You’re the best mother a son could ever ask for. I might not always call you everyday and eat my vegetables like you told me to, but I think I turned out all right. So today we honor you and mothers everywhere!
And here’s a special message from Kid President!
Yeah, I know, I’m a month late on posting these photos. Michelle and I had an amazing wedding and have been enjoying our first month of marriage. We would like to thank all of our family and friends that made this day possible. We would also like to thank our wedding planner, Casey Slate and our amazing photographer Gerry Melendez for the amazing job he did documenting our wedding.
Here are just a few of the photos. Enjoy the slideshow below.
Wake up in the morning and go straight to work. No shower, brushing your hair or teeth, no makeup needed. Get to work, go to brunch early. Moet Mimosas while riding on a helicopter around New York City. Get off work at 2 and go mountain biking with your friends in Peru. Go to the club in L.A. until 5 A.M. Get up and do it all over again the next day.
Badass and Beautiful, or as I call it: B&B. That’s how Facebook wants you to feel when you use their new phone ‘experience’ Facebook Home. Just look at the photos.
Seriously Facebook? Are our lives that exciting? Are all of my friends photojournalist who take amazing photos all day long? I’ll reserve my opinions about Facebook being the one stop shop for everything on my Android phone (Hello, Google??). It will be interesting to see how Google jumps to integrate Google+ into the core of their OS the way Facebook has. And Apple users, looks like you’re SOL right now.
Instead, I’m going to leave you with a random sampling of images in my newsfeed from the past 24 hours. Just ask yourself, do you want to see this on your phone all day long?
If you think they won’t add fan pages and advertisements to your new home screen in the future, dream on.
I love working from home. It’s hard not to get wrapped up in work and not focus on anything else. From the comfort of my desk I can see a mountain in the distance slowly being covered in snow. This is an amazing sight to see. I am reminded that we need to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life.
Did you know? If you haven’t heard the good news, I’m getting married in March! My fiancee and I are both living in Asheville, NC. I’ll have more to say about my time in Columbia and what I’ll be doing next. Until then, have a great week!
The Kenilworth Inn Apartments
Socal Crush, 2011.
Today is the first day that I’ve been home since December 23, 2012. My house is a wreck, there are presents, clothes, suitcases and STUFF everywhere. I should be getting ready for church, but instead I want to memorialize Rick Stilwell before I do anything else.
I am personally having a hard time trying to figure out exactly what I want to say. Rick was a friend, a mentor and a father figure to me. Rick showed me how real men should act online and off. He loved his wife and he loved his children.
I had no idea until yesterday that Rick was an ordained pastor. He was truly an example of how Christians should live their lives and share the love of Christ. Like a lot of things, he would share with you, but he never pushed anything on you and wasn’t in your face about it. He was an honest, down to earth person.
Rick and I spent a lot of time together as we tried really hard to rebuild Social Media Club Columbia. He had a very vested interest in growing our community when I lost sight of what was going on. He never asked for money for doing things and was always the first to lead workshops.
On car rides home from meetings, we would talk about life, love, friendships, relationships and children.
One conversation that I remember clearly was how he handled letting his children surf online and trusted them completely. Rules attached of course. It made a huge impact on me.
Rick was also an editor for this website. He would copy edit my posts because I guess he saw potential in me. Towards the end when I wanted to ramp up my writing, he even tried to help me find someone new to take his place.
Since I didn’t get to tell you in person, I’m going to tell you now and share it with the world.
Rick, thank you for everything that you’ve done for me, for Columbia and for our entire community. There are people whose lives you’ve enriched just by being their friends.
You were a friend and a mentor to me. You’ve made me a better person just by showing me how a real man leads his life.
You also meant so much to the social media world in Columbia. You were a builder, a leader, a tinkerer and a thought leader for us. I’m sorry that someone in the local media called you a ‘guru’ I know you despised that word.
I know that you are in a better place right now, probably having coffee with God.
We all love you and we will keep carrying on your legacy.
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The Icarus Deception from Squarespace on Vimeo.
Watch this video and then watch it again, and then watch it again.
How did it make you feel? Were you excited? Scared? Ready to try something new?
Let this be the year that you try something different and chase your passion. Don’t let anything or anyone stop you. I did the same thing in 2011 and it changed my life. I went from obese and miserable at my job to doing something that I loved every single day of the year.
I won’t lie and b.s. it’s been tough, one of the toughest things I’ve done. I’ve been scared too. There were days when even I thought I was crazy to step out on my own. But you know what? I don’t regret it for one single second. I am proud of every decision that I’ve made and it was the best thing I could have ever done with my life.
It’s not just me, there are other people who are taking a leap of faith and doing what they’re really passionate about. My friend Mary struggled for a long time trying to find something that she could be passionate about. And she finally did. She spends every weekend and every free moment immersing herself in the sport of kayaking. I couldn’t be more proud of her. She tackled life head on and now has more passion and zeal than I’ve seen in a really long time.
Life is too short to be living someone else’s dream. – Steve Jobs
My friend Joe Bland also decided to make a change. With the help of a tribe of friends, he launched his first company this past year: Raleigh Coffee Company. He grew a hobby of roasting coffee beans from a passion into a full time job. He now serves up freshly roasted coffee to the Raleigh and surrounding areas and even sells his product online.
How amazing would it feel if you could take something that your passionate about and do it every day?
Joe isn’t alone though, people from all different areas are doing the same. My friend Jeff started his own business Columbia Wedding Photos after an untimely round of layoffs from The State Newspaper. Ask him and he’ll tell you, its one of the best things that could have happened to him. More than three years later he has a very successful business where he wakes up and chases his dream every single day.
Austin Lee and his wife Courtney have also started their own business this past year. They started Front Porch Sweets and sell Gluten Free Goods.
I started my business with less than $100 in my living room on a cold December morning. It took guts and patience, but I don’t regret doing it.
I want you to do the same this year. No more B.S. resolutions. I want you to create real and lasting change. Don’t be afraid of what others will say, it doesn’t matter. This isn’t their road, it’s yours.
I want you to know that you’re not alone. Every day people decide to make the big leap and try something new. Let today be your day.
I want you to know that you can do this. The time is right. The time is now.
I want you to create something amazing.
I want you to believe in yourself.
I want you to try.
One easter egg of sorts that I’ve found on Google+ is what happens with your contact information.
In your Google+ profile you can list your contact information (pictured below). As you can see you can enter your phone number, email, fax, pager (who still uses these?), chat and address
.
Also of note is the fact that you can choose who you want to share this information with. By default I have chosen to share my phone number and email address with my circles and not the public. When I add someone to my circles, they will have that information to me.
Don’t you hate when someone has a new email address or phone number and you don’t know or have forgotten which one to call or use? Me too. This is where the genius of your Google+ contact information comes into play.
When you look at your Contacts Manager in Gmail, you’ll see a section called “Circles.” Everyone who you’ve circled will now be neatly organized and if they’ve chosen to share their contact information with you, bam, there it is!
As you can see from the screenshot below, Google will mix your contact information with theirs if you already have them in your contacts.
Now as long as the user keeps their information up to date and shares it with their circles you’ll always have the most up-to-date info.
One thing I would ask Google to change is the ability to share these fields individually with circles instead of sharing them as a whole. There are some family members I would like to share my current address with and not share it with everyone else. If anyone at Google reads this, maybe you can get on that?
Update/Temporary solution: One hack that I’ve noticed is having both a ‘personal’ and a ‘work’ field. For this, you might want to include a phone number and address. This way you can share it with your family and friends and no one else. For the work field, you might want to include your cell phone, work number and email and share that with your other circles.
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