Welcome to my life in digital form

Open Internet Good. Censorship Bad.

Welcome back internet. I missed you yesterday! I hope a number of folks were able to get up to speed on the SOPA/PIPA legislation that will soon resurrect like a zombie and again start working it's way through the House and Senate. Still not sure what it is? You can find a simple explanation here. I urge you to contact your Senators and Representative to express your concerns over this damaging bill. Signing online petitions is all well and good, but the people whom you have elected need to hear from you directly! Not sure how to do that? This should help get you started. Here is the letter that I sent to my Senators and Representative on SOPA/PIPA. I modified it slightly for each one. This is the Feinstein version. The version I sent to Rep. Howard Berman expressed NO surprise that he might be swayed by Hollywood money. ------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Senator, I am a professional that works for an audio/video/technology company. We are in the unique position of creating media that we certainly are interested in protecting from piracy, however we also rely heavily on an open internet to disseminate it. I am extremely concerned about the proposed PIPA and SOPA legislation that is before the house and the senate. I have read them and I see clearly the potential for abuse. The effect such abuse would have on the internet would be real and devastating. Most importantly, I see no concrete structure in the bill for effectively dealing with piracy. I am unhappy that [more]

Are you sure this is where you want to be?

Today I went for a drive. It really doesn't matter where I drove. It happened to be San Diego to ring in the New Year with some of my favorite people. What matters is that I realized making a long drive is a perfect thing to do on New Years Eve. Driving is one of the few times I slow down long enough to just sit with my thoughts. I put on some music and wonder. As one does at the end of the year, I spent some time thinking about the past year. It's been a long one full of challenges and sacrifice. There has been loss and subtle shifts in my life that are both small and huge at the same time. As I look ahead to the new year, my vision is so different than it was 12 months ago. And I continued to drive. The playlist that served as the background music was perfect. Music is important to me There were songs that made me sing as loudly as could. Others that made me smile as I remembered some past event. There was one that made me cry. My thoughts turned to the year ahead. What do I wish for? The answer was so clear. For 2012, I want more of everything I got in 2011. I want the fun times with friends and family...who doesn't? I want to succeed and grow. I want to learn new things While still enjoying [more]

Priorities

Given the events of the last few days with the Occupy camps, a few stories I find interesting. ***** In Denver, Occupiers were evicted from their encampment after a stressful clash with police over their right to be there. Many of their belongings were thrown away with little opportunity for them to be claimed. In unrelated news, I'd like to share a story of folks camping out in Denver in advance of the opening of a new H&M clothing store.  Nothing was mentioned about their clothes being thrown away after shopping.  Weird. ***** In Austin, Texas 38 people were arrested in the middle of the night after reports of the Occupy camp providing people food after 10pm. I found another story about people camping out in Austin to ensure they got good seats for the Hanson concert.  I'm pretty sure no one ate during the evening as I didn't read anything about any arrests.  Mmmmm, Bop. ***** Occupy San Diego had their camp shut down after less than 2 days. Also, here is an interesting story about Twilight fans camping out a week before Comic Con to ensure they got into a session to see the cast. It was really nice of the city and the convention center to provide those folks a tent as you can see from the pictures. ***** While the City of LA has appeared to be extremely supportive of the local camp, news is starting to emerge that they are in fact laying the groundwork to evict.  One such example has been over food service.  Many heard [more]