Quick Big Omaha video

In time I’ll absolutely make a post about BigOmaha.  How can I not?  But until then, check out this compilation (that’s pretty speaker specific, but whatever) of photos that is visually entertaining, but not at all showing the energy of the event.

Big Omaha from Mike Malone on Vimeo.

Six months of being an Omahan ( #bigomaha )

So this week marks six months of living in Omaha.

I can’t help but look back to a simple blog post I made on August 1st, 2008. I wrote “Do I want to move to Omaha? Not really.” Now flash forward to May 2009 where my journey in Omaha has so little to do with the reason I came here in the first place.

It’s mostly about the people for me. From the second I stepped foot on Omaha’s soil it’s been a non-stop experience of meeting the greatest people ever.

• I land in October, to visit. I immediately get a text message from Jess, “Welcome to Omaha.” From that moment I never felt more welcome somewhere.
• A couple days later Jillian helps me find a place to live in Dundee.
• Boutcher introduces me to everyone at the office and invites me to a party thrown by Phil.
• I meet Kat for coffee and I’m glad to know someone who wants to talk geekery with me. She introduces me to drag queens.
• I meet Cassie who shows me how the city likes to have fun and in turn I get to show her how Chicago does when we visit my friends there.
• At my first Tweetup I introduce myself to the infamous KT, who has since become a very close friend and a source of inspiration both socially and professionally.
• Andrea becomes my partner in crime any time either of us want to go out, or there’s a show.
• I meet Dusty and Jeff who show me that I can be a part of something in Omaha that would never be possible in Chicago.
• Becoming friends with Christin makes me realize that I can share things and be important to someone else’s life just like so many have become important to mine.
• I learn when I go out with Terah, Bree, and Valerie there’s going to be some awesome tunes played on the jukebox. We’ll sing “Tom Sawyer” multiple times.
• I become a real part of a neighborhood. Knowing if I go to “my bar”, The 49r, I’ll see people I recognize.
• Krin sucks because she moved to Chicago. Wish she could have stuck around longer.
• In no other world would Schaft, otherwise just “the bartender”, be a friend of mine outside of a pint of Boulevard.
• I can walk to “my coffee shop” and see that Megan is just down the street. I can go say hi and share some ice cream and conversation.
• Brian shows me how fun and awkward it could be for a few guys who have no clue what they’re doing to throw themselves into the public promotions game.
• Dave and Matt help me debug issues with my web site on IRC. The difference here is I know I’ll see them in a couple days and I’ll buy them a beer to thank them.
• BigOmaha

There’s so many other people, places, and experiences that I’m missing. But this isn’t meant to be some kind of all encompassing list of everyone that I know. Just a snapshot of some really important people that have made the six months probably the best six months of my life.

Thanks, Omaha.

Search engine queries are funny

A quick catch-up post

I opened my blog editor here with an idea of what to post.  Then I got side tracked, and I no longer remember what it was I planned on talking about.  So instead this is just going to be a catch-up post.  Sorry about that.

I bought a new camera the other day.  With BIGOmaha coming up I needed a way to document the event, so off to Nebraska Furniture Mart I went.  I came out with a Canon SX200.

I liked it because it has a really big lens.  The optical zoom is crazy good for a point and shoot.  Those are my big complaints with most cameras.  Who cares how many megapixels it can capture if the camera isn’t really seeing them well?  And zoom on point and shoots is really limited, instead falling into “digital zoom” territory.  Digital zoom should just be called “crap mode”.  This beast fixes those issues.  Plus it captures video in 720p HD, 16:9 aspect ratio.  In a point and shoot.  It’s a little bigger than most people would like, but I don’t care.  I just want quality without knowing how to use it.  I believe I got that.

Next topic.  I’m making my first trip to Kansas City tomorrow with @Andrea_Joi.  She got free tickets to The Killers and asked if I’d like to come.  So off we go tomorrow to some random city in some random state I’ve never been to.  I expect big things, though.  People here seem to piss themselves over Kansas City.  Maybe because they have an NFL team.  Valid.

In other news, BIGOmaha next week!  If you’re not excited about it, it’s because you’re not going.  In fact I believe I’ll be getting my invite to the Girls in Tech party here shortly.  15 tickets remaining as of this writing.

The first automated #retweet_thursday on Twitter was nothing short of completely annoying yesterday.  Success.  Feel free to follow @RT_Thursday.  But I highly recommend that you don’t.

Yesterday was my two year anniversary with my company.  Even though I had a couple years working for them on top of that via consulting that never counted.  Oh well.

My parents are coming to visit Omaha on the 15th.  Aside from the Zoo or whatever I don’t really know what to show them that’s of much interest to them.  I love the city, but it’s not much for a couple day visitation.

Hope everyone had a great week and a better weekend.  See you soon, talk to you sooner.

-G

Be at Big Omaha May 7th and 8th. Seriously.

Big Omaha is coming up. It’s really your last chance right now to get tickets.

I’d really love to try and convince you to go, but at this point, if this is your kind of thing… you’re already not willing to miss it. However, if you’re out of town, out of state… whatever, this is a GREAT chance to visit the amazing city of Omaha. Seriously. Get a ticket, and get your ass here. Omaha is going to be the center of the creative world for two days and I would hate for anyone to miss it. Unfortunately, many will.

So I’m not going to get on my soap box and tell you why you should go or what great things are going to come out of it.  I’m only going to tell you that if you’re at all interested, and you don’t go, you’re going to feel really left out.  That’s all.

So hit up bigomaha.com and hurry to get your ticket before they’re all sold out.  Exciting stuff, people.  Some socks will be rocked.