Wednesday, September 30, 2009
What a summer! My cousin got married, I had two different sets of friends visit, my parents came into town, and above all, I managed to find myself a girlfriend. In the free time (ha!) I have been diligently working on Live Action Rock Show (attempting to get new music together, find inspiration, and organize a show…), work for some freelance clients, and attempt to finally fix my computer. Ah, thus is the bane of building your own box. I am my own warranty?
At any rate, you will start to see some new projects I am working on while I continue to sharpen my skills, specifically with Jquery related work. Sometimes the hard part about coding something is needing to have an actual problem to solve!
Monday, February 16, 2009
I came across this great video courtesy of @comcastscott on Twitter. Great way to start a day, also a sort of call to action for a generation that has already been uplifted by a mantra of “change” and “new age” … a seemingly constant stream of positivity from the “new” White House. Be sure to check it out, I am a fan.
Link: “Lost Generation” from YouTube
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been very busy with my own comings and goings lately, including the launch of a major project for me: driving business/publicizing MINI via Twitter, eventually Facebook, but also with (finally) the launch of PeterGBrown.com, the professional evil-twin of THIS website, used to advertise me as a Motoring Advisor and publicize Sandia MINI. Check it all out!
Also, we are on batch #3 (yeah I completely did not include batch #2 – a successful and delicious Scottish Heavy) – it’s sitting and mellowing in the secondary. It will be a delicious Belgian Strong Ale. This also marks an important departure in our brewing venture: no more malt-extract kits! We are transitioning to all-grain brewing here. This batch was done with a good amount of malted and milled grains, plenty of spray malts (still not “true” all grain), hops, candi sugar, and irish moss. NO goopy extract!! Pictures will be posted soon.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
My 4-yr old computer finally took a dive a couple of weeks ago. While I knew it was probably in the near future, I was unprepared both financially and practically to have to replace it. Around the holidays money and time are both tight…and I wasn’t pleased to be dropping cash on a new PC. However, I am glad I did it because not only do I have a running computer again, I also have a VERY FAST and extremely powerful new PC! Check it:
- Intel Quad-Core (Kentsfield 2.4 GHz / 1066MHz FSB) CPU
- 4GB DDR2 RAM
- 750 GB SATA 3.0 GB/s data rate HDD
- 160GB IDE HDD (old HD)
- ASUS/ATi Radeon HD4830 Graphics Card (512MB 256-bit DDR3 PCI-Express)
- Antec Earthwatts 500W PSU
- ASUS P5Q Premium Motherboard
Basically this thing is a rocket. It’s having teething problems, of course, since a) I didn’t do a clean format and booted up on my old HD. So I’m having old driver issues, new hardware issues, but it’s running and I have solved most of my driver issues with no headaches.
Oh. Did I forget to mention this is all in my Koolance water-cooling case? Nice.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Good week. Sold some cars. But my computer decided to explode (not literally) when I put a new HDD in it (ran out of space!) and now…I’m facing ~$750 in replacement parts but really, it’s like 4 years old or so and the expensive stuff (case, monitors, etc) doesn’t need replacement so I dunno. We’ll see. That’s a lot of money.
HOWEVER: it’s snowing! So our lot is crazy looking, what with all the MINIs completely covered in snow and the mountains being COMPLETELY cloaked in clouds. We’re expected to receive something on the order of 4″-6″ by Thursday…and that makes me happy. Also, there WILL be snowball fights! So next thing on my list? Snow gloves…my hands are raw from the 5 minutes of snowball fights today.
I’ve been hard at work behind the scenes, finding plugins and widgets to enhance the blog experience. Soon I will be undertaking the creation of a whole new template for this blog; while this layout is nice, I much prefer doing things myself as much as possible. This blogging engine is just so robust, the geek in me can’t help but admire it’s construction and ease of use, and know when to leave well enough alone.
So enough about that. I have a flickr account that is configured to link directly into this blog…making it easier to share my photos, and to use flickr to upload directly to this site. I like ease of use.
As previously mentioned, I visited Marble, a microbrewery here in Albuquerque, and promised photos later. So…as a test of my new-found flickr plugin, one photo of many.
Design studio Wyld Stallyons made this really cool music video from a song by Irish indie rockers The Blizzards (the song is “The Reason”) … at any rate one of my friends hooked me up with this dope knowledge, and I have to say, I’m very impressed. As a person that almost paid money to see people dress up and fight in monster costumes in a miniature cardboard city, I am a huge fan. Be sure to check it out.
Text-adventure RPGs are a thing of the mid- to early-90s, but I remember them fondly. In fact, I used to make some in QBASIC, back when that was the programming language du jour. Yes, that made me roughly 6-8 years old, but what can I say? I was am a nerd. This Super Mario Bros parody takes me back. Thanks, SomethingAwful.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
My free time is kaput, again. Galcon is an amazing Risk-esque game for the iPhone or iPod Touch set in outer space that is going to ruin productivity when I’m not at work. Basically you try to conquer planets and take over all the planets your opponent owns. It’s very easy to use, you simply drag-and-drop your units from planet to planet using your finger. Watch the chaos ensue! It’s real-time and very fast paced. I’ve won games in less than 30 seconds, and played games that have lasted for more than 5 minutes. Oh, and it’s wifi-enabled to play over the Internet or network with other players.
There are two versions: lite, and the full-blown Galcon. I skipped the (free) lite version and opted for the $3.99 full game, and to be honest, I’d pay like $6 or $7. Nothing has quite enthralled me this much on my iPhone since Fieldrunner (another game I highly recommend!)
Try it out. Kiss your free time goodbye.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Car sales is a rough world sometimes. It’s all doom & gloom from the media: “there’s no floor traffic, sales are down 40%, blah blah blah” and sometimes you feel like a bag of crap because you’re not selling, but everyone else seems to. Guess what: Sales is an attitude game and every perception you THINK, true or not, will affect your outlook, and therefore, your outcome.
Personally, I’m very thankful that I work at MINI, and even more thankful I work at Sandia MINI. Nothing beats working for a great brand than working at a great dealership populated with great people. That it just so happens to be MINI, all the better. There isn’t a better place to work in the car sales world right now than where I am. Evidence. Realizing that is one thing, putting it into action and creating momentum is another.
That’s why today and from every day onward, I’m going to tackle my workday head-on. I’m going to hope for create sales. Follow-up with customers. Create relationships. Use all of the marketing tools at my disposal. Create new marketing tools. Use technology to drive my business. 71% of buyers purchase their vehicle because they liked their salesperson.
I’m likable, right?
