2005 April

I had a wonderful time in Portland at the nerd/geek dinner. I have to admit after getting a late start I thought twice about the value of driving 3-4 hours for dinner only to spend the night get up early the next morning and drive 3-4 hours home. Then I met the Portland Geeks – now I'm smitten. :)  Alex Williams and Judy were gracious hosts and I met some really cool people. The conversation was full and not just with the usual jargon in regard to traffic and blog politics. I listed a few below for your enjoyment.

 I had some really great conversation about life,philosophy and snow boarding with John Hann. Check out his new blog and watch out for this guy cuz' he's steppin' into your conversation pool in a big way. David Parker told me funny stories about Chris from way back and even approved of my changin' hair styles, since he's a former stylist and current photographer and retouch specialist I'll take that as a big compliment. Rich Claussen and I talked at length on media hardware and his HUGE collection of DVD's. Turns out he and his wife are big movie buffs and have started to create a mini monster (a wall and a half of DVD's from a rough estimate). Thank goodness he has a great filing system to keep it all orderly. (Next I forsee him starting his own version of Netflix -after attending G5 and learning how to monetize the 'net with what ya got.) A really cool conversation that comes to mind was with Scott Hanselman, he's a newlywed who still beams when he talks of his new bride. A definite renaissance geek considering he had his laptop with him at dinner but he could still point out how to save a buck on a wedding, without chintzing on the style. Thanks for the tips Scott! The pictures were awesome. The award for the geekiest geek goes to Josh Bancroft! He definitely came with the most toys and I don't think I saw him once without something bluetooth connected. Chris hogged Scott Niesen and Geoff Kleinman at the other end of the table. Greg Hughes tried for at least a good hour to explain the details of XML and RSS to me. His patience deserves praise because when it comes to technical details I usually have about ten questions to the usual one. I have to mention he didn't once roll his eyes or sigh. Alex, Judy and I talked about The Podcast Hotel and what cool things are in the planning of such an event. That's going to be a really fun event!

I'm looking forward to another visit to the Portland Area soon. Heck maybe Chris and I will even make it over to the Ponzi Winery since it's only half hour outside of Portland!

I'm sorry to say that I'm not that impressed with the “my pyramid” unveiled yesterday. There are too many questions left unanswered or it's a time consuming maze to get to the answers. More than that – are the people who really need this going to get to it? I don't think so. The majority of the information on the site was hard to get to and I'm someone who is on the computer the majority of the day. If I tried to direct my grandmother to this site it would be like trying to get her to ride a roller coaster. She'd laugh and say it was for young people.

If the govt. really wants to get information out on how to be healthy they need to do it the old fashined way. Go to the people. They aren't going to come to you. The obese american isn't really looking for this info. unless they have made up their mind to change their lives. I think the smartest way to teach people who don't know they want to learn is to put information in places where they don't realize they are learning.

Make fast food restaurants put posters inside the bathroom stalls and on the wall behind urinals. Instead of TV while you pump gas – show information clips (some gas stations show TV while you pump gas). While in line for the DMV show information on diet and health. Especially show it in the doctors office while you're waiting for an appt. to find out if your cholesterol is up.