Portland, OR

Newport, RI

Westport, CT

On the site he releases drops of products. This is my database of products that I have seen on the site, a review of each of them and other random thoughts on what is released.

Notebooks

Pocket Log Books ($35)

These pocket sized notebooks are identical in size to the Field Notes notebooks I’m obsessed with. The covers are a bit shinny, though, and they paper feels rigid and not at the same caliber of as a Field Notes book. I have not used them for writing, but I do like the design. They are very much overpriced at $35 for a pack of 3. Field Notes, by contrast, are 10 bucks for 3 of the normal packs and up to 14 more expensive types.

Hardback Log Books Pocket ($20)

Dimensions: 3 11/16 ” x 5″, so it is a little wider than Field Notes and a little shorter than field notes. Interesting size. While the size does feel similar to pocket Baron Fig, the band inside is not at the same level of quality. The pages are also perforated throughout, unlike the Baron Fig which only has the last couple of pages perforated.

The pages are pure white with a light dot grid. Again, no indication of who makes this product. Came sealed in plastic. Not worth the price in my opinion, but still cool.

Hardback Log Books Standard Notebook ($30)

Interested to see what the standard size of these are. Not sure who makes this, but assuming it is the same manufacturer as the pocket ones. Excited to see what these turn out to be.

Still not sure who makes it. I haven’t compared it in size yet to moleskine or baron fig, but it seems about the same size. Like the Baron Fig, it does not come with an elastic which at this point feels weird for me on a book that size.

Stickers and Patches

Sticker Pack ($30)

30 dollars for about 12 stickers means that each sticker is costing you more than 2 dollars a sticker. Still some of the colors of the stickers are quite bright. They do not have duplicates in the pack so that is also awesome.

Pirate Velcro Patch ($20)

This is a small, roughly 2 inch by 2 inch PVC patch with black backing and a white Pirate logo on the top. Actually, pretty darn happy with this purchase. These patches probably cost around 2 bucks to make, so there is a large mark up. I’ve made something similar with brewery outfitters. Still, love the style and not mad at this purchase.

There are two version of this patch, one with a black background and white pirate and one with a white background and black pirate. I have both. Like the black background better, but both are pretty darn cool.

I Love Knives Velcro Patch ($20)

Waiting on mine to arrive. Will provide feedback when it gets here.

Keys and Coins

Coin V3 ($125)

Okay, this is a solid brass challenge coin with the Pirate on one side and “Fly the Flag” on the other. It is expensive for what it is, but beyond the coin, the box comes with some awesome extras. It comes in a vault case that is really well designed and sealed with pirate shaped screw heads. It comes with the bit to open the box. The coin comes with a leather carry case. All in all, I was surprised at the value for the cost of this one. The rest of the pirate stuff I’ve gotten has felt grossly overpriced and this felt almost reasonable.

Food

Captain Kirk’s Hot Sauce ($25)

I’ll admit that I haven’t used it yet, but the bottle is pretty freaking cool. I’m excited to see how it tastes. Will report when there are more details.

Random

Pirate Shop Rag ($15)

This is exactly what it sounds like, a shop rag with a pirate logo on it. Nothing special, way overpriced. Too expensive for me to actually use in the shop.

Bandage Kit ($30)

Comes with about 32 bandages and a couple of packs of anticipant in a small tin. It’s cool and all, but way overpriced. Also, I’m not sure if this is a mistake, but while they come in packs of 8 with one design, I believe my kit came with two packs of the same image on them. Not the best bandages either.

People I Want to Meet Someday

• Rose Marcario – CEO of Patagonia
• Tommy Caldwell – Professional Climber
• Aaron James Draplin – Huge fan of his design.

Leslie Is The Best

For various reasons, the rules of my household have prevented me from being the type of friend I want to be to one of my greatest friends, Leslie. In a moment of weakness I decided to make her a quick website: LeslieIsTheBest.xyz.

The Room Project

If you’ve read my blog you might have seen this post: https://zacharyc.com/2019/09/18/deciding-to/ about things I want to do. One of them was cleaning my room. I’ve been working slowly on it, but this at home time has come and I’m using my at home time to get through all the projects like this.

Quarantined Photos

I’ve been working on taking some photos of the world during this super weird time. Here are some quarantine photos: https://zacharyc.smugmug.com/Personal/n-L8Q6d2/Photography/Quarantine-Photos/

Old RelateIQ Photos

In the process of doing some of the cleaning that I’ve been doing during the quarantine I found the old RelateIQ photos that used to be on the wall walking down to the basement. Many of them are from before my time. I scanned them, (sometimes adding tape to sticky surfaces) and uploaded them to Smugmug. You can see them here.

Kyle Keep Paice

One of my coworkers name is Kyle Paice. During a demo he mentioned that he owed kylepaice.com, and he called me out. Big mistake. Bought the domain KyleKeepPaice.com and now he has a site up there. Don’t start nothing…

South Beta Podcast Updates

During this quarantine I have spent some time updating the South Beta Podcast website. I have also published an episode that we recorded before the beginning of the quarantine. More updates to come while we are out.

Evan Fanboy

We played a game of hanabi and someone mis-understood how to log in and created the most amazing user name ever. That’s how the website EvanFanBoy.com was born!

Folding @ Home

I learned about this one from my roommates. This is a project, akin to SETI, that uses distributed networks to better understand portion folding. I don’t know a ton about what exactly this means or how this helps scientists, but it seems like a small way I can use my computer(s) to help with the work being done to understand this novel corona virus. Here is my personal page. You join the fight at folding@home.

Here’s the deal. I’m renting the bar, and it’s open bar. We start at 4 and go as long as we can stomach it, I’m not leaving before 11. The place is ours. You don’t need to come for the whole time, but stopping by would be great. The bar is a beer and wine bar and I will make sure there is a cider option as well. It has a rotating tap so I’m not exactly sure what will be on tap, but the main taps are Palo Alto Brewing Company taps, they tend to have a diverse palette and a good number of IPAs for people with traditional California tastes.

Everyone’s invited(21 and over). If you have a friend or two you want to bring, bring them. If I forgot to invite someone, please don’t hold itagainst me, I have a long list of friends and I just missed some that were local. Invite them to facebook, send me a note if they don’t have facebook, I’m just looking to get an accurate count of people attending. New friends or old friends, everyone is invited.

There is no official theme, but if you have a fun holiday sweater, feel free to wear it, I will hopefully be wearing something festive, so you will be in good company.

Lastly, like I said, it’s effectively open bar that is coming out of my pocket. I would rather have you come than not come, but if you want to contribute, you can send me a couple of bucks to my paypal or venmo, if money is the issue, don’t pay, come hang out.

Summary

Where: The Tap Room, University Ave, Palo Alto, PA

When: Sunday, December 10th, 4pm to at least 11 pm

Who: Everyone

Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1989309858017230/

Commonly Visited page

• Chase Jarvis
• 43 Rumors
• Nikon Rumors

Currently running projects

[Handspringman.com](http://www.handspringman.com)

One of my longest running domains. I’ve had this one for over a decade. I use it to talk about cheerleading. In it’s current state is a tumblr blog, where sometimes I post about my personal feelings regarding the sport of cheerleading or simple coaching techniques.

[Ehikian.com](http://www.ehikian.com)

Small site that I made for a coworker, mostly as a joke. Built with jekyll.

[ClaireVanGo.com](http://clairevango.com)

Site for my traveling van and road trip.

[zacharyc.tumblr.com](http://zacharyc.tumblr.com)

Another site where I publish some of my thoughts, and all of my instagrams.

[southbeta.com](http://southbeta.com)

Podcast about rock climbing with Dr. Even Pearce.

[patagoniafanboy.com](http://patagoniafanboy.com)

A website where I can share more about my patagonia obsessions.

[maythecilantrobewithyou.com](http://maythecilantrobewithyou.com)

A website for one of my colleagues, Fabian.

If anyone wants to participate in one of these projects, I’m open to help. Drop me an email and let me know what you want to do.

[WannaStunt.com](http://www.WannaStunt.com)

The intention for this site is to provide a quick way to find cheerleaders to stunt in a geolocated area.

[ArnoldCohen.com](http://www.arnoldcohen.com)

This was a father’s day gift to my father on a father’s day many years ago. It’s now defunct and I should definitely do something else with this page.

[MochaCoding](http://www.mochacoding.com)

When I first started drinking coffee I would only drink Peet’s Iced Mocha’s. This was my first thought as a name for a consulting company I was thinking about starting before I decided I still wanted to work for someone.

[Pixel Conundrum](http://pixelconundrum.com)

Several years ago, Panic’s Cabel wrote [this amazing post](http://www.cabel.name/2007/09/coda-toolbar-and-three-pixel-conundrum.html) on how they got their tab bar to work. Thought pixel conundrum was a great name for a site about visual nuances. Still a work in progress.

[Palo Alto Sucks](http://paloaltosucks.com)

Palo Alto, CA is nuts. I had my car broken into in a lot in Palo Alto, where I had a permit. Yes, everyone has their car broken into, that’s not that big a deal. What pushed me over the edge was the fact that I had to pay an additional fee to have the permit sticker replaced on my broken car window. There are several other stories I have from friends about how PA sucks, hopefully they will make it onto this site someday.

[Peninsula Cheer](http://peninsulacheer.com)

This is a website for the Bay Area cheerleading teams. Idea here is to bring coaching community closer together as well as providing resources for those who want to get more into cheerleading or learn more about it.

Cheerleading has been growing in popularity over the past decade or so, and as more and more cheerleading gyms open up the diffusion of knowledge has been dispersed. The goal of Cheer Resource is to take information relating to cheerleading and group it together on one complete, easy-to-use website for the entire community to enjoy.

To that end, the following sub-goals are at the hear to of Cheer Resource:

• Consolidate distributed information from multiple sources into centralized location.
• Utilize modern standards to provide easy integration in to other modern web services.
• Extract useful statistics and information from the distributed information sources to help grow the sport.

Phased Implementation

The scope and goals of this project are large enough that I have decided to implement a phased implementation:

• Phase 1: Gym Locations – The first phase of the project is provide a database of known cheerleading gyms in an easy to search user interface.
• Phase 2: Basic Cheerleading Terminology – Provide a basic dictionary for common cheerleading terms including pictures, videos and potentially rule classifications for each trick
• Phase 3: Competition Integration – Add information regarding upcoming competitions, including locations on search interface, and potentially competiton results.
• Phase 4: Team Statistics – Provide metrics on how teams are performing based on competitions and titles. At some level it might even be possible to track individual performance if teams post rosters.
• **Phase 5: Cheerleader Database –**Provide a database of famous cheerleaders and their accomplishments

The following sections will describe each of the phases in more detail.

Phase 1: Gym Locations

Currently there are several ways to locate a cheerleading gym.

• Talk to others involved in the cheerleading industry for recommendations.
• Look in a phone book under cheerleading
• Visit cheerleading.net and search through their text based list for your gym.
• Visit usasf.net and use their member gym finder to find a gym in your area.

These are all good options, but Cheer Resource will combine all of them into one solid approach. I will discuss how each of these solutions is really incomplete and demonstrate how to Cheer Resource will integrate these approaches.

Talking to others in the Industry

There is no substitute for first hand experience, and a great way to do that is talk to experts in the industry. Talking to a gym owner or coach might be a great way to find out about local programs, but each gym owner or coach believes that the gym that they are currently at is the best fit in the area, and will undoubtly be somewhat biased. While their opinions shouldn’t be ignored, the represent their own point of view.

Also as you move outside local area, coaches and gym owners might not have solid recommendations, or might only know of a few programs instead of garnering the full grasp of all programs in some other target location.

The Phone Book Approach

This approach just doesn’t work. Many phone books (including mine) don’t have a listing for cheerleading. Some gyms are not listed and you can’t get the quality of a gym based on size or design of the advertisement in the phone book. Even a photo of the gym facilities might be misleading.

Phone books are also local to one specific set of towns. If you are on the edge of a town and the neighboring town has gym, you might miss it because your phone book might only cover your town.

Cheerleading.net

Cheerleading.net was one of the first site I started using when I got into the sport. I moved around a lot as kid and would have to look up neighboring gyms, and this site was the best thing that was out there.

Here’s what I like about this site:

• Large set of cheerleading programs including: high school, college, and independent (defined as all-star and youth league).
• Design of the site makes the links and text relatively easy to view.
• Lists on the site are built with syntactically correct, definition lists.

This site has been around for a long time and is definitely a good resource, but there are a couple of areas where this site falls short:

• Each gym list is sorted only alphabetically. This is useful if you know the name of the school or program you are looking up, but not if you are looking to locate a gym by location.
• They do provide city and state, but there is no easy way to find an actual address of the gym from the site. This makes finding the gym closest to you difficult, especially if you are new to an area and do not know the geography.
• The site does not doing any recurring tests to ensure that the gyms are still current. Out of the 504 independent gyms, about half were non-working links.

USASF Member Gym Search

The last and probably the most trusted database (but potentially the worst interface) is USASF’s Member Gym Search. USASF is the governing insurence body for most all star gyms in the US. More and more competitions are requiring that you become USASF certified before participating in an event. For this reason, USASF has an up-to-date, very accurate representation of most of the All-star gyms.

They have made their gym information available to the public through the gym finder. Here is a screen shot of the application.

Here are my frustrations with this application:

• To find the gym search you have navigate through the Javascript menu, using Members -> Member Gym Search. If you are a member you probably do not need to locate another gym. This functionality should be more accessible to the average user.
• This is the deal breaker! Once you select a country and a state (both of which are alphabetical) you have to search through the city list to find your City. This list is NOT in ANY reasonable order. It’s not alphabetical and it is not by location. This means you have to look through potentially the whole list for each town in your area.
• This site is limited only to All Star programs. If you are looking for a Pop Warner team, or local colleges, you are out of luck.

Cheer Resources Approach

Cheer Resource aims to fill the gaps in the above implementations in several ways. The site will contain several ways to look up gyms:

1. Through a Map based interface element. Gym’s will appear as markers on the map. This will easily allow you to identify gyms in your area.
2. A tabular list of gyms that will allow to search and sort based on criteria that you specify.

We hope to maintain an accurate set of contact information for as many gyms as possible. At some point we will allow gyms to populate their own information and keep up to date, but in the beginning we will start with a list of data generated from various different public facing websites.

We will employ modern technologies, like Microformats, to convey the information in ways that will allow other developers to have access to our content.