Amazing Storm...

I'm not speaking of the financial, housing, banking, or business storms, I'm talking about the ice one that just finished hitting New England this weekend.

Over the last few days my family and our community have been recovering from a very damaging storm. Look at how much ice accumulated in a 8 hour period:



The night of the storm was incredibly loud. It was impossible to sleep because every time you got to the point where you'd doze off, a tree would break and it would startle you because it sounded like it was falling right near your house. (Here were my twits)

I live in an established neighborhood so the trees around us have been around a while. It was amazing to see how the additional layers could bring them to their breaking point. There wasn't anything that they could have done; they were at the mercy of the storm. The look and feel of our neighborhood will suffer.

Now that the storm is over, in its wake is the clean up. Here is a pile I built up from my backyard.

I'd ask a neighbor for help but since they were also impacted, I had to handle the care and load on my own. It was good exercise but getting it done took much longer than expected.

Overall I took a lot of good out of the storm. I got to spend time with the family in ways I couldn't have created myself and it isn't everyday you boil water in your fireplace or listen to PBS on the radio.

It felt good to step back to a day when life was simpler.

5tacos

Give Thanks...

I wished a bunch of friends a Happy Thanksgiving today and most of the responses I got were to have the same.

I'm thankful everyday for what's going on in and around my walk in life. Some of the things I'll be most thankful this year are:

- health & safety of my family
- my mind
- the ability to be helpful to others

There are more but those are core to me. I couldn't move the way I do without knowing my family is safe and healthy. I don't even know where I'd be without my mind. Being a helpful creative type, I am extremely thankful for the ability to help others whether it be in business, life, or financially. I enjoy that so much.

I hope everyone has a great day celebrating things they are thankful for.

5tacos

Get your Sketch On!!

I'm not sure how long its been out but I just stumbled on Google's new 3D drawing application called, "SketchUp".

I downloaded and trialed it out today and all I can say is, it is very, very cool. I'm not an architect or mechanical engineer and you don't have to be in order to enjoy this application. It is extremely easy to use and their tutorials are easy to follow in order to get going quickly.

I showed it to a friend and she said, "all my engineer friends can kiss their years of experience using other drawing software goodbye".

Go check it out and if its not something you want to use, I'm sure someone you know will.

5tacos

Second time I've held off blogging

Its been over a month since the last time I posted and there are good reasons, mostly medical.

I've been through my spell of medical attention so it wasn't me, it was my wife. While everything has been going on I didn't feel it necessary to hop on blogger and update, although I have remained active on Facebook and Twitter. Actually for a while there I was enjoying the limitation of 140 characters since it meant I didn't need to have a long post in order to throw something up on the web. A pure benefit of Twitter.

I'm about 90% back and so I am now turning my attention back to writing down my thoughts.

With so much going on I'm not sure where to start so over the next few days you'll begin to see more posting. It will be nice to be back sharing my thoughts about the paths in which I walk.

It's good to be back.

5tacos

No Innovation...??

Did we go wrong somewhere? Have we forgotten what its like to innovate?

I'm not talking personally, I'm talking industry wise. I'm not picking on any industry in particular but it seems that unless your "GREEN" right now, you aren't innovating.

So I'll ask again, where have we gone wrong? Or better yet, did we go wrong?

I don' get it. Consumers are demanding new products, new approaches to the same, lower cost items, more efficient products, better emotional connections, and the list goes on. With the habits of consumers changing in such a big way, why aren't we innovating more? Have we become afraid of risk? I can't see how too much risk would impair innovation with the cost of developing something being so low.

So other than green tech, how do you see companies innovating for the consumer?

5tacos

Next Gen Wii? & Best Product Development quote…

First and foremost, a “next generation Wii platform” just doesn’t sound right. It is already a game changer (Casual Games Market) and has put a lot of pressure on Sony and Microsoft to compete.

I can only imagine what will be in the next version. Maybe a full body motion suit that interacts with the game? Whatever it will be, it’s going to be interesting.

Now to the quote:

Satoru Iwata, Wii platform president says, “We only turn something into a product after it’s been thoroughly vetted INSIDE the company”.

I don’t care what anyone says, this is rule number 1. Inventing products that you do not use yourself is stupid. I posted earlier about pricing products you don’t use and I think this fits the same bill. If you aren’t using your own products, how do you know how good or bad they are? How do you know what price to set when you don’t understand its value to YOU?

If this is how Nintendo approaches product creation, I would have to say it is a good reason why they have been able to take a lead in the console space so quickly.

They are their own customers.

5tacos

Relating to everyone with your ideas...

This hits an emotion that you, and possibly everyone else you've ever met, gets enjoyment out of.

All I can say is, "this is FRIGGIN brilliant".

5tacos