The News
Well, it’s been a while. But, I made it back to Mississippi. The West Palm concerts were incredible. I must say that the 14 hour drive back was brutal. But, there’s nothing like finishing 2 books on CD in one day!
Yet, I start it right back up tomorrow! Heather, Jordan Harris and I are driving to Houston tomorrow for a concert in The Woodlands. We’ll be heading to Dallas on Saturday for another concert as well.
Don’t mess with Texas!
Last night I was in Gainesville at the University of Florida for another concert. It was incredible again. I didn’t think they could top Atlanta, but I was wrong. I’m sure they’ll do it again tonight in Tampa.
Tonight’s show is at the Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa Bay, FL. I’ll be staying at Alafia River State Park…yet another night of camping.
Last night really wansn’t that bad. I was at Paynes Prarie in Gainesville, and it turned out to be a rather cool night. I was expecting to be sweating all night long. But, I actually had the blanket out. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to go set up the tent this afternoon or try to do it tonight after the concert…I really don’t have enough time to make it out to the campsite first…but I might try.
We’ll see how it goes!
Last night I made it into Jacksonville, FL…and have been staying with Robbie Brown’s (my roomie) parents. I can easily say that this is the BEST STOP on the trip…nice, clean showers…cool a/c…and even free food. You can never complain about that!
Today I taught Excel at the Centurion Centre in Jacksonville. I kind of like Jacksonville. It’s the 14th largest city in the U.S. and has over 1,000,000 residents.
Tomorrow I’m headed to Gainesville, FL and the University of Florida (no MC shirts allowed tomorrow). There’s a concert at the O’Connel Center on campus. It’s kind of funny because these two concerts are going to be both the largest and smallest of the whole tour (ATL had over 50,000 and U of F can only hold about 12,000).
Stay tuned for pics from Paynes Prairie State Park (alligators, and snakes, and mosquitoes…oh my)!
What does waking up at 4:30 and waiting in line for 8 hours get you? It gets you 12 feet from the stage…so close you could thump something at the band. WOW! I can’t even describe it.
There were over 50,000 people at the concert. It was just absolutely crazy. The concert was a benefit for the Atlanta Piedmont Park Conservancy. Between the Allman Brothers and DMB sets, the president of the conservancy came out and announced the concert made over $1,000,000 for the park. Whoa.
I’m off to Jacksonville today. 1 concert down, 6 to go!
Pics from Atlanta:
“You know these aren’t mine because I’m down there in the front!”
I met a British bloke (that’s guy in America) named Robin in the hostel this morning. He’s from Sussex and is travelling through the U.S. for a few weeks. He just came from Dallas and is headed to Orlando in a few days.
That’s not necessarily all that random. It is, of course, an international hostel. But, what is completely random is that the property where I taught Excel, Peachtree Dunwoody Pavilion, just happens to be the home of AutoTrader.com. They were having a huge party; I guess you would call it. There were games and raffles all over the place. You could get a massage, play the new Wii, or eat as much as you’d like at the buffet. They even had Elvis…pictures to come.
For the next 3 days I’ll be staying at the Atlanta International Youth Hostel. It’s definitely not the Sheraton, but it’s not too shabby. It does have a good bit of character though. Check out this pic.
Pretty sweet sign I think!
What do Parkway Properties (NYSE: PKY) and the Dave Matthews Band have in common? Well, for starters they’re both one of the best at what they do. They also both have fun at work (hold back the comments PKY).
Anyway, today I’m embarking on a journey through several cities and states with these two companies, so to speak, in mind. I’ll be headed through 7 cities in 3 states over the next 17 days…and I couldn’t be more excited.
Thankfully, Parkway has allowed me to do some work while I’m venturing about and being a semi-roadie. I’ll be teaching some Excel classes in various markets for PKY during the day…and going to concerts at night.
Later today I leave for Atlanta, GA. I’ve got Georgia on my Mind.
One of the great features of Facebook was privacy. You could be assured that what was in Facebook remained in Facebook. However, that illusion might be ending soon.
Tonight, Facebook launches a “public listing search” which allows anyone to search for a specific person. The company says that the information being revealed through these listings is minimal and much less than the information available to someone logged into the Facebook network.
A public search listing provides, at most, the name and profile picture of any Facebook member that has their search privacy settings set to “Everyone.” It will show less information about a person than results of a search performed by someone logged in to Facebook. We wanted to give people who had never come to Facebook, or who are not currently registered, the opportunity to discover their friends who are on Facebook.
In a month from now, these public listings are going to be find their way into search engine indexes. “We are giving users approximately one month to set their privacy options before we allow search engines to index these public search listings,” the company spokeswoman wrote in an email.
This move transforms Facebook from being a social network to being quasi-White Pages of the Web. Every time a non-Facebook user finds someone on Facebook after a “search,” they might feel compelled to sign-up and get more information. It is a virtuous cycle, meant to attract more people to the Facebook network.
This development is going to strike fear in the hearts of entrepreneurs behind people-search startups that have mushroomed in recent months and have raised many millions in venture backing. It is also be a worrisome development for reputation-based systems such as Rapleaf that are creating profiles of people on the web. With the growing database of names, it is only a matter of time before Facebook rolls out a reputation system, and pegs it to an e-commerce engine.
On a more prosaic level, this “public search” move will help goose up the page views nicely – handy metric when trying to tap the public markets.
Think broadly however, this is yet another small step in the overall erosion of personal privacy, thanks to the ever growing popularity of the social networks. I don’t like the direction where all this is headed. Stefanie Olsen in her excellent piece for News.com paints a pretty bleak picture. We are slowly leaving digital litter all over the web, and some day it is going to cause problems.
What are your thoughts?
Mine are: You better watch out!
Heather and I went to see “The Lion King” last night in Memphis. It was incredible.
What’s this?
Yes, that’s a player from OUR team last night!
What’s this?
That’s a player from Millsaps after last night!
So, I heard a lot of people talking smack yesterday at work about Millsaps and how they won a conference championship last year….blah, blah. But, what was funny was this comment on another blog about Millsaps:
Despite the two teams being huge rivals, Millsaps head coach Mike DuBose treated it like an NFL exhibition game, pulling all of his starters early in the 3rd quarter and letting a 26-6 lead become a 27-26 loss as the Mississippi College 1st string scored 3 touchdowns in the 4th quarter against the Millsaps 2nd and 3rd string. I don’t think the Alabama fans would have stood for that if DuBose had done that in a game against Auburn (or any other team), but DuBose has a method to his madness and he uses non-conference games at Millsaps as a way to prepare for the conference games.
If I were the head coach at Mississippi College, I would be burning up this morning. Its one thing to get beaten at the hands of your rival and it is even worse to have them give you a win by treating the game as if it is insignificant. I guess the question is what would make you madder, losing a game or getting a victory when the other team “let you win”?
I guess DuBose forgot to remember what he said in the Clarion Ledger the day before:
“We’ll play to win,” said second-year Millsaps coach Mike DuBose. “We are keeping score.”
They kept score last year, and it’s unlikely any of the Millsaps players have forgotten that MC won 52-28 despite losing its starting quarterback to injury late in the first half.
Too bad they didn’t win! Here’s to another year of bragging…and Millsaps being annoying (j/k…sort of).
