HellaFrank

I missed you guys. Seriously, I did.

Today was the first real day of regular season major league baseball and whether the Cubs won or lost, opening day has always been a pretty exciting and hopeful day for me. Why? Well, this time of year the Cubs generally aren’t out of the playoffs yet, this year it’s a sign that warm weather is almost upon us (in my younger years, it meant school was coming to an end… Definitely no warm weather in San Francisco though), and somewhere in the April/May timeframe you can start a golf round at 4:00pm and still get 18 holes in.

So I figured that today would be most appropriate to officially announce that HellaFrank is back and excited to bring you some new and improved regular programming.

The initial idea behind HellaFrank was to document my move out to New York. It was fun and from what readers told me, entertaining to at least three of you (not including my parents, of course!).

Now, I’m shifting the focus to things I like writing about and feel are topics with which I have some level of expertise and passion. I love sports, but so do 100,000 other bloggers. I like technology, but so do a million other bloggers. I also love New York and plenty of people write about this amazing city on a regular basis.

What I’m getting at is HellaFrank will sit at the center of all three of these passions of mine. HellaFrank is the intersection of sports, technology and New York life… I will write about each of these topics and the convergence of them when possible. I’m excited to get rolling again and I hope that all of you will continue to read and comment and tell your friends!

So, what do you need to do to stay up to date on HellaFrank? Tattoo it on your arm, bookmark this page or subscribe to the RSS feed (the big red button on the right), but whatever you do, visit early and visit often — you won’t want to miss a post………

Other than being the lyrics of a song my sister used to listen to incessantly on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, the title indicates how much longer you’ll have to wait until the HellaFrank blog will be reborn.

HellaFrank has been doing some thinking and this phoenix is definitely about to rise again. Get excited, and stay tuned…

Happy first day of spring, everyone!

If you are reading this, you are a loyal HellaFrank reader and I thank you for that. The Giants won the Super Bowl yesterday and NY was a pretty crazy place to be for a couple hours… well, crazier than usual, I should say.

The real reason for this post is to say that I am going to do some thinking about what I want to write about on this blog. Something more specific, interesting and inspiring to me (and you!). Now that I have been in New York for almost 5 months, talking about my move here is no longer really relevant. I thought about just writing about New York in general, but while I freakin’ love this place, that’s not a topic that will motivate me to write. Maybe my trip to Cabo with the family in a couple weeks will give me some time to think… Or not. Suggestions and ideas are definitely welcome, so leave a comment if you have one.

In the meantime, check back every now and then to see if I’ve suddenly been inspired by something, otherwise, this is HellaFrank signing off temporarily. Yes, I’ll repeat — TEMPORARILY!!!!!!

I woke up yesterday morning and checked weather.com, my usual morning ritual. It said 12 degrees, feels like -1. As the rest of New York probably groaned at that news, I couldn’t have been more excited — the first really cold day.

I’ve heard people say, “It felt like my face was going to fall off” when describing cold weather, and indeed, after my 15-20 minute walk to work, it all started to make sense. There was also kind of a face tingle that felt the way your leg feels when it falls asleep. In short, it was awesome — now if only we could get some snow…

So, how’s the weather in San Francisco? Haha! Hope you get your power back!

LaunchSquad was featured in a small business profile on the Apple website this week! They came by the office a few months back for a big photoshoot. They actually set up a little scene for me where I was sitting on my desk using an IBM ThinkPad (ha, just kidding, it was a Mac). After taking a couple pictures, the photographer decided that he didn’t like the pictures he was taking and just decided to stop… NOT good for my confidence.

Anyways, here’s the profile.

Well, sorta. Last week, LaunchSquad had its end of the year meeting and party and I put together a little video tour of the New York office with the office boss, Gavin. Check it out:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YBO7SUwvDU&rel=1]

I heard this song called “SF Anthem” last time I was in San Francisco (where I currently am now), and it’s definitely grown on me. I think the mixture of San Francisco rap and Summer of Love music (Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco”) sums me up perfectly — a rough urban childhood and upbringing by former hippie parents. Of course, West Portal is no “HP” or “Fillmoe.” Click play below and have a listen:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4GvlYfmxiM&rel=0&color1=0xd6d6d6&color2=0xf0f0f0&border=0]

Took another trip to a deli here to get some latkes, or, potato pancakes. My roommate got this thing called a pastrami burger which I took a picture of because it was pretty remarkable. The fact that he ate the whole thing made it even more impressive. It’s a burger with pastrami on top. Overkill? Yes. Delicious? I can’t imagine it wasn’t.

I saw this on a marketing blog I read, and it made me laugh. It’s kind of like putting Jose Cuervo on sale for Ramadan or Filet Mignon on special for Diwali. Gotta love it…

Well it’s the second day of Channukah and snow is falling, so I’m gonna go out on a limb and call it a white Channukah… Pretty exciting! I guess the odds of having a white Channukah are 8 times what they are of having a white Christmas, right? I wish I had that argument in my back pocket as a kid when I’d argue with friends about whether Channukah or Christmas is better. The eight days of presents was a pretty good one though… Of course, I haven’t really gotten eight days of presents since about the age of 10, so that one’s out.