My first Ning social network

I'm getting caught after a long hiatus on this blog. I was on the road, then seriously ill (with bronchitis), then busy creating my first Ning-based social network.

Ning is Marc Andreessen's next startup, and it's providing everyday folks (read: non-programmers) like me the ability to create social networks for their communities. I've created one for my church. (FBCers who haven't gotten an invitation for our alpha test, register here.)

Sorry, the network is for church members only, but I have this to say about how easy the process was:

• Super easy! It took me about an hour to get a pretty full-featured site for the church up and running -- including features like profile sharing, photo and video sharing, blogging, a calendar with upcoming events, a random Bible verse of the day, and more.
• Powerful customization abilities. Ning allows you to create groups in your social network. In a church context, we often call these groups "ministries" instead of groups. In less than 5 minutes, I made the change from Groups to Ministries throughout the site.

If you've always wanted to host a private-label version of Facebook + Flickr + forums for your affinity group, head on over to Ning and you could be up and running in about an hour.

My brother with the president elect

So here's my brother with the President Elect of Taiwan, Ma Ying Jeou.

At the time, Mr. Ma was just the mayor of Taipei doing a goodwill tour of the Bay Area. He was actually exhorting Taiwanese alumni of local schools like Berkeley and Stanford to return to Taiwan and presumably serve the motherland.

And now he's going to be the president and my brother has a celebrity photograph.

All babied out

Fedora enjoyed holding Christine's the new baby at another baby's 1st birthday celebration (thanks, Brian & Christine for having us to the tasty celebration!). Fedora's declared herself all done with babies, much to my relief. So brief interludes of baby-playing like this will satisfy her maternal instinct just fine. Hurrah! :-)

I have no idea what this face is about, but I had to publish the picture. :-)

Happy Easter!

Every year, we bring the kids up to Fedora's dad's church for their Easter service, egg hunt, and brunch. We managed to remember our old Easter egg baskets for the kids to collect their goodies in. Here they are posing with their cousins.

I find it amusing that both little brothers are hamming it up for the camera.