I'd photographed weddings before but never a proposal. This last weekend I got a chance to change that when my friend Jesse brought me in on his plan to ask his girlfriend Larisa to marry him, and asked if I'd be up for bringing my camera along to capture the event.
Jesse had a venue picked out for the occasion: a pier behind the Ferry Building Farmers' Market. Right by the water, with the Bay Bridge in the background, was his chosen spot:
The idea was that we would wander round the market together, magically end up in this location, and then I would suggest that Jesse and Larisa pose for a photo against the lovely backdrop. It happened just as planned, and here's that photo:
Then a split-second later Jesse was down on one knee and bringing Larisa to breathless joyful tears with his proposal:
They exchanged rings (a very modern couple)
and, bless them, were engaged:
After that we wandered round the corner to Hog Island Oysters for a sparkling seafood celebration.
I'm so happy for Larisa and Jesse. I've known them many years, going back to when I lived in Colorado. They're super people.
A few weeks back I threw out a handful of reading recommendations for Product Managers. I got a bunch of good feedback and additional suggestions—in blog comments, Tweets and email at work (the latter by default I won't be sharing).
Jim Ray reminded me of Michael "Rands" Lopp, "another great source of geek and management advice". In particular there's the book Managing Humans (which I have on my stack but haven't read yet).
Satyajeet Salgar, whose own blog I linked to, added a recommendation for Ben Horowitz's wonderful "Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager" [pdf].
Hunter Walk, another great PM whose blog I linked to, chipped in with a recommendation for the Quora Product Management Topic. Good call! That's where the Ian McAllister post on "working backwards" came from. As Hunter says, right now there's lots of interesting and diverse material from which to learn.
Finally Michelle Dy pointed me at a blog post by Jason Goldman (erstwhile Product VP at Twitter): Enable Float Alignment. In a similar vein to the previously linked Anatomy of a Feature, this speaks to the cost burden of every single feature added to a product and urges product designers to take more active stewardship in creating "just the experience they feel is best overall" rather than pandering to every niche desire.
I feel pretty lucky to have the benefit of input from these folks!
In other news, The Bean was 161 days old this weekend. I feel pretty lucky on that front too:
