Dan
Birdwhistell
Hanging out after a long weekend!
Great to have such a long weekend to get caught up on thinking, movie-watching, and work. We’re putting the last few touches on some bigsight elements. Keep an eye out for the new homepage and some more adjustments to the profiles themselves. About to kick back with one last movie while knocking out some work.
Quick dinner at veranda
Headed over to Veranda on Pst while waiting for the laundry to go on through. Chimay and chicken ceasar salad
Farmers market on Sunday morning...
Country white loaf
Blackberry currant preserves
Couple lbs of new potatoes
Buffalo steak and sausage
I continue to be amazed by how much goes on right near our new place on 19th and R in Dupont Circle. It might be among the best locations in the city. Total win.
Home theatre system. First viewing.
So earlier today we managed to get the projector system up and running at the Willard Place. Pretty nice to have a 10’ screen in a dark room with a fire. Life is good.
Dining room in the new place
Still a bit unsure as to how exactly we’re going to furnish it, but it’s coming along!
Warren taking care of the lock.
Jack of all trades, Warren Konkel, dremmeling through a heavyweight lock that I mistakenly secured on to our back door. The man is now $20 richer.
Nice fire on Friday evening
Given that I’ve been highly under the weather, we got a late start to Friday night and enjoyed a fire in the study before heading out for an hour or two on U Street.
Taking the Art console for a spin
Still lots of changes to go up here, but here’s a few samples of my favorite pieces. We’ll then also have artist pages and the ability to tag a piece to a particular museum.
Just sampled: Russia House in Dupont
Just back from a quick detour with the roommates to Russia House in Dupont, just up from our house. We sampled a wide variety of infused vodkas with various success/interest.
Learning for the day...
The average word in the english language is 5.1 letters long. I feel better about the day already.
Election Night in DC
We got a bit of a late start but joined some friends at Left Bank around 10pm. Definitely decidedly Obama country there. After that headed over to the Rookery which was much more on the McCain side. Definitely an amazing night and there’s a good feel around DC today. It’s quite humbling and motivating at the same time.
Up late pre-election night...
Tying up a bunch of loose ends at the apartment before moving over to the DuPont Circle house. Seems to be a pleasant (though anxious) buzz around DC today/tonight. Can’t wait for the inauguration…
Out at Corn and Cows in VA
A small group of us heading out of DC last night and ventured down to Virginia for some hayride, corn maze, and bonfire fun.
Pig in a Pen - Ricky Skaggs
One of my favorite songs from Ancient Tones by Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder
Welcome to bigsight 2.0!
We’re still putting the final touches on the new version, but you’ll notice a few key changes already in the mix:
- New layout: You’ll see that we’re moving over to a much more dynamic layout that allows you to express yourself in many different ways. This should give you substantially more space to go into greater depth about your backstory and your work.
- Places and events: This is the feature I’m most excited about. I tend to express myself in context of specific moments or times that I spent at a place. So, for instance, I can now go in and show that I was a regular at my favorite Hawaiian restaurant in LA from 2005-2007. Or that I was with three of my best friends at the Parthenon in July of 2004.
- Tumblr-like blog: This is a feature Ben has been excited about for quite some time. Basically it lets you post little snippets of your everyday life in a simpler form than a blog. Most of us simply don’t have much to say in a long-blog format, so this gives you the chance to push out lots of daily content (pics, quotes, music, etc.) that you care about.
We should have the new site fully wrapped in the next couple of days. We’re looking forward to seeing how everyone uses it!
Founder of Bigsight Media Group
29
Washington, District of Columbia
Dan Birdwhistell is an entrepreneur and writer based in Washington, DC. He is a graduate of both Cambridge University and Washington & Lee University and is currently serving as the CEO of bigsight media group, the company behind this site. He is both a Truman Scholar and Gates Cambridge Scholar.
In addition to his Internet work, Dan is an avid researcher and has worked alongside Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to study how individuals can cultivate happiness and creativity in their daily lives. Most recently he completed a two year study of “Good Work” in the context of higher education.
Over the past five years Dan has worked with McKinsey & Company, co-founded a toy company, helped launch an Internet design agency, and traveled to over 35 different countries. He’s now devoting his full energy to building and scaling this site, which he ultimately hopes will help people promote their work, maintain their identity online, and connect with meaningful opportunities. He also runs a nightlife photography site at nashtown.com and maintains various blogs and sites around the web.
