Thursday, August 30, 2007

Here come the Irish!

Oh boy.. I get chills listening to this (clipped from an event ND held as part of its latest capital campaign)

Monday, August 27, 2007

Sing along

Honestly now.. is there anything funnier (or cuter) than listening to my three-year-old, Bryce, singing to himself, fumbling through the lyrics to Bennie and the Jets?

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

More post-BarCamp Nashville chatter...

Working from home this morning, having some problems with my VPN, my email client, the works.... pretty frustrating...

Soooo, I'm reading through some more of the post-BarCamp blogger chatter.
I'm just a so-so personal blogger.. an IT guy with an English degree in his back pocket.. so I don't always feel 100% qualified in either the blogosfera or the coder communities, but feel like I've just got to say:

Everybody chill!

I'm really glad I went to BarCamp Nashville. I'm really glad that Dave and Marcus had the (truly) bright idea to put it all together.. to say nothing of all the long hours and hard work that went into making it all come together.

So I'm really glad I went. My eyes have been opened to some new possibilities. I feel engaged in something. I feel energized to get involved. Like I said, I've worked in IT in this town for 10 years.. and there were-- of the 500+ attendees at that thing-- 498 people I'd never met before.

But I'm also disappointed in myself. Disappointed that I didn't get even more out of it. That I couldn't stay longer, meet more people, do more than just make snarky Twitter comments along the way.

It was a great event. A great first BarCamp for Nashville... kicking something off. Who knows what it could lead to. Or what the next gathering could be like. And I'm sure everyone has lots of ideas for how to refine and improve on what's been done so far.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

BarCamp Nashville Recap

Kate O offers a recap of the BarCampNashville over at Music City Bloggers complete with a BarCamp picture-- the first I've seen-- in which Manundso and I actually make an appearance..

Sleepover Success!

Just got back from picking Aidan up from his sleepover.. and it was quite a success!
Apparently the boys all stayed up until about 10:30, laughing and giggling... this after an evening of pizza, cake, and Zathura.. then woke up this morning around 7:30 for Donuts and orange juice (and a hail storm of Nerf darts being fired back and forth across Ms. Brooke's living room)..
And when we arrived and Aidan met us at the door, he was in tears.. but not for having spent the night away from home.. he was upset because we were there to pick him up.

The boy didn't want to go home.
Didn't. Want. To. Go. Home.

As my dad said this morning, the flood-gates have opened.

As for us.. last night, we went and caught the 7:10 Superbad (which was amazing!) while Bryce visited with his aunt. Then we all slept like logs.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Social Bookmarking

One of many great videos from Common Craft explaining somewhat technical concepts in easily received terms. Why can't more of my folks at work think like this?

BarCamp Nashville

Spent a few hours at BarCamp Nashville this afternoon-- it was very interesting... though I'm not sure it was so unconference as everyone likes to say.
And it was, as expected, very warm. That was very unconference. They cranked up the A/C at the Exit/In (also unconference), I'm sure, but it just wasn't enough...

Brought Manundso along with me and, while I don't think he got quite as geeked out as me, he enjoyed the first several presentations. Presentations were mostly good. Mitch Joel stole the show, hands down.

Lots of marketing-speak-- I'm a little conflicted about technology seminars that turn out to be all about sales. But nothing here was as slimy as what went on at Oracle AppsWorld in 2003, for instance (i.e. mock-turtles and chunky eyeglasses as far as the eye could see; and not an analyst or coder in the crowd).

I'm also a little bothered by how 'planted' in my seat I felt. I'd have liked to be able to get up, move around, mingle a bit.. but space was at a premium, we didn't really know anyone as an entrypoint, and there was no real 'networking' space available-- with the possible exception of the bar.

Not able to stay much longer, unfortunately... the beer has started flowing, judging by the Twitter feed, but SleepyMom and I are planning to see a movie tonight while Aidan is at a sleepover (his very FIRST!) and Bryce spends some quality time with his aunt..

So I'm cleaning up a bit around here and making some notes about all the local talent I've been exposed to today. This BarCamp experiences really has gotten my entrepreneurial juices going.. maybe it'll turn into something.

Some of the names to note:
Dave Delaney
Marcus Whitney
Jackson Miller
Mitch Joel
Chris Houchens (the very Cluetrain presentation)

One take-away from BarCamp that I think will be valuable-- I look forward to getting more plugged into the local group here. Having worked here for 10 years, I've managed to get to know quite a few people in the technology sector around town.

What opened my eyes this afternoon is that not a single one of them showed up. So who are all these other people? And where the hell have I been? I'm looking forward to getting to know-- and perhaps working with-- many of them in future.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Fried Day...

Have you heard? Temperatures here have been Crazy Eddie, INSANE!
A solid week of temps in the 100's.
Forcast for today called for 97.. but it was more like 107 downtown today..

And so tempers are flaring all over the place.. well, mostly with the boys.
As I type this, they're shouting at each other about something...
[pause for this mediation break]

Okay, I can take my referee hat back off..
Bryce just told me that he had a dream last night
Me: "A dream? really?" Bryce has never admitted to having a dream before.
Bryce: "Yeah a dream. And you know what? There was a Grinch, and he was eating me!"
And then.. just when I'd have expected him to seem upset about that, he smiled at me, shrugged his shoulders and said "Well, he wasn't a very nice Grinch"..

It's 8:30 right now.. and still 92 degrees outside...

Heading to BarCamp Nashville tomorrow..
Hoping for something interesting.. hoping to meet some cool people, network a little bit, and get some business-idea juices flowing.
But mostly I'm expecting to sweat. That's pretty much the only thing I can be sure of.
Sweat.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

More on the Scooter..

Buster Olney's got a nice piece on Rizzuto here

And a couple more pictures, via the NYT..

Photo: Associated Press

Photo: Vincent Laforet/The New York Times

The Scooter has passed

Read this sad news just now:
Phil Rizzuto, Yankees Shortstop, Dies at 89

The likes of Casey Stengel and Howard Cosell both told him that he'd never make it... but he was everything about watching baseball for me as a kid growing up. Watching Yankee games has never been the same since Rizzuto left the press box...

Mac Geekery for the week...

Reading Gruber's Daring Fireball and catching up on some of the good stuff out of the August 7 Mac event.. and the mini-controversy that ensued as a result of some of the questions asked by reporters in the Q&A afterward... well, really the controversy is more the result of the zealous blogosphere, as pointed out by Jason Snell at MacWorld. All the same, here are some good links--

Snell's recap of the whole thing-- dubbed "Stickergate"
audio of the "Stickergate" question and answer
audio clip of Jobs talking about why Apple doesn't make cut-rate PCs

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Baby Einstein takes a hit

Another study and more stern proclamations from the medical community about how detrimental Baby Einstein and other video entertainment can be for babies and their language development.
Based on our anecdotal evidence, of course, between Aidan and Bryce-- two of the most verbal kids we know-- along with the testimonials of our friends and neighbors, most all of whom have youngsters now who were raised with the Baby Einstein catalog of videos, this is pure hogwash. Heck, we've joked for years that, if it weren't for that Baby Mozart video-- 27 1/2 minutes of calm in the morning-- my wife would never have gotten a shower in Aidan's first year of life.

No baby under 2 should watch any video or television whatsoever. So say the good doctors. Apparently, they can all afford nannies.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Ooooh.. new Mac Stuff!

Was a long, engrossing day at work, and only at the tail end of the day did I get to do a little browsing and.. lo and behold, what did I find but a bunch of announcements from Apple! Oh, that's right, it is Tuesday, isn't it?

New iMacs.. all aluminum and glass enclosure.. they're beautiful!
and... finally finally-- a new iLife!

Watching the Announcement video off the Apple site..
Have to say, Steve is rather overusing the phrase "taking it to a whole new level"..

From Steve's description of iPhoto, it's going to be hard to avoid running out to the Apple store and buying the damn iLife '08 tomorrow!

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Bye bye Balsilly...

A few short weeks ago, it was looking like the Nashville Predators were goners.
Jim Balsillie, Captain Canada, and his sneering attorney, Richard Rodier, were crouching over the team, apparently putting all the pieces in place to move the team to Hamilton or Waterloo Ontario.
They were even selling season tickets for the "Hamilton Predators" up there...
Meanwhile, Rodier was telling us, via local sports talk radio "to chill."

Well, thankfully, Nashville didn't chill. A number of local businessmen and media luminaries got together and started rallying the city to sell season tickets and whip up support for the team. Since the lock-out, paradoxically, while the team's prospects have been consistently improving-- the new CBA that came out of the lock-out has really, I think, been a great benefit to smaller market teams like the Preds-- the 'lost' season a few years ago really set back ticket sales... and we've never quite recovered.

Now, I could be called something of a hippocrite here. I'm not a season ticket-holder.. and in fact, it's been a few years at least since I last attended a match. But it just does my heart good to see the city rise up and take hold of this hockey franchise and really get behind it.

And now, the dream scenario-- local ownership-- what seemed like such a long-shot a few weeks ago has turned the corner and appears to have a real chance at success, with news today of a binding letter of intent.

Forgive me if I revel a little as we watch the Canadian media tuck its tail a bit and wander back home.