Let me tell you about a friend.  This friend was a kindred spirit.  We encountered each other in a chance seating arrangement in a history class of some sort I was put in when I switched to a new school.  He could have been classified as peculiar.  But I always gravitated to the fellow peculiars in high school.  And I was brand new to this shinier, bigger school.

He was really smart and showed me some computer stuff that made my head spin.  Linux.  Custom scripts.  Ascii video players.  Squeezing the juice out of a 200 Mhz Gateway computer way longer than should be legally allowed.  I thought for sure he was going into the computer industry.

But he loved to drive.

“I’ve learned after all of these years that I don’t really care about money (I’ll always owe somebody)”

So he drove.

He drove frozen burritos across country.  Gas generators to people in need stricken by Hurricane Sandy.  All manors of goods all across the country.

And he experienced the sports he loves.  High school football, AA Hockey, Baseball, in little known stadiums all across the country.  A welcome side effect from servicing every state you can get to on wheels.

He has his own truck.  He is on the road where he belongs. Seen more of our country than I could even dream of. He’s living.

And I love hearing about every minute of it as he told me, as I described it, and requested, “A review of the United (48 contiguous) State”

My successful friends don’t wear suits.

Dressed for teaching-ness….

This week, I have officially finished my first stint as an Adjunct Faculty at the Pittsburgh Technical Institute.

So I’m sort of a teacher now.

Like.  Officially.

It was an interesting line of events that started with a question on the sidelines of our summer softball league and led to teaching three classes of two levels of Web Design.  Everything from HTML to a smattering of JQuery.  It was an eye opening experience in both my abilities, and some possibilities.

Who Wants To Learn.  This was made evident by an adjunct in service I attended.  After starting to see the signs of who’s there to learn skills and who’s there to get an A, it’s interesting to look at some of my other interactions since a lot of what I’m doing day to day is teaching people how to do something or why I’m doing a particular thing for them.

New Perspectives.  My grandfather asked if I was learning something from it.  hoo-boy am I.  Going over these classes are a great refresher of some standard things I could be doing better, and some new perspectives.

The More Things Change…  Not so much an education thing, but how is it that kids are wearing the exact same band shirts as when I was at the Art Institute circa 2000-2004?  Has nothing new come out? Is it still all about ICP and Slipknot?  (Confssion: I own about 10 ICP shirts from that era still)

Overall, I had a great time over my first, of hopefully many, quarters over at PTI.  I love the environment and truly feel they’re doing the right thing to prep these kids.  I’ve had the fortune to work with interns from the field, and see the want to keep ahead of the curve, and the right things taking place.

It’s been a great new adventure…

In 2010, I was talked into doing something incredibly stupid to start the New Year.  I came back for 2011.  And 2012.

And never looked back.

Well a little bit.  I was questioning this year’s Polar Plunge off the Mon Wharf on New Year’s Day.  It would be my fourth.  I was a little sick over the holidays and worried a little too much.  But after seeing Uncle Crappy remind me of my stance in his first call out blog post, I had no question about being all in…

“Once you do this, the rest of the year is easy.”

It was a small, motley crew.  My contribution was convincing Frank aKa @fuzzwad from our InsertCointoBegin.com venture, and grand accordianer.

It was great, and the most intimidating snow I’ve seen going in, even if it wasn’t the actual coldest year out.

But I went a little off…

Seems in the craziness, I forgot one of the first rules.  Jump far.

Moments after my escape (courtesy Burgbaby0

It went well enough.  I hopped in, clamored out without elbowing Frank out of the way in my haste.  Held my hands up in celebration, and noticed my finger was bleeding.  Then someone pointed out my leg.  Aw man.  So I said, “hey, gonna go find those friendly paramedics to patch myself up” and took a hike.  I was feeling “warm” and had no problem heading down without more than a towel over my shoulders.

“@unclecrappy and this is the face I make climbing out if the river in the morn…” Pretty close…

Got patched up and came back, and took a look at what I expected to be a large bruise on my hip.  Oh man, was that wrong. Went BACK to the medics to see if I could get a little larger bandaid, and was pretty

Tis a scratch…

much told to peroxide the hell out of it.  There were two.  So I had my second opinion.  j

Either way.  Aside from changing a bandage and keeping an eye on that one, it went pretty well.  I got that “one big thing” out of the way, and as long as this cut doesn’t kill me, I’m golden to rock 2013 again.

YinzTeam Triumphant (courtesy Burghbaby)

Saturday was my best friend’s birthday.  I really didn’t have much to offer him in the way of gifts.  Just some fun Tweets.  And orchestrating something special.

A redneck wrestler kicked him in the nuts while he was just doing his job.

It was just before intermission and Jock Samson, a guy who Chachi has had run ins with on the Internet, and on our own Wrestling Mayhem Show, struck again…

And another chapter in the Chachi Legend is written…

Some 12 years ago, I had to make the dreaded trek anyone does when they meet someone special:  meet the in laws. But with the uncertainty of the new family I would eventually grow on (I think) there was this sweet old lady.  That was Stone Cold’s biggest fan.

I was greeted by fables of one great Christmas gathering where she was gifted an Austin 3:16 shirt.  And proceeded to do the Stone Cold Salute.  In front of all of the kids.  And grand kids.  Her house was adorned with Stone Cold posters and toys.

The best was having the fortune to watch when wrestling was on, or bringing a DVD from my own collection.  I’ve long been a fan of watching others that just love the stuff. Get a good match on with Austin or Undertaker,  or someone else that she despises (she never seemed to forget about guys like Kurt Angle or Edge being bad guys at one point).  She would get so into it.  Reacting, shuffling her feet.  Often hitting the person watching next to her at the table.

Every Monday for a LONG period I’d have to call to make sure RAW was on for her and talk to her about what was going on.  Every Xmas, we renewed the WWE calendar on her wall.

The pinnacle was when we discovered WWE was having untelevised event just modest drive away on Elmira.  Missy and I had a sign about their 82 year old fan in the audience.  We had great seats 9 rows back (the last row on the floor in this small arena) along the aisle.  The main event was Batista in a handicapped match against his former Evolution mates Triple H and Ric Flair.  Guess who hated Ric Flair.  So many times we recounted how we thought she was ready to jump that barrier (she was a spry 82) when they were taking it to Batista.

So here is to the coffee drinkin’, ass kicking, kendo stock swinging, grandma with a ‘tude.  It was amazing to see the loved ones you were surrounded by these last few days.  And I know you are sitting front row up there for Macho Man vs Chief Jay Strongbow at JesusMania MMXII.

Similar model to what I was using

For my 18th birthday, I received my own video camera.  It was one of those Sharp cameras that had the weird tilt to it.  I loved the thing.  I took it everywhere and started making stuff.

Aside from actually making some stuff, I just took that thing everywhere.  I was always a big fan of my friends.  That’s why I hung out with them.  And I always enjoyed getting them on tape to see what I could get.  I often put a camera on somebody just to invoke something awesome on camera, if you’ve hung out with me in these situations.  Whether it be hanging out at my place, basically staging small dance parties in my room, or going to the local Perkins after a night working at the Country Club, or after my friends’ band show.  I have hours of 8mm tape from this era of my life and the great times we had.

This continues today as I turn the camera on Chachi, talking him into doing a vlog, and bringing people into the Podcasts.  Giving someone like Will AKA DJlunchbox and the rest of my Wrestling Mayhem Show friends a place to talk about the thing they love where people can hear it and join in on a much larger conversation.  People with personalities I think should be shared with the world at large.

Sometimes being a content creator isn’t so much about creating, as it is about giving people a platform to shine.  I love finding people that could benefit from a platform like that, and seeing how they may flourish after the fact.  Now Chachi is growing his blog at ChachiSays.net, hosting Unsung, and spearheaded his Chachi Plays charity event, not to mention taken the reigns on other projects in our wheelhouse.  DJLunchbox is still a fixture on Wrestling Mayhem for the nearly six years since we started, and has had a great run on his ThoughtfulRiot.com leading to some really exciting potential.

If I’m turning my focus on someone, it’s usually because I see potential.  I don’t know if that’s potential to find a new career in entertainment or punditry.  Or maybe it’s just stupid human tricks sometimes, but there’s something there.  Something that I don’t want to be the lone audience of.  I’m not always right, but if people aren’t given the chance to be more than they accept, how will you be surprised?

So take a look around.  Why are you so entertained by your friends?  Maybe others will be too.

First, I finally posted last week’s talk about how we used Google Hangout to save AwesomeCast 71 from losing our guest for the night to illness, and last minute losing our co-host due to work.  No big!  We brought out Google Hangout and let the people help the show, and it really added to it!

The original video you see recording on my iPhone was deleted due to a stroke of unlucky touching of my phone while uploading to YouTube. This is recorded from Justin.tv, uploaded to YouTube, then edited via their video editor.

Fun fact: you can’t convert Justin.tv FLVs in a regular program like VisualHub that typically can.  YouTube has always been my work around because they can convert about anything, including Flash video.

And secondly is from last night where I just catch up with the post-Wrestling Mayhem Show 291 crew.

Something brief I posted on the S’eclairer Blog.  I hope to have something more thought out later.  

In my line of work, Apple devices and computers are something that I’m surrounded by.  Steve Jobs was the cheerleader of this ecosystem built on these devices, and did tremendous things with Next computers or Pixar.

We can learn a bit of passion and work from Steve.  I recommend anyone to just take the 15 minutes to listen to his 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech.  A tremendous feat for someone who never completed college…

What are you? How to you envision yourself? What are you to ther people?

This is something that’s been on my mind for nearly a year since one of the first talks I heard by Dr. Chaudhary as I started working on bringing his message online with S’eclairer last October. But in this case, we look at labels as a negative. When you look at mental health, as we often see it in media, you are a psychopath.  You are schizophrenic.  Dr. Chaudhary talks about how we (the doctors and social workers) need to keep from classifing these people in such a way.  Because they are people.  People with psychopathic disorders.  People with schizophrenia.  It’s very important in bringing them out of their condition.  If they see themselves as the condition, they’ll accept that as the case.

Well, that’s as far as I understand psychology via these talks and my art school Psych class…

But then I noticed a trend in the other direction.

Norm gets identification. And wears it on his back....

I listen to a lot of Merlin Mann, who is most known for his 43folders site and neurotic examinations of how people get things done on Back to Work.  One of the common themes to the creative or independent worker is the trouble in just getting started.  I can relate to this.  You can relate to this.  There’s always something you were going to try to do someday but that day never came.  It comes back around to how you identify yourself.  And perhaps it’s something that will be the tipping point to motivate you.

Want to write that blog?  Want to be a blogger?  Be a blogger.  Don’t do it because it’s what needs done to get your blog up and get those hits and get people to see you and this and the other thing.  Just be.  And if it’s hard for you to just be a blogger, writer, dancer, then maybe it’s time to tuck that away and be someone else.  It’s when you don’t identify with that process that things come up, seemly all of the time, that are just that much more important than that goal.

Me?  For better or worse.  I’m a Podcaster.  I’m a Creator.  I don’t think about these things.  They become a part of me and what I do every day.  If I’m not creating something, I’m not doing my job and I’m not living.  Notice not making a living in that sentence.  Just living.  

What’s you’re label.  And are you being successful at being that?