The past week has pretty much rocked. Four awesome things happened this month but one I’m just gonna keep to myself cause it’s pretty personal. I did want to share details of my first vacation. As you know, I started a new job yesterday and moved into a new apartment on Sunday so what’s up with this vacation?
Me at Ultra Music Festival in 2006
For years, I’ve traveled quite a bit to tech conferences, meetups, events, parties and even for job interviews. Yeah, my United miles are really racking up. The thing is, I’ve never taken a true vacation. Sure I went to a wedding or two overnight and I did take two roadtrips last year (both sponsored and paid for by Ford Motor Company) but they weren’t vacations in the simplest means of the word.
South Beach - Credit dc32
After living in San Francisco for two years this June, it’s time to take a week off.
Photo Credit: Unknown
Each year, starting in 2004 I drove down to Miami for Ultra Music Festival. Living in Jacksonville, it was a 5 hour drive and, then it was only a one day festival. Last year, being in SF I couldn’t afford the flight but vowed I wouldn’t miss UMF 2010. In October, as soon as tickets went on sale at the kick ass pre-sale price of $99, I bought them. Near the event, tickets are $299 so it was a great price. I bought myself tickets for both days (Friday & Saturday).
UMF 2009 - Photo Credit: theambientsun
What’s UMF? Well, it’s a 2-day music festival that follows WMC (Winter Music Conference) in Miami. UMF is a 10+ year festival that features the best musical acts in the world (about 95% of it is electronica / techno) and there are 12 stages and it goes from noon to midnight (12 hours). On Saturday, when the festival ends at midnight, there’s an after-party from midnight to 5AM in the basketball stadium across the street where the Miami Heat plays also known as the American Airlines Arena. The Winter Music Conference is a SXSW style conference with panels from DJs, producers, record labels and more but it’s mostly an industry event that I don’t care to attend.
American Airlines Stadium (Location of the UMF After-Party)
My original plan was to spend the two days at UMF but I had this Virgin America credit for $150 and it had some restrictions so I had to fly in on Tuesday night for a festival that starts on Friday. What to do? Well, I rolled with it and in January, bought the ticket at a great price and will be staying in a hostel on south beach from Tuesday – Sunday. All of the years that I went to UMF in Miami and that one year I attended Photoshop World, I never once saw Miami Beach, laid out in the sun or spent a few hours at the clubs. This time is different.
UMF 2009 - Photo Credit: theambientsun
Wednesday the 25th, I’ll be grabbing my swim shorts and lying out on the beach and partying that night, the next day I’ll be doing the same. Then, on Friday and Saturday I’ll be dancing my butt off for straight 12 hours or until I literally pass out which I actually did pass out in 2006 and was revived with a Red Bull and Bottle of Water around 8PM. An hour later, I was back in the Trance tent dancing again!
Photo Credit: Unkonwn
On Sunday, my friend Victor is driving back to Jacksonville and taking me with him, I’ll spend 3 days at home with family and flying out of Jacksonville on the 31st back to SFO.
This will be my first ever vacation where I’m going somewhere that requires extended travel and a hotel room that has nothing to do with work, business or technology. I’ve never been so freaking excited in my life. Techno, South Beach, Family, Friends and Dancing. This comes at the end of the month after I’m settled in to my new job and new apartment. I can’t fully describe the feeling I have writing this / saying this out loud and all of my friends in real life are tired of hearing about it I’m sure.
I know a few of my followers will be at UMF, of course they will. Nearly 100 thousand people invade Miami for one week as the best DJs in the world ascend on this lively beach town for the largest electronic gathering in the world. I’m gonna have a blast but as it’s my first real vacation, I couldn’t be more excited.
This month will be pretty crazy. Many of you know that I took a break from Twitter where I didn’t tweet for over two weeks and I’ve come back slightly more tame about my tweets only doing 2-4 a day. This new style enabled a lot for me but closed many other opportunities. Now that we’re entering the month of March, I have been doing this new way of sharing for over 2 months and the benefits have been pretty grand. Yesterday, I shared news about my new job at Brightkite that I’ll be starting on Monday. There are many many more good things happening this month. Many are public and others will remain private under my new sharing model.
Before I talk about my move, I first wanted to address something that has bothered me since I decided to move to a new place about 3 weeks ago. This guilt I’ve put on myself is pretty severe and one that kept me from moving a while ago and that’s the feeling that I’m giving up a piece of myself simply by changing my geographical location. See, when AdamsBlock was happening, I made it clear that I wasn’t broadcasting because I hated where I lived (San Francisco’s Tenderloin District), and instead wanted to share with friends and family what was keeping me awake at night. I never knew it would blossom into a real company or that my idea would be used to place me as an ignorant racist who though the homeless were scum and had to be eradicated (not my words). In fact, I loved living in the Tenderloin and write this from my apartment in the heart of San Francisco’s historical district.
Many times, I’ve written about the ‘loin but this entry is one I’m most proud of because it explains exactly why I live here. In that post, I wrote:
I don’t live in the Tenderloin for cheap rent anymore. Trust me, my $1600 a month studio apartment isn’t cheap. The reason I live in the Tenderloin is because I want to constantly be reminded of the human struggle which we all are going through. Living somewhere that’s “quiet and safe” is completely the same except they have fancier drugs and more elaborate crimes. By living where I do, I pass a homeless shelter, free food lines and many more “outreach services”. The constant reminder that I, at any time, can lose my job and be on the streets or an unfortunate sickness or illness could land me in the same food lines and the constant reminder that I have absolutely nothing to feel “down” about because I have a roof over my head keeps me living life to the fullest.
Without a constant reminder that we are so damn lucky to have what we have, we will cease to live and seize the moment at every moment of our day. This is why I live in The Tenderloin. It’s not to gentrify the neighborhood or laugh at the homeless or experience cheap rent. It’s to feel alive when I walk to work every day and know that everything can change so fast and that I’m so lucky to be alive.
Yes, my work with AdamsBlock earned me an award from the city of SF, but I don’t think I deserve any award as there are hundreds of public servants who are unpaid that go out every day to make the community a better place and I’m just a guy who put up a webcam to highlight exactly what was going on without the filter that our media presents.
I feel like moving out of the ‘loin is my way of giving up, retreating to the suburbs and abandoning the people who I’ve grown to love and respect over the past 2 years. The reminder of what my fellow human beings are going through is going to not be a daily punch to the face but instead a blur as I ride the bus by the neighborhood I used to live in.
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Why am I moving? Well, I’m not moving out of the city because I love San Francisco. It’s an incredible experience to live in such a diverse city. My reasons for moving are the following:
Space. I simply can’t find a large apartment in the Tenderloin without paying a ton of money. I want more space where I can be in my apartment for more than 4 hours without feeling like I have to get out of this place due to its size.
Convenience. I don’t work in San Francisco anymore so living downtown (a 10 minute walk from my job at Yoono) isn’t necessary. I can’t walk to Burlingame and since I have to get on a train anyway, might as well move to the ‘burbs.
Nature. There aren’t any trees downtown unless you count the Christmas Tree that is erected in Union Square each year. I miss trees, parks and the sound of kids playing. It’s comforting. I wanted to live somewhere with trees.
Cost. Saving money is huge as well. If I could save money and have more space, that would rock!
The personal touch. I wanted to rent from a landlord who was available, involved and friendly. Living in an apartment building doesn’t feel very personal.
With that said, I once again, got extremely lucky as I did with the job at Brightkite (applied to 3 places and found a job in 36 hours). On a Friday afternoon from 4-5PM I browsed Craigslist for apartments in my price range (below $1500) and chose 10 neighborhoods I’d love to live in
Potrero Hill
Castro
Hayes Valley
Cole Valley
North Beach
SOMA
Eureka Valley
Twin Peaks
West Portal
etc.
I’m sure you can get the idea now that I’ve listed a few. I emailed 6 places that interested me and on Sunday, I visited the top 3 places. It was after the first apartment that I stopped in on that I was immediately in love with. My friend Justin liked the place too but I think he was a bit surprised that I immediately left saying, “I want that place.” so, after viewing two other apartments (one on 19th ave. and another in West Portal), I emailed the couple of the first place and faxed in my renter’s application.
The new apartment is amazing. Upstairs, a married couple with a child lives as they own the home. The baby’s room is on the other side of the home and the couple works quite a bit and they’re rarely home. Downstairs is the in-law suite which is what I occupy. It’s roughly 500 square feet, quiet and spacious.
The neighborhood is Twin Peaks and as you can see from these photos I took atop twin peaks last year, I’m super stoked to be living there. (Click the photos for a better view)
Actually, I’m living on the west side of Twin Peaks so I get a nice view of West Portal, The Avenues and Ocean Beach. Sure, there’s the occasional fog but I’m just stoked to be close to nature and a 5 minute walk from the underground SFMTA Metro Rail which will take me to Caltrain so I can get to my new job.
Back to my “list”: I now have space, the place is $1200 a month so I have $400 more in my pocket each month, the location is among and surrounded by trees and down the hill from me is an elementary school with public park so I get to hear and see families spending the day at the park and kids playing but it’s far enough that with the door closed I won’t hear a thing.
The huge selling point of my new apartment is a very large deck. The deck is 20×20 feet (yes it’s huge) and the owners don’t use it at all. I walk out of a sliding glass door onto this gorgeous deck. Now, it’s been neglected so there are leaves and dirt but I’ve talked to the homeowner and he’s agreed to pay the expenses of paint, a pressure washer and cleaning supplies and I’m going to spend next weekend getting the deck up to my standards. The place where my desk will be going is right by a large sliding glass door looking out on to the deck and surrounded by trees. I’m in heaven.
Back to the owners, they’re a super friendly and very educated couple in their 30s. I’ve never had a more pleasant experience securing an apartment. Last time I came over, the husband and I discussed his home networking and he pointed out that there were Cat5e terminations already in the in-law suite so I could just plug in. Yes, he said “Cat5e” so I know we’ll get along just fine. When I suggested he up the Comcast connection from 15mbps to 30/50, he agreed and was just going to pass the cost on to me. I’ll be putting my Airport Extreme + Time Capsule into his garage where he has everything wired up to a patch panel & switch.
So a technie, friendly couple is renting to me and they support my “handyman” approach to renting and they have been a real pleasure to work with on every front.
I move into my new apartment on Sunday night and start my job at Brightkite on Monday. For the past few weeks, I’ve been hinting to Twitter that March is going to be amazingly insane as far as scheduling goes and I wasn’t lying.
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I was lucky that one of my best friends and first San Franciscan that I ever became friends with back in 2005/2006 is moving across country next week. That’s not why I’m lucky cause I’ll miss hanging out with him from time to time. The lucky part is that he sold me pretty much all of his furniture (couch, end-tables, coffee table, appliances, computer desk, chairs, lazy-boy, 40″ tV, blu-ray player, bose speakers, coffee maker and more) for just under $1400. I’ve been living in furnished apartments for the past 2 years and it’s nice to have my own furniture finally.
The only thing left to move is stuff in my apartment over the weekend like computers, clothes, a bicycle and food. I live a very minimal lifestyle so everything fits in 6 boxes. My life philosophy is to only own things that you use at least once a week so I never go overboard and only buy what I need.
I did splurge and bough an in-home bar for my new place. My rejuvenated love for cooking and diet means i cook every meal at home and that kind of morphed into another passion of mine which is alcohol. No I’m not a big drinker but I’ve always had a liquor cabinet in my apartment and now it’s no different. I’ve ventured into making cocktails and have over 30 bottles of liquor in my apartment w/ all of the tools required to make a great cocktail. The new bar in my apartment will finally display my collection and give me space to make drinks for friends that come visit.
With the extra space, friends can sip martinis or wine while I cook for them as I have been doing for months now but now they can sit at my dining room table and we can eat dinner while watching a real television on a couch (things that I haven’t had since moving to SF two years ago). I feel like for the first time ever, I’m finally in a place I can call home and my friends have made it an even richer experience.
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I’m going to miss being able to call The Tenderloin my stomping grounds. The people, restaurants, public transit and weather. I’ll never ever get over the fact that I didn’t eat my own dog food and retreated to the suburbs but if the Tenderloin could provide more space and a few more parks, I’d happily still be living there.
Thanks to my new landlords and their ridiculously cute kid for being so hospitable. Thanks to my friends for helping me find a place and moving boxes over and thanks to everyone who has lent me a hand over the past couple of years. I remember fondly the tips I got from SF locals, the job opportunities I was given from companies and the support of my family who have always been there for me. I can finally have friends & family visit me and stay at my place and I can finally host dinner parties and finally come home and relax knowing that this is mine and my place of relaxation and when things get bad, I’ll step out onto my deck, drink some tea and watch the fog cover this beautiful city. I’m so stoked about the new place and my new location.
I’ve worked in many industries with some exceptional people. Since the age of 13, it’s been work work work in nearly every aspect of my life. I built houses with my Dad, worked in a lumber yard and even got a commercial drivers license and trucked building supplies all over Florida all before I was 19. At Apple, I worked with a talented group as an assistant manager of a retail store and it was an awesome job. Following Apple, I worked for an IT Consulting Group and was on-call 24/7 as 2nd in command of a team of technicians. While I was hopping around, I consistently pushed my online brand, blogged, learned and explored the web and how it connects us in so many ways. I came to San Francisco in June of 2008 to take my love and passion for online communications to the next level and it’s been a wild ride.
The first 3 months in San Francisco were spent networking, learning, exploring and getting my feet wet in many things. I was convinced that I didn’t need a full time job and I’d just do small projects that I was passionate about. Then, I fell in love with a product called Yoono and applied for a job. On September 10th, 2008 I was hired as their Community Evangelist and began spreading the word, doing QA, tech support and cultivating the growing community of users. I’ve never had more fun working on a single product. I had side projects for after hours but I worked nights and weekends for Yoono and it was simply an awesome experience for the past 1.5 years.
I hadn’t planned on leaving Yoono, nor did I fully expect to find a new job so quickly but in the first week of February I logged on to LinkedIN.com and searched “evangelist” within San Francisco in the “Technology” industry. I found three fantastic companies that I highly respect. One was an iPhone games company, another was a traditional media company and the 3rd was Brightkite. I sent sincere and unique cover letters that weren’t your typical introductions to each of the three companies. The next day I received 3 interview requests and 7 days later I decided to take the position at Brightkite.
This process took just under 9 days but that’s how things are when you don’t “need” the job but you really want it. A couple of weeks ago, I accepted a position at Brightkite as their Community Manager and put in my two weeks at Yoono.
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On Monday, I begin my new job in Burlingame at Brightkite. Last night, I had drinks with the team and spent a few hours bonding and taking a tour of their office. It’s an exceptional group of people.
Why Brightkite? Well, the same question could apply to Apple, Gwanda and even Yoono. A long time ago, I realized that if I am not fanatical about a product and its potential, I won’t work on it. This has meant that I have missed some great and high paying opportunities but that’s how I’d rather work. Brightkite is something I used religiously all of 2008 and early 2009. Their iPhone app has an excellent UI and I’ve been using their Droid application for the past day and it’s also very easy to use. Their service is location based which is something I’m very passionate about but what sets them apart from the other groups is the ability to post photos of where you are and they offer very finely tuned controls for how your location is shared with the world. As usual, there are aspects of their service that needs to be improved but I’d be saying the same thing if I’d chosen to work with Gowalla or FourSquare.
As many of you know, I deleted my FourSquare account last month. I did so because the game took over the social aspect of simply sharing your location. We forgot why we checked in and it became a competition for items, mayorships and “rent” or virtual currency (MyTown for iPhone). Brightkite is in a perfect position to take location to the next level and this excites me.
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Regarding Yoono, I’m going to remain a beta tester for them as a user simply because they are working on some incredible products and I want the nightly builds. Regarding my other small projects, I’ll save that for another post. There have been some changes lately but the gist of it is that I’m devoting all of my time, resources and mindshare to Brightkite for the foreseeable future and am extremely lucky to be a part of the team responsible for igniting the location based social networking space and the team who is going to take it to the next level.
In late November, I met Justin Leung. We became friends. In mid-December, Justin told me about this program called Climbing for Kids (CFK) which is organized by Bay Area Wilderness Training (BAWT) as a program that raises money for kids in the bay area to explore the wilderness in a safe and controlled way.
BAWT’s Mission:
BAWT exists as a vital, comprehensive and ongoing source of support to agencies that lead youth wilderness trips. We believe that urban youth, once exposed to wilderness, have a broadened sense of themselves, each other, and the world around them. BAWT extends it services to the eight counties of the San Francisco Bay Area. We hope other organizations will take this vision to the rest of the country and the larger world.
BAWT’s primary strategy for achieving its mission is to provide Bay Area youth agency staff with wilderness leadership training and outdoor equipment so that they, along with the youth they serve, may explore the power and beauty of California’s wilderness.
As a non profit and community betterment agency, they raise money through donations but there had to be a better way to help fund this terrific operation in a new and exciting way. A few years ago, the BAWT team organized something called “Climbing for Kids” which aims to help fund the wilderness training.
From their website:
Climbing for Kids is a fundraising event that supports Bay Area Wilderness Training (BAWT), a non-profit organization that gets at-risk and underprivileged youth outdoors. For every $1,000 you raise, an average of 17 kids will get outside on trips with experienced adults using the best gear in the outdoor industry. In other words, by joining Climbing for Kids you’ll be effecting the lives of over 50 kids.
Justin and I signed up for CFK in the middle of December and began taking part in practice hikes and training to climb Mount Shasta in June. Since CFK is a way to raise money for the year round efforts of BAWT, each climber has to raise money, $4500 to be exact.
Every dollar of the money donated will go to the organization (BAWT). This money is used to work with outreach services in the bay area to train mentors who will, in turn, lead groups of kids on hikes or full on weekend camping trips. Most of the kids that enter in these have never been camping before or spent more than a few hours in the woods. The video below explains how Climbing For Kids benefits bay area kids.
This video goes a tiny bit further in explaining how BAWT helps get kids outdoors:
This is a training climb of bay area park, Mount Diablo (one of the many training hikes we go on leading up to the big climb)
This is a short video made for the June 2009 climbing of Mount Shasta:
To join the program, I put down $500 in my own money and pledged to raise the entire $4,500 by May. I’m legally bound to the full amount by that date. Yes, that’s a bit scary but I have complete confidence in my friends and family to help me recoup those costs and their support will help me climb the mountain and achieve an altitude very few people have ever reached without being in an airplane.
My training has not been easy. I started on December 1st and can now do 10+ mile hikes without any fatigue. I’ve also dropped 35 pounds with 30 to go and I’ve only been training for 60 days. I have 90 days to raise the $4,500 and then all that’s left is the climb and it’s not going to be easy.
I’ll be climbing the mountain with my friend Justin Leung and we’ve been training hard to make this a reality. It takes place over 5 days and the last 3K feet of the climb is the most challenging due to the limited oxygen in the air.
Donate:
I can’t do this without your help & support. Our big donors will be receiving support in the form of thank yous on our blog and businesses will get ad placement on the blog and special t-shirts that we’re making for the training hikes and climb in June.
It’s completely tax-deductible and will be going to a great cause!
Follow our Progress:
Justin and I are blogging about our training & practice climbs on a blog that we setup specifically for the climb. Follow along here: http://adamandjustinclimbshasta.com
I’m still not convinced this actually happened but I don’t like being pinched so I should just pretend that San Francisco gave me an award and move on.
Last month, I was out in the Tenderloin taking photos (which you can see in this post) and as I snapped this photo, Michael Nulty of A Better District 6 (ABD6) stopped and said hello. He was making his daily walk of the district talking to citizens and businesses and he stopped to ask if I was going to the yearly award ceremony. I said that I saw the event on Facebook and marked as maybe because I might have other plans. He said, “well you should come because you’re getting an award.”
I went home and checked the event page and realized that I was getting a “safety award” for my work on AdamsBlock / OurBlock. The safety award is given out to a few residents each year and I’m going to assume it’s less than a dozen but could be more. The ABD6 meeting had 5 people earning the award for that district. I was one of them.
The safety award is detailed as the following:
“For your exceptional commitment to safety. Promoting solutions for the common good and bringing the neighborhood together to work as a community.”
I guess that sums up what AdamsBlock did if it was successful. I did stop create something that stopped a few crimes and saved a few lives but it wasn’t a unique enough concept to truly have a big impact. If it does turn into something big, it’s nice to know that SF did officially recognize it but it was more than me. I didn’t personally report crimes. Sure I gave my “witness testimony” when the cops showed up but it was the community who watched the cameras and reported the crimes.
Either way, it was exciting to be given an award at such a young age. I’m honored to represent those of you who reported crimes, supported me and those in office who voted for me to receive this award.
My history with cameras has been all over the place. Photography is so much fun to me because I’m able to capture a moment in time and cherish it, share it and modify it using software and hardware tools. I’m not necessarily attached to my collection of photos (which just reached 24 thousand). I’m actually in love with stepping outside of the house and taking pictures of things. It forces me to slow down and enjoy life a bit more. I started taking photos in 2003 and I’ve owned about 7 cameras. I started with a Kodak camera and moved to Canon with their S3 and S5 lines. The PowerShot G9 was my next step and then I purchased the G10 in May of this year.
Today, I’m selling the G10. I’m not ready to take the plunge to DSLR just yet. An SLR is an investment that I’m not prepared for. I’d start to buy lenses, cleaning kits, geo-tagging tools and a $350 flash. Instead, the G11 is my next step.
Resale on Used Canon G10s is only about $50 less than retail on a G11. My G10 is still in warranty, has the box and all original parts. I’m including a charger and 4GB SD card to the winner. I may also throw in a couple of things that I have lying around that are related to photography. The Canon G10 has been my primary camera since May and I’ve used to to take photos of Chicago, Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Florida (all over) and other amazing cities. It’s been in my anti-scratch camera bag at all times over my shoulder or in my backpack. I love this camera but I have to upgrade to the latest cause that’s just how I am.
I’m sure around the spring I’ll be getting a Canon 7d or XSi but for now, the Canon PowerShot “G” series of cameras are perfect for me. I always shoot in manual, I have a cheap Canon Speedlite Flash, a tripod and some cool lenses to go with it. I hope this new camera finds a great home with its new owner.
In September, I purchased the MacBook Air and it’s become my primary mobile machine right next to the iPhone. I assumed that the MacBook Air would become the equivalent of a netbook and be the machine that I took on trips or grabbed to take to a meeting. I had no idea that its size and performance would make it the perfect notebook. Here’s my review of the MacBook Air.
In late June of this year, after WWDC, I purchased a 17″ MacBook Pro. The machine was excellent. The monitor was gorgeous and compared to many PC conterparts, it’s the thinnest and lightest 17″ notebook I’ve ever used. In fact, it’s lighter and smaller than many 15.4″ PC notebooks from Compaq and HP. The speed is epic and it was an amazing mobile powerhouse. Here’s my review of the MacBook Pro. This was the case until I picked up the MBA and realized that I could deal with 50% less power in an extremely tiny package.
With that said, I’ve decided to simply get an iMac to replace the MacBook Pro. I’ll get a faster machine with more screen real estate because the 17″ MBP never leaves my desk anymore. It just sits there on my Griffin Laptop Stand. Why do I have a $3,000 laptop that I never take anywhere?
With much deliberation, I’ve decided to sell my 17″ MacBook Pro. The specs are below including photos. Please contact me at adam@adam-jackson.net to make an offer.
Retail Pricing on this machine w/ AppleCare is: $3,198.00 (CA Tax is $303.81)
Extras:
I’m including an Apple Wireless Magic Mouse w/ Case. It’s only 10 days old
A 17″ MacBook Pro Case from Incase
A Griffin Elevator Laptop Stand
Various Software that I won’t publicly disclose but I’ll transfer ownership.
Tech Specs:
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2009)
Introduced: June 2009
Machine ID: MacBookPro5,2
Order Number: MC226LL/A
Initial Price: $2,499 USD
Support Status: Supported
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (T9600, T9900) (“Penryn”)
Number of Cores: 2
Architecture: 64-bit
Processor Speed: 3.06 GHz
Cache: 6 MB on chip shared L2 cache
System Bus: 1066 MHz Hard Drive: 500 GB (7200-rpm SATA)
Media: 8x Slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Trackpad: Multi-Touch trackpad
Keyboard: Built-in full-size backlit keyboard with 78 (U.S.) or 79 (ISO) keys
Case: Precision aluminum unibody Weight and Dimensions (US): 6.6 lbs., 0.98″ H x 15.47″ W x 10.51″ D
Weight and Dimensions (Metric): 2.99 kg, 2.5 cm H x 39.3 cm W x 26.7 cm D
Maximum Mac OS: Snow Leopard 10.6.2
Maximum RAM: 8.0 GB
Type of RAM Slots: 2 – 204-pin PC3-8500 (1066 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT and GeForce 9400M
Graphics Memory: 512 MB (9600M GT) GDDR3 or 256 MB (9400M) DDR3 shared with main memory
Built-in Display: 17-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen, optional antiglare display
Resolutions: 1920 by 1200 (native),
External Resolution: Up to 2560 by 1600 pixels (30″ LCD)
Display Connection: 1 – Mini DisplayPort (VGA, DVI, or dual-link DVI with adapter)
Camera: Built-in iSight
Expansion Slots: 1 – ExpressCard/34
Expansion Bays: None
Hard Drive Bus: 3.0 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA)
Optical Drive Bus: –
Motion Sensor: Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS)
Liquid Sensor: Liquid Submersion Indicator (LSI)
Power Adapter: 85W MagSafe Power Adapter (MA938LL/A)
System Battery: Built-in 95-watt-hour lithium-polymer
Battery Life: Up to 8 hours
I’ve been blogging at this space for nearly a year now. Prior to this, it was 5 separate blogs with different topics and their own small subsets of groups that commented. My interests were shifting and my free time was drying up so I dropped those and started fresh with a blog that was simply my thoughts about various topics but with no particular theme. So far, the results have been fantastic.
There’s something missing though. I’d like to do something different or at least evolve the blog for its 1 year anniversary and set the tone for 2010. I’m looking for comments on how things can be improved. Here are my initial ideas.
Do more rich media (audio & video)
Write significantly smaller blog posts (80% of them are over 1,200 words)
Include more photos to make the blog feel more alive
Allow a couple of guest bloggers to write here
Start using tags and re-do categories to better reflect the diversity of my posts
Thanks everyone for your support. I’m looking forward to a terrific 2010.
First of all, I should note that I spent about 4 minutes trying to simplify the title of this blog post but it kept sounding less and less interesting. At one point, I was just going to title this, “something important” and leave it at that but I’m pretty happy with the result.
Moving on, The Commonwealth Club of California is a non-profit that has been around for over 100 years. From their Wikipedia page, here is a brief description:
The Commonwealth Club of California is a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization based in Northern California. Founded in 1903, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States. Membership is open to everyone.
and
The Commonwealth Club has more than 19,000 members who help host over 400 events each year on topics ranging across politics, culture, society, and the economy. Around 50,000 people attend these events. It is currently headed by Dr. Gloria Duffy and is broadcast on many public radio stations in the longest-lasting continuous radio program in the nation.
It’s a group that I’ve been very lucky to have been a member of for the past few months. I attend at least one meeting each week and have learned a lot. There is a division of the club called INFORUM. I found myself going to more INFORUM meetings because the topics and speakers appealed to me more than the regular meetings. INFORUM is described as:
The idea of INFORUM began with the basic tenet that young people not only deserve but desire unbiased, trustworthy information from a full range of stances, and that they want their sources qualified. The Commonwealth Club has a 103 year tradition of civic debate, and INFORUM honors and continues this tradition by providing a forum for young people to access the best informed, most involved, and brightest minds – be they politicians, business gurus, policy workers, thought leaders, trendsetters or culture-jammers.
This week, I was invited to join INFORUM as a board member. My focus will be on a few things. First of all, I’ll be analyzing how INFORUM connects with people via Twitter, Facebook and other social networks and work with them to extend the reach of their social network presence and engage more people and generate interest for programs both virtually (since some events are streamed) and in the real world. Additionally, I’ll be submitting ideas for speakers we can invite and topics to cover in meetings. My roots in the tech community and work with local charities has a small level of reach that makes for some great topic ideas. Finally, I’ll be taking on some additional smaller tasks to help with as I have time.
This isn’t going to be a huge time sink but will be an exciting opportunity for me to take on as we close out this year and begin another. Thanks everyone for your support. I encourage all of my followers in and out of California to check out The Commonwealth Club and, most importantly, INFORUM. Membership is only $75 if you’re under 35 and most events are streamed online for free.
This post is the first of three that will be coming over the next 2 months. Each of these changes are pretty big and I don’t know exactly when they’ll happen so I have to be careful about timing. Stay tuned and thank you for your continued support.
I’m embarking on a new stage in life. Most of you know that I’m an extremely open person but I won’t be sharing all of the details this time. First of all, my openness has been my most valuable asset as it enables people to feel like they are a part of something. My life isn’t a big deal, nor is it a life that everyone wants to have. Trust me, you don’t want to walk in my shoes. I have learned that living so transparently will get people on your side (if you’re a good person) and thus help you get through some of the hard times. To all of you that follow me virtually, thank you.
It’s difficult for me to not speak from the heart on this because, most of you started following me after Laura entered into my life. Not very many of you know I’ve been at this for over 10 years, blogging, traveling and writing. I didn’t start taking things seriously until 2006 which is when I started dating Laura. So throughout our relationship, you’ve known “Adam & Laura” and now it will just be Adam. It’s a more difficult split since we were so open about our relationship.
The risks of having such an open relationship aren’t apparent while you’re doing it because things are going so well but like Chris and Tara, there are risks when things are over. Their “breakup” was chronicled in San Francisco Magazine.
A few weeks ago, I became single. It’s a weird thing to put in writing and I’ll talk more about it on a future post. In summary, I was in a 3.5 year relationship in high school and then a 3.75 year relationship with Laura. There wasn’t anything in between so it’s odd being a bachelor at 23. The only details I will add is that I left her but it wasn’t because of her. She’s a wonderful person but we just were on slightly different paths. I know the haters will speculate and guess what happened. Save it because you’ll never be able to guess and you’re only wasting your time.
Going forward, I’ll continue to work my ass off and Laura will as well. We remain great friends and our friendship hasn’t changed.
I’ve worked in many industries with some exceptional people. Since the age of 13, it’s been work work work in nearly every aspect of my life. I built houses with my Dad, worked in a lumber yard and even got a commercial drivers license and trucked building supplies all over Florida all before I was 19. At Apple, I worked with a talented group as an assistant manager of a retail store and it was an awesome job. Following Apple, I worked for an IT Consulting Group and was on-call 24/7 as 2nd in command of a team of technicians. While I was hopping around, I consistently pushed my online brand, blogged, learned and explored the web and how it connects us in so many ways. I came to San Francisco in June of 2008 to take my love and passion for online communications to the next level and it’s been a wild ride.
First of all, I should note that I spent about 4 minutes trying to simplify the title of this blog post but it kept sounding less and less interesting. At one point, I was just going to title this, “something important” and leave it at that but I’m pretty happy with the result.