Adam-Jackson

In late January, I announced that I’d be climbing a mountain. Well, I may not be able to do that now. The full, $4,500 is due to Climbing for Kids on Tuesday to be able to qualify for the climb. I’ll be about $2,000 short after I give what’s left of my paycheck after paying rent.

I cancelled my iPad 3G order to make this deadline but I’m still short. I didn’t go on any business trips since December other than my pre-payed and pre-panned trip to Florida in March. I trained, lost 30 pounds and even moved to a part of San Francisco with steep hills and a convenient gym so I could prepare for this climb.

I stopped drinking lattes and other high fat drinks. Haven’t had a soda in months. I was and am fully committed to the mid-June climb of Mount Shasta.

No one else believed in me. Well, maybe that’s a bit harsh. About 8 people did including a woman who I’ve known for 8 years now via the web, for which I’ve never met. Her $500 donation meant a lot to me.

I asked my martial arts family who I’ve been training with for nearly 20 years. Nothing. I asked my family who loves me and has supported me for years. Mom and Dad gave which did help.

My emails and phone calls to my 75+ person family yielded one $15 donation from a family member outside of Mom and Dad.

That’s it.

So, it’s 5 days before deadline and I’ve raised $1,150 of the $4,500 needed leaving a remainder of $3350 needed to meet my goal which I pledged in January that I’d raise. That $1,150 that I did raise, actually includes $500 that I had to donate in order to join the program and be recognized as a climber.

———————-

I have until July to pay off my balance. It’s a situation where I sign a contract committing to paying this. By July, I can pay this. I make enough that if I don’t leave my house for 3 months, the $3,000 can be done. This means I’ll be going from work to home w/o ever going out until July and I’ll be able to pay this off.

However, paying in July means I didn’t make the climb. I wouldn’t be able to climb the mountain which is why I did this, why I did this training and why I signed up.

This is a bit saddening. It’s for the kids so they get the money I promised to raise. There’s no backing out on raising money. I’m fully contractually obligated to “give” $4,500 so that’s that. But, I’ll be unable to make the Mt. Shasta climb unless I raise the $4,500 by Tuesday which is completely impossible.

———————-

All I can say, is that it was a good ride. I made a good effort but, at 23 I just don’t have the network of wealthy friends who can donate money. I wish I could return the money you all gave but remember that money is going to a good cause and now I just have to skip meals and skip buying a car so I can pay off the money that I promised. If I don’t, it goes to collections and you know that’s never good.

Thanks everyone for your support. Here’s the donate link if anyone has $5 to spare. https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=323924&supId=277262371

You can read more about the program here. http://www.climbingforkids.org/

For the longest time, I’ve been blogging for myself. The posts never had a schedule, were never censored and never edited. In fact, I usually just wrote and posted. This system worked pretty well but I was writing for the love of it and not to get rich and famous.

Well, that’s still the case.

See, for the past 11 years (1999), I’ve been blogging about whatever and selling  a few ads here and there. A few weeks ago, I was invited to join The Apple Blog as a contributor. TAB is actually a blog under the GigaOM Network which is a highly respected and very large blogging network founded by Om Malik who I have a ton of respect for.

I write about 4 tech related articles a month on this blog so I committed to 4 a month on TAB with an option to write more if I find the time. My content will not change other than it will be free of curse words and edited by a professional and can free up all of that time I spend spell checking and thumbing through a thesaurus.

Yes I will be paid which will be the first time that I can consider myself a paid blogger / writer but the title of “journalist” will still be reserved for people who are actually journalists. In summary, not much is changing and my articles will appear on The Apple Blog but I’ll try to remember to post links to them on Twitter so you’ll know when they’re online.

My TAB author page is http://theappleblog.com/author/adamjackson/! Thanks everyone (all 5,000 uniques a month) for coming to my blog and reading. I really appreciate the support you’ve given me. This blog lives on but w/ less tech goodness.

You can read the official announcement and welcome post here. http://theappleblog.com/2010/04/21/tab-welcomes-adam-jackson/.

PS: Please add TheAppleBlog RSS feed to your reader so you can catch my posts.

My TAB RSS Feed: http://theappleblog.com/author/adamjackson/feed/

This Site’s RSS: http://blog.adam-jackson.net/feed/

No I’m not writing this for Google page rank despite the fact that tons of people are searching for info about this sandwich. Well, according to Wikipedia:

A sandwich is a food item consisting of two or more slices of bread with one or more fillings between them,^[1] or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich

So KFC’s choice to call it a Sandwich is highly inaccurate but I’ll let that one slide. The chicken thing that KFC is promoting is actually one of the most healthy meals that they sell. Seriously.

I found this blog post that contained the following statement:

The Double Down, really, is a nutritional powerhouse.  Chicken, bacon and cheese provide an astounding 53 grams of protein, which mean that every bite you take brings you that much closer to accruing lean muscle mass.  The breading on the patties offer a great source of complex carbohydrates, and there’s also plenty of fat in this to keep you full.  The Double Down drops in 10 grams of saturated fat, which may raise your cholesterol, but can also boost testosterone.  The Double Down also comes with a heaping serving of guilt (no extra charge!), so you’ll probably skip the rest of your day’s meals.  Upon closer inspection, the Double Down seems like the ultimate fitness food; low in carbohydrates (Atkins all the way!), high in protein, and obscenely high in fat to keep your stomach full and your cardiologist in business.  After wolfing down the Double Down, it’s unlikely you’ll be craving any more food – likely because you’ll be too nauseated with yourself to even think about eating again.  It seems, then, that praise is in order for KFC – the Double Down is too good to pass up.  I’ll take two.

I can sense the sarcasm in this post but let’s look into this a bit further. Most food that we consume as Americans is bad for us. This is true but to some degree, exercise will cure or filter out most of the crap we do eat. Here’s the test. Eat something, wait 25 minutes then go run 2 miles. If you puke, the food was probably not meant to be in your body. If you eat a skinless piece of boiled chicken with plain brocoli and a glass of water, you’ll be able to run those 2 miles no problem. A bratwurst w/ mac & cheese and a glass of beer is another story. You will throw up.

But if you manage to hold the food down, other than the long term affects that foods that are high in saturated fat and low in necessary nutrients will cause to your body, you won’t gain any weight. I can eat 4,000 calories and as long as I do enough activity to burn those calories, I won’t gain weight but the primary issue is bad foods cause us to lack any inspiration to go run a few miles because foods drain us and decrease the amount of energy we have.

Let’s compare the Double Down to what I would order at a fast food restaurant. Granted I’m 240 pounds and can consume one of those 2 pound San Francisco Mission burritos no problem.

• McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder (no fries or soda just the sandwich): 740 calories 42 grams of fat 1380 milligrams of sodium.
• Burger King Double Whopper (no fries or soda) 920 calories, 58 grams of fat and 1090 milligrams of sodium
• Wendys Double w/ Cheese (no fries or soda) 750 calories, 42 grams of fat,1 560 milligrams of sodium

I could go on and on. All of these double patty burgers are BAD for you. Not to mention the long time proof that people who skip out on red meat and only eat chicken & fish lead a longer and healthier life. Let’s just ignore that

The KFC Double Down sandwich:

1/3 less calories than every sandwich I linked to, 1/3 less fat and about the same amount of sodium. If you don’t get the fried double down, you cut out 100 calories and 10 grams of fat.

Let’s also remember, that most of the weight gain people experience is from simple carbs which is what’s in bread and is converted into sucrose (aka sugar) by your body and if not utilized, is almost immediately turned into fat. It’s a lack of protein and a raised level of carbohydrates in your diet w/ innactivity that leads to fat going up, muscle mass going down which leads to heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

So. IF you lead a healthy lifestyle, (30 minutes of an elevated heart rate 4-6 days a week), the Grilled Double Down sandwich from KFC is a perfect fast food item. I wouldn’t recommend consuming it daily because the absence of vegetables and fruits will lead to nutrient deficiencies in your body which can lead to sickness or long term affects (loss of vision, digestive issues) and the saturated fat in the double down can increase your likelihood of heart disease as you get older.

BUT if you’re on the go and you plan on running a mile later that day, the double down is the best way to get your necessary protein for the day (it has more protein than any other fast food sandwich), skip out on the bread (that leads to fat) and is far healthier than any other fast food meal (chicken instead of beef w/ less fat and calories).

Let’s also not forget that KFC serves vegetables as a side. Green beans, baked beans and even mashed potatoes where the other popular fast food chains give you the option of fries, a one week old pre-packaged salad or 3 apple slices.

——————–

So I’ll be getting one of these (minus the bacon and w/ light mayo instead of regular) and pairing it with a glass of water and a side of green beans as a perfect way to get the protein I need without the bread and a great meal on the go.

The price, $5.65 which is high for fast food but the health benefits are simply incredible

——————

One final note, I was eating 6″ subway subs every day for 6 months. I gained 50 pounds of fat that year. Why? Because I’d eat a huge subway sandwich w/ sauce and then do zero physical activity. I stopped eating subway and basically cut out all simple carbohydrates from my diet but still didn’t do any physical activity other than biking to work and I lost 15 pounds in 45 days. Cutting out bread is very important.

Then I started doing cross fit and biking longer distances and doing mountain climbing. I lost another 20 pounds. Carbs are evil if you live a sedentary lifestyle.

Thanks for reading!

The grass is always greener. I’ve had some technology envy before. The great thing about technology envy is that it doesn’t have to exist. With money, you can be the most envied tech guy on the block. I’ve been envious of guys with natural talent (Olympians, guinness book record holders) I’ve pretty much never complained when someone had a nicer computer than me or a faster car or if Microsoft or Apple decide to change something that I don’t like because, with money, I can simply buy my way out of the situation. Trust me, technology is engineered to get us to spend money. That’s just a fact.

When I see people complaining about technology, I can usually find a solution for them that involves them spending more money. You don’t have to go out and train for months to run a triathlon or go to school for 8 years or actually do anything. Just skip a few meals, cut back on your electricity use and take the bus to work and what you’re complaining about won’t be a problem cause you can buy your way out of the situation.

Easier said than done? Not really.

• I wanted an iPad. I sold my MacBook Air. I bought an iPad.
• I wanted a pair of Shure SE530 earphones. I sold all 5 of my current headphones that were sub-par that I’d collected over the years and had enough money to now buy the $600 ones.
• I wanted a bigger monitor. I spent weeks searching Craigslist and eBay till I found a bigger one. Then I literally got a 2nd job working as a waiter for 4 weeks over the summer to save up the $800 I needed.

In all three situations, I never ONCE went to an online message board or comment on a blog saying, “this sucks! Dell just released a 24″ update 18 months ago and now they have a new one out! Shure has the balls to charge $600 for headphones? WTF! The iPad is $499. Damn. This sucks! It’s so overpriced and the Apple tax is strong!.”

No. I didn’t do that. I just spent the money. I didn’t spend an hour blaming Apple for making a phone with a glass screen. When I dropped it and I broke, I paid the full $499 price to have it replaced. That’s how this works. It costs money to have the latest and greatest stuff.

Hey, if I get beat at a 400m race, I have to spend weeks training and preparing to try again. I may learn that my shot legs or genetics keep me from being a good runner and then accept the fact that my body isn’t built to be a sprinter and there’s nothing I can do about it. Posting how much you hate Apple for not doing something or charging too much is just stupid.

———

Today, Apple stated that original iPhones and iPhone 3G models (and 1st & 2nd gen iPod touch devices) won’t be able to do multi-tasking in iPhone OS 4.0 that ships this summer. The reason wasn’t that Apple was greedy is simply the fact that those devices, which only have 128mbs of ram, can’t do multi-tasking effectively do to system limitations.

Users were pissed.

• 1st Gen iPhone ship date: June 29th, 2007
• 2nd Gen iPhone ship date: July 11th, 2008

So a device that’s 2 to 3 years old can’t run the next generation of the iPhone OS. Dang that sucks! Here are what some users are saying:

My hatred for Apple only increases after seeing this. Apple doesn’t care about the consumer, it just wants his money. These features should have been, and most certainly could have been, in the second generation iPhone.

Apple had no reason to hold these features out, other than for it to get the consumer to buy a new product just so Apple could make money.

I just started “exploring” iTunes 9.1 and downloading iPad apps (in preparation for my iPad’s arrival) and generally poking around. Since my iTunes data is nearing 500gbs (music, movies, apps and podcasts) I like to know what’s new in iTunes so I can hopefully find a better way to organize things. Well, I found this little gem in iTunes.

This is the “Options” section of the iPhone Devices section under the Summary tab. There are a few new things here.

1. Sync only checked songs and videos. This used to only say “songs”. Not a big deal but it does make choosing “what to sync” easier across all devices. An example well one that I’ve been using for years when it just was “sync only checked songs” was I unchecked all random audio files in iTunes. I have TV Theme songs, crappy orchestra tracks from movies I like and sound clips from TV shows that I generally play at parties like, “DOH” from an episode of the Simpsons. I have those unchecked so they NEVER sync to my iPod or iPhone even if they somehow end up in one of my playlists.

2. Convert Higher bit rate songs to 128kbps AAC. This one is SO SO interesting. This is actually an option that was available since (I think) the iPod Shuffle 2nd generation. It may have been on the 1st generation but don’t quote me on that. Basically, the shuffle was a 512mb / 1gb device so it couldn’t hold very much music. Well, as I wrote extensively in this post CD quality is 160kbps and if you have headphones w/ dedicated drivers in them, rip your music as high as you can afford to (data storage being the only limiting factor) because the quality is very important if you care. Well, the iPod Shuffle is small so if you have tons of music at 256kbps, you could hold more music on the shuffle but downgrading to 128kbps (half the file size). Apple FINALLY pushed this to the other devices. I haven’t confirmed this on the iPad, or iPods yet but the iPhone 3GS certainly shows this. I say good. I honestly won’t do this cause 128kbps music sounds like crap on my Shures but if you’re using Apple’s standard earbuds on the go, this is an acceptable quality that allows for more music being stored.

My question was, does this downgrade your music? Nope! According to this Apple KBASE Document:

When the option to “Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC” is selected, are duplicate files added to the iTunes library?
No. The 128 kbps AAC versions of the files are not stored anywhere on the computer.

Another observation. I think it’s time to streamline or improve on this UI.

I think adopting the iPad view of System Settings which is a vertical column that shows all sections on the left and content on the right is much better. Just my opinion. It’s a file cabinet that’s getting pretty packed!

A final note and something that I suggest to people. Organize your playlists. I’m always rotating playlists based on what I’m into or what I just bought. Then I have Devices playlists that are tailored music to go on devices. See? http://grab.by/3BLE. Something you guys might want to do if you are organizing more music.

I did a tweet earlier about the new iPad and really wanted to do a dozen tweets and since I’m waiting for the Caltrain home, I decided to throw up a few lines about the experience.

It’s larger than I expected but web browsing and watching movies will be great on the iPad. Contrary to what many are saying, it’s perfect for one handed book reading or web browsing. You don’t need two hands but then again, I’m 6’3″, 240 pounds with very big hands. So big, that people see me typing on an iPhone and wonder how I can use that small keyboard with my freakish thumbs.

1.5 pounds is perfect. It shouldn’t be any heavier than that. I wish it was lighter.

After 5 minutes, I was touch typing in landscape mode with both hands just like I do on a normal keyboard. I wasn’t doing 70 words per minute but I was doing about 20 WPM and that’s only after a few minutes.

Typing with your thumbs in portrait mode is dumb. This thing was meant to sit on your lap in landscape mode when typing.

I wish it had a camera (front or rear-facing). It’s thick enough that a camera would fit no problem. I don’t know why Apple didn’t include that.

The thing  was fast! Everything was instant. I was amazed at just how fast everything was. What an awesome experience.

iPhone apps look like crap. At 1x or 2x, they look bad. I won’t be using any iPhone apps on this thing even though iPad apps are so expensive, I don’t care. It’s just bad. Trust me.

Reading books was great but the full color, ultra bright screen means my book reading isn’t private. Basically if I’m on the train or subway, everyone around me can read the book too. A kindle is harder to glance over. I’m afraid that if I buy, “biography of a playboy bunny” or something else racy or perhaps the biography of Glen Beck, my San Francisco public transit friends will look at me with disgust. It’s a similar situation if I bring my boom box on the train and play U2 tracks from 1989 at full blast. Sure, one could blame them for being nosy but with the Kindle, that isn’t a problem. Maybe I’m taking this one out of proportion.

The speakers are okay

The volume control feels cheap

The screen is gorgeous

The iPad apps are pretty cool. I’m sure they’ll improve over time. I can’t wait to see what games developers come up with.

The iPad feels great! Looks Great! Performs Great! I honestly love it.

I have a feeling I’ll be using my iPhone and MacBook a lot less. I don’t think it’s going to make me go online or use technology more, I’ll simply use less of the rest of my devices. Instead of waking my iMac up from sleep, grabbing my Macbook or straining to type / browse on that tiny iPhone, I’ll just grab the iPad. The long battery means i won’t always have it fully charged.

I’m excited. After 30 minutes of use, I’m really happy.

In January, I posted a blog entry that showed a few of my favorite photos from 2009. I was and continue to be so proud of my photography. It’s great to have photos that I can use in blog posts and I love getting comments / compliments from complete strangers mentioning how much they love my photos.

I know it’s only been 4 months but I bought a Canon G11 in December after owning the G10 for all of 2009 and I I’ve taken thousands and thousands of photos on the new camera in the past few months and I have so many great photos that I wanted to share here.

Please let me know what you think of these and thanks for reading and for your support! You can see all of these photos in their larger version. Just click on them. Read more…

All photos taken by me last week on my trip to Miami

More and more am I hearing of the connected youth and how we are always carrying one or two cell phones, a digital camera and laptop computer. Even scarier is when I hear stories or see photos of a concert, rally or public function that shows dozens, if not thousands of people holding an electronic device in the air taking a photo, streaming video, audio or simply tweeting that, “this is such an awesome concert!”

I’m guilty of this but I have an excuse.

I’ve missed the past two Ultra Music Festivals in Miami. I was either moving or had just moved to San Francisco so I couldn’t find the time or funds to go to Miami just to party. WMC is an older crowd (the conference / party aspect of Miami’s techno lovefest) but UMF is a younger crowd, as it’s an all ages event with a daytime focus. Twitter was around and YouTube was around so I spent weeks after UMF in both 2008 and 2009 trying to find info, twitpics, videos and photos from the event so I could at least get the feeling that I was there. I searched and searched and found maybe a dozen videos and 100-200 photos from UMF for each year. What? Why didn’t anyone post any rich media content from the event? UMF is a younger audience of “technology carrying youth” so where are all of the videos and photos?

This year, I saw a staggering amount of people with their cameras and video cameras in the air. People were recording entire DJ sets on their Blackberrys and someone had an iPhone just taking photo after photo which meant I didn’t even see the entire Swedish House Mafia set due to his phone being in front of my face the whole time. Where did his photos go? Why didn’t he post them? Because I saw the photos and they fucking sucked.

There’s a reason why old media will be around for a long time. Very few new media people or “citizen journalists” produce any content worth looking at, much less, paying for. I wouldn’t pay to see Johnny’s iPhone TwitPics because they suck. I don’t care about Jenny’s tweet that says how awesome Carl Cox’s set was at UMF this year and how his remix of Coldplay’s “Trouble” was so awesome. I don’t care despite the fact that I was very interested in the event and keeping up with everything that was happening.

First Things First:
I desperately want all citizen journalists to start producing great content. I really want great content to start happening. You have all of the tools now and they’re freaking affordable. You have 3G/4G network connections to make that data go out to the masses faster and you have unlimited free storage on Flickr and YouTube to post that content. Heck, every Mac and PC comes with software to help you edit those photos and videos to make them look good.

Your content sucks. It’s not even Twitter worthy! Your photos wouldn’t even make good TwitPics. That’s how bad they are. Hey. I suck as a photographer. I completely suck. My photos are finally something I share with my Mom and not feel like I’m wasting her time. Your TwitPic or Flickr upload from your Blackberry was a total waste of time. That video you shot on your Blackberry and uploaded direct to YouTube w/ auto-post to Twitter & Facebook sucked. The 15FPS couldn’t capture the light show accurately, you used the LED flash on the Blackberry which forced a fast exposure time which made the image too dark and the little Blackberry Mic completely choked on the 12,000 watts of Bass going into it which meant the audio was completely unbearable.

That’s just my unprofessional opinion.

I don’t dare upload photos from my iPhone from concerts or festivals and then have the balls to put those on Flickr. If it’s past dusk, you won’t even see me with my iPhone out because I know the photos will suck. This goes for all phones. Shoot wisely.

Stop using your flash! Just stop! The flash does not help. Drop the aperture to f/2.8 or f/1.8 (maximum setting), set the ISO to the 2nd to highest level and then try to use the fastest exposure you can afford to use. On your 5th or 10th snap, you might get a photo good enough for Flickr. I shot 2,000 photos both days at UMF and uploaded 200 of them. I suck as a photographer but I go out every single day and shoot with my Canon G11 and then I try every setting possible to find out what I can do with this camera and even then I spend hours editing, deleting and processing photos for Flickr. Then, I tag, geo-tag, catalog, title and add those photos to Flickr Groups related to the event I attended. I spent 4 hours after getting home from Ultra doing all of that because I care.

You? I honestly don’t know. I’m assuming most mobile phone users might MMS it to their friends or just keep it on the phone till they get a new one. Some users might TwitPic is or upload to Facebook it. Those of you with digital cameras are going to get home and realize you shot 400 photos of complete grainy crap and throw them all away. Both processes are a waste of time.

I laughed when a guy with a video enabled iPod nano had it high in the air for over an hour capturing the Tiesto set. Seriously? That audio and video quality is crap! Good luck putting a one-hour video on YouTube cause it has a 10-minute limit which means you’ll have to edit it down. Oh you don’t know how to do that?

A Disclaimer:
I’m realizing that I sound like a complete asshole in this post. I do but I wouldn’t be making such a big deal about it if these two things hadn’t occurred.

1. Everyone in the audience had a mobile device in the air taking photos & videos
2. 2. It’s been 5 days and there are only 1,000 photos and 50 YouTube Videos online from the event. Half of these completely blow.

So you’re telling me that over 17 thousand people attended an event, took hundreds of thousands of photos and only a few hundred are actually good? I’m not angry that people suck at taking photos or shooting video. Just like I’m not pissed off that everyone sitting next to me at the office can’t go build a house perfectly. Most people just aren’t talented at everything. I know I lack a lot of talent and manage to barely get by with photography.

What’s pissing me off is that you’re all fucking wasting your time! John took an hour of video on his iPod nano and snapped over 100 photos on his Blackberry Bold. Now what? You saw the entire Tiesto set through a stupid iPod nano screen because you HAD to record it and now you realize that it was jumpy, off-center, low-quality and has audio that makes you play the whole thing on mute. Why did you piss off everyone behind you who couldn’t see and cease to see the event as it was happening just so you could cherish this crap video you recorded? Honestly!

How I Record Events:
I should be the one talking, right? My crap photography skills where I had to take 2,000 photos just get maybe 50 good ones is sad. That means I was also a jerk which his hands in the air. Here’s my statement. If all 17 thousand people at the event took photos all freaking night and ended up with 1 good one, I’d be happy but you didn’t. All of you took crap photos because I’ve searched every photo-hosting site and I don’t see any photos from the event!

I snapped 1,000 photos a day and here’s how I did it. I looked up at the stage, the crowd, the building or whatever subject matter I was trying to capture and got an idea of what setting I needed for the camera. I then looked down at my camera and set the appropriate settings on manual mode. Then I shot the camera up in the air, took 1 second to stabilize my hands from shaking and then I shot the photo and then a 2nd one. This process of actually annoying people behind me with my hands up took 3 seconds. Half of the photos I took weren’t taken while in a crowd listening to a DJ set. They were taken in-between sets from grassy knolls or hanging from trees where I wasn’t in anyone’s way.

The important thing is that I went home and spent hours focusing on the quality shots.

On Sunday afternoon, I looked on Flickr and searched for “Ultra Music Festival” and organized by date. Every single photo for pages and pages was I. I was highlighted on Flickr as the person to go to for all UMF photos because I properly tagged and organized the photos. Every single photo was processed and, in my opinion, the cream of the crop.

I was very proud of my photos.
I shot a couple of videos and then took the time to write this blog post that explains how much the G11 sucks compared to the G10 at shooting video. So not only did I waste everyone’s time by shooting bad video, I took the time to warn others about the issue by blogging about it so another dedicated content producer wouldn’t make the same mistake.

For the Future:
From here on out, don’t waste your time. I’m serious. I can deal with your hands in the air or being distracted from a laser show with 1,500 Blackberry screens in the air but what I can’t stand is the fact that you all wasted your time and missed half of a $200 show trying to take pictures or video when the content is complete crap and goes to waste.

Number of SLRs at a typical “headliner performance” – 10. That’s such a low number. Most of the good photographers or real photographers had press badges and weren’t in the crowds.

I’m very happy with the shots I uploaded. Seriously. I don’t feel that my 10 minutes per one hour set spent setting up and shooting photos was a waste at all. In fact, I should have shot more but I was too busy dancing my ass off and enjoying the festival I spent over a thousand dollars to attend. That’s what it’s all about. Enjoy the moment, capture it quickly then go back to enjoying it. Spending all day staring into your screen is just wasting everyone’s time.

I have many more posts to post about my trip. I just wanted to throw this one up quickly. I wrote 5 blog posts on the plane ride back to SF and this is the first. All photos taken by me, last week in Miami.
————————

I feel so old in my young age. I’ll be 24 in five months. Seems like I was going to be 23 forever. What’s interesting is that I’m in this time warp where I spend so much heart and emotion into these blog posts that really only take me half an hour to write but the heart involved in these posts means that I remember where I was and how I was feeling each time I wrote one. I can read the first line of any post and it’s clear where I was when writing it. This is why the post I wrote just 2 weeks before my 23rd birthday makes me feel that I’ve only been this age for a few short months but really it’s been 8 months since I sat at Sugar Café and angrily typed out my fears of being one year older and the events following that blog post have shaped so much of my life. I really used that post to make some pretty drastic changes in life, many of those changes that I regret but it was a lesson that I’ll never forget. I can’t promise myself that I won’t make those mistakes again when I turn 24 in August. We’ll see.

I write this from the plane on a flight from JAX to IAD on my way to SFO. Airport Call signs seem so native to me now. I speak in call sign. I took my first vacation last week. My boss at Brightkite encouraged me to do very little work on this trip and I took advantage of that. I don’t need to fill in the details of what I was doing on this vacation because my adventure was already pre-blogged 2 weeks prior to leaving. It was 8 days and I had the time of my life.

One of the most stressful and time-consuming part of my trip was WMC / UMF. It wasn’t a problem once I was in Miami but the lead up of getting travel arrangements, party tickets and RSVPing for events was seriously very hard as I’ve never done WMC & UMF before. Basically, WMC is like the SXSW of electronic music. Where SXSW is mostly a conference for live rock music, WMC is in Miami and focuses on techno. UMF is 2-day festival right in the middle of WMC that hosts over 100 of the best DJs from all over the world doing their thing on 9 stages in one park for 12 hours each day. It was insane. Those of you that saw my photos would agree that I had an incredible time.

I always stay in hostels because I’ll pay 1/10th the price of a hotel and it’s the chance to meet some incredible people. It took two days to make over 5 friends who accompanied me to UMF for both days. I met a new friends hailing from Detroit who I could consider a festival nut and attends music festivals all over the country. Kimberly, my new friend from Denmark came to the US for the first time just for UMF and the other three friends were from Germany and Italy. I met youth from all over the world who came here just for this festival. Seriously, it’s a huge deal. For $30 a night, the Miami Youth International Hostel right in the dead center of South Beach had beer and club outings every night, three meals a day served and fast Wi-Fi. They’d randomly order pizzas for people at 2AM who were just getting in from the clubs and kept the place super clean. It was the best hostel I’d ever stayed in. On Friday, I just sat in the front lobby chatting with random strangers all morning as the hostel blasted techno over the speakers.

My only complaint about the Europeans that I’ve met is that they all smoke. Every single time I meet someone from western Europe, they smoke heavily and complain about cigarette prices in the US. Other than that, the guys were totally laid back and the girls were as well. It was fun to meet new people and have outings every day with my new friends.

I laid out on the beach and attended pool parties during the day. The day pool parties that I paid to get into were awesome. Imagine being in a pool, sipping a beer and right next to you is a DJ playing Tribal or Trance music and a few hundred partiers are dancing along in and out of the water. This is what WMC does to South Beach. Not a single roof, pool ,beach or venue is without a DJ playing music that makes your ears bleed. In fact, my friend Victor said last year both Starbucks on South Beach had a live DJ inside right by the area where you put sugar in your coffee! Yes. Starbucks had a DJ.

If you love Techno, WMC is the place to go and I didn’t attend the conference because there were so many events from noon to 5AM every day to keep me busy.

I don’t think non-techno lovers understand when you say to someone, “I walked to the pool party and danced for 6 hours. I walked to the club and danced for 4 hours right by the woofer and then after dinner, I went to an afterparty and danced for 4 hours and then at 5AM, I went to a club that plays techno and serves you breakfast in bed as strobe lights and disco balls spin from the ceiling.”

Lovers of techno would call that a perfect day but everyone else looks at you like you’re insane. Yes, you read that correct. Me and 2 friends, walked into a club, laid down on a bed and were served breakfast as DJs and acrobats spun over our heads w/ strobe lights. It was awesome!

I started partying Wednesday morning after taking the red-eye out of SFO to FTL. I didn’t sleep. Why? Cause the Virgin America flight was full of WMC attendees. Nearly 25 people were in the Virgin America in-seat chat room talking about WMC and the events we’d be attending. I spent 5 hours chatting with people from my seat, making friends and sharing phone numbers. After checking into my hotel, I grabbed my camera and snapped a few photos then went to a pool party at noon. This trend continued until Sunday when Victor and I drove back to St Augustine so I could spend the next 4 days with family.

There’s not as much to say about my time with family. I’ll try to summarize.

Dad and I talked, a lot. This is not unusual. We explored so much and he gave me excellent advice as always. My sisters are awesome. I’ve stayed true to my goal of coming home to visit every 4 months. It’s nice to see my sisters growing up so fast. They’re two exceptionally talented and beautiful little girls and I’m making plans to fly my sister out to LA in August to spend a week with me. She’ll be 14 in July. Marley will still be 10 in December but I want to fly her up to Denver and take her Skiing as a Christmas gift. I’m saving up now so I can do that. She has to keep her grades up though. Mom was awesome. She’s doing very well. I worry about her sometimes and I have every reason to be worried about her but after talking to her today, I am assured she’s going to be fine. She just needs that helping hand and encouragement sometimes.

My once a quarter Aikido class was on Monday. It was very emotional. Each time I go home, I attend as many martial arts classes as I can as my Dad is the instructor and I trained for 21 years before moving to SF and was his lead instructor. It’s emotional to come back because everyone’s skills are improving but mine are staying the same. Matt, my best friend and training partner has replaced me. He’s doing so good and I’m very proud of his progress. The core group of 10 people who go to 5 classes a week and train 2-3 hours a day are still there. I love those guys and they mean so much to me.

My 2 year anniversary of moving to San Francisco is on May 31st. I won’t see those guys until after that so I made a speech. I’ve never done this before but I wanted to express some thoughts. I wrote it down.

Guys, thank you for the great class tonight. I wanted to share a few things about me and how things are going. First of all, I miss you all so much. It’s been nearly 2 years since I moved to San Francisco and I think about you all each day. Every time I come home and attend a class or two, I feel more and more a rift like we’ve all grown a part or another feeling like I simply don’t belong anymore. I think I know why. I left you all and moved far away. I abandoned the class and moved on. The truth is, this isn’t the case. I didn’t move to the big city and neglect you all for a bunch of hicks in Florida. In fact, I’m the hick in San Francisco where I still love BBQ and driving a truck. I’m still one of you and I’ve never left.

Everyone said thank you, we took a group photo and I left. It’s hard to see all of my family every 4-6 months for one night but it’s the way I chose to live my life for a brief time. My adventures may take me to another city, another country or maybe I end up back in Saint Augustine next year. I have no idea where it will all end up but I’m thoroughly enjoying my time in San Francisco. This trip home only solidified my decision to be in California and I never feel that I abandoned anyone. I’ve only moved but remain close as ever to my friends and family.

All photos taken at Ultra Music Festival last week in Miami by me

Hey kids. You don’t have to party so freaking hard! I rocked my butt off in Miami for 5 days, sometimes for 24 hours straight to my favorite DJs of all time. I sent a tweet out that listed 4 of my favorite DJs and the sad thing is, they were all playing within 100 yards of the other at the same time. Never did I think I’d have to choose which one of my 4 favorites to go listen to. This was the incredible awesomeness of WMC / UMF. There was something that consistently bothered me about what I saw while in Miami.

The kids did too much drinking, too many drugs and were having entirely too many free love moments throughout the week. Electronic music inspires love and good feelings. I am at my happiest when listening to my favorite electronic song, especially when surrounded by 15K people in a park with laser lights and 2 story high speaker systems. Did I have to be high on ecstasy, making out with a random girl and doing shots of tequila to be even happier? No way! It seemed that the kids thought that’s what it was all about.

It’s not.

If you’re in your teens or twenties and love techno, trance, trip hop, house, electronica, drum & bass or any other dance music styles, why do you like it? What inspires you to buy the latest album from your favorite DJ or travel thousands of miles to see those DJs perform live in festivals like San Francisco’s LoveFest or Miami’s Ultra Music Festival? Is it for the music or the ability to simply let loose?

I figured as a young person that there would always be someone who had to need drugs or alcohol to have a great time. I was never one of those people. ¬In fact, when electronic music was present, I didn’t need any stimulation at all, not even Red Bull. It was all about the music as the bass flowed through my body and set my heartbeat off just a few milliseconds.

It was when the 10th golf cart mock ambulance plowed through the thick crowds carrying yet another passed out teenager to the hospital that I simply felt bad for everyone there that was doing drugs. At the last set of the day at UMF, Deadmau5 took the stage and a kind man revived and force fed water to two kids who were over dosing on ecstasy and as the set wrapped up, two people’s random drug fueled make-out session caused me to have body paint all over my new white tank top among other body fluids that I won’t even dare to write on this blog.

Am I just being a grouch? Maybe. Maybe I’m just that old man who yells at kids to get off of his lawn but my feelings were dead on as I rode 6 hours from Miami to St. Augustine with my friend Victor who is more of a techno freak than I am. Victor agreed and said all he needs for 24 hours of dancing is water and Gatorade. He said that some people don’t come for the music. They come because the music only makes their trip even better. They were already doing the drugs and the music, lights, crowds and bass just intensifies it.

So I’m not a grouch, only naïve? Yeah, that’s it. I just don’t know about these sort of things. What are we going to do about it? I guess nothing since everyone at the festival around me was high except for me and my friends from the hostel. I was surrounded by tons of people high as a kite wearing 3-D glasses that were wearing mini LED lamps on their fingers and staring at their hands like they’d just discovered that they had fingers while jumping up and down to some insane bass. I guess that’s their version of a night out.

I am mostly concerned for these kids in the future. I mean, if you’re in your teens and already doing hard drugs, what does the future hold for you? I’d like to meet a club kid fast forward 10 years later and see where they ended up and if they really truly enjoy techno without being high on something.

While at UMF, I tweeted that these are my people as I danced in a crowd to a new Tiesto track but after writing that, I saw that I was the only person not high and realized that these weren’t my people. These were just kids that came out to get high and I was there to enjoy the music.

There’s no real solution or point to this post. It’s just a bit saddening that people would travel and pay good money (over $200 per ticket) to get high and end up in the hospital.

Hey kids. Do less drugs, drink less and your party days will last longer. You’ll have more fun and remember more of it. Don’t waste your youth high as a kite and or waste your money on drugs that only ruin your life down the road. Your parents, employers and future children will thank you.