– Stefan Ruenzel

In 2004, Alder Yarrow typed the words “wine blog” into Google’s search engine and got zero results. A void to be filled, he thought. So Alder, wine lover, founded vinography.com and began to blog on the subject of wine. Red wine, white wine, cabernet, pinot, chardonnay, merlot, the perfect wine-to-dish match—all things wine have become an integral part of Alder’s life outside the box (where he is Founder and Principal of a design consulting firm).

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Fast-forward to 2008, type in “wine blog,” and you will find 941 thousand results. Vinography.com is first on what is now an interminable list. Call Alder the grandfather of wine blogging; he calls himself a “legitimate journalist” at the end of the day with a glass in hand and a laptop before him. Doug got the chance to catch up with Alder at Bin 38, a hopping wine bar in the Marina District of San Francisco, to discover his favorite places to wine out in the city.

Here’s a list of the places Alder mentioned:

Bin 38

CAV

Yield

Nectar Wine Lounge

California Wine Merchant

Vino Venue has closed its doors since we chatted with Alder.

Mindy Roberts, author and publisher of TheMommyBlog.net, makes her second appearance in Life Outside the Box and tells Doug about some of her favorite kid-friendly places she likes to escape to in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Sunset Magazine’s Peter Fish shares details of one of his favorite escapes when he gets to live his life outside the box: Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Cody and the legendary Beartooth Highway.

– Carl Bidleman

Spending too much time in the office and at the computer was the very reason we started Life Outside the Box. And all too often, that problem persists. Last week, Doug and Stefan Ruenzel met up with Merlin Mann for an interview at San Francisco’s Stern Grove. Once again, I couldn’t get away from the office.  And it’s too bad because I was looking forward to meeting Merlin. He is the editor and main force behind 43 Folders, a family of websites about “stuff like personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better.” Stuff I really need to know. He is also That Phone Guy, a very funny rebirth of Bob Newhart’s “buttoned down mind.” I am a big fan of Merlin’s work and I hope to learn enough from 43 Folders that I’ll be able to get outside the box the next time he connects with OpenRoad.TV.

– Carl Bidleman

There’s so much going on in this digital world that our entire crew feels as if we’re often playing “catch up.” So we’re grateful to have a newfound friend in Scott Beale of Laughing Squid who has taken us under his wing and patiently explains the mysteries of this new world to us. In this episode, Scott explains Twitter and how this “inside the box” service actually helps people connect face to face. (At Scott’s urging, we now have an OpenRoad.TV Twitter account but unlike Scott, we have no followers as of yet. This sort of rejection brings back memories of junior high.)

We also had the pleasure of meeting Thor Muller of Get Satisfaction and Eddie Codel of Geek Entertainment TV. And you’ll find Joel Martin (according to Thor, South Park’s version of the Soup Nazi) at The Butler and the Chef.

– Carl Bidleman

Scott Beale has been around San Francisco’s digital media scene since the very beginning. He’s very well-known as the curator and “Primary Tentacle” of Laughing Squid, an online journal of arts, technology and culture in San Francisco and beyond. Scott was good enough to give us an insider’s tour of South Park, a vibrant San Francisco neighborhood once known as “Multi-media Gulch” with a surprising history that dates back over 100 years.

— Carl Bidleman

John Battelle is a respected journalist, entrepreneur, professor and author of The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, and searchblog.com. He is also the founder of Federated Media, a company that represents and supports independent voices online, including, we’re very pleased to say, OpenRoad.TV.  John has written a great deal about life inside the box but also knows how to live outside it, too.

— Carl Bidleman

Doug and I have only met Om Malik twice but we’ve come to like him very much. Om is a highly-respected journalist and founder of Giga Omni Media which publishes a number of websites that chronicle the worlds of technology and new media (GigaOM, NewTeeVee, Web Worker Daily, Earth2Tech, Found/Read, GigaOM Jobs and GigaOM TV). We first interviewed Om for Life Outside the Box on December 21st, but before we could post the video, he suffered a heart attack. As you can imagine, Om’s life both inside and outside the box has changed dramatically. He’s now taking time to smell the flowers and we would all be wise to take the time to listen to what he’s learned.

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Weekend Sherpa’s Brad Day gives Doug (and himself) some tips on getting away from the computer and how and where to enjoy life outside the box in the San Francisco Bay Area: Angel Island, the Marin Headlands, Mt. Tamalpais and the San Mateo coast beaches.

– Carl Bidleman

I grew up in Detroit in the 50’s when the town was called the “City of Champions” (at least we still called it that) based on world titles earned by Joe Louis in boxing, the Tigers in baseball, the Lions in football, and the Red Wings in hockey. I loved all those sports but since some of my earliest memories were of my dad standing outside on frigid Michigan nights using a garden hose to make a skating rink for the neighborhood kids, hockey became my youthful passion.