via Joe. My. God.: A Gay Take On Taylor Swift.

For some time now, there’s been a crapload of talk about the concept of personal brand.

It’s about who you are about and what you show the world.

It’s about your Facebook account, your blog, MySpace, LinkedIn, resume, business card, handshake, the twinkle in your eye… the list goes on.

Your Brand

Fast Company talks about personal brand and our responsibilities as the CEOs of our own companies:

Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.

Finding Yourself

Over at Redhead Writing (full disclosure, she’s my buddy. But, as we say in RI – to steal a phrase from my boss – she’s wicked smahhht) she talks about how to research employees – both current and future. I’d take that one step further. Google yourself. See what comes up. Is that really what you want folks to believe about you?

Here are some easy steps to follow to research both prospective AND current employees. Remember – nothing is sacred, and these folks are representing your company’s brand in public. Kinda like an issue I had with a female associate at a major Las Vegas law firm that had bikini-clad and cleavage-laden photos populating her MySpace account. Right next to her employing firm’s name. Boooooooooooo…

A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words

I have long  been a proponent of NOT doing kegstands on your Facebook profile. Untag yourself immediately when your friends post pictures of you playing flipcup. That’s my opinion. I choose not to talk about sex on my blog. I choose not to have photos of me drunk and dancing on tables (no I don’t really dance on tables when I have more than two beers – which is how much it takes to get me drunk – but I consider it almost every time) on Facebook. I choose not to swear on Twitter.

I have my own lines in the sand. I don’t think it’s about where your lines are – everyone is different. It’s about if you have them at all. You should choose your boundaries and work with them – they’re lines in the sand, not hard and fast rules. It should be strategic, not haphazard. Because those glamma shots of you all pouty and (what you think is) sexy – not impressive to me when I’m thinking about hiring you.

But each of these photos has been my profile picture at one time on any number of social networks. What do these say about me? What does your photo say about you?

Least night, Megan and I ventured out to Geeks Who Drink at The Rackhouse Pub, a kick-ass bar that is nestled in the bosom of Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Distillery.

As a team we were pretty sure we’d stink, not being the quizziest of all folks. However, we seem to have stuck some kind of trivia gold, because we WON.

We started out with very little intention other than a good time with some good folks, and by the end of it, were intent to keep our top spot – which we secured early on… round 2 was all 80s music. All that random knowledge finally paid off.

The Team

The team was recruited via Twitter – Cali (maybe the nicest person in all of Denver) (@caligater) and I starting off the group. Rick (my I-love-Watts soulmate) (@Trypnotik) and Shel (this woman is FUNNY SHIT) (@Shellieshel) rounded out the team. Jim (hello, adorable boy…) (@Jim) was a latecomer, but brought some stellar Whitney Houston knowledge to the party.

The Win!

From the Geeks Who Drink blog:

It all came down to Round 8: Random Knowledge (as it does most weeks). This week’s was a bit of a doozy, but in the end, Quiz Virgins (name removed for those of you who fancy yourselves fragile… to find out what we named ourselves – it’s offensive and you’ve now been warned – check out the full post) emerged victorious (and promptly went home to gloat on Twitter).

via The Rackhouse.

The Beer

The Rackhouse has a pretty stellar selection of beers on tap, specifically Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout, something I never thought I’d be into, but I really dig.

The Tacos

Megan and I started off the night with 2 for $2 street tacos with my buddy Erika, the Quizmaster. (She’s appropriately renamed herself The Quiz Mistress… the woman could totally pull off some crazy dominatrix shit.)

These tacos were worth the weeks of taunting Erika’s been subjecting me to… 2 were not enough. I had to go back for a second round. And even when the heartburn was coming close to killing me, I wanted more. They are that good.

The Mac and Cheese (it’s totally good enough to qualify for title case) is like a whole other situation. Megan was hankering for a vat of it after the sampling in side-dish form.

Wicked awesome tacos, beer and people. And a win on top of it. Thursday night FTW.

DC Snow Time Lapse VIDEO: Amazing!.

I’ve got a guest post over at Denvelopers about customer service.

In web work, we use the word extensibility (a system design principle where the implementation takes into consideration future growth) to talk about architecture and technology.

My customer service skills are extensible – as I’ve grown as a professional in my industry and a human in the world, the basics have held strong – and are built upon every single day. The things I learned about selling cakes extends to websites. The same principles I learned about how to treat people, how to help people, and how to talk to people are the same regardless of the product.

Check it out!

It’s  been a big weekend. Yesterday, I went on my first for-real bike ride. And today, I learned to shoot a gun.

I’ve been living with guns in my home for roughly the last 10 years… but today, I actually learned how to shoot one for the first time.

I remember when I started dating my ex, and the nervousness I felt about having guns in a home where I was sleeping… and then the strange mix of safety and fear that I felt when we moved in together.

Everyone I know who owns a gun keeps it in a different manner. Folks with kids tend to have them unloaded and dismantled, some even going so far as to keep different parts of it in different locations in the house. Safer, certainly, but not so convenient for self-protection if the bad guys break in.

Other folks I know keep them in nightstands, locked filing cabinets, under their pillow, in their locker at the police station, locked up in a gun case… the list goes on. No, I’m not telling you where the guns live in my house.

I’ve handled a gun before – the industrial designer in me needed to take it apart and see how it worked if I was going to live with it. But I’ve never handled one loaded and with intent.

The Big Man came with us – he’s got all kinds of fancy guns (I got to see him shoot his automatic rifle – at like 100 yards – which was pretty cool.)  He showed me how to stand and hold the weapon, and what I should be aiming for. I was moderately impressed with my results for my first time. With the larger of the two guns that live in my home, I was able to consistently hit the target, even getting it in the center a couple of times.

Shooting at the target shaped like a bad guy (see the target in the top photo – it’s sort of blurry, but that’s a bad guy pointing a gun at me) was sort of strange – I could hit him in the chest and the head, but not with any degree of accuracy – I tried to hit the muzzle of his gun, and was consistently off by a few inches.

While I don’t think I’d ever become a gun enthusiast (for a variety of reasons, and because it’s an expensive sport), I can totally understand the competitive nature of it. I was really pleased with myself when I could consistently hit the target, and more than a little giddy (I tried to keep it to myself) when I hit the center 4 times.

While it’s a deadly weapon, it’s also a skill to master, and that’s appealing to the perfectionist in me.

Tim Noble and Sue Webster
Dirty White Trash [With Gulls] 1998
Six months’ worth of the artists’ rubbish
Variable dimensions
© the artists

via TATE ETC. issue 9 – The Emblem of Earthly Vanities: Large Images.

Per their website, the most popular tips and tricks

Turn on the backlighting
Press Power button.

Switch to another program
Hold the Alt key and press the Escape button. Continue to hold the Alt key and select a program. Release the Alt key to switch to that program.

Exit a screen or dialog box
Press the Escape button.

Insert a period
Press the Space key twice. The next letter is capitalized.

Insert the at sign (@) and periods in an Email field
Press the Space key.

Type an accent or special character
Hold the letter key and roll the trackball/trackwheel.

Capitalize a letter
Hold the letter key until the capitalized letter appears.

Move the cursor in a different direction
The Alt key and roll the trackball/trackwheel.

Change an option field
Hold the Alt key. Click a value.

Move to an item in a list or menu
Press the first letter of the item.

Select a check box
Press the Space key. To clear the check box, press the Space key again.

Select a line of text
Press the Shift key and roll the trackball/trackwheel.

Move down a screen
Press the Space key.

Move up a screen
Press the Shift key + the Space key.

via BlackBerry – Tips and Tricks.

Some options for our Cape Relay team:

• Lincoln Lynx
• Green Machine
• Betty Lincoln
• Lynx
• Cape Betties
• LYNX 4 EVA
• Will Run for Kilts
• It’s Not That Far With 12 Lynx
• Michelle Gets the Late Shift
• 24 Lincoln Legs
• Have you seen the green machine?
• (Lincoln) Schooled to Win
• Hey, That’s My Kilt
• Where the Fuck is the Van, I’m Tired of Running
• WTF I Thought This Was a 5K
• 2 Slow 2 Win, 2 Dumb 2 Quit
• I Will Run to Cape Cod to See Elisa in a Kilt

Cows.

Somewhere between Ohio and Nebraska.

February, 2009.