It’s no secret I have been slipping on the Meet the Super Mixxers posts. I have been extremely busy. I was thrilled when Julie (Calinazaret) offered to help out.  I was also thrilled when she told me who this post was going to be about. Fellow Marine Corps brother Katmicjus. Thanks for doing this interview Julie, and Katmicjus, you rock brother! Semper Fi!

Katmicjus is one of the most interesting people I’ve met on mixx. He can be found in the front lines of some heated debates, and I was glad to catch up with him to get to know him better. He is a very proud father, US Marine, son, brother and friend who believes the USA should be available for all people.

Where are you from?

I am originally from upstate New York, the land of Rip Van Winkle. Surrounded by Mountains and lakes. I left to study in Denmark when I was 17. I have been on the move every since. I have lived in several countries and many states.

What do you do when not Mixxing?

I like gardening, fishing and people watching (go to the mall and sit and watch how people behave. lol…some forget they are in public. Watching them in walmart is hilarious.) I am a Project Manager, International Supply Chain Logistics Manager. I have an AA (liberal Arts), BA (International Politics/Relations-honors program at the UN), BA in International business and an MBA in International Business.

What are some causes you’re passionate about? Pet Peevs?

Corrupt/Abusive Police officers and abusive public officials. My pet peevs are really negative people or racists. People who think they are smarter than they are, but have no clue how uninformed they really are…. etc. People who speak of the “world” but have never been 15 miles from their home.

What do you like most about Mixx, and who do you admire?

I like positive people stories on mixx. I admire Kat136, VioletPlanet and McCaffertyhimself. They helped me the most when I first came on Mixx. They also keep me in check when the Marine comes out fighting on certain threads. lol.

What does your user name mean?

My user name the first three letters of my children’s names.

Thanks so much katmicjus for talking with me!

You can find Katmicjus on Mixx.com!

Post by Julie aka (Calinazaret). You can find her at Mixx as well as her blog Calinazaret.net

Oh Arian sweet Arian. We at the Mixxingbowl and other places around the web LOVE this girl. Arian is a great Mixxer and a joy to get to know. One of the sweetest people you will ever meet, and she will also school you in the fine arts of comic books and geek culture.  We have had her on Social Blend a few times and always enjoy her company.

Arian currently holds the record for most replies in her introduction thread over in the Mixxingbowl forums.  I have got to take a personal stab at her right now as well. My dear Arian, the Bat Symbol never looked so good ;-).

I shot some questions to Arian so those that don’t know, can learn more about her.

Where are you from?

I was born in Maryland, USA, but I’ve lived back and forth between the States and the UK, and a few years ago I moved to Manchester, England with my two kids and permanently reside here.

What do you do for a living?

Not much.  I try to avoid leaving the house as much as possible.

I’ve done web and graphic design in the past, been a techie, done network security, administration, medical records…

What are your interests?

Wow, that’s a loaded question.  Everything?   Tattoos (I have five, I want MORE).  Computers.  I’m a solid Apple fan, but I used Linux for years after abandoning Windows in the late 90s.  Um, comics, as anyone who knows me knows, SciFi, most particularly Dr Who and Star Trek.  Reading.  Ancient history.  One of the first things I remember setting out to study was the Maya, and then the Egyptians, and it kinda just coalesced into one great big subject.  Graham Hancock and Zahi Hawass are two of my favorite people alive.

What do you like most about Mixx?

I like the communication, both with the community and the people running the show.  And I love the Mixxing Bowl.

What is in “Your Mixx?”

Everything?  It’s a really long list.  Apple stuff, socialism (I am a socialist, thank you, and proud of it), breaking news, stupid stuff from florida, tech and geek stuff…

Who are your Heros?

I don’t really have any.  But there are people who have shaped my life, outside of my family, who are the strongest influence in my life, and mostly in a positive way.

Richard Dawkins, for his courage to stand up and call out religion on its flaws.  I’m not criticizing all the great people out there with religious leanings, but I admire his inability to tolerate religious bullshit, and to back it up with solid fact.  Why yes, I am atheist

So this cat is just all around cool. Steaprok hit the scene early when Mixx launched. He has been hanging around dropping solid comments and participates in the Mixxingbowl . A lot of times he seems to pop in from out of freaking no where, crushes it with a comment and the disappears again.

Chilling in Miami with his wife (Yogini) Manny, (Steaprok) is an all around cool guy and one person everyone on Mixx should follow.

Where are you from?

Check him out at http://mixx.com/users/steaprok

I thought it would be a great idea to dive deep and get the back story on these pages and the pictures. Since Zack is underage and couldn’t be contacted for interview as his schedule consists of a lot of playing and nap times, I reached out to his mother for the information. Like any proud parent Kerry was happy to share.

So Kerry let’s talk about Nap time.

We bring the Mixx site offline for two reasons:  a) to install new Mixxer-facing code and features and b) to do maintenance work that is only indirectly obvious to our users.

We wanted to send the message for the maintenance upgrades that Mixx was only going to be down a little while.  That led to the concept that we were only napping and thus, of course I had a napping Zack picture

Of course, I have lots of pix of Zack napping, as all parents do, but this one was especially good because it just shows him completely zonked out. Asleep on top of a stuffed animal. Pacifier discarded next to him. Hand in a “that’s gonna hurt when he wakes up” position. And obvious full-of-pee diaper.  That’s one sleepy baby

So what’s with the “Spade Zack” timed out page?

OK. So if the Mixx application takes too long to process a request (like you are trying to calculate VioletPlanet’s karma or something), the application asks the browser to throw a timeout message.   For a bit of time about a year ago, we started to get a few of these so we decided to put up a page that told our users that Mixx was taking too long but that we’d be back.

This is the “Spade Zack” page (and its funny, when we write bugs against the code, we call these spade zack and mopping zack and etc).

I was out on vacation when the spade zack page was created. My family and I were down in Jamaica

But Will needed a picture, so he went to the great wall of Zack and chose a picture that was one of him just hanging out, waiting. He pulled it off my wall, scanned it in and there it is.

And when she says take one down off her wall, she is not kidding!

My son is luckily very photogenic, and I’m one of “those” moms so you can see that we have not yet begun to Zack.  Will and Kori laugh about my obsession all the time. I just hope we never have to move offices–a lot of work to move the pictures!

So I drifted away here, back to the background on the Spade pic.

Background–this picture is taken underneath the very famous “Welcome to Vegas” sign.  I was trying to juggle a camera, Troy, Troy’s mom, the baby carriage and Zack and get them all positioned. I handed the camera to Troy, put Zack down on the spade and started to move his mom into the picture.  Troy snapped Zack squinting in the sun, perfectly laid out on the spade.

A family portrait was taken a short while later.

So tell us what’s going on here. We love the Mixxingbowl off ramp but it looks like Zack is telling us off.

The Zack you see when you click from the Mixx footer to the Mixxingbowl.  What we wanted to do was to make sure that n00bs understood that they were leaving Mixx.com proper when headed over to the bowl. So when the bowlers screwed up it didn’t reflect badly on us ;-D  J/K on the last part.

SO we thought we would say to the user “HEY,  WHERE YOU GOING?”
And this picture of Zack worked perfectly for that.

The backstory:
We were trying to get a nice beach picture of him. Propped him up on a towel on a dune. Started to get some nice shots when he decided he wanted to move. started crawling away, got turned around.
Took a tumble with a cry. Had to be helped up.
And then we got the picture we did. Kinda explains the look on his face and the sand in his hair, etc.

Zack cleans up

So this was the first instance of “baby” on the site.

Our designer was tasked with designing our “oops” page–when Ruby on Rails craps out and we have sort of an unrecoverable error.  He was thinking that type of error stopped you from mixxing. No mixing. What else doesn’t mix.  And he found the JibJab “Babies and Lemons” don’t mix video.  Sold.  We even, when writing bugs for us to fix these errors, called it Babies & Lemons–like submitting from www.ysodf.com generates Babies & Lemons. That eventually got shortened to B&L.

But then that video got taken down from YouTube (maybe we were hitting it too much, ha!).

And we were looking for some other theme like oops, or uh-oh or something.

We almost went with a picture of Zack from our office. He was in one day and made a total MESS around our watercooler.  And then someone (Doug maybe?) said too bad we don’t have one of him cleaning up the mess–kind of like Mixx needs to clean up our code.

Ah, hang tight I say, of COURSE i have a relevant picture.  And thus “Mopping Zack” or MZ as he appears in bugs.

So the story here is that my husband and I opened up some donut shops in Loudoun County VA.  And as a small business owner, you never really get away from your business. After a full day at Mixx, I often go and put in some hours at the donut shop. Sometimes Zack is with me.  On this particular day, I was responsible for mopping the floor up after we closed. Zack decided to help. Did a pretty good job of it, if I might add.  We snapped the picture and so there it was when we needed it.

Here is another cute photo of Zack at the donut store during the filming of a Food Network special at our store (on Unwrapped–should be broadcast soon).

Here is probably one that you have never seen–its the browser upgrade page. Like most websites, we just block access to our site from really old browsers. Because yes, there are people still using IE 3.0.  Rather than trying to make our site work in these browsers we just block them and encourage upgrades for the benefit of all users.

So this picture is what you see if you can’t get to Mixx,  because hey, you’d be crying if you couldn’t be Mixxing.

The blender and the cook’s corner.

The Cook’s Corner was thought up by Joe to enable the engineers to put out some interesting stuff they had been playing with.  Of course, once they indicated to me that they had some free time, i just made them more busy so they can’t actually create new stuff there

And as before, when we went to go build the WAILA section (the What Am I Looking At? section) at the top, we decided (well, I decided) that another Zack would be in order.  And yes, I did have one that matched the cooking theme!  We were in Las Vegas at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant–which has a bit of an open kitchen. Being the quality mom that I am, I lost track of Z and he went wandering into the kitchen. He quickly got shooed out, but the chef thought he was so cute, she gave him a chef’s hat to wear for himself.  Subsequently, Zack has gotten very in to cooking and tries to help me make dinner every night.

And the blender where applications that use our API live.
This is the only Zack photo that I had to stage. Given his love of cooking, it was quite easy to convince him to pretend to pour stuff from his sippy cup into the blender. But I feel bad that I had to actually stage one of his pictures.

All Dressed Up!

The other reason we take Mixx offline is to release new features.  We thought “hmm, we should put up something that looks different from the down for maintenance. Sort of tease people that something new is coming. Something interesting is coming.  Like we’re getting dressed up for the big reveal.

And of course, I have a picture of Zack dressed up.

One day Troy and I were hanging out discussing how funny it is when you see a little kid all dressed up like an adult. Makes us laugh (kind of like manbabies.com makes us laugh).  And Troy said we should get Zack a tux, ha ha ha. So I looked online the next day, found one and ordered it. They are pretty cheap–it was like $40.   We put him in it and just laughed and laughed and laughed.

But when it came time for our holiday family photo, we knew we needed to tux up. So Troy and Zack got their tuxes on, i broke out the old formalwear and we started shooting. Zack, at the age of 4.5 months, generously decided not only to sit up nicely but also smile for us.

Like many things about Mixx, baby Zack is near and dear to our heart. I firmly believe he is one of perfect personal touches to the site. I want to thank Kerry Pierce-Parkins for taking the time to let us get to know more about Zack.   I’ll be watching for that Episode of Unwrapped! Kerry, Zack, thanks again!

]]> http://mixxingbowl.com/2009/05/zack-attack-the-story-behind-the-mixx-baby/feed/ http://mixxingbowl.com/2009/05/zack-attack-the-story-behind-the-mixx-baby/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mixxingbowl/~3/tPcAyrxKPg0/ http://mixxingbowl.com/2009/05/meet-the-super-mixxers-brettfarve/#comments Fri, 08 May 2009 13:22:19 +0000 SilentJay74 http://mixxingbowl.com/?p=278

No, no, not the real Brett Favre. This gorgeous lady is Mrs. Andrea Schultz from Wisconsin. Andrea has been using the Brett Favre handle on Mixx as her and her husband are big Green Bay Packer fans as you can tell from the above picture.  I have enjoyed the conversations and comments with Andrea on Mixx.com since she has joined. She always submits great content and comments. Her actions and community involvement on Mixx shot her to Super Mixxer status rather quickly, which is why I think we should all get to know more about her.

Where are you from?

I grew up outside a really small town in Northern Wisconsin, Wittenberg, population 1,101. I now live in a little bigger town about an hour south. I’m definitely a Wisconsin girl through and through!

What do you do for a living?

I work in search engine marketing.  Yeah I know, something social communities don’t care for.  But Mixx is something I do to keep the insanity in check.  Promotion of clients is something I steer away from.   Mixx is way too much fun for that. It’s always interesting to watch the spammers on Mixx though.

Where does your Mixx name come from?

I am a huge Brett Favre fan, I mean all Packer fans pretty much were, up until the recent events.  Being a loyal Cheesehead, the latest rumors that Favre may become a Viking are really stabbing Packer Backers right in the hearts!  I can’t forget what he did for the Packers, so I’m still a fan.  I would be devastated if he does in fact become a Viking though!  That’s just as bad as becoming a Bear!  It’s like if Jeter joined the Red Sox!  Ahh!  Nooo! Stop!

What are your interests?

Sports in general – Football (Packers), NASCAR (Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch and anyone beating Hendrick drivers), baseball (New York Yankees - don’t ask me how that happened), WWE Wrestling (it’s fake, I know), crime related TV shows and putzing on the Internet.  I also have a houseplant care blog that’s doing better than I ever imagined and just started a new drink reviews Web site that’s still a major work in progress.  I like to keep busy!

What is in the “Your Mixx” section?

A little bit of everything.   Sports, Breaking News, a couple of my Groups, Tech News.  I love that I can come to Mixx and get such a cross section of information.

What do you like most about Mixx?

The community itself.  Everyone for the most part is laid back and enjoys a little humor. Reading the comments is one of my favorite ways to spend some time.  Though they can get so entertaining that I can get a little carried away and spend TOO much time on them! J

Advice for new Mixxers?

Get to know Mixx first by contributing and reading stories.  Get a feel for it.  Once you get the basics down you realize all the potential and interactivity the Mixx community has to offer.  Don’t use Mixx for anything other than what it was meant for.  Share interesting news stories, get to know other Mixxers through their comments, network with those you find interesting.  Don’t spam Mixx, I’ll report you!

Anything you want everyone else to know about you?

I was at the 2007 Divisional Playoff game, the Snow Bowl at Lambeau Field between the Packers and the Seahawks.  I’ve been fortunate to have gone to many games at Lambeau but nothing was more amazing than that game.  On a side note, I’m number 68, 545 on the Packer Season Ticket waiting list.  I’ve moved up about 1000 spots in 8 years.  Maybe my kids’ kids will get the tickets someday.

What can someone say about Brad, except…this cat is all over the place.His interests seem to vary on Mixx and that’s what makes him one of the most well rounded Super Mixxers around. From celebrity gossip to Vaginas with teeth you can find Brad0022 almost anywhere on Mixx.com.  So let’s find out a little more about Brad, and what makes him tick…

Where are you from?
In Montgomery, Ala. and currently reside. Yes that Montgomery. The one where Luther Leonidas Hill, M. D. was the first surgeon to successfully suture the human heart in 1902. And some various other historic events  such as the DC Snipers, they tried to rob a liquor store here. Oh yea Civil Rights, Wright Brothers, Civil War, etc.

I have a love/hate relationship with this city.

What do you do for a living?
I work at a design agency and do some freelance design.

How did you choose your Mixx handle?
No profound answer just a lazy whatever name. I couldnt really think of a good creative name so I just used this. Yea that’s lame but Im not as creative with words as I am with visual arts.

What are your interests?
Finding good music new and old, going to shows (recently saw and hung out with Ninja Sonik, MC Chris, Starf***r, etc.), arts, graphic design, learning about history, hiking and camping (recently backpacked a few miles at Cohutta National Wilderness in North Central Georgia), photography (just a hobby now, still learning, using a Sony Alpha 100), hanging out with good friends, movies, TV (Rescue Me, Delocated, etc.).  Reading tech blogs, listening to some tech podcast. Gotta keep up. Listening music podcast mostly Gargepunk.com podcast and KEXP.org net radio to keep up with music. Screwing around with my Acer Aspire One, just replaced the SSD with a hard drive, installed a WiFi card and put OS X on it. Now its useful. Sorry Linux fans, I gave it a try.

My work is at http://brad-jackson.com/
blog is at p://b-rad.posterous.com/

What is in “YOUR MIXX”?
I wont front here. I do not use my Mixx page much at all. I simply use Mixx via my email. I subscribe to great Mixxers and sift through the Mixx shares, then find the ones that peak my interest, catch my attention or make me laugh. I guess email is my main internet app so I do the same for my Posterous blog post. I try to bypass the website and just check other users post via my email. Then go to the site to respond. I’m knee deep in email. I do the same for twitter and other blogs. I use apps so I stay away from the main sites.

Who do you idolize?

I don’t necessarily idolize anyone but look up and admire it would be my best friend Bryan Carter. He has shown me how to be better designer, person, be more responsible. Spencer Moody, lead singer for the Murder City Devils (also Dead Low Tide, John and Spencer Booze Explosion). Amazing voice and cool guy.

What do you like most about Mixx.com?
There are lot of things. No one element or feature the talk about. I love the close knit community feeling. You can get to know the members more easily. Nice friendly user base. Also I love the constant evolution and updating. The creators and staff are very in tune with the users’ needs and take pride in the Mixx. It’s not just some money making scheme of a social site. You never feel stuck with how Mixx currently looks, acts or feels. If there are issues or features that could be fixed or added, they are on top of it quickly for most needs.

Also there is always great content and variety of it. Case in point, I was laid off earlier this year and I found such great info about tips and info for laid off individuals that I would have never found otherwise. Obviously you cannot read every blog, news report, listen to very podcast so Mixx helps a whole lot.

Any advice for new Mixxers?
When I first started was a little overwhelmed. I was kinda slow at first but I read about Mixx and how to use it. If you need to, use the links at the bottom of the page in blue. Take the Tour, check out the Mixx Lounge to follow the top Mixxers. Message them with questions and concerns. They wont bite. I will give you a shortcut, follow McCaffertyHimself,  kat136, SilentJay74, katharinec, BennyGreenberg and cGt2099.

Mixx what you are interested in and also mix it up with some variety. Also, please don’t submit the same thing others have submitted already. Mixx sometimes doesn’t catch it but when it does, share their submission.

In the third installment of our “Meet the Super Mixxers” series, I had to go with my man Tau_Zero. Our forums on the bowl are generally full of hilarity and good times. Sometimes a ton of seriousness as well. Let’s just say the first few forums posts by Tau REALLY got our attention. He has excellent submissions and is a real laid back, light-hearted guy.

Where are you from?
I was born and bred in the great state of New Jersey. Currently I live in Central (yes, it does exist), where it’s not overrun by NYCers or South Jersey hicks. Contrary to popular belief, NJ is not all industrial parks and guidos.
Where does your handle come from?
My high school physics teacher was very enthusiastic and absolutely loved the subject. Being a huge nerd, he would tell us of good science fiction books, movies, and whatnot. “Tau Zero” by Poul Anderson was one of them. Essentially, their starship drive is stuck in ‘accelerate.’ As they begin to approach the speed of light, they must deal with the relativistic effects and what it means for them as people. “Tau Zero” also sounds cool.

What are your interests?
I have a passion for science (real science, no psychology or anything :P) and technology, always learning, experimenting, building, and tinkering. I’m also an avid outdoorsman, whether it’s a walk with my camera in the park or a 34 mile camping-kayak trip. I like good conversation, but from what I see around me, it’s a dying art in the general public.

What are you studying in school?
After they rejected my proposal for Awesomology, I settled for Chemical Engineering with a minor in Philosophy. We design separation modules, analyze heat and solute convection/diffusion, et cetera, while poking fun at Civil Engies and Chemists. Philosophy is great mental weight training (although they need to stop pretending they know science).

What’s in Your Mixx?
In order of appearance: Breaking News, Tech News, Science News, and my two communities - “The Illustrious Macbook” and “The Akashic Record”.

How that new Mac Book working for ya?
It’s awesome. Took a bit of getting used to coming from my 15″ Pro, but I like the change. Lighter, cooler, awesome keyboard. The huge multitouch trackpad is the absolute best, but there’s a slight learning curve.

Advice for new Mixxers?
Find a balance between lurking and contributing. It’s important to get a feel for the community, but even more important to become part of it. Start out participating a lot in comment discussions, send some mixx messages to people that interest you, and go slow with making submissions at first, critically evaluating them. You want to establish who you are in the community and what you’re about before you think about loosening the tie and sharing some LOLCats.

Who are your Heros?
Nikola Tesla, George Carlin, Albert Einstein, and of course my parents

Anything else you would like people to know?
I don’t tolerate disrespect or arrogance. I like my tea with milk and sugar. I wear Chuck Taylor’s all the time. And for the ladies, I’m single.}

Meet Super Mixxer YankeeJim. I have to say the day that Jim came to Mixx, the lot of us were highly impressed with his comments and his views.  He grabbed our attention right away and we instantly knew he would fit right in. Jim is an extremely brilliant man with a passion for poetry, writing, and painting. If you are looking for a highly intelligent debate or discussion, look no further than Jim.

We had a few questions for Jim, and he was more than happy to answer:

Our very first SuperMixxer in the Meet the Super Mixxers series is our own Georgia Peach Kat136.

Kat is a very charming lady to get to know, and it has been a joy to meet her on Mixx.com .  She joined our forums on Mixxingbowl.com and made a great impression. Her submissions are carefully selected and she wastes no time commenting on submissions that are important to her. Her views are highly respected among her peers and she cares deeply for the Mixx community.

When not on Mixx Kat is a Copywriter and a Proof reader. In her own words “I basically turn Spanglish into English.”

Kat is a Southern Belle who claims to have never dated any of her cousins.

Her Pet Cause: Food Banks

She can both read and write and also cipher a little.

She has all her teeth.

She gets lots of “hot Chick” submission shares and feels morally obligated to judge them.

She can not stand Lionel Hutz.

You can find Kat on Mixx.com and on the Mixxingbowl forums.

One of the most important tools we have been given is, unlimited reporting. Here is the reason why, Mixx.com administrator cannot be everywhere at once. Nor can they see 100% of the material being submitted to Mixx. SuperMixxers play a key roll here, if we see something off color, violates TOS or anything completely unacceptable, we report it.

Here is where my anti bury brigade proof comes in, SuperMixxers do not select thier own kind. This is done via algorithm. Since we do not know the algo, and we have no say, we are not all aligned. I have had issues and words with other SuperMixxers in the past so there:-P.

Now though, I am calling on every SuperMixxer, and PowerMixxer to step up to the plate. Report, report, report! If you notice a submission that is down right, stolen, porn, or anything that violate TOS report it. If you suspect a voting ring, report it. The only way we can protect our community is to use the tools given to us.

So mount up, and clean house.