Basketball Fever

I'm off to Philips Arena in a few minutes to watch our Hawks take on the Dallas Mavericks (are you watching Charlie?) after which I shall rush home to watch the Eastern Regional Final featuring Georgetown and Carolina..........go Tarheels! It doesn't seem like 25 years have passed since Carolina knocked off Georgetown to win the National Title, but then I guess that is just the way it is with time.

A couple of thoughts to keep you occupied: first, I found an interesting political social space at www.adonkeyandanelephantwalkintoabar.com. Not too many conservatives registered, but they welcomed me and it seems like a nice group of folks who are genuinely interested in the political landscape.

Second, what do you think is going to happen with the situation between Iran and the UK? I have a very bad feeling about things and suspect than unless Iran releases the 15 British Marines they captured at sea last week the tension in the Middle East is going to significantly increase. I would not put it past the Brit's to take some very serious action if Iran does not back off of its current position. Tony Blair is not in the mood for fooling about and he will be pressured to be aggressive in this situation. Watch this space closely as it may be the key to the next major escalation in the Middle East.

Finally, what is up with all of these job boards? Can't they find an easy way to allow a person to post a bio and CV without having to cut and paste and edit to fit a particular format? I am registered with The Ladders, Blue Steps, Blue Chip and started to register with snagajob.com this morning, but gave up after realizing that it is going to take more than a few minutes to get everything populated. Hell, they don't even have an option for registering education outside of the States. We need one global board that provides an easy to post format that accommodates whatever style you want to present yourself in, even video if you'd like.......actually, that isn't a bad idea........video resumes are hot right now and putting them somewhere besides You Tube would be great!

Okay, must run, but everyone have a delightful day and remember to root for Carolina.

Ramblings on a Friday Afternoon

I started reading a book last evening after all the basketball madness that I had picked up several weeks ago and at 3 a.m. this morning I finally made myself put it down and went to bed. The book is "Get Out Of Your Own Way, The Five Keys to Surpassing Everyone's Expectations" and it's written by Robert K. Cooper, PhD. His website is https://www.robertkcooper.com. I won't go into any detail except to say it is an interesting read if you want to know more about how your brain works, both for you and against you.

One chapter was entitled "To Get Out of the Box, You Have to See the Box" and explains how your brain works in adverse circumstances. I could not help however relating the title of the chapter to much of what is happening in the world today and especially with the current administration. Another quote from the book came from the writer Walker Percy who said that a tragedy of our modern life is that everything is interesting, but nothing becomes deeply important. We watch John & Elizabeth Edwards talk calmly about a form of cancer that cannot be cured, but hopefully managed for some years to come if Elizabeth responds well to the various treatments ahead of her. But they probably won't grow old together and she probably won't live long enough to truly enjoy her Grandchildren. We watch the evening news and see the tragedy called Darfur with hundreds of thousands killed and nearly three million displaced persons. We read every morning about the latest U.S. Military casualties and think how awful it must be for the parents of those brave men and women who are killed and maimed. But do we truly see the Box and are these things deeply important to us?

I have spent most of my life being a Conservative and with a few exceptions that has meant being a Republican. You know, the Party of Lincoln, Goldwater and Regan. I'm struggling with that label this afternoon, perhaps more so since any other time in my life with the possible exception of the early 70's.

Okay, sorry for being so deep this early in the day and without even the benefit of a glass of wine. It just seems that we are living in a very difficult period and I sometimes want to climb to the top of the house and scream, "Does Anyone Care"? Of course I don't because my neighbor would probably call the fire department to have me taken down and away.

Okay, Carolina and USC tonight and then hopefully on to the regional final against Georgetown if my guess is right. I went to the Hawks game on Wednesday and had a chance to see a healthy Shaq play a really solid game. The Hawks were never really in it after the first period although they did make an attempt late in the 4th period and cut it to 3 before Miami surged back ahead. Still, an enjoyable game and fun to watch.

I'll sign off now as I have to drop my tickets for tonight's game off with a friend. I decided to stay home and watch the Carolina game instead. Go Tarheels!

A Political Comment

Just listened to President Bush respond to the political fallout arising from the firing of 8 U.S. Attorney's and in particular to the demands of the Democratic led Senate for White House Staff to appear and provide testimony under oath or else they may very well issue subpoenas. President Bush called it a "partisan fishing expedition" and made it clear he would make every attempt to block subpoenas should they be issued. Hmmmmmmm. Does this President sound like the guy in the White House back in the early 70's? Does this war feel like a war we were fighting back in the early 70's? Is this President going to spend the final 21 months of his administration embattled and at odds with the legislative branch of our government? Have we, the people, lost all sense of reality as we continue our daily lives as if none of these issues really matter? What does it say when more people called in to vote for the two finalists on American Idol last season than participated in the last general election?

At the end of the day I don't know if there really is a fire around all the smoke flowing out of this story and on at least one level I don't think I care because the term of the appointment is entirely discretionary. These attorneys serve at the convenience of the President, which means that he can fire them at any time and for any reason. I'm not certain I get the point that the Democrat's are making with allegations of them being fired for political reasons. Hell, they are political appointees and while perhaps it isn't fair or just, it is within the construct of the legislation that served to create the appointments. Moreover, if memory serves, there have political firings throughout the course of our history and some were quite famous; e.g.: Archibald Cox in the infamous Saturday Night Massacre (gosh, there goes that early 70's analogy again).

What does disturb me is that we have serious issues facing this country. A war in a foreign land where our young men and women are dying everyday. A war that no one seems to be able to find a way out of without creating even more instability, both in Iraq and potentially across the entire region. We have a housing market that is poised to crash around our proverbial ears. Our government has created a national debt that our grandchildren will be paying in years to come. We have essentially no political credibility on a global basis and our children cannot get decent health care across much of the nation. I don't care if 8 U.S. Attorney's lost their jobs for failing to investigate Democrats or because they were investigating Republicans. I do care that our three branches of government would appear to be dysfunctional at the moment and that the vast majority of the American people would appear to be apathetic about the entire situation.

I don't usually get very political unless of course I'm hanging out with my brothers Joe and Jim and then I do it just it just to watch the fireworks. But listening to our President this evening and to the members of the Legislative Branch who commented afterwards, I can't help but feel we need a grass roots movement on an unprecedented scale to take back control of this country. I think you could probably take the whole bunch of them and throw them all out and replace them with some intelligent middle-level managers from a cross-section of industries and get a much better result. I'm not a big fan of Neal Boortz, but he threw out some stats this morning on his radio show about government spending over the past 6+ years that were astonishingly frightening in terms of the dollars being spent.

I guess I'm saying that I recognize that I have to take personal responsibility for getting involved in changing the current state of affairs and I hope that you will do the same. I think we are all going to have to get involved if we what to find true north again.

PodCamp Atlanta

So I got up at the crack of dawn this morning and motored on over to the Miller-Ward Alumni House at Emory University to attend PodCamp Atlanta. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the protocols associated with an "unconference", I would strongly recommended attending one soon. It is refreshingly different from the more traditional conferences hosted by the likes of TAG and AIMA, or even TechLinks for that matter. Very relaxed, very informal and very informative........I walked away this afternoon with 7 pages of notes and all sorts of wonderful new insights into PodCasting & Video Blogging and met some truly interesting folks. Registration was accomplished via a Wiki and early in the registration process someone changed the status classified as "attendee" to "participant" and I think that communicates the ethos of an "unconference". You don't go to listen to broadcasts from various professionals. Instead, you go to engage in a dialogue with colleagues across multiple disciplines who have in many cases extensive experience dealing with the issue(s) that you dealing with everyday. At the same time, there are just enough neophytes that you don't feel like you are in the wrong place; i.e.; everyone is welcome to participate and I think that perhaps having some of us neophytes in the room actually creates a more balanced dialogue. I could easily envision some of the participants taking the conversation to a level of detail that I would find most disconcerting. But because the protocols allow for crowd moderation it never seems to travel very far down that path. Moreover, the crowd also tends to take folks back to point if we start losing sight of the topic that we all came into the break-out session to discuss at the onset. All in all, it is a relaxing atmosphere filled with opportunities to learn new things or just revisit some things you forgot.

I'm not certain that I can remember all the folks that contributed to the program development, but I would certainly want to say thanks to Penny Haynes of 1st Podcast Publishing, Amber Rhrea of the Georgia Podcast Network, Rusty Tanton of the Georgia Podcast Network, Josh Hallent of Hyku (our kick-off moderator) and all the other participants and moderators that contributed to making today so enjoyable. You know, you come out of some of these events and you feel drained and dread another day. I walked this afternoon invigorated and can't wait for tomorrow! Now, if only I can remember to take my cameras I'll feel less like a neophyte.

Okay, I have to go watch Carolina kick some ass! Go Tarheels.

Back on Air 2

Okay, now I've really gone astray given I haven't posted since mid-February. My heart has always been in the right place, but it has been really difficult to find the time to keep up with Ellies Dad while simultaneously working on the Technology Summit and trying to build a client base for Patrick D. Gaul, Inc. Someone has to pay the mortgage and given there aren't going to be any checks arriving unless I generate some business I have had to set my priorities accordingly. Still, it's a shame since I enjoy writing and I do want to promote my blog in concert with my business. I guess I'm just going to have to make the time going forward to do both!

Business is advancing slowly, but advancing. I have a couple of serious leads and with a bit of luck I reckon they should evolve into paying customers over the next few weeks. I'm also keeping my eyes open for possible C Level opportunities, but nothing concrete thus far. Of course I haven't really been doing much in that area since I wanted to give myself some serious time with the concept of building my own business and it's a bit hard to do both at the same time. It sort of screws up your priorities during the day.

Okay, so what have I been doing over the past month. Well, first I finished up my work with TAG on the Technology Summit and I must admit that it was a fairly successful effort. A few tactical errors on the day with the timing garnered some adverse comments and we failed to provide for wireless access, which was more of an oversight than anything else. I think the content was super and most of the comments I've received directly or have read would suggest that is the case. I got to spend some time with Chris Anderson one-on-one and he seems like a very down to earth chap given his current status in the global technology community. We had a number of things in common; e.g.: we are both married to Brit's.......we both have children in about the same age range and we have both had our share of CEO challenges. I like the guy and I think he gave an outstanding presentation. I also got a nice autograph for my collection. Check out this video, which was done by a young man that I met at SoCon '07.......http://myurbanreport.blogspot.com/2007/03/hi-tech.html. The young man is Amani Channel and his V-Blog focuses on community news other than violence and crime..........you might say he is on the long tail of community news.

On the family side of things it has been a busy year. Joe recently completed his transition to the Boy Scouts and he appeared in the School Musical as part of the chorus. He is growing by leaps and bounds I'm guessing he is going to be fairly tall........his older brother is 6' something (he won't tell me and he is too damn big to hold down and measure).....Joe may even be taller when the growing stops. Check out his picture taken before the musical.......there is also a scout pic for your viewing pleasure.

Anyway, I promise to start posting on a consistent basis and hope everyone will forgive me for being out of touch for so long. Cheers.