Dan Mayer's Blog

Erin and I had a great time getting to hang out and see each other at Mark and Liz's wedding, and here is a awesome photo from the ceremony.

Today was bike to work day. We walk to work almost everyday, but to show our support we biked over to a meeting, and then to our office later. Luckily it wasn't bike to work and home day. After working in the office all day we forgot that we biked to work, and we walked home, hence leaving our forgotten about bikes at the office. Awesome!

Oh well good times, I just fixed one of the four major problems that came to my attention today, arggg... I am thinking we better rock it this weekend.

I have been trying to get better at a habbit of archive old conversations that are no longer needed, and starting emails that need to be dealt with in a day or two. I did this awhile ago and cleared my emails down to just the newest and most important, but I started slacking and it quickly grew to a mess of over 1500 emails. I am now down to less than 100, some of which are recent / active email threads, and some are starred emails I have to deal with. Either way I am hoping to slowly go through these last few starred emails and then I will finally be set up right to be on top of my email situation. Rock on, so hopefully that means I will less often ignore and fail to respond to people who write me emails, so if you feel like I missed over you last letter or never got back to you or anything like that, shoot me an email now, cause I should be all over it.

I don't have a lot of free time to be writing currently. So the things I am writing tend not to be for this blog. If you want to read about what I am up to, check out our new company blog, The Devver Blog. We are also running on WordPress for the first time instead of MovableType, which is kind of cool. It just gives me a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each. Yeah it is a little less of my personal life, but I do actually reread what I write there. So you will see far fewer typos, grammatical errors, etc...

So far things are going well with the new company and project.

I thought this was interesting. It is funny how you see the laws align around really weird and unlikely deaths that happen to really upset the public... Fireworks for example...

Number of US men who will die in 2008

Apple is known for pretty good costumer service (source), so when I was having a minor issue with my mactop (Macbook laptop), I thought I would bring it in for repairs. I will share my really crappy experience with Apple customer service that followed.

I had about 45 days left on my warrant. I had purchase one of the small 13 inch refurbished laptops from Apple. Apple refurbished laptops come with a 1 year warranty. My laptop had been pretty awesome, it had one slightly annoying problem that was happening more and more often. The backlight would flicker a bunch and sometime flicker entirely off for a moment or two. I figured it was just a matter of time before it flicker off and never returned. I decided that it was worth having the service before my warranty ran out. I brought it in, and apple said it would take 3 to 5 days and they would ship it back to me, but I was about to leave on vacation so I decided to bring it in when I returned.

I attempted to drop by the apple store so they could mail it in for repairs. I was told I would have to get an appointment to drop my laptop off. They checked online and they were out of appointments for the rest of the day. I brought it back the next day. My laptop was then shipped off right before Memorial Day weekend, after which I started a new job on Tuesday and figured I wouldn’t have my laptop in time. Tuesday morning, amazingly my laptop was at the door. I excitedly rip it open plug it in and power it on. It comes up for about 30 seconds before making this scary image, and it refuses to ever boot again. Apple had just shipped me back a broken laptop, it was a new case, it had my hard drive, but it didn’t work. It wouldn’t even make a boot sound.

I ship the mactop back to apple for a second attempt at it being fixed. Friday afternoon I get a call while at the office, I am told my laptop is in Boulder, but it had an incomplete address. So it returned to the Boulder Fedex service center and they would try again Monday, or I could pick it up. So I leave work early Friday after spending my first week at a new job with out a laptop, to pick it up about 15 minutes away or so. Now that I have the package I check the incomplete address. Apple mailed my computer to:

Dan Mayer
Apt #23
Boulder, CO 80304

There was no street address, and everything previous with apple had my full and correct address. I checked online and apple has my full and correct address in my online account as well. Through out all of this I had probably spent an hour and a half on the phone with apple between the various repairs / disrepairs. So I open the box, plug it in, power it up… and it works thank god it works! It now makes a weird humming sound when the screen is open at random… My laptop mouse key now sticks and doesn’t respond well to double clicking. So after all the ordeal my laptop is back and basically in worse shape then when I originally sent it in. I will say that the screen doesn’t flicker anymore, which is good, but the mouse key is driving me nuts, and I don’t really trust sending it in to Apple again.

We are going to get the last car loads of stuff from our Denver place. We will be turning in the keys and heading out of Denver. I guess it is kind of odd not knowing when I will next be in Denver, I guess I have little reason to head to Denver very often anymore.

Things have started moving pretty fast the first week at TechStars. We have been in a bunch of meetings, and talking with advisors. We have a ton of work that we need to try to get done tomorrow. Hopefully we will have a really strong and productive week.

It is exciting, and I am happy about the direction things are going for our project right now.

I have added the Lijit widget to my blog to try out. I know some people for Lijit, and it is always good to help support the local Boulder Startups. So check it out on the right side, and click suprise me to find some random stuff I have put up on the web at one point or another. To bad I don't have a bunch of feeds of the old wastedbrains content so I don't think any of that is really indexed by Lijit, but most of that stuff is really old and if you are reading htis blog you have likely already seen it.

My good buddy Dom ran the Boulder Boulder today... Awesome congrats for him, he also did it with an extra 1.4 mile walk on the front and the back getting to and from the start line and the finish line. So he rocks! We also got to play some Starcraft which was awesome!

Dom is also getting ready to move to LA, which is pretty cool. I don't think I would be really into LA, but I am really jealous that he will be getting out to CA. I still have a dream of getting a chance to live in CA sometime! Along with getting ready to move to LA and looking for jobs in LA, Dom started a new blog, my move to LA. Hopefully it will help others thinking about moving to LA, or CA. He is researching little towns and places to live, so it might give others some good ideas on the area as well. I just hope after he moves he updates it some more with the results of the move. The Job, the neighborhood, the activities and things to do in the area...

Tomorrow is a big day, for those in the know...

The new Indy was subpar!

I still think it was better than Temple of Doom, but I wasn't really impressed. I don't want to share any spoilers, so I won't really write up a review... I just think George Lucas probably shouldn't be allowed to be involved in any projects of any type anymore... OK that might be a little over the line, but another great series brought to a sad end. Oh well!

I just passed 600 miles on my silly glider and I love it!

For those that know me, they know I have developed some sort of irrational love of my glider. Perhaps it is because it was one of the first things I built on my own that I actually used. Perhaps because I got it with a goal to loose weight and partly because of my glider I now weight less than my goal weight. Perhaps, because it has moved house to house with me since I left college. Perhaps, because everyone seems to mock it for how crappy it is, falling apart, that it counts miles to quickly, and that it is now held together with duck tape. Finally maybe I like it because when I am on it, I think of my grandfather who every day for over 20 decades would ride his stationary bicycle for 10 miles or so to keep in shape. Who knows why, but I had a great dream in my mind of eventually crossing 1000 miles on that thing before it fell apart. It hasn't completely fell apart, but I am now moving somewhere far to small to keep it around and it really doesn't make sense to transport it again as I doubt it could really survive another move. But I knew I had to make one last milestone before we left, so I started setting my sites on 600 miles a few weeks ago, and today I accomplished my goal with my glider partner. Yes to all those out there that hate my glider, I know my 600 miles wasn't real miles, and that I didn't burn near the calories that it would lovingly lie to me about burning, but it still felt pretty good to glide past that last mile.

I am moving to Boulder in 2 days, almost everything I own is in boxes and I am starting to clean everything. Today we donated a bunch of books to the Denver Library and a bunch of random stuff to the Salvation Army. It was great to do some good, while really clearing out the house.

I haven't been blogging as much lately. I have been pretty busy. So I changed up the side bar a bit, it now has my delicious links. I have been adding a bunch of cool links to that fairly often so you can check that out to find out what interesting things I am looking at on the web. Anyways, just wanted to point it out for those that are wondering what I am up to.

I am traveling around to clear my head before our new project this summer. I travel far to much for someone with out a real job according to one friend, which is probably true, but a part of life when doing the long distance relationship thing.

Sadly my other dog (really my brothers dog) was put to sleep after she couldn't stand up or walk anymore. We will miss you Ginger! I guess that means I am petless.

I am in NYC and so far we have...

Hit an art museum (The Met)
Met up with Dave and ate at supposedly the best Korean food in Manhattan (weird but good)
Seen a broadway show (In the Hieghts)
Walked 4+ miles with a cart to get and bring groceries home
Had some random angry woman follow us around while threatening to kill us
BBQed in Erin's awesome NYC backyard
Seen a TV show filmed (The Daily Show)
Had dinner in Hell's Kitchen
Walked the dog around bunch and taken Spot to the Dog park
Ride the Subway all over the place
Enjoyed a nice evening on the Hudson river having some drinks
Went shopping on fashion avenue, although I didn't buy anything.

I think the plan is to hit one more museum before I go... Good times.

So we are moving back to Boulder we signed a lease and have one month left in this old Denver house. We are trying to shrink the amount of stuff we own since we are moving into a place about 1/3 of the size of our current house. That and moving is a great time to do spring cleaning. The amount of stuff I have found to throw out, give away, donate, or sell is pretty crazy. It always makes me think of fight club... You are not your khakis!

So away things go and with that I will post links to some of the craigslist ads in case any of my friends are interested in anything...

set of 4 tires
some old video game stuff
microwave
my old projector
Bumper Pool / Poker Table

We have some other stuff, and we have already sold some things and taken down the posts... Best of all I sold my washer and dryer, which is great cause they SUCK to move!

Since we are in a bit of a transition we have had a bit of extra time which is nice. So when Kate's work had set up a volunteer day at Habitat for Humanity, Ben and I decided to tag along and help out. I have always liked Habitat, but never actually volunteered for them. I found the whole experience rewarding, and generally a good time. Even with my limited (OK barely existent) building knowledge I felt like we actually helped contribute a good deal.

So basically how it worked was we showed up at the build site at 9am, and waited for the rest of group to arrive. While waiting we signed in, got hard hats, and safety glasses. We were given a quick talk about the Habitat organization, then a brief safety briefing. People that get homes in the program have to help work for the organization for 250 hours before they receive their house. We were lucky enough to be helping build a house for a woman who was there helping build her own house with us. It was cool to get a chance to talk to someone that organization was actually helping. (I also figured by the time the project is done, if anything ever breaks or goes wrong she will now have all the experience required to fix it, which is cool.) So after meet and greets with the crew, and Kate's coworkers, we got to work.

The first task I was assigned was spackling, basically all the window and door frames had a bunch of holes from the nails used to install them. I went around and filled all the holes with spackle and waited for it to dry. Then I sanded off the spackle to leave a smooth surface to paint over. Ben, Kate, and many of the coworkers were painting the ceiling and walls as I did this, by the time they finished up all the windows and doors were ready for them. After spackling everything there was to spackle, Ben and I were teamed up to build shelves into the linen closet. I had never build shelves (nor much of anything), but the project lead gave us some quick directions and we started taking measurements and collecting wood to be cut. We then were given a quick briefing on how to use some of the power circular saws. We then made bunch of cuts and measurements. We had to not mess up because we had enough wood to build the shelves but only with 1 inch of extra wood to spare. we did screw up our first set of cuts and cut everything 1/8 of an inch to short. That turned to be just fine as we cover the missing section with the actual shelf. We got that all installed, and I spackled it of course. The day was winding down, but I was given one more task, using a straight bar rip part of the door frame off the wall with out breaking it, because it wasn't installed correctly. I pried it off carefully. Then I began fixing the wall so the frame could be installed flat and correctly this time. I reattached the frame, and of course spackled the hell out of it, before calling it a day.

It was cool to learn a bit more about construction, make various angled cuts, and work with power tools (I managed not to hurt anyone, crazy). It was also cool to chat with the full time employees of the organization and see how good they were about reducing waste, recycling, and building very energy efficient homes. It was also really cool to talk with the woman who would soon be moving into the house we worked on with her family. The house is about 3 weeks away from completion, and was really coming together. It was cool to be able to show up at the beginning of the day and very easily see the progress that our team made while there. I honestly just has a good time in general, even when it started snowing while we were working. I would highly recommend volunteering for Habitat, sometime if you never have. It was my first time and others said it wasn't always as rewarding because sometimes people show up and are just not be capable of really helping at the current stage of the project, so I am sure the experience various greatly depending on how useful you feel while there.

Anyways, thanks Kate for letting me tag along with your company. I was even on good behavior and didn't make you embarrassed at all, that is until we were about 20 seconds away in your car...

SPACKLE!

Currently everything is in a weird state, so I am kind of bouncing around while preparing for a new big challenge. Unfortunately, I can't really publicly talk about what is next for myself yet, but hopefully I can make it public pretty soon. So that has been kind of stressful, it will require me moving (back to Boulder), so we are currently searching for a new place. Something that makes that harder is the fact that the house we are currently renting sold, and the new owners haven't let us know when they want us out. We could have to be out by the end of the month, which wouldn't go over very well.

As part of preparing for my next project, we have put Seekler in maintenance mode. Meaning, it will no longer get any new features or real work. We will fix any huge or security related bugs, but that is it. It is kind of sad, but it was definitely time to move on as we just couldn't see that project taking us where we wanted to be as a business. We did a little write up about moving on from Seekler, over at our Pretheory blog. Thanks to everyone who supported us and tried it out.

The nice thing is during this awkward between projects time, while we are working, we are also just taking care of bunch of little things. It gave me time to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, I am planning a trip to visit Erin in NYC, and I am doing spring cleaning and filling bags to bring to the salvation army, selling stuff on craigslist, and giving away some things I just don't want to deal with moving.

Also, one of my best friends just got engaged, so we got together to celebrate that, which was a good time. Congrats to Jesse and Annie, I wish them a life of happiness together, and really enjoy hanging out with them both. So yeah that is a nice little recap on things that have been going on lately.

The Flobots are taking off and incredibly fast. The signed with Universal, who agreed to re-release their album untouched even though it mocks record executives. They are the number one requested song on radio stations in LA, Detroit, Utah, and a whole bunch of other places.

Most recently their single Handlebars hit the top 100 downloads on iTunes. It is currently 85 as I read this. I am seriously considering buying another copy of the song to just help them on their way. They have some shows in Boulder and Ft. Collins coming up so if you can check those shows out.

Rock on Jesse Walker, Rock on!

It is time for me to yell at myself for being a bad blogger. Normally I post snippy comments on my friends blogs when they stop making updates, and here I am not making updates.

I know I am lame, I apologize. I actually have a lot to post about, but can't seem to really focus enough to take the time to write anything out. I will try to get on it pretty soon. We haven't put a new post over on our blog at Pretheory for quite awhile either... argg, I am being a bad blogger multiple places.

I am actually making some posts over at the Energy Drink Review blog, as the company that bought it has hired me to contribute some reviews and posts and clean the site up a little bit.

OK so there is a lame post about not posting... It says almost nothing worthwhile or of value, but at least it makes me not feel guilty about not posting for another day.

How is it that visibility doesn't have an 'a' in it? I guess I pronounce it visa-bility. Seriously though say the word a couple times and tell me that you don't feel it should have an 'a' somewhere in there.

Damn you english, give me spanish with out the masculine feminine and also drop the accents because I don't believe in those either.

Application writting sucks.

I am back and I am sick I was sick the last couple days of the trip and that sucked... I really wish I could fall asleep but my body will sleep no more...

Well wonder no longer. The best action movie with Harrison Ford is Raiders of the Lost Ark. At least according to a merge of 88 different people's best movies lists...

What to know the rest? check out The best action movies with Harrison Ford.

We beefed up the tagging and users on the movie list so now you can figure out all sorts of fun movie questions...

On that note I am gone for a week so I wouldn't expect to see any new posts for a little while.

I just passed the two year relationship mark with Erin. Hooray pretty sweet accomplishment. We will be celebrating by heading out to San Deigo together to visit my brother and Doc and then heading down to Mexico for a couple days. It should be a good time. I am pretty excited for the trip because I need to just enjoy a bit of time away and clear my head. A simple vacations sounds like a good thing for that, right?

So Erin thanks so much for being you, I have enjoyed all our time and adventures together. I look forward to all the craziness we share together in the future.

To celebrate check out the best xkcd comics about relationships.

I just got my tax returns and I am so happy because it is the first positive influx of cash I have had in months... Argg at the current rate we are going it will likely be the last for awhile... Arggg I don't want to have to get a real job.

Oh well off to Costco...

A friend of mine is doing the Avon Walk for cancer because her mom is currently fighting her third bout wiht cancer after winning the previous two. She will be walking / jogging a full marathon. I just wanted to shout some incuragement, and let others know that if you want to help out or support her or a good cause you can donate to her walk. My donation side of life is pretty tight right now, but I donated what I could. Anyways just wanted to say, Go Christa and good luck.

Her team name is awesome also: Joggin' For Jugs

Christa's Avon Walk Page

Steve was in town for a couple nights... We had a really good time, we didn't do anything in particular, but all the nights were fun.

I forgot how sore I can get after playing basketball, it was still a blast though.

We tried some new Sushi place in Denver on Saturday, it was pretty awesome, I think I had my favorite piece of veggie sushi it was called a salad roll.

I am so amazingly happy to have water back that I can barely express the joys of flushing toliets and washing my hands.

Early meetings make me afraid of sleep, I feel like I won't sleep well because I am scared of sleeping in to late and missing a meeting... I have an alarm set, Ben would be around and wake me, and yet I am annoyed with the idea of trying to fall alseep...

We have been with out water since I woke this morning. We called the construction company that is working across the street, because they have knocked out out water (x3), gas, and power before. They got back to us about 5 hours later saying it wasn't them call Denver water. We called Denver water which got someone here to check things out in less than an hour, and they said all our house is good but the water main is dead and it has to be the construction. So now Denver water is sending the main/valve team out to talk / work with the construction crew to see why the water is out.

All I know is right now we have both sides saying it isn't really their fault. At least Denver Water is acting quickly and putting pressure on the construction team to figure things out, but I might have to cave and go buy some water bottles. Once we get water back we are going to fill our fridge with water bottles (refilled bottles, not purchased) seeing as each time this has happened we have wished we had some extra water around.

Best part was we had a meeting this morning and had to go to that with out showers, classy. I have another more dressy meeting at 5:30 so if we don't get water back soon, it will be awkward. Stupid old house and stupid construction.

Update: The city now says the water is making it to the curb side meter, which is where the cities responsibility ends. Two problems they could do a little additional checking, but the curb valve is inaccessible, because it has moved so much over the years under the ground. That piece is the home owners responsibility. Even with that part fixed (requires digging a 4 ft hole), they might just be able to tell us there is a blockage in the houses plumbing. Either way means we need to get out landlord involved to fix our issue. Normally it takes us a couple days to get a hold of our landlord. So we might have to evacuate our house (go stay with friends) until we can get water back. We left a message for our landlord.

Update 2: Roadside valve connection realigned. Denver Water coming (at 2:30) back to check pressure and verify which side of the meter the plug/jam is happening. If it is on their side the city has to fix it, if it is on our side we have to get the landlord to fix it. 1 and a half days with out house water, having a guest staying at our house the next 2 days.

Update 3: So the pressure coming in curbside is pretty much nothing, not enough pressure to get the water out of the basement. So they call additional teams, Denver water figures out that they think it is the main. Which in turn they will dig out tomorrow, if they find that the contruction broke the main, then they have an issue and have to fix it / pay for it or whatever. Either way was were told we should have water by the end of tomorrow. I have morning meetings and have to find another house to shower at, and we have a guest staying at the house tonight... nice isn't it.

Update 4: We have water back 3 days later... got turned on at 4:30ish today (friday). Yippie for water I am so excited I have just been running around the house flushing toliets.

A bunch of friends and I saw the sold out Flobots show at the Gothic, on Saturday night. It was a good time. It is fun to watch the band really make it big. Over the weekend, I heard their song on the radio twice, and heard it mentioned or in ads on 93.3 over a dozen times. The shows are still fun, but I actually had more fun when the shows were smaller and we could all be up close to the band with plenty of room to dance. Now we could try to cram in with a ton of fans uncomfortably or dance all the way in the back (which is what we ended up doing). When your that far back you just really don't get to feel as much of the energy of the crowd.

I might actually get to see them at a tiny show again sometime soon. I should be in Cali when the Flobots are playing LA, so I will be making an effort to see that show.

Well my crazy weight loss continues, but now I have to revise my thoughts that my glider caused most of the weight loss. I haven't been on the glider much lately as I have been busy, but I have lost another 5ish pounds, putting me at 124 lbs, which is really light for me, back at my HS weight. I never wanted to drop below 125 so I am on a mission to gain some of it back, preferably with some muscle, but if I just gain some flab that will work too. So I am thinking that reducing drinking was the cause of this weight loss. I have been drinking a lot less since the new year, and I guess it caused me to shed another 5ish lbs. To bad I don't feel really awesome, in fact my body has been feeling kind of crappy lately. I also have had far more allergic reactions lately than I normally have. Anyways, I have been trying to do push ups and sit ups a couple times a day just as a little break or part of my getting out of bed routine. So hopefully if I keep laying off the booze and eating healthy and working out a bit I might start to actually feel in better shape. I thought once I lost some weight I would feel like I was in better shape, but it just hasn't really changed how I have felt very much. My heart burn has been slightly better but that is about it.

Erin went back to NYC today, which is sad. We had a pretty simple, but wonderful time together for Valentine's day. Next up is her bday, and we will celebrate part of that during her Spring break. So I guess we have some more exciting times to look forward to.

Alright that counts as a short little rambling blog post... getting a few thoughts out of my head.

Happy Vday everyone. Yippie for Hallmark making me spend money I don't have... hehe I joke I kid, while it is dumb and hilarious that we have such corporate holidays, we need them because we didn't create enough cool national holidays in the first place. Everyone needs a break no and again to make them think about the more important parts of life. If I was part of a religion that had a ton more holidays and traditions I would probably be covered, but I am not so I will take some joy in a corporate holiday. Yippie for relaxing good food and spending time with someone I love.

Tonight Erin will arrive from NYC so we will get to spend the evening together, and we will basically be celebrating the holiday for entire 3 day weekend. We have various activities plan and should get a good amount of time to just spend with ourselves which should be great. It will be a nice weekend to not really worry about work, money, or anything else. So I am thankful for this nice little holiday break. I hope it find everyone else well also...

A Valentine's Day card from my mom. Thanks mom.
(For those keeping score posting my valentines day card at low resolution is likely copyright infringement, thanks lobbyists)

All that and no voting apparently the Denver Clerk was not correct. I couldn't vote if I was registered as an independent. The Democratic party does require you to be a registered Democrat, not state law as this is left up the party, but apparently it is a party law. I was turned away, which sucks big time. I hate voting.

Anyways the 2 parties that I don't want to be associated with strikes again, apparently to participate at all I have to declare one not as crappy as the other, which makes me mad cause they both suck. I will be updating my registration tomorrow and become an official Democrat which makes me angry.

I understand why they try to prevent other parties from voting, but unaffiliated just means undecided. Dave apparently you were right and I needed to call the Democratic HQ since they were the one that had the final say. I guess I will need to learn to check with multiple sources.

Cheers to all those that actually could get out and really vote. I just got cold and my shoes wet to come back home!

Oh well at least I tried and at least I am excited about an election for once.

Tonight I will be caucusing for Obama. I hope those of you that can, go participate as well. I didn't think I would be able to because I was registered as an unaffiliated, but apparently that isn't a problem in Colorado, I just sign some statement of intent.

Get out there and spead the word, even if your not for Obama participate, vote.

A first for us and Seekler, tomorrow we will be live listing, during the Super Bowl creating a list of the best commercials during the Super Bowl 2008. I haven't done a live list before so it should be fun, we can get a bunch of our friends together all with our laptops and begin ranking the commercials as they air.

People that know me, know I could care less about the football game, I don't even know who is playing, but most years I haven ended up at a friends super bowl party. So I might as well use it as a chance to promote Seekler right? I don't really care about commercials either, but you have to admit sometimes commercials really can be an art form and often times the best and the most creative commercials are launched during the super bowl. So If you feel like participating have your computer ready, play along, tell your friends as we rate all the super bowl commercials from best to worst live.

Best Super Bowl Commercials of 2008

UPDATE: We are currently ranking these live

UPDATE 2: Thanks for those that participated, linked, or checked out the Super Bowl lists... It was a pretty good little success, best Sunday traffic we have ever had! If you have an account, can you digg it?, as it could help.

This morning we woke bright and early to catch Barack Obama talking at the DU campus. Apparently we didn't wake early enough. I was up just getting moving when I got a text message from Dominic who had seen on the news that they weren't letting anymore people in. I thought that was odd since the doors weren't supposed to open for another hour and a half, but apparently large crowds had begun gathering and it was expect that far more than 8,000 (which the planned center could hold) had arrived. So I quickly showered, skipped shaving for time, and we left the house early.

We arrived at 8 AM to find a huge line that had built up wrapping around much of the DU campus. In fact 3 different lines had formed, and it seemed there were no event organizers to tell you which line was for what or if they were all the same. We go to the end of one line, sent out search parties to learn about other lines. Eventually settling in and not really expecting to ever make it in to see Obama as there were clearly far to many people there. About 10 AM the event hadn't started and we were still very far from the building in a huge line that had only moved perhaps 300 ft. That is when Dina decided to give up and head out, which was starting to sound like a good idea as it was freezing outside and we had been around awhile. At 10:30 Ben and I decided to start doing shifts inside and outside in line so we could stay warm. I had pretty much given up and was just waiting for Ben to crack so we could go home and eat. Then while I was in warming up Ben called and was like get out here the line is moving really fast. I caught up with our group and sure enough we were flying towards the Magnus Arena. We got in, barely we didn't get in the main speaking hall we were in one of the two overflow rooms, some of the last people let in. We sat down and waited...

Barack Obama didn't begin his speech for quite awhile, apparently the reason being that with so many people not being able to get into to the venue or the overflow rooms he went outside to speak and shake hands with all the people that were going to have to just be turned away or sit outside in the cold to hear his speech. I think it was really cool for him to try to make sure that everyone that came out to support him would at least get to see him and hear a few words from the mans mouth. After talking to the outside crowds Obama walked in shook hands and talked for a bit in each of the overflow rooms. Then finally went to the main area to give his speech. After expecting less than 8,000 visitors, Obama reportedly had over 13,000 people come to hear him speak. It was pretty impressive. There was a energy, excitement, and a happiness to pretty much the whole crowd. As Obama's team and group likes to say there was hope. I am glad we got to see some of that excitement, and glad we got to see the man work the crowd.

As for the actual speech, most of his points I had heard before, hence being a supporter. It was interesting to learn some new things. Obama has many plans to help support and help education through out this country, one that I hadn't heard of is increasing the size and funding of Americore, helping make sure everyone can afford college. Instead of requiring military duty for college support you can due a term of duty in Americore, which has a variety of projects many of them focus on improving education in some of America's worst schools. I think it is a great idea to help provide options for those that wouldn't be willing to do military duty, by helping pay for their education if they will help improve education for others.

I like Obama's strong stance against lobbyists, I think for far to long corporate and foreign lobbyist have had a larger say about our governments activities than our people. Why is it no one can go down for more than 6 months to 2 years in all the stock and Enron scandals, but you can get 5 to 10 years for stealing a car? We have laws protecting copyrights for hundreds of thousands of dollars for each violation, and when the vary industry these laws protect get caught and convicted of price fixing, they get a tiny fine that is less than a single individual could be find for copyright infringement? Do these sound like laws for the people, created by the average citizen? Lobbyists have skewed the views and policies so far towards corporations you can barely see any laws to protect consumers anymore. Besides not taking money from lobbyists during the campaign Obama plans to open up a ton of information about their activities so we can know what bills and what people they are trying to buy in Washington. Just making the information public and accessible would be a huge step in the right direction

I am not the biggest fan of Obama's health care ideas, but I am not really against them either. I honestly don't know enough about the gigantic health care mess to claim his ideas are worse than any others. I think other ideas have sounded a little better to me just in a gut reaction sort of sense, but he still has a plan and still will try to force improvement. So no of course Obama isn't perfect.

Obama wants to end the war in Iraq, which I think is good, but I really haven't heard any good idea of how we can get out of there with out making a big mess worse. What kind of withdraw plans does he have? Slow? Fast? Just let the place collapse? I don't know his thoughts and I want to end the war as well, but I would like to know more about his exist strategy.

Obama talked about all these issues and more today. He also talked like every other politician, repeating key points over and over. He said some things that just don't mean anything, are we ready for change, yes. I think everyone runs on the platform, the platform of change and we could do better. Does he love America? Yes. Is he proud to be an American? Yes. Does he have some heartbreaking stories from some small town folk he has meet on the campaign trail? Yes. Does some of this political speak just sound like every other politician trying to unity not divide while bringing greatness to our country before him? Pretty much, which is fine... cause that is part of the game of politics.

When he does actually discuss and state his thoughts on actual issues though, I generally agree. I get excited, thats a big part I am actually excited about the possibilities if he were to actually become president. I can't really recall the last time if ever I was politically excited and motivated by a candidate. The last few elections have just been powered so much by my distrust of another candidate, I wasn't voting to support anyone. I was voting trying to stop what I saw as the worst of two evils.

So I am really glad I got to be part of the experience today. I am really glad I got to actually see the man if only for a few minutes. I am glad that I got to hear him speak happily and passionately about the future. I was happy to see so many people out to support him on a could winter day. I am happy that I can really be excited about voting and supporting a candidate. I am for Barack Obama, and it feels good.

Currently I am taking some time to just try to sit back and think a bit before moving forward in any real directions.

Tomorrow I will be seeing Barack Obama speak. It should be interesting, he is currently the candidate I am most excited about... Hopefully he can keep that up when I see hear him and get to form an even more intelligent opinion of him.

Well this week has been disappointing. We spent some of it doing PR and a bunch of it going to meetings and talking with people in the Denver / Boulder start up community trying to become a little well more known in that community. It hasn't gone as well as I would have hoped. We met some people, got to give our product pitch a couple places. Some people seemed really interested, while it was hard to tell with some others. The biggest thing is now that we are public and not supposed to be working on code all the time, which we enjoy doing a lot more than going to meetings, I feel like we should be moving faster and getting noticed more. It has been slow growth with mild positive feedback.

I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm right out of the gate, but I guess that means we have some key areas to focus on. Anyways the start up roller coaster is a series of high ups and downs, and I guess I am currently on a bit of a down swing. The weekend is quickly approaching, and we have some good ideas for things to do to help turn things around some. So I guess we will get a little bit of a break and rest and then try some little changes and see what happens. Ahhh the confusion of the start up life.

The house I am living in might have actually sold! We don't really know what is going on and we are trying to figure that out. If true I might have to be moving much sooner than I had hoped or planned which would be bad. I really don't want to deal with moving right now. I am really trying to kind of focus some of my energies on other things for now.

Anyways, I am trying not to worry about it until we figure out for sure.

and I would walk 500 more... or at least I will if my glider (elliptical machine for those of you who call things by there real names), lasts another 500 miles.

So I bought the crappiest and cheapest glider ever about 3+ years ago, it has been with me at 3 houses now. I used it a lot for awhile, then in my second house hardly ever used it and it was banished to a corner or a closet most of the time. Since quiting my job I found the need to try to get some exercise because I wasn't walking 2+ miles everyday anymore. We started trying to do random work outs sit ups, push ups, jumping jacks... and some time on the glider. It worked out alright, but I wasn't really getting to my goal weight. Because I would get bored and stop before ever really getting a good work out.

Then we bought Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii, and I started playing marching band (causing me hit 400 miles), which has really quickly added another 100 miles to the glider. My original goal was to make it to 1000 miles and then junk my glider. After it started falling apart and requiring duct tape to stay together, I lowered my expectations. I made my new goal to cross 500 miles, which I just did...

Now my goal is just to take it 100 miles at a time and celebrate each one... Rock on my crappy little glider, we might just make 1000 yet!

Lately I feel like I have had to many thoughts or just to much on my mind. Frequently I have some thoughts that disappear before I can get them out of my mind in any worthwhile state. I guess I need to keep my little notepad around me some more again and begin writing down parts of thoughts to help remind me of my ideas...

Arggg what to do for springbreak... Trying to get to Cali, but some little issues are coming up.

Awesome I get to spend Valentine's day with Erin, Rock on!

Arggg so much work to do, and ways to improve the site so little time.

Awesome, after a great launch that sent to many people to the site, it looks like in just a couple of days we have improved the performance of some parts of the site by over 1000%, boo to the yaaah!

Arggg not seeing Erin for a month...

Sweet, got to see a great concert with Dom and Nicole over break that Erin and I really enjoyed.

Arggg meetings, networking, business plans, revenue stream, meet and greet, PR, and marketing are coming up a lot more in our day to day work life.

Sweet, I like music and I have some cool ideas of things to listen to and givea shot in the next little while.

Arggg expensive bears, hard to train turtles, and un findable (or un existing?) unicorns!

Sweet eat your vitamins and walk on your eliptical machine (which I have and always will call a glider)!

Well another year passes and like most years I decide I might as well make a lame list of my new years resolutions... What are your goals for this year?

Also, if you happen to watch bad TV you can add in who is your
Favorite American Gladiator. I don't really watch much TV, but I loved watching the original American Gladiators, so I might have to check out a couple episodes for the hell of it.