Seeing our culture with fresh eyes

In my job I follow many different interesting people via the new social media they use to communicate. I track a lot of blogs, Facebook (social networking site) groups, LinkedIn (professional networking site) groups, twitter feeds etc.

I also attend a lot of industry trade shows and we are very big in publishing. One of the more interesting publishers I follow (and a customer) is O'Reilly Media. The founder Tim is one of the more interesting and thought provoking speakers I've seen at these shows (many of which are their own) and I just saw this very interesting blog post on his blog called the O'Reilly Radar entitled "Seeing Our Culture With Fresh Eyes".

In it he makes several poignant observations about our culture and how it continues to change. Tim, having just finished a novel from 1910 called "Prester John" ruminates on the accepted racist attitude at the time and how things have changed. He then talks about the current state of our culture that are ongoing and wonders what will people 100 years from now think of where we are now in terms of waste and consumption.

I agree with what Tim is saying here. Whether we like it or not our society is changing and many of the things we accept and understand now will seem silly and outdated as time progresses. What are the things that are clearly wrong for the global society and how can we use the current economic situation to accelerate the common sense changes that will in 100 years see obvious.

You can read the entire article by clicking here. Beware he does quote another blog which uses some swear words.

Funny wedding video

I saw this funny wedding intro video and wanted to pass it along. I guess this is the new trend in weddings, crazy kids!

Return to Freedom

This is one of my favorite images from a really great weekend last weekend visiting a really special place which is trying to save the wild horses of the american west. Lea is huggin Jake the free range donkey who followed us around at the "return to freedom" ranch.

We went down Return to Freedom which is a 300 acre ranch just north of Santa Barbara where the mustangs run wild in family groups and they are happy and safe. We camped at a local campsite with a group of friends and saw awesome sites during the day. This is a relatively short post but do check out the photos.

Here is the site for the refuge.

http://www.returntofreedom.org/

Great pictures here (warning lots of pictures)

http://horseplayunlimited.shutterfly.com/

Here are some of my favorites!

Feeling pretty good

As I have mentioned in previous posts I have been traveling a bit lately for work and for play. In fact the last 6 weeks or so have been pretty busy. Over that period of time I have tried rather unsuccessfully to keep up with my running routine which had become quite regular.

Despite that I must say I feel pretty good at the moment. I just got back from a 5 mile run and still had enough energy at the end for a strong kick to the finish.

This is all very important to me now as I start to think about my training routine for the San Jose Half Marathon in October. I know I am starting from a good base!

A more refined taste?

I decided to work from home today because I had 5 + hours of conference calls and thought I might as well take them from home and save the commute.

Melissa was nice enough to offer to go to the local Peet's coffee and tea to pick up a fresh coffee for me. As she was heading out the door the kids got wind of her destination and I heard Nicolas exclaim "Mommy, I want a green tea frapachino and a lemon scone!"

I thought "Wow! that kids knows what he wants!" Right after that I thought, "and he has a pretty refined taste too!"

What happened to a Slurpee and a candy bar? No McNuggets and a soda? These were staples at one time? He certainly has a more refined taste than I did at the time, although Starbucks and Peet's were merely a twinkle in someones eye at the time.

I am sure when he gets older he will be the guy ordering a half caf, low fat, extra hot, vanilla latte with a peppermint shot. Oh well...i do hope he starts to pay for it soon as those things are $4-5 bucks!

Fun at our sales kickoff

Every July at our semi-annual sales meeting different groups in the company make fun videos as part of a company wide video contest with real prizes. This year for example the winning entry got $1000!

This year the marketing team submitted a "Day in the life of marketing" video which pokes fun at marketing and takes a shot at a few individuals internally as well. Some of the jokes are company insider jokes but the video is funny just the same.

Mucho travel

Since the kids finished school in June we have been traveling quite a bit on vacations (and some work by me). I've compiled some rough stats on the travel for the vacation parts of our trips plus posted some links to photos i've posted on facebook. They are just a snippet of all of the photos and Melissa may post or send more on her own.

6200+ miles flown.
500+ miles driven.
20+ friends and family seen.
17 different pools swam in.
6 grandparents visited.
4 states.
1 heck of a great time.

Thanks to everyone who hosted us, we had an awesome 3 weeks of visits and travel.

Pictures from Virginia.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137024&id=578330169&l=24612afd12


Pictures from Arizona.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=140745&id=578330169&l=1e245d62b7