I have to be honest. It's not easy being a right leaning technology guy.

Shocking, I know.

Every time I post something, it's typically because I'm noticing strong reactions to a certain topic or I feel like I'm not seeing my viewpoint represented in other places around our little "world." There's a risk associated to talking about politics, regardless of your opinions. In the new media world, I feel like there is an even larger risk associated to talking about things from a republican stand point.

But there's a funny thing I've noted about the posts I've written. They've generated far less comments, but far more e-mails and personal interactions in real life. Yesterday at BlogOrlando, this was experienced in a very real way. I had a handful of people come up and start telling me how much they've enjoyed reading some these posts, even if they've disagreed. The conversations that were generated by these interactions were thoughtful, well balanced, and frankly very much the type of thing our country needs more of.

Now, it's impossible to know how many have stopped reading or stopped following because of the poli-talk, but I'm not sure if it's an important metric. I like surrounding myself with folks who are willing to listen/read things that they disagree with. Fanaticism is born out of echo chambers. It always has been, and it always will be. Our nation relies on cognitive dissonance to maintain a relatively balanced existence.

We've been told, repeatedly, that the two major parties each represent two completely different directions for our country. That we've never before experienced such an important election. We've been told that we're on the verge of either falling apart or rising up for the "next great chapter," or that the "other guy" is going to get us all blown to hell by our enemies. I, largely, don't buy it.

We've allowed these things -- these sales pitches from people selling us something -- to divide us and start referring to people as "idiots" if they vote for this person or that person. We've seen people "outraged" by Obama or Palin's lack of experience. For perspective, ask folks about something truly outrageous, like Darfur, and note their general apathy. It's because they're reacting to very well crafted pitches that suit whatever ax they're looking to grind.

This sort of thing lends itself to people breaking off into their comfortable little groups that all agree with each other. You'll see them, on either side, start patting each other on the back and celebrating their obvious intellectual superiority to the other side. The funny outcome of this is that on issues where the majority agree, people tend to assume it's the other guys who are standing in the way. I've been using nuclear power as a way of feeling this tendency out. Pro-nuke plant dem's have this belief that it's the "big oil republicans" that have stood in the way. Forgetting that it was the pro-trees portion of the left that stopped the President Bush inspired energy bill to build more nuke plants back in 2005/2006 (wait, isn't W an oil guy?)

I guess I share my contrarian point of view not to convince people that I'm correct, and certainly not to start fights or make people uncomfortable. I share these things largely to interrupt the echo chamber that our little online world has become. Challenge everything, view things from as many vantage points as you can, and decide your views on an issue because you've thought about it and reached a conclusion based on the information that you've seen, not because your candidate (or your party) says so.

What damage Tropical Storm Fay wasn't able to do, I'm pretty sure the two abandoned kittens we took in during the storm will take care of.

Late monday when we first started getting rain from feeder bands, there were a couple of kittens in the construction area next door. The workers told me there were more wandering around the neighborhood and that they must have been abandoned. As sad as it was, I went inside and forgot about it ;)

A couple hours later, the workers had left and the kittens made their way to my back porch, soaked and crying as the wind was picking up. It was a bit too much to ignore this time, so I took them in and dried them off. Made a little home for them in a recycling bin and set out to find out what to do. The shelters and vets were all closing up for the storm, so it seemed like the options were to either keep them overnight until the storm passed, or toss them back outside. Obviously, we decided to see if we could keep them alive overnight and handle it Tuesday (they were all wet and sneezing, and kittens require a bit of actual, you know, attention).

Of course, Fay didn't decide to leave until Thursday. 30"+ of rain later, we now have two healthy kittens running around our family room. We managed to get them to the vet to get checked out. The doctor said he thinks they're no older than 3 weeks old. One of them had been attacked by something outside -- a big chunk of his neck/lower face was bit off and the tip of his tail is gone. We're administrating antibiotics and covering it with neosporin, and it seems to be doing the trick.

Anyway.. I think we're going to keep them around for a bit, at least until they're old enough for shots/dry foods. One is a girl and one's a boy. The girl we're thinking we'll name Fay, after the storm. For the boy, I'm a big fan of Scarface, but Kathryn thought it a bit much. I think we've compromised on Harvey, as in Harvey Dent, as in Two Face. A little more obscure, but comic book references rule. ;)

This past weekend, Kathryn and I shot out to the Bahamas for a quick little get away. Nassau's definitely a place where you have to have something planned to do, I think, but overall we really enjoyed it. We went out there via the weekend cruise that Royal Caribbean has up in Port Canaveral on the 'Sovereign of the Seas.'

Atlantis Hotel and Casino is a ridiculously cool place. I'm a sucker for salt water aquariums, and man do they have a killer one. They have a stingray in there that's probably 8 or 9 feet wide. We played a little bit of black jack while we were there as well. With the proximity to florida, I'm not exactly sure why I would want to go to Vegas anymore. The only thing that's probably missing are the shows, if you know, you're the show tune type. The room rates seem to be a little pricey, but I'm sure they run specials like every where else. As is, it's cheaper to do the cruise route and just hang out there.

We hit up Stingray Adventure also. Basically, you get to snorkel around with stingray's, hold them and feed them. They're all de-barbed, which really takes a lot of the adventure out of it ;) Good times though, and certainly a lot more hands on than Sea World.

I could totally see us doing this again at some point. The ship set sail at 5pm on Friday and was back by 7am on Monday. Perfect little weekend get away and it was cheaper than flying somewhere and staying in a hotel room.

Kathryn and I completed the 2 hour fire arm safety course required for the Florida concealed weapons permit yesterday. Applications are in the mail today.

We figured it was something worth getting not because we really want to carry, but because it was something we wanted to learn about and have the option available. It's one of the rights that we all have but hardly ever use, and frankly, at some point I feel like the gub'ment is going to come knocking on doors to try to take the fire arms away. Get em while the gettings good, I guess.

The class itself was pretty good. I didn't really know what to expect in a 2 hour course, but we did learn some things. We also bought a couple of books, one on Florida law and one on the laws of all the various states. Both of us travel a decent amount, so we figured it best to know the laws outside of Florida.

We have a great deal of practice ahead of us before either one of us are comfortable carrying, but they say the permits take a couple months to process anyhow. We'll see.

Anyone else have their concealed? Any suggestions on guns to try out or places to learn?

That line has been my mantra for choosing my places to live over the last however many years. The thought of the suburbs is a scary, scary thing.

Kathryn was living in So. Cal when I moved back down to Florida. She said she'd move there with me, but I wasn't allowed to move her to the burbs. It had to be city. I quietly keep it to myself that Florida is pretty much all what the rest of the world calls suburbs, but managed to find a killer (and I mean killer) apartment in downtown Orlando overlooking the little skyline thats available in the area. It was a perfect staging ground from the world that we were used to -- just enough crime to make us feel alive ;)

It's funny though, because those frightening 'suburbs' that we so desperately wanted to avoid are exactly where we find ourselves now. After searching all over Central Florida, we've bought a home in Satellite Beach, FL.



54 miles of highway separate us from Orlando proper (as defined by UCF, which for those that know me well, I consider to be the center of the free world). I've timed it at 40 minutes to 408 from here on average. Heading downtown, it's seems to be an hour worst case, 45 minutes at best door to door to my old apartment. Even with the added bit of distance, the highways between "here" and "there" make it equivalent to an Oviedo or Orlampa style commute to downtown. The difference is that I'm about 1/4th mile away from a nature preserved beach access (The biggest negative for Orlando was always that its so dang landlocked), close to my family (born and raised here), and in one of the best public school districts in the state.

So far so good. I miss my morning/lunch meet ups with friends (I'm one of those 'never eat alone' kind of guys), but it's great being so close to family. It's also been completely awesome having a really big home office, which was central to our cause when we were looking at places. I can crank the music way up and stay in my own little world here. Condos/apartments make that thing sort of tough sometimes.

Anyhow. I'll still be around probably just as much (which really wasn't all that much these days, anyhow). I'm traveling up to dulles quite often (one or two days a week lately), so that may limit how much I'm downtown. If/when it subsides some I think I'll try to do the tuesday coworking/jelly-ish session at Stardust to stay in the loop.

If you are over in Brevard though, hit me up! Looking to rebuild my connections on this part of town. It's been awhile.

Good times up in Sand Rock. We were there for a few days, after that we went and rafted the Ocoee River, then hit up Foster Falls, Tn. It turns out that camping with people who know what they're doing is a whole lot more fun than I remember ;) I had a great time and look forward to doing more of it in the future!

Some pictures on Flickr.

I'm leaving tonight for northern Alabama with some old college buddies. We're heading to Sand Rock for a few days of climbing and then hitting up some rapids up in Tennessee (I think) on Sunday.

I'm really excited, but for some reason all I can think of is Without a Paddle. I'm pretty sure I'm Seth Green's character in all this. Better than, I donno, Lewis maybe in Deliverance, I guess ;) I've never been big on the whole woods thing.

Anyhow. Be back Monday night!

So I was at likemind.orl this morning, and I mentioned "Yeah, I haven't posted a blog post in a couple weeks." Which was of course met with my friends pointing out that I haven't posted a blog post since March.

Wow. Sorry about that. I do have a legitimate reason though for not posting as much lately, and I'll share it in time. The problem now is that I've had 3 or 4 major life events that have happened since then. How do I best get everything caught back up? I'm thinking Tarantino style maybe, start at the 'end' of the story and work my way back to the beginning. I'm not sure yet ;) Most people on my inner most circles already know everything that has happened I guess, so.. we'll see.

While I think up a fun way to write about everything, rest assured that I'm still alive. I'm sure it was keeping you up at all hours. ;)

I've been tagged by Finke. Since everyone else is doing it, who am I to refuse?

Here's the history of it so far -- Me » Chris Finke » C.K. Sample » Jason Calacanis » Amanda Congdon » Michael Ambs » Rick Rey » Steve Woolf » Steve Garfield » Jeff Pulver.

Five Things You Don't Know About Me

#1. I have a dental implant. The doc's had to do a sinus bone graft, let that heal, then put in a titanium post, let that hell, then build a cap around it. Next up, boobs.
#2. I co-founded my first internet startup when I was 12. My brother, myself, and a couple of our friends took a 1 line BBS I ran out of my bedroom, got a loan from a bank, and added 3 more phone lines and some additional computer equipment. We grew it over the next 5 or so years into a small local ISP. We tried to hold onto our roots as a multiplayer gaming network / chat system for as long as we could, but ended up mainly selling dialup internet access. Eventually, everyone else had gone to college or taken positions elsewhere. I discovered girls, and we sold off the remaining assets. Online Illusions BBS (1993-1999ish), 407-722-5020. Word.
#3. I have way to strong of an affection for Morgan Freeman. I constantly argue with Gavin trying to convince him to let us name our servers after Freeman characters. I'm not sure why.
#4. I was very active in my college fraternity, so much so that I was named an "International Top Teke" in 2003. Up until our recent move, I was still involved as a Chapter Advisor at the University of Maryland chapter. LLT fo' sho'.
#5. I met my now fiance at a bar. Huh.. Didn't see that one coming... ;)

So, there are five things about me you probably didn't know. ;)

Gavin, Celly, Mike, Ryan Price, and Jason Alba at JibberJobber -- Tag, you're it.

This past Saturday night, at California Grill, I asked my girlfriend Kathryn to marry me.

California Grill was the right place to do it for few reasons. One, she just moved from California to Orlando, so there's that. It also looks out directly on the castle at Magic Kingdom and is the best place to watch fireworks anywhere in town. Because of that, it's where we went to watch the fireworks when I first brought her to Orlando two years ago. It seemed like the perfect place to conclude the last couple weeks of traveling and moving.

They brought out the ring on a desert plate with "Will you Marry Me?" written in chocolate. She said yes to a thundering applause from the entire restaurant, perfectly timed with the start of the 9 o'clock firework display.

I can't say enough about how perfect the entire evening was, about the wonderful staff at California Grill who I seriously need to thank via a written letter (gotta get those raises!), Gavin and his parents without whom I would have never been able to pull it off (his Mom was able to call some folks to get me the last second reservation, Gavin ran errands and delivered the ring to the restaurant for me), and our wonderful families for blessing/accepting us both as we start this new chapter.

I haven't gotten the chance to call/e-mail many people yet, so I figured I'd write a blog post and get the word out quickly and efficiently. Please don't take offense if I haven't actually spoken with you yet. Funny enough, someone already edited my wikipedia page with the date. Gotta love the Internet.

On Life...

We went out to our favorite Rib joint last night, I think I'm going to have to eat salad for the next three weeks to get back right. It's all about the beef ribs though.

The smog here (well, not Huntington Beach, but LA) is disgusting. I'm pretty sure the folks who say SoCal is the most beautiful place in the country really haven't been to that many places. It's Central Florida with a dash of Miami plus crime, pollution, traffic and smog. We saw a plane land last night and you could see the smog rolling off of the wings, no joke. Three cheers for asthma I guess...

We haven't hung out at the beach yet, though I'm sure we will. I'll try to judge it with an open mind, but as Wayne pointed out in a comment on an earlier post, the oil rigs really do kind of kill it.

We helped Kathryn get her office off the ground on Saturday though. We met a lot of great folks, including the Congressman from this area. He's a really funny, laid back guy.

On Work...

Netscape's going well, we just need to get that new hardware online asap. We have some servers on the west coast that are causing some headaches, but we can't take them offline until we get more servers to take their place. Catch-22. The big thing this will solve is the annoying sign in over and over stuff. It should only be happening to a very small percentage of users at any given time, but it's annoying as sin. The work around for it is to click the "remember me" option, at least, I think -- I can never seem to recreate the problem myself.

The dev team has been kicking ass and staying on top of the bug list. Tom and Andy are at it again doing some really neat stuff with the friends functionality, so stay tuned. That'll probably be the "visible" addition of the week.

Andy's also cleaned up the front page some, moving around certain items to make the design a bit less cluttered feeling. He's got some really slick design mocks of a "non-digg" look. Whenever we have a bit of time, we talk about different interface approaches. It'll probably be a little while before we switch to something different though, the masses can only handle culture shock so many times ;)

On Emurse...

We hit 1000 users sometime during the week, though we were too busy with Netscape (in addition to TMZ for Gavin) to notice exactly when. We're still sporting about a 67% active user base, which is stellar in my opinion. We're planning on unveiling some pay services for the site soon. The general functionality (what's already available) will continue to be free, since we really believe in offering as much to the user as possible, but we think it's important to start building out the business model early.

Expect to see a "plus" account with more features and resume templates, which is slated for $25 a year. Competing services seem to charge about three times that, but I mean.. A college kid who can really benefit from the service simply can't afford that kinda flow. We'll probably do a "premium" level account down the road, but I think $25 a year is more than reasonable coming out the gate.

We also have a review service (pricing is being researched now) that should be online in the next couple weeks. Gavin has already written the bulk of the backend, we just need to get the CSS straightened out so it doesn't look like poo (we're big believers in interface design, especially since we get to work with such a badass.)

If you have any suggestions for us, we're listening. Any insight into pricing structures would be helpful too ;)