Digital Impulses

42. Nice, quiet day spent relaxing at home

OK.

42.

And I spent the day at home, relaxing, reading in bed, puttering around the house until the teenager came home with his girlfriend.  We then spent the afternoon watching a good movie called "21" about some kids from MIT that build a card-counting scheme to win in Las Vegas.

I got a few phone calls from close family and from Rigo, also.

All in all it was a good way to spend my birthday.  Nice.

Pre-42nd Birthday drama

Days like these live in your memory for years and years...

This evening we met up with my family at the Cheesecake Factory in Redondo Beach to celebrate my birthday a day early since it falls on a Sunday this year.

The dinner at TCF was OK for the most part, save for a few uncomfortable moments discussing politics with my younger brother.  He was his usual bombastic self and it was all taken for the most part in good humor.

Towards the end of the dinner, the spousal unit got a little emotional and started telling my wife that she was dealing with some unusual bouts of depression, blah, blah.

That was a harbinger of things to come that night.

After dinner, I drove home and dropped off the wife and took off in my car to go to PV to play Scrabble.  I won't go into the gritty details but suffice it to say that the Drama that ensued with multiple phone calls locating the teenager and a trip to Mexico that was on and off about 5 different times was absoultely jaw-dropping.

I didn't leave PV early, but in the end, the wife stayed put and we decided to deal with the aftermath in the morning.  The morning of my 42nd birthday, of course.  Special.  Yay Me.

Not.

Dinner at Macaroni Grill and Scrabble

The Rojas's invited me to dinner at The Macaroni Grill in Torrance as an early B-Day present and that was really nice.  The food was excellent and the atmosphere was pleasant enough.

After dinner we headed up to PV to play Scrabble and that also went off without a hitch.

The Messiah has descended from On High

1913: He's on stage telling people Thank You

1915:  He has accepted the nomination for the Presidency of the United States.

1916:  First thank you is to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy. He was pandering top the Clinton's to get the people on their side to vote for him.  Has thanked Joe Biden. Thanking his daughters and wife.

Now attacking Bush for the state of the Economy.

Now attacking Bush for Katrina

Stating that McCain is a 3rd term for Bush.  Sez that the next 4 would be just like the last 8.

Pointing out that McCain has voted with Bush more than 90% of the time.  Sez he won't take a 10% chance on "Change".

SO far, its been all Bush sucks, McCain would be more Bush.  This is his way of just attacking McCain to hide his paper-thin resume and thread-bare list of accomplishments.  Smoke and mirrors from the Chosen One.

Attacking McCain for wanting to privatize Social Security.

Now talking about the successes of Bill Clinton's administration.

Government, Government, Government will do more, more more for the poeple.

HE has just PROMISED TO CUT TAXES on 95% of the middle class. HE has set a GOAL to cut dependance on FOrgein Oil.  IN 10 YEARS.

NO ON DRILLING.

150 BILLION to be invested in new , renewable sources of Energy.

Free Education for everyone.

Pandering to the teachers:  More $$$, More Benefits.  Young People: Serve and afford an Education.

Prtecting Social Security

PAndering to women.  Equal Pay for an Equal Day's work

Attcking Corporations:  CLosing Loopholes.  Sez he will eliminate social programs that don't work.
Attacking MCCain for his stance on Terrorism.  Sez McCain won't follow Bin laden to the cave where he lives.

Talking now about ENDING THE WAR IN IRAQ.  Sez McCain is Weak. 

Calling up OLD Ghosts from Democratic History.

WILL NEVER HESITATE to Defend This Country.  Now pandering to the Military.  Wil end the war in Iraq responsibly.  Will rebuild the Military.  Will fight Russia and Iran. BLah, Blah....

Will restore America's standing in the world.  Interesting he did NOT commit to a TIME FRAME for a troop withdrawl.

More firery pandering to the Military.  Sez he loves this country and so does McCain. OOH.  Direct Calling out of McCain.  Sez we ALL put our country first.

Talking about reducing unwanted pregnancies.

Now Pandering to the Gays.  Jeeze.  This is ridiculous.

IMMIGRATION:  Cotton Candy.  No substance.

NOw sez the election is NOT about HIM<.  It's about YOU.  More deflecting.  He CANNOT point to any personal accomplishments.  There is NOTHING there about this guy.  What a preprocessed, packaged piece of thin air.  He's like a dissipating wisp of smoke.

Reviving MLK's speech of 45 years ago.

MLK, MLK, MLK, MLK... Jeeze, louise.

Now he sounds like a preacher.  someone HAND HIM A BIBLE!!

Wow.  BO got a little religious there at the end.

Home from Seattle and Gnomedex 8.0

I am home from Seattle after a long but fun short trip to Seattle to attend Gnomedex 8.0  The flight itself was uneventful and pretty good in terms of being airsick.

There was however, some drama with my family because they were not on time to pick me up and made me wait like 40 minutes outside the airport. That was somewhat irritating, to say the least.

We went to dinner right after the airport and then came home where I crashed right before 2200.

Seattle trip to Gnomedex 8.0 windup: Nice and Relaxing

0826: Still in my hotel room at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront. My flight for L.A. leaves SeaTac at 1400, so I will be checking out of the hotel at around 1100, hopping in a taxi to SeaTac and hopefully getting through the nightmarish TSA security screening process with plenty of time to spare.

In a nutshell, Gnomedex 2008 was absolutely terrific and I had a really great time.  Chris and Ponzi really put together an excellent speaker lineup and kept the audience significantly engaged.  The presentations by Mark Bao, Scott Maxwell, Beth Kanter and others were outstanding and easily worth the price of admission.

While I was there, I got the chance to chat briefly with Derek K. Miller, Robert Scoble, and Eric Rice.  These are all people whose blogs I read and enjoy regularly and it was great to get a chance to speak with them personally.

Gnomedex is easily one of the highlights of my year and an event that I really look forward to attending.  If this year's conference was anything to judge by, I cant wait to see what Chris and Ponzi and their awesome support staff cook up for Gnomedex 2009.  Count me in, for sure.

Gnomedex 8.0 Day 2

Update @ 1405: Guy is on stage with a geeky, meaty discussion on using "hubble" to look for black holes using the Internet.  This is the *very reason* I come to a conference like Gnomedex.  This topic is simply fascinating.

Update @ 1154: Adeona guys are on stage talking about PHYSICAL computer security and how you can protect your laptop and get it back if gets stolen.  Pretty neat stuff.

UPDATE @ 1118: Eve Maler from Sun is on stage speaking about managing on-line relationships with vendors. She is reiterating the VRM concept first put together by Doc Searls

0953: At the Bell Harbor International Convention Center for Gnomedex 8.0 Day 2.

Ignite Portland was just up on stage and now Sarah Lacy is giving a presentation on blogging and how it is evolving.  She is walking around the room, shoving a mike in front of people's faces, getting their opinions.  It's certainly a different way of doing things.  The audience is having varied reactions to what is being espoused.

This is all starting to sound like a little bit of group navel-gazing, quite honestly.

Another hugiantic Cruise Ship in Seattle

So here I am this Saturday morning and I walk outside the Sheraton Marriott Waterfront Hotel to find that yet another GINORMOUS Cruise Ship has docked across the street next to the Bell Harbor International Conference Center. These things are awe inspiring, let me tell you.

It's absolutely gorgeous here in Seattle today with a slight nip in the air this morning and spectacular blue skies.

The smell of the ocean and the preening of the Pelicans and other birds make for just an idyllic setting.

Did I mention that I just *love* Seattle, folks?

Gnomedex 8.0 Day 1: Here we go!

@ Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle, in the Main Conference room on the 3rd floor.

10:52 A.M.

A little frustrating at the beginning of the morning.  It took me almost an hour to get a WiFi connection, but eventually, after like 5 reboots, I have signal and it's working great, really smooth and fast.

Right now on stage, there's a guy making a presentation on LOLCATZ, of all things.

UPDATE @ 1115:

I had no idea.  The icanhascheeseburger guy sez the following:

At their peek, the site was using 200 Mbps, serving 80 pages per second and have generated over 1 BILLION page views.  They have a database of 800,000 LOLCAT images.  Simply amazing!

UPDATE @ 11:35
SearchEnglineLand
Guy from a company called "searchengineland.com" is on stage making a presentation about the history of Search on the Internet, I think.  Some of these issues are serious, but it's just not all that interesting to me.  I keep yawning. This subject is just not capturing my attention stream.  I don't know.

Update @ 1552

The Day 1 afternoon sessions at Gnomedex 8.0 have been centered around using technology to advance social causes.  The sessions seem to be very well received.  I'm happy for the presenters, but I certainly do wish that the content was more internet issues / Internet technology / Internet security focused. *sigh*.

Ginormous Cruise Ship

A hugiantic, ginormous cruise ship pulled into the dock across the street from the Sheraton Marriott Waterfront hotel overnight.

I awoke this morning to see this huge boat looming over the Bell Harbor Convention Center like some hi-rise building that had dropped from outer space unannounced.

Just awesome, I tell ya.

I freakin LOVE Seattle.