Jason Calacanis is an Amazing Man
Hey readers!
This post is about one of the greatest guys I have ever had the honor of meeting. In case you didn't bother to read the title of this post, that man is Jason Calacanis, founder of Mahalo.
Jason is such a great guy, I would say he gave me the greatest opportunity of my life. Jason invited me as a guest to the TechCrunch50 conference. The conference turned into an amazing opportunity to network with angle investors, venture capitalists, founders of startups, bloggers, journalists and much more. The connections I made with people from all over the world are already opening some doors for me and it is all thanks to Jason.
The event was the most amazing event of any kind that I have ever been to. Many of the companies that were unveiled had products that blew me away. While some had evolutionary products, there were several that were revolutionary. If I had the money, there were a couple that I would have invested in without a second thought. I will be blogging my thoughts on a number of the different companies, both the good and the bad over the next week or so on the Global Geek News Blog. I will also be writing a couple of more posts on here about the event over the next couple of days to talk about the trip, the event itself, the connections that I made, and finally meeting some internet friends such as Justine Ezarik and Don Reisinger.
I really hope I can go again next year as this was truely one of the highlights of my life. I can never thank Jason enough for giving me this opportunity. Jason, if there is ever anything that you need, just ask! Below is the picture that Jason's wife took of me and him together after the conclusion of the conference.
Me (Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray) and Jason Calacanis
-pcnerd37
Slow day.
With it being New Year's Eve, today seems to be a really slow day at work. I had everything for tomorrows Geek News Daily podcast ready to go by shortly after noon. For those curious, I am recording two podcasts tomorrow. I am recording the Geek News Daily podcast as normal as well as I am recording an episode of the Global Geek News podcast. Geek News Daily will be recorded first thing in the morning like usual if not before. I have now found a way to record on my laptop, so I am no longer tethered to my desktop for recording.
Global Geek News will be recorded I hope at some point tomorrow morning. With special guest Justine having gone out to San Francisco, the time difference between me, her and Lindsay is making things difficult as Lindsay has work. I am keeping my fingers crossed a time will come together for recording tomorrow. Unless I change my mind, we are sticking with the same topics for discussion as I am covering most of the other major news in my Geek News Daily podcast.
In other news, I have no special New Year's Eve plans yet again. Like every year I can remember, I plan on bringing in the new year by playing video games. While some may see it as sad, I see it as a fun start to a new year full of dangers and disappointments. To each his own I suppose.
Happy New Year everybody!
-pcnerd37
After a day of problems, a fix has been found.
With the excitement of doing a podcast this morning, I got virtually no sleep last night. I rolled out of bed at 6:30am to prepare for this mornings podcast. This morning was a case of whatever can go wrong will go wrong.
Things got started about 30 minutes late, only to find that my recording solution wasn't going to work. Audacity was only recording me and not Justine or Lindsay. After fiddling with that, we decided to try Talkshoe. While that work have worked, the audio quality didn't want to cooperate so we decided to try again on Tuesday in hopes that I had a better solution by that point.
I ended up spending most of the day trying to get both myself and a skype conversation to record. At one point I had skype recording and not me. Thats where I ended up getting stuck. After some research, I found out there is a mic bug in Vista that is the root of my problems. Thanks Microsoft! Eventually after scratching my head for a few hours, a bit of out of the box thinking saved me.
I thought that since I can at least get the skype conversation to record, I can setup a second skype account on my laptop and invite my desktop into the call and have it do nothing but record the conversation and I will use my laptop to talk on. Luckily after a little bit of time, it worked almost perfectly. I still have some tuning to do on the audio so that it doesn't peak like it is, but that should be easily fixed by adjusting the skype volume.
So now that everything is working, the recording of the Global Geek News podcast will take place at a yet to be determined time on Tuesday. All the stories will likely stay the same, but the recording will take place either Tuesday morning or afternoon. I would do the evening, but I hope to go see Atonement in Denver Tuesday and thats a 2 hour drive each way.
A big thanks to Justine and Lindsay for their patience and willingness to wake up so early this morning only to have things fall apart. Expect all new Global Geek News and Geek News Daily podcasts next week. So make sure to check them out at www.globalgeeknews.com and www.geeknewsdaily.com
-pcnerd37