/ en amy@tcho.com Copyright 2008 2008-12-23T03:06:00-08:00 http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/facebook_wow/ http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/facebook_wow/ Last week, in order to check out TCHO’s fancy facebook page, I ended up signing up.  Finally - right?Wow - there are a lot of people I know out there.  I know - no duh .. but still.  What fun!  I experienced the magic first when out of seemingly no where facebook asked me if I know Mark Meadows.  Well of course I do - haven’t seen Pighed since Maya’s wedding 3 years ago (was is 4?) - but I love him.  Last I heard he was in Paris again .. or maybe with a French woman .. oh I dont know - cant keep up.  But maybe now I can.But - no I can’t because even w/ FB - the problem remains the same.  I cant keep up because I am too busy with my life - my husband, my son, my job (hey! anyone want to buy any chocolate???) my commute, my fantastic place in Petaluma, my family in Petaluma, my friends .. all over the place, my husbands crazy SRL frigin’ everything, T and A (not that kind! - well .... )xmas.  Oye.  So thanks facebook - now I have even more email and one more place in life to be sort of in/at/doing.  But it is a hoot when I am there. 2008-12-23T03:06:00-08:00 http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/product_revolution/ http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/product_revolution/ Carl Nolte’s recently wrote an article titled “Some things are better now than in the ‘good old days.’” In the article, he sites Peet’s coffee, Boudin’s bread and Anchor Steam beer as examples of products that started a product quality revolution so that now, grocery aisles are filled with great bread, great coffee can be had on almost every street corner and better beer can be had in every bar. According to Nolte, Narsai David, a regional food expert, credits “the young people who demanded better products. We had a whole generation of kids who had it good all their lives. They created a taste and a demand for better stuff.” So the Bay Area can now claim great coffee, great bread and great beer. We at TCHO believe that this demanding generation of kids, the Millennials, is now creating a taste and demand for better chocolate. Just as Peet’s, Boudin’s and Anchor Steam created their own product revolutions, so will TCHO. 2008-12-20T11:03:00-08:00 http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/facebook/ http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/facebook/ What a crazy phenomenon, this Facebook.  So much more deep than anything that MySpace could produce, yet MySpace very much paved the way for Facebook’s existence and wild popularity.  Almost really more of a social networking *application* than just a collection of “personal web sites,” I know firsthand how adept this application is at getting people back in touch with one another.  And I am not the only one...most of my “proper” friends have Facebook profiles and tell me how they are connecting with people they haven’t seen nor heard from in 20+ years.  This is truly harnessing the power of the internet for furthering social interactions.  These interactions happen not only over the web, but manifest in actual people meeting in actual places; embracing, reminiscing, enjoying each others’ company.  This, I believe, is what “social” networking is all about. Anyone for scrabble? Oh, and you can become a fan of TCHO! :^) 2008-12-16T03:29:00-08:00 http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/douser/ http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/douser/ Currently I am working on animating some spring steel for a project with the composer Paul Dresher, percussionst Steven Schick and director Rinde Eckert. I am building some “instruments” for Steve to interact with. I have chosen spring steel and bi-metal bandsaw blade material for it’s memory and acoustic qualities. What I am after is a mechanism which exhibits somewhat chaotic behavior so as to create a different tension between the performer and the instrument than one usually experiences. And by that I mean for audience and performer. Here is a piece of 1” bandsaw material:And this is some spring steel :And some interaction with it.Steven Schick is a master percussionist, I am not. 2008-12-14T14:38:00-08:00 http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/my_greatest_gift/ http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/my_greatest_gift/ As we approach this time of the year where giving is the watchword, I am always reminded of Christmas 1985 when I learned a personal lesson about receiving. I had received a “tin parachute” when my employer Crown Zellerbach, was bought out by a British financier and was enjoying some well-deserved time off. But, ever the entrepreneur, I wanted to explore what it was like to start a business. And what better business to start during the holidays than a Christmas tree lot. A friend had struggled with a tree lot the year before because he was way under capitalized. He had a location in Fairfax, connection to some tree distributors and a very small wreck of an airstream trailer. I had the capital so, on a handshake, away we went. Fencing went up, trees arrived, the airstream was placed on the lot as an office, we made cider and wreaths and tied hundreds of trees on top of cars. Fairfax is an interesting place – home to some very wealthy Marinites, some subtle marijuana growers and some real poverty. We saw them all at the tree lot. I particularly remember a family that walked up on a very cold day – mom and three kids under 10 years old, looking very scruffy and underdressed for the weather. The mom asked me if we had any Charlie Brown trees – you know, the ones that are all out of shape, the ones with bare spots that no one wants. She told me that she didn’t have much money but wanted her kids to have a Christmas tree even though they didn’t have electricity for lights. We could well afford to and did give her the prettiest tree on the lot and felt good about our generosity. On Christmas Eve day, the propane heater we had in the airstream trailer fell over and caught the trailer and subsequently, all the remaining Christmas trees on fire. No one was hurt, there weren’t many trees left on the lot, the trailer really was a wreck to begin with and we had made a ton of money so it was hard to be very sad about this event. After the Fairfax fire department finished putting the fire out, they came back with their whole brigade and had their picture taken in front of the burned out lot – they wanted it for next year’s Christmas card. Later in the day, while we were cleaning up, I noticed the Charlie Brown tree mom standing at the front of the lot. She came up to me and said how sorry she was that we had lost our home (the airstream) and our business and handed me $5 to help us through such a tough time. I was stunned, knowing that I really didn’t need the money and knowing what this $5 really meant to her. What to do? After tearing up, I hugged her and thanked her for her generosity and assured her that her contribution meant a great deal to me. We wished each other a Merry Christmas and I walked away with the greatest gift, the gift of knowing how to receive. I later put that $5 with my profits from the tree lot and made a sizable donation to the Fairfax food bank. I can think of no gift that has made more of an impact on me than that $5 from the Charlie Brown tree mom. 2008-12-09T04:43:00-08:00 http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/three_year_pregnancy/ http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/three_year_pregnancy/ What I love about a start up is building something from scratch. The last time I did it with Wired, we had the advantage of essentially building software (media is software that ships on time). In the end, whether writing, editing, designing, laying out books, making TV shows, or building websites, it was about pushing pixels around a screen. Chocolate is different. Chocolate is atoms, and is made with atoms (great big tons of atoms), and atoms are definitely not pixels. They can’t be pushed around, and they obey immutable laws that are barely susceptible to human will. My father was a mechanical engineer, and every day I walk into the factory, I develop new respect for him and his challenges. It’s taken three years of nonstop effort, lots of sweat, tears, and even blood moving those atoms into position to get to this moment –- and I suppose I’m feeling lucky right now that it’s only taken three years.There are no words to express the relief and joy and sense of accomplishment that this picture (thanks Johnny Grace) represents: our first 1.0 chocolate formulation ("Chocolatey"), hot off the TCHO-refurbished (by Doug in grey tee shirt) Bosch SIG wrapping machine, in our final 1.0 packaging, in our first POP (point-of-purchase) display.Tom calls it going external. I call it giving birth. After a three year pregnancy. Phew. 2008-11-26T03:14:00-08:00 http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/my_1957_fairlane/ http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/my_1957_fairlane/ 30 years ago a bought a 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 for $50. All the windows had cracks, the paint was faded, the headliner was almost gone, the carpet was missing and a bunch of dents. It was a beauty. Under the hood was a 312 cu.in. Thunderbird Turnpike Cruiser motor. It could easily seat 7 and in the trunk I could fit a drum set, guitar amp and beer making it a good band vehicle. Oh yeah and a really great set of horns. Not the little beep beep things you get nowadays, but twin horns with a big deep sound—Get otta my way!I drove it all over the place.Here it is at Ocean Beach Up to the Sacramento river delta with my photography classon Broadway in SFaround Northern CaliforniaNow 30 years ago this month we experienced the tragedy of the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk and I will never forget that day. I was driving the Fairlane that day.I was going to a free concert in Berkeley that morning and I headed down Van Ness Ave at around 11am. My friends were living in an apartment right across McAllister St. from City Hall. When I got to Van Ness and McAllister there were cop cars surrounding City Hall. Lights flashing, sirens, ambulances, a big mess. I made a u-turn, picked up my friends who were waiting out front and we headed off to the Bay Bridge. “What’s up back there?” I asked and they hadn’t heard anything yet. Well not to worry cause we were excited about going to the Talking Heads for free on the UC Berkeley Campus. Got up onto the Bridge, flipped on the radio for some tunes and that’s when we heard the news. Big shock. By the time we got to Sproul Plaza seems like everyone had heard and there was a really strange air of anticipation and anxiety floating around. The Talking Heads came out got into their set and eventually played “Psycho Killer”. As I said I’ll never forget that day. 2008-11-22T03:31:00-08:00 http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/getting_millennials_right_and_wrong/ http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/getting_millennials_right_and_wrong/ Our first intern and favorite Millennial (even if he doesn’t necessarily appreciate the association) Michael Korczowski calls our attention to this bit of Millennial collaboration:More about this video here. 2008-11-13T19:43:01-08:00 http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/from52to48withlove/ http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/from52to48withlove/ Start healing. 2008-11-08T08:46:00-08:00 http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/skydivingindoors/ http://www.tcho.com/blog/comments/skydivingindoors/ Couple months back, my lovely wife took me skydiving for my birthday. Best part was, there was no jumping, falling, or fear of the parachute not opening. It was all indoors…in a vertical wind tunnel.  So cool.Maybe next birthday, the real thing?!Here I am, pre-flight, with friend and fellow flier, Bryana little footage too… 2008-11-05T07:32:00-08:00