Three years.

This is my third draft of trying to write something that adequately captures how i’m feeling today. The last two have tried to be overly introspective, and capture some sense of “lessons learned” after three years w/o my brother.

Instead of trying to capture some nugget of wisdom onto paper (or bits, as it were) let me just share this with you.

My brothers, both of them, have inspired every aspect of my life. My career choices, specifically, reflect the strengths of my brothers as manifested in me. I’m a post-modern remix of my older two brothers.

To lose one was absolutely heartbreaking, but fortunately, I feel like my family and friends have really been there for me to help me deal. Do I feel completely whole again? No, like anyone who has lost a family member will tell you, an irreplacable piece of me has stopped growing, and there’s nothing I can do to replace it, or stimulate its growth again. That being said, luckily other parts of me have grown to help cope, and one HUGE part came out of nowhere (my wife) to help put me back together again.

I definitely take my family for granted, and before I have to have another chaotic unexpected event to put me back in line, I want them to know I love them. Take some time right now to do the same.

Star Trek: Why competition is good for everyone

It’s odd that watching the latest Star Trek film has me in a particularly contemplative mood. Not just because I’m a total closet trekker, but more because of the reflection it causes upon various cultural movements that have sprung up because of the original series, and the cultural movements that made the original franchise even exist. To be honest, the thing I’ve been thinking most about, after my nerd-overload of yesterday, is the cold war implications that led Star Trek to be created in the first place.

The space race didn’t produce much in the way of tangible life forms, but us traveling into the great beyond has brought us, as any space supporter will eagerly tell you, countless innovations in modern life like Velcro, freeze dryed foods, and other worthy adaptations. More to the point, the real reason why people found the space race so enamoring was because of the possibilities it created. I’d posit that modern cell phones are more a direct result of the space race’s unintended consequences, like the creation of the star trek communicator, than the actual act of putting a man on the moon.

Why were we involved in the space race? Both as a national security measure, ie Star Wars, and as an international badge of honor. Why have people claimed “America has seen its best days,” and “we’re heading downhill?” I think, its largely due to a lack of competition.

To be clear, I don’t want another cold war, nor do I want a mortal enemy like Al Qaida, and I don’t think we need a military enemy at all times to have a purpose. I do, however, think we need to have economic “enemies” in order to spur proper competition. Right now, as we’re in the basement of a dire economic circumstance, it’s clear to almost any outwardly looking American that based on amounts of pure human capital, America’s financial dominance is in trouble. China and India stand as two HUGE growth areas, both with populations multiple times the size of America. Instead of having mortal enemies, we should have economic competitors who are on equal footing with our country, and instead of having people dying, we should have people fighting for their economic life.

I say this mostly figuratively, but it’s clear to me that the biggest innovations and the most exciting cultural forces come from healthy doses of competition. LeBron James would be nothing if all he had to do was beat his high school counterparts. Now that he has something to prove, his 6+ years in the league haven’t yet crowned him Jordan-level hights of amazement. I expect it to come. Why? Kobe Bryant. I don’t personally feel that Kobe is as good as Jordan, though I’d definitely place him somewhere in the starting squad or first string of all time greats. Lebron hasn’t even made it there yet– primarily because he hasn’t been around long enough– but once he proves himself, his impact will be greater, simply because he had more competition to defeat.

So back to America for a second. If LeBron was dunking over China’s LeBron (and a true LeBron, not a Yao) I think the eleveated level of competition would be healthy for everyone. With my startup, TechVi, I expect that once more people catch wind of the idea of 24-hour video news on a small scale, TechVi will start to improve and become something more special than it is now.

I used to be mortified of competition. Now, I revel in the thought of it. To be sure, I haven’t had to experience a knock down drag out fight ala Engadget and Gizmodo, but should the day ever come, I can’t wait.

America needs to get ready to fight to be the best in the world once China and India’s infrastructure and globalization aims start reaching the shores of North America.

LeBron already embraces competition, now he needs to win a championship to prove his spot on top (and then follow it up with six more to top Jordan.)

You need to do it in your job, so you’ll be irreplaceable should the layoff hammer swing your way– and if it hits you, you’ll need to do it to find your next job especially when looking at a bunch of other average joes surrounding you.

Being number one without competition isn’t really being number one; it’s being the default.

Becoming my best me

I’m about to enter a three month stress stasis.

Most of my life I’ve felt a conscious need to keep trying to hit a goal. Typically, with that goal-oriented nature, I’ve also placed a copious amount of stress on my plate.

My goals weren’t simple “get an A in school” or “make the basketball team,” instead they were “get an associates degree before graduating from high school,” and “be the star of the basketball team.” Some I succeeded in (associates degree) some I failed in (basketball star) but regardless of where I landed, the journey helped me grow.

Now as I land in North Carolina, my goal oriented nature hasn’t changed but my goals have. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I’ve got three full months where I don’t have a professional goal to achieve. That doesn’t mean I’m taking a three month vacation, that’s what the last three months have largely been, but instead it means that my goals are going to be a bit different.

Now, my biggest goals are to be my best self, and set myself up for future goals. What does that bit of polyanna sounding mumbo jumbo actually mean? Well, without looming professional or personal goals, I’m going to set up my own goals.

Best self #1: Physical fitness.

I, like most new year’s resolution setting Americans, set my goal to lose weight. So far, so good. I’ve knocked off about 15 pounds since January, most of it coming in January. The good? I hit a minor goal. The bad? I’m still really fat, at least in my eyes anyway. Right this second I weigh around 264 lbs, depending on day/time it can range from 260-268 or so. That puts my BMI at around 33 (I’m 6′3″) which is in the category of “obsese.” To get down to “overweight,” I’d have to hit 240 lbs, which is definitely doable. Normal weight for a 6′3″ guy is right around 200 lbs or less. I haven’t weighed 200 pounds or less since I can remember, at least since I was 16, so I’m going to go for somewhere in between 200 and 240. 220 sounds pretty good.

To get there, I’m lucky enough to live in an apartment complex that has a pretty complete gym. No free weights, but to be honest I wouldn’t know how to use them even if they were around. There’s some treadmills and some machines, so I’m going to try to do a full body circuit two times a week, alternating days between core / upper body and lower body. On top of that, the place has a basketball court, which I love to do, and a running trail. I’m going to try to give my full effort in cardio for as long as possible before I start doing machine workouts. Right now, I’d estimate that means running for no longer than three minutes, but I’ll start there and work up. I figure I’ll full out run for 5 minutes, do a machine routine for about 20-30, and then finish up with as much basketball as I want. I’m going to try to do this all before 8 AM, which seems pretty realistic, especially considering my freelance obligations are mostly based on the west coast, giving me a few hours ahead of them.

I’ll also be keeping a log in a google document and on a tumblr, to track my progress. I’ll write up things here occasionally when I feel the need, but the tumblr will be the weigh-in place. Oh yeah, I’ll be auto posting a daily picture of me (face / workout clothes, most likely) to my tumblr every day as part of the experiment to see how I change.

Any significant musings that are more than one liners will show up here, on the main blog. That should segment the three main audiences (friends, family and listeners/readers of my work) and people can pick which part of me they like best, or all of it.

Best self #2: Personal life

I’m striving to actually balance my life, whereas in the past it’s segmented periods of extreme excess in one of the areas of my life. To that end, being the best me in my personal life means putting family first, ahead of other goals even if it means they’re not as strong as they could be. Sad? A bit, but I think getting in the habit will be something everyone else can appreciate as much as me.

Best self #3: Professional life

Right now I’m freelancing, which means I’m basically working part time for anyone who will pay me. I’ve got goals of where I’d like to end up, and since I’m not putting 40 hours in at any one location, I’m going to work on some new ideas that I’ve been kicking around. I’m going to be starting a new show that’s sort of like an Around The Horn meets Tech style, but it’s not quite ready to launch yet. I’ll be working on that site as much as possible, and trying to get some content on there. I’ll be striving for one show a day on the site, and one written piece per day as well. Right now I don’t have the means to do it (left my mics in California), but when I do I’ll be trying to do one video story per week.

Oh hi there.

So it’s been a while since I updated the site, mainly because my life has been so turbulent. I’m now freelancing for some people, but most of my energy has been spent moving across the country. Right now, I write from sunny SoCal, but within 13 days or so I’ll be heading to the middle of nowhere (aka Fayetteville, NC) to follow my Wife’s travel nursing career. She’s the stable one (with the insurance) so we go where she can get work. We’ll be in NC for three months, where I’ll be bunkered down without distraction, and when we emerge, the plan is to end up in SF.

In the work hopper? You know I’m always one to be working on something in the background. Right now I’m building a new video show that’s sort of an Around-The-Horn meets tech style show. I’ll have more to share on that once it’s ready to go (aka once we get a bit settled.)

TV networks: Foolproof way to defeat piracy

I’ve had a pretty fun week. I recently turned one of my laptops into a media server, and am ditching my Cable service from Time-Warner Cable. I realized something after I hooked it all up: Why would I bother to bittorrent TV if I could get it from available online sources? I don’t think commercials are all that bad, and since most of the shows I watch are available online streaming, it’s much easier for me to watch the shows via the websites of the TV networks rather than pirate.

If the music industry would have caught on like the TV industry is, they wouldn’t be in the sorry state they’re in now, relying on Ringtone revenue.

Obsessable, behind the scenes

So now that I’ve actually had a few minutes to sit down and rest (don’t get it twisted, I’m still working on the weekend) I’ve had a chance to read up on some of the press that the site has been getting.

Thx to everyone who’s written something about our new site, especially Dan Frommer who wrote us up on launch day. [Brian has a good summary of all the other buzz.]

I’m very happy with our launch thus far. We’re attracting the right users to the site, and we’re putting up some great content. We’ve launched with enough features to give readers a hint of where we’re going, and so far the response has been positive.

One of the points that’s an obvious one for pundits to make, especially given our pedigree, is that we’re going to somehow takeout industry heavyweights. In my mind, we’re not aiming to be a “company killer.” We’re friends with people from around the industry, especially CNET, Engadget and Gizmodo, and don’t look at ourselves as a killer of any one of them. Realistically, we’d love it if you came to hear our news and views, and we’re trying to create another alternative voice for tech news that can provide consumers more than what’s currently out there, but we think there’s definitely room for everyone.

One of the ways we’re hoping to add substance to the conversation is our guide tab. Right now, we’ve got some great buying guides and features, along with our ever expanding glossary of terms, but we’re also working to create some killer comparators. I know people were kind of excited about our G1 vs the pack comparator, in particular. (Side note, that floating header thing looks amazing, and Rosco, one of our devs, worked his butt off to make sure it was cross browser compatible. Shout out to him, for sure.)

While we haven’t been able to launch with all the elements of the site at full strength, I hope it’s more than obvious we’ve worked really hard to create compelling content that is informative for a variety of audiences. Our news voice is very straight-laced, a more “just the facts” approach rather than the current crop of ‘post-Rojas’ voiced sites out there. We hope our posts can give you all the critical information you need to understand the day’s developments, and then you can head to the product pages or the rest of our database to keep exploring further.

Right now, we’re focusing our timely content primarily on news only, so readers won’t see the DIY and interesting links they’re accustomed to just yet. We want to be the place for readers to expect news, but we also don’t want to neglect the other fun and interesting reads around the web. Expect our coverage to grow, naturally, as our staff grows in size.

Speaking of staff, despite its meager size, I couldn’t ask for a better one. I’m quite excited about the Crowd Fusion team on both sides of me. From the management side, ever since Brian and I started talking about creating a new personal technology site, I’ve been lucky enough to meld his foresight and vision with my own ideas to breathe life into Obsessable and the Crowd Fusion concept. I’m constantly astounded by Craig’s ability to visualize how modular the platform needs to be, along with his entire dev team. Judith has been a great help and mentor, in tandem with Barb and Vero, to help me buoy up Obsessable from the nuts and bolts.

On the Obsesasble side, I’m equally as lucky. Evan Blass is Obsessable’s #2, and I couldn’t be more happy with the way he has helped mold the site. He’s largely responsible for helping shape the site voice into something that we’re proud of, and likewise I couldn’t be more proud to work with such a talented individual. All of our writing and curation people are killer and with such diversity that our base of knowledge is continuously expanding. (Side note: Check out Greg’s killer iPhone app if you’re into jailbroken apps, btw!)

The main thing I’ve learned from this launch? Having a competent team around you helps you make the best decisions. You simply listen to the feedback everyone is giving and pick the next hurdle to jump over.

Here’s to our launch. Thanks to everyone.

Obsessable launches

So i’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to blog about it, but my new project, Obsessable, has launched at obsessable.com.

Check it out!

Going to the US Open

US Open, YO!

Me and my brother.

JetBlue’s new tagline: “Awesome, but only in the best case scenario.”

Still stuck in the airport for more than 8 hours at this point. Here’s the complaint I sent JetBlue:

While I don’t feel courteous, I’ll be courteous so you can understand my concern. Right now, my flight is delayed at a minimum of eight hours. That, however, is only part of the issue. Sure, I understand weather related things happen, and it’s out of JetBlue’s control, but at some point your operational departments probably should have had a better way of dealing with the situation.

Apparently, our aircraft was delayed out of JFK five hours due to weather (and JFK’s incompetence, which is massive.) At that point, someone back at JetBlue HQ should have been doing the crewmember math and saying “in a worst case scenario, if our crew members are delayed five or more hours, they won’t be legal to fly on the way back due to the FAA’s rest rules.” Instead, I get the feeling the JetBlue people weren’t looking at the worst case scenario. Instead, I’m stuck here at the airport for AT LEAST three additional hours waiting for in-flight crews to take their positions.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I found out there’s a flight out of Burbank taking off in 20 minutes from now, that I might have had a chance of getting on board had someone at JetBlue properly planned for the crew member scenario. I feel like this gross negligence is unacceptable, and calls in to question JetBlue’s reliability as an airline. I’ve always been a big proponent of JetBlue, and frequently recommended the company to friends, but recently it seems the airline is experiencing major growing pains and is incapable of handling flight contingencies. I’m no legacy carrier fan, but I’ve never had this negative of an experience, even with JFK’s moronic / overbooked handling of their tarmac.

If JetBlue had a tagline, it’d be “Awesome, but only in the best case scenario.”

If any JetBlue representative would like to contact me, I’d be more than willing to post a follow up response here on my blog. We’ll see if they really do care about customer service.

Update: Yeah, so still here and it’s 8:45. I called JetBlue, and had a really helpful and empathetic person say “Yeah, a 10+ hour airport stay is awful.” Felt really empathetic. Then she mentioned, “We should be able to get you a voucher or something,” because she understood my side of the “five hour lead time to find a crew should be enough” dillema. She mentioned I should talk to the desk, which i thought was weird, and as I went to hand over the phone, the person was gone. I called back, and, unsurprisingly, the next person on the phone was a lot less empathetic and thought i was batshit insane for even proposing that I’d get a voucher.

To be clear, it’s less about a voucher for me at this point and more for someone just letting me know they care about the situation. JetBlue claims to be different, but stringing me along and then having (apparently less than trained) employees dangle compensation just to have another one rip it away isn’t a very fun scenario.

10 hours of awful. 5 hours by weather, 5 by jetblue.

Slow motion awesomeness

I have a total crush on slow motion videography, and typically I’d leave a post like this to my tumblr (where I post my twitter feed and other random videos / photos) but this is too awesome not to share with everyone I know.

[Via Aaron]