My new favorite spot in Chicago happens to be right down the street from my office.  The Green Grocer is the best lunch break I could ask for, and I’m headed there almost daily. Fresh organic and locally grown foods coupled with their awesome staff provides a refreshing escape from work.   I love their enthusiasm for sustainable foods and philosophies on healthy living.  Besides, where else can you enjoy a red qinuoa salad and get a free “Eat Plants!” sticker?

Last fall, my friends Laura and Rob wrote a few songs about meerkats for Animal Planet. Animal Planet ended up using them in advertising – and they just put up some videos on the internet that feature the songs. They wrote three songs: The Suricatta Suricatta Song, Meerkat Sinatra and Meerkat Family Reunion. I played the keys for Meerkat Sinatra. Check it out below!

Meerkat Sinatra on YouTube
Meerkat Sinatra at AnimalPlant

Brainchild of my good friends Erik and Emily, this is a music video about a cat-hating guy meeting a cat-loving girl and their trials and tribulations. I helped them with the music, and also make a cameo in the video. Enjoy!

Went to the SEED Conference on Friday, and it ruled. With several insightful and inspirational speakers, my head was blasted with ideas. Among those presenting was Jason Fried of 37 Signals, the founders of Basecamp. These guys write killer webapps with Ruby on Rails, and their “Getting Real” philosophy has changed the way I approach web development. It was great to hear what he had to say. Jake and Jeffrey from Threadless were awesome and funny, and I totally respect those guys (not to mention I’m quite jealous). Jim Coudal from Coudal Partners had a great talk, inspiring us through the story of how his company decided to start creating projects for themselves rather than relying on less exciting work from clients. Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV was quite a character, and the whole audience just about lost it. This guy had an intense energy, a loud hilarity, but also really got me thinking.

The Conference delivered a strong theme about figuring out what makes you happy, building a community around it, and just working your ass off doing what you love. I met a lot of interesting people, and would definitely go again. Next time, however, I would probably stay a bit longer and try to make even more connections.

…out of commission. I now realize how much I take a working lower back for granted. Remind me never to volunteer to play goal keeper after a winter of sitting in front of my laptop. For now, I am a bundle of nerves and sharp pains.

Even after switching to Mac which has vastly improved my productivity, Microsoft continues to find ways to make my life (and the lives of computer users everywhere) unnecessarily difficult. They continue to refuse to support web standards, they create bloated software and charge you up the ass for it, and when it comes to design and usability, they completely miss the point. I suppose I’m stating the obvious here. This rant is stemming from a slew of problems caused by Microsoft’s random unnecessary new proprietary format, .docx (and .xlsx, .pptx, .docm, etc). Wow, thanks Office 2007, you’re really increasing everyones productivity by creating a new incompatible format. Don’t even get me started on Vista.

I will continue to urge all my friends to switch to Mac, continue to let people know they don’t need to buy Microsoft Office. OpenOffice and NeoOffice may have a few less features, but the crucial ones are all there, and unlike Microsoft, they get it right. In addition, these software suites are completely free, and supported by thousands of contributors. Open source is the way, and it boggles my mind when corporations continue to enter lengthy contracts with Microsoft. Buy a Mac, use Open Source software, live freely!

Here are some nice links to open source software:

Mac: http://www.opensourcemac.org/
PC: http://www.opensourcewindows.org/ (if you must still use Windows)

Owen cover…