Up the Hill to the 6th

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Seeds

Taken at Home Sweet Home

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Eco-Friendly Home and Long Distance Service

We going to use it.. why not use it responsibly? A telephone system that runs on low-eco impact servers comprising a less than 30m2 footprint and a web-site that is 100% windpowered. 

Green Phone Service is working hard toward the goal of a FULLY WIND-powered telephone network. Meanwhile, what little energy used is recovered by carbon offset credits and the significant donation of net proceeds to organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society. Customers already help counter the release of approximately 2,660 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to planting nearly 2,390 acres of trees or cutting 6.1 million miles of fossil fuel driving per year. All billing is similarly digital only, no paper; if paper is used, it is hemp or 100% post-consumer recycled printed with soy-based ink.

Worth a look! Click here for more info. 

2nd green

Taken at Salinas Golf and Country Club

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What did I learn about running companies?

On the other side of management for 10+ years I struggle to communicate the same things executive leaders, presidents and CEOs. Same issues: Understand basic principles of sales, finance, leadership, management and especially IT as it pertains to marketing. The disciplines that we don't know from our experience. Everyone nods their heads and goes off and does what's familiar and not what works. It's the human condition. It's what we do. I remember being interviewed as a SVP and Managing Director/President. As an SVP of Sales and Business Development, I knew these consultants were great at running meetings but really thought (and I told them so-carefully) that they had little understanding of the nuts and bolts of running a $500 million division of a Billion Dollar public company.. But I do. Now. I hear the same things: "I get it". "I agree". "We're gonna do that" .. and then back to business as usual. Death. The slide down to mediocrity.. It takes time. There is no time to make all the mistakes ("You'll learn from your errors" is the name of a horror movie). We need to read and learn from the mistakes of others and go fast. No choice. And I can keep up now...
Here's where we are: Link to LVI

Committed...

That's it.. May 15th and I miss the issues and answers that made this blog grow. Been dormant too long. That is a warning to both us of. Express Yourself my friend. Tell us how you really feel and what you think. There is of course a difference. Remember there is such a thing as more than you can handle.. Stay as far away from that as you can.. Take good care of yourself and know that good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others. Sooner than later, but better than never.

ChromeOS

there is a buzz in SF this morning and it comes from a tweet: @pgoss: Chrome OS: Everything can be saved to the web. That's crazy! I could throw this into a river, and I won't lose my stuff. No need for virus protection. No annoying updates. No patches. No patches for the patches. Man, serious blow at Microsoft. But it's true. -Engadget. More on this but check out the video and know that Businesses can get Chrome hardware AND software for $28/mo per seat. Education & Gov users $20/mo. 
I have long been a "G" adapter (gmail, blogger, wave(!), android (which I think still should run on an iPhone) etc.). This is disruptive and will change everything.
Chromebook: built for the web. Good stuff! "The web is what you make of it."

Seve...

Much has been written by far better reporters and journalists than me. He was a legend to me and I have been thrilled (again) by the stories that have been told. Again the SI guys at Golf.com have contributed some good thoughts here. 

Noticed Greame McDowell and Luke Donald changed their avatars in his honor on twitter. 

Azinger noted that they went after each other on and off the course and when Paul got sick, Seve was the first to call. Class Guy.

Something is missing today!

Our Ocean.

Our Friend David Potigan at Gallery Sur sent these. 

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

@marwilliamson Tonight is a night for sober and mature reflection, not glee. Mindless celebration is both spiritually inappropriate and politically naive.


The end of the war on terror? We could only hope. Historic. Extraordinary.


From the New Yorker: Obama & Osama and some links to thoughtful articles about our apparent relief. You can feel it. And while our relief is real it might be remembered that Al Qaeda is much bigger than Bin Laden. The days ahead will reveal much about the dedication of his followers.  

A Royal Wedding

@joanwalsh The world is divided into people who see kitsch/romance/optimism in royal wedding, and Irish Catholic feminist curmudgeons, apparently.

There are tornadoes killing people and here's the answer for what ails us:

@TheBloggess So #royalwedding is just barely beating #shewantsthedick on twitter topics. Also trending? #whatsthepoint & #strawberrycheetos


Postscript: @DannyBrown  The Royal Wedding Live 4am CST http://twrt.me/t9ty via @ChicagoDesign

Renewed Enthusiasm

LagunitaVentures (our excellent business consulting service) provides developmental support for emerging companies. We have recently wrapped up an assignment with a company that will fail. It will fail because the owner is incapable of doing things differently. We refinanced his receivables, gave him step by step instructions on how to reorganize his business for success. He said to me one day at lunch (we are hands on usually), "you guys think I'm really slow, don't you?". My response was not YES! but that's what I thought. Instead I explained that while some of our vision had been accomplished it was not because he had shown courage and made the necessary cuts and changes. It was because he refused to address the issues and hid them in a corner or in some cases the employee went away (with customer lists and contacts and real bad feelings). He could not understand why they all want to "hurt" him. I learned a long time ago that some guys were a lot smarter than me and I'd be wise to surround myself with them and not hope for the easy way out.. How about you?

How are we doing? Let's start something!

Read the news today.. Oh Boy! Hotel rates have gone up in SF.. maybe LA but here in paradise we are still slipping. We are in a phase of dispersion.. we are selling ourselves short. Can't seem to get around the corner and a new poll says there is deep pessimism about the economy in the country and Obama is to blame.. It all seems to easy to me. We swing from self indulgence to self denial. Everyone seems nervous. We forget to tell ourselves the real truth. Time to start something. Do Something. That's my solution.. we have two start-ups going now. Looking for investors (again). That's my solution.. Start something. No complaints!

Fireworks

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Callaway razr tour irons

Taken at Salinas Golf and Country Club

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Scooter ...again!

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So you still think the internet is free...

So you still think the internet is free...

Bahrain violence out of control

Another Moss Landing Sunset...

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Apple and the future of Apps vs Microsoft, the PC and Andriod

In the past when I was silly enough to get pulled into the pc vs mac discussion (not always friendly-because guys and gals have to justify what they spend their money on) I had only one thought.. "there are programs I use that don't run on a mac". "Macs are cool and beautiful but I use quicken". Today I have an iPad (with mint) and some accessories to make it very functional (another post maybe). I could ditch my laptop if the Pad had flash without a workaround (I'm told it's possible)... but  the iPhone has taught us a new way to look at things.. 

Software used to dictate my purchases of computers and apps will replace software in the future. When you measure the functionality of a blackberry, an android phone or an iPhone you can let a few different ideas color your analysis.. but for my money it's all about apps..and apple's app store has a few more (thousands) than anyone else.. and you've read Rob Scoble's latest comments about apps and Nokia and so forth right? 


It's all about apps.. not just on our phones.. I'm thinking it will be about apps on our computers as well..

Developers hold the cards.. not one but thousands of them... many just shortcuts to web-sites. But that's where it is at. In the cloud. Ultimately developers will write for the platform that lets them have a chance at a decent living.. and that may be windows and iOS for our phones but it also will mean that apple will harness the apps and they will find their way to the desktop and give the mac the boost it needs. I see a future where bloated programs like Office will give way to nimble programs/apps and google docs.. a few years ago I started to open all attachments in Docs and it dramatically changed the way I manage my workflow. So I'm ready. I know I can buy a dell xps with specs that are much better than a loaded mac book pro for less dough but it will never be as cool looking and if you like the apps concept, the apps will be on the mac first.

The Fence

...and The Quiet Whispers to the Not So Distant Thunder, "Let the Truth be Told".

What? Inspired by It Might Get Loud and a sense that Jimmy Page can still rock with the best of 'em. Art is everywhere. Right Banksy? And after the storm (or was it enlightenment?) there's laundry to do.  Have been watching Tunisia and Egypt and Stuxnet. So Egypt hits the kill switch and if you go to  twitter.com/speak2tweet you can see what Google is doing about that: 

"Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection.

We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet."

Egypt and Tunisia. Egypt and Tunisia..and Julie Assange/WikiLeaks have been called  Twitter revolutions ..of sorts (Twitter helped..but we're not that important you know).. and Assange is really less dangerous and influential than someone in the mainstream media said he was.. or was it Roberts Gates who said he was dangerous? The New York Times executive editor Bill Keller wrote about the Times dealings with  Julian Assange  in the Times Magazine on 1.30.11 and 60 minutes' Steve Croft (Laura's dad?..) did a job on the piece aired on the same day as the NYT article. Presentations preceded by Raffi Khatchadourian's  No Secrets as reporter at large for the the New Yorker. And another excellent site by Dave Winer (@davewiner) has lots more: Wikiriver.org. And then a little mud slinging by FOX news(?): The New York Times' Sloppy Defense of WikiLeaks and Its Journalistic Standards. ("There is a laugh-out-loud moment. It comes when Keller writes that "it is our aim to be impartial in our presentation of the news.")

Maybe the traditional media is just taking out all their internet frustrations on WikiLeaks (via @holmser).

Davos is over and so is the Sundance.. just in time for the Super Bowl. It's Steelers vs Green Bay this year if you didn't know.. the venue may be the star. you might know who's gonna do the halftime show...more diversions to take our minds off of what's really going on but underlying all these sometimes dangerous human activities our fears drive us to what may be a solution to all the chaos. I heard a young man tell his story about that point where the voices in his head just wouldn't stop and all he'd done up to that point was aimed outside of himself. "It was time to pay attention to the one we all wake up with everyday. It is my brain after-all". Mas tarde que nunca. I'm just catching up..seems there is a lot to drain and disinfect. There is a purpose in Egypt and like so many incidents we forget easily what it's like to really have to take a stand. Money remains a great motivator. Freedom follows. There is Class Warfare in Egypt.. and in the USA. Eve knows! You'll really need to watch "Inside Job"... they could hit the kill switch here. Whoever they are. They are scared. The internet allows Truths to be told... It's a good album too. Don Henley's Inside Job. 

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior - WSJ.com

URL:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504...

perspective.. we are so soft...

See this Amp at http://on.wsj.com/hxxnJY

Julian Assange: The making of the 60 minutes interview

URL:  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20029950-1039170...

If you believe in Freedom and If you believe in Justice



- this is the 60 mins Overtime story about doing the Julian Assange interview.. Assange may not be as important, great or dangerous as some may think, but to me what he represents matters a good deal.

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/fBYSvD