Here’s one of the pics I took while taking a walk in the woods.

Where I’m at Now and Where I’m Headed is an ongoing series that I deliver each Wednesday for you to get a better idea for what’s going on and how you may be able to fit in.

Where I’m at Now

At home procrastinating (can’t blame me, maybe it’s destiny?), about to get going on writing this 4 page paper for a school assignment.  I’m hella sore today, yesterday I had about 10x the amount of cardio of my daily routine.  At about 2pm yesterday I went up to the Wildwood campus for the Spring Fling event, in which, we played two games of basketball– won both games, 3 on 3.  But then, after that, I filled in for a spot on two different softball teams that were playing double-headers.  It was my first time playing baseball/softball in a while (10+ years), so I was a bit tired and fatigued, but still managed to do my part of the teams I played for.  I did alright on the offensive side, and managed to make a hit every time at bat for each game, which that kinda surprised me being that it had been so long since I’ve been in gameplay mode.  On the defensive, I played both third base and outfield. It looks like this may be a regular gig for the remaining of the season as the guy who hooked me up with the opportunity said that he needs spots filled on a weekly basis, which is cool with me!  But, I definitely am feeling the effects of going hard yesterday.

I’ve decided on my college plans.  I’m planning on going to UMSL to get a degree in International Business with a minor in Computer Science, for my undergrad, as this will be the best option for my career.

Where I’m Headed

School will concluding in a few weeks and I’m looking for a summer job/opportunity.  I’d really like to find a opportunity working with augmented reality projects, however, there aren’t very many companies in the St. Louis area that is involved in those sorts of projects.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m excited to be going to an augmented reality expo in silicon valley at the beginning of June and think that this will further help with meeting contacts and finding projects, but I’d like to find something sooner, if possible.  That’s about it for now.

Until next week, ”Hei konei rā” (see ya later in New Zealand)!

What’s in a Name? From a youngster I’ve always been called “C.J.”.  In many cases, people abbreviate their names to avoid using a first name that may be embarrassing, however, in my case, my first name is Christopher, or Chris, which wasn’t anything to be embarrassed by– I had just always gone by C.J.  In my college years, however, I have decided to go by the name “Chris”, instead.  I have chosen this for a couple reasons, but one of the main reasons is that it easier for the professors to learn when that’s the name attached to my school’s records.

They call me Rooney… Chris Rooney.

Throughout my life, I’ve been called several names (excluding the insults), I’ve been called: CJ, Chris, Ceige DiDiege, Roondogg, Christophe J, and of course, Christopher, to name a few.  Oh yea, for my band name in the Kick Kick band, I was called “Star Boss”.  And my Twitter handle was once Ambossador, and RoonLion.  When I was in high school, I once told the teacher on the first day of the semester that I wanted to be called “Sparky”, and after much laughter and a bit of embarrassment, I decided to go back to using C.J.  It seems like C.J. is my default, which is cool enough, I guess, but all of this got me thinking, what’s in a name?  So I did some research.

The first result was a site called Kabalarians.com , which kinda reminded me of an astrology reading.  You type in your first name, and it spits out an analysis of your first name and “destiny”.  I typed in “Christopher”, first, and then tried “C.J.” and got something for both.

Christopher (my remarks in []):

• Your first name, Christopher, creates a friendly, sensitive, and practical nature. [seems about right]
• You gravitate to positions where there is stability, security and opportunities to work with others to make steady progress. [would confirm that's true]
• You could be very skilful in dealing with technical and mechanical matters. [based on my technical skills, I confirm this is true, too]
• You appreciate details, precision, and system and order. [my ex-coworkers would get a kick out of this, and I'd say it's true, too]
• These qualities, however, can make you too fussy, from time to time, over inconsequential matters. [unfortunately, true.]
• You do not take to changes easily and can be quietly stubborn. [yep, I can be stubborn.]
• You do rely on the support and encouragement of others as there is an underlying lack of confidence with this name. [unfortunately, true]
• For the same reason, many times you procrastinate over making decisions. [procrastination is something I've been trying to overcome for some time]
• You could suffer with problems relative to the fluid functions or intestinal tract such as constipation, growths, swelling of the legs and ankles or over-stoutness. [I have bad allergies, and constipation is a whole nother story!]

So overall, it seems about right.  Kinda weird.

Here’s what it said about “CJ” (again, my remarks in []):

• While your name of Cj gives you an intense desire to be of service to others, it brings out a practical, technical nature, and you become involved in fussy little details that detract from the fulfilment of your greater ideals. [practical and technical were some key terms that stuck out, along with be of service to others]
• You are a very patient person and will work hard one step at a time to accomplish your goals. [I can actually be impatient many times]
• Not interested in large undertakings, you are content to live from day to day to save for your future. [actually my mind is occupied to large undertakings all the time; haven't demonstrated much for saving day-to-day for the future as my dad and financial advisor could confirm]
• Always budgeting carefully, you do not believe in frivolous spending. [nope, trying to get better, though.]
• You tend to be thorough in building a solid foundation of fact and logic, but you are not especially imaginative or investigative. [I'd say this is true]
• You are particular and quite set in your way you want things to be done. [True]
• Once you have made up your mind or formed an opinion it is not easily changed. [Most of the time, yes]
• Hence there is a restriction in friendships and business opportunities. [Unfortunately, yes]
• This name stimulates urges and desires for which there is no creative outlet and the ensuing frustration creates nervous tension which centres in the region of the solar plexus and intestinal organs, causing constipation, intestinal trouble, boils, or growths. [damn, constipation, again?! I should have actually gone by Sparky, or something]
• You feel emotional frustrations and disturbances that create irritability and a strong temper. [Could be, sometimes]

No wonder I’ve been having a identity crisis– I’ve been going by the wrong name all along!

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

- Juliet in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”

What do you say about all of this naming business?  Is one more well-suited by choosing one name over the other?  Have you analyzed your name before?

Check to see what they say about your name here.

Where I’m at Now and Where I’m Headed

Where I’m at Now

What up, how’s it going?  I’m sitting in my chair relaxing, just switched the channel to Cartoon Network (silent mode), taking a break from hearing all of the news about the Boston Bombing (I wrote about a close encounter to some runners attending the event), and want to write an update on here now.  It’s been a busy week, just got back from a trip to Atlanta and visited the Georgia Tech campus, which is one of the schools that I’m looking to transfer to within the year.  I really like a lot of things about Georgia Tech, not including just the Atlanta-scene, and I’m hoping that I get a chance to go to school there.  The tour guide took us all around the campus and had some fun stories to share, like, the fact that students go around campus to remove the “T”s from various signs as part of a tradition that the school has been trying to break for many years now.  A lot of interesting technological advancements have came from that school, including the Google Glass and the stealth bomber.  It would be an honor to be accepted there and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Where I’m Headed

Besides a couple road trips for weddings coming up, my next big trip is an augmented reality (AR) expo in silicon valley in June!  I’ve been playing around with AR projects for some time now, and landed a volunteer opportunity in exchange for a ticket to the event.  Also, working on a couple augmented reality projects on the side as we speak.

I thought about more ways to get you involved, so if you don’t tell me where you’re headed in the comments below, why not head towards some links that I suggest?  Here are a few that stuck out to me this week:

How a First-Time Author Got a 7-Figure Book Deal

Interesting story about John Romaniello and his path from being a 20-something deadbeat with low T, to being a highly productive workhorse that’s makin it happen.  Read more about the story on 4hourworkweek.com.

Layar Blog

Feast your eyes on some augmented reality goodness!  There are some really cool things happening with augmented reality and Layar is one of the those companies at the forefront of bringing it to the masses.  Check out their blog here!

How to make a Sparktweet

And especially if you’re into posts from Quantified Self, you may enjoy this post about sparktweets.  More than just a tweetable bar graph, you can really communicate some interesting info, as described in the article here.  Also, they offer a cool Google Doc spreadsheet that you can copy to your account to easily make your own sparktweets with your own personal info.

Any of those links trip your trigger?  What types of stuff have you been discovering this week?  Let me know what’s good!

Saturday morning I parked my car in the airport parking lot, got on the shuttle bus to head to the airport. When the shuttle arrived at the shelter, it was around 6:30 am and there were already a few people on the shuttle bus, along with a couple that followed me in the bus. The people on the shuttle seemed more alert than I was as I was awaiting my coffee to kick in. In the bus, sitting adjacent to me was an older couple (say mid 60s), and the couple that followed me in were say late 30s, early 40s. The older man, thin and athletic, sat smiling and snickering with his wife, a bit overweight with glasses and equally shared their anticipation for their upcoming trip. The “younger” couple sitting next to me were whispering amongst themselves until the older man asked them, “Where are you headed?” He answered, “Boston, doing the Boston Marathon this year. Been training hard.”

The older man said, “Yeah, we are, too! Is this your first year?”

The younger man answered, “Yea, this is our first time.”

The older man smiled, sharing the moment with his wife, “Where are you all staying at?”

The younger woman, “We’re staying with some friends in New Hampshire.”

The older man chimed in, “Oh, you will love this event.”

The younger man continued, “Looking at your shirt, it looks like you’ve done this before,” sharing a laugh.

The older man said, “Yeah, we’ve been going every year for the past 10 years.” The older woman says, “And I’ve been his #1 supporter– somebody’s got to cheer him on.”

The older man continued with his advice, “This is an event of a lifetime,” still smiling and offering his advice, “Make sure to just soak it all in.”

I didn’t recall this conversation for, what, 4 days, and it all came back to me as I’ve been hearing about the Boston Marathon Explosions.  I first found out about the bombings while my taxi driver clued me in while picking me up from my visit to Georgia Tech earlier today.  I hope all of those guys are alright.  What a horrific way to have for your first experience at the Boston Marathon, an event where people train months, if not years, to participate in the event.  Hoping they all arrive safe and sound back to St. Louis, but I’m sure I’ll never know.

Here’s a horrific video of the bombings (found on Youtube):

Recently took this while cruising in the country. Find more pics at http://instagram.com/cjrooney/

Where I’m at Now and Where I’m Headed is an ongoing series that I deliver each Wednesday for you to get a better idea for what’s going on and how you may be able to fit in.

Where I’m at Now

Today, I’m stoked because I’ve just completed taking the last of two tests that have been stressing me out for the past few days (Business Law and Math) so those are finally over with.  I think I did especially well on the math test– we’ll see how the Business Law one turns out (studied hardcore for that one, especially).  Yesterday I went to a Workforce event at the community college’s HQ and sat in for a couple of social media- related sessions.  They were very basic sessions on Facebook and Pinterest, but I hoped to befriend the speaker for being involved in this digital media club that I’m organizing at the college.  Last week, I went to a conference at UMSL which was “The State of Digital Media Marketing”.  It was a pretty interesting conference, met some cool people and got some inspiration for future conferences (heavy use of G+ Hangouts for “guest speakers”).  Also got up on a cool plugin for your browser called “Ghostery”, and have already found some use for it (it’s free, you should click the link and check it out!).  I’ve begun the writing process (finally!!..!!ahhh!) for a couple of ebooks in the works and more details will be available on those soon.  Also, found out where Nelly lives!  Out of all people, my dad freaking pointed out where Nelly lives and turns out it’s within a couple of miles of where I’m staying in STL!

Where I’m Going

This weekend I’m headed to good ole’ Atlanta, Georgia and going to do a tour of the Georgia Tech campus, which is one of the main universities that I’m looking to transfer to in the next year or so.  I’m interested in their computational media program, and will be sitting-in on one of their discussions on Monday along with doing a tour of the campus on that day, too.  I’ll only be there for a couple days, but if you have any recommendations for what to do there, let me know!

Until next week, be brave.  Be a big brave dog.

Where I’m at Now and Where I’m Headed

Where I’m at Now

I’m sitting in my comfy chair sipping on a coffee– black, no sugar.  I just returned from a student leadership conference in Washington DC and had a great time in the city.  Washington DC is one of those places that everyone should journey to at least once in their lifetime, and I’m grateful to have gotten the opportunity check that one off my bucket list.  I went to represent my community college at the ASACC conference and while there, I had the opportunity to go to Capitol Hill, along with other student government leaders, to go lobbying to keep the Pell Grant intact.  We talked with congressmen, their staffers and toured the building, along with went sightseeing around the city.  Some of the highlights were the talks from the US UN Ambassador Susan Rice and meeting Ralph Nader, sitting in the conference sessions and meeting a lot of cool, interesting people.  Read more about my trip to Washington DC here.

Where I’m Headed

This next week I’m meeting with my personal trainer to accelerate my fitness plan.  I will not be fat for very much longer.  I’m also sending a notice out to my friends that I’m halting my participation in their web development projects, for now.  My focus and energies are focused on my academics, clubs and passion projects.  More details about which projects that I plan to be involved in will be announced soon.  Keep yo head up.

Where are you at and where are you headed?  Give me an update in the comment!

Ever been to Washington DC?  If not, it’s definitely a place to check off the bucket list, and I had the great opportunity to go there at the tail-end of my Spring Break.  I was one of several representatives from the St Louis Community College that got the chance to go, and the only one that went from the Wildwood campus, and our main objective was to attend the ASACC Conference which was being held at Liaison Hotel, which was right down the road from The Capitol.  For first two days of the trip, we were in conference sessions and meetings, and on the third and fourth day we got out and did some sight-seeing (pictures below).

We also teamed up and made a trip to the Capitol to speak with congressmen, basically “lobbying”, to protect the Pell Grant.  With the Sequester happening just weeks before our trip, you never really knew what was prepared to be on the chopping block, but most of the aides and congressmen that we spoke with were in favor of keeping the Pell Grant intact.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to tour the White House (since Obama announced several days before the trip that there would be no more tours for a while).  Overall, it was a great trip!  Definitely want to go back there again sometime soon (let me know if you need a traveling mate!)  Below are some pics from the trip.

Here are a few of my favorites:

This is the spot where Martin Luther King, Jr. made his “I Have A Dream” Speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

It was a rainy day when we visited the Lincoln Memorial and other spots, but here is a panoramic shot I got from the top of the Lincoln Memorial.

Here’s another panoramic shot of the Lincoln Memorial– I didn’t realize how HUGE the Lincoln statue is in real life!

I’ll get the other pics up at another time (huge files!).  Fun trip, hope you get to go to check it out sometime!

Where I’m at Now

I’m living in St. Louis (suburbs= Eureka, MO) and recovering from being home sick (lived in Kansas City all my life and getting used to the new scene).  Moved here and made the transition from full-time job to full-time student, in order to finish my schooling.  Looking to get degree in digital media management.  It’s going pretty well so far.  I’ve been getting involved in some clubs at the community college that I attend, including, Student Government and Business Club, and also doing some web development side-projects.  The semester is half-way over and I’m picking up some additional side-projects and focusing on my schooling.  I was planning to be in Austin for SXSW, however, that fell through last-minute.

Where I’m Headed

Next week I’m headed to the Capitol– Washington D.C., baby, thanks to an opportunity being in the Student Government Association. There, we’ll talk with congressmen and learn more about the political system and how it works.  After that, I have secured an digital media internship at the Daniel Boone Home and plan to do some big projects there, including, web development, video production and web strategy stuff.  Looking forward to it, actually.  Next week I start grinding at the fitness club– doing personal training to get out of this rut at the gym.  Just looking to get in shape and staying positive.

Where are you at and where are you headed?  Give me an update in the comment!

Sk8 or die!

Rollerblading has always been fun and I was an avid skater back in the day (7th & 8th grade).  Used to grind the rails and jump off ramps, and such.  There was quite the crew of local and regional bladers back in 90s and them, along with skateboarders and bikers are the ones to thank for the city skate parks that we have today as they were the ones petitioning and organizing signatures to give an alternative to skating in the streets.

I’ve thought about it many times to lace up the old skates and I finally decided to do it.  I started rollerblading again and surprisingly, my skates still fit.  Especially with rollerblading, it takes a while to loosen up the skates and get used to balancing on them, but not after long, I was back (somewhat) to attempting the big drops-ins and connected a few times (but not grinding) to the rails at the skatepark.  Nowhere in the physical shape that I was when I left rollerblading many years ago, but I’m working on it.  Probably won’t try the big jumps and complex switch-ups that I would’ve tried many years ago, but I can still go hard in the paint, or at least try.  I find it ironic that it took so many years to get the attention of many of the cities that now have skateparks and how many of those skaters either don’t skate anymore or have their children going to the parks that they helped to establish.  What do you think? Do you know many rollerbladers or skateboarders that have been skating consistently for more than a decade?

Had a great time at the TEDx KC event at the new building for Kauffman Center for Performing Arts in downtown Kansas City, MO. My good friend Justin bought tickets before it sold out, and it was a great experience. The program was a well-ran independently organized event put on by a local group of creative individuals, along with the sponsors, and it was well-worth the ticket price. TED, which is an acronym for Technology Entertainment and Design, is an event series that features many of the greatest minds (so many to mention, but a few past speakers include, Al Gore, Richard Branson, Malcolm Gladwell, etc, etc) many dream about attending these events, and the TEDx series are held all over the world, which is a great alternative for many interested to attend a similar-like event as the official TED events. There were many great speakers sharing unique insight and ideas during this event, check out the video below to watch the entire event!

Check out some of the mentions of TEDx KC 2012 on the social web: