I generally don’t watch a lot of movies but particularly liked this excerpt from the Tim Burton movie Big Fish:
EDWARD: My muscles couldn’t keep up with my bones, and my bones couldn’t keep up with my body’s ambition. So I spent the better part of three years confined to my bed, with the World Book Encyclopedia being my only means of exploration. I had made it all the way to the “G’s,” hoping to find an answer to my gigantificationism, when I uncovered an article about the common goldfish.
YOUNG EDWARD: “Kept in a small bowl, the goldfish will remain small. With more space, the fish can grow double, triple, or quadruple its size.”
EDWARD: It occurred to me then, that perhaps the reason for my growth was that I was intended for larger things. After all, a giant man can’t have an ordinary-sized life.
In life we all need to room to grow. If your bowl is too small for your life or ambitions, find a different bowl and grow to be happy!
Christina and I finished the 2010 SF Nike Woman’s Half Marathon with an overall time of 3:31:24 which is 28 minutes faster than last year. If you look at the pace and the rank it isn’t stellar but I wouldn’t exactly call myself an athlete either. I woke up at 4am to get over to Christina’s so it was a very early start to our day. Got some coffee and cash and we made it to the race just in time for it to start. We started in the orange group this year even though we had yellow wrist bands which means we run 14 minute miles (the slowest class). The nice thing about doing that is you are with faster people at the start. I got a little agitated because clearly the people who thought they were fast weren’t and were walking way too much to be in the orange class. Regardless it was another fun year and we saw lots of people we knew from work.
The first half of the race we had perfect weather and the second half it started raining which was fine until the race ended and we had to stop moving. The bus line was about a mile long which meant we waited in the cold rain and wind for about an hour wearing shorts and a soaked sweatshirt so I was chilled to the bone and shivering despite my best attempts to think about lying in the sun on a white sand beach. Went and picked up a pizza after the race and watched a nice movie with hot chocolate to finish off the day. My muscles are actually doing pretty good this year but my knees are what hurt the most. Go team Safeway!
I’m going to give you a scenario and by doing, so I’m hoping to prove a point. Let’s say everyone in the world has to go to prison even though they haven’t committed a crime. Let’s also say there are only three prisons which are an Apple prison, a Windows prison, and a Linux prison, and you get to choose which one you are going to spend the rest of your life in.
The Apple Prison
You are told and many believe the Apple prison is great, fantastic, wonderful, insanely awesome, remarkable, cool, and many other adjectives in the presentation you see from its warden Steve Jobs. The marketing campaigns for the prison are artistic and sexy with lots of marketing dollars behind them. Because everything is so sexy and perfect it costs lots of money to get into it. The prison itself is beautiful, and much of it is made of brushed metal. All the doors and cabinets don’t have knobs because its leader hates buttons and knobs. At this prison you are served fancy foods and everyone and everything is beautiful. It is ruled by one man who says you do things one way – his way because he is the best and nobody can be better than him (although the guy is a freaking rock star). The televisions can only display half the television programs because its warden doesn’t want to use a certain technology called Flash. The inmates for some reason love being dictated to and controlled because everything in the prison “just works” so they never try and leave.
The Windows Prison
The Windows prison is nice but not as beautiful as the Apple prison, but it costs less to get in. The warden of this prison, Steve Ballmer, likes to yell a lot but all in all, seems like a guy you would have liked to have hung out with in college. The inmates of the prison are very compatible with one another, and much of their time is spent developing their own rules. The rules work great as long as you don’t mind following rules created within your own prison, although you hear the other prisons have some better amenities, but you don’t care because your rules have support. Lots of people in this prison seem to still have AOL email accounts, and many worked for very large companies prior to arriving at the prison. The prison sometimes has really large earthquakes which crashes everything. Because of the earthquakes, you have to constantly keep rebuilding the entire prison all over again, which they call the blue earthquake of death. The latest builds of the prison take less time to rebuild and crash less often. The prison is fun because it allows you to play lots of video games.
The Linux Prison
The Linux prison barely has anyone occupying it, but everyone has keys to the front gates and every room to do whatever they wanted (heck, they could leave). Everything in the prison is completely free. Sometimes the inmates of the prison don’t have something they need, but they have the tools necessary to build it themselves. Everyone occupying the prison can’t understand why anyone would ever leave, and the inmates are in complete control of themselves, which can sometimes be a bad thing because there aren’t many laws or much support if an outbreak/riot occurs. If you get hurt and need to repair yourself, there aren’t a lot of people to help you, but you can get lots of help online. Although the Linux prison sometimes lacks control it does try to make rules for all prisons, but because most people are satisfied with their own prisons they don’t care much about the more open rules from this prison. Earthquakes occur, but the prison hasn’t crashed in years, so there isn’t much thought given to ever worrying about rebuilding. Everyone in the prison is a genius because everyone who runs Linux is a genius, and that is just how it works. I was doing good until that last point, wasn’t I?
Why Not Free Your Inner Monkey (or Orangutan)?
My guess is because some don’t like to troubleshoot and fix things. Some just want their world to “just work” and I think there is something to be said for that, but I can’t understand why you would sacrifice your freedom because of it. Others like compatibility and the familiarity with their existing operating system because they use it at work or because it is compatible with so many things. Gaming on a PC is fun too, so I get that as well. Are there some gaping holes and things I haven’t included in my arguments? Yeah absolutely, it is a complex subject, and I’m trying to simplify it, not to mention make it semi entertaining (and attempt to start a conversation). The most interesting thing about it? You might be a person who sits in a prison and does nothing and says nothing all day. Whatever prison you’re in, say something, do something, and be something! People (and orangutans/animals) were meant to live free, so why are so many of us living in prisons and happy about it? Live free and live open, and never forget sharing is caring. Oh, and Mr. Orangutan here says open-source rules and you like orangutans, right?
Please take a hard look at this picture on the left and tell me what is missing. Because I gave the answer away in the title of this post it shouldn’t take you long to realize there is no 13th floor at this hotel. Well if you think about it there is a thirteen floor but they just didn’t label it as 13. As a society are we insane for believing a number is bad luck? Do you believe 13 is bad luck for you? Maybe I should knock on wood for saying this but the number thirteen has never mattered much to me but found it interesting the hotel was so superstitious it skipped the number entirely.
Christina and I went to Napa for a date day about a month ago and I never got around to posting the pictures. While we were there we went to the Culinary Institute for lunch and then we stopped off at Dean and Deluca’s. The Culinary Institute was fun because it isn’t something you do every day and it is fun to watch the students cooking in the open kitchens. Dean and Deluca’s was also fun because I’m a grocery geek and they take gourmet foods to a whole new level. The only thing I could practically afford there was a soda so I decided to get the Cock and Bull which is probably the most manly soda money can buy. It has a very strong ginger taste to it and I was barely man enough to drink it all. 😉 After Dean and Deluca’s we went to Mondavi and walked toured the winery grounds because when you are in Napa you just have to go to Mondavi right?
“If we are to believe the latest conclusions of Tony Wright (speaking above in a National Geographic documentary) the left brain hemisphere has not simply dominated a more passive right; rather, over time, it has changed our neurochemistry and neural structures to support its own ascent. In his new book, Left in the Dark, Wright argues that “humanity is suffering from species-wide brain damage” and this damage is the “root cause of our obvious insanity.” – Via BoingBoing.com
The nice thing about media association events is there are lots of people with cameras. The unfortunate thing about media association events is there are lots of people with cameras. Just kidding, these are some great pictures from my good friend Chris King. These were taken yesterday during the “Amazing Engagement Race”.
CMMA’s fall conference keynote presentation was from John Spence. At the age of just 26, John was named CEO of an international Rockefeller foundation, overseeing projects in 20 countries and reporting directly to the Chairman of the Board, Winthrop P. Rockefeller III. Two years later John was nominated as one of the top CEOs under the age of 40 in Florida and Inc. Magazine’s “Zinc Online” recognized him as one of America’s up and coming young business leaders.
