Taddy Blecher stopped by Kiva’s offices last week and gave an inspiring, impassioned talk about increasing access to education in South Africa. I thought to myself, this should be a TED talk, randomly decided to Google for it, and discovered that he’d given a similar talk at TEDxJohannesburg: From free to freedom

Update: Also see Nicholas Kristof’s Occupy the Classroom

I keep meaning to post something about having been offered a job, or starting my new job, but now that I’m already in my second week, I figured it was time to just come out and say it:

I’m a software engineer at Kiva.

Officially I’ve joined their “core services” group, which is responsible for the financial and database code that underlies kiva.org. I’ll be getting my hands dirty in the financials to start, but I’m also looking forward to helping tame their ever-growing database.

Update: Kiva moved from their longtime location in the Mission to a brand new office at 875 Howard in SOMA. The core services engineering team is off in the corner, so this picture doesn’t even begin to capture the spirit of the place. But that’s where I sit. The window looks out over Tehama Street.

So happy to be walking to work again regularly: Short bouts of exercise pay huge dividends (so looking forward to burning off my RTW 15)

My sister likes to send me container ship disaster articles: Stricken ship cracks as captain faces NZ court (thanks Katie)

Besides interviewing for jobs and looking for apartments, one of the first things Stephanie and I did when we landed back in San Francisco was meet up with Eric Rewitzer of 3 Fish Studios. Earlier this year he used some of the photos I took during our transpacific container ship voyage as inspiration for a series of large-scale paintings (see my post, The making of PANAMAX, for the back story). When he exhibited the finished works last March we were still in Thailand (so obviously couldn’t make it), but we heard from friends who went that it was a great show.

I was super-excited to finally check out the paintings in person—at least those that haven’t been sold yet (there are a few left for anyone who’s interested). They’re pretty amazing up close. Stephanie was so impressed she wanted to take them all home with her. Except that we don’t have a home to take them to (yet).

Then just this morning I discovered that SFGate is using a photo of one of Eric’s linocuts to highlight ArtSpan’s 36th annual SF Open Studios, happening every weekend this month.

Of course you can stop by 3 Fish Studios anytime (just email or call in advance), but as part of the Open Studios event, they and hundreds of other art studios in SOMA, Tenderloin, Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, and Bayview will be throwing open their doors next weekend from 11am-6pm. Check ’em out!

Update, November 16, 2011: I happened to be flipping through a magazine while I was waiting for my lunch today, and wouldn’t you know it, a painting caught my eye. Sound familiar?