon, 3:30pm SF — The First Weekend I sit and write this at Ritual Coffee on Valencia Street. In all directions are people on MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones. An older man sunken in a leather couch reads a paper book while wearing bright green headphones. It's noisy, busy and inspiring. As SF is one hell of an expensive city to live in, I feel like there's an automatic triage of people who don't have the self-drive to make it work.You can't live here and coast. I like that.

How do you become the mayor of Google+ ?

Scrapbook Photos