Austin, Texas.


Back in 2007, I visited Austin for the first time with Jeremy Wright for SXSW. I fell in love with the city and have come back for every SXSW since. The truth is, as I’ve since realized, is that Austin is better when it’s not SXSW time and I have spent the past few months coming back and visiting this city every month for a week or more.

As of this past weekend, though, that has all changed. I live here now. I have a job here now (which I will announce more about when it is formalized this week). I have a girlfriend here. I have a built in community here.

In Austin, there are plenty of startups. Besides the one I will be working with, it claims startups like Other Inbox and Gowalla. The sense here is that people feel empowered to be entrepreneurial.

This is a far cry from DC where only a small subsection of people felt entrepreneurial, but most opted to work inside the governmental complex of agencies, NGOs, contractors, non-profits and public affairs. While that is all well and good, I have always believed that the human spirit is a creative one that can only be satiated by creating things, and that is the essence of entrepreneurship.

I have no love for DC. I have lived there for the last year and a half and before that, I spent most of my life 45 minutes up the road in Baltimore. I am not sad that I have left. In Austin, I look forward to resetting life and starting over. The last time I did not share my home with someone else was in 1999. The last time I had to start from scratch and buy everything new in order to make a house a home was… in 1999. Fortunately, I’m in a better position to do that then I was 11 years ago.

I made mistakes in DC that I don’t intend to make in Austin. A year and a half ago, I entered a city and approached it from a social stand point. While I made good friends, they were rare instead replaced by hundreds of acquaintances. The people with enough depth of character and heart to be truly friends can be counted on one hand.

In Austin, I refuse to play the social game. I’m diving deep. I’d rather have a dozen people in my circle that know me well and I know them well, than have 100 people that know me enough to be my friend on Facebook but are mainly just acquaintances.

Lessons learned from before. This is a chance to start over. I plan to take it.

Honey, I’m home.

Photo by Visualist Images.

Sharing Mini Stories

Clearly, I don’t update this blog enough. Not that I feel like I have to. It’s my personal blog. I can do anything and say anything I want to. However, one thing I DO do a lot of is surf the web. Via Twitter and Friendfeed, not to mention links passed in IM chats, I spend a lot of time discovering new content that I really like.

So I’ve added a new feature, for this blog, that will share content I find interesting. IT’s smaller font-size so it’s different than normal posts. Hope you enjoy it.

The Life of a Single Guy


The Life of a Single Guy on 12seconds.tv

New York City

Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/smaku/133656648/">smaku</a>
New York City.

Once before I walked these streets.

The contrast between rich and poor. White, Black, Latino.

Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtl_shag/32023418/">OliverN5</a>

Urban decay and iconic imagery.

Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hi-phi/414988973/">hi-phi</a>

I’ve been back since, rarely for the same reasons as the time before, but always for something.

There’s always something. Something innovative. Something advanced. Something dismal. Something sexy. Something, something, something. There’s always something.

Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/larimdame/102180205/">larimdame</a>

Among the throngs of soccer teams from Europe, high school groups from Iowa, brokers and politicians from Boston, Washington, Los Angeles and Tokyo.

Through it all there are people. People with burdens they carry. Some not even realizing they carry it.

Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/246865556/">wallyg</a>

Yet their eyes do. Their eyes betray feelings of anxiety and pain. Broken relationships, and expensive mortgages. Women breaking a lofty glass ceiling. Men mired in the turmoil of the stress of today. Children with no hope for tomorrow.

Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/807129/">Kris Krug</a>

They live here. They breathe here. They abide here. This is their home and they know nothing else.

This is New York. For so many reasons, I love it, I feel it.

Change is in the Air

By now, people who follow me on Twitter or other places around the web may have picked up on the fact that I’m going through changes right now.

I guess everyone is. The economy is bad. Jobs are hard to come by. It just seems like that cycle of life has come where everything changes for good or for bad.

For me, my changes come in the form of living in a new city, in a new state, in a new house… and with a new housemate.

I guess the first indication something was up was when I changed my Facebook relationship status from Married to It’s Complicated. No that wasn’t a joke or some crude publicity stunt to see how many people noticed. It really did happen.

Actually, the complication began six months ago and out of respect for my wife, I won’t go into those details publicly. Needless to say, things have not been good or healthy and there is adequate blame to go around.

It became clear that things were not going to work out for us back in August but having been married for eight years, having a 5 year old boy, having financial concerns, family concerns, to name just a few it was not as easy as just saying “Goodbye”.

I think we both have agreed that “Goodbye” had to be a healthy (as much as possible) goodbye without anger and with respect.

Last weekend, we began the process of saying “Goodbye”. We had possibly our best conversation of our entire marriage, a two hour long intimate moment where we laughed, cried and put it all out on the table. Funny when couples are at the final moment, they get that way. I guess there’s nothing to protect or lose at that point.

On Sunday, I moved in with a good friend in Alexandria, Virginia and am acclimating to a new lifestyle.

My changes involve not living at home with my wife or son, living in a different state, in a different Metro area (Finally in the DC Metro!) and I am actively changing my lifestyle habits.

It will take time for everything to settle down. I’ve already been approached for dates (which is weird!) but am not really looking for anything more than friends.

The next months, particularly with the economy, I’m planning on focusing everything I have on work and business. I’m an independent consultant and my bread and butter relies on closing deals and building WordPress-related products and services.

I will probably do a bit of personal travel. Maybe now is a good time to do that cross-country drive I’ve wanted to do for years now? I will be making friends (I always got along better with women than men, particularly before I got married and before I tamed things down on that front).

I don’t plan to get into another relationship anytime soon. This is me time.

I plan to spend a fair bit of time in Baltimore with my son as well. He is my pride and joy and I’m devastated about what this means for him.

At any rate, I figured I needed to say what happened since everyone seems so curious about my personal life. Which is also weird. :)

FDR vs. GWB

A visual representation of wartime speeches by Presidents (As inspired by Thomas Hawk who compares speeches of candidates in a visual fashion). Click each image for full size.

President Roosevelt went to Congress to ask for a Declaration of War, the last time any American President has followed Constitutional guidelines for such action.

FDR Speech

And President George W. Bush’s address to Congress where he declared war himself:

Bush Speech

Happy Birthday, Son

I spend a lot of time talking about work, and technology and business. Here, I might talk about politics. These are all important(ish) things to me. Certainly things that are “safe” territory, whatever that means. It’s funny though how the most important thing in my life… I don’t talk about. Rarely, anyway.

Jedi Kid

He’s going to be five tomorrow. Five. My son – my only son – my only child. He just started Kindergarten and on his first Friday, he wanted to know why he couldn’t go to school the next day. Yeah, son… keep that mentality for the next 13 years, will ya?

He’s certainly given me a world of memories in his five short years. For instance, I remember his first Big Word™. He referred to the big airplane as a “commercial airliner” (Oh and he properly identified the airline as Continental).

And that time at Six Flags when he saw Batman? That was priceless.

Or the zoo, where he was all excited about the pandas.

How about every time I open Flickr and he starts pointing out every person he knows.

The fact that he was four when he began Kindergarten but he tested at an age six level, so they admitted him in early.

I’m really proud of my son. He may be the most intelligent kid ever. And he’s personable (usually, unless he hasn’t had a nap). It is rare when anyone has to raise their voice to tell him to behave. He just knows what is right and how to behave.

Where did this kid come from?

His mom is a little concerned about when he might start taking interest in girls? As a dad, I’m kinda looking forward to that. I wonder what might strike his fancy? I’m lobbying for bright-eyed, outgoing girl who appreciates an extremely intelligent boy who knows how to have fun (Am I writing personal ads at this point?)

Anyways, happy birthday, Devin. I love you!

Gustav and Katrina

Happy Labor day to most. Stay safe for those on the Gulf Coast. Unlike most people, I have some inside track on how this Hurricane stuff goes down. Not to question coverage on television, but it really does not convey the destruction of these storms. Nothing can, outside of actually being there and seeing the destruction.

Fortunately, it looks like New Orleans escaped any real hardcore damage this time around. A lot of that, I think, has to do with the track of Gustav. It came in to the west of the city. This means that the vicious winds and tornados certainly did impact the Big Easy, but the flooding was not a recap of Katrina.

To understand this, you have to understand the circulation is counter clockwise. That means, on the east side of the storm is where the initial storm surge occurs as the winds push the water up onto the coast. New Orleans is not right on the coast. During Katrina, they received the back-push on the west side of the storm as winds whipped around from the north and pushed the waters of Lake Pontchartrain back into the city (Lake P is north of New Orleans). This was the real devastation of Katrina as the actual storm had little major impact (it was on the west side of the path, generally known as the calmer side).

This meant that, during Katrina, which came ashore around Biloxi, MS the bulk of the storm related damage was in eastern Mississippi and Alabama and the New Orleans damage was a result of after-effects and broken levees.

I spent some time in Mississippi on a cleanup mission and dug up photos from last night. You can see the entire photoset on Flickr.

P1010567

LeRoi Moore of Dave Matthews Band Dead

LeRoi Moore of Dave Matthews Band is reportedly dead after a critical period of time in a hospital following an ATV accident in June.

As a fan, he will be missed. May God be with his family and friends and the band.

[Source: TMZ]

August Travels

Crazy August. The only good part is that I get to escape the crazy heat of the mid-atlantic for a good portion of the month. And I don’t really mind travelling.

Here’s the rundown. Time will be limited but if you’re around, give me a shout. Would love to grab a beer, catch up if we’ve met, get acquainted if we haven’t.

  • August 5-6: Detroit, MI – Ford Motor Company tour and blogger outreach.
  • August 12-15: Boston, Mass. – Working vacation to see the Red Sox and meet up with some of the local social media heads. There’s a party Thursday night thats open if you RSVP. Or maybe we grab coffee?
  • August 15-17: San Francisco, CA – WordCamp SF. I’ve been there for two years straight and this year isn’t going to be different. Also speaking at the event on the issue of Discoverability.
  • August 24-26: Boulder, CO – Making a brief stint over to the DNC festivities. Otherwise, hanging with the Lijit folks.

Give me a shout if our schedules might line up.