Last weekend, I was extremely lucky to get the opportunity to accompany my friend Dennis Lee to attend the Baconfest Chicago event at the University of Illinois Chicago Forum. Dennis, as you can see from the link above, is a food blogger. While his choice in “food” is usually not so highbrow as bacon, he was able to score 2 passes to this fantastic event to cover the awesome array of pork-flavored sweet & savory samples. I simply got lucky and saw his Facebook post asking for a partner-in-crime. Winner winner, chicken dinner! A huge thank you also goes to Seth Zurer, one of the co-founders of Baconfest, who set us up with the tickets. I couldn’t be more happy to attend this event!

Firstly, I’d just like to say that Dennis is a comedic genius when it comes to reviewing odd and obscure culinary dishes. Read the rest of this entry …

It’s official knowledge. My scheduled appointment with my associate, for a West Wing tour of the White House on November 18th, 2009 is officially ON THE BOOKS. Along with the swarms of other visitors that have entered the hallowed grounds of this National Park, I’ve been categorized as someone who had direct access to staff while being escorted through the wide hallways of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and winding passages of the West Wing. This means that the American people want to know what my agenda was in visiting such a prestigious locality and influential staff. Thankfully, they’ve got me covered in the spreadsheet, by linking me to Google, Wikipedia and several other visible sites where I’d be listed if I’d ever given a sizable contribution or had a powerful position in life. Unfortunately, I don’t usually go by my given first name, making the linking rather fruitless.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, “You sound somewhat hesitant about this scenario, Drew!” Realistically, I could give a damn about said listing. I was just there to do a generic tour and see the Navy Mess/Rose Garden/Oval Office/Cabinet & Roosevelt Rooms/Press Room and hear a little history about each. I wasn’t there to influence Presidential policy or have power meetings with high-level advisers. In fact, I think it’s pretty cool that I can prove I’ve been there. I’ll bet about 99% of my friends haven’t been to such a well-known landmark, let alone Washington, DC! I am honored to have had the privilege of stepping foot on the grounds to begin with. I can’t even imagine the pride that some of my friends must feel when they’re able to go to work there every day. Here’s a prime example:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022003719_pf.html

So, if you want me to be your privacy guru, you’re probably barking up the wrong tree. While I believe large measures should be taken to protect very personal information, I also believe the sharing of information & social engineering/hacking (for security improvements) being done by trusted individuals to be extremely relevant to today’s digital world. If you think trusted individuals didn’t track this down, you’ve got a lot of learning to do, young man and/or lady:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a6f5621c-1f21-11df-9584-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

In conclusion, if you’ll be in DC on March 27th & 28th, and you’re interested in being part of a greater discussion on Transparency in Government & Technology, come join us in an “unconference” at Transparency Camp DC 2010, being organized by the Sunlight Foundation. A good number of my counterparts will be attending and I expect it to be an all-around good time filled with the sharing of knowledge and ideas in order to continue the open course that President Obama has outlined for his Administration.

Well, then… it’s been a while.  The grand majority of 2008 went undocumented from my end, but I’m going to start trying to make a comeback in ’09.

Let me give you a run-down of what’s happened in my world:

• I worked at SH until early August ’08, then got involved with the notoriously well-run campaign in the city of winds.
• I went on RAGBRAI yet again… and it was awesome yet again.  You can, of course, see our exploits here:  http://www.spokeeasy.com/.  I don’t think I’ll go into detail at the moment.  You can find our Facebook group out there, too:
  
• I attended Halloween and NYE 2008 @ Travis‘s pad, which was solid.  It was a good break from previous years when we ended up at expensive or lame parties.
• I moved out of my West Loop apartment after living there for 3 1/2 years.  All my stuff was packed up, shipped off and moved to storage in the cornfield state.
• I’m now in Washington, DC, and I had to stay with friends for a time while looking for a job.  The last gig was over on January 31st and I was looking until June 15th.
• I then got a gig with ServInt as Technical Support, which was a really great atmosphere. The staff was awesome and they really have a lot going for them with the opening of the new LA Data Center.
• I now work for a non-profit organization in Washington, DC, which is making gigantic strides in assisting with the passage of the new American Clean Energy and Security Act.

Anyway, 2009 has been a pretty decent year. Bring on 2010! I hope to update again before Dec 31, however.

Today was another day in the wait for results.  My time is being spent between Caribou Coffee, random meetings with previous coworkers, sending my resume around to everyone I know and a lot of web surfing.  I haven’t yet hit the wall, in terms of feeling worthless, which is good.  Hopefully I’ll land it before hitting that barrier.  Gotta stay positive, yo!

Otherwise, weekend was fairly uneventful.  Traveled to Springfield, VA to meet up with college roommate, his wife and daughter for a birthday celebration in the burbs on Saturday afternoon, then met up with roommates in Adams Morgan.  Fairly uneventful.  Giant pizza slice was consumed post haste in the cab on the way home.  Today = movie/chill day.

Hopefully bigger news to come tomorrow!  Check ya then…

BTW, have you ever checked out the real Couch Surfing site?  CLICK HERE

Well, then… it’s been a while.  The grand majority of 2008 went undocumented from my end, but I’m going to start trying to make a comeback in ’09.

Let me give you a run-down of what’s happened in my world:

• I worked at SH until early August ’08, then got involved with the notoriously well-run campaign in the city of winds.
• I went on RAGBRAI yet again… and it was awesome yet again.  You can, of course, see our exploits here:  http://www.spokeeasy.com/.  I don’t think I’ll go into detail at the moment.  You can find our Facebook group out there, too.
• I attended Halloween and NYE @ Travis‘s pad, which was solid.  It was a good break from previous years when we ended up at expensive or lame parties.
• I moved out of 180 North Jeff after living there for 3 years.  All my stuff was packed up, shipped off and moved to storage in the cornfield state.
• I’m now in Washington, DC, staying with friends for the moment, looking for a job.  The last gig was over on January 31st and I’ve been looking ever since.  Big interview yesterday, so we’ll see where that takes me.

2008 was a pretty decent year.  While I didn’t have that much money towards the end of the year or at the beginning of this year, it felt like some of the most productive months of my life.  I was able to make a number of new friends and my network has never been larger.  I’ve been able to be in DC and experience new situations during a week in January and now for a couple weeks in March.  I’m very close to finding a solid job in the new atmosphere here in DC.

I really don’t know what else to say.  I’m sure there will be more updates coming soon.  Like I said… I’m going to try to stay on top of this blog!

God is a DJ – Faithless

This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts
It’s a natural grace
Of watching young life shape
It’s in minor keys
Solutions and remedies
Enemies becoming friends
When bitterness ends
This is my church (x4)
This is where I heal my hurts
It’s in the world I become
Contained in the hum
Between voice and drum
It’s in the change
The poetic justice of cause and effect
Respect, love, compassion
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts
For tonight
God is a DJ
This is my church (x3)

So that happened.  WTF?  Ugh, what a weekend.

Travis has already posted this, but it’s so cool. Reminds me of why I dig Bjork so much:

Check out Sigur Ros here: http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/

 

What to write here that my friends haven’t written yet… let me think about it… yeah, I’ve got nothing.  It’s a bunch of ambient-type background music that is simply … that.  Background music.  It’s not epic, it’s not something you can expect to hear on the radio or in clubs (such as Neo), it’s not any of those things.  It’s Trent putting stuff out there that sounds like the slowed-down instrumental leftovers from Further Down, Fragile & Year Zero all mixed together.  Does the word “leftovers” mean it’s not album-worthy?  No fear, mon frair, it’s still highly purchasable and I fully recommend you do so here:

 

 

I plan on purchasing the 2-disc set with download-able higher-quality mp3’s.  Even more interesting is the latest post from Trent on NIN.com:

“03 March 2008:
BACK!
The new Nine Inch Nails record is available RIGHT NOW! (for real this time)
Sorry again about the hassle. Somebody kicked the plug out of our internets, but we’re all set now.
posted by Trent Reznor at 8:00 PM pst, from hong kong“

Also, check out the Wall Street Journal story on Trent and Obama here:

http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/03/03/internet-lessons-from-nine-inch-nails-and-obama/ 

 

In other news,  we celebrated Dave & Brian’s Birthday on Saturday night at Julio’s Mexican Restaurant and followed-up with some Hogs n’ Honeys.  CLICK HERE FOR PICS.  As usual, Drew makes a wonderful representation of what every awake person at 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning should act like.  Win?  Doubtful.

 

That’s all.  Goodnight.