Brian Alvey

After a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day today, I stopped at Starbuck’s to get Niki the green iced tea she loves. I was wearing a black t-shirt with a silver Superman symbol on the chest.

As I walked in the door, the woman behind the counter said “Superman, I am so glad you’re here!” Nice. I told her I had heard they needed help. She said they didn’t need help any more, just my order. I ordered Niki’s venti unsweetened green iced tea and headed to the end of the counter.

As he was pouring it the next guy asked me if I was worried about it being “green” tea. Funny. I thought about explaining how the drink would only harm me if they brewed it using meteor rocks or that having a weakness to a popular color like Green Lantern does is just lame, but I responded with “It’s for Lois.”

Because in many ways it was.

I worked with Nick White for years at Business Week. I was working more from home in 1999 when this happened, but I remember the horrible story being relayed to me by some co-workers when I was at the McGraw-Hill Building that next week.

Working late on a Friday night he left for a smoke break around 11pm. On the way back up his elevator stopped working. Security guards never noticed his cries for help or the alarm buzzing — neither did the maintenance crews working over the weekend.

He didn’t have a watch or cell phone. He had no idea what day it was, how many hours had elapsed or if it was day or night. He relieved himself down the shaft after prying the elevator door open. When he slept, he had to cover his eyes with his wallet to shield them from the blaring lights.

All he had to eat were Rolaids. He survived 41 hours without a drop of water.

Yes, there was a court settlement. Yes, he still uses elevators. You can’t live in NYC and not use them.

I knew his story, but I never even thought about the fact that there was a video of his ordeal. The New Yorker posted it on YouTube.

Niki and I both use Twitter, despite the fact that neither one of us is a teenage girl. When Niki went into labor 10 days ago, she kept her family and friends updated via Twitter. None of them follow her using the service itself. They just kept reloading her blog to see the new updates in her sidebar. To them, Niki was just updating her blog.

While Niki was sending her tweets, I was sending mine. Here’s a recap of our birth-related tweets, including the ones about Liv going back into the hospital with severe jaundice. She’s much better now.

• Niki Going in tomorrow at 6am to be induced! 7:40PM Mar 30
• Niki @sarahgilbert, but I am soooo ready for me to have this baby. This is the longest preg so far…39.5 weeks. i am excited too, also nervous. 10:58PM Mar 30
• Niki I have a bad tummy ache. Can’t figure out if it is the v spicy Mexican food I had for dinner or a case of nervous jitters. Probably both! 11:01PM Mar 30
• Brian Waiting in the admission room while Niki gets her blood drawn. I can’t wait to explain to our daughter that they use a red pen for that. 😉 7:07AM Mar 31
• Brian 6am at the hospital on two hours sleep — surrounded by soda machines — is making me reconsider that whole “I’m giving up Diet Coke” thing. 7:23AM Mar 31
• Brian Wondering if I can live Twitter Niki giving birth to our girl today and make every tweet exactly one hundred and forty characters. Unlikely. 7:52AM Mar 31
• Brian Niki’s dictating a Twitter message for me to send from her Verizon Samsung phone. I am totally lost without my BlackBerry’s qwerty keyboard. 8:45AM Mar 31
• Niki Starting IV now. 8:57AM Mar 31
• Niki Makes sense. You can’t have ‘Liv’ without ‘iv’. 9:02AM Mar 31
• Niki Just broke my water. 9:21AM Mar 31
• Brian After the second Nirvana song came on Niki’s iPod (not my doing, I swear) Niki had me switch to all Jack Johnson. Now that’s birthing music. 9:23AM Mar 31
• Niki Nurse asked if I am organ donor. Very reassuring. 9:46AM Mar 31
• Niki @sarahgilbert, but I am soooo ready for me to have this baby. This is the longest preg so far…39.5 weeks. i am excited too, also nervous. 10:58PM Mar 30
• Niki I have a bad tummy ache. Can’t figure out if it is the v spicy Mexican food I had for dinner or a case of nervous jitters. Probably both! 11:01PM Mar 30
• Brian Waiting in the admission room while Niki gets her blood drawn. I can’t wait to explain to our daughter that they use a red pen for that. 😉 7:07AM Mar 31
• Brian 6am at the hospital on two hours sleep — surrounded by soda machines — is making me reconsider that whole “I’m giving up Diet Coke” thing. 7:23AM Mar 31
• Brian Wondering if I can live Twitter Niki giving birth to our girl today and make every tweet exactly one hundred and forty characters. Unlikely. 7:52AM Mar 31
• Brian Niki’s dictating a Twitter message for me to send from her Verizon Samsung phone. I am totally lost without my BlackBerry’s qwerty keyboard. 8:45AM Mar 31
• Niki Starting IV now. 8:57AM Mar 31
• Niki Makes sense. You can’t have ‘Liv’ without ‘iv’. 9:02AM Mar 31
• Niki Just broke my water. 9:21AM Mar 31
• Brian After the second Nirvana song came on Niki’s iPod (not my doing, I swear) Niki had me switch to all Jack Johnson. Now that’s birthing music. 9:23AM Mar 31
• Niki Nurse asked if I am organ donor. Very reassuring. 9:46AM Mar 31
• Niki @sarahgilbert, but I am soooo ready for me to have this baby. This is the longest preg so far…39.5 weeks. i am excited too, also nervous. 10:58PM Mar 30
• Niki I have a bad tummy ache. Can’t figure out if it is the v spicy Mexican food I had for dinner or a case of nervous jitters. Probably both! 11:01PM Mar 30
• Brian Waiting in the admission room while Niki gets her blood drawn. I can’t wait to explain to our daughter that they use a red pen for that. 😉 7:07AM Mar 31
• Brian 6am at the hospital on two hours sleep — surrounded by soda machines — is making me reconsider that whole “I’m giving up Diet Coke” thing. 7:23AM Mar 31
• Brian Wondering if I can live Twitter Niki giving birth to our girl today and make every tweet exactly one hundred and forty characters. Unlikely. 7:52AM Mar 31
• Brian Niki’s dictating a Twitter message for me to send from her Verizon Samsung phone. I am totally lost without my BlackBerry’s qwerty keyboard. 8:45AM Mar 31
• Niki Starting IV now. 8:57AM Mar 31
• Niki Makes sense. You can’t have ‘Liv’ without ‘iv’. 9:02AM Mar 31
• Niki Just broke my water. 9:21AM Mar 31
• Brian After the second Nirvana song came on Niki’s iPod (not my doing, I swear) Niki had me switch to all Jack Johnson. Now that’s birthing music. 9:23AM Mar 31
• Niki Nurse asked if I am organ donor. Very reassuring. 9:46AM Mar 31
• Niki Brian went 2 get breakfast ’cause I cant do this without food.’ sigh 10:02AM Mar 31
• Brian My daughter will have the same birthday as Al Gore, Christoper Walken and @zefrank. 10:13AM Mar 31
• Brian Every time they ask if Niki has had any contractions yet, I cannot help but think about Data from Star Trek TNG. It is sad but it is true… 10:19AM Mar 31
• Niki Contractions 4 min apart 12:02PM Mar 31
• Brian Contractions are 4 minutes apart. Niki is looking great, breathing through the pain. Now for an ultrasound. 12:09PM Mar 31
• Brian @cksthree Thanks! Be glad I’m not streaming live on Qik right now like @jasoncalacanis. 😉 12:52PM Mar 31
• Brian They gave Niki some pain meds. We were doing 2 minute contractions. Getting a quick sandwich while she’s out. 2:34PM Mar 31
• Niki 7 cm dilated. Meds are wearing off. 3:06PM Mar 31
• Brian I hate it when Niki’s in pain. 3:11PM Mar 31
• Brian Baby crowned as iPod played GNR’s Patience. 3:59PM Mar 31
• Brian We have a brown haired baby girl! Niki’s iPod welcomes her with the theme from The Greatest American Hero. 4:01PM Mar 31
• Brian Baby number three. 9 pounds. 19.5 inches. Niki is amazing. 4:30PM Mar 31
• Brian Since people are asking, no, I didn’t succumb to the siren song of Diet Coke. 5:11PM Mar 31
• Brian We got the same maternity room for Liv that we did for Jack in 2003. Wondering if it’s the same room @bradhill was in all those years ago… 6:41PM Mar 31
• Brian Listening to U2’s Beautiful Day. Heading home from a beautiful day in Bronxville. 10:35PM Mar 31
• Niki Liv is doing great. She already has daddy wrapped! 10:46PM Mar 31
• Niki She’s a natural at nursing. 4:38AM Apr 1
• Niki Liv looks just like her daddy – but with my hair. She’s so cute. 4:45AM Apr 1
• Niki My doctor just visited. I love him! 7:40AM Apr 1
• Niki I am IN love with my girl! 7:54AM Apr 1
• Niki Just changed the 1st of many poopy diapers. 9:43AM Apr 1
• Brian Tried to pull an April Fool’s Day prank on Liv this morning. She was all, “I wasn’t born yesterday, Daddy” and I was all, “Oh yes you were!” 12:48PM Apr 1
• Niki We emailed Liv’s birth stats to 113 people yesterday. Two wrote back that they were pregnant too, but it’s a secret! 4:43PM Apr 1
• Niki Colleen just emailed me and said “BTW, I am not pregnant, nor is that a secret :-)” — so that leaves 112 of you! 6:03PM Apr 1
• Niki Liv was just fussing and nothing I did soothed her. Daddy picked her up and she quieted right down. She adores her Daddy. 6:12PM Apr 1
• Niki @dorie93950, nope, not going home until tomorrow afternoon. Jack wanted me home last night though. Poor guy. 6:41PM Apr 1
• Niki @sarahgilbert, Yeah she is already Daddy’s girl. It is so sweet. He is totally wrapped! 6:42PM Apr 1
• Niki Baby pics are on my blog! 9:16PM Apr 1
• Niki One pregnancy was an April Fool’s joke, one wasn’t. 9:23PM Apr 1
• Brian Leaving the hospital with Niki and Liv now. 2:37PM Apr 2
• Brian Just got home with the new baby. Stopped by her future school and gave her brothers some food to eat while on the playground. Nice day out. 4:10PM Apr 2
• Niki We are home! Woo Hoo. 4:24PM Apr 2
• Niki Liv is a little jaundiced. Had to give her formula at the hospital today, doctor’s orders. She pooped and peed a bunch. Back to nursing now. 6:03PM Apr 2
• Brian Slept a few hours off and on — surely more than Niki. First day back in the office. Offline again tomorrow for our first peds doctor visit. 7:55AM Apr 3
• Niki @gavin, It IS all about the delivery :), oh wait, I don’t think we are talking about the same thing :). 1:24PM Apr 3
• Niki Liv admitted to hospital for severe jaundice. Drew labs started IV now in incubator under lights. 9:21PM Apr 4
• Brian Shawn Mullins is telling me “Everything’s gonna be all right, rockabye.” 9:24PM Apr 4
• Niki Liv just had blood taken. Her brothers fav song came on iPod – Monkey and engineer. Good sign. 1:33AM Apr 5
• Niki Been pumping, mixing with formula and feeding q2 hours under lights. Working – Liv’s bili down 4.5 pts. Woo hoo! So happy. 3:08AM Apr 5
• Brian Liv came home Wednesday and went back into the hospital with Niki for 3+ days for severe jaundice Friday evening. Girl keeps it interesting. 4:15AM Apr 5
• Niki Liv’s seems to be getting better. Bili results soon. Stopped IV fluids. 10:39AM Apr 5
• Niki Bili down 3 more! Docs happy. So is mama. 11:57AM Apr 5
• Brian Back from visiting Liv. She is getting better w/ every blood test. Niki watched SNL at the hospital while I watched at home. A virtual date. 1:04AM Apr 6
• Niki Liv is doing much better. Docs and nurses more calm, not as freaked. Mama better too. Bili dropped from 24 to 13. 5:46AM Apr 6
• Brian About to move around our two car seats to add our new baby seat. If we want to haul bags or more adults, we’ll need a double decker minivan. 10:01AM Apr 6
• Niki Turned off lights last night. Bili went up this am. Not going home. More tests. 12:10PM Apr 6
• Niki We are home. Bili went down a little bit, not as much as the night before but still down. Docs said she has probably stabilized. 3:36AM Apr 7
• Niki Follow up with pediatrician Monday afternoon. Boys happy we are home. Slept 4 hours in a row after only 5 hours in 60 hours. Heaven. 3:38AM Apr 7

In the end, that’s what this internet is about. Do we participate in a project of cynicism or a project of code? Project managers call on us to code. Investors call on us to code.

I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks bugs will go away if we just don’t talk about them, or the cross browser crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial.

It’s the code of developers sitting around a codejam singing Sublime songs; the code of sites serving APIs to distant shores; the code of a young junior programmer bravely patrolling subversion; the code of a lawyer’s son who dares to defy the odds; the code of a skinny kid with a funny domain name who believes that the internet has a place for him, too.

Code in the face of difficulty. Code in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of code!

When I was in high school I drank Coca Cola like a fiend. When I was in college I was thrilled when three-liter bottles came out. After college I hit my largest weight ever, 225 pounds. Not good.

Around the time I met Niki, I was drinking up to two two-liter bottles a day. I knew all the caffeine and sugar were bad for me, but I was hooked. I knew I couldn’t quit the caffeine, but I decided to ditch the sugar by switching to Diet Coke. The only trouble was that I didn’t like the taste.

I was consulting at Business Week and they had Diet Cherry Coke in the soda machines, so I drank those and over time alternated in some Diet Cokes until I was used to the diet taste. Sipping a regular Coke was no longer an option. It was too sweet. My plan worked, sort of. Over two or three years I lost 63 pounds, down to 162. Just from switching to diet soda and hitting a rowing machine twice a week.

My new problem was that I was drinking up to two two-liter bottles of Diet Coke a day.

I tried limiting my Diet Cokes to one can in the morning and one in the afternoon, but that wasn’t easy. If I was stressed in the afternoon, one can would get immediately followed by a second. I tried little games like having a tall cup of water in between sodas, but I would just chug the water so I could start that next soda.

I knew it was all or nothing. I couldn’t moderate it.

Last March 16, I had my last Diet Coke, my last soda ever. Surprisingly, there were still more cans in the garage. I just stopped. I did the same thing I did with chocolate when I was a pudgy kid. I convinced myself that Diet Coke was toxic, that I didn’t like the taste, that it was taking years off of my life, that it causes cancer.

And it worked.

I still drink iced tea. I still get some caffeine almost every day, but nowhere near as much as I used to get wired on — and it’s the weakest iced tea you’ll ever see someone drink, mostly water.

I had a sip of Diet Coke at a birthday party last September where there was no water or tea available and it was the nastiest thing. I poured the rest of the cup out.

I didn’t even properly commemorate the one year anniversary when it happened.

Screw soda. I won.

I met an old friend of mine at an event he was attending and another old friend walked up and introduced me to the guy he was talking to, Jack Myers. I don’t know if I gave Jack my business card or if he just has the mutant ability to sense peoples’ email addresses, but I suddenly ended up on his newsletter mailing list. Not a weekly newsletter — we’re talking three or four of these a day.

The annoying thing is that they’re about industries I follow and they’re often useful. So I haven’t unsubscribed. And I keep reading them. Damn.

Today’s morning edition had an article by Shelly Palmer covering Antigua’s recent copyright threats:

This week the government of Antigua threatened to unleash hell on the information economy. Well, kind of … they’re threatening to repeal intellectual property treaties with the United States and to allow massive copyright infringement on the island if the U.S. doesn’t hasten its response to pending trade disputes. In short, they are threatening to copy “virtually anything that can duplicated.”

The reason for the threat of InfoWar, according to a representative of the Island, is that the United States is not negotiating fairly in a dispute over Internet gambling. Apparently, we owe Antigua $21 million dollars and they really want the money. If they don’t get it, they will tighten-up our debt by stealing music, movies and other intellectual property.

Right off the bat, you have to give kudos to Shelly on labeling this “Pirates in the Caribbean.” Shelly points out that anything that can be copied is already available and this might not be such a strong threat, but it would have some interesting effects on the value chain.

This is already happening in music. People are spending less on CDs, so artists and labels and focusing on other ways to make money like concerts and merchandise that isn’t so easily ripped off digitally. In software we have open source. Piracy is a waste of time when the software is available for free and the money is all being made through services and support.

As someone who publishes DRM-free comic books online, the evolution of the role of the publisher in a time of easy piracy is fascinating.

I haven’t blogged in more than six weeks, mainly because there wasn’t a lot of news I wanted to share publicly. Plus, it’s just easier to give a half dozen updates over Twitter every day. Twitter has ruined blogging.

We have a baby daughter arriving any day now. Niki’s mom died a week ago on a cruise ship halfway around the world. Niki can’t travel to Florida for her mom’s funeral this week, so that is a mess.

I had a great trip to the west coast a few weeks back, meeting with investors who wanted to hear about Crowd Fusion. That was exciting and reaffirming. We have a solid model and a great, growing team and I just want it all to get built and launched yesterday. My four favorite questions from the trip were:

• How is this different from Typepad or WordPress?
• How is this different from Glam or Sugar?
• How is this different from Mahalo?
• Can I get you some sparkling water?

I skipped SxSW because I wouldn’t have been able to get back for our daughter’s birth if Niki had gone into labor. She didn’t arrive, but thanks to her I was able to miss the SxSW flu everyone else caught, a.k.a., SxSARS.

So this week I’m trying to tie up loose ends, get freelancers loaded up with work and squeeze in some meetings like the really productive ones I had in NYC yesterday. As an unexpected bonus I went to a True Ventures party for Automattic (WordPress), Sphere and Giga Omni Media — plus some lesser known media brands like Hearst and The New York Times.

I didn’t get to see Matt Mullenweg on my SF trip or at SxSW, but we did get to catch up last night. That’s always good. I spent some time with Jason Calacanis, Om Malik, Alan Patricof, John Brockman, Toni Schneider, Scott Kurnit, MC Hammer, paidContent’s Staci Kramer, TechCrunch’s Heather Harde, Rcrd Lbl’s Peter Rojas and Inhabitat’s Jill Fehrenbacher. Like I said, it was an unexpected bonus.

So, am I done being quiet? I hope so.

I love web comics. I have a comic book publishing company that’s giving away comics online for free and I follow several strips both on their sites and in my feed reader. Some creators post their whole comic in their feeds and some just send out links letting you know a new strip is online. One of the ones that puts each daily comic in a feed is Savage Chickens, by Doug Savage. Hmm…chickens and feeds…a perfect combination!

Unlike the geek humor of xkcd which makes hilarious SQL jokes and Internet in-jokes, Savage Chickens is more accessible. It’s like The Far Side, but starring chickens and drawn on yellow sticky notes. Today’s chicken strip (oh, stop me, this is too easy) appealed to me since I haven’t seen any of the recent movies with surprise endings.

Brilliant.

Niki is a big Nathan Lane fan so for Christmas I got us tickets to the matinee performance of November on Saturday, plus the all-important baby-sitter.

November is a new play by David Mamet about a first-term U.S. president who is guaranteed to lose his upcoming re-election bid. He has messed up the country pretty badly and is being advised to just take his remaining campaign money and go away quietly. Mamet also wrote Glengarry Glen Ross and Wag The Dog, among many other things.

We saw Nathan Lane three times in The Producers, once in the revival of The Odd Couple and once in Butley. He is always amazing and Niki and I are really big fans of his.

So this was planned as a Christmas present for Niki, but we got a surprise bonus present for Jack.

Although Laurie Metcalf (a.k.a., Roseanne’s sister) is listed after Nathan Lane in the billing, Dylan Baker spends more time on the stage as the President’s advisor. Baker played Dr. Curtis Connors in the Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3movies and is rumored to be signed for one more film so he can become The Lizard in Spider-Man 4.

The present for Jack was a picture of his Daddy with Dr. Connors: