The
Change
Engine

Sometimes the path to finding something better is paved with something worse.

I met Slo (Upcoming interview) at Mill Mountain Coffee at 11:30 and took a few pictures. After that we talked for quite a while. I’ll post more on this later, but for now, here are several images. Click on thumbnail to view full size image.

Slo is a very recognizable citizen of downtown Roanoke Virginia. He’s easy to spot by his expressive and colorful clothing, and a conversation with Slo is always a fun, unusual, and enlightening experience. Although I don’t want to say where or when, I am excited to announce that Slo has agreed to an interview and photoshoot. I’ve been wanting to do this for some time. Yeah!

If you have never seen or met Slo, I would encourage you to check back. I hope to post the interview and image gallery here.

I am speechless (well almost). Take a few minutes and check out this website - http://www.rickguidotti.com/main.htm

The work of Rick Guidotti is amazing, all the more for his ability to recognize something few others were are to see.

This video doesn’t really need an explanation, but just the same, if you watch it I would like to tell you why I like it. Press play

What is the attraction of receiving a hug from a person you don’t know, who is advertising free hugs with a sign? Probably for some it’s a lark, a bit of fun and amusement? But for some these reasons may hide something deeper. The world is an unhappy place, filled with danger and consequence around every corner. Forest Gump says, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get�. But for many, the box is empty or filled with things other than tasty treats. The reality is that you don’t have to live in a third world country experience the fact that there is plenty of pain to go around.

In the context of this video an embrace says, “I don’t know you, but we share the predicament of life, and in this brief moment I’m right there with you. I don’t care who you are, what you believe, how much money you make, what you look like, what you were doing five minutes ago, or what kind of trouble your in. I don’t care�.

You might be thinking, “Dan, you’re making way too much of this, it’s a nice video, but it’s just some hugs and some cool music dude�. And to that I would say, you can’t make too much of making some feel good. Sometimes, you really need a hug. When that time comes I hope someone is there to give you one.

It’s been an interesting summer. Hot? Yes! Exciting? Abso-freakin–lutely! The list of things we’ve learned this summer is long, but one in particular has given me a new perspecitve on what I don’t know. We live in an inner city area, our house is nearly one hundred years old. When we moved in grass had not been grown in the yard for a long time. I could have sodded, and been done, but no, I wanted to bring it back from the dead. Although it seemed like an impossible task, that was part of the challenge. In fact it was a challenge for which I was ill equipped, because honesstly, I have never even mowed a lawn, how could I possibly expect to grow one.

I could not identify most of the things growing in the lawn space the first year. I seeded, fertalized, treated (chemicals) and watered, watched, and waited. But success was evasive. Eventually things we saw some activity, it looked like maybe something was thickening, maybe there was some improvement. I started to get excited, thinking maybe it was not going to be so hard as I had first imagined. But just when we thought we had it licked, something new, something evil started to grow. By the time I realized it, it took over. I mean within a week, it owned my lawn and was threatening my family. At first I had trouble identifying it, and when I finally did and dealt a nasty concoction of chemical death spray, it took forever to die. In fact I’m not convinced it did die, I think we just made it mad and sent it away to call again. I took heart and dreamed of the next season.

This year hasn’t been much better but it has been different. I’m stunned at the variety of pestilance besieging my property. Now we have a beautiful full crop of crabgrass. I mean it’s full and hearty, no bare spots, just as thick and rich as it gets. Next year we’ll get it. I’m already planning the battle, but no matter how long it takes, no matter what evil spore ascneds from hell, we’re not giving up.

On the business side…we have some exciting things happening. We are about to be in the blog/hosting business. We have developed a sweet little blog launcher that absolutely rocks, and are close to launching a batch of targeted group blogs designed to take over the world. We can now [well, not now, but soon] supply clients with blog blasters to supply their networks with blogs. Who we’re targeting with these systems is top secret, but it’s pretty neat. We’ll see what happens. Stay tuned.

It’s been too long. This little TCE project is keeping us pretty busy. So I blasted up some interesting video’s and I’m off again. But…we have some pretty cool stuff coming up. Stay Tuned!

This video is classic viral and it’s hard not to like and pass on. Who knows how many time its been viewed since it was released, but when I checked a couple of months ago it was around 20 million. Stride Gum was fortunate to have picked up on it early and their involvement made the final version even better. What is more interesting is all the Matt tribute video’s that have popped up. Matt’s been on just about every talk show there is with no end in site.

This car looks like a lot of fun.