Nothing to say

(Forgive last night’s post.  I was too excited to leave it alone, and too tired to do it right.)

I spoke at IgniteBoulder5 last night. It was my third IgniteBoulder, and my first time presenting a presentation.  Ever.

My wife actually put the presentation together for me when she saw what a difficult time I was having with it.  Once I had a sound structure in which to work, I ran with it.  After about 5 practice sessions and a couple whiskey & cokes, I stepped up on the stage of the Boulder Theater and practiced and preached the very same thing.

The presentation was about finding your community.  The presentation was for finding my community.  And I have to say: It was a tremendous success!  The first two Ignites that I attended, I had conversations with about two people.  Last night, I had more than I can count.  It was just amazing.  And I couldn’t have done it without my lovely and amazing wife.

Since you’re not really able to read all the slides in the video, I’m including those for anyone who wanted to catch a rewind on them.

The experience was completely outrageous.  Having been to two IgniteBoulder nights before, I knew that humor was much better received than something straight and dry, and that the relative alcohol content of the Boulder Theater (compared to auditoriums on CU campus) would only add to that truth.  Unfortunately, my sense of humor only responds spontaneously, so the presentation wasn’t really funny at all.  I was ready to fail miserably.  I was equally ready to do fairly well.  I absolutely wasn’t prepared to do great, but the response was tremendous.  All I can say is Thank You, Boulder!

(@kym818) (@brandonsings)

(top center: @mediamum)

My goals here were three-fold.  First, I want people to be honest enough with themselves to see clearly what they need, what their community needs, and what they have to contribute. Second, I want people to be confident and courageous enough to do something about what their honesty teaches them.  I don’t actually think I used the word courage in the presentation.  I should have.  Finally, like I said above, I wanted to practice what I was preaching. After my last two Ignites, I only regretted not striking up some conversations. Third time around, I had to make it happen if it was going to.

And so I did.

(Flickr: Yann Ropars)

From the stage, things looked a little scarier.

(Flickr: Andrew Hyde)

That’s it for this part of the story. I had an amazing time, and am VERY much looking forward to my next Ignite presentation.

Tremendous credit and respect to Andrew Hyde (@andrewhyde), IgniteBoulder founder, coordinator, and utterly amazing dude.

Peace!

Tonight, I presented at IgniteBoulder5, and I have to say… it was one of the more amazing experiences of my life.  Why?  Because I feel like I did the impossible.  Success or failure, I was already planning my next Ignite presentation.  It will be called “Fake it til you make it,” because that’s basically my philosophy.  It’s been called self-deprecating, and whatever, but let’s not focus on that right now.

The point is that confidence is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Look at it this way:

Do confident people tend to be more successful?

Do successful people tend to be more confident?

I find both to be absolutely true.  And if that’s the case, where does a poor, under-confident schlub jump in?  The answer is that you just jump in.  If you have to fake it, fake it, because you are capable of more than you realize.

So I didn’t do the impossible.  And I wasn’t faking it.  But I did a presentation (with a great deal of help from my wife and the IgniteBoulder organizers!)

I’m fried, really.  There will be photos and video tomorrow.  For now, I want to express my gratitude to everyone who came out, everyone who heckled me (it really did help!), everyone who supported me, and all the kind words I received afterwards.  It was a truly amazing experience, and I’m grateful to everyone who made it possible.

Oh, and to the Boulder Theater.  Wow.  What a great venue for this!

After a 12 hour work day, the evening went far too quickly. Now I’m laying in bed next to my wife, and while I know I should be sleeping, all I want to do is gab.

In other news, I had to reinstall the wordpress app after upgrading the iPod touch to 3.0. A new version is under review for the app store right now, but until it’s approved, my categories don’t work. Odd. The good news is that select works marvelously in here.

I’ll try that sleep thing now.

My wife and I were talking today about the art of being useful and the art of selling yourself as useful. Unfortunately, we seem to agree on the subject. The view isn’t rosy.

Now before I continue, my friends both real and twittery need to know that I’m being nationally universal. Boulder is an anomaly. My peeps are an anomaly. (Which I’d intentional.)

I wrote recently on customer service, and this is an extention of that. Useful people seem to rarely be good at marketing or selling their utility. Conversely, those who can sell it tend to have very little else after the sale.

It’s sad, because the people forking over money for consulting or some other service deserve to actually receive that service. And they deserve quality. When that doesn’t happen, distrust builds. Lack of trust leads to closed doors and harder sales. Somehow, the hacks still persevere and those who could actually back up a sale (if their honest ass could make one) are left running the espresso machine for the hack consultant they were formerly competing against.

It’s a shame. And I wish I could offer a solution.

There are at least two sides to every story.  On the one hand you’ve got companies doing things right, treating their customers (or clients or guests or whatever friendly, inclusive word they want to give their customers).  They do things right.  They build a positive name.  They’re the kind of company that has testimonials and viral praise and retweets and facebook followers, and ALL that.  They build community, engender trust, and just make people smile.

On the other hand, you have the ones who fleece you, bully you, trick you, pressure you, and still get your money.  They are the used car salesmen of the world.  They have amazing tactics, and they work.  They promise you free things like free credit report dot com, and get you to sign up for a cheap little thing, then continue to bill you month after month, an annoying little amount, hoping you won’t notice or won’t care enough to protest, or won’t protest loud enough to get through their crummy service far enough to get that charge removed.  They trust you to remember the government’s announcement that free credit reports will be available to all, and they furthermore trust you to be naive enough to think that the government is promoting that service with catchy commercials about pirates driving geo metros or something like that.  That’s just the kind of trust they build.

I recently got a Honda Fit.  The first dealership I went to, I met a nice sales person who was not at all pushy, incredibly helpful, and delightful to work with. The second dealership I went to, the guy was pushy and obnoxious.  I bought the car from the first place, Planet Honda in Boulder, CO.  And the experience was nothing but excellent.

This post was actually brought to you by two things. Yesterday, I live-chatted with someone from AT&T on their site. I wanted to inquire about iPhone pricing on the family plan. They wanted to make a sale. They were pushy about it, and I wasn’t in the mood, so I gave them a warning and when they wouldn’t let it go, I close the window.  Then my memory was sparked tonight by a rant about ticketmaster by none other than @bpm140, who is happy to share some foul language in his sentiment.  And can you blame him?  A couple of $20 concert tickets for $64 is mind-bogglingly ridiculous. I share his anger.  And I boycott Ticketmaster.  If I can’t get the tickets at the window, chances are 98% that I won’t go to the show.  It doesn’t matter, though, because somebody else will pay for that seat.  Or I’ll get a ticket off craigslist where someone else already paid all the “convenience” fees and surcharges.

Ticketmaster wins.

Pushy car salespeople are doing just fine, thankyouverymuch (or about as fine as any of them are right now).

Free credit report dot com is doing gangbusters business.

One business model appreciates you.  The other appreciates what a sucker you are.  Both of them do well.  So when it comes to deciding what businesses to support, and how you’re going to run your own business in your own life (or how you’re going to work within your job at a business that someone else is running), you have a choice.

Do you believe in Karma?

I typed this weeks ago. It needs to be edited before it’s published.  So much for that.

The Denver Green Festival was last weekend. There was a lot to cover, and a lot that has already been covered. If I were to write a full recap, it would be mundane for me and tedious for you. There was one thing that really caught my attention, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head for the last two days.

If you know that what you’re holding is compostable, then compost it. They can just stand there and look cute. If neither you nor your friend know how to properly sort things out, they’re happy to help.

I am fascinated by this scene: We’re near the city’s water conservation area at the Denver Green Festival. It’s taken over most of the Convention Center, and there are waste stations dotted all over the place, each staffed with at least one person helping to sort the recyclables and compostables. Vendors have made a point to bring recyclable and compostable. It’s brilliant. It’s convenient. Everybody’s doing it.

Well, not everybody.

It’s a table with a bunch of trash on it. I was looking at this pile and thinking about how easy it was to find a place for waste there, when a lady walked up and added a little cup to the collection.

That really got me thinking. Why would a person put trash on the table when The Right Thing To Do is so easy? The waste situation seriously could not have been any easier unless … Ok, if they had a volunteer for each guest, that would work. The volunteers would follow the guests around like personal slaves, taking unwanted things from their guests. If only that were practical, right?

It provoked so many questions. After leaving the cup there, the lady stood around for a bit. I wanted to ask her questions. Had she seen the waste stations? Does she do that at home? Is she used to someone cleaning up for her? Did it just seem like the thing to do because there was already a pile of trash there?

And that spawned a whole new batch of questions. Like a question tree, with twigs growing from branches growing from limbs. But these were questions she couldn’t answer for me. Does trash attract trash? Is a person more inclined to chuck their fast food bag out the window on a dirty road? What about dropping a beer can in a lake? If so, how significant? I’m thinking of the exponential growth graph. Where is the big bend? When do things skyrocket?

Having great trash receptacles everywhere clearly won’t do the trick. People are going to make a mess. How can that be prevented? Or can it?

It’s certainly no utopian ideal, but there is only one thing we can do at this point. There is no reprimand for the messy. There is no incentive for change. (What are you going to do, SHAME them into caring?) No, if we care about our environment, there is really only one thing we all can do. And when I say environment, I mean that in the old way, not the new co-opted way. I mean our surroundings. It is not zen to say wherever we are is our environment. And if we want it to be clean, we need to clean it.

I need to pick up after that lady. You need to pick up after her, too. Harassing her won’t embarrass her. If we’re lucky, cleaning up after her just might. But either way, we can neither predict nor expect it. We just have to clean up. And if people get the hint, awesome. And if they join in, even better.

And if they don’t, well at least they’re willing to drop a dime and go to a green festival where they can try and buy some more earth-saving.

One reason I blog so infrequently is that I feel the medium requires a bit more effort. I should cite sources, do a little extra research, and include a couple of photos. It will make the posts more interesting, engaging, and of greater value/worth. I mean… What good is 3 paragraphs of ignorant whinging?

I’m not trying to grow my market or anything like that. This was always intended to be a simple outlet for sharing and nothing more.

So photographers have a focus, generally. They do weddings, portraits, and random events. They shoot landscapes or maybe still life. Or wildlife. And then there is the photojournalist. Ok, most cross genres and do whatever, but everybody has a focus.

Not me.

This isn’t a social media blog. It’s not about awkward family photos or animals in casts or lolcats or misspelled or otherwise tragic tattoos or cakes. It’s about me. And whatever is on my mind. And my mind has no workflow, unfortunately. Furthermore, it is very rarely deep. It’s shallow and fleeting.

There are really thousands of interesting things I want to write about. It’s just that few of them are interesting for long enough, so I never get around to it.

And I kind of feel like I ought to work on that.

I’m generally an inconsistent person. Even though my belief structure doesn’t really shift, I have a pretty narrow mental focus. What does that mean? I don’t know, but I go crazy for something at the exclusion of other things. I do what I can to minimize the excess of it, but it is what it is, and I have to focus on my strengths. So with that introduction out of the way, let’s get to it.

Right now, I’m crazy about local food. Organic if I can get it. But whatever. Victory Gardens. Local Farmers. Farmers Markets. Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs). That’s the good stuff.

@gwenbell reminded me of the 100 Mile Diet today. And two numbers on this thoroughly researched page really stand out for me.

Share of each U.S. consumer food dollar that returned to the farmer in 1910, in cents: 40
Share that returned to the farmer in 1997, in cents: 7

That means that 100 years ago, farmers got 40% of every dollar spent on food. Today, they get 7%. Who gets the rest? Your guess is probably as good as mine, and I think mine is pretty good. I’m guessing it’s the food chemists, marketers, and executives. I mean somebody’s gotta be out there figuring out how to turn cheese into powder or make yogurt neon purple and cram it in a tube. Somebody’s gotta figure out how to make oil solid at room temperature so Oreo’s aren’t greasy messes. And those people get paid a little bit here and there. Their bosses, and their bosses’ bosses are making even more.

The same thing is happening in agricultural labs where we’re figuring out how to split the genes of corn and splice in different DNA because evolution just isn’t fast enough. Or doesn’t exist at all. Someone is spraying apples with shellac so they’re good and shiny.

And that’s how we eat.

The main reason I’m not a prolific and self-employed blogger is my laziness. So go look up the sources and links yourself. But this seriously reminds me a lot of the superweed probem. Even more sadly, it reminds me of the massive suicides in India. Agriculture is in a very, very bad place right now. We need to get back to something more local, less industrial, more natural, less chemical, and more mutually beneficial.

Fortunately, all of those things can be accomplished with local, organic produce. So get to it.

Support local farmers. Garden. Go to the farmer’s market. Join a CSA. Eat at restaurants that buy local produce. Find a local dairy if you have one. There are tremendous sources available online, and since you’re reading this, you’re already here. Go up to your search bar and make it happen.

And seriously. Shellac is the secretion of little bugs. And the harvesting of the shellac generally involves grinding up these bugs and filtering them out. Because they’re tiny bugs and difficult to avoid getting involved in the process. So when apples have all the fancy chemicals washed off them, they are dull and unappealing. So they’re sprayed with this shiny bug juice. Just like candies. It’s often called “confectioner’s glaze” in the ingredients. Go take a look at a few ingredient labels.

This seriously grosses me out.

I’m bragging. My wife is now a writer for the Denver Post. She has been writing for their blog for a little while now, and was asked to apply to write for the paper itself. She did. And she was accepted.

Here’s where I REALLY start bragging. Many of her peers are already published journalists, authors and teachers who have applied for this position for years. My wife has been published in scholarly journals, but nothing of this sort. By this, I mean no disrespect to the others.

My wife is simply a brilliant woman with an amazing ability to connect meaningful words in a meaningful way. I admire and respect her as much as I ever have anyone.

And I am so very proud of her.

I found a great stream of Pitchfork’s Top Albums of 2008… and it turns out I have really poor taste in music. I mean, they’re an authority, and I sort of need to defer to them. The truth is I really don’t like this much at all. This clearly reflects poorly on my taste.

We begin with Fleet Foxes. They were torn on two albums, so just went with both. That’s fair. It’s good stuff, I have to say, but kinda folky to me, and not really my thing. Still, I have friends who would love it, so I see it.

Portishead: Third is next up. It’s still trip-hop. It’s still a total downer. I can’t listen to music that depresses me. I seriously got through 2 songs of this and barely into the third I just had to cut it. Clearly, I’m not rating talent here. Music, for me, is about how it makes me feel. So I seek artists and tunes that inspire the mood I am seeking. I never want to feel the way Portishead wants me to. :)

Third up is No Age: Nouns. Let me be tactful about this one. It just sucks. Yep. That’s all the more elaborate I can be.

Cut Copy: In Ghost Colours. It’s great. It sounds like these guys were really into A-Ha and their 80s ilk, and all sorts of other stuff. I’m hearing a lot of “Genres schmenres… y’all can suck an egg” in here. And I like it. It’s not good for cleaning the house, though, which is what I’m trying to do today.

Deerhunter wants to be Badly Drawn Boy, and their album Microcastle proves it. They might be good, but I’m bored and this isn’t helping me get the dishes done.

Neither is a blog post about music I don’t care about. I’m going to put in Lady Sovereign and get some things done.

There is a serious issue with the way the iPhone OS handles images. Specifically, images saved from email or the web seem to often save with unacceptable blur.

From a device that promises so much, which was created by a company with such a strong emphasis on art, design, and quality, this is baffling.

Yesterday, I found a forum post that shows how to correct the issue. Basically, you must edit the image on the device and resave it. The new image will have greater clarity. It mostly works, too. It’s just a matter of the quality of the program that saves it.

To illustrate this problem, I saved an image from my own Flickr account. The first save is from the main image page. The second is the 375×500 medium view. The third is the large view, at 768×1024. I then took a screen shot of each on my 2gen iPod Touch.

Now, if I’m saving an image from the web, I want two things. First, the image should be saved at max resolution with all tags in tact. That is to say, I want The Full Original Image. Second, I want to be able to retrieve the image on my laptop. It can automatically sync or require me to save them manually. Whatever. As long as they’re saved.

The iPod Touch / iPhone appears to do neither.

The photos are at the bottom of the post. It’s the only option in the Wordpress app.

You can see in the first that it is pixellated. That’s because it was a small image. In the second, things are good and clear. That was saved at 375×500, which is very close to the screen resolution of the iPhone & Touch. The third image was the largest, and the blueriest by far.

Doe this mean large images are the problem? I’m not sure. What I really want to know is if jailbreak will fix this.

In the meantime… WTF, Apple?

Today was simply awful. I could chalk it up to any number of things, like Friday the 13th or donating today’s awesomeness to TUS (who put it to amazingly good use!!) or even to some planetary malignment. The simple fact is, however, that it was simply a completely off day for me.

For starters, my clumsiness knew no bounds. I was dropping, spilling, and knocking over everything within reach. I was a stuttering fool. I think I even managed to make a few people uncomfortable with my foolery. And, as tends to follow such things, I was just in a plain irritable mood.

The funniest part of this all is that this “unlucky” day tends to be a particularly lovely day for me. I look forward to Friday the 13th.

Today is different. I had trouble all day (though I’m VERY thankful that none of my accidents were serious, expensive, or painful.) Now it’s nearly 1:30, and I’m unable to do the only thing I’ve been wanting to do all day: put this damned occasion to an end and sleep. Tomorrow is a new day, but I need to sleep my way into it.

Where is this sweet slumber??
GAH!!

Apparently there is some app or plugin available that allows people to publish their tweets into their blog as a bulleted list. This was clearly written both by and for people who have no clue what twitter is about. There is no number of tweets that = a blog post. Just as there is no number of random exclamations that can make a story.

Now, if you want to tweet your blog, that’s just terrific. Do not use the tweets AS the blog, but write the post and then tweet your new entry. Funny of an example as it might be (given my unspoken emphasis on substance), Perez Hilton is a shining example of proper use of both blogs and Twitter.

Then again, it’s a free country. Do whatever you want. Just don’t expect me to keep reading. :)

On the most recent versions of the iPhone and iPod Touch, one can easily search for and download applications. They are just as easily deleted when one finishes with them. Upon deletion, the device presents a prompt with the option to rate the deleted app.

Without deleting the app, however, there is no way to easily rate apps. In fact, it isn’t even possible without submitting a review.

What is the problem here? If a person is removing an app, the likely reason is that they didn’t like it. Yes, there will be the occasion where they have nothing bit good things to say, such as when I deleted digidrummer lite so that I could replace it with the full version. But most of the removed apps have earned a 1 or 2 Star rating from me.

The ones I keep, I haven’t rated. Because it’s a pain in the neck.

App developers, hear my cries of unfairness and carry them on your own voice to that Cupertino citadel. You want positive ratings to be easier to submit!

Thank you.

When I say “bah,” let me be blunt: I don’t care about Rush. He is a non-issue in my world and has been since I left Indiana some decade ago.

It really blows my mind that people are still talking about him. It REALLY blows my min that he has somehow become even more relevant.

And yet my disinterest persists.

Democratic party: Please stop emailing me about him. I have already expressed my sympathy to the republican party for the perception that he is somehow their figurehead or spokesperson. Now I have returned to my decade-long effort to ignore it until it goes away.

Eventually, I will prevail.

A funny thing about pitbulls: it isn’t a breed. Pitbull, in fact, is an umbrella under which reside a few breeds, including Staffordshire terriers. We were not aware of this fact.

I read the full write-up that the humane society has on Emily, and it is universally agreed upon that she is an amazingly sweet dog. Her politeness stands out. It is true that she is not good with cats, but during her testing she didn’t try to hurt anything. She was just visibly uncomfortable around them. She is sweet, affectionate, and active.

She is perfect for us.

That said, we don’t feel that we can give her a home. And it is only because of her breed. This kills me, as I draw a strong parallel between the breed of a dog and the race of a person. There are physical differences. There are social differences. But at the end of the day, all breeds of dog are the same species, and every race of human kind is still the same species. If you will tell me certain dogs are just innately violent, I hear your same criticism of one race over another. Incidentally, I will at the same time lose all respect for you.

To tell me I can have my dog taken from me in Denver and put to death is to tell me there was no civil war and there are no civil rights. You cannot take my wife from me. Nor can you take my dog.

So now I have to ask myself if I just want a dog… Or if I want a crusade.

And let me be clear: such is the strength and sincerity of my feeling on this that I am not sure I would be able to appropriately handle myself in a less than ideal situation.

Pitbull owners (read: guardians) get sued for things their dogs could not possibly cause. They are looked down upon. They are, by association, considered dangerous. None of these things are fair, but that fact makes them no less true.

I want to change minds about these dogs. I do not want to get sued.

We are going to the Longmont Humane Society tomorrow.

That is all.

Ok, I’m trying the wordpress app for iPhone/iGod and In my first try, there was no save button. WTF??

I seriously had to discard the post. Let’s hope that was an isolated issue.

Typed on iPod touch (aka iGod, because it’s omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipretty).

My wife put together a magnificent slideshow for me… for you.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

The inspiration was Hokusai. The artist was Phil of Rising Tide in Boulder, CO.