Kevin Warnock

Pan with fruits and vegetables. Photo by Michael Korcuska via Flickr, used with Creative Commons commercial use license

I love to cook. I love to eat. I love technology. I love photography. My camera shoots high quality video. I like visitors to my blog.

Given the above, I’m going to start an online cooking show. I have been talking about this for years now, but this year I’m going to take action and get started.

I have access to a dedicated studio just for this project, and it’s all new and sparkling clean. It’s not someones’ kitchen – it’s dedicated to this cooking show and has in fact never been used for cooking, as that would put wear and tear on the appliances and cabinets and decor, and shorten the time everything looks brand new. It’s not quite finished yet, but soon will be. Light fixtures with properly color balanced bulbs for professional results have been acquired, and test shoots have been completed. The space looks amazing on video.

I’m going to use my Canon 5D Mark II camera to shoot the video. This is an astonishingly good video camera, as you can see from the video I’ve already posted to this blog. I will edit the video myself in Apple’s iMovie software.

I’m ordering a dedicated wok burner, since I plan to start the episodes with dishes that are cooked in a wok.

I have in mind that I’ll take the viewer shopping with me to Rainbow Grocery coop, where I do my own grocery shopping. This is the best grocery store I know of, and it’s a model for how I think the world’s grocery stores should be run. One of the best things about it is the stunning variety of offerings, and the large bulk goods section. This section contains some 800 items. I take a dozen Ball brand glass caning jars with me shopping and fill the jars directly from the bulk bins. As a result, I throw out very little in the way of packaging each week since I reuse my glass jars indefinitely. I am paid a nickel for each jar I reuse, which is a powerful incentive to avoid wasting packaging. I would increase the incentive to 25 cents for better compliance, as it’s currently quite low from what I observe in line at the checkout stand.

I want my cooking show to teach people how to cook. But I also want to introduce people to different, more efficient ways to organize commerce so that these ideas can be copied and spread.

I’ve never taken a cooking class, so I technically don’t know if what I think I know is ‘correct.’ But what I cook tastes good, and is different from Panda Express and most Asian restaurants. I like to think it’s as rewarding as what you would buy in a modest but not cheap Asian restaurant. I think that’s pretty good given I’ve only been at this a few years and haven’t taken any classes. I hope to get a discussion forum going so that I can learn from my more educated viewers that might be so kind as to correct my mistakes.

Soup, picture by Flickr user avlxyz. Used by Creative Commons commercial license granted via Flickr.

I also plan to show viewers my garden and aquaponics system I’m setting up now. I will cook from the garden as soon as possible.

I hope to develop a speaking style that permits me to inject social commentary into the lessons, in a way that’s not overbearing or that comes across as lecturing. I really want to impress on my viewers the importance of not eating out much, both for biological health and financial health reasons.

I passionately believe that cooking should again be taught in middle school and high school. Eating is universal, so everyone should be taught how to cook. It’s a tragedy I didn’t really learn to cook anything exciting until 2006.

If I get a good viewership on Vimeo and YouTube, I hope to take my show to public access television.

I recognize that the big celebrity chefs one sees on TV have devoted their lives to their craft. I have no plans to make this my life, so my show may well be awful compared to what the pros are doing. But I don’t think it will be awful. I think it will be approachable, educational and warm hearted, and that it will touch enough people to make it well worth my time. Look for the first episode by February, 2011.

Note that I went to school with an actual TV chef, but I haven’t seen him since I was 14. If he should ever stumble upon my show, I hope he is kind should he bump into me at a future high school reunion. I only know about his TV life because of Facebook, not because I’ve seen him on television…

The craziest thing about my plan is I don’t watch cooking shows and don’t own a functioning television. I didn’t even know who Emeril was until 2008.

I wonder if Julia Child boxed sets are available on DVD or Netflix on demand?

I discovered the box in the upper right to subscribe to this blog has been broken for some time, so I don’t have as many subscribers as I otherwise would have. If you liked this post, and would like to subscribe, please type in your email address in the little box in the upper right. I won’t write useless nonsense to you, I promise. Thank you.

2011 calendar - photo by Tatsuo Yamashita, via Flickr Creative Commons license, commercial use

This year is going to be different from the last ten years.

I view the last ten years as my ‘lost decade.’ I sold my first Internet company in 2000, and haven’t had a big success since. Yes, I invented the online office suite with gOffice.com in 2004 and got married in 2008, but I should have gotten more done in 10 years.

It’s time to reinvent my life and create a new path for myself.

Part of my plan is to dramatically expand my circle of friends and acquaintances. I am somewhat shy by nature, but I’ve gotten much less shy in recent years. I credit my wife with that because she is outgoing, and that rubbed off on me. I’m much more likely today to start up a conversation on the subway or in the grocery store line or at the library than even two years ago. I can even give my card to total strangers that I’d like to photograph. I was always scared to approach subjects, but once I started doing so, the reactions were great and it was easy and even fun. What was I so scared of?

I’d like to make friends with interesting people who are doing interesting things. In addition to meeting people in person, I view this blog as a conduit to meet the kind of people I’d like to make friends with. I’m going to do that by starting to write more frequently on more subjects, and see how that goes. So, if you read something here that strikes a chord with you and you think we’d have something in common, please send me a comment or email.

In no particular order, here’s a quick list of some of the accomplishments I hope to achieve in 2011:

• Sell my old bus conversion. It’s a 1967 MCI 5a. I drove it in 2002 to New York City and back from San Francisco, so it’s road worthy and reliable. It’s fun to drive and has a lot of character.
• Establish a vibrant household with interesting roommates where we grow our own vegetables and fish and cook together twice a week. See a description of the house and what I have in mind at SanFranciscoHouseForRent.com.
• Finish my new bus conversion to a degree where I can use it for travels. It’s a 1994 “RTS” that gets outstanding mileage and looks great. There’s a lot to do, and I’m looking for bus nuts to get involved in the project. Read about bus conversions at one of my favorite web sites BusConversions.com
• Learn more of C# so I can accept a wider variety of programming work. I am now a VB.NET developer primarily, but sadly this language is decidedly uncool, even though it still works great.
• Continue my programming consulting practice at Silveroffice, Inc., and increase my customer base.
• Install new rain gutters on my house.
• Replace my car with a diesel model I can fuel with biodiesel.
• Start to establish myself as a writer and public speaker about green homes and sustainable living. This is a big goal, and one I hope I make real progress on. I am passionate about this subject, as you will see in future posts.
• Years after graduating from Brooks Institute, make money at least six times this year selling my services as a photographer. I specialize in photographing people, either alone or in groups. I’m particularly good with couples, and I pride myself on making people feel comfortable, even if they’ve never been photographed by a photographer before. You can see my work at my photography website photography.KevinWarnock.com.

This list will keep me plenty busy. Remind me to post a follow up on December 31st, 2011 if I should forget…

Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere

Yesterday was New Years Eve – a fitting time to finish reading a good book by Jason Kelly – Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere, Don’t Be One Of Them. This book hammers home the notion that most people are stupid about money and need to radically change their view towards it and approach to getting and making most valuable use of it. I have made plenty of mistakes with money, for which I am embarrassed and not proud. Had I read and followed the advice in this book when I sold Hotpaper.com, Inc. and made a substantial pot of money, I might now have several times that pot of money. Instead I have less than all of it remaining, which Kelly would frown on I’m sure.

Jason Kelly uses blunt, provocative language to make his points. It’s unlike any financial book I’ve yet read. The message of the book is that the system is designed from every angle to quickly and completely separate people from their money, and that one must forever change behavior if one is to avoid having their money drained.

There is no particular great wisdom in this book, but even so it’s a good book and worth reading. In particular, people with lots of debt, little savings and little hope should run to the library and check out this book and read it in a day or two. It’s a quick read, and hard to put down. I have already adopted many of the suggestions in the book like paying cash for my vehicles and not carrying any balance on credit cards. But I still have a long way to go before Jason would give me a clean financial bill of health.

It’s the first day of 2001 today, so it seemed fitting to write about a book that has more potential to unshackle millions from their debt induced indentured servitude than any other single book I’ve read. Highly recommended.