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The Man With The Sidekick Tattoo

Way back in days of yore (2006), I was helping run a community website for users of the T-Mobile Sidekick and other hiptop devices. So when an image of a Sidekick back tattoo went viral, I knew I had to talk to the owner.

Here's my original interview with Matt Burke (archived version of the website).

I thought it would be fun to track down Matt and get an update, 13 years later! Here's my interview with him (conducted via Twitter; lightly edited for formatting):

Matt: I will never escape that tattoo and the Internet infamy it commands haha. I’m up for some questions! Hit me with em!

Mike: I guess the first question is how is the tattoo holding up? Fading a bit, or did you have it inked over into something else like a weird bird?

Matt: It still looks surprisingly good hah. I haven’t covered it or touched it up, just left it the way it was when I got it! 

I’ll try to get you an updated photo later!

Great! What’s the reaction of most people when they see it now? Do they even know what it is?

People that were around during that time are almost ALWAYS like ‘oh my god THATS YOU?!? I’ve seen this tattoo all over the Internet for years!’ and similar thoughts hah.

It’s been listed on a few sites as ‘dumbest tattoos ever’ and also Worst Tattoo on a Female which was an honor for me to win since I’m nowhere close to a woman haha

Did all that Internet Fame at the time ever bring anything good and/or interesting into your life?

Nope, nothing at all haha. Oddly enough, though, I got a lot of threats via MySpace at the time, which never made any sense, but people would go on & on about how stupid it is and if I ever show up in their town that they were going to ‘beat me up’ hah. That was a really wild time back then

Have you gotten any other tech tattoos since then & what is your current phone?

Nope, no other tech tattoos, I just got the IPhone 11 max pro or whatever it’s called

Ok, well thanks so much for your time! Is there anything else you’d like to add for the Danger team?

Of course, thanks for reaching out! 

No other words I can add other than thanks for the killer phone back in the day! Still have nothing but the fondest of memories of those Sidekicks 🙏🏼

you can find Matt on Twitter - @mattburkephoto

Drone Adventures #1

Picked up a tiny drone on sale. Charged it up for its test flights:

Flight 1: Drone moves up an inch then rapidly backwards into my hands

Flight 2: Rapidly rise and slam into the ceiling

Flight 3: Steady low hover followed by a steady plummet onto the coffee table

Flight 4: Rapid hop across the room followed by sudden power down and rapid descent

On the plus side I beat the dogs to the downed drones every time, so it was not eaten.

99U & NYC

Looking forward to visiting NYC for the  99U conference in about a month!

I'll probably do some live sketches of some of the talks as I've done at past conferences.

Weather, Illustrated

In order to help hold myself accountable for experimenting with various digital drawing apps, I've started up Sketchy Weather - a Tumblr where I'll post quick sketches based on the weather.

Here's a cockatrice (half dragon, half rooster) - a version of which adorns Central Park's Belvedere Castle - the official weather station of NYC.

Throwback Thursday

This summer and fall, Zoe indulged me by helping me re-create some of her photos from the past:

May 2003 / June 2013; the bike rack at Acadia National Park, Maine:

August 2006 / August 2013; hanging out poolside:

May 2007 / July 2013; Faerie Garden at Kennebunk Library:

September 2006 / September 2013; Soccer Practice:

Robot Finds Kitten: The Comic

When Zoe started kindergarten I started adding quick doodles to her lunchbox. It's now evolved into a tradition and while I still have my rushed mornings where I jot off something quickly ("it's a snake") I try to turn out something halfway decent these days. Here's a collection of some of the more recent drawings.

While I'm usually thinking of something at the last minute, last June I decided to do a short comic along the theme of Robot Finds Kitten for her last two weeks of school. Robot Finds Kitten is an old "Zen simulation" game (play it online or learn more about it) and I had already alluded to it in an earlier drawing. But in a universe of infinite robots finding infinite kittens there's no reason not to revisit the idea.

Here's the full comic: 

(click image for giant-sized version)

Excuse the not-great quality. Lacking access to a scanner I just took pictures of each drawing and stitched them together.

Not a lot of planning went into this as I sketched it out day by day. After I had the robot playing with the kitten I figured I had to have something else happen to wrap it up.

A few notes in review:

• Most unintentionally amusing panel: the robot using "Robo Pedia" on a giant screen instead of downloading information directly from Space iCloud or whatever. Related: robot must plug in to recharge.
• Favorite panel: kitten plays with robot laser pointer.
• Zoe always uses a "ghost + sword" drawing to indicate adventures in her works, so they are watching some sort of adventure movie there.
• The scale of the window on the spaceship (among other things) is horribly inconsistent.

I've done more comic-type panels mixed in with just drawings so stay tuned for more (maybe).

Halloween Photo Roundup

Ghost Story

Summer Recap, Part One

It's well past Labor Day and into the school year but since it's 90 degrees out today I think I can still get in some updates about summer under the wire before it's officially fall.

We got an early start this year as Zoe was out of school just a week before she headed off for a camp adventure at Camp Jordan near Bar Harbor, Maine. This was Zoe's first sleep-away camp and there were many camp experiences to choose from. Of course, she was going to choose one with some degree of adventure:

She had a full week of camping with rock climbing, a ropes course, boating, cooking over open fires and even some thunderstorms. 

Since we had to go up near Bar Harbor to pick her up, we decided to make a long weekend of it and spend some time in town and in Acadia National Park. We'd camped there a couple of times, but it had been a while since our last visit:

Of course, the problem with planning a visit in advance with hotel reservations and everything is that you are then at the mercy of the weather. So it was a bit more foggy than we would have liked. 

But still we managed to have a great time, explore the park and enjoy Bar Harbor. The hotel had a pool and we got some swimming in during a brief period of sunshine. Here are some more pictures.

I took my bike along with the idea of getting up early and enjoying some long rides through Acadia's loop road and carriage roads before the crowds got there. The cold foggy mornings somehow failed to entice me out of bed but since I had dragged my bike all the way there I was determined to get at least one ride in so I set out early one morning. As I biked through the first half of the park it got even foggier. Since it was not going to be very scenic on the scenic road, I thought why not at least make it a challenging ride and bike up Cadillac Mountain instead.

Why Not

It turns out there were several good reasons not to do this, but unfortunately they only became obvious as I was already climbing up the mountain.

1. As I climbed the mountain the weather changed from heavy fog to heavy fog plus wind plus rain. At some point I'm pretty sure I biked directly through some low-lying clouds.
2. Somewhat relatedly it also got a lot colder.
3. Gravity: 
   
   

 I mean, I knew it was a mountain and all but since I hadn't checked in advance I didn't really know what I was getting into, especially combined with the weather. But I wanted a challenge and I got one - and eventually made it to the top!

 

At which point I realized yet another miscalculation: since I could barely see three feet in front of me, the trip down would not be the invigorating swift easy coast it should have been. Better adjectives would be "nerve-wracking", "brake-clutching", "hand-cramping" and "bone-chilling".

All in all though it was a fun weekend with family and lots of good food!

July 4th

We took another long-weekend road trip at the beginning of July to see some family and attend a surprise birthday party. This was in the party of NY people from outside NY call "upstate" but in reality it's just a bit north up the Hudson River and NYers from actual upstate NY consider it just an extended borough. It was a good low-key weekend, with family, friends, swimming and barbecue. Plus if you ever need a nesting doll, just let me know:

I met a lot of in-laws whose names I can't keep track of but they all have cute kids:

 

We smuggled out a few dozen bagels for my freezer and my co-workers and were on our way. No major traffic on the ride home, and only a few weeks until my next vacation week. Tune in next time for the life aquatic.

Cute in Japantown