Starting to Pick Up Some Mainstream Media - 02/20/2007 - 12:45 AM:
With additions like Veeker, RSS Feeds, and the e-mail page, it's somewhat hard to get additional videos done in a timely manner. Without my desktop (which is back at home) editing can be a pain; with things moving so fast, my videos tend to be out-of-date before they're done. Luckily, the mainstream press is starting to step forward to help out by putting together their own videos of me! I got an e-mail this morning from CityNews International, and they were kind enough to ...
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A Return to a Day of Business - 02/20/2007 - 8:37 AM:
The cogs start moving again in the world now that President's Day is gone, and I lose my car today. I had a rental car until the 20th, when I was originally planning on going home, and the cost of renting it for another week made it not such a good idea - luckily, a friend as offered to let me drive his car for the duration of the adventure. "Doing his part," as he called it. Ahahahahahhaha! Poor guy. It's starting off the week in fairly nice condition. :)
I realized after the CityNews mention that I forgot to tell you about paintball, which was a lot of fun. We had maybe 10 people in the group, and we hooked up with Brodie, who's the kid in the picture on the right. He wants to be a game designer in the future, so if anyone in the game industry living in the San Francisco area ...
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Nice to Know Who's Paying Attention - 02/20/2007 - 5:15 PM:
I just had to make a really quick note of this, because it's nice to know who you've reached. Someone sent me an e-mail today pointing out that I'd been mentioned in the blog of Ted Leonsis. For those of you that don't know who that is, you can check out his profile on Wikipedia; not only is he the Vice Chairman of America Online, Inc., he's also the majority owner of the company that owns the Washington Capitals (NHL) and part of the Washington Wizards (NBA). According to Wikipedia, he was listed as one of the 20 most powerful people in sports by Sporting News, and while I primarily know him through his work in the tech industry, I consider that all very impressive (even if - and I hate to admit this - AOL has never been my favorite company in the world...).
It ...
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A Good Lunch, A Reminder of Why I'm Here - 02/21/2007 - 11:30 PM:
After a week in town, I had my first Google lunch today. Apparently I'm an interesting enough figure that I attracted the notice of four Googlers - Eric, Mike, David, and Ginger - and they were kind enough to invite me as a guest out for a friendly lunch, nothing business related. Let me tell you, there was a world of difference between walking onto the campus the first day - not knowing where to go, or even who to talk to about setting up a meeting - and today, when I was able to come onto campus knowing someone was expecting me, even if it's just for a casual meal. It's amazing how much has changed for me since that first day and now, just ...
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A Rainy Day Near Mountain View - 02/22/2007 - 9:52 AM:
On a rainy Thursday morning, I'm happy to take small achievements when they come my way. :) Someone pointed out to me that CanGoogeHearMe.com is currently listed as the number 5 site in Alexa.com's list of top 10 fastest growing websites on the Internet this week. They measure how much traffic a site is getting and give it a ranking based on those numbers - so apparently we're in the top five fastest growing sites in the world, right now. Since I arrived in California, we've had an increase in traffic of 19,000%. Pretty cool. In five days that traffic might make an about face and put me on the downward slope of that list, but at this moment in time, 9:43 a.m. on Feb. 22nd, 2007... I figure it's something to be proud of.
...
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Troubles at Home, Server Crashes - 02/24/2007 - 1:01 AM:
It's Murphy's Law: right when you need everything to go right, something crashes. Either your laptop dies right before a presentation, or your dog eats your homework, or - as in our case at the moment - the server starts doing terrible things to your files during FTP transfers.
So, just two days before this trip really hits the breaking point, the website is broken.
The CanGoogleHearMe.com server is having technical troubles, and it gets in the way of posting fun things like the next movie, which I hope to have up sometime tomorrow. If it were not for some lucky out-of-date on-server backups, this site would be looking very much like aaronstanton.com right now, which means that nothing would be there. That being said, the reverse order button is down for a bit, and our Doomsday clock has been temporarily lost in the rollback. Additionally, I've been told my e-mail server is bouncing e-mails, so if you send me s...
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A Video Update: Part V - 02/24/2007 - 5:05 PM:
Written posts are great when I don't have time to battle my computer into making a video, but they don't really convey things very well. So... well, I put together another video.
The server seems to be back up and running again without any flaws, though I'm still worried some of my e-mails are being lost. Apparently, not only was the FTP doing odd things, but for some people the countdown wasn't showing anything but a line that read, "Aaron is going home..." Scared some people, evidently. :) I'm still here and still doing my thing for the next few days. Still behind the moon (watch the video, if you want that to make sense...)
...
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A Note for Cody - 02/26/2007 - 8:05 AM:
I received two e-mails this morning that I thought I'd mention before getting to work. The first is from Cody, whose 16-year-old friend died in a car accident yesterday on February 25th, 2007. Cody sent me an e-mail about this to tell me how important it is to follow your dreams, and there's no real point to this response beyond telling Cody that I'm sorry for your loss. One of my best friends lost his little sister in a car accident when I was 17, and the impact of that is with me to this day. These sorts of things don't leave you easily, and they shouldn't. My thoughts are with you and your friend, and I'm sure others are as well.
I received a second e-mail, too, this one from the son of the president of the University of Idaho, which is the school I graduated from recently. He apparently called his father to mention the website, and it seemed to be well received. "He seemed to be proud," is what was written in the e-mail. I've never met President White mysel...
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You Know What I Need? A Book Cover... - 02/27/2007 - 12:15 PM:
I'm pointedly not mentioning anything about my departure deadline, which is approaching in a little less than 10 hours - the point where I leave California and head back to Boise, Idaho. This isn't that post, yet.
What this post is, though, is a humble request, mostly for fun. In a few days, no matter what, I'm going to be printing off hundreds of your e-mails into a book - just for myself - which I will be taking to Kinkos to be bound for my personal shelf. By this time next week, I'll have one impressive collection of "good luck" e-mails, let me tell you. But I was thinking about this, and it needs a cover. Kinkos lets you print a full color, 11 X 17 cover for the book, and I don't have one. So far, people have stepped forward during this adventure of ours and offered programing help, lunch on the town, and e-mails of support - it's been wonderful, but what I need now is an artistically oriented person to put together a cover for our book. It's possible that -...
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This is all I have to say at the moment... - 02/27/2007 - 3:24 PM:
Now I have to go pack, because my plane leaves in only a few hours. By 10:30 tonight I'll be arriving home. I'm going to sleep well tonight. :)...
I'm Back Home - Got to Sleep in for the First Time... - 02/28/2007 - 8:37 AM:
At 10:30 p.m. last night, I arrived at the airport both tired and excited. After nearly two weeks running on emotions alone and sleeping on a couch, "excited" took a back seat to "tired". I crashed into the warmest, comfiest bed I've ever seen, and this morning I slept in for the first time since February 1st, when I started filming the original video.
People have been sending in book covers, but I want more. :) Call me greedy, but as one e-mail pointed out, my book might have several covers. You might have to flip through several pages of covers to get to the first e-mail. That would be great.
Which leaves me with what I'm planning on doing today. I'm getting a lot of e-mails asking about what has or hasn't happened. I'm very aware of that, don't worry, and I'm working on getting you an answer... because... well, I owe you an answer, simple as that. :)
But today... what am I going to do today? Aside from eating at my kitchen ta...
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I'm Up to 150 Replies, Meaning I'm Miles Away From Halfway. - 02/28/2007 - 12:21 PM:
I've spent a good portion of my morning trying to respond to letters. I'm afraid my typing is getting sloppy. :) I just finished my 150th thank you reply, with miles and miles left to go. Still, there's something fun about this. I'm trying to make some sort of comment in each e-mail that lets people know for sure it's not a form response, but it's hard sometimes. All of you that sent e-mails that are just subject lines saying, "Good luck,"... well, you're not giving me much to work with here. :)
You know, two weeks ago I'd have never thought that there was a possibility I could be spending a day doing this - responding to hundreds and hundreds of e-mails. Amazing. How life has such interesting turns.
UPDATE: I've passed the 250 mark. Fingers... so... tired......
Concrete Outcomes and a New Batch of E-mails - 03/01/2007 - 8:03 AM:
Australia, it turns out, is a very vocal country. I woke up this morning to a new flood of e-mails wishing me luck after CanGoogleHearMe.com was covered by the Sydney Morning Herald; I'm not sure I've been called "mate" so many times before in my life in such a short period of time. :) At the same time, things seem to be spreading - I've got a live BBC radio interview later on today. I figured that interest would drop off the instant the countdown reached zero, but apparently the interest is more heartfelt and genuine than that; you seem to be willing to keep tabs on things until there's a reason to cheer or a reason to be disappointed, either way.
And speaking of which, I think it's only fair that you have some sort of a concrete answer, and I feel bad that I don't have one for you yet. The problem is that the Internet is a fast medium, and it's covering what can so...
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I'd like to talk to some programmers... - 03/01/2007 - 9:51 AM:
This is sort of a tentative request in the interest of exploring possibilities, depending on whether I decide to take the risky path or the safe path.
I'd like to talk to some programmers, specifically in the Boise area. Because... well, I'll just leave it at that. :) If you happen to know someone with some skills and creativity that lives in the area, well, consider pointing them my direction. Specifically, PHP, Java, Ajax, MySQL focus, for starters. ...
An Announcement on Monday, March 12th; The Doomsday Clock Returns - 03/02/2007 - 9:48 AM:
The Doomsday Clock has returned. Originally it counted down to my plane's departure from California, and now it counts down to the next major announcement. I'm fully aware that people are curious and want concrete answers, and at the same time I have to be careful not to rush things. I've decided to ask you for about a week to work things out. If you do the math, that countdown ends at 12:01 on Monday morning, March 12th, California Pacific time. That's one episode of Lost, and one episode of Heroes, so it will help round out your week.
Two cool things happened yesterday. You know how I said that this trip was inspired in part by a movie called My Date With Drew? Well, the movie features a guy named Brian (it's a true story, too), and on a whim I sent his production co...
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Compiling E-mails into THE BOOK. - 03/05/2007 - 7:43 AM:
I sat down today and began another daunting, but enjoyable task: I'm compiling my personal book of good luck e-mails. The original plan was to take the stack down to Kinkos and have it bound so it could sit on my shelf as a reminder of the value of this trip no matter the outcome. As I said before, the thickness of this book will be the measure of my success. But I ran into a problem. Kinkos, it turns out, has a 1 inch thickness limit to their perfect binds, and I've got a bit more than one inch. In fact, just guessing from how many pages it is, we'll easily be over a foot thick.
So, I'm turning to alternatives. One person e-mailed me to recommend lulu.com, which I think is a fairly good idea. The site will allow me to publish one or two copies of the massive book with nifty things like hardbound covers, and up to 800 pages per book - that still means I'll have to print it in four or five different volumes, but I figure that's worth doing. The alternative is to...
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A Meeting and 5 Days to Go. - 03/06/2007 - 12:34 PM:
I've been meeting with people almost daily since I returned to Boise, and while it might be hard to tell from the outside, I've been very busy. I had lunch yesterday with Brandon, who you can see in the picture here on the left (taken by a waitress with Brandon's camera phone). What we talked about? You'll know soon enough. There are only five days left on that counter.
In the mean time, I've completed volume 1 of the book of e-mails. The measure of my success. I used one of the covers you made for me, the one to the right, and sent it out to be printed. I'm going to put a different cover on each volume, but, "We can hear you :)" is perfect for the first one. On...
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Not One, But Two Videos. Plus a Humble Request. - 03/09/2007 - 8:55 AM:
This is the last post I'm going to make before Monday of next week - the last few days have been focused on meeting people and putting together not just one video, but two. This weekend specifically is dedicated to getting the next video together. It's an important video for me, as important as the very first one I ever made. Possibly more, we'll see.
I have just two notes for you over the weekend, one positive, and one negative/positive. The positive one is simple: I've had quite a few people e-mail me and ask if they could see our book if I had time to show it to them. So, I thought that was pretty cool. I'm very enthusiastic about the good luck e-mails I've gotten - not really addressed to me, but to anyone chasing a dream - and I'm happy that other people see value in it as well. The first volume should be arriving here at the house in a few days (hopefully next week), and then I look forward to showing it off. :)
On the negative/positive s...
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Cool News I Just Had to Share! :) - 03/09/2007 - 2:08 PM:
So, this really will be my last post before the announcement on Monday, but I just got a call that makes me very happy, and I had to share it. :) Because, it's cool, and I'm bouncing out of my seat! :)
Anyway, the call was from the president of Imagination Worldwide, the company that distributes the movie that influenced this entire adventure, My Date With Drew. He has confirmed that yes, absolutely he would be happy to pass a message about our adventure on to Brian, who is the star of My Date With Drew. I asked him to let Brian know that this adventure was inspired by his original courage, and that I just wanted to make sure he knew that. (I also dropped a hint that it would be cool to get an e-mail from Brian to add to the book, but maybe that's pushing my luck...) ...
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It's the Start of a New Quest - 03/12/2007 - 5:08 PM:
After several weeks of blog posts, this site is getting too long. Plus, the adventure is taking a new turn, so it's time to make some changes. A new quest is beginning; Watch the video below, and you'll understand. :)
I'm moving all the posts and videos that you're reading right now to a second page, which you're looking at. All future updates after March 12th, 2007 - including everything that's happening with the new quest - can be found here, at http://www.CanGoogleHearMe.com.
So if you're looking for the latest updates, you're looking in the wrong spot. :) Watch the video below, then make the leap to the main page to see how things are going. And again, thanks for checking up on me, and ...
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d - 07/17/2010 - 4:12 PM:
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