Now that the holiday shopping season is underway, I was recently reminded of an experience I had while working in Apple’s retail division during the holidays a number of years ago.

A customer came in and wanted demanded an iPod nano in a specific color and capacity that we didn’t offer. I told him that this product didn’t exist, and helpfully pointed him to the area where our iPods were on display.

He became rather irritated, and then yelled at me.

“You guys are nothing but a bunch of fucktards!”¹

And he stormed out.

Happy holidays to you, sir!

Addendum: The guy was in his early fourties.

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¹ According to the Urban Dictionary, a fucktard is a contraction of “fucking retard.”

Sadly, this happens to me way too often in San Francisco when I use my iPhone 3GS on AT&T.

I’ve had my Canon PowerShot S90 for just under two months now, and the camera still continues to impress me. I take it with me everywhere I go and it manages to nail nearly every shot!

What better place to take the new camera than the California Academy of Sciences? Photographic examples to follow.

If you’ve visited this site before, you might have noticed that going to the root url, daveschumaker.net, took you to a landing page. It listed links to various social networks, projects, photos, and such.

It was also kind of annoying. The bread and butter of this site were the blog and the photos posted on it. I’ve fixed this issue, and now the blog is the focus and main part of the site. No more navigating to the /blog/ directory!

[Via Brian Lam]

Hilarious!

[Via Cari T.]

Oh man, I don’t even know what to say. I’ve been sitting on this post for a few days, trying to think of the right things to say. I’m still shocked, sad, and angry that a friend decided to take her own life.

No one can ever understand why someone would go through with this and we all wish we could have done something more for her. But what? The worst part of it is that no one had ever expected this, especially not from Kate.

As I was looking back through some posts and archives on her Facebook page, I found this ironic and spooky comment I left after she mentioned she was going to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time a few weeks ago.

Two weeks later, she would wind up taking her own life. This comment is probably what has been bothering me the most about this whole thing and I can’t stop thinking about it. Did she foresee herself doing something like that then?

So long Kate. I hope that wherever you are now, you’ve found what you were looking for. You’ll be missed.

Oh man! Earlier today, I received a phone call from a blocked number. I didn’t have time to answer the phone, so I let it go to voicemail.

Boy, was I in for a surprise when I listened to it later!

Wow. Just, wow.

(For privacy sake, I’ve stripped out the name of the doctor, the hospital, and her phone number)

Trader Joe’s Jalepeño Olives, originally uploaded by Dave Schumaker.

These things are potentially the greatest invention in the history of Mother Nature.

One of my coworkers, Sam, just tweeted about this essay on what working for startups is really like. I think it really nails what it’s like and highlights the benefits of working for one.

Some choice quotes:

Unconsciously, everyone expects a startup to be like a job, and that explains most of the surprises.

It’s surprising how much you become consumed by your startup, in that you think about it day and night, but never once does it feel like “work.”

I’m surprised by how much better it feels to be working on something that is challenging and creative, something I believe in, as opposed to the hired-gun stuff I was doing before. I knew it would feel better; what’s surprising is how much better.

Everyone said how determined and resilient you must be, but going through it made me realize that the determination required was still understated.

Read more at What Startups Are Really Like.