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Mercedes 300d Time Travel

By: Chris Greacen - 11/15/2023
The Woods & Barclay guys shared a video recently of a pristine 300d specimen with about 1500 miles on the odometer that they found through its owner north of Montreal. Take a peek at this thing which is as shiny and new as the day it rolled off the line.

It's especially a treat to have someone so knowledgeable point out all of the details. I have to imagine that there are parts of that car that even an expert hasn't seen before - the crispness and texture of the dash. It's worth scrubbing through the video to see how deep they go on this vehicle.

There are so many of these old things on the road in the bay area, many running biodiesel or veggie oil. People like that these things are sturdy, long-lasting, and tough. It's easy to forget that these things were the top of the pyramid in luxury and engineering in their day.

The convo at the end of the video brings this into perspective - even though it's the same model, daily drivers are really a different breed from a showpiece like this one-of-a-kind vehicle. Most people can get what they need from a re-furbed vehicle with 250000 miles on it (or 350 in my case).

More Mercedes Love: Soup Classic Motoring

By: Chris Greacen - 10/22/2023
I've been really enjoying the videos that George Karellas have shared on his Soup Classic Motoring channel on YouTube. His lockdown restoration of a

Just watch one video and you'll get the gist -- cool music, mesmerizing narrative, clear steps for working on these things (the stop-motion disassembly is strikingly effective). How is he able to make the rebuilding of a front-end so interesting?

All of these strip-down, brush-down, repaint scenes scratch the cleaning fetish itch too. A fetish which I certainly lack -- BUT I have noticed that I'm cleaning the engine bay of my 300td more frequently.

The Irish sideshow at the end is especially magical. Watch this end-to-end if you can.

Parting thought, I think I might need to make a new 'category' for these W123 videos and photos as I think there will be more that show up on this blog.

Technical Debt Talk at Bay ALN Meetup

By: Chris Greacen - 10/19/2023
I recently wrote a post on Lab Zero's blog on the topic of recognizing sources of technical debt. This caught the attention of one of the organizers of the Bay ALN meetups and they invited me to present on the topic.

I put a brief talk together based on the outline of that blog post and delivered it the other night. I think I can embed a couple slides from the deck I used...

The presentation followed this path through the story.

  • Intro, caveats
  • Tech debt background
  • Recognizing trouble
  • Two common sources
  • Recognizing progress
  • The real casualty
  • Two questions for you

Give this a listen if you're curious about how this went or if you're interested in Technical Debt.

Mercedes 300td love

By: Chris Greacen - 10/14/2023
I've been working on getting my 1984 300td back onto the road after a long hibernation during the pandemic. I got this thing in the early 2010s and it's been a joy to drive. If you're familiar with these things, you know exactly what I mean. For the uninitiated, I'll break it down for you.

A beige w123 mercedes wagon is   parked at the beach with a beige surfboard on the roof

These w123 cars were designed and built by Mercedes during a time when the company gave incredible amount of power and permission to its engineers. It was an engineering-led effort to design and build these vehicles. This resulted in a ridiculously expensive and long-lived vehicle.

In 1984 dollars this vehicle cost around $36k, which would be about $100k in 2023 dollars. I bought it for about $2500.

It's steel. It leaks a little oil. I've replaced the engine during the time I've owned it (long story). It needs a little bit of work pretty often at this point, but it's still on track to reach a million miles.

I run this thing on biodiesel thanks to the availability of B20 at the nearby Biofuel Oasis. But I know that this isn't exactly an eco-conscious car when you look at the particulate, COx, and NOx emissions.

There's a great video that I came across that's really a love-letter to these w123 and w115 cars. Worth watching if you're interested/curious. If you scroll up to 14:13 on the video, the host addresses the environmental trade-offs and impact of driving this kind of car. Take a peek:

It was surprising to see the mention of tire particulate pollution. I have a hunch we'll near more and more about this as more people convert to electric vehicles. We live near many highways and I'm pretty sure that we're bathing in these particles. More on this in another post.

If you see me driving around, honk and wave!

Doubleplus Alright at Tamarack 10/7 photos

By: Chris Greacen - 10/12/2023
Couple of great photos worth sharing from our double-double on Saturday 10/7 shot by Paul Ivey.

We're grateful for the chance to share these songs with friends at a place like Tamarack. Grateful also to the other bands who played: Da Pupz and Cassowary. Would do this again in a heartbeat.

Next up for us: we have to record some music. We've started work on Record #3 and we haven't even really done #1 yet. We'll get there...

More about Doubleplus Alright over on the website.

10/05/2023  —  MUSIC  — 

Double Double Saturday 10/7

09/01/2023  —  TECH  — 

Wishing a good Labor Day weekend, calling out blog posts

08/28/2023  —  TECH  — 

Two Most Common Sources Of Technical Debt

03/08/2023  —  TECH  — 

Lies we tell ourselves: the 10xEngineer

02/13/2023  —  TECH  — 

Reflecting on the project that started it all

02/08/2023  —  TECH  — 

A vision for Lab Zero

01/02/2023  —  MUSIC  — 

Trip Down Memory Lane: Black Market Music

09/08/2022  —  MUSIC  — 

Outdoor Doodles

08/22/2022  —  FUN  — 

Austria Trip

10/05/2021  —  MUSIC  — 

New Day Undone

10/04/2021  —  MUSIC  — 

Blert album release: New Day Undone

03/09/2021  —  MUSIC  — 

Song-A-Day 2021: Mile On Ice

01/02/2021  —  TECH  — 

This damn site

12/07/2020  —  MUSIC  — 

New Blert Song: Escape

11/22/2020  —  MUSIC  — 

Bump Doodle on Instagram

09/09/2020  —  MUSIC  — 

New blert song: CTRL-Z

08/23/2020  —  MUSIC  — 

Blert - For Obvious Reasons

07/17/2020  —  MUSIC  — 

Doodles 2020

04/28/2020  —  TECH  — 

Chris On The Bridge: Build To Learn

04/21/2020  —  TECH  — 

Chris On The Bridge: Self-Healing Teams

04/05/2020  —  TECH  — 

Chris On The Bridge: Embrace Risk

04/05/2020  —  TECH  — 

Chris On The Bridge: Are You Agile?

04/04/2020  —  TECH  — 

Chris On The Bridge: What is Essential?

04/02/2020  —  TECH  — 

Chris On The Bridge: Trust From Home

01/22/2020  —  TECH  — 

Why is Agile Popular?

02/04/2019  —  TECH  — 

12 Signs Your Client Trusts You

12/07/2018  —  MUSIC  — 

#MyMusical2018 Part 5: Other Shows

12/06/2018  —  MUSIC  — 

#MyMusical2018 Part 4: Doodles (something New)

12/05/2018  —  MUSIC  — 

#MyMusical2018 Part 3: Open mics and other gigs

12/04/2018  —  MUSIC  — 

#MyMusical2018 Part 2: Song-A-Day 2018

12/03/2018  —  MUSIC  — 

#MyMusical2018 Part 1: Doubleplus Alright

06/29/2016  —  FUN  — 

Missing 1963 Bing Log

05/10/2015  —  MUSIC  — 

Doubleplus-Alright

03/06/2015  —  MUSIC  — 

Om One

02/19/2015  —  MUSIC  — 

Music is all around us.

02/17/2015  —  MUSIC  — 

Leftovers from MP3 Compression

01/13/2015  —  FUN  — 

Favorite Friends Episode

10/29/2014  —  FUN  — 

A Wave

08/22/2014  —  FUN  — 

OMG Even More Artwork From Mad Men, Season 7 (The Art Department)

08/21/2014  —  FUN  — 

Holy Crap Even More Artwork From Mad Men, Season 7 (Peggy Olson)

08/20/2014  —  FUN  — 

Even More Artwork From Mad Men, Season 7 (Ted Chaough, Pete Best)

08/19/2014  —  FUN  — 

More Artwork From Mad Men, Season 7 (Don Draper, Jim Cutler)

08/18/2014  —  FUN  — 

Artwork Seen In Mad Men, Season 7

05/06/2014  —  FUN  — 

Chrissy Tomasco and the 2014 Overnight Walk

02/20/2014  —  MUSIC  — 

Observed: Scat/Rap Counterpoint

01/16/2014  —  FUN  — 

2013 Overheards and Observeds

12/27/2013  —  FUN  — 

A wave

10/22/2013  —  FUN  — 

A wave

09/25/2013  —  FUN  — 

Instagram Embed Test

09/25/2013  —  MUSIC  — 

Manatee gig 9/27/2013 at Hemlock Tavern!

06/25/2013  —  MUSIC  — 

Manatee gig 6/28/2013 at Thee Parkside!

06/05/2013  —  MUSIC  — 

Manatee gig 6/6/2013

06/04/2013  —  TECH  — 

CTA- the most important part of your page.

06/03/2013  —  TECH  — 

All web apps

05/06/2013  —  MUSIC  — 

Manatee KXLU session

03/28/2013  —  FUN  — 

Surfing on Easter Sunday

12/20/2012  —  FUN  — 

2012 Overheards and Observeds

02/29/2012  —  TECH  — 

Strata Conference

02/22/2012  —  MUSIC  — 

Song-A-Day In-Progress

06/29/2010  —  TECH  — 

And Boom!

02/25/2010  —  MUSIC  — 

Song-A-Day what a difference 25 days make

12/15/2009  —  TECH  — 

Rubicon Project Ad Network Sloughs-off Small Publishers

10/23/2009  —  FUN  — 

Shopping for Used Surfboards

10/19/2009  —  MUSIC  — 

HELL -- Your Soundtrack For Halloween

09/28/2009  —  FUN  — 

Story of a Surfboard: SF Green Ten-Footer

09/08/2009  —  FUN  — 

Story of a Surfboard: 1963 Bing

09/05/2009  —  FUN  — 

Dings With Stories

08/18/2009  —  FOOD  — 

Absurd Film/Foodie Moment

06/24/2009  —  TECH  — 

Allspaw talks at Velocity Conf.

04/05/2009  —  FOOD  — 

Menu and Wines from Dinner at Cyrus

03/29/2009  —  TECH  — 

Twitter-Based Blog Syndication Flowchart

03/26/2009  —  TECH  — 

Twitter-Based Surf Report Flowchart

03/09/2009  —  MUSIC  — 

Top 10 things to do now that Song-A-Day is done:

03/02/2009  —  MUSIC  — 

Song-A-Day 2009: DONE

02/23/2009  —  MUSIC  — 

Song-A-Day Notes From The Studio

02/15/2009  —  MUSIC  — 

Song-A-Day Week 2: Still truckin'

02/09/2009  —  MUSIC  — 

Song-A-Day Week 1: Awesome

01/26/2009  —  MUSIC  — 

29 Again: Song-A-Day

01/19/2009  —  TECH  — 

GoFish Becomes Betawave

01/17/2009  —  MUSIC  — 

Song-A-Day Shopping List

01/07/2009  —  FOOD  — 

Espresso. Pulled, Not Stirred

12/25/2008  —  FUN  — 

Merry Christmas!

12/19/2008  —  FUN  — 

FOTC Season II

12/15/2008  —  TECH  — 

Darwin's moth: a survey of behavioral targeting solutions

12/12/2008  —  TECH  — 

100k Pageviews For Free

12/06/2008  —  FUN  — 

Mad Scientist

12/05/2008  —  FUN  — 

The Magic of Surf

12/04/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

The Darjeeling LTD. Tunes

12/03/2008  —  FUN  — 

Blert, A Zeen

12/01/2008  —  TECH  — 

The End Is Near

10/31/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

A Great Pumpkin

10/09/2008  —  FOOD  — 

New Crop of Food TV

10/02/2008  —  FUN  — 

Time To Take A Stand

09/22/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

Seth Adds To His Music Store

09/18/2008  —  FUN  — 

Skate or die

09/03/2008  —  TECH  — 

A day on Chrome

08/21/2008  —  FUN  — 

Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty

08/20/2008  —  TECH  — 

Digsby will change the way you communicate online

07/29/2008  —  FUN  — 

No Effing Way

07/16/2008  —  TECH  — 

twitterfountain, fun stuff!

06/27/2008  —  TECH  — 

Post 1000

06/26/2008  —  FUN  — 

The horror of AOL

06/25/2008  —  FUN  — 

Fun with Wordle

06/16/2008  —  FOOD  — 

RIP tastespotting.com

06/13/2008  —  PHOTO  — 

twitpic, kinda cool...

06/12/2008  —  FUN  — 

Ryan & Chris score surfings hat trick.

06/05/2008  —  TECH  — 

Matt Freeman to GoFish

05/29/2008  —  FOOD  — 

Even More Shrimps...

05/28/2008  —  FUN  — 

Drunk Goldblum Meme

05/15/2008  —  FUN  — 

Linda Mar Extreeeem #2

05/14/2008  —  FUN  — 

Double Surf-Swap Happiness This Weekend.

05/08/2008  —  FOOD  — 

Super Foodie

05/07/2008  —  FUN  — 

Hello, my name is Stud

05/01/2008  —  FUN  — 

Geo Quiz

04/24/2008  —  FUN  — 

All-Time Favorite Commercial

04/21/2008  —  FOOD  — 

Foody Weekend

04/18/2008  —  FOOD  — 

April in Carneros

04/17/2008  —  TECH  — 

AdTech: Widgets and Gadgets

04/17/2008  —  FUN  — 

Greacens in the news again...

04/17/2008  —  FUN  — 

Effing greatest video effer.

04/16/2008  —  FUN  — 

All time favorite video

04/15/2008  —  TECH  — 

GFSearcher=Nutch

04/15/2008  —  FUN  — 

Robert Greacen Dies at 87

04/09/2008  —  FUN  — 

SF's fleaflicker works, crowds duped

04/09/2008  —  TECH  — 

bashWebTest Lives!

03/24/2008  —  TECH  — 

Simple Rss Widgets

03/19/2008  —  TECH  — 

COPPA, friend or foe?

03/17/2008  —  FUN  — 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

03/05/2008  —  TECH  — 

Social Widgets

03/04/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

29 done...

02/28/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

Song-a-day almost done!

02/25/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

I can see the light!

02/19/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

Still playing catchup

02/18/2008  —  TECH  — 

GoFish, For Reals

02/14/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

More Lack of Engineering

02/13/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

Engineering... and lack of

02/10/2008  —  PHOTO  — 

Surfed, not rocked

02/09/2008  —  PHOTO  — 

Sifting through some stuffs on kodak

02/08/2008  —  TECH  — 

KodakGallery FINALLY integrates with the web

02/07/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

29 Songs: Day 4,5,6:

02/05/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

James Blackshaw, wow

02/05/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

29 Songs: Day 3: More To Come

02/05/2008  —  TECH  — 

QA Interviewing: The Phone Screen

02/04/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

29 Songs: Day 3: If Yes, Then No

02/02/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

29 Songs: Day 2: On The Other Side

02/01/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

29 Songs: Day 1: Took To The Air

01/31/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

29 Songs Starts!

01/31/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

Jon Brion on Eli Somethingoranothers

01/30/2008  —  FOOD  — 

2005 Directors Cut Russian River Charonnay

01/29/2008  —  TECH  — 

GoFish spilled, again...

01/29/2008  —  TECH  — 

108 Votes for NetScrap.com

01/28/2008  —  FUN  — 

Break-ins at Lafayette BART Station

01/25/2008  —  TECH  — 

Seeqpod sued by Warner Music

01/25/2008  —  TECH  — 

js-kit comments on greacen.com

01/24/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

February 2008: Song-a-Day a.k.a 29 Songs

01/23/2008  —  FOOD  — 

Chasing the blue dragon: Blue Bottle Coffee Opens

01/23/2008  —  FUN  — 

The horror of the Hayward fault

01/21/2008  —  TECH  — 

34 million lattes on Howard St.

01/21/2008  —  FUN  — 

What's the Greacen?

01/18/2008  —  FUN  — 

CC, the Casual Carpool

01/15/2008  —  TECH  — 

Macworld today

01/13/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

OMG

01/13/2008  —  TECH  — 

Technorati? Well, ok.

01/13/2008  —  TECH  — 

Netscrap top queries

01/12/2008  —  FUN  — 

Mavericks today!

01/10/2008  —  MUSIC  — 

Tuesday night covers

01/10/2008  —  FUN  — 

Today, I am Sven

01/09/2008  —  TECH  — 

Gofish, spilled...

01/09/2008  —  TECH  — 

Caffe Trieste in SOMA is the place

01/08/2008  —  TECH  — 

Vizu Survey on Netscrap.com

01/07/2008  —  TECH  — 

Netscrap's birthday

01/01/2008  —  FUN  — 

Happy 08!

12/26/2007  —  FOOD  — 

A letter to Michael Cimarusti

12/26/2007  —  FOOD  — 

Zinfandel-palooza

12/25/2007  —  FUN  — 

Merry X-Mas!

12/16/2007  —  FOOD  — 

2005 Falcon Ridge Lodi Zinfandel

12/12/2007  —  TECH  — 

ruby, python, or php?

12/10/2007  —  TECH  — 

Zombie Technology

12/06/2007  —  TECH  — 

Hello World, From the phone

11/26/2007  —  FOOD  — 

Daniel Boulud on Mojo

09/23/2007  —  TECH  — 

Long time no blog.

09/10/2007  —  TECH  — 

Is it the weekend?

08/05/2007  —  FOOD  — 

Carneros loop

04/25/2006  —  TECH  — 

Whack-o-pedia

04/24/2006  —  TECH  — 

Startup moments

04/10/2006  —  FOOD  — 

Salento Primitivo

04/05/2006  —  FUN  — 

Sonoma Bikeride

04/02/2006  —  TECH  — 

Selenium: Neat!