Entries Tagged 'Friends' ↓

For John and for George.
Amazing Grace

Shannon and I have a good Mate Amitai Givertz, who has a lovely Wife Mel, and two beautiful daughters that happen to live just up the road from us in Palm Beach Gardens. That’s about ten miles away north of West Palm Beach where we live. Who knows, perhaps by this fall when we hope to buy a home again we might become even more neighborly.

We met Ami through our first business blog EXCELER8ion and he had the good sense to suggest that we meet in person, rather than just online. Meeting for dinner and on other occasions have made us closer. Naturally.

We read each other’s blogs, tweets (on Twitter) and we even get together once in a while. Ami sent me an email today that I want to be able to remember years from now. And yes Mate, it’s time to get together for a coffee, or a brew or whatever – we miss you. Cheers!

Here’s Ami’s message

“I’ve been thinking about you and Shannon,
Thinking about you a lot.
Twitter has synthesized our being in touch,
But being in touch, we are not!

I have sampled Shannon’s casseroles,
I have been with you there at the store,
But now that Twitter is broken,
I see I’ve become quite a bore.

That scrumptious pile of veggies,
The illusion now is plain
Standing with you in the checkout,
How could I have felt your pain?

The miles and miles that divide us,
In truth it is only a few,
So let me know when you’re ready, Jules,
And I’ll buy you and Shannon a brew.

I know, I know, its not convention,
For me to connect with you like this,
But every time I think of tweeting you, mate,
I feel like I’m taking the piss.”

-Amitai Givertz

Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week has a useful post up about practicing a daily gratitude exercise. He makes a point that connected with me, which is that many of us can’t easily (or don’t enjoy) meditation. I’m one of those. If I relax that much I’m just going to fall asleep.

Instead Tim suggests thinking of five things you’re thankful for upon waking. Great idea. There’s a link in his post about Gratitude Theory that you may find interesting. Here are some things I’m very thankful for.

I’m thankful for Shannon, she’s my love, my true companion, my partner and my home.
I’m thankful for Max because his wit and charm remind me of my better sides.
I’m thankful for Charlie because he is innocent, bright, and warm.
I’m thankful for John because he plays in life like he means it and has a big heart burning with passion.
I’m thankful for Julia because she’s smart beyond her experience and loves me as if I have no flaws.
I’m thankful for my mum and dad because they gave me a chance to be a good man.
I’m thankful for my Aunt Pat who has listened to me when no one else could hear what I needed to say.
I’m thankful for all my family who have helped me, loved me, prayed for me and held me in their mind and heart.
I’m thankful for my friends, those few souls walking this earth who accept me for who I am.

Wow, that felt great!

I had a great chat with my mate Dan Lazner (left) today. It was about three hours of non-stop entertainment. If you caught my previous post you would see that we are in the process of catching up on 26 years of life. Dan’s mum put a scrapbook together for him a few years back and this photo of Dan and I from Lance Holt School days in Fremantle was one his mum included in his book. Dan scanned this picture in and sent it to me live over Skype as we sat on our video chat in West Palm Beach and Box Hill, Melbourne. We noted on our video chat that the rather devilish grin on our faces hadn’t changed one bit.

I just heard from my friend Dan Lazner (pictured above with wife Fran and daughters Jessie and Sophie). Dan was my best mate from elementary school in Perth. Dan and I connected a little while back after not speaking for…about 26 years or so.

No, not like that.

First he moved away from Perth to Melbourne and then I moved back to The States. A while back something told me I just needed to find him and by the wonders of modern search engines I found his band online and his band mate connected us. Great flowing emails ensued and I think it is OK for me to say that we both got a tremendous amount out of the connection.

Dan is now a software developer after working his ass off over the last eight years to really learn the trade. We’ve connected on Facebook, LinkedIn and most importantly  Skype so even with the time differences that should make it dead easy for us to catch up on the phone.

I’m looking forward to it heaps Dan! Talk to you soon.

Jules

I was having a nice chat with my good friend Ami just yesterday. We covered a lot of topics as we typically do from social mores, business, social networking, media, philosophy, blogs, web development, family, psychology, and I think a couple of others.

I was explaining that I get overwhelmed by blogging because I have so many blogs. Hard to keep up with them all and I don’t! He told me he had an answer to that and directed me to this new site http://amitaigivertz.blogspot.com. It’s an Ami Portal page of sorts – an aggregation of everthing Ami online. Like me, Ami has a lot of online presence to manage and he found that using blogger (Google’s off the shelf and ever so popular and easy to use blog tool) along with a leveraged use of RSS feeds has delivered him unto us. Perfect.

I’ve had this exact idea in my head for at least a year now. I already own my own name as a url and I would aggregate content on my name for all my different properties. Of course I would have to launch another blog and then find a good wordpress tool to accept all the feeds. I know they’re out there I just don’t use them and so don’ t know their names. The idea is that if I was to aggregate my blogs you would see that I actually DO update my personal blog pretty frequently. My other blogs run in spurts. BUT, if I (and you) knew without having to check that there was activity on my other blogs I would find it easier to stick with my other blogs (because I do REALLY like posting to them all). I could have one blog about everything and this is a perfectly good solution but it doesn’t work for people who find blogs because of a specific interest. I would have the satisfaction of seeing the efforts of my work in one place.

Rather than wank on with all the technical stuff as I am want to do Ami just used blogger and he’s done. Rather nice that. I imagine it didn’t take him long to do it either. He accomplished everything I want to do and he’s already done. I think that’s just fantastic. That’s the power of using off-the-shelf web apps and not worrying yourself over silly things like custom urls which don’t really matter in the end anyway. People just need one address – one place, a jumping off point to launch you into everything you are doing online.

Ami, you asked me to drop by your site and I have and I will. I love that I can find out what you’re doing by going to your site EVEN though I already track your every move on Google Reader. I like visiting sites. I will enjoy visiting yours. You have inspired me to get my online life aggregation finished – one way or the other.

And about that web 3.0 definition you wrote about (aka the semantic web.

I like to summarize web 3.0 or the semantic web as the personification of the web. I’m sure I nicked that off someone but if so I couldn’t tell you when or who. I believe that all the amazing underlying technology that is being developed to drive the next generation of the web will and should have only one purpose – to make the web more human – to make the web even more intuitive – to amplify and more accurately represent US – the people.

There you have it, my wank is done for the day.

[tags]lifestreaming[/tags]

I could probably write a book on all the things that I felt and thought about running my first marathon but I decided that sharing my live twitter log that I sent on my phone during my run would be a great way to share some of the actual experience with you. Maybe later I’ll get to writing more about it. For now, just know that each one of you that helped in supporting me on my run have my sincerest gratitude. Thank you.

Of all my updates from my phone I have a favorite. It’s this twitter from when I took the virtual lead in the marathon in this post:

“Just passed leader of marathon at just over 11 miles 07:40 AM February 18, 2007″

Just to clarify, the leader of the race was passing me going the other way. My family told me after the run that they were laughing pretty hard when they read that one! I ended up getting less than two hours sleep on the eve of my run and I’m pretty proud of myself for finishing given that I had a cold. I believe this marathon will be the first of many more to come!

Begin twitter log:

Now how to get to sleep? 10:43 PM February 17, 2007

Up and at ‘em – carbing up 04:05 AM February 18, 2007

At the start line – as many port-o-lets as an outdoor concert and lines just as long! 05:44 AM February 18, 2007

In the gates! 05:59 AM February 18, 2007

We’re off! 06:07 AM February 18, 2007

Passing hojo’s on a1a and now 9th st 06:41 AM February 18, 2007

Sunrise blvd 06:41 AM February 18, 2007

@family I love u! Thank you .shit eating grin on my face at ne 16th 06:47 AM February 18, 2007

At oakland pk blvd 06:58 AM February 18, 2007

Half marothon trnd off just a little while ago. Full bore only now – foot traffic light now 07:04 AM February 18, 2007

10 miles 07:30 AM February 18, 2007

@shan getaway at se 8th:36 AM February 18, 2007

Just passed leader of marathon at just over 11 miles 07:40 AM February 18, 2007

Mile 13 @ shan with Mary now rain just started 07:54 AM February 18, 2007

16 cold wet struggle now 08:22 AM February 18, 2007

@ Lorrnz Jr. – 8 to go – let us ru n togwther now with wings on our feet! 08:41 AM February 18, 2007

Arms numb need to walk now a bit gather myself for finish – circulation in arms careful now goal is 2 finish 09:02 AM February 18, 2007

Ok arms starting to feel again – just beyond 20 mile mrk – they gave out energel @ 20 – beauty! Time to run this one out – love u Shan 09:11 AM February 18, 2007

Running with E – my man of strength thx for J-z 09:22 AM February 18, 2007

23 miles now so many pains and cramps – wow! 09:44 AM February 18,:55 AM February 18, 2007

Gotta stretcher 4 me Shan, I am at 25. 10:08 AM February 18, 2007

All finished at around 4 hrs 15 10:40 AM February 18, 2007

Feeling so much better now post marathon-+8 hours after. walking the dogs to stretch out the pummeled muscles 07:46 PM February 18, 2007

Pictures from the run: on Flickr here – is this first “Twittered” Marathon? 09:22 PM February 18, 2007

Shannon and I had the great pleasure and honor to reconnect with our mutual friend Ed del Campo recently. Shannon and I both knew Ed before we even met that fateful day in Phoenix 6 years ago. Ed lives in Miami and worked with Shannon at the online arm of The Miami Herald, while I know Ed because he helped me lead the national sales team I ran at Knight Ridder in San Jose.

Ed wrote a very inspiring comment and dedication for my marathon recently and just this past Tuesday he was in West Palm Beach and we had the chance to visit with him. It was the first time we’ve seen Ed in years. What’s particularly inspiring about Ed is that he’s managed to overcome two serious bouts with cancer. Ed is a fighter in every sense of the word and his faith, tenaciousness, love for life and love for his beautiful girls have kept him with us. Now, Ed is fulfilling his life long dream to become a Fire Fighter! He’s spent the last year completing the academic study needed to earn his EMT and Fire Fighter certification and he’s already got a job lined up with Palm Beach County. Provided Ed passes his physical (which was the reason for his visit to West Palm Beach) he’ll be on board for the 90-day Fire Fighter Academy. We may even have the opportunity to host him while he’s attending the Academy so he can avoid the arduous commute from South Miami. Ed, you’re truly an inspiration to us.

Mum and Neil are visiting right now from Australia and we had a great time over the last week watching The Long Way Round. It was one of those communal experiences where we’d all gather around the TV and sit watch, and talk with each other about the fascinating events as they unfolded. Who said TV couldn’t be interactive!  I guess it depends on how good the content is and what you put into it.  It was the second time watching the series for Shannon and I but it was no less interesting. It was great to watch and see the reactions of Max and Charlie and Mum and Neil.  Max was very keen on it and he said that it was hard to wait for each evening when we would gather around the tube. He wanted to skip ahead when we were all asleep and watch the whole thing, being the nocturnal teenager (15) that he is, but he knew it would be better if he waited and watched it with everyone else. It’s just one of those nice memories that I know I’ll look back on fondly from this visit.  Our time together is growing shorter now and I can feel that unfortunately the visit will come to an end soon. There is never enough time with these long distance visits to pack in enough ‘visiting’ and this one is particularly short since we’re so busy getting ready to move.