Geojoey's Weblog

Dance

I was reading Mr Goldberg's blog this morning and got all dance inspired, so here's one of my favorite dance videos. This is Fat Boy Slim's Weapon of Choice. Little known fact: Christopher Walken trained as a dancer in musical theater before moving on to serious theater acting and film roles.

Back in Seattle

I arrived back in Seattle yesterday and there are a few subtle signs that a tornado ripped through this place 2 months ago. My beach on Lake Sammamish is filled with enough drift wood to build a small ship. My cable connection is ripped out of the side of the house and was hanging from the pole - apparently a very large tree fell and almost took out the house. After ramming the cable connection back into the socket and wrapping it in tin foil we got the Internet back.

I'm here until Feb 18th, so if you're around and have a spare lunch break, lets go for coffee. It's funny, I've missed this place - almost like it's home. I might just have to make this my permanent base.

Politics

I've had a long internal debate raging about whether or not to talk about my politics on Geojoey's corporate blog. As an immigrant and permanent resident of the United States, but one who is not yet a citizen, it's sometimes frustrating watching the direction this country has been moving and knowing that because I cant (yet) vote, the only influence I have is my voice. And I choose not to blog about politics so my voice doesn't get heard.

Today I'm changing that.

I grew up in South Africa during the apartheid years. I've seen some awful things done to adults and children out of fear. I was almost part of those awful things. I missed getting drafted by the army by months after they threatened to send around the military police to bring me in.

I was a student of political science at the University of Cape Town during the year of our first democratic election. I was in Cape Town city center when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and I heard his first public speech.

So I've seen a country in the grip of something terrible transition to "freedom and democracy". I also know the caliber of leader that can take a country from the brink of the abyss to freedom and prosperity.

During the apartheid years, the United States was a symbol of everything that is right with the world for us. America was, to us, the land of the free and the home of the brave. Today, when I travel back home, the USA is no longer perceived as that. It's not because South Africa is now a democracy and we've become arrogant, but rather that the United States has changed.

In 2003 I drove from Northern Tanzania down to Cape Town through Malawi, Zambia and Botswana. I spoke with people from many different backgrounds and cultures and there was this prevailing view that America is the bad guy.

What changed? Perhaps that is better left to the historians to figure out.

I do know one thing though. The United States needs change. We need a leader that is very very smart but who also listens to those around him. The engineer in me wants to describe him or her as someone who has enormous cognitive power, an excellent memory and someone who also gathers all available data from both internal and external sources.

While I don't have all the available data - and I'm not sure any of us will ever have all available data when it comes to choosing a presidential candidate, I have been very impressed with one guy. The Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.

I'm not going to write paragraphs singing his praises, but I encourage  you to listen to him speak and think about what this country needs. That's all. 

I also challenge other bloggers to come out of the closet and chat about their politics. Lets not make this a red or blue thing. Lets just gather as much data as possible, find the right guy and then give him a shove when he needs it.

Mark

Research

As part of my ongoing research into the New New Thing™ I've (at last) gotten into YouTube and have made my first few videos. OK - I guess I'll admit all this - er - research is a hell of a lot of fun!!

This one is a compilation of extreme sports from YouTube. The originals were ripped with flvconverter and it was edited with Windows Movie Maker, a brilliant little piece of software that is included with windows and includes the blown-away transition effect that I use.

The soundtrack is Breaking Benjamin, Blow me Away. The tube is at Teahupoo (Tahiti, French Polynesia) and is one of the biggest ever ridden. The human glider is from Warren Miller's "Journey" and is in Verbier, Switzerland - the glider is Loïc Jean-Albert cruising 15 ft above the snow. The train surfer is unidentified and is in Germany surfing a bullet train at 330Km/h. The skater is Bob Burnquist in his own back yard on a $250,000 ramp of his own making. The climber jumping off the cliff is the late climbing legend, Dan Osman.

The first day of a big year

Back at work. We're in Colorado digging our way around a snow filled city. I am now an expert snow-blower operator. We're back in Seattle in a week. It's been quite a road trip over the last month. We drove from Seattle to Elizabeth, CO to Orange County, CA back to Elizabeth where we find ourselves now and in a week we're driving back to Seattle.

With Geojoey we started by creating a way to post interesting experiences on a map and it rapidly became obvious that travel experiences are the most interesting. We've been watching carefully as our users tell us what value Geojoey has for them and we've been doing a lot of thinking over the holiday season. The thousands of miles we've covered during the last month has been fuel for thought.

It's Jan 1 and we find ourselves back at work with a new direction in mind. More will be revealed in the coming weeks, but we're going to answer the burning question of "Where's the value for me?"

Mark.