Happy Solstice everyone!
I hope you enjoy this snippet of video as much as I do. My favorite part is at 1:10 when Bill is stoking the fire and causing sparks to fly up into the night sky!
A Cross Section of My Brainwaves. For anyone who wonders what 'jcnork' is interested in, thinking about or doing...
Happy Solstice everyone!
I hope you enjoy this snippet of video as much as I do. My favorite part is at 1:10 when Bill is stoking the fire and causing sparks to fly up into the night sky!
We stumbled across a letter box completely by accident last Sunday. The boys were so excited that they wanted to place their own in the woods. Our goal starting out this morning was to make it to Beacon Cap but I think we took a wrong turn somewhere along the way so we decided to leave our box in an old stone wall.
Nork's Stonewall Letterbox Location: | ||
Latitude: | 41.453997º N | |
Longitude: | 73.014420º W | |
Altitude: | 712 ft |
View Norks Letterbox in a larger map
The boys have been very productive with the iPad today. I laughed so hard when I watched this that I was crying :-D
New experimental rock from Jaco Flavorwax And Ricardo Montelfish
:-)
I have been sharing this great video series by Derek Sivers, founder of CDBaby and author of the book Anything You Want and I thought it would be helpful to post these on my blog. Derek talks about his career and what he feels are the important aspects of entrepreneurship and life.
I encourage you to watch all 8 clips. It's totally worth your time!
Derek Sivers. Uncommon Sense. 1-of-8. Background.
Derek Sivers. Uncommon Sense. 2-of-8. Why are you doing?
Derek Sivers. Uncommon Sense. 3-of-8. Nobody knows the future.
Derek Sivers. Uncommon Sense. 4-of-8. Revolution.
Derek Sivers. Uncommon Sense. 5-of-8. Hit or switch.
Derek Sivers. Uncommon Sense. 6-of-8. Version 0.1
Derek Sivers. Uncommon Sense. 7-of-8. Ideas X Execution
Today an old friend contacted me in a panic saying that she was trying to submit her resume online and kept getting an error. She was wondering if I could help her. It was an easy fix. By changing the file format she was able to upload the resume without a problem. This was something that she had been struggling with for some time and she was so relieved and excited that she wanted to pay me for my help. I refused to which she then offered to babysit my kids. Ah yes! My wedding anniversary is coming up and I wanted to take my wife out which would entail hiring a babysitter. My friend now offered me a service that was very much needed! I was able to barter my technical knowledge for child care. Perfect. Everyone is happy, getting what they wanted and no money changed hands.
This got me to thinking about engaging in bartering and trade with more people. I have the honor of working in a co-working facility in New Haven CT called The Grove. The collaborative environment lends itself PERFECTLY to bartering and trading goods and services. Need help setting up your email account? How about trading cucumbers from your garden? Need help Google Analytics into your blog? Sure! - I need help weeding my front flower bed! :-)
Technology is facilitating these exchanges more than ever. Sites such as GiftFlow.org, Freecycle.org, ShareHaven.org and others make the connections of needs and services online.
Here is a great TED Talk Rachel Botsman: "The case for collaborative consumption"
;
The term collaborative consumption is used to describe an economic model based on sharing, swapping, bartering, trading or renting access to products as opposed to ownership. Technology and peer communities are enabling these old market behaviours to be reinvented in ways and on a scale never possible before. From enormous marketplaces such as eBay and Craigslist, to emerging sectors such as social lending (Zopa), peer-to-peer travel (CouchSurfing, Airbnb) and car sharing (Zipcar or peer-to-peer RelayRides), Collaborative Consumption is disrupting outdated modes of business and reinventing not just what people consume but how they consume it.
What do you think? I'm looking forward to getting started with being a more active collaborative consumer! How about you?
7 to 8 red peppers
2 Tab. Olive oil
1 can tomato paste
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
4 to 5 garlic cloves
1 cup fresh basil
Salt and pepper to taste
Cut peppers into 1 inch cubes. Heat oil in the skillet to medium high. Add oil, peppers and garlic. Cook them until they start to brown.
Then put them in a food processor. Add the tomato paste, vinegar, water, basil and salt and pepper. You may need to add more red wine vinegar and salt and pepper.
Puree until smooth. (If the peppers are large, you may have to puree two batches) Put puree back in skillet to warm.
Serve over your choice of pasta.
Delicious!!
Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
This makes a lot. Probably more than enough for 2 pounds of pasta.
Here's the 20 second intro to the new Foresters song titled "Radio". I love it! It reminds me of the band Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet (but don't tell them that I don't think they would appreciate the comparison) ;)
I'll have to record the whole song! Maybe they will debut it at the Rock The House benefit show on Sunday!
Check out José's video telling me his compete name. Wow!
Hindinger Farm, a fixture in Hamden since 1893, lost electric power in the hurricane. Need to sell tomatoes, peaches, string beans and corn that are in their coolers AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, while they are at their peak. Help save the Hindinger Farm and the Hindinger family. The farm store is open from 9am-6pm from Tues. to Fri. Sat. & Sun. til 5pm.
I was lucky enough to get both Clara Berry from Kennybunk Maine The Barefoot Movement from Granville North Carolina to perform at The Lakeview Lodge on Saturday night.
Here are a few videos of Barefoot Movement. I wish I filmed the whole night. What an amazing show!
Listen to this track i recorded from my phone!
Whoops! My Baby boy
Is smiling through sleepy eyes-
Morning work on hold... ;-)
-- @MatthewBrowning
I will always remember this song. As I was sitting by the stage my youngest son - 8 years old, climbed into my lap and looked up at the sky marveling at all the stars. I soaked up this moment with a little tear in my eye thinking that this will probably be the last year that one of my boys will want to sit on my lap. Every time I hear Laughing River I will think of this very special moment in time.
Fiona and Aldon Hynes interviewed the Foresters for their weekly radio show on site after their live performance at the Gouge Fourth Of July party in Morris Cove.
Great news for New Haven. I can't wait to see the fruit orchard in Edgewood Park :)
Update: Edgewood Park is now in 1st place for the 3rd round of voting. We still need to keep up the votes for another month!
Great news for New Haven. I can't wait to see the fruit orchard in Edgewood Park :)
Great news for New Haven. I can't wait to see the fruit orchard in Edgewood Park :)
Take a listen to his latest song. He literally put this together in 15 minutes. I watched him, he's amazing!
What a great night of music on the green!
A friend on Facebook posted this video and after watching 30 seconds of it and scratching my head, I figured it out... Use this video to wake the boys up in the the morning. And... IT WORKED!!! All three woke up with smiles on their faces as I bounced around the room with Nyan cat playing on my iPhone.
Try it yourself and let me know how it works for you! :-D
Join your friends and neighbors for a wonderful night of acoustic music at the beautiful Lakeview Lodge for the inaugural night of the Lakeview Lodge Music Series sponsored by Bethany Parks and Recreation.
You know you want a fun night out so keep reading...
It’s amazing that little old Bethany is attracting national acts! The inaugural concert will feature Robert Oakes and Katherine Smith traveling from Western Massachusetts to perform. Not only is it a great night of music, but a portion of your ticket purchase goes to support the Bethany Land Trust. Why not come early to enjoy the beautiful setting and take a stroll around picturesque Hockanum Lake?
Great music, great cause, great setting and great community -- A GREAT NIGHT! Refreshments offered for sale by the Land Trust.
7PM, Saturday June 4, 2011
Lakeview Lodge
265 Beacon Road
Bethany CT
For more information call the Park & Rec. Office at 203-393-2100 x127 or online at http://on.fb.me/lodgemusic
Tickets are $15 each (children 16 and under are free) and can be purchased in advanced at the Bethany Park & Rec. office or at the door the night of the show.
Be sure to “Like” Lakeview Lodge Music on Facebook! You can also check out the band website at http://www.oakesandsmith.net
P.S. Invite your friends to come, too! More exciting shows are coming in late summer, fall and winter!
1. Work hard & play hard.
2. There are no mistakes as long as you learn from them.
3. Look at your problems from a different angle and never get discouraged.
4. Find something you love to do in your life and do it your whole life long.
Evan is doing a really cool experiment for his 6th grade science project.
He is testing how people rate the quality of the same song played on MP3, Tape and CD
Here are the scores so far:
What's yours?
UPDATE: the press release event page is live on facebook
Update 2: The voting site is live: http://www.communitiestakeroot.com/
Press Reslease from Friends Of Edgewood Park:
The Friends of Edgewood Park invite you to participate in a media & public event launching our campaign for soliciting online votes for a Fruit Tree Orchard Grant that we have applied for, from the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, (FTPF). The grant will provide us with fruit trees, resources and expertise assistance needed to re-introduce about 45 fruit bearing trees, (plus assorted fruit bearing shrubs), in Edgewood Park. The online voting period will extend from April 15 to August 31. We are excited to have made the 100 finalists, (out of about 425 participants worldwide). As such, we are competing for the top 20 votes gatherers applicants, (out of 100 finalists), who will be receiving fruit tree orchards from the FTPF foundation.
To further our excitement, The City of New Haven department or Parks, Recreation & Trees has offered its full support behind this initiative by matching this grant with an equal numbers of fruits trees that will be introduced in various neighborhood within the city, (outside Edgewood Park). In so doing, The Department has just rendered this initiative one that is of interest and stand to benefit the various communities and neighborhoods across the entire city of New Haven.
Event Time & Date:
Friday April 15, 2011 at 11:00 AM
Event Location:
The Grove
71 Orange Street
New Haven, CT 06510
Semi Semi-Dikoko, President
Friends of Edgewood Park, (FoEP)
http://facebook.com/EdgewoodPark
http://twitter.com/edgewoodparkct
To further our excitement, The City of New Haven department or Parks, Recreation & Trees has offered its full support behind this initiative by matching this grant with an equal numbers of fruits trees that will be introduced in various neighborhood within the city, (outside Edgewood Park). In so doing, The Department has just rendered this initiative one that is of interest and stand to benefit the various communities and neighborhoods across the entire city of New Haven.
Event Time & Date:
Friday April 15, 2011 at 11:00 AM
Event Location:
The Grove
71 Orange Street
New Haven, CT 06510
Semi Semi-Dikoko, President
Friends of Edgewood Park, (FoEP)
http://facebook.com/EdgewoodPark
http://twitter.com/edgewoodparkct
Below is an excerpt of an Entrepreneur's action items:
Combine Skills. The first thing you should learn in a course on entrepreneurship is how to make yourself valuable. It's unlikely that any average student can develop a world-class skill in one particular area. But it's easy to learn how to do several different things fairly well. I succeeded as a cartoonist with negligible art talent, some basic writing skills, an ordinary sense of humor and a bit of experience in the business world. The "Dilbert" comic is a combination of all four skills. The world has plenty of better artists, smarter writers, funnier humorists and more experienced business people. The rare part is that each of those modest skills is collected in one person. That's how value is created.
Fail Forward. If you're taking risks, and you probably should, you can find yourself failing 90% of the time. The trick is to get paid while you're doing the failing and to use the experience to gain skills that will be useful later. I failed at my first career in banking. I failed at my second career with the phone company. But you'd be surprised at how many of the skills I learned in those careers can be applied to almost any field, including cartooning. Students should be taught that failure is a process, not an obstacle.
Find the Action. In my senior year of college I asked my adviser how I should pursue my goal of being a banker. He told me to figure out where the most innovation in banking was happening and to move there. And so I did. Banking didn't work out for me, but the advice still holds: Move to where the action is. Distance is your enemy.
Attract Luck. You can't manage luck directly, but you can manage your career in a way that makes it easier for luck to find you. To succeed, first you must do something. And if that doesn't work, which can be 90% of the time, do something else. Luck finds the doers. Readers of the Journal will find this point obvious. It's not obvious to a teenager.
Conquer Fear. I took classes in public speaking in college and a few more during my corporate days. That training was marginally useful for learning how to mask nervousness in public. Then I took the Dale Carnegie course. It was life-changing. The Dale Carnegie method ignores speaking technique entirely and trains you instead to enjoy the experience of speaking to a crowd. Once you become relaxed in front of people, technique comes automatically. Over the years, I've given speeches to hundreds of audiences and enjoyed every minute on stage. But this isn't a plug for Dale Carnegie. The point is that people can be trained to replace fear and shyness with enthusiasm. Every entrepreneur can use that skill.
Write Simply. I took a two-day class in business writing that taught me how to write direct sentences and to avoid extra words. Simplicity makes ideas powerful. Want examples? Read anything by Steve Jobs or Warren Buffett.
Learn Persuasion. Students of entrepreneurship should learn the art of persuasion in all its forms, including psychology, sales, marketing, negotiating, statistics and even design. Usually those skills are sprinkled across several disciplines. For entrepreneurs, it makes sense to teach them as a package.
I think everyone should download this song and listen to it every morning! What a great way to start out the day!
I want to try live streaming using Qik so that @alibnork can watch the Biography Breakfast:
I think this embeded Qik player will stream live and then play the last video I recorded.
The catch is, I need to have cell coverage in the town hall....
Jimmy Fallon upped the ante. Blowing away Conon O'Brien's parody "Thursday" (although Conon's is still pretty darn funny)
If you haven't seen the original cideo that started all this craziness, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0
Alye you go girl! You have turned the tables taking the power back from the bullies and at the same time launching an international conversation on bullying! Alye you are a strong and courageous young woman. Great things are in store for you! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37_ncv79fLA
2011
AUTISM AWARENESS DAY
AT
THE CONNECTICUT STATE CAPITAL
MONDAY, APRIL 4TH
10:00 A.M. Have breakfast with others passionate about the needs of those with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
11:00 A.M. Hear from Legislators and speakers who support improvements for those on the Autism Spectrum.
Afterwards…
Take the opportunity to visit your personal local Legislators to discuss autism with them and/or their aides – if they are not in, let them know you stopped by and why
I went to a very interesting Yale lecture yesterday by Tony Hey from Microsoft Research talking about the revolution of research needing to deal with the overwhelming amount of data.
1. Thousand years ago - Experimental Science - Description of natural phenomena
2. Last few hundred years -
3. Last few decades - Computational Science - Simulation of complex phenomena
4. Today - Data-Intensive Science - Scientists overwhelmed with data sets require a new generation of scientific computing tools to manage, visualize and analyze the data flood.
The key is moving data to knowledge
DATA --> INFORMATION --> KNOWLEDGE
A few -interesting applications of this are:
NodeXL http://nodexl.codeplex.com/
Zoom Technology (Example Roman History)
Other resources:
List of Tools: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/tools/
Interesting article in NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/science/15books.html?_r=3
Their summary of what makes a champion is right on:
* retweet
* share messages
* respond in real-time
* provide useful information on topics that are interesting to their followers
Good advice for anyone trying to build a brand on twitter!
I just pledged support to this amazing project to preserve, doument and write the history of these fantastic photos from Iraq.
I had an inspiring conversation with Christopher Brownfield who is working to get this project off the ground.
He said he needs as many people as possible to pledge at least $1 to show their support of his project.
Click on over to learn more.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/baghdad/baghdad-antebellum-a-history-in-photographs
To download Jack's Contact info into your phone use an app on your phone such as Red Laser to scan this QR Code:
Since 2008, Jack has worked as the Director of Client Service for ROI making sure that projects get done on time and on budget. Jack is also an integral part of new product development, marketing and new business efforts. He has worked with such clients as SuperVau, Safeway, Giant Eagle, Tops and Conagra.
Jack has over 15 years of experience developing and utilizing cutting edge technology and information systems. He previously led Mason Interactive where he was responsible for helping to strategically integrate the Internet, social media and online marketing into all areas of Mason’s B2B and B2C clients businesses. Jack also served two terms as the chairman of the American Association of Association of Advertising Agencies IT Committee. Jack was responsible for technology-related issues and devising solutions for agencies and their clients across the country.
Before coming to Mason, Jack was a Network Engineer in charge of the remote offices throughout the United States for Mercedes Benz Credit Corporation. His time at Mercedes gave him vast experience with both network and Internet technologies.
Jack lives in Bethany with his wife and 3 boys. He is very involved in the New Haven community including GoogleHaven (www.highspeednewhaven.com), Social Web Week Connecticut (www.SocialWebCT.com) and BCS Robotics (www.bcsrobotics.com)
Download the attached vcard to add Jack's contact information to your address book.
Ali and I have really been enjoying watching the boys develop as a band. Each of them has emerged with important skills and strengths that make it possible for them to work and grow together. I talked to them about this tonight at dinner these are my observations:
Hayden Bass- Musicologist and Band Spirit. Hayden has been studying rock books for months. It seems as if he is working on memorizing every member of every rock band from the past 40 years! He gets his brothers excited about hearing all different kind of bands and is perpetually plugging his ipod into any set of speakers he can find so he can share his latest discovery. Hayden is also the one we will find practicing his moves in the mirror. When they had their first concert at the Amity Teen Center, Hayden was the one who got props for the band members to wear and made sure to bring little things with him on stage that he could throw into the crowd. Hayden is the one who will make sure the people coming to the show are having a good time.
Liam Drums- The Backbone and Glue Being the drummer in the band it is fitting to call Liam the backbone. He not only holds the band together with his beats, but even more importantly he motivates his brothers to practice even if they don't really feel like it. Liam is the one who will make them a great band because practice makes perfect and he understands that it takes hard work to become great. Liam has been known to play until he has blisters on his fingers. He is the glue that binds the band together and allows the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts.
Evan Guitar- Creative Mastermind and Teacher. Evan has an amazing gift. He is able to write songs and lyrics making it seem completely effortless. He writes at least 1 or 2 new songs a week. When he goes to guitar lesson his teacher is continually amazed at the new ideas Evan comes up with. Evan also is able to work on song samples and loops on the Mac This is building his recording and production skills. On top of all of this, Evan is a patient and nurturing teacher. This is not easy to do, but when Evan finishes writing a song, he is able to teach his brothers their parts. I've seen instances where the part he originally wrote was too hard for one of his brothers to play so he went back to the drawing board and rewrote it in a way that made it easier for them.
This has been such an amazing learning experience for the boys. Each of them is discovering and developing their skill while at the same time having fun working together. I can't wait to see what the future has in store for them!
The New Haven anthem! :-)