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.

Next step… there is no next step. Yet.

I love hearing people’s plans for the future.  If they’re graduating from college, or just have their first real job and have big plans… hearing that stuff is cool.  Having vision and goals are what keep people alive.  You need to be driven to continue to do something.  A stagnant life isn’t really  life at all.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.  What is my next step?  And I don’t mean personally, or professionally.  But something of both.  It shouldn’t really be that separate.  Thinking of yourself as two halfs is really a shame.  To think you have to live two lives that cannot intersect is limiting your potential.

But that’s kind of where I am.  Personally, I’m confident I live in one of the best cities in the world, surrounded by some of the most talented, influential, and intelligent people I’ve ever met.  This is not an overstatement.  I have friends who make things, who write things, who organize things, who turn dreams into reality.  They make things happen, and they’re damn good at it.  I am absolutely honored.

Professionally, I have an awesome job a ton of people would love to have.  Seriously.  I make things happen at a multi zillion dollar company.  I get paid well, I have good benefits.  I would completely look up to myself if I met myself while younger.

But there’s a sense of synergy that is missing.  The sum of my parts equal exactly how the math says it should.  But damnit, I want more.

This is a common theme with me.  If you’ve known me any length of time I’m rarely satisfied.  I thought for the longest time it was just because it was simply that, I’d never be satisfied.  But after making major changes, I see major changes.  Who knew?

Professionally I’m kind of where I wanted to be.  So my vision and goals professionally aren’t there.  What do you do when you’re doing what you wanted to do?  Maybe I just never had lofty enough goals.  I never wanted to be president, or an astronaut.  I wanted to be a badass IT guy.  Sure, I learn more every day, and I will always continue to grow.  But again, I’m rarely satisfied.  I always need something to work towards.

I only start thinking about all this stuff when my two halfs start to actively start fighting each other.  It’s one thing if 1+1=2, but it’s another when 1+1 < 2.  I’ve had more and more reactions at work that are similar to “Oh come on.  I didn’t have any problem with this kind of stuff, but now you’re just pissing me off.”  And that sucks.  Little jab after little jab.  It bothers me only because I liked it when I was content.  But new management and increased scrutiny change how/when/where we perform our jobs.  But that’s the corporate world . They squeeze and squeeze until some things slip out of their hand, but still have a much tighter grip on what is left.

Again, not complaining.  But sometimes things are enlightening.  I want 1+1 >= 3.

I’d love to have a conversation with those that can relate, or have have posed similar questions to themselves.

Tweetup #4

Omaha Tweetup #4 is over.  All together, not bad.  But certainly the curve his heading downward in the “coolness” chart.

It seems as it gets more successful, in better venues, the less charm the event has.

The first tweetup had about 40 people there.  It’s the first time I met a lot of great people.  Not only people I’d start following on Twitter for the first time, but people that are now friends of mine.  I can’t say the same has happened at any of the other tweetups.

Last night there was so much space, so comfortable of a venue, that it’s easy for people to stand/sit/hide in their respective groups.  You’re not forced into a corner with strangers.  A part of the reason I initially started introducing myself the first time around is the fact that you look stupid standing by yourself in front of everybody.  Last night it was perfectly OK to be by yourself, nobody would notice.  And aside from the name tags (that some may not even be wearing), you could just be a normal Nomad frequenter.  You’re not embarrassed into awesomeness.

Ideas to resolve this?  Food, of course.  Put up a table with snacks or pizza.  That gets people to all congregate around a single location in a venue and even by accident start talking to people.  And even though I really do like Nomad, it’s a great place, it just had the feeling of a night out having drinks with friends.  Well, aside from the business card pushers anyway.

(Photos by @programmerman)

When the Tweetup came to an end for KT and I she came up with this crazy idea to pick up some stranger that she knew off of twitter and head to the 49r.  So we did.

I tweeted later “The tweetup isn’t over, it’s just not going on there anymore“, and it was true.  We were having a blast.  KT eventually left and our new friend, the previously unfollowed by me, @kfred85, and I kept drinking and then went for pizza.  The night ended around 1:30am.

Tweetup?  meh.  Alternative Tweetup.  Rockin’.

On a side note, there needs to be a term for “alternative tweetup”.  I don’t know what that is.  AlternaTweetup is too long.  TweetAlt?  Twalt?

Welcome to the new face of Gabe

Real-ity.com has a long standing history.  One that I don’t take lightly.

“Gabe’s Digital Life v3.1337″ at real-ity.com was born five or so years ago.  Before that it was another, much more simple blog.  And before that, collections of links.  This dating all the way back to 1997.  As my friend BobbyT once said, “I was blogging since it was just called updating a web site.”

But with the culture of the internet as it is, I felt the need to change with it.  My moniker, Real-ity, is no longer how I need to be identified online.  Even though still a valid piece of my personality, Real-ity is no longer the public facing identity for me.

So this new website is me, Gabe.  And everything I do online will show up here.  Twitter, videos, music.  Not a ton different than the content that was available before, but I hope to make it a bit more accessible

I’m a little tired, and blabbing… but I felt the need when I came home tonight to blog and say a little something about this new piece o’ web that I’ve claimed.

Thank you for checking it out.