We Don’t Look That Much Alike

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A while back we (me, Celeste and our brood) were at my Aunt Lynn’s house for her birthday.  While we were there we went through a bunch of old pictures that she’d put together from my Grandmother Lowder’s collection.  One of my projects is to scan all of those photos so that we have digital copies of them all.

Well, I scanned a baby portrait of my dad and one of myself taken when we were each about one (I’m guessing).  Both were black and white so they have a similar tone.  Here they are (click on the picture if you want to see a larger version).  I’m the one on the right:
Dadme_about_same_age
I’ve always been told that we look a lot alike, but at least in our early years I don’t see it.  Maybe it’s the ears:)

Anyway, it should be a lot of fun going through all these old pictures…of course I better call mom and warn her I have some doosies of her with the old 60’s and 70’s hair!

Reading List October 10, 2005

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One More Sign That the Apocalypse is Upon Us

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In the realm of business ideas this one is just plain, well, nutty.  According to this article it seems that a couple of enterprising folks out in Arizona have launched a line of jewelry that is testicular in design.  Of course their website is ballsies.com.

I was going to put a picture of one of their products here, but if I was gonna do something like that I’d reserve it for a product modeled on the fairer sex.  Sorry gals.

Reading List October 6, 2005

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  • Point Solutions vs. End to End Solutions (A VC) – Fred Wilson asks some hard and interesting questions about the future of "Web 2.0."  Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in things like blogs, Flickr (photo sharing), wikis, etc.
  • Should WiFi Be Public Infrastructure (A VC) – Google’s launching a free WiFi service in San Francisco and Fred thinks Verizon and company should be very worried.  I hope he’s right.

Now That’s What I Call Higher Education

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Celeste talked me into taking some continuing education courses at Salem College and I have to say that I’m glad she did.  I’ve posted previously about a drawing class that my oldest son, Michael, and I are taking together, and it’s only gotten better.

My second class started last night, and this is one that Celeste and I are taking together.  It’s called "Wines of the World" and the curriculum consists of us sitting around a table and tasting wines while being regaled with wine history and wine data from the instructor, who drinks right along with us. 

Where were these classes when I was in school full time?  Come to think of it how can I get a gig like this?  I can even create the curriculum myself…

  • Comparative Beer Imbibing (The Relative Merits of Keg vs. Bottle)
  • Beer Augmentation (Ruffles or Doritos with that Bud?)
  • Living With Your Beer Belly (How to Convince Your Wife that Your Belly is Cuddly, Not Gross)
  • Beyond the Beer Bong (Why We Grow Wiser as We Grow Older)
  • Beer Snobbery (How to Spend Ten Dollars For a Six Pack and Pretend to Really Like Your Beer, Really)
  • Beers of the World I (Why Some Beers Don’t Have to Be Ice-Cold to be Good)
  • Beers of the World II (Yes It Smells Bad, but That’s Good)
  • Beers of the World III (That’s Why the French are Wusses, No Beer and Too Much Whine, er, Wine)

The possibilities are endless!

How Can I Get 38+ Comments to a Post?

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Who could possibly figure that writing a post calling someone on the carpet for factual errors in a post about a run-of-the-mill golf tournament (by PGA standards) would generate 38 comments?  That’s exactly what happened to Patrick Eakes with his post "Chip Gets French Benefits."

Maybe if I write a headline like, "Bush is a Bambi-Killing Rabbit Raper" that will work.  BTW, I can’t take credit for that "Bambi-killing…" line.  One of my professors in college used it to describe the John Birch Society.

Luckily tomorrow I get to meet most of the people who made those 38 comments at ConvergeSouth.

More Cool Stuff from bookofjoe

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Well, bookofjoe continues to amaze me.  Here’s a small sampling of some of the stuff he’s put out there recently:

I thought I’d post this today so that Celeste can get started on her Christmas shopping…oh wait, she never stops her Christmas shopping.  Well these could make for some interesting additions.

Reading List October 5, 2005

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  • Napster: The Inside Story and Lessons for Entrepreneurs (The Next Big Thing) – Don Dodge was a VP at Napster (he now runs Microsofts emerging business unit) and he gives a brief inside look at what happened to Napster in 2000 and lessons that entrepreneurs can learn from that experience.
  • Medical Data Wants to Be Free (Business 2.0) – Business 2.0 points to Fred Wilson’s blog (A VC) where he states that "[I am] convinced that we are on the cusp of a revolution in the way
    medical information is collected, shared, and used…We
    need control of our data so we can secure it, put it in a place where
    it will be available in a crisis like Katrina, so that we can continue
    to get the care we need. The public doesn’t understand this yet. But
    some people do. . . . So my bet is that medical data is about to start
    moving out of the hospitals, doctors offices, and health care plans,
    into the hands of consumer and the intermediaries they authorize to
    handle their data for them. This is a big opportunity."
  • The Economics of Peer Production (Business 2.0) – Erick Schonfeld writes a very interesting "Future Boy" column about the emergence of peer production as a replacement (complement?) for companies and markets as an organizing structure in the information realm.  Example of peer production: Wikipedia.
  • Yahoo! Print (Business 2.0) – Yahoo1 is taking a different tack than Google when it comes to indexing and searching books.  For one thing they’re concentrating on books already in the public realm.
  • Networking (New York Times) – This piece ties in nicely with the "Economics of Peer Production" piece.  Basically it says that the next wave of productivity improvements in business will come from the collaborative information environments (distributed networks) that businesses are investing in.
  • ‘Folksonomy’ Carries Classifieds Beyond ‘SWF’ and ‘For Sale’ (New York Times) – This article focuses on three web services that allow people to self-organize based on their interests.
  • The Long Tail of Social Software (The Long Tail) – New services like Ning and JotSpot offer opportunities to expand the web’s application explosion.

Greensboro in the Limelight Again, Damnit

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The next big confab for bloggers will be this Friday and Saturday in Greensboro.  ConvergeSouth has shaped into a nice event, and I can only imagine the amount of effort the volunteers have put into it.

There’s a nice Quicktime video on the Converge South site that features most of the prominent Greensboro bloggers who were instrumental in pulling together this event, and more importantly, putting Greensboro on the new media map. 

It’s enough to make this Winston-Salem boy very jealous, but hey I’ll be there anyway.