Tomorrow night, Monday, February 23, I am planning to attend a lecture in the John W. Pope Lecture Series, which is put on by the NC State College of Management. The topic of tomorrow's lecture is The Poor Have a Dream: Freedom for All and the Escape from Global Poverty. The speaker is economist William Easterly.

Easterly is professor of economics at NYU, among other things, and a leading economist on the problem of world poverty. He is the author of the award winning book The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good.

You can read more about the lecture here and here. The lecture is open to the public and free.

If you're interested in coming with me, let me know. I'm really looking forward to it.

Labels: economics, nc state, poverty

FYI... I went to The Rodeo and to the Silver show tonight and I had about five too many drinks , but I wanted to share a video that explains twitter.

Whenever I try try to explain twitter, I relate it back to AIM buddy lists. See, whenever I was in college, I had an AIM buddy list that was 100 people strong. Whenever I would come back to my dorm after class, or whatever, I would check my buddy list. If you had an away message, I would hover over your name to see what you were up to.

So, I look at twitter basically the same way. Except I don't have to hover over anyone's screen name. I just gat a list of what everyone's up to.

The people that made this video had a little different take on it.



What is Twitter to you?

Labels: Silver, twitter, video

Our dryer is the Anti-dryer. You can take that as it is the anti-dryer, as is in an it does not dryer our clothes and you'd be right, or, you could take that as it is the anti-dryer, a sign of the impending armageddon, where our dryer will lead other dryers in their quest to take down all humanity, and you may also be right.

I loathe that piece of machinery that lives at the top of our steps. My soul dies a little bit every time its incessant "ding" goes off again and again and again and again. See the timer is broken so it does not turn off when it is finished. It just continues to ding every minute until you come open the door. I hear that sound and I cringe. Then, on top of that, the thing has one job, dry our clothes, and it can;t even do that.

The video below best displays how I would like to honor the anti-dryer once we break down and buy a new one.

WARNING: The video below contains some adult language.

Watch more Gamespot videos on AOL Video

Labels: around the house, indiscriminate

Do you have plans for Saturday night? Well, clear your calendar.

Oh, you don't have plans. Well, now you do.

If you're reading this, you are obligated to show up at the Pour House Saturday night. If you don't then I will have to send a monkey infected with the 'Ninja Virus' to your house, and believe me, you want no part of this.

Seriously, you should come to to the Pour House Saturday night. Some friends of mine are in the band Silver and Saturday night is their CD release show for their CD +/-.



If you want a taste of their sound, you can check out their web page or myspace (does anyone still use myspace anymore?) page.

I know these guys pretty well. The bassist even lived in my kid's nursery before he was born. Their all great guys. They all three went to NC State, which has got to mean something good. You can check them out in the technician and in the free expression tunnel, if you happen to be on campus.

Any way, I'll be out there, I hope to see you there. If you are going to come, leave me a comment and let me know to look for you.

Labels: local, music, nc state, raleigh, Silver, The Pour House

A little over a year and a half ago, I took a trip to Florida with a pregnant wife and came home with a son. We went to Florida without our doctor's blessing, but we were pretty sure that we would not have our baby a month early. Well, we were wrong. Palmer was due on July 2, 2007, but was born on June 2, 2007. In pregnancy weeks and days, he was born at 35 weeks and 5 days.

Now, fast forward to today. My is pregnant with baby number two. In pregnancy weeks and days, she is at 35 weeks and 5 days. Last time with Palmer we woke up at 12:45AM and had a baby at 4:12AM. So, today and going forward, it's all uncharted territory for us when it comes to pregnancy.

For me, I'm getting more anxious by the day. Sometimes it's fear. Sometimes it excitement. Either way, I'm looking forward to the challenges and joys that lie ahead. As for Kim, she's said that she would like the baby to keep cooking until March. We'll see what the baby has to say about that.

Labels: baby, pregnancy, Presley

Earlier this week, Alan sent me an email that introduced me to the Raleigh Twestival. It was something that was right up my alley. It combined twitter, which I am an avid user of, and charity:water, which I am also a big fan of.

I went to the event without really knowing much about it. When I got there, I felt a bit out of place. I asked some of the organizers, "What am I supposed to be doing?" The response included food, beer, networking with people and buying raffle tickets. I was a little confused because I was expecting there to be something about water in there.

It took me a little while and a couple Shotgun Bettys to realize that people weren't necessarily there to talk about water, but if I brought it up, they were willing to talk about it. So, I just started talking to people.

I talked to Nick from Click Optimize. We talked for a few minutes and had a great conversation. Then, he encouraged me to tell my story in front of the camera. MyNC.com was there filming people tell why it was important for them to come out. The interviewer, Lisa Sullivan, said that she had been limiting people to thirty seconds, but she gave me the green light to tell my story.

You can see my interview here:

[NOTE: When I said 503(b), I really meant 501(c)(3). Oops.]

If you are interested in learning more about my project, you can contact me at info (at) dynamicwater (dot) com.

After my two minutes of fame, I mingled a little more. Then, they drew the winners for the raffle. I bought six tickets for a dollar each. It was all the cash I had. I put five of my tickets in raffles for gift cards to restaurants and one of them in for a prize pack from Edward McKay's Used Books.

I ended up winning the EdMcKay raffle. I got the BBC Planet Earth Series on BluRay. To bad I don't have a BluRay player. I hear that it is awesome. I also got five books: Water Wars, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource, It's Easy Being Green, An Inconvenient Truth, and True Green. I also got an EdMcKay t-shirt. All-in-all, it was a pretty sweet prize for a one dollar raffle ticket.

Before I left, I also met several people from an internet marketing group. One of them, a lady named Cynthia Richards, spent part of her childhood in East Africa. So, she was excited to hear about my water project.

I also met a guy from TriangleBlvd.tv. It turns out that he, Damon, played soccer at NC State and Diana and Jason know him. He was interested in getting me a spot on their site. I hope that comes through. It could be some good publicity.

The first thirty minutes I was at the Raleigh Twestival, I was disappointed. However, when I left, I was more amped than I have been in years. It was an incredible networking opportunity. I'm really glad I went.

Were you there?

Labels: activism, books, dynamicwater, dynamicwater.org, mync.com, raleigh, triangleblvd.tv, twestival, twitter, video, water

In December 2007, I started talking to some folks at Hope Community Church about their well drilling project in Central African Republic. They were, and still are, working with ICDI to bring water to people who need it and then partnering with ICDI to continue to build relationships with the villages they help.

They had a trip to CAR planned for the end of January/beginning of February 2008, I was all set to go on that trip with them. The problem was that their was only one other person ready to go. So, the trip got postponed.

I found out the other day that the trip had been delayed an entire year. I found a blog that is being used to keep people here abreast with what the team is doing there. Reading the blog and looking at the pictures makes me jealous.

It's not that I wanted to go on their trip. I've found another avenue for bringing water to a different group of people, which fits better with Visio Dei. I'm jealous just because I want to go there. I want to witness firsthand what I read about.

Anyone have a plane ticket to Kenya for this summer laying around?

Labels: activism, africa, blogosphere, Central African Republic, Hope Community Church, ICDI, water

I was reading an article from the Washington Post about what's being said about the president's stimulus plan. It was a quick run-down of who's saying what.

I found the entire thing interesting. It was sort of like a highlight reel. There was one bit at the end that I found very interesting.

Earlier in the article, the author had referenced an interview that ABC's Terry Moran had with the president. Below is an excerpt from the article where he's talking about Terry Moran releasing info about his interview via twitter.

About that "Nightline" interview I mentioned earlier, Terry Moran kept dishing the highlights on his Twitter page:

"On why not nationalize banks, O: too many, too expensive, not our culture.

"Just finished interview. I asked, 'Wall Street really doesn't like your plan for banks' 'Wall Street wants an easy answer, there isn't one'

"On whether he is tough enough for DC battles O: People said that 2 yrs ago. But I flew here on AF1."

So much for holding an exclusive. Is Twitter the new AP wire?

I sort of imagine Terry Moran with his iPhone in his hand, texting while Obama is talking.

Check out his last twenty, or so, tweets.

We live in a world where you can know what's being served for lunch on Air Force 1.

Crazy.

Labels: news, obama, technology, twitter, washington post

This Thursday night from 7 to 9 thousands of people around the world will be stepping away from the internet and out into the real world, all to raise money for a good cause. Okay, honestly, most people won't be stepping away from the internet because we can carry it in our pockets. However, they will be getting together for a good cause.

In over 160 cities around the globe, people are gathering to raise money for charity:water. Raleigh is a host city. You can learn more about it here and here.

I'm planning to be there. Who's coming with me?

Labels: activism, charity:water, raleigh, twestival, twitter, water

For a better overview of the Animoto, check out Brad Ruggles review.

Labels: internet, music, photography, photos, technology, video

I've been spending a lot of time looking at all of out photos recently. We got iLife '09 and I've been naming all the people in our photos using the Faces feature of iPhoto. While doing this, I noticed that when iPhoto displays just the face it has found in a picture, it comes up with some pretty awesome pictures.

This afternoon, I was looking at some of our wedding photos and started playing around with cropping them. Then, I started playing around with some of the settings for levels on some pictures. I liked the results. So, I uploaded them to flickr. You can see them all here, but I've put a sampling below, as well.


Mandy (far left) caught the bouquet at our wedding. You can see how focused she was while it was in the air.


I heart her.

Labels: iPhoto, photos, wedding