Systems Overload

2011 Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 09:14:00 +0000

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and welcome to The 2011 Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival . I've enjoyed this time of year for most of my life and have lots of wonderful memories of the time that I have spend with family and friends I hope that everyone will be able to share the holidays with family, friends, and other loved ones. The last couple of years have been really busy me and I haven't been able to post near as often as I'd have liked nor publish as many of these and my other carnivals but I really wanted to get out at least one edition this year, to let you know that I still have the holiday spirit and would love to share some with all of you.

When I started the Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival the idea was to share stories, traditions, decoration ideas, gift ideas, about Christmas, Hanukkah, and other holidays celebrated this time of year. I remember as a kid that the local telephone company had a program where you could call and every day they would describe how Christmas was celebrated in different parts of the world. It was so interesting to hear about the traditions and customs of people around the world and that something like Christmas could be celebrated in so many different ways. Even in our own neighborhoods we all celebrate differently than our neighbors and in our own special ways.

I'm glad that you've taken time out of your busy holiday schedule to spend a little of it with us!

Decoration

Kerry presents How to Decorate Your Dining Table for Thanksgiving posted at Interior Design Info.

Kerry presents How to Decorate Your Dining Table for Christmas posted at Interior Design Info.

urbanchristmas presents Creating a Christmas Village posted at urbanchristmas decorating ideas.

Gift Ideas

Bill Smith presents 5 Awesome Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas posted at Christmas 2010 Shop.

SteveR presents What to Buy for Christmas 2011 | Christmas 2010 Shop posted at Christmas 2010 Shop.

Jennifer Saksa presents Give A Gift of Memories posted at Do More With Software.

Travel

There are lots of travelers this time of year, people trying desparately to be with people they care about, to find their "White Christmas" or a warmer Christmas, or just to escape. Who knows maybe you've wanted to visit New York City at Christmas....

Jacqueline presents Scarborough - the city by the sea. posted at Footprints in the sand.

Andy Hayes presents Christmas Travel Tips: Why Travel for Christmas? posted at Travel for Christmas.

Bill Smith presents 10 Reasons to Visit New York City at Christmas posted at Christmas 2010 Shop.

Eric Nicolas presents Aug 15, NIAGARA ON THE LAKE HOTELS posted at Niagara Falls Blog at NiagaraFallsGetawayGuide.

Eric Nicholas presents Jul 16, TOP NIAGARA WINERIES AND THE JOYS OF BICYCLING posted at Niagara Falls Blog of NiagaraFallsGetawayGuide.

Jeet presents Stop at Devimane on The Way to Murudeshwar posted at TravelingBeats.

That concludes the The Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival for this year. Submit your blog article to the next edition of The Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival next year using our carnival submission form. Past and future editions can be found on our blog carnival index page. I hope that you've enjoyed this edition and we look forward to your next visit. Feel free to submit an article, give us your comments, and spread the Holiday Spirit to others. Look for The Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival to return around Thanksgiving 2012. Be sure to check out our other blog carnivals as well as our other posts. Happy Holidays everyone and I hope that 2012 is a great year for you and your family.

Photo credit: Picture taken of our dog Hobbit shortly before his first Christmas in 2008.

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Blog Action Day 2011- World Food Day

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 04:52:00 +0000

Welcome to Blog Action Day 2011, where the theme this year is food. There are a few things in this life that have such a universal impact and application as food. Everyone needs food to survive regardless of your nationality or religion, regardless if you're rich or poor, regardless if you're single or have a family to raise, food is something that touches is all daily. For this reason, the people at Blog Action Day, have selected a wonderful topic for this year's event. This year's event will happen along with World Food Day. I thought that I'd touch on several of the suggested topics that were suggested for the event.

I've been involved in Blog Action Day since 2007 and really like being part of a blogger community that can come together yearly on a single subject to bring awareness to that subject. This year Blog Action Day is expected to involve more that 2,250 bloggers from over 100 countries and since 2007 more than 10,000 bloggers have participated.

What is your favorite food? It doesn't matter who you are, you're bound to have a favorite food, dish, or recipe. For many of us there are some wonderful (and sometimes not wonerful memories) associated with our favorite food. Maybe your favorite food is your mom's meatloaf or that cherry cobbler that your grandma used to make, or it might just be the new recipe that you're planning for today or the next thing that you're going to cook. What is your favorite food?

Depending upon when and where you've grown up (or are growing up), you've probably heard that there are straving people in Africa. This might have been used by your parents as a tactic to get you finish eating everything on your plate (or at least eat more of what is on your plate). There have been lots of droughts and famine thoughout the years and Africa has certainly plagued by a lot of them. I'm sure that many of you have often wondered what you could do to help out the people in areas of the world that are afflicted by famines and droughts. You may have even made donations to organizations helping in this area or given your time, certainly there is lots of work to be done in this area.

Are you organic in your food consumption? Everyday more and more people are eating more and more organic foods. There is more and more of an effort to grow our own food or buy food from local farmers that grow food organically. More and more people are wanting to get away from food that is produced with chemicals, pesticides, and a host of unnatural and unhealthy things that can do all kinds of things to our bodies that are not even fully studied or understood today. The expression that you are what you eat comes to mind.

Do you find yourself eating a lot of "fast food" or do you eat more "slow food"? While it is easy to assume that everyone knows what fast food is, in many parts of the world there is no McDonalds or even a local supermarket with perpared food that you can eat immediately, heat in the microwave, or cook rather easily in the microwave. People that love to cook will likely cook more of their own meals and savor the process of making their meals. People that have decided to live healthier lifestyles and have made eating more healthy a priority will have more "slow food". With the hustle and bustle of many of our lifestyles, there are plenty of people that don't have the time to sit down to a meal at their home and will grab something on the run. How much slow food do you eat?

What is the environmental impact of the food that you eat? You might have heard about your carbon footprint, or how much carbon dioxide is created as a result of things that you do and choices that you make but have you given any thought to the food choices that you make? The Blog Action Day website estimates that it takes 24 liters of water to produce just a single hamburger and that it would take 19.9 billion liters of water to make just one hamburger for every person in Europe. There are plenty of other environmental impacts based on our food choices but this an more obvious one that is easily understood.

Are you a vegan, vegetarian, or meat eater? There are variety of differing lifestyles that people are living. Some people have food alergies and shy away from certain foods or have to take some kind of pill or medicine to be able to eat the foods that they're alergic too. Some people don't eat dairy, others might not eat beef or red meat, some might only eat meat occassionally, while others eat meat every day. Many of the world religions have guidelines and rules for what we can and cannot eat as well as all of our personal tastes and beliefs on this.

It is projected that there will be 9 billion people on our planet in 2050. How will we be able to feed all of these people? How will our rapid population growth effect world and local politics and the use of our planet's limited resources? We don't seem to be doing so well in feeding the people we have now, what kind of planning our we doing to cope with so many people on this planet?

Everyday lots of food is wasted and thrown away. There are lots of reasons for this and lots of justifcations that are made but there is a lot of food that is thrown away and not benefiting the people that could really use it. There are health regulations in place that restuarants and stores have to follow about food that isn't eaten or sold. At the household level there is plenty of food that goes bad because we haven't eaten it in time or that we just throw away.

You don't need to watch too nuch television or read too many articles before you stumble upon some story about malnutrition in our society today. You hear more and more about the problems of obsesity in American and the various health related problems of diabeties, heart disease, cholesterol, and high blood pressure. This is often attributed to lifestyle choices, but malnutriion in much of the world is not a lifestyle choice made by the people themselves but forced on them by a variety of circumstances. The local soil may not support very many crops, they may not have access to clean and safe water, the people might not be able to afford to buy enough land to grown their own food, or any other number of legitimate reasons that they're not able to properly feed themselves (not to mention famine and war).

More and more people are growing their own food. This gives them more control over how the food is grown, what chemicals and pesticides are used in their growth, and there is a satisfaction that comes from growing what you're putting on your plate. There are plenty of challenges with growing your own food, such as having enough space to grow what you want to grow and having the right conditions to grow what you want to grow. Many crops take weeks and months to grow to the point where they can be eaten which requires additional planning so that you have enough to eat or can supplement what you grow. Learning how to grow what you need takes time and is a learning experience. Lots of people have gardens just for the fun if it with no real plan for this to be their main source of food, they enjoy their connection with nature.

What is the best way to farm food? Over the years many of the family farms have been sold or foreclosed and less and less land is being used to produce food. Many of he bigger farms become corporations that are only looking after their bottom line and not necessarily the health and well being of the general public. If proper crop rotation is not done, the land is striped of valuable minerals needed to grow crops and the soil can be damaged and the types of crops that can be produced becomes more and more limited. When farms use hazaordus chemicals and pesticides in the production of food, much of these chemicals and pesticides are carried off into the local water ecosystem and end up in our rivers, lakes, and oceans. More and more farms are factory farms where animals are gaged up in small areas and never really get to move around. In some cases is is possible to buy "free range" products, meaning that the animals are able to move around outside of small cages. There have been a few cases of mad cow disease and other scares that make you question of ability of the regulatory agencies to do the job that they've been tasked with. Cutting the budgets of these agenices doesn't make any of us really safer.

What does food mean to your culture? I've lived in America for much of my life as well as having lived in Germany for a few years, so I've been able to experience what food means in two different cultures. I know how Germans and Americans like to grill in the Summer and when the weather permits. With so much of what we do, food is often playing a central or key role. There was a time when a lot happened at the dinner table what does food mean to your culture?

I hope that you'll think about some of the things that I've written, check out the Blog Action Day website and some of the other posts that are part of this year's event. There are lots of ways that you can participate in this year's event and make an impact that goes beyond today. With some major elections going on next year in the U.S. we have the chance to let the candidates know that food does matter to everyone.

You might also want to check out:

My Blog Action Day posts from 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010.
*Note last year I did a series of posts for Blog Action Day including an experiement with Blip.fm, so the post mentioned for 2010 is a recap and includes links to what I did last year.

Photo credit:
"Harvest" courtesy of djackson44.

2011 Frankfurt Autoshow

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 05:45:00 +0000

2011 IAA- the Frankfurt Autoshow

View more presentations from Darryl Heron.

The 2011 IAA (Frankfurt Autoshow) is now open. I spent two days last week wondering around checking out what was new. I decided to put together a presentaton of SlideShare (shown above), so that you can see more pictures and just to see if this can enhanse the experience of more traditional blog posts.

So Much to See...

While my presenation gives you quite a taste about the show, there is still so much more to see and experience, if you go there. I took over 1000 pictures which I uploaded to three albums in Flickr, so you can see the vehicles from the presentation from various angles as well as seeing lots of other exciting vehicles that aren't pictured in the presenation. Most every automaker selling cars and trucks in Europe as well as several suppliers and aftermarket companies have presence at the autoshow. There are high end luxary vehicles from Rolls Royce and Bentley. There are the usual Italian suspects of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Masserati, Alfa Romeo, and Lancia.

Customization, Customization, Customization...

There is more and more vehicle customization. Masonary, Techart, Hammon, and Alpine all offer a wide varitey of customizations for high end cars and trucks, while Brabus offers the ability to make your Smart standout without draining your bank account. Brabus had 3 new models on display including a Supercar, a hybrid, and all elecric vehicle.

Hybrids and Electric Cars...

At the 2009 IAA, I was impressed by the number hybrids and electric vehicles on display. This year there are way more of these types of vehilces avialable and more of them are actual production models that you can actully buy, so there is a lot of progress being made here.

Mobility and Social Media...

Many of the automakers are planning and doing some interesting things in the world of Mobility and Social Media. In my experience Mobility was an effort by some automakers to make their vehicles more accessable for handicapted and people with disabilities, now the term is more about allowing customers the ability to have a mobile life style that includes doing all kinds of thing from inside and outside of your car. There are more and more plans to use the cloud so that users can access their data at home, on the go, and now in your car. More and more companies are seeing that they can gain more customers and keep them by offering more and more non-traditional services around cars and trucks. Ford has the Evos on display, which is their social car and shows many of the things that Ford is currently working on in this space and many of the ideas and features are likely to make their way into production in the near future. When I talked to a woman at TomTom, she told me how TomTom developed an iPad app based on feedback and requests from TomTom users. More and more TomTom devices are being sold as standard and otpional equipment with more and more models. Some TomTom devices allow you to Tweet at various parts of your trip and to announce when you arrive. There will be more and more possibilities to interact with family and friends in ways that were only imgination a few years ago.

I had a blast at the Frankfurt Autoshow and could have spend several more days just looking around. There are tons of interesting concept cars giving us a peak into the near future as well as lots of vintage cars and old timers which can be our window to the past. Its too bad the autoshow is only every other year, so if you miss it this time you'll have to wait till 2013! I hope you get a chance to go and if not, why not check out my pictures on Flickr.

My Flickr albums can be found at...

2011 IAA Frankfurt
2011 IAA Frankfurt part 2
2011 IAA Frankfurt part 3

My post from the 2009 show can be found here.

It All Ends Here

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 07:44:00 +0000

After years of waiting, the last Harry Potter film has been released. There has been a big promotional campaign that said "It All Ends Here". Aside from Warner Brothers and the people behind the film wanting to get people all excited about the movie and wanting to see the final Potter film, you have to ask does it really all end here?

Like lots of other people, I recently watched the last Harry Potter film. Although I would have loved to have seen the film with all the fans at LeakyCon (a convention behing held for Harry Potter fans in Orlando, Florida this year) or some other large fan viewing, my viewing at a local theather with 3D is the experience that I had. Like many Harry Pottter fans, I've been eagerly awaiting the last fim, but have also been saddenned to think that this is the last Harry Potter film and that there will be no more. No one likes to see the end of something that has touched them in so many ways. For many of us fans, the characters of Harry, Ron, Hermione, and countless others have transended the written page and become a part of our lives. It is sad to think that there will be no more "new" adventures with the trio.

I was in Paris last week on a business trip and I was amazed at all of the Harry Potter posters that you could find every where in and on the Metro. While saying that Harry Potter took over the Metro might be a bit exagerated, is did seem that every time I turned around that Harry and Voldemort were there, heightening the anticipation for the final film. It will be interesting to see how well the "It All Ends Here" campaign really did and how many people went to see the film because of it. I wonder how many people that are new to Harry Potter will see the movie and how many fans will have realized that the last film is out because of the campaign or how many would have gone to see the movie even without the campaign?

The Harry Potter series and franchise has done so many things. The book series is largely responsible with encouraging tons of kids to read. I'd be curious to know how many kinds really got into reading because of Harry Potter. The series has been an elixiar for the whole fantasy world. It has encougaged countless authors to write fantasy (and non-fantasy as well). While I can't definatively say that there is more fantasy out there because of Harry Potter, I can say that Harry Potter has engaged the fantasy and imagination of generations including millions of readers and viewers of the movies. I believe that it has been largely resonponsible for the reimmergence of much of the fantasy world that is doing well today. Would Twilight and the vampire world be what they are today if the Harry Potter influence wasn't there? The book and film series have shown movie makers and book publishers that there is a huge market for fantasy and openned up the door for many of the projects that we've seen in the fantasy world in the past few years.

While fandoms are not a new thing, Harry Potter has inspired fans to do all kinds of things. A few years ago I stumbled upon a podcast called Harry Potter Prognotications and really enjoyed hearing Greg and Penny speculate on how Harry Potter would end. Later on I discovered MuggleCast, a podcast that was started in 2005 and has over 200 episodes. MuggleCast is the podcast for the fansite MuggleNet. A few years ago the Harry Potter convention was born, and they've been hosted yearly in locations like Dallas, San Francisco, and in the last two years they've been hosted in Orlando. Last year's convention coinsided with the openning of the Wizzarding World of Harry Potter theme park. Midnight Harry Potter book releases became leggendary. I even bought one of the books at a release in 2005 myself.

For me, another interesting aspect has been the whole social media aspect of Harry Potter. The first Harry Potter book was published before many of the social media sites that many of us are familar with but the series and franchise has accepted and used social media like no other book and social media has embraced Harry Potter like few other books and series. All of the podcasts that I mentoned above are using Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, and a host of other social media sites and tools to let their listeners and readers be a part of the whole experience. Harry Potter has also become an example of how other books can use social media to market and greatly enhance the experience for their readers and fans. It has been quite an experiment to see the kind of communities that have emerged. I wonder how many Harry Potter groups have been set up in Facebook or how many tweats have been Harry Potter related.

As you can see I have embraced Harry Potter and am glad to see that J.K. Rowling has recently announced PotterMore. This really excites me because of the world of possiblities that I can imagine. She'll be releasing all of the books as ebooks and there'll be a whole lot of content released there which will provide all kinds of back story and information that fans will love to know about. Fans will be able to read along with PotterMore from the beginning. The ebooks and PotterMore will allow a totally new experience for readers that are new to Harry Potter and will captivate new generations of fans while quentching the thirst of fans of Harry Potter that have already read the books. I like that J.K. Rowling announced this before the last movie was released, so this is a way for fans to not be as sad as they otherwise would have been, had the movie really been the end of Harry Potter.

So while this might be the last Harry Potter move, this by no means the end of Harry Potter to all the old fans and new fans. The fans look forward to seeing the last film but to also seeing what wonderful things J.K. Rowling has in store for us at PotterMore.

Photo credit: Above is a picture that I took of one of the many Harry Potter promototional posters on the Metro during my recent visit to Paris.

Thank You, Oprah!

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Thu, 26 May 2011 23:08:00 +0000

After 25 years, the last episode of the Oprah Winfrey show aired in American on Wednesday. 25 years is a long time doing anything, but 25 years in television is quite something. I just wanted to take a few moments to tell Oprah thank you.

I knew the the end of her show was coming but somehow I had it in my mind that the show was going to end in September, so I was a little caught off guard when I noticed at article on Mashable asking what was next for Oprah Winfrey. Since I'm not living in the U.S., I managed to avoid the media blitz that lots of people were tired of I'm sure! If you're tired of hearing about the end of the Oprah show, then by all means feel free to skip this article.

When thinking of the end of the Oprah show, I had to think back to the last Tonight Show featuring Johnny Carson. I'm sure that lots of people will make the comparision because both ended their long running television shows without guests and while some people will probably say that Johnny was better, I have to say that Oprah and Johnny are and were two class acts. In a world where so much is fake they both are genuine and have reached heights that few people will ever reach and that most people can only dream about.

The Oprah Book Club got to be so big that being mentioned on the Oprah show was often enough to get a book into the New York Times best seller list. I included Oprah in 100+ People That I Want to Meet and still I would like to meet her. When she started tweeting, it was certainly a high point for Twitter and you have to wonder how many people checked it out just because Oprah was doing it. How many people have forgotten that Oprah and Whoopie Goldberg were an intergal part of "The Color Purple"?

How many people has Oprah inspired to improve their lives and to chase after that impossible dream? How many people has she helped over the years on her show? Although, Oprah said "I won’t say, 'goodbye.’ I’ll just say, 'until we meet again.’", this was goodbye to the Oprah show. I wish her the best with her future projects and hope that she'll keep making a difference in the world in the lives of millions of people that she'll never meet. Oprah, for all that you've done and continue to do, I'd like to thank you.

Below are some other articles that you might want to read about Oprah and the final show.

"Oprah's tearful final episode"
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/oprah+tearful+final+epsisode/4841920/story.html

"Why did Oprah matter? Will she ever again, on her OWN?"
http://watching-tv.ew.com/2011/05/25/oprah-winfrey-show-25-own/

"LIVE BLOG: Oprah Winfrey's Last Show"
http://blogs.abcnews.com/screenshots/2011/05/live-blog-oprah-winfreys-last-show.html

"Live Blogging Oprah's Final Show"
http://www.aoltv.com/2011/05/25/live-blogging-oprahs-final-show/

"Oprah Farewell Gets Spiritual"
http://adweek.com/news/television/oprah-farewell-gets-spiritual-132010

"Oprah. Uma. Uma. Oprah."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-BJTE56I14

"The best Oprah emails to Opera (the browser)"
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/25/the-best-oprah-email.html

Note: The video clip above came from "The faithful bid Oprah farewell"
http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2011/05/26/local_fans_gather_to_say_goodbye_to_their_best_friend_oprah/

Osama Is Dead, Now What?

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Sun, 22 May 2011 10:01:00 +0000

It has been a few weeks since President Obama announced that a mission had been conducted that killed Osama Bin Laden. This has raised lots of questions, some of which won't be asked, but probably should.

Disclaimer: I try to stay away from political dicussions (at least within my blogs) for a variety of reasons. One of the biggest reasons being that you're likely to offend someone and I'd rather work postively and not destructively, I want my audience to grow and readers to come back often. I'd really like to stay away from the hatred and intestity that can come from discussion of Osama Bin Laden and what he has done to America and the world, but I thought that I did have something that I wanted to say. If you don't wish to read this and would like to read more of the "normal" content usually published here then please feel free to skip over this, if you do feel like reading further, than you're welcome to do so!

I tend to believe that there are good people in most walks of life and that if we work together and have the right people working on it, that humanity can solve some difficult and challenging problems. For this reason I find Osama Bin Laden and what he has done to us just heart wrentching. Now that he is gone, I hope that we can look at this and I'll be discussing this throughout this article.

There has been a lot said about how American was celebrating his death and I've seen some good articles on how we should feel now that he is dead. Further down in this post I'll tell you where you can find some of these articles. There have been some truly "evil" people throughout the history of mankind and there is little doubt that the world is a better place without him planning attacks and murdering people that didn't do anything to him. It is good that the world is rid of his hatred and contempt for humanity.

September 11th Was a Defining Point in History

Septembert 11th was one of those defining periods in the history of mankind. The world that we lived in before it happend is totally different than the world that has come afterwards. No matter how hard we try, we can not return to the pre- September 11th world, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I believe that we should look at what has happened since September 11th and look at where things were prior to this and where we want to go and decide how we want to get there. With Osam Bin Laden being gone, we now have a good chance to do this and we should take advantage of this opportunity.

Modern Day Crusades

One of the biggest outcomes of the September 11th has been the War on Terror. With the War on Terror there has also been a widdening of the gap between Christian-leaning people and Muslims. Osama Bin Ladden has been able to fan the flames of hatred and distrust. I hate to see one person or a handful of people cast such a awful light on any particular religion. I've had concerns that the whole War on Terror could very well lead to a modern Crusade pitting Christians against Muslims and pitting other groups against each other. There has been enough genocide in our histroy and we certainly don't need any one group trying to exterminate another. We need to find more ways to unite people than to divide them.

Costs of Wars in Afganistan and Iraq

In the aftermath of September 11th, wars in Afganistan and Iraq have been fought. The "costs" of these have been very high on America and the world. Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes have estimated the cost of the Iraq War alone being $3 Trillon in the book "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict". As their book was published in 2008, I'm not sure how time since then has effected the cost, but I've read accounts that make that figure seem very conservative. In addition to putting a monetary figure on the costs, there are lives that have been lost (troops, combatants, and civilians), the families that have been torn apart, and the large number of disabilities and amputations faced by our service peoples. In Afganistan and Iraq the American military have used a lot of national guard personnel, which means that these people have not been able to contribute to society via their regular jobs during their tour(s) of duty. There is also the opportunity costs (I'm sure the we can all think of a lot of ways the money could have been better spent!). So many people have been taken in the prime of their lives, what might these people have contributed to society within their lifetimes? What about the children, grandchildren, and future generations that wont't exist because of the deaths of those that have lost their lives in the War on Terror? What kind of talent won't the world have because of these wars? What might all of these people accomplished? The list of other costs can become quiet extensive.

The Post Cold War World

The Cold War ended and the world should have taken the time to think about what dirrection we wanted to go. We should have done some serious evaluation of what we've done during the Cold War, and thought about what kind of adjustments we need to make. The Soviet Union no longer wanted to "bury" us, in fact they no longer exist! The whole Cold War mentality needed to be dropped and/or changed. Institutions that were created or fundamentally changed because of the Cold War needed to be evaluated. Think of all the billions and trillions of dollars being spent in ways that don't make sense any longer! The way the world functioned during the Cold War wasn't necessarily be the best way to continue, how would the world function in the post Cold War world? America spent a ton of money arming itself with nuclear weapons and we now have what President Eisenhower referred to as the "military industrial complex", where it is in the interest of the companies that make all kinds of war-type machinery and associated supplies that the government feels the need to keep buying all that stuff. President Eisenhower was a great American five star general, so he is not someone that would be considered soft on the military. You should listen to his farewell address, you can find it on YouTube. It is hard to get a true picture of how much money is truly spent on Defense by America because it is hidden in several parts of the budget (if you can even find it listed in the budget at all) After several decades of the Cold War, America did not need to jump right into another proloned and endless war.

What Freedoms Have We Lost Since September 11th?

Dan Carlin did a really good episode of his Common Sense podcast where he talked about some of the freedoms that we've given up since September 11th. Think about having to take your shoes off or being frisked just to fly on a plane. The Bill of Rights certainly isn't the same as it was pre September 11th! The desire to be more secure and to have security is well on its way to being the next military industrial complex, with new threats always being around the corner. When you spend all that money on securiity, terrorists will look for other easier targets, and you've spent all that money (something that the terrorits probably wanted you to do anyways). How many people are on the various terror watch lists and how many of them are there by accident. This seems like a modern day witch hunt. What kind of things are our governments doing in the name of security and national interests, more transparency is needed to make sure that the powers of governments are not being abused.

War on (fill-in the blank)

The War on Terror is the latest in a series on unsuccessful "War on (fill-in the blank)". There has been a War on Drugs, War on Crime, and countless other "War on (fill-in the blank)". Have we ever really won any of them? There have been huge costs associated with them and in some (the War on Drugs in particular) we've seen more of our freedoms evaporate. There has to be a better approach than declaring a war on something. I'd like to see more use of the entrepaneur and pioneer spirits in combating the true problems at hand. Often the "War on (fill-in the blank) is only trying to address a symptom and not even getting at the root cause of the problem. Instead of fighting another "War on(fill-in the blank)" on Terrorism, we should try to get to the roots of what causes Terrorism. The definition of a terrorist really depends on who is defining it, in many cases we don't wish to address the real problem, so we just label a group of people terrorsts, but this doesn't really solve the problem and the list of terrorists gets bigger and bigger.

War on Terror

When is the War on Terror really over? Because a war on Terror is not like any traditional wars fought in the past where there is a clearly defined enemy living in a particular country or political state, there is always more terrorists coming out and the ability to get them all is not very realistic (or affordable given the ever expanding, uncontrollable deficit spending of the Federal and other goverments). I would argue that since Osama Bin Laden is not arround to lead the "other side", that we should end the whole war and the way that we've been fighting it. We should at least look at the approach that we've taken so far. Already, I've seen reports that name a successor to OBL, which makes me think that there will be a huge effort made to keep doing what we've been doing, but we cannot affort to keep doing what we've been doing. Perpetual war won't solve our problems, it will only bankrupt us, finanacally and morally.

The Arab Spring

It is encouraging to see what is being called the Arab Spring, Many of the people, in several Arab countries, have demostrated and expressed that it is time for change and that their authoritarin dictators are no longer wanted. Maybe, like the former Eastern Block countries were able to get rid of their oppressive authoritarian leaders, the Arab world will be able to do the same. Many of the dictators that have been in power during the Cold War and post Cold War period were supported because stability was wanted and they were seen as a good ally in the Cold War era. 20 and 30 years with the same president and is not democracy and is probably not what most people in those countries want. Promoting dictators who really aren't looking after their people and are only looking after their own personal interests is something that America and the rest of the world should really rethink.

What Can We Do?

Since the 5th Anniversary of September 11th, Project 2996 has been on a mission to celebrate the lives of the victims of September 11th. Every year starting with the 5th Anniversary, they encouraged people to post online tributes honoring the victims and the lives they led. I discovered them while I was researching a post that I did for the 6th anniversary of September 11th. I've participated in the project with posts I've written for the 7th, 8th, and 9th anniversaries. On of their main goals has been to see that there are tributes for each and every single victim. I'd love to see them reach this goal and hope that through their efforts (and the efforts of many others) that the world will have a better idea of who we lost on that tragic day.

Prepare New York

Recently I found and joined the social network Prepare New York. A newletter that I recently received from them stated that "Prepare New York is a coalition of New York based interfaith organizations including-Auburn Seminary and its Center for Multifaith Education, Interfaith Center of New York, Intersections International, Odyssey Networks, Quest, and Tanenbaum and its Religion and Diversity Education Program, who are committed to preparing New York City (and the nation) for the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 by promoting civil dialogue, education about religious pluralism, support for the Muslim community, and coordinating events on the day of the anniversary. September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and 9/11 Communities for Common Ground serve as advisers to the coalition." I've seen several posts refered to from their main page that discuss how we feel since Osama Bin Laden has died and how we should feel. It has certainly caused a wide range of thoughts and feelings on how we should feel and act. If you live in the New York/New Jersey area, any other area affected by September 11th, or just would like to see the world move in a postive direction "Post September 11th" and post Osama Bin Laden's death, I'd suggest checking out Prepare New York.

2012 Elections

In 2012 there will be all kinds of elections. Now would be a good time to let our "leaders" know that we don't want life to continue as it has since September 11th, that we want to see and end to the "War on Terrror". We should look for candidates that aren't going to only promote to continue to keep things the way that they have been. We should look for candidates that are thinking about the future. Who is running that really wants to build a world that our children and grandchildren can live happily in? Don't vote for candidates that are really only concerned with speaking out on behalf of their campaign contibutors. We need real leaders not just politicians that are "bought and paid for".

Since Osama Bin Ladden has died, I think that it is time to end the "War on Terror", declare "Mission Accomplished" and start healing the wounds that we've had since September 11th. I hope that we as a nation and the world will be able to get to the point again where we can have civilized discussions about topics that we might not agree on, without all the hatred and name calling that have come to be common place. I hope that we can once again care for other people, showing a respect for others instead of distrust and disregard. It is time build a proper post Cold War world that will be sustainable for generations to come. If we can do all of this, then we will really have something to celebrate. Osama Bin Ladden is gone, and so one of the most evil men in our history won't be around to plan and carry out further death and destruction.

Photo credit: Blue flowers courtesy of bertvthul.

Prince William Married Kate And I Passed the PMP!

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Sun, 01 May 2011 05:05:00 +0000

You might have been wondering where I've been the past couple of months? One of the biggest things that I've done has been studying for the PMP exam. On Friday Prince William married Kate and I passed the PMP. While much of the world was watching the pagentry of the royal wedding and the associated festivities, I was busy answering questions on the PMP exam. You can read more about this here.

The 2010 Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival 2nd Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 04:05:00 +0000

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and welcome to the Second Edition (and final edition) of The 2010 Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival (for this year). I'm glad that you've taken time out of your busy holiday schedule to spend a little of it with us!

For a lot of people this has been a hard year (maybe even the past few years) so many people will be happy to see it go and look forward to the next year with anticipation but now is a good time to also look back at the year and think about the good things that have happened (as well as the things that you might want to change). I've lost two uncles this years, so I'm reminded that all our lives on this planet are temporary and that we do need to let our loved ones know how much they mean to us.

I hope that you're able to spend the holidays with family and friends. Maybe you can even invite that lonely colleague that you know will be spending the holidays by him/herself to spend some of the holidays with you and your celebrations. Having been that colleague once in my life, I can tell you that you can sure make someone feel great if you invite them (even if it turns out that the already have plans and can't join you).

I've been happy with many of the submissions for this year's Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival and look forward to seeing all the great entries next year. My wife wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving this year within some of the holiday dishes she is preparing since I had to work on the American Thanksgiving this year (I have taken it off several times in the past) she wanted to make a pecan pie yesterday but had to settle for walnuts, but boy was it good! That reminds me that there were entries on Mexican food blogs and Pizza blogs. I'd love to see more recipes for those holiday favorites of yours. In the first issue this year there was an entry that talked about blogs on Kosher living, so hopefully I can learn a little more about Jewish living and I hope that next year we can learn more about Muslim and other holidays that we can include in the holiday spirit. It would be great if we can use this time of year to bring people closer together.

This year there are even more ways to celebrate the holidays. Globaljammerz.com is celebrating the holidays from December 1st right up till the new year breaking around the globe. They're holding a Happy Holidays event sponsored by the "If Music Be The Food Of Love....Play on!" group. Why not take a break from your holiday shopping and craziness and stop by? Have thoughts of a snow covered castle gone through your mind? Then maybe you might want to check out their "Castles of the World" group. Do you have a favorite holiday recipe, then why not share it with the Holiday Spirit and Globaljammez's "International Recipe Exchange" group?

Go grab a beverage of choice (warm or cold), enjoy the fire, and lets celebrate the holidays!

Big Cajun Man presents Gifts You Shouldn’t Get Your Kids (ever) posted at Canadian Personal Finance Blog, saying, "Some last minute gift ideas to completely MISS!"

Nancy Smith presents Advice On Choosing Ideal Child Gifts posted at Mothers Day 2009, saying, "Presents for kids are often obvious but at times you might need some extra ideas."

Kerry Fletcher presents How to decorate for a New Year's Eve party posted at Examiner.

Jennifer Miner presents Fun Things to Do NYC Christmas — The Vacation Gals posted at The Vacation Gals - Family travel, girlfriend getaways, romantic getaways, destinations, things to do, travel tips, saying, "We love to see our extended family every Christmas, so we always travel during the holidays. For anyone vacationing in New York City over Christmas, here are some of my favorite, fun, kid-friendly holiday activities in that city."

Steve presents Decorating for a Victorian Christmas Theme | Christmas 2010 Shop posted at Christmas 2010 Shop, saying, "Decorating in Victorian style is great for Christmas when you can afford the items."

MacKenna Stevens presents 39 Awesome Charities to Support This Holiday Season posted at Masters in Social Work, saying, "If you’re stumped for a gift to give loved ones who have everything they need (and then some), think about donating to a charity in their name this holiday season. Many charities have online access for donating and will mail you a small card or allow you to print out a flyer saying you’ve donated to them. Put this in a holiday card and give the gift of giving back to a cause you believe in."

Evelyn Dugan presents 15 Smart-Shopper Tips for Post-Holiday Shopping posted at Earn A Degree Online, saying, "Both online and in-store shopping offer additional markdowns the day after Christmas and well into January and February, so keep this guide handy to help you score during post-holiday shopping."

Tara Snyder presents 40 Tips for Doing All of Your Holiday Shopping Online posted at Online Training, saying, "The holiday season has arrived and stores are already blasting the Christmas tunes and giving us Black Friday-worthy deals in early November. While there’s a lot on your plate during the holidays, shopping for gifts doesn’t have to be one of them. You still have to do a little thinking and planning, but shopping online is worlds easier than trucking it out the store every time you realize you have someone else on your gift list."

Jaybot presents Xmas Holidays in Japan posted at Jaybot7 : Jason Surguine : Music : Audio : Design : Games, saying, "How I recently spent my Christmas holidays in Tokyo and Nagoya Japan. It's split into two parts, so you can choose which one"

Wise Bread presents 8 Gifts the Man in Your Life Really Wants posted at Wisebread.

Katie Sorene presents 7 Most Incredible Department Stores in the World posted at Travel Blog - Tripbase.

HtF presents How to Fix Up Your Christmas Tree to Keep It Fresh posted at How To Fix.

That concludes the final edition this year. Submit your blog article to the next edition of The Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival next year using our carnival submission form. Past and future editions can be found on our
blog carnival index page. I hope that you've enjoyed this edition and we look forward to your next visit. Feel free to submit an article, give us your comments, and spread the Holiday Spirit to others. Look for The Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival to return around Thanksgiving 2011. Be sure to check out our other blog carnivals as well as our other posts. Happy Holidays everyone and I hope that 2011 is a great year for you and your family.

Photo credit: "fireplace 2" courtesy of michalina.

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The 2010 Holiday Spirt Blog Carnival 1st Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:20:00 +0000

Welcome to the First Edition of The 2010 Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival. I've enjoyed this time of year for as long as I can remember. First there was all the excitement of the kid wondering what he'd get for Christmas and how much fun you could have in this time of year. Later on this time of year became more about connecting with family and friends and letting them know how much they meant to me. After becoming a parent there was of course the excitement of seeing the holidays through your childrens' eyes and getting all excited again. Over the course of The Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival, I hope that you'll join me in getting excited and spreading some holiday cheer. Two years when I chose the title for the blog carnival, I purposely choose Holiday Spirit because I didn't want to only focus on Christmas, and in fact I'd love to see some submissions on how other faiths celebrate holidays that are meaningful to them that occur this time of year. I'd love to hear how Jewish and Muslim people celebrate their holidays, it would be great if we can use this time of year to bring people closer together.

The first editon of the Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival for 2010 was delayed due to how unbelieveably busy I've been the past couple of months. There should be at least one or two more editions between now and Christmas.

This year there are even more ways to celebrate the holidays. Globaljammerz.com is celebrating the holidays from December 1st right up till the new year breaking around the globe. They're holding a Happy Holidays event sponsored by the "If Music Be The Food Of Love....Play on!" group. Why not take a break from your holiday shopping and craziness and stop by? Have thoughts of a snow covered castle gone through your mind? Then maybe you might want to check out their "Castles of the World" group. Do you have a favorite holiday recipe, then why not share it with the Holiday Spirit and Globaljammez's "International Recipe Exchange" group?

Without further adieau, let the holiday season begin!

Elizabeth Wright presents 50-Point Checklist To Perfect Your Holiday Hosting posted at Education Degrees.

Tim Dalton presents 50 Best Blogs for Kosher Living posted at Theology Degrees Online, saying "Keeping kosher is not always easy, but finding some support online can help enormously. Whether you already know lots about this lifestyle or are just starting out, you will need some kosher recipes, restaurant reviews, gift ideas, knowledge about food and wine, and much more..." I'd imagine that there are probably some good blogs there for people interested in finding out more about how Jewish people live.

Cindy Cullen presents Top 49 Mexican Cooking Blogs posted at Culinary Arts College, saying "Mexican food is delicious, but bringing the recipes to your own kitchen may be tricky. We all love hitting a Mexican restaurant, big or small, and noshing on enchiladas and fajitas and washing it all down with a margarita. These blogs will help you gather the right ingredients and perfect your technique when cooking up something spicy." I have fond memories of how the Tristan family always made Tamales for Christmas. I spent quite a few holidays with good friends in Dallas and think about them all often this time of year.

Cindy Cullen presents Top 24 Pizza Blogs posted at Culinary Arts College, saying "Nearly everyone, young and old, flock to the classic Italian dish that is accessible and easy to make at home. While we don’t all like the same toppings, learning more about pizza is something we all enjoy." A while back when visiting some friends that made a really neat pizza with apples and mustard, so how about a nice Christmas themed pizza?

Carrie Oakley presents 50 Time-Tested Recipes to Create the Perfect Thanksgiving Dinner posted at Online Colleges, saying "Thanksgiving brings memories of fun or horror, depending on who you’re talking to. If the job’s yours this year, check out this list of time-tested recipes that will be a hit with almost any crowd. While you can’t keep up with every guests’s eating habits or preferences, you can strive to create simple dishes that are full of flavor and easy to pull off without breaking a sweat in the kitchen..." Thanksgiving is behind us this year but lots of people make some of the Thanksgiving dishes for Christmas or maybe you can use this to get ready for next year.

Wise Bread presents 5 Rules for Planning Your Most Affordable Christmas Ever posted at Wise Bread. With Christmas being only days away don't let your Christmas shopping carry you away and take you beyond your budget.

Tash presents Christmas spirit of giving posted at Love Santa, saying "Christmas is about giving, not fancy wrappings and expensive gifts as such."

Hans Hallanger presents 22 Christmas Organizing Ideas for a less stressed holiday. posted at Organized Way Blog, saying " Ideas to help make the Christmas season be more organized, less stressful and more enjoyable."

Stretching the One Income Dollar presents Stretching the One Income Dollar: Christmas on a Shoestring posted at Stretching the One Income Dollar.

PT presents Christmas Gift Ideas Under $25 posted at PT Money, saying "A huge list of unique Christmas gift ideas under $25, perfect for a more frugal Christmas."

Wenchypoo presents The 12 Cyber-Scams of Christmas posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket. Watch out when you do your holiday shopping.

Wenchypoo presents The One Gift Card Worth Giving...and It's Free! posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket. A great and inexpensive gift idea.

Jerry Rogers presents 12 Great Gadget Blogs for the Smart Holiday Shopper posted at College Crunch.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of The Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past and future editions can be found on our
blog carnival index page. I hope that you've enjoyed this edition and we look forward to your next visit. Feel free to submit an article, give us your comments, and spread the Holiday Spirit to others.

Photo credit: "Snowman Ornament 1" courtesy of pronoya.

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John Lennon- IMAGINE

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 01:01:00 +0000

December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed in New York. I woke up the next morning and turned on the radio and was totally shocked to hear this. This was the first thing that I heard on this day that should have normally be a happy day for me, as it was my 14th birthday, but now it is really the only thing that I remember from that day. In a short period of time following John Lennon's murder, there were attempts on the the lives of the Pope and President Reagan (both unsuccessful). I wasn't arround when President Kennedy was assiginated, but I know that I was so shocked that someone would kill John Lennon and I think that people were probably as shocked when President Kennedy was killed.

In 1980, John released his "Double Fantasy" album. This marked his return after taking a few years off from the music world to be a stay at home father and raise Sean. The album signaled that he was back, it had a lot of promise and gave us a glimpse of where his music might have gone. Looking at the promise that was there after the release of "Double Fantasy", this makes his death that much more traggic.

Being shot down seems like a very ironic way to die for someone that was so peace oriented. It doesn't really seem fitting for someone known for wanting to "give peace a chance" and for saying that "War is Over, if we want it", should die in such a way.

There have been very few song writting teams that have come even close to matching the success fo Lennon/McCartney. Few bands or artists have been nearly as popular and loved as the Beatles. John's post Beatles musical career was pretty fruitful and you have to wonder if he had lived today, if Paul would have had the most successful post Beatles career or if John would have been more successful? You also have to wonder where he would have gone with his music? What projects would he have done? I also wonder, if he was such a controversial person that he was bound to be killed, if not on December 8, 1980 than another time?

I've really enjoyed working on the JOHN LENNON - IMAGINE event at Globaljammerz.com, putting together the daily online radio shows and telling people about the event. I hope that you'll check out my shows that are running at 9 pm (U.S. Central time) through December 12th. I also hope that you'll share what John and the Beatles have meant to you, what your favorite songs are, what your favorite memories and stories are, and I hope that you'll join the other Beatles fans at the Fab Four group at Globaljammerz. It doesn't cost anything to join, so why not check it out. With the remaining shows I'd like to do a couple of requests shows, so I've been collecting songs requests at various places along the web. I'd also like to do a couple of shows of people covering the Beatles and John Lennon songs, so your input is most welcome.

I remember making a vow on the day that I heard about John's death, that his death wouldn't be in vain and that I would someday find meaning in his loss (our loss). Thirty years later I'm still trying to find the meaning and make something out of my life. Who knows, maybe I'll find it by the the 60th Anniversary! I think that John would have loved our social web today and being able to connect with his fans in a totally different way than musicians did in the past would be something he'd appreciate. John, thank you for all the great music. Thanks to you, I can imagine all the people living for today and I can picture myself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies and so much more.

Photocredit: The John Lennon collage is posted in the Fab Four group at Globaljammerz.

Coming: John Lennon- Imagine

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 02:30:00 +0000

December 8th, marks the 30th Anniversary of John Lennon's Death. How do you pay tribute to John Lennon? If your Globaljammerz.com you host a week plus of onlne radio shows honoring the memory of this musical great and since Globaljammerz.com is a social network for music lovers, they'll be sharing their thoughts and memories about John Lennon and you can join in on the conversation sharing your thoughts and memories about John. You can join us in the chatroom when we're hosting the online shows. Of, course you can also play your favorite John Lennon and Beatles songs right along with Globaljammerz on Blip.fm @IMAGINE.

Be sure to check out the Fab Four, the Globaljammerz group for Bealtes fans, where you can connect with other Beatles fans and share your thoughts and memories about John Lennon. You can join us at the Globaljammerz Events page for more details about the various things that we have planned. In Facebook you can join us at the Globaljammerz Facebook group.

If you're you're a member of any kind of Beatles fan club or organization we'd love to have you join us, be sure to let your friends that are Beatles fans know as well. It doesn't cost anything to join Globaljammerz, so why not check them out? If you do decide to join be sure to mention that Darryl Heron sent you.

Globaljammerz is running the John Lennon Imagine event from December 3rd through December 12th, Just imagine the life that was and the life that could have been. We hope to see you there.

Photo credit: The John Lennon photo that appears above is part of a discussion at the Fab Four group at Globalammerz and can be found along with some other John Lennon photos here.

My New Position

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 04:10:00 +0000

I recently became the Community and Group Manager at Globaljammerz and thought that I'd share this with our readers. Globaljammerz is a social network for music lovers of all shapes, sizes, and varieties. I've written about it a couple of times, so hopefully this isn't new to you all.

I'm really excited about this opportunity for many reasons. One of the biggest being that I've had a love for music as long as I can remember and see this as a great opportunity to interact with other music lovers. Music can be such a unifying and uniting force. If you go to a concert of a band that you really like and look around you can immediately see that you're not alone in your appreciation for the band you're seeing and you can see the diversity in other people that like the same band.

As the Community and Group Manager, I plan to see that we have an active section of groups that represent our members and look after the interests of the community in general. Lastly, I hope that Globaljammerz will continue to be a fun place to hang out with other music lovers. If you're already a member at Globaljammerz, feel free to contact me and let me know you ideas. If you're not a member why don't you come check it out.

Here are some other posts that you might like to check out...

Photo credit: "Note" courtesy of kjsz.

Blog Action Day 2010 Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 02:30:00 +0000

Blog Action Day 2010 is now history and thought that some of you might be interested in reading a little bit about how it went, so I thought that I share some information about it with you all.

I received an email teling me that the main event on Friday had more than 5,600 bloggers from 143 countries participating, reaching more than 40 million readers. This definitely shows that blogging and Social Media have reached a whole another level, think about how many tradtional television shows and traditional publications reach that many people!

Blip.fm and Globaljammerz had an event to go along with Blog Action Day 2010, that I told you about in my post on Blog Action Day. The event ran all weekend long so that it could allow people in all the time zones to participate. Trying to get statistics about Blip.fm has proven more challenging that I had first thought, so my numbers aren't as complete or as in dept as I'd like but I wanted to report on a few things anyways.

First of all, thank you to everyone who participated in Blog Action Day, in whatever form that you might have done so. I also wanted to thank those people that participated on the Blip.fm/Globaljammerz Blog Action Day 2010 Event. As far as I know this is the firs time that something like this was organized on Blip.fm and Globaljammerz, so I have big hope for this to grow in the future.

Over the course of the past weekend I played 31 songs on Blip.fm. I received 20 different reblips, or people replaying songs that I played, often restating part or all of the message that I wrote along with the blip. All of the 31 songs that I blipped were also tweeted on my Twitter account. I received 38 props or kind of a thumbs up from other Blippers for songs that I played and/or the messages that I blipped

What I'm not able to determine is how many songs were played with "#BAD10" in the blip, as was one of the ideas behind having the event, so I'd be curious of someon Blip.fm can find out for me. Looking in Twitter, 8 tweets mentioned me and Blog Action Day and songs that I blipped Using the search on Twitter doesn't seem to pull up any of the blips that I know should be there, I'm not sure why.

I wanted to take a moment and recognize some of the people that participated in the Blip.fm/Globaljammerz event.

"indyh"gave me the most props for songs played as well as being the first to reblip or replay one of the songs that I played for the event.
The first prop or thumbs up that one of my blips got goes to "sandraew".
3 different blips of mine were reblipped by at least 3 people
"Danimelocoton" reblipped me several times and gave me several props
"MCDEIBEM" and "DeAnn" reblipped multiple songs of mine
"indyh", "mairsplaylist", "Loba_Negra", "DeAnn", and "Globaljammerz" gave me multiple props

The idea of having a Blip.fm/Globaljammerz event tied to Blog Action Day only occured to me with a little more than a week before the big day, so there wasn't a whole lot of time to organize and promote the event. Overall, I'm happy with the event that we had on Blip.fm and Globaljammerz. I've learned some lessons on things that can be done differently in the future and see big potential in other events that can be organized in the future. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do for Blog Action Day 2011. If you participated in the Blip.fm/Globaljammerz Blog Action Day, I'd love to get your feedback and some statistics from you to help round out my evaluation of the event.

Photo credit: "Eurasian Coot" courtesy of soikha.

Drive to 1000

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 02:30:00 +0000

Globalammerz.com is having a membership drive with the goal of reaching over 1000 members by the end of this year.

What is Globaljammerz? It is a social network for DJs, Musicians, and Music lovers. A large number of members are also members on Blip.fm. While there is a lot of communication going on at Blip, as a social network I've thought for a while that it needed a lot more functionality and now with Globaljammerz you have much of what I was looking for. Also, membership is free.

If you go to the groups section, you'll find over 40 different groups covering a wide variety of musical tastes and themes where you can meet other people with similar tastes and interests to yourself. If you're into the Beatles, they have a group for you. If you're a Disco Freak, they have a group for you. If you've got the Blues or are into the Blues, they have a group for you. If you're a Soul Man (or Woman), they have a group for you. They have Hard Rock, Punk, and a variety of other groups all waiting for you to join them.

Several of the DJs at Globaljammerz have regular shows on Blip.fm. You can start the week "Mayer Mondays with Mary", where music from John Mayer is featured. "Flowapowa with Deann", plays flower powered music from the 60's and 70's. "German Rock House with Petra" focuses on popular German music (and we're not talking about the folk music from Oktoberfest that most people think of either). "Sountracks with Daniela" plays music froma wide variety of famous (and sometimes not so famous) movie soundtracks and television shows. "Texas Blues Power Hour" features famous (and not so famous) guitarists from Texas. These are a few of the regularly occuring shows and there are also several special shows that are scheduled on more of an ad hoc basis, so it is a good idea to check out the events to see what shows are on the horizon.

There is a chatroom built into the network, so you can see if any of your friends are online or if they'll join you online. It is also a good way to communicate with the DJs doing shows, to let them know what you think about the songs they're playing or maybe you can give the requests live duing their shows.

Globaljammerz is a social network hosted on Ning.com. Ning is probably the most famous site where you can build your own social network, so Globaljammerz can harness the experience of Ning for the benefit of its memembers. Look for new features and funtionaliy as Globaljammerz grows and matures.

If Globaljammerz reaches the target of 1000 memebers by the end of 2010...

The first prize winner of the contest who brings in the most members will win $150, 2 concert tickets, or virtual shares of Globaljammerz
The second prize winner who brings in the second most new members will win $100
The third prize winner who bings in the third most new members will win $50

To qualify, the new members need to mention that you referred them when they apply.

I'm excited about Globaljammerz because I see that it can become "the" social music network. It isn't nearly as complicated at Ping and there are already tons of people already on Blip.fm that could really benefit and enjoy the site. I hope to see and hear you at Globaljammerz and Blip.fm. Why not give them a spin and join them, membership is free. By the way don't forget to tell them that Darryl Heron sent you.

You might also be interested in...

Here's a post that I recently wrote about Globaljammerz

Blog Action Day 2010- What Can I Do?

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:01:00 +0000

I was really excited when I read that this year's Blog Action Day theme was water. Water is something that we can all relate to and shouldn't lead us off into some ivory tower discussion about if it exists or not (at lease I hope that some of the spinmasters out there haven't found an angle on this, but I have little doubt that they'll try). Water is such a basic and simple item, but it is central to our existance in this life, we cannot live with out it. When we, as people, are presented with a problem there is a natural reaction and desire to want to help and to ask "What can I do?"

First off I thought that I bring up some of the topics that were raised on the Blog Action Day homepage, water is way more far-reaching that you might first think. All of the things that I mention are worth further investigation and you owe it to yourself to have a look into them (if not today or tomorrow, in the near future, while we still have a future) Education is almost always a good thing. Take some time to learn what the problem is and you'll be amazed at some of the possibilitie that will open up. Be sure to check out the Blog Action Day homepage because they have some real good resources there. If you're running out of time or just wish to skip to the "What Can I Do?" (try doing "contrl F" and pasting "What Can I Do?", it'll the the 3rd instance of that phrase). Here you'll find some suggestons of some things that you and your family and friends can do, along with some information about the Blip.fm/Globaljammerz Blog Action Day Event that we've planned....

Water as a Human Right

The UN General Assembly declares access to clean water and sanitation is a human right. 122 countries votes yes on the resolution while 41 nations "absentained". You have to wonder what the reasons were of those countries that didn't vote. You can sign a petition to let the UN and other world leaderss know you support water as a Human Right...

"Dear Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,

I support the UN's life-saving efforts to accomplish MDG seven: By 2015, halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

Safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation facilities are basic necessities required for health and for success in the fight against poverty, hunger, child deaths and gender inequality around the world.

It is also central to the human rights and personal dignity of every woman, man and child on earth."

Effects on Women And Children

Charitywater.org reports that water collection and unsafe and unsanitary water have an extreme effect upon women and children who spend 40 billion hours every year just collecting the water that is available. "Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Children are especially vulnerable, as their bodies aren't strong enough to fight diarrhea, dysentery and other illnesses." "Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions."

Polluted Oceans

According to Savethesea.org "Not only is pollution bad for the environment, it’s also expensive! Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters costs the global economy $12.8 billion a year."

Unsafe Rivers

According to Dosomething.org "Today, 40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life. That’s not surprising considering the fact that 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are discharged into US waters annually."

Food Footprint

You might have heard about our Carbon Footprint but have you heard about our Food Footprint? From Waterfoodprint.org, "Do you know the water footprint of your food? For example, 75 liters of water are required to make a glass of beer and 15,500 liters to make a kilogram of beef."

Water Wars

According to Finalcall.com "Many scholar, researchers and political analysts attribute the conflict in Darfur at least in part to lack of access to water. In fact, a report commissioned by the UN Development Program found that in the 21st century, water scarcity will become one of the leading causes of conflict in Africa."

Water And Poverty

According to Endpovertynow, "A lack of water contributes to poverty, with parents and children too ill or too busy collecting water to go to school and work. Water poverty also undermines progress poor countries are making on health - with half of hospital beds taken by people suffering with diarrhoea and dysentery." Further more "Currently, a staggering 2.6 billion people live without a safe toilet and 884 million people lack access to clean water. These problems combine to make a massive crisis for developing countries - undermining health, education, economic and gender equality progress."

Technology Footprint

According to Spectrum.ieee.org "On an average day, 500 billion liters of water travel through US power plants to power all the technology that we use every day. For example, that shiny new iPhone in your pocket requires half a liter of water to charge. That may not seem like much, but with approximately 6.4 million active iPhones in the US, that’s 3.2 million liters to charge those alone."

Bottled Water

According to Envronment.change.org "Even though people in the US have access to clean water from their taps, they drink an average of 200 bottles of water per person each year. Over 17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled."

Farmers vs. Animals

According to Desertelephant.org "As water becomes scarcer in Africa, farmers not only compete with each other but also with other animals, including elephants. Forced into close contact with farmers, elephants destroy crops and wreak havoc on agriculture, causing farmers in turn to resort to violence in order to protect their crops and water sources."

Fashion Footprint

According to Treehugger.com, "That cotton t-shirt you’re wearing right now took 400 gallons of water to produce, and your jeans required an extra 1800 gallons. Not wearing cotton? The dyes and synthetic fibers used to make your clothes create waste that’s among the many contributors to water pollution."

Water Celebrities

On a brighter note some celebrities are using their star power and influence to champion the cause of water and water rights, including...

Matt Damon is working with Water.org

Leonardo DiCaprio has started the Lenoardo DiCaprio Foundation

Will and Jada Smith decided to raise money for Charitywater.org as part of a birthday celebration

*****************************************************************************

What Can I Do?

I've you've read all or most of my post to this point, thank you for doing so. Did you find out along the way that water is way more complex and far-reaching than you first thought too?

Tell Others about Blog Action Day and this year's theme Water.

Let's start off by discussing it with people you know, especially your family and friends. One person by themselves might think that they can do anything but when you add more people you get a snowball efffect and momentum and motivation, so amazing things can happen.

Share any good articles or ideas that you find. You can "like", "tweet", "bookmark", "favorite" and any number of other terms to get the word out. Also don't be affraid to add a comment or two, but do be constructive, there are plenty of trolls out there today just waiting to jump on you, don't be one of them.

You can write something of your own. You don't have to be Dickens or Shakespear. Don't be affraid to speak up or that you might make a mistake, or that nobody will like what you write (or worse yet, nobody will read it).

Below is a Mindmap of things that you can do that I created based on 10 things you can do to save the sea posted in my Flickr account

Below is a video about Playpumps that I found a couple of years ago, I think that it is a great idea and certainly something positive that is being done about water availability.

Waterforpeople.org & playpumps at work

Feel free to check out the Non-profit partners metioned at Blog Action Day. Why not join one that is doing things that you'd like to support?

If you're on Twitter, you can follow Blog Action Day there.

One last thing before I get to the event, there are lots of things that we can do as people about Water availability and the items mentioned above. First of all we should not accept the status quo and give up. As consummers and taxpayers we need to be more that those two functions. We need to let out political leaders and businesses know that we expect more out of them than they've been giving us. We can also choose what we buy and use. If you decide to not buy a good or service because the company isn't acting responsibly, let the company know what you're doing and why you're doing it and tell everyone you know about what you're doing.

The Blip.fm/Globaljammerz Blog Action Day Event

The idea: People on Blip.fm and Globaljammerz will play songs to raise awareness for Blog Action Day and this year's theme of Water (and have fun doing it).

What: If you're not already signed up at either one, then sign up. Blip.fm allows you to be a DJ and share music online with other DJs. Globaljammerz is a social network built to complement Blip.fm which allows you to do all kinds of social things that aren't built into Blip. Play songs around this years theme, maybe you can search for "water" to get you started. You can also look for "#BAD10" and see what songs come up that other people might have already played.

How: When you find a song that you want to play, you'll want to Blip it, which is like publishing a post or a tweet because all of Blip.fm has the ability to see what you've "Blipped". When you blip songs be sure to include "#BAD10" in what you blip, so that we know you're taking part in the event. Its really that simple.

More: Because you have the interation of other DJs on Blip.fm, you'll be able to discover new songs and artists (or be reintroduced to ones that you might have forgotten). You can show other DJs that you like what they've played by giving them "Props" and you can "Re-blip" songs that you like or have a conversation with them via your blips.

The Challenge: To make things more interesting, the Giving Back Group at Globaljammerz has issued a challenge to the other groups at Globaljammerz to see which group has the highest percentage participation in the event, the most members participating, and a variety of other challenges that you can read about here.

You can also: Join the Globaljammerz group at Facebook or any of the groups at Globaljammerz. Feel free to check out my blips at Blip.fm and my profile at Globaljammerz. I hope that you'll join us. Although Blog Action Day is "offically" only October 15th, we'll be blipping songs all weekend long. Hope to hear and see you at Blip.fm and Globaljammerz. I'm also looking forward to seeing what great things people will do for Blog Action Day.

Photo credit: Pictured is a Mindmap that I created based on post ideas listed on the Blog Action Day homepage and it is posted in my Flickr account.

What Are You Doing for Blog Action Day 2010?

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 02:20:00 +0000

What are you doing for Blog Action Day 2010? The question has crossed my mind a lot in the past few weeks. A more pressing question is, What can I do? Or you might even be asking, What is Blog Action Day?

Blog Action Day is day where people around the world, from many different languages and cultures write about one topic to raise awareness and to see that the theme of that year has many voices and reaches as many people as possible. This year's theme of water is both basic and simple enough and very complex, all from the same word.

In the past bloggers, writers, and people just plain passionate about the theme and wanting to be a part of something bigger than themselves have participated and the event has grown. I certainly wish to encourage people to take this route of participation and remember that while you might not be Dickens, Shakespear, or any author whose name rolls of the tongues of people when they think of great writers, but you're welcome and encouraged to join along. I've given a lot of thought of how to expand the event and reach a wider audience that it already has. I came up with the idea of extending the event out to the music world and have created an event within Blip.fm and Globaljammerz to coincide with Blog Action Day 2010.

If you're already a DJ at Blip.fm, you can play (blip) songs along with us all day on October 15th in whatever time zone you happen to live. Heck, how about if we blip songs all weekend long! The songs that you play should be arround the Blog Action Day theme of water but I personaly think that you have quite a bit of room for personal interpetation. For example, maybe you might decide to play songs from artiists that you know are active in a variety of causes and you believe would support Blog Action Day, if the could, or if they knew about it. Blip.fm allows you to post text along with the songs that you blip, so you can add a message to all or some of the songs that you play. So that the world can see how many people are participating on Blip.fm, you should be sure to include "#BAD10" in the text you include. If you have Twitter integrated with Blip.fm, your blips will be broadcast into the Twitterverse for even more people to see. You can reblip (or replay) songs that other people have blipped for Blog Action Day and you can give the DJs that are playing songs (or have played songs) props (a thumbs up or sign of approval at Blipfm).

If you're not a Blip.fm DJ, it isn't too hard to join and you'll have lots of fun and meet all kinds of people from all over the world if you do join, why not suggest songs that the Blip DJs can play. If you're in Facebook or Twitter you can make your suggestions in your status area, just be sure to use "#BAD10", so that the world can tell your suggestion is part of Bog Action Day. You can also suggest songs in the comments section following this post, or send them in via a Tweet by using "@darrylheron", so that I see it in Twitter. You can also join "the event" that has been set up at Facebook or Globaljammerz. You can also tweet about or "like" any Blog Action Day article or post that you believe is worth promoting, as well as any song.

If you're already a member of Globaljammerz, the social network that complements Blip.fm, you can participate there in a variety of ways. This event is being sponsored by the Giving Back group at Globaljammerz, so why not join there and tell us how you're going to participate or tell us about the set list that you're going play on Blip or that you'd like to see played on Blip. You can tell us how you feel about the topic or what it matters to you. You can also become friends with the people that are participating. If you're not a member of Globaljammerz, why not join? Membership doesn't cost you anything and you can meet other music fans with similar tastes to yours (as well as people with different musical tastes) and you can join one of the many groups there where you're bound to find other people with some similar interests to you.

Whatever you do, I do hope that you'll participate in Blog Action Day 2010, in some form or fashion. What are you doing for Blog Action Day 2010? I'd love to hear what creative and interesting things people are doing and have planned. Whatever you do, be sure to tell as many people as possible about Blog Action Day 2010.

Other articles that you might find of interest.

Photo credit: "Heart Melody 2" courtesy of fango l.

Blog Action Day 2010 Is Coming

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 02:40:00 +0000

The 2010 Blog Action Day is coming. On October 15th, bloggers, writers, and other people from around the world will all write about one topic, to raise awareness. This year the theme is water. Why water you might ask, from the Blog Action Day homepage...

"Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us who are subject to preventable disease and even death because of something that many of us take for granted. Access to clean water is not just a human rights issue. It’s an environmental issue. An animal welfare issue. A sustainability issue. Water is a global issue, and it affects all of us."

When I looked at the Blog Action Day homepage, before writing this, they already had over 1,500 blogs registered to participate, from 98 countries, with over 12,000,000 readers. So, already the reach is pretty good. In honor of this years event, I created an event at Globaljammerz and am encouraging all of you on Blip.fm and Globaljammerz to play songs around the theme of Blog Action Day on October 15th. Since not everyone can or wants to write, this opens things up for more people to participate in the event. Any song that you wish to play related to Blog Action Day should have #BAD, #BAD2010, or #2010BAD in them so that they can be found by the various tracking programs. For people that have Twitter integrated with Blip.fm, your blips show up like tweets, so these would show up in the various Twitter trends and searchs.

If you're already on Blip.fm and Globaljammerz, why not participate. If you're not a member, why not check it out and join us for the event. By the way, you're more than welcome to write for Blog Action Day as well. For more information about Blog Action Day and things you can do, be sure to visit their homepage. You can share artilces that you like via Twitter, Facebook and a host of other methods. I'm looking forward to seeing what all we do for Blog Action Day this year and hope that you'll join us.

Photo credit: "water being poured into a glass" courtesy of straymuse.

September Edition of the Carnival of Productivity And GTD

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 03:04:00 +0000

Welcome to the September 2010 edition of The Carnival of Productivity And GTD. We're really impressed with the submissions that we've seen for this edition. We would, however, like to see more GTD related submissions.

As we posted in the last edition of The Carnival of Productivity And GTD, we've decided to put the Better Life Blog Carnival on hold for a while to see what changes we might make or how we can bring it back into the line up. We've scheduled the next edition of the Family Life Blog Carnival towards the end of October. The Carnival of Productivity and GTD will return in 2011. The Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival for 2010 will be kicking off towards the end of November. We're thinking about adding a couple of more themes to the blog carnivals that we host, possibly one on Social Media topics and charity, possibly in 2011. As always, we'll need to see about our bandwidth! We're pleased with the number of entries that we're receiving for all of the carnivals, we do wish to challenge you all to look at things from different angles and perspectives. We love to see useful articles that can really help people. If you have any suggestions for topics you'd like to see covered in future editions, feel free to leave a comment. If you have a post that you'd like to submit, please do so via the submission from link. Thank you to everyone that submitted posts! Remember that by subscribing via your RSS reader or via email, that you won't miss the next blog carnival hosted here and you'll know when new material has been posted. Without further adieu, here is the September 2010 Edition of the Carnival of Productivity And GTD....

Time Management And Productivity

Debbie Dragon presents How Work at Home Moms Can Make Room for Me Time posted at Empowering Mom.

Eliza Fayle presents A trick for making life manageable | Silver and Grace posted at Silver and Grace.

Charles Chua C K presents 10 Advantages of a To-Do List posted at All About Living with Life.

Chris presents Why Wise Men Abandon Their Goals posted at Martial Development.

Charles Chua C K presents 30 Productive Things You Can Do at Home in the Evening When You Stop Watching TV (First of a two-part list series) posted at All About Living with Life.

Organizing

Wise Bread presents Organize a Room for $10 With No Extra Effort posted at Wisebread.

Handling Email

Khalid J Hosein presents Inbox Zero – Whip Your e-Mail Habits into Shape posted at KJH World, saying, "Start checking your e-mail less. Once an hour or less is where you should start. Your goal - an Inbox with zero e-mails!"

Learning

Victoria Kennedy presents Open Courseware & Public Domain Books on the iPad ? The Ultimate Guide posted at Masters Degrees, saying, "The iPad has an optional iBooks application that can be downloaded from the App Store, which displays books and other ePub-format content downloaded from the iBookstore. But, how does the iPad fare in the e-book department, and is it friendly to open courseware and public domain books?"

Joey Bishop presents Top 50 Free Open Source Classes on Computer Science posted at Masters in Computer Science, saying, "Computer science is both an interesting and growing field to get into. Here are 50 free opencourseware classes that can help you learn more about computer science."

Motivation And Inspiration

Bobbie Walker presents 50 Amazingly Motivational Speeches On YouTube posted at BSN Degrees, saying, "The listed speeches – representing a broad spectrum of political, national, religious, racial, social, economic and sexual perspectives – may tread familiar territory, but still seek to promote action and innovation in viewers."

Carrie Oakley presents Top 10 Commencement Speeches on YouTube posted at Online Colleges, saying, "Often driping with overused clichés regarding never giving up, never letting people down, reaching for the stars, achieving dreams, maintaining integrity, and other overused, overly broad “inspirations” that end up dismissed the second the speaker steps away from the podium. Unsurprisingly, more daring types who choose to use their time to go completely against expectations and leave an impact using humor or frank discussions of tough subject matter such as death, cancer, and the dire state of the economy."

Monte Stonewall presents 10 Amazing Female Firefighters posted at Fire Science Colleges.

Must Have Applications

John Laugherton presents 25 iPad Apps Every Engineer Needs posted at Masters in Engineering, saying, "The following 25 iPad apps that every engineer needs includes a broad range of generic tools, productivity apps and references that can provide engineers from all fields with support with a single tap of a finger."

stanya16 presents 10 Killer Online Tools for Web Designers posted at Web Design Colleges, saying, "What are administrator jobs like, what are their salaries and how can you prepare yourself for a job as a health administrator? This ultimate guide to health administration careers can help you learn the answers to those questions."

Roger Elmore presents Top 10 Must-Have iPhone Applications for Travelers posted at Hospitality Management Schools.

Hoven Keith presents Top 25 Little-Known Web Startups Revolutionizing the Way We Communicate posted at Masters in Communication, saying, "The information age has changed the way we all communicate. This is a list of 25 little-known startups leading the charge."

Family And the Environment

Graham Alice presents Going Green While Pregnant: 100 Ways to Help Your Baby & the Earth posted at MedicalCodingCertification.com.

Other

Mazarine presents Wild Woman Fundraising Lean Fundraising posted at Wild Woman Fundraising, saying, "This post details how to apply lean manufacturing processes to your office, to make yourself even more efficient and productive."

That concludes the September 2010 edition of The Carnival of Productivity And GTD. You can submit your blog article to the next edition of The Carnival of Productivity And GTD using our "Submit an entry to “The Carnival of Productivity And GTD” submission form". Links to past editions, as well as the current scheduling of future editions can be found on our The Carnival of Productivity And GTD index page. Thank you to everyone that submitted articles for this edition! If you have any topics that you'd like to see covered in a future edition, or any feedback in general, feel free to leave a comment. Be sure to stay tuned for the Family Life Blog Carnival, as well as the normal articles that are posted here. Thank you.

Photo credit: "Hourglass" courtesy of iprole.

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Global Jammerz

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 03:01:00 +0000

There has been a lot of press about Ping, the new social network built around iTunes, but at the moment I'm having fun with Globalhjammerz. GlobalJammerz is a social network built around Blip.fm.

The site is a ning based social network started by DeAnn. I think it greatly complements Blip.fm, allowing more social aspects that aren't built into Blip. I've often seen various blips (songs played by Blippers) and wanted to know more about the DJs but didn't really feel like clicking on their homepage (if they even have a homepage) to find out more about them. With GlobalJammerz you can see the profiles of various Blippers and find out more about them.

They have some groups set up that you can join. This is nice because you can easliy find other people that like the same kind of music you do. Some of the groups are even doing weekly broadcasts over Blip and you can make requests, chat with the people putting on the show, and so on.

GlobalJammerz allows you to upload pictures and videos, as well as having music players at the various groups that allow you to listen to some songs of the various genres. It also allows you to blog and post in forums.

I'm really happy to see this complementary social network for Blip. Since I'm still a newbie there, I'm sure that I have a lot to learn but am looking forward to it!

Here are som other articles that I wrote about Blip.fm

2000 Listeners on Blip.fm

Having Fun on Blip.fm

80's Party

100+ People I'd Like to Meet Series

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:01:00 +0000

Have you ever given any thought to people that you'd like to meet? If you could meet any living person in the world who would you meet? I decided to put together a list of people that I'd like to meet.

My forth grade teacher, Mr. Hammond, had my class do some creative thinking and I remember him asking us to think about who we'd like to meet and why? This was limited to one person and actually he didn't put the limitation that the person had to be living (in fact he even encouraged us to pick a historical figure for one of the creative assignments, but that is a different post). A colleague of mine at work has a Tim Ferris quote from his 4 Hour Workweek book and in the chapter that it comes from, Tim Ferris talks about how he challenged some students that heard him speak to seek out some celebrity to interview. Thinking about these events motivated me to put together a list of people that I'd like to meet and my hope is that by publishing my list that it would help faciliate me meeting many of them.

Guidelines for my list

Everyone on the list has excelled at one thing or another and I believe that there is something that I could learn from them. The goal with every person is to meet them in person where I could talk to them for at least 5 minutes (of course longer would be better but they're all busy people so they probably won't have a day or a week to spend with me to give me their insights on life!) This means that I'm looking for more than a handshake or a photo opportunity. I'm looking for the chance to ask some questions and to be able to interact with them. The list is not by any means everone that I'd like to meet, nor is everyone that I admire on this list (that would be another post) and although I have done some categorization, I didn't put any real priority into the order that the names appear.

Stay Tuned

Look in this space for the rest of the series. I'll post links to the articles below as they're published.

Photo credit: "Mount Rushmore 02" courtesy of rweller

100+ People- Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:59:00 +0000

Welcome to Part 2 of 100+ People That I'd Like to Meet. Today I'm going to focus on some "Internet Stars" that I'd like to meet

Internet Stars

These are a collection of Web personalities that I'd like to meet. Some of them are writers/bloggers and many have become good at marketing, promotion and other entrepreneur skills.

Pete Cashmere- Founder of Mashable, he has an insight in to emerging social media companies and trends that many people dream about having. He's on Twitter @ mashable, Facebook, MySpace, and just about any and every Social Media and Social Networking site that exists

Leo Babauta- Is the man behind Zenhabbits. He also started the Write to Done and the mnmlist and seems to have new projects coming out of the woodwork all the time., I've written a Spotlight on him and was fortunate enough to interview him for this blog but it would still be great to be able to meet him. His about page is worth checking out. He's on Twitter @ zen_habits. He even has a Wikipedia entry

Tina Su- Is the women behind ThinkSimpleNow. She introduced me to blog carnivals. She decided to follow the Tim Ferris idea of a mini retirement and spent several months touring India. Her about page is also an interesting read. She's on Twitter @ thinksimplenow, she is also in Facebook and several other Social Media/Networking sites

Merlin Mann- Is the creator of 43 Folders. 43 Folders was one of the first websites to embrace GTD (Getting Things Done) and run with it. He's done tons of podcasts and is a big Mac fan. I wrote a spotlight on 43folders wrote about him returning to 43folders after a period of absence. He's on Twitter @ hotdogsladies. There is a fan site for him on Facebook and he has a Wikpedia entry

Tim Ferris- Author of The Four Hour Workwee k. Lots of great ideas in his book. I mentioned him earlier in this post. He's on Twitter @ tferriss and has a Wikipedia entry

Arianna Huffington- The women behind The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post might not be the first internet newspaper, but it has certainly been groundbreaking. There are several twitter accounts for The Huffington Post, but the main one is huffingtonpost. She and the Huffington post have are active in Facebook and made it easy for you to "like" one of their stories and to comment on it via Facebook. There is a Wikipedia entry about her and one about the Huffington Post

Darren Rowse- The creator of ProBlogger and Twitips. He has to be one of the most successful bloggers out there! He is on Twitter @ problogger he is active in Facebook and other Social Media/Neworking sites (basically anywhere he can interact with his audience and readers) and he has a Wikipedia entry

Chris Brogan- Is one of those Social Media stars that many aspire to be. His blog is very popular. He is on Twitter @ chrisbrogan and he has a Wikipedia entry

Guy Kawasaki- Co-founder of the popular news aggregator site AllTop. He is on Twitter @ GuyKawasaki and he has a Wikipedia entry

Jeremiah Owyang- He is a partner at the Altimeter Group. His blog is widely followed within Social Media circles. He is on Twitter @ jowyang

Seth Godin- Is another of those Social Media stars that many aspire to be. He has a widely read blog. Seth recenty created a lot of buzz when he stated in an interview that he has given up on traditional book publishing because he doesn't believe it is worth the effort when he can reach more poeple via electronic means. He is on Twitter @ ThisIsSethsBlog and he has a Wikipedia entry

Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer- Are the women behind SocialFish.org. They have a lot of knowledge of Social Media within the world of Non-Profits and Charities. They're on Twitter @ maddiegrant & lindydreyer

Stay Tunned...

Be sure to look for 100+ People That I Want to Meet Part 3 and the rest of the series and you can read the intro here. Feel free to subscribe to this blog via email or your rss reader, there are several options available in the upper righthand corner of this blog.

Photo credit: "Cosmic" courtesy of ba1969.

100+ People- Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:55:00 +0000

In Part 3 of the 100+ People That I'd Lket to Meet, I wanted to cover people that inspire and motivate us as well as authors.

Inspiration And Motivation

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you're properly motivated and inspired. I like to think that anything is possible and generally have a positive outlook, but don't we all need some motivation and inspiration from time to time!

David Allen- Is the legendary creator of GTD (Getting Things Done). He has a couple of websites Davidco and GTDTimes. There are millions of GTD fans around the world that would love to spend some quality time with him. He is on Twitter @ gtdguy

Tony Robbins- He's an motivational and inspirational great. His website is here. He regularly tweets nuggets you might find useful. He is on Twitter @ tonyrobbins

Stephen Covey- Author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". His website is here. He is on twitter @ StephenRCovey

Brian Tracy- Motivational author and speaker, author of numerous books and tape series. His blog is here. He is on Twitter @ briantracy

Zig Ziggler- Legendary motivational author and speaker. His website is here. His son is on Twitter sharing his insights @ TomZiglar

Oprah- How can you describe Oprah. She has been a positive force and has an incredible network. The mention of a book on her show is enough to put in on the New York Times Best-Seller List! Here website is here. She is on Twitter @ Oprah

Authors

"the story" has to be one of the oldest forms of communication that we have. Before people were capturing history and stories down in written form, they were verbally passing them from person to person and generation to generation. Literature is full of wonderful authors through the ages (probably the reason that we have libraries!) Good writers can get a message accross to readers in different places and in different times, they can inspire people to take action. For as long as I can remember I've wanted to write, in fact writing the great American novel is one of the goals that I have listed at 43 Things.

J.K. Rowling- She created the world of Harry Potter. All the stars seemed to collide and the series has become one of the most read and discussed of all time. How many kids have been inspired to read because of Harry Potter? Her official website is here. Although she doesn't tweet much, her official Twitter account is @ jk_rowling

Dan Brown- Author of the Di Vinci Code, as well as Angels & Demons, both of which have been turned into movies. His website is here. I didn't find him on Twitter, but there are a lot of "Dan Brown"s there so who knows.

Stephen King- Chances are that you've probably read one of his books or seen a movie made from one of them, and no, they aren't all horror stories. He has written so many things about such a wide variety of topics, it would be great to get some of his insights into writing, ideas, and inspiration. His website can be found here. When I was on his website, the FAQ section says that he isn't in an social networks nor does he plan to be.

Stay Tuned

So far we've met some Internet Stars, Leaders in Motivation & Inspiration, and Authors, who'll be next? Be sure to look for 100+ People That I Want to Meet Part 4 and the rest of the series and you can read the intro here. Feel free to subscribe to this blog via email or your rss reader, there are several options available in the upper righthand corner of this blog.

Photo credit: "New York City skyline 3" courtesy of davidlat.

100+ People- Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:49:00 +0000

In Part 3 of the 100+ People That I'd Lket to Meet, I list some Actors, Directors, and Comedians. Actors give life to the written words of authors and screenwriters, the good ones have you believing that they are the character they're portraying. Directors have to have a vision of how the piece should look, because stories don't just jump from paper to the movie or television screen or even the stage. Some actors have been able to able to become successful directors. Who doesn't like to laugh? Some commedians have been successful actors, while other have hosted daily (or nightly) television shows.

Actors, Directors, and Comedians

William Shatner- Captain Kirk of Star Trek (the original series) and pitchman extordinaire. He has a MySpace site, he is on Twitter @ WilliamShatner, and his Wikipedia entry is here.

Sir Patrick Stewart- Captain Picard of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A Shakespearian actor, star of many movies, and recently knighted. I didn't find an official website or Twitter account but here is his Wikipedia entry.

Robert Dinero- He has appeared in so many movies that you're bound to have seem him in at least one movie. I didn't find a Twitter account or official website but you can check out his IMDb biography or Wikipedia entry.

Robert Redford- World famous actor, director, and the man behind the Sundance Film Festival. His Sundance Institute can be found here. There appears to be a Twitter account set up but it doesn't really seem to be off the ground yet.

Clint Eastwood- World famous actor and director. You've probably seen one of his Westerns or Dirty Harry movies. I didn't find any official websites or a Twitter account, but you can read his Wikipedia entry.

James Cameron- World famous director has brought us the Terminator, Aliens, Titanic, and most recently Avatar. I didn't find an official website or Twitter account, but you can read his Wikipedia entry.

George Lucas- The man that created of Star Wars world and Indiana Jones. He brought us THX sound and ILM. His website is Lucasfilm.com . I didn't find a Twitter account for him, but you can read his Wikipedia entry.

Steven Spielberg- Director and Producer, with ET, the Back to Future Series, Indiana Jones, and a ton of other movies, you've probably seen one of his movies. He is one of the founders Dreamworks SKG. I didn't find a Twitter account, but his Wikipedia entry can be found here.

Michael Moore- He is a controversial director of documentaries.He has managed to make this film genre more accessible to the normal person, where more people are likely to watch a documentary and how many would be film makers have been inspired by his success in the genre? His website is here and he is on Twitter @ MMFlint.

Tom Hanks- I've been a fan of his since I first watched him in the TV series Bosom Buddies. He has been referred to as the Jimmy Stewart, the everyman of the current actors. I didn't find him on Twitter, but you can find his Wikipedia entry here.

Robin Williams- I remember first seeing him as Mork from Ork on Happy Days and then with his own series. He has been in some amazing movies and people forget how funny he is and has been. I didn't find a Twitter account, but did find a Wikipedia entry on him.

Michael J. Fox- You might have seen him in the TV series Family Ties or Spin City. I recently re-watched him in the Back to the Future trilogy. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 1991 and his foundation has funded more than $179 million in research. I didn't find an official account on Twitter but you can read about him at Wikipedia.

Bill Cosby- He has proven time and again that comedy doesn't need to be vulgar or obscene. There is a good chance that you might have seen an episode or more from one of the televisions series bearing his name. Maybe you've seen him in the television series ISpy. He's also done several memorable spots for Jello. His Wikipedia entry can be found here.

David Letterman- Not everyone likes his sense of humor, but you have to give him credit for longevity. He has been a staple of late night televisons for decades, with his show airing nightly. He might not have invented the Top Ten list but he sure did make it a popular item that has been adopted by countless people in all kinds of ways and venues. His show's website can be found on the CBS website and his Wikipedia entry can be found here.

Jerry Seinfeld- Have you ever seen an episode of the Seinfeld television series, it was part of NBC's "Must See TV" on Thursday night for nearly a decade. The show has often been referred to as the show about nothing, but a lot of people tuned in week after week to watch. His Wikipedia entry can be found here.

Stay Tuned

So far we've met some Internet Stars; Leaders in Motivation & Inspiration; Authors; Actors, Directors, and Comedians, who'll be next? Be sure to look for 100+ People That I Want to Meet Part 5 and the rest of the series and you can read the intro here. Feel free to subscribe to this blog via email or your rss reader, there are several options available in the upper righthand corner of this blog.

Photo credit: "Red chairs" courtesy of Cancia.

100+ People- Part 5

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:45:00 +0000

For as long as I can remember I've been a big music fan. In the movie Eddie and The Cruisers, there is an exchange between Eddie Wilson (Michael Pare) and Frank "Wordman" Ridgeway (Tom Berenger) about how the two go together and need each other. Each by itself is a good medium for story telling and communicatin but the two together are a powerful combination. The song writer(s) might have one idea of what their song means but they can not control what their song will mean to someone else nor what others will do with their song. How many songs have been turned around into totally differnt versions of the same song. Think about the phemnomina of Rap music and remixes. How different would movies and television be without the score and music helps to set the tone and direction of the scenes you're watching. Chances are that you have at least one song that can put you in a good mood no matter what the world may dish up to you the moment you hear that first note or one song that motivates you.

Bands & Musicians

Led Zeppelin- Lead singer, Robert Plant has one of the best know voices in Rock and Roll. He won a Grammy last year for an album that he did with Blue Grass singer Alison Krauss. Jimmy Page is one of three legendary guitarists that were in the Yardbirds (Eric Clapton, also appearing in my list, and Jeff Beck, being the other two). I didn't find any Twitter accounts but Led Zeppelin and Robert Plant both have official websites and a Wikipedia entry.

Eric Clapton- Even if you're not into the Blues or already a fan of Eric Clapton, you've probably heard a song of his without realizing it. Several of his songs have been in various movie soundtracks in the last few decades. Everybody wanted to do unplugged after he did it. He was another of the famous guitarists that was in the Yardbirds (Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page are the other two). I didn't find a Twitter account and his official website can be found here.

B.B. King- If you're a Blues fan you've probably already know of B.B. King. Eric Clapton and many other Rock and Roll greats list him as an influence. In fact, King and Clapton did an album together called Riding With The King. B.B. King has an official website and he has a museum that can be found online as well. Although I didn't find a Twitter account, I did see links to MySpace and Facebook from his website.

Chuck Berry- Chances are you've probably heard of Chuck Berry. Many people credit him with Rock and Roll taking off the way it did, certainly he has influenced a lot of musicians over the years. Chuck Berry has a website a Wikipedia entry and I did find a MySpace account.

It is really hard to "imagine" music and the world without the Beatles. An uncle of mine once joked about being by the magizine section in a store and hearing some teenager girls saying "Wow, Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings". Unfortunately, only Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr as well as Yoko Ono and Pete Best (their drummer before Ringo) are alive. Paul,Ringo, and Pete all have their own websites in addition to Imagine Peace, Yoko's website. The Beatles, Paul McCartney, and Yoko all have Twitter accounts. I found Wikipedia entries for The_Beatles, Lennon/McCartney, Paul_McCartney, Ringo_Starr, Pete_Best, and Yoko_Ono. Yoko is in Facebook, as well as having a MySpace account. Ringo has a MySpace account.

At one time people seemed to like the Beatles or the Stones, although Mick Jagger might not ever seem to get his Satisfaction, the Rolling Stone have certainly had some time in the spotlight. The band has a website and Wikipedia entry and I found MySpace and Facebook sites for them as well.

If you're a Van Halen fan, you've probably given some thought to weither David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar was the better singer. There is little doubt however that Eddy Van Halen is one of the guitar greats. Sammy and Michael have been in Chickenfoot together since leaving Van Halen. I found Wikipedia entries for Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Sammy Hagar, Micahel Anthony, and Chickenfoot. I also found MySpace and Facebook sites for Chickenfoot.

I wonder what all will be written about U2, when all is said and done. The Jousha Tree brought the to mainstream success and they've sold out countless concerts since then. I found Wikipedia entries for U2, Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. The band has MySpace and Facebook sites.

It is hard to imagine the Alternative/Grunge rock era without Pearl Jam. They were also the band that boycotted Ticketmaster. Although I didn't find Facebook or MySpace sites, they do have a Wikipedia entry and Twitter account.

If you listen to "Classic Rock", you've probably heard Jethro Tull. Many people might say that they're "Living in the Past" but the vocals and flute of Ian Anderson are hard to mistake for anyone else in the world of "Classic Rock". I found Wikipedia entries for Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson. The band also has a MySpace site.

If you've ever played Six Degrees of Seperation, a game where someone suggests two movie stars and you try to connect them through movies that they'd played in and Kevin Bacon, there is a good chance that you'd use Yes to connect muscians in British Rock. Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman, Geoff Downs, Bill Bruford, and Alan White have all been in one or more of the various lineups of Yes. I found Wikipedia entries for Yes, Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman, Geoff Downs, Bill Bruford, and Alan White. I didn't really come accross any MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter accounts for the more promenent Yes and former Yes memebers but with there being so many I might have missed something!

Aerosmith is another one of the bands that train just keeps rolling for. They were already well known in the 70's and 80's when they decided that they didn't want a "Permanent Vacation" they became introduced to another generation. Liv Tyler, Steven Tyler's daughter, has probably escliped the widespread fame of her father's band and I wonder how many of her fans were introduced to the band via her notoriety. Lead guitarist Joe Perry has his own website, a Twitter account, as well as MySpace and Facebook sites. I found Wikipedi entries for Aerosmith, Steven Tyler, and Joe Perry. Aeroforceone tweets about the band. Steven Tyler has a MySpace site and the band has MySpace and Facebook sites.

Coming from the Detroit area it is darn near impossible not to be a Bob Seger fan. Did you happen to see Tom Cruise's scene from Risky Business where he danced around to "Old Time Rock And Roll"? Bob Seger has a Wikipedia entry, he is on Twitter, and he has a Facebook site.

You've probably heard "Hotel California", if not countless other Eagles songs. The band had a bad break up at one point and reported wouldn't get back together till Hell freezes over, well it must have frozen over because they did get back together. Don Henley says on their "Hell Freezes Over" album (recorded during their "Hell Freezes Over" tour) "for the record we never really broke up, we just took a 14 year vacation". Bandmembers Joe Walsh and Timothy B Schmit have their own websites as well. I found Wikipedia entries for The Eagles, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and Timothy B. Schmit. While Don Henley's website said that "He does not communicate via social networking sites and has not authorized any account to be created on his behalf." the band appears to have a MySpace site and Timothy B. Schmit has Twitter accountand Facebook and MySpace accounts. So who knows, maybe Hell will freeze over again before Don Henley does anything with any of the Social Networking sites.

Kiss has to be one of the first best known bands to understand what a powerful tool marketing can be. For decades their fanbase has been refered to as the Kiss Army and their devotion is legendary. The band was founded with Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss all wearing makeup that concealed their faces. In addition to the websites already linked to, I found websites for current and former band members Eric Singer, Tommy Thayer, Eric Carr, and Bruce Kulick. I found Wikipedia entries on Kiss, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, Peter Criss, Kiss Army, Eric Singer, Tommy Thayer, Mark St. John, Eric Carr, Vinnie Vincent, and Bruce Kulick. The band has a Twitter account, Facebook and MySpace sites and Ace has a Twitter account.

Although John Mellencamp's name has changed through the years from John Cougar, John Cougar Mellencamp, and finally to John Mellencamp, he has firmly identified himself with the Midwest and his home state of Indiana. I saw him perform during one of his many appearences at Farm Aid. He has a Wikipedia entry, a Twitter account, and Facebook and MySpace sites.

To a lot of their fans, REM will always be that little ole alternative band from Athens Georgia, but their popularity with in College Radio and the mainstream public has grown way beyond that. They have a Wikipedia entry, Twitter account, and Facebook and MySpace sites.

Regardless of if you like Madonna's music or not you have to admit that she has been good at marketing, promotion, and re-inventing herself. Her career might have gotten an initial boost from MTV, but she's had several totally different looks in her career and has inspired countless artists. I didn't find an offical Twitter account but she has a Wikipedia entry, as well as Facebook and MySpace sites.

Stay Tuned

So far we've met some Internet Stars; Leaders in Motivation & Inspiration; Authors; Actors, Directors, and Comedians; and Musicians, who'll be next? Be sure to look for 100+ People That I Want to Meet Part 6 and the rest of the series and you can read the intro here. Feel free to subscribe to this blog via email or your rss reader, there are several options available in the upper righthand corner of this blog.

Photo credit: "DJ Night 4" courtesy of fangol.

100+ People- Part 6

noreply@blogger.com (Systems Overload) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:40:00 +0000

While there is little doubt that sports is big business, a big part of our societies today, and many athletes are living in the limelight (like it or not), but there are lots of athletes that are playing their sports for the love of the game. How many kids have played sports in their neighborhoods and schools? Sports has the dynamics of of indivituals competing against each other driving to succeed, people coming together and playing as a team, and bringing people together that are fans of the sport. Schools have found that sports are a way of getting students, parents. alumni, and fans to be more active in supporting the said school and building a community around the school. Some sporting events are watched by millions of people around the world. There are so many stories around sports that people can relate to from the Cinderella player or team that comes out of nowhere to play in the championship, to that winning team or athlete that is trying to extend their time in the limelight and success past when logic says that should probably quit. Sports has given us all kinds of motivation and inspiration that people have tried to harness in other aspects of life.

Athletes

Few people would question you if you were to say that Michael Jordan is one of the greatest basketball players to ever play the game. Nike would not doubt admit that his line of Air Jordon products helped to make them the successful athletic apparell company that they are today. I didn't find a website, Twitter account, or Facebook and MySpace sites, but did find a Wikipedia entry.

Tiger Woods is one of the greatest golfers to ever play the game. While at the moment his name has often been mentioned for his extra-marital acitivies, you have to believe that people will eventually be talking about him again for what he is doing or has done in the world of golf. Until the scandal broke, he was an advertiser's dream, representing Nike, Buick, and many other products. It will be interesting to see what develops, how he is able to get beyond where is now, and what lessons we can learn from him. I didn't find a Twitter account, nor Facebook and MySpace sites, but he does have a Wikipedia entry.

Before Tiger, there was Jack Nicklaus, the Golden Bear. He has won tons of golfing tournaments, designed golf courses, and in general been a wonderful ambassador for the world of golf. I didn't find a Twitter account, nor Facebook and MySpace accounts, but he does have a Wikipedia entr y.

I lived in Dallas during much of Troy Aikman's professional football career with the Dallas Cowboys and it was exciting to see him lead the team to those Super Bowl wins. I didn't find a Twitter account, nor Facebook and MySpace accounts, but he does have a Wikipedia entry.

Admiration of my grandfather (in large part), made me a Dallas Cowboys fan from an early age on, so there is probably little doubt that I would come to admire what Roger Staubach accomplished in his years with the team. I didn't find a Twitter account, nor Facebook and MySpace accounts, but he does have a Wikipedia entry.

Not long before Jordon, the Magic Johonson-Larry Bird rivalry was good for the sport of basketball. The two first became famous meeting in the NCAA basketball championship game with Magic and the Michigan State Spartans, beating out Larry Bird and his Indiana State team. The two of them helped to define the Laker-Celtic rivalry. I didn't find Twitter acccounts, nor Facebook and MySpace sites but Magic and Larry Bird both have Wikipedia entries.

During Steve Yzerman's playing career at the Detroit Red Wings, the Stanley Cup came back to Detroit, and the city was often referred to as Hockeytown. The Red Wings were a shining star, a real bright spot for Detroit. Steve has left the ice and is now the general manager at the Tampa Bay Lightning. I didn't find a website, Twitter account, nor Facebook and MySpace sites but did find a Wikipedia entry for him.

Gordie Howe is a hockey legend. In 1998, The Hockey News, placed Gordie third on their List of Top 100 NHL Players of All Time. He played hockey from 1945 to 1998, not too many atheletes can play the sport that they love for such a long period of time. His jersey was retired by the Detroit Red Wings. I didn't find a website, Twitter account, nor Facebook and MySpace sites but did find a Wikipedia entry for him.

Wayne Gretzky, "the Great One", was rated number one on the List of Top 100 NHL Players of All Time mentioned previously. He is often atributed with one of my favorite quotes that you miss one hundred percent of the shots that you don't take. I didn't find a Twitter account, nor Facebook and MySpace sites but did find a Wikipedia entry.

Lance Armstrong first caught my attention when I heard that he was recovering from cancer and determined to keep cycling. His 7 victories in the Tour de France, might just be one of those unbreakable records. He started the Lance Armstrong Foundation with a website called Live Strong "to improve the lives of people affected by cancer". Although I didn't notice any Facebook or MySpace sites, he has a Wikipedia entry and a very active Twitter account.

Reggie Jackson reportedly got his nick name of "Mr. October" because of how he seemed to come alive during the playoff chase in Baseball. He won the World Series three times in Oakland and twice with the Yankees. Although I didn't notice any Facebook or MySpace sites or Twitter account, he does have a Wikipedia entry.

Sparky Anderson is the first coach to win the World Series in both the National and American Leagues. He led the Cincinati Reds to two World Series wins and led the Detroit Tigers to their 1984 World Series win. Although I didn't notice any website, Facebook or MySpace sites or Twitter account, he does have a Wikipedia entry.

Stay Tuned

So far we've met some Internet Stars; Leaders in Motivation & Inspiration; Authors; Actors, Directors, and Comedians; Musicians; and Athletes, who'll be next? Be sure to look for 100+ People That I Want to Meet Part 7 and the rest of the series and you can read the intro here. Feel free to subscribe to this blog via email or your rss reader, there are several options available in the upper righthand corner of this blog.

Photo credit: "Tribune 1" courtesy of gesinek.