Political Pre-season

Please stop and read carefully…. this is not a political pitch, not an endorsement for any candidate or cause, nor a fundraising request for any particular party.

Disclaimer done.  I suffer a rare condition of not being into sports. It’s exasperated by the fact that I live in the Boston market. It’s a fabulous sports town and we have all the major sports teams.  Loads of history and crazy fans.  A top 5 place to be if you’re a sports guy/gal/person.  Not me.  I listen to the sports talk radio during the playoff seasons for 5 minutes a day so I can get by day-to-day. Sorta like learning Spanish before you take a vacation in Barcelona, enough to survive.

Politics is my sport. I’m not a political junkie, more of an enthusiast.  I’m not a supporter of any one team or person.  I like the sport of it as much as I like the issues.  There are a million and one factors that affect the outcome.  It’s the greatest Facebook fan page. We all can hit the “like” button, but the stakes are much higher. In the end intelligence, common sense, and proven track record have very little to do with the outcome.

The debates are like WWE cage matches, the polls are like NASCAR points system, the primaries are like the sweet 16 playoffs, and of course the election is like the Lakers vs the Celtics game 7 meets the Superbowl.

Enough of the metaphors….

The 2012 political pre-season is off to a great start. Lots of quality action.

Here’s run down:

The Birthers made  enough noise with Trump steering that ship to get The President to produce the official document,  fun to watch. In the long runs means nothing other than Trump blew his spotlight way to early. He could have dragged that “I’m running for President” thing out for a while.

Huckabee – out. There was an unexpected surprise. Outsider long shot last time around hung in long past when it was obvious he had no chance.  Out before it started. I guess the pay check at Fox is better than what 1600 Pennsylvania Ave pays.

Palin, the exhibition tour entertainment for the space between the midterm and presidential election. She came into her own. She found her voice, message and a bunch of Teabaggers to make her popular enough for her to get a gig at Fox. Is she as important as they were saying she was?  Seems she’s losing her luster. But she certainly still is the wild card.

Mitt Romney.  A bit on the low-key side of the things , but definitely working it. Republican with the original Obama health care plan.

Lots of noise on the conservative/ Republican front.

The President   Osama= dead,  nuf said, even in my book.

It should a wild ride in a few months as the candidates, networks, pundits, and general rabble rousers head to the streets with their soap boxes.  I’m excited. I love the process. I love  what it all means. I’ve got my civics “geek on” and I’m ready to go for this upcoming political season.

Now if I could only get everyone to refer to the political junkies as political hooligans.

The Season of the Wayward Couch and Flying Suit Case

Tis the season here in the greater Boston Metro area.

It’s a very short-lived season, it runs about the second week of May thru the first week of June.

You’ll only see it in bloom on the highway and close to college campus’.

There are tell-tale signs to watch for. 10 plus year old cars, sweat shirt wearing, sunglass sporting young 20 somethings on the move.

Yes it’s the time of year when all the colleges let out for the summer. Kids and parents stuffed into cars, trucks , and mini vans,  literally loaded beyond capacity.  Sidewalks around campus’ suddenly look like yard sales as they heave this years furniture with no plan on what to do with it.  Bags and suit cases of clothes that have leaped to their demise littering the sides of the highway along route 128, 95, and 91.

So keep a sharp eye if you live in a college town or spend quality time on the highways and byways.

You may just get a glimpse of the last moments of the college couch in its last sad days of existence. Ah,  the stories it could tell. The beer and pizza stains it has accumulated through its glory days of late nite video games, keg parties, and endless college life drama.

You may even see the elusive Glad Trash Bag Suite Case Substitute in its short, ungraceful, and violent last flight as it leaps from the hand me down family Buick as it roars past you with a hung over, half awake college grad making his way back to his parent’s basement.

Have your camera ready, post your sightings…..

25 years of Beastie Boys

Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, the long awaited album from the B-boys is finally here. The last studio album was in 2004. Quite the stretch to run without new material.  The delay mostly caused by MCA’s bout with cancer.  

Most of the reviews are clocking in at a solid B+ to A- performance.  Not bad for 3 Jewish kids from New York. Especially when they were the first white kids to gain any sort of notoriety in an all black genre. A  genre that was, like rock and roll 30 years earlier, supposed to be just a passing fad.

In 1984 when License To Ill was released,  the bands my parents listen to were experiencing some continued momentum. The Stones released Undercover in 83′ and Steel Wheels in 89′. They also went on to release another albums over the following 6 years. They, by no means,  were the only ones still squeezing every ounce the rock and roll lifeblood they could manage out of the fans.

I used to joke with my brother that we’d be at the Public Enemy  Reunion tour in 25 years, Flava Fav would be rolled out in a wheel chair, Chuck D would just be Chuck, and we’d have the best seats in the house because we got advanced tix thru our AARP membership.

So what’s the allure? Clearly each generation throws their pop hero’s up the charts and then worships them until the bitter end.   I can say that…having watched rock and roll get old, having watched the crooners of the 40’s and 50’s age so ungracefully. The hair bands of the 80’s are particularly fun to watch. Those guys are coming apart at the seams fast.  The Beastie’s are just the edge of the aging rap scene.  They are one of the few enduring rap bands from that far back. Off hand I can’t think of any other rap group still kick’n it old school.

Are these icons really that good? Sure they may have been innovators, musical genius’, timely, hip, and pretty. Let’s be honest here,  half these one hit wonders were there because of their looks (can you say Duran Duran).  The real question is are they still really that good? Is the latest album a rehash of the stuff they did 20 years ago?

Let’s explore that one for a  minute.  Rod Stewart, remember him? I’m talking about the Rod Stewart from Faces. Pure rock and roll, all about sex , drugs, booze and more sex.  He evolved into a solo career that produced some decent hits, still rock, but did you notice that every following album got softer and softer? Rod’s banging out old jazz standards these days. No where near where he came from.  U2, Bono and the boys, started out almost punk rock. They evolved, album to album they changed and grew. They remained innovative for years. Granted it’s been a few years, but each album kept fairly true to essentially rock.  Maybe a few mainstream cuts in there, but that’s what happens when you’re around longer than a decade. The same could be said of Zepplin, Van Halen, and even Ozzy.  They all bent a little to the mainstream, but essentially kept to their roots. I will admit that Ozzy has not necessarily been producing quality stuff over the last 10 years. Sex, drugs, and an MTV reality show will do a guy in years ahead of their time. Like I said , rock and roll doesn’t age well.

So I have my Beastie Boys album, I watched the video’s, I’m totally psyched.

My 9  year old, on the way home from dance class last night, says to me after I sing word for word the entire Paul Revere song …

“who are those guys? ”

“the Beastie Boys” I reply

“Never heard of them”

I can’t wait for the phone call from her in 25 years when her kids tell her that Demi Lovado is old people music.  Lets just hope Ad Rock and MCA are not doing old Tony Bennett covers at that time.

Lebanon, Phoenix, and Boston

Some days you have are pretty routine. Occasionally you have a day that goes unexpectedly a different way. Last Thursday was such a day.

I wrapped up my goodbyes to the crowd at the conference I was attending.  I get to see these ladies and gents roughly 3 times a year, depending on the conferences I decide to attend.  Headed for the Phoenix  airport. Short run, maybe 25 minutes from the hotel to the gate. Usually a quiet time, a space to catch your breath. Start the laundry list of things you need to follow up on , considerer the pending pile of work back at the office, and enjoy the knowledge that you’ll be seeing the Mrs and the children sometime relatively soon.

I hop into the dark forest green Escalade, sweet. This is how I roll, feeling all gansta…. Right, about as gansta as Pee Wee Herman.  The driver starts right in with the chit chat. He asks about my last name, how long have I been in the country, where my family is living.

Wait… did he just ask me how long I’ve been in the country?

I explain I’m 3rd generation American.  Turns out he’s Lebanese and has been here since 1978. Real nice guy. My last name , Saad,  is a common Lebanese surname. He proceeds to tell me all about where my ancestors came from, the history of that part of the country and all about the Saads he knows here in Phoneix, and the ones he’s meet in Michigan.  He’s really excited sharing all this. He even pulls out his cell and calls one of the two Saad’s living in the area.  I have a brief conversation with a young gentleman who seems to not be surprised by this call from the guy driving.  I exchanged a few pleasantries with the young man and let him off the hook from this intrusion by his crazy old friend. We arrive at the airport.  I settle up and bid my new friend farewell and thank him for the family history lesson.

I now make my way to line line at the counter. I fumble with the self check in and push my way into the maddening crowd. The young lady behind me fights with the self check in as well.  She gets shoved into me by an entourage of 12  with enough luggage for 3 month stay anywhere.  Next we watch a young guy fight with the machine. He has no luck. The young lady helps him figure it out. Turns out we’re all going to Boston on the same flight.

20 minutes later, a security check, a few last minute gifts for the kids, and an over priced Starbucks  I get to the gate.  My two on line companions join me. We chat it up for an hour, delayed flight. She’s graduating from Brandeis, he just got a promotion and is moving to Boston.  We discuss the various plus’ and minus’ of Boston. Through out the conversation various people sitting around us weigh in with their thoughts and info on Boston and the surrounding areas.  We finally climb on the plane and head home.

We meet up one last time at the baggage claim.  The conversation continues. We decide to swap contact info.  There’s talk of getting together for some beer one of these days.  Who knows,  chances of that are probably pretty thin.  But, it was a markedly different travel day verses most that I experience.

So maybe not so remarkable for some who travel a lot and have these in flight conversations all the time.  For me, maybe it was a foray into being more open and approachable as a person, a conscious decision on my part a few years ago to be less of a wall flower.  It could have been the random roll of the dice of the universe that a few people heading in the same general direction had some things in common, sorta like a cosmic Yahtzee. My conclusion- be open, take a chance on a conversation. Might just make that flight a little more tolerable.

to 3D or not to 3D in 2011

It’s approaching the end of day three of the 15th anniversary edition of the HTSA conference.  That would be the Home Technology Specialists of America.  HTSA is a membership made up of the premiere custom home theater and systems integration resources in America.

One of the central conversation pieces of this years conference is the greatest opportunities of 2011.  Surveying the field of members and vendor partners I see a variety of talents and resources being applied in some very creative ways to remain vibrant and profitable in this industry. One thing that is evident is that what we consider “this industry”  seems to be morphing as fast as the security and privacy settings of our Facebook accounts, also a topic we touched upon.   We recently changed from Home Theater Specialist to Home Technology Specialists to reflect this trend of moving into disciplines that are clearly not home theater or traditional audio video work.

Security, home health monitoring, CCTV, electrical work, power management, energy monitoring, IT, commercial AV, digital signage,  and a bunch of other areas are amongst the diversification we’re seeing.

The various presenters on the topic of opportunities threw up all kinds of ideas. Some were, frankly,  stale and left me with a sense of wonder at how can they have their head in the sand.  Some ideas resonated with some trends that I have heard lots of chatter on in the past 3 to 6 months. There were a few that were a call to action to get back to the days of old where this group prided itself on being an elite group representing the finest product and services for the most discerning consumers.

Will we see the resurgence of audio performance as a priority through Digital USB DAC’s,  is there more creative ways to up sell security services and solutions, can quality customer service departments breath new life into our bottom lines, will we convince the masses that 3d really only works on big screen projection systems or is it the manufacturers and Hollywood that need convincing of this?

At the end of day three the  jury is still out for me on these items.  I will say the the list to consider is long and varied. I’m encouraged that some of the suggestions mirror efforts already under way in my company.  My enthusiasm and energy has certainly been recharged having spent quality time with my fellow HTSA brethren.

Tonight we dance, dine, and be merry. Tomorrow, the hard decisions will be made on the remainder of 2011 and what opportunities we may decide to pursue.

Life with Tab

A few months ago I was poking fun at the Tablets all being buzzed about at CES.  I did in fact, belly up to the bar and ordered one. I ended up with the Samsung Galaxy Tab. All things considered, I chose to go with the Droid platform. Partially because the Mrs. purchased a Droid Incredible and partially because I just couldn’t bring myself to jump on the IPAD bandwagon.

After some research and solicitation of opinion of tech geeks who are actually in the tech biz for my wife’s new phone purchase, it was clear that the Droid platform was the one of choice. There were a whole litany of actual reasons why Droid was better than IPAD.  You can look up those blogs if your interested. I will not even attempt to go down the path of the techy review, it’s been done 4,000 times already by people a 100 times more qualified than I in that regard.

Here’s the way it laid out for me.

We have the IPAD at work and I bought my mom a Nook for Christmas, so I got a bit of real hands on time with each .  The IPad was way to big to be more convenient than my Blackberry. The Nook was the perfect size,  big enough to read, but not to big to be unwieldy. I could get the Nook into a pocket. The Galaxy Tab is the same size as the Nook. That was a big decision factor, size.

IPAD – no flash….   all the stats say that 80% plus of all the things that count use flash…gaming, development software, top 100 most popular websites. You have to have it if you want to be free to surf and play.

Less expensive.  I ran into a small accounting issue and had to wait an extra week, I needed one more week of saving my allowance. It worked out to be a good thing. With a 2 year contract data contract from Verizon, it was $199, down from $299 the week before. IPAD $499 at it’s cheapest. I signed up for the minimum data plan, $20 a month 1GB of data. Plenty for me. 90% of the time I’m on WiFi, so I don’t burn up all my data.

It has made my life measurably easier at work.  Since the IT department reports to me, you can imagine I have a fairly kick ass laptop setup and unlimited “Help Desk” calls.  The support is top notch, however, lately, the help desk advice is increasingly laced with profanities, as I manage to find ways to screw things up….   I don’t need to drag the laptop around anywhere as much as I used to, but the profanity continues increase as I ask for help with getting my company email on my new tablet… a category the IT department has no desire to learn and support.  Briggs…much love, man, really, I mean it….and I need to talk to you about the latest version of  Skype crashing my laptop ….  on second thought, I’ll just uninstall it…..

I read more !!!!!!  I find that I’m reading vast amounts of blogs, online news , and e-mags. The size and convenience makes it perfect for killing 10 minutes at the Jiffy Lube, sitting in the dentists office, and waiting for junior to get thru Thursday night karate.   Heck, you can even take it to your Fav coffee shop and be cooler than everyone else squinting at their teenie weenie Iphones and Blackberrys.

What about the apps?  It’s got all the goodies.  I have all of my calendars plus my families various calendars integrated into one easy to use calendar. All 5 contact lists from Facebook, Outlook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Yahoo accounts integrated into one list. The tasks completely sync with my tasks on my work email account. I have all four of the major e-readers,  and front and rear cameras for face to face video conferencing. I’m sure this is all avail on the other tablets out there, but what’s been interesting is that the 3 or 4 IPAD users I’ve compared notes with think my Tab is way cooler than their IPAD.

A few of my favorite Apps:

• All Recipes Dinner Spinner – random 20 minute quick recipes, reminds me ofa  slot machine
• CamCard – biz card scanner, snap the pic and it loads the info directly into the contact format. No more card scanners !
• C:Geo – geocaching – GPS enabled treasure hunting. Perfect way to get the kids out and about to discover what it’s like to play outside, highly recommend you try it…even if you don’t have kids…
• WordPress – lets me see just how many people didn’t read my blog today…
• and of course the real reason I bought the thing — Angry Birds.  I can’t get past level 12….it’s rather embarrassing.

I recall 2 1/2 years ago I was at an industry conference where the guest speaker was asking who used Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I was one of 3 guys that raised their hand out of the 300 people that were there. I do recall quite a bit of rib poking on how lame I was for messing with kids stuff.  278 of those 300 now are on Facebook, tweet, blog, etc. etc. etc.

Interesting sidenote, anyone who reads this blog…got to it from Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.  Just sayin’…..

Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here again and be ahead of my time and say ditch the IPAD and get a Galaxy Tab. You’ll love it.

Elizabeth Taylor vs Liz Taylor

As a kid I grew up on westerns, star wars, and  car chase movies.  It wasn’t until college that I started to delve a little into movie history.  It was also about the time that VCR’s became affordable and movies were plentiful . We had content coming out of our ears (Ha, little did we know) . Cable had taken hold and we were swimming in channel choices, around 50 or 60 (I currently have 178 , basic package).  Pay cable like HBO and Cinemax filled our days with movies galore.(who saw Clash of Titans more than 24 times?) It was the death of the movie theaters (or was it).

It was also about the time my interest in theater was begining. Ok, my girlfriend (now my lovely wife) was into theater.  I started to broaden my interests into broadway, which lead to musicals, which eventually lead back to old time Hollywood musical.  I’ll admit they were great fun to watch.  Along the way I started to watch other Hollywood classics. I discovered those classic Hollywood stars.  Liz Taylor,Audrey Hepburn, Gene Kelley, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Tony Curtis, etc.

I recall discovering Liz Taylor.  I used to burn up my Sunday mornings in my dorm room watching Turner Classic Movies before I went on to my Captain of Industry position as a Sandwich Artist (pronounced R-teeest) at Subway.  It was Cleopatra.  Wow ! She was stunning.  Wait wait wait. This isn’t that same lady who was friends with Michael Jackson?!  It’s funny moment, sorta like when you realize that Paul McCartny was in the same band as John Lennon.  There’s confusion and anger, you’re afraid. I’m mean how is it possible that that Band on the Run drivel was once partnered with the genius and beauty of Imagine. I digress….

Yes, that Liz Taylor.  I wouldn’t say she was one of the greatest actress’, but she was in some great classics. Giant, Cleopatra, A Cat on A Hot Tin Roof.  The thing about these movies was that they had big sweeping romance stories.  The romance stories were big intoxicating affairs that rolled over any obstacle that presented itself. Good or bad, right or wrong, healthy or unhealthy the romance survived.  Now a days we don’t get that. We get romance crushed under pop culture, independent women who are determined to pay half the bill and prove they can survive without their soul mates, and hooker gets billionaire fairytales.  Not making any judgments on all that, just pointing out the differences. Maybe in todays culture and society we just can’t get sort of movie.  And that’s OK. It’s just different.

What does this mean for my kids? Will my son be commenting on Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johanson, and Angelina Jolie 30 years from now as classic actress’?  Will my daughter think Robert Patterson and Jake Gyllenhaal are classic leading men?  Funny enough because of the 200 plus cable channels and streaming everything from the Roku* my kids are already watching some of this stuff. They’ve already seen more classic Scooby Do than I ever did.  They do watch some of the older movies, mostly musicals. Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, etc.  Am I shortchanging them on a journey of discovery in their latter years? I doubt it….

There will always be two Liz Taylors to me. Liz Taylor, the perfume hawking , 7 husband old lady I knew growing up and the Elizabeth Taylor, the stunningly beautiful, romantic starlet from a time before mine.

 

 

* Roku – is a little black box that is connected to the Ethernet and allows you to get vast amounts of streaming content from  Amazon, Netflicks, and a bunch of other places. It’s like the ultimate pay per view, but way better.

I’d like to dedicate this Blog to the Dishwasher…

First off, apologies to those who are truly writers when I say writers block, I am not a writer, just a hack at keyboard. It’s been just about two months since I last posted. And yes, bail now if you’re not interested in how the dishwasher busted the non writing streak I’ve had.

“Hey Hon, what’s the deal with the clog? ”

“I’ll tear the dishwasher apart tomorrow and figure it out”

The dishwasher has been on the blink, it won’t drain anymore. After a week of doing dishes by hand, it’s time for me to pretend that I understand plumbing and appliances. It’s part of being a man. We have the skill of pretending to understand anything mechanical.

“What? What are talking about? I said Blog. You dumb-ass”

Actually, she didn’t say you dumb-ass, but I suspect she was thinking that by the furrowed brow and slight smirk she had on her face.

Ah yes, the blog.  I’ve been pondering that for about two weeks. I couldn’t decide if I was just too exhausted from the work days or if I was experiencing writers block. I couldn’t think of any topics that got me excited.

Crap, my hearing really sucks. She was not more than 3 feet away from me on the couch. I’m getting old. There’s been a lot of that lately.  I have to have my kids repeat everything. Insert Charlie Brown adult voice reference here.  Since I just turned 40, it’s the end of it all. I’m falling apart, washed up, done for.

Well, OK, maybe for the past 25 years I’ve had the car stereo, headphones, and anything else that makes noise at 11. I guess crying wolf over being old and decrepit at 40 is a bit over blowing it.  All in all, thanks dishwasher for getting me back to one of my goals for this year, blogging.

Now excuse me and my dishpan hands, I have to find a pipe wrench, blowtorch, and some Draino.  The plan is to bust it up beyond repair and go buy a new one.

Snow Day, French Toast, and Verizon FIOS

After buying bread, milk, and eggs yesterday for the impending Snowpacolypse I made it home around 8 pm.

I’m not sure if that’s a New England thing or if the rest of the world panics and marches lemming like to the nearest supermarket to buy up bread, milk, and eggs. Every storm, the shelves are cleared to the bone. I’ve started to hear about the French Toast factor. I’m researching to find the particulars.  I believe it’s one toast piece per 2″ of snow. What’s the correlation? What else do you do with bread , milk and eggs?  You make French Toast.

It was a day of weather logistics and shuffling to get the schedule for the staff in order, contingency plans, and shoveling.  The shoveling was fun. Several times in the past two weeks I found myself on the roof with a bunch of the guys clearing snow. We even managed to hoist a snowblower up there to help things along.  Thankfully no one went over the side.

So today, I’m home with the kids , who are on their 2nd snow day in a row. I’ve settled down to chisel away at the piles of email, tie up some paperwork and generally try to get squared away what I can not being in the office. My daughter is in the living room, Pandora on the Broadway channel, dancing away. My son is  in his room with a box of 3000 plus Lego’s and about 34 Bakugan, Ipod playing on his clock radio.  I have my Pandora streaming on my laptop with my headphones. They’re nothing special, Klipsch S4 in ear buds, about $50 bucks a pair. But man, what a great experience. They block out most of the noise emanating from the all corners of the house, they sound great, and have  respectable bass response. I listen to them for hours on end. No ear fatigue, especially given the content I listen to,  electroclash and house.

A bit of Verizon fiber connecting me to the WWW and it’s all good.  Seriously boys and girls, I highly suggest you upgrade those IPOD head phones a few notches and give your ears a treat, and today is the perfect kind of day to do it.

Got me a Tablet at CES

On the heels of CES (Consumer Electronic Show)  I’ve decided to get into manufacturing. I have the ultimate product. Simple to produce, brilliant distribution model, always up to date, comes in any color. The profit will be awesome. So I’ll be  loading up the truck and moving to Beverly.

Hills, that is.

What is this wonder product you ask? Doesn’t matter.  It will have an app that will be available on all the new tablets…. IPAD, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, Motorola’s Xoom, Lenovo’s IdeaPad Slate, Dell’s Streak7, MSI’s WinPad, Sony’s Vizio Via, and Acer’s Iconis A500.

While all these little gems are exciting and Apple certainly proved with a gazillion units sold in the first month it seems that manufacturing marketing have gone haywire with claims that they all have apps for these devices.  And I guess somewhat rightfully so. The clients inevitably ask if they can work it on their IPAD.  Seems the whole world is in a rush to consolidate every conceivable function onto a portable, handheld device.

I too, want one of these cool slabs o’technolgy. Everyone else is doing it. And lets face it, your Iphone and BB suck for watching movies. You need something with a bigger screen, and the laptop is just not conducive to being something you can take out and fire up in 4 seconds when you get your Triple Mocha Grande with an add shot and whip cream.

The Tablet is a device whose time is long over due.  We knew this 45 years ago, it just took some time for us to get smart enough to build it. Thank you Mr Spoke for the Inspiration.