I got interviewed for the inaugural issue of You24, which is a magazine for 24Hour Fitness clubs.  My article comes right before Lance Armstrong, on Page 36, and in an amazing coincidence, right next to a fullpage Jamba ad.

So this morning, despite the fact that my alarm is set to 6:45, I don't wake up until 8:30.  Fine, no gym.  Oh, but now I have to rush a little because the car is on the wrong side of the street and I have to move it by 9:30.  No prob.  Comb my hair and grab my hat... out the door in seconds flat.  (Its a Beatles line...I have neither hair nor a hat.)
Checking the car as I always do before getting in, I notice that the back left tire is really low.  Strange..didn't notice that before.  So I drove to the gas station to get some air.  Pretty much right at the moment that I realize the tire wasn't really reinflating was when I noticed the stab wounds.  Some fucker (or fuckers) put four half inch holes in my vinyl top, directly above the tire.  Goddammit.  Why you gotta mess with a man's ride?  Oh, by the way, did I mention I jammed my thumb badly at last night's dodgeball game.  (We swept all four games for those of you keeping score at home.)  Do you know how hard it is to change a tire with no right thumb?  Functioning opposable thumbs are a critical component of the tire changing process, particularly since the jack that Ford provides was ergonomically designed to be a cruel practical joke.  Throw on top of that the ridiculous amount of softball equipment I usually keep in my trunk, making access to the donut quite the exercise in one thumbed unpacking.  I got the tire, which on the Mustang, of course, is heavy and fat off, but not before playing wheel lock adapter scavenger hunt inside the car.  An examination of the tire pinpointed the last and most devistating of the half inch stab wounds inflicted on my car. 

Now its 10:42 and I'm on the Manhattan bring, transmitting this post from Typepad Mobile, finally on my way.  Do you know how badly I would have liked to catch the assholes who did this?  Note to self...store tire iron in winter coat.  My thumb hurts from thumbing this, too.

I'll deal with the donut and new tire over the weekend.  For now, its parked.  Who stabs cars in Bay Ridge?

I case you didn't notice, it snowed this morning in NYC.

I'm sitting outside Joe's Pub waiting for my friend Alicia. We know each other from when I was a sophomore in high school and I did Oklahoma at her school. That was a great way to meet girls when you went to single sex high schools...doing plays. They always needed guys at the girls schools and you really didn't have to be that good. Anyway, I don't even know what I'm seeing or what we're here for. I totally didn't read the email. I just know where I'm supposed to be and what time. I do know I'm getting fed, though, which is great because I'm eating for the first time today in days. Because of that damn Bread (Bacteria) Factory chicken sandwich last Thursday, all I had to eat in three days was a pork chop and two bagels and none of it took. (eww...I know) I dropped seven pounds, but today, I'm all better. In fact, its a good excuse to have a peanut butter moo'd at Jamba tomorrow now that I think of it. I did, however, play dodgeball on Sunday, despite my illness, and played quite well. I signed up for a Sunday team as an individual since my knee is bothering me and I can't really bike, so I needed another activity to make up for it. Twenty seven and I'm falling apart! Don't baseball players peak at 27? Two minutes to go... no Alicia. I'm surprised she's not early. Hmm... now I'm just sort of filling time. Oh, hey, get this. I found MySpace to be a great recruiting tool today for that social media instigator job. I searched by industy, age, and location and found a lot of socially savvy candidates that I contacted directly. Here's a question. Is it sexist to believe that women generally have more influence in online social networks than men? I feel like most of the female profiles I see, with the exception of artists and musicians, have a lot more friends and comments than guys. Am I sitting in the right place? Is there a different entrance somewhere else? She just called... "Just wanted to make sure you're not inside..." :)

Apparently, everyone else in NYC smells something in the air.

See the NY1 and NYT stories...   The Path train has been shut down, too.  I'm hard of smelling...

We had a meeting with some outside folks here yesterday and we ordered some sandwiches from The Bread Factory.  I grabbed a chicken sandwich and it was terrible from bite one...  just, well... blah.  Just tasted really processed and artificial... that's the best way I can describe it.

By the end of the day, my stomach wasn't feeling well at all, so when my friend Susie told me she wanted to have some bar food after work, I was a little hesitant, but went along.  We went to Heartland Brewery in Union Square.

I ordered a salmon burger and mashed potatoes.  I didn't each two bites of the mashed potatoes before I realized that any further consumption would cause something bad to happen, so I stopped.  If you know me, you know that not only do I never get sick, but it takes a lot to get me to stop eating.... so things weren't good at all.  I asked our waitress for a ginger ale after I already had an iced tea still sitting full.

That should have been the first thing that tipped her off.

The whole time she keeps walking by us, glancing over, and I'm not eating at all.  Hint two.  Something's obviously wrong.   I got annoyed because I figured she thought there was something wrong with the food and wanted to avoid having to take something back.

When Susie was almost done with her food, she comes over to me, and completely oblvious of the fact that I hadn't eaten at all, she goes, "Are you done with that?"

Done?  I hadn't touched it!  So I asked her to wrap it up because I had eaten something bad for lunch and wasn't feeling well, but there was nothing wrong with the food (not that she cared).

She didn't ask if I was ok or felt sick.  If I were her, I might have casually mentioned where the restrooms were, just in case.  But, nothing.  She comes back with the food wrapped and the check.  No, "Feel better".

Susie thought I was being ridiculous, but I was really annoyed.  I think a good waitress would have been a little more sympathetic. 

In case you people care, I'm still not feeling too well...  That's the last time I get anything at the Bread Factory.

I don't really know what the new year holds for me...   I just know that whatever it is, it is going to be big.  :)

Voki will come out, and we'll know whether it is a success or failure by the end of the year.  What Voki does will largely determine what I do.  Hopefully, a year from now, I'll have the pleasure of leading a team putting out a fun and growing product--one that changes our notions of how we express ourselves and relate to advertisers online.  I'll also have three more semesters of teaching under my belt and I'd like to be able to say that I will have made a difference in the lives of those I stand in front of in the classroom.

I also think it is going to be a big year for me personally.  I have a feeling that I'll be in a significant relationship by the end of the year.  I can't say whether I rediscover or am rediscovered by someone in my past, recent or distant, or whether I'm with someone I don't even know at this moment, but something tells me that all the ways in which I've envisioned growing with and sharing time with another person will come to fruition by the end of the year. 

I'll also probably have some kind of surgery within the year...  either to yank some wisdom teeth or to repair a knee after softball season.  Neither major, but both appear to be coming to a head.  I'd bet on the knee over the teeth, b/c my teeth seem to be proving much more resilient.

At this point, I just want to do my best...  to be able to look back and say that I gave it my all... that I was the best person I could have been in my job, for my family, my friends, to another person, and to myself.

Here's to the road ahead... thanks for reading...

Alright folks... here's where you contribute content back to me.

Anyone been to Block Island?

Recommendations for restaurants, hotels, inns, things to do, etc?

If anyone wants to send me good stuff, they can e-mail me, or preferably tag things in del.icio.us by using the for:ceonyc tag.   Thanks!

Yesterday, Christmas broke for me.

I stood in the Staten Island Mall ready to check of my list of phones and sweatshirts and DVDs and scarves and I watched the mobs.  People shoving, kids demanding, crying, couples arguing.  I had just come from lunch at my grandmother's...  a sparsely attended lunch that was supposed to be about mending our family.  I sat with her afterwards, while she cried about what had happened to our family...   decade plus long grudges, death, distance... We're so much smaller than we used to be that the holidays are a downer for both of us.

And then I looked back at my list.  Phone, DVDs, scarf, sweatshirts, etc...    and stared into the masses who cared a lot more about Wii than "We".

I walked out.  Actually, I nearly ran out.  I couldn't get away from it fast enough.  I peeled out of the parking lot, went home, and just started calling friends to vent.

Somebody moved around their own plans last night to make time for me to just go to the movies and when I got home, I made a list of all of the charities that people in my life cared about and started clicking away.

So instead of giving gifts this year (except for the webcam thing, which was meant to bring together family anyway) I donated a thousand dollars among the following charities:

The ALS Association (in memory of my grandfather, Elisio Piro)
The Guild for Exceptional Children (in memory of my uncle, Arthur Piro)
St. Rose's Home (in memory of my other grandmother's husband, Louis Mello)
MS Society (because of parents of two close friends and a biker raising money)
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (friend's sybling)
Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk (friend's charity of choice)
American Foundation for the Blind (friend works there, two friends' parents are blind)
Save Darfur (because the US doesn't seem to want to do much here)

So that's it...    I'm not giving anything, nor do I want anything.  This makes a lot more sense to me than buying people stuff the don't really need or can just buy themselves.

One day, I'll have kids and a family and Legos and a tree and all that stuff...   15, 20... 40 people at my house...  squeezed in, extra tables, kiddie tables, eating on the roof... wherever there's a spot... and still too much food...   and we'll all appreciate what it means and look forward to it for weeks.  For now, though, I'll just try to help someone else accomplish that.

So, two days before Jeff Pulver came up with the blog tag game, I posted some stuff you might not have known about me.  Of course, I didn't do tags, so it wasn't much of a game, so now I'll just repost some of that stuff and tag, b/c I've now been tagged twice.  Plus, I'd like to take the opportunity to link to some of my favorite bloggers.

1) I have no sweaters.

2) I bounce my right leg up and down when I'm sitting without even noticing it. 

3) I hate soccer. 

4) I do not trust the snooze button...  I reset the alarm even just five minutes from now just to be on the safe side. 

5) I have a fear of heights. 

Ok, I am tagging Eric Nehrlich, Scott Adams, danah boyd, Niki Scevak, and Brooklyn Met Fan.

Starting later on in the afternoon yesterday, I had an unprecendented streak of productivity around the apartment.

Remember the vacuum cleaner that Mom offered me?  (Even though Mom was virtual, the vacuum was indeed real.)  Well, it turned out that she had tossed it in the garbage before the offer and pulled it back from the curb when I said I wanted it.  When it was on the curb, someone cut the electric cord off of it, meaning some vacuum cleaner surgery was necessary.

I give you, Frankencord...

I also put up vertical blinds, too.  This should have been a lot easier, except for the fact that all of the window and door frames in my apartment are metal.  This makes putting anything up in a window a huge chore.  I have a cobalt tipped drill bit for this, but the frames are hollow on the other side, so there's nothing to catch the screws.  I came up with a clever way to hang the blinds despite the fact that the screws aren't really anchored at all... I'll spare you the details.

After the blinds were done, I put up Christmas lights, which came out great because, coincidently like my old apartment, I'm on a corner due to an adjoining garage.  That gives me windows on three sides actually, two which are visable from the street.

I even have them set on a timer, so from 6:30PM to 2AM, there are lights on 75th Street. 

I sort of want to just leave them up year 'round, like in my college dorm room, but I guess that's not really socially acceptable when you're an adult.

In addition to the cleaning and window dressing, I also did some cooking...  a new batch of tomato sauce.  Some of this is going to wind up on a pizza, because I was at Cangiano's over the weekend with my grandmother so I bought some pizza dough.  I have some great pizza pans for this, too. 

This is what happens on winter weekend days without kayaking.  Things actually get done.

Fantasy baseball draft at Mondial Tiles.

If no one ever tells you about something, you're likely not going to find out about it until after you probably should know better.  It happens.  You'll get what I mean when you read this...   Please feel free to add your own!

1. When I used to hear marathon times when I was younger, I'd always thing, "Wow...  4 hours.. that's way longer than I could ever run."  But, I knew that logic dictated that if you ran faster, it would take less time.  Time being the bottleneck there, I imagined that if you just ran the marathon really really fast... like as fast as you could, it would be a lot easier to finish, because it would take so much less time.  Why was everyone just jogging?  How come no one has ever tried this??
2. One time my mom noticed my hands at dinner when I was like eight.  She said, "Wow, you have really slender fingers!  You should be a pianist!"   If you say pianist too quickly to an eight year old boy who had never heard the word, they think it has something to do with their little boy parts.   I was so embarrassed...   What could my mom be thinking of at the dinner table that slender fingers could be an advantage for?   "A what!?!"   Oh...  pi-an-ist.
3. There are no male cows.   There are no female bulls.  I thought that cows and bulls were seperate animals until my senior year of high schoool.  Male and female cows.  Male and female bulls.  Makes perfect sense to a city kid.
4. My first grade teacher, Sister Ann, told us that you couldn't digest gum and fingernails, so you shouldn't swallow either.  Wow... couldn't digest it at all?  Jeez.  I imagined that if you didn't know better, eventually, they'd have to surgically remove this big gum and fingernail ball from your stomach, and that the gum and fingernail ball was the most disgusting object I could ever conceive of.
5. When I was like 10 or 11 and dating and liking girls started to become a topic of conversation, I was really confused about something.  In Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, people used to call making out "going with."   No, not like the 50's version of dating or seeing each other as in "they're going with each other"...  I mean, literally the act of making out was "going with".   A boy and a girl would take a walk around the block and we'd be all dying to know if they "went with each other."   The problem was that I didn't really know what exactly we were referring to.  I mean, I knew about a kiss and I had some loose conception of what sex was... but anything that fell anywhere in between... no clue.   Where the hell were all these people going?  Where they having sex?  The funniest thing was that, in the seventh grade, the first time I ever really went with someone (which turned out to just be some open mouth and a bit of tongue) I told my friend about it and he goes, "And you guys were naked!?"    Apparently I wasn't the only one that didn't know what the deal was either.

In my family, Thanksgiving is pretty much about eating...    but we're Italian, so that's to be expected.  Still, it's nice to actually stop stuffing your face for a second and think about what you're thankful for.   Here's my list.   If you blog a list of what you're thankful for, tag it "thanksgivinglist" on del.icio.us...    I'd love to see what everyone else appreciates...  and when you write the list, don't forget to tell others to tag it as well.

1. Most importantly, I'm thankful for my family...  My parents got through their new home purchase and renovation ok, my grandmothers are still going pretty strong at 88 (89 in February), and my brothers, who I know I need to call more often, are doing well, too.



2. I'm thankful for the opportunities that my job at Union Square Ventures afforded me, and the challenge that I know have at Oddcast.   It's been a really pivotal (and exciting) year for me professionally and next year looks to be even better!  *hopefully*
3. I'm thankful for great friends--some really special people in my life.  My schedule is always crazy, but a handful of people have managed to hold on for the ride...   some are new and some are old, and some are old friends that have become new in a way... coming back from college or grad school to continue and strengthen friendships from the past...     To Brian, Adrianna, Suzie,  Allison, Deirdre, Pastore, Tommy, Alicia, Kristin... thanks for sticking around.

 

4. I'm thankful for my health...  no major softball, kayaking, dodgeball, football, biking, skiing, or driving injuries quite yet...    *knocks on wood*.
5. I'm thankful for the Downtown Boathouse... not just the buildings or the activities, but for the community.  It's my second home five months out of the year and I've made some terriffic friends through it.  More importantly, it's given me a new appreciation for the conservation of nature in this city and a new perspective on New York.



6. I'm thankful for this city...   the only place I've ever really wanted to live and ever have.  There's no place like it anywhere else, and I couldn't ask for anything more than to always be able to put a roof over my head here and to be happy with my life here.



7. I'm thankful for the success of nextNY....  or rather...  I'm thankful that it's success has enabled me to meet so many fantastic people that I can relate to and who have a vested interested in developing the NYC technology community.  That's really what has been the most fun for me...    the people are great.   I can't wait to see what we do next year.
8. And lastly...  I'm thankful for this blog.  Seriously.  Blogging has led me to two jobs, a wonderful relationship, an adjunct gig, countless connections with really interesting people, on time furniture delivery and an elementary school reunion.  It's been a great sounding board for my ideas and a lightning rod for people with similar interests.  Thanks for reading... thanks for commenting, thanks for sharing on your own blogs and linking over...    Your attention is much appreciated.

So I started using GotVoice, which checks my cellphone voicemail and sends the files to me in an MP3 files.  I love GotVoice because I really find it a pain to dial my voicemail and navigate menus to hear my voicemails.  Actually, I pretty much hate the phone in general.  Converting voicemail to MP3 can be a dangerous tool in the hands of anyone who works for a talking avatar company.  :)

Combine that with this really powerful free audio tool I just found, WavePad, and you have my mom the avatar... live on my blog.  Wavepad is like SoundRecorder on steroids.

Here she is.  Click the play button on the right side of the box to hear her speak.  I'm so going to get in trouble for this.  Love you mom!

Last night, after 2 kickball seasons, 3 other dodgeball seasons,  3 softball seasons and a football season, on my 10th try, I finally won my first ZogSports Championship!   After going 18-6 in the regular season and finishing in second place, Dodge This! edged out Chico's Bail Bonds for it's rightful place in obscure sports history.

Pictured (L to R): Allison Auman, Rebecca May, Alex Lunney, Nancy Kish (seated), James Pastore, Charlie O'Donnell (me, seated), Abby King, Evan Timbie, Erick Bond, Courtney Bongiolatti.   Not pictured: Doug Miller (injured reserve)

I'm listening to the Pretenders on my iPod singing the theme from the Living Daylights, which is a Bond movie I'm always torn about, because it has no sex and Timothy Dalton, but it has one of the best car scenes. I could use skiis, tire spikes, and a rocket motor on my Mustang...that would counter the rear wheel drive. You know what I just realized? Old men whose pants keep creeping up their torso as they get older aren't buying longer and longer pants...they're shrinking into the same size they've always worn. They're pulling 'em up that high so their 34" lengths aren't bunching up at the bottom. It's not so much a fashion problem as it is a posture and calcium deficiency issue. The Godfather theme is now playing. There's a really tall woman standing next to me...she must be 6'3". She's the tallest person in the car except for this one up front. If you're a guy who is really tall, it's like you got to some level in a videogame that no one else can get to. This woman is like the secret bonus level that all us normal sized guys can never get to. I was 5'11" at the end of my freshman year of high school...figured I'd get at least another two inches...nada. Didn't grow an inch after that. One more would have been nice. I was also 152 pounds. I don't remember feeling like a skinny guy, but I guess I must have been. I've always weighed myself. My grandmother has a bathroom scale that I would rush to everytime I got to her house. Kids love growing. I remember distinctly weighing 77 pounds, 85 pounds, 115... Right before I got to Union Square I was 192, but that was before I started biking to work and playing in all these leagues. By the end of that summer, I was down to 176, which I didn't like. Now I'm about 185. David Byrne playing My Fair Lady now. Canal St. Everytime I pass Canal, I think of how cool the ATTAP (Riffs) offices are. I need to move back into the city...and work right next door to my apt. I stopped to look around to find some thumbing inspiration... No one looks or is doing anything interesting at the moment. Actually, it's a really unremarkable subway crowd this morning. Lots of su doku and sleeping. Just caught the cover of the News...didn't some high school kid dress as Hitler last year. Don't we go through this every year? Didn't someone get eggshell in the eye or something more newsworthy?  Either way, whether he gets punished or not, the kid is an idiot and so are his parents.  Now, when you Google his name, forever, he'll be the Hitler kid.  Have fun getting a job, loser.  Its chilly in this car...the a/c is on. I'm excited to go to the gym...really love the NYSC on 35th and Madison.

I use a lot of web services, and I sign up for even more...pretty much always with the same username...ceonyc.  It's even on my car.  For anyone who doesn't know by now, "ceo" happens to be my initials and "nyc" is where I live.  It doesn't mean I want to be the head of the city.  Anyway, this usage has had the amusing, but unintended effect of plastering the web with my screename.  The only thing I don't have related to it is the actual domain, which is taken by a New York City strip club.  Funny thing is, the Google search doesn't even put them on the front page.  They might as well give me the domain, because it doesn't really seem to be working for them.  :)   

There was also one other thing I didn't use ceonyc for, and that was my AOL screename, which has been stuck on ceo21 since 1998, when I first started using AOL.  21 is my number in baseball and softball and just about anything else that needs a number.  This week, I finally took the plunge and started asking people to IM me at ceonyc.  I had the name, but I wasn't using it because it was a pain to port over, one by one.  Unfortunately, I just got new business cards, so they'll have my old screename on them until I run out.  Eventually, though, I'll be on the web, unified under one identity....

ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc

There are lots of other places where I use this, too, but I don't think I really use any of them regularly...

An eldarly man had a heart attack on my train this morning.  They got him to a bench on the Union Sq. N/R/W platform, but he didn't look too good.

I was sitting there writing a blog post on my phone this guy's wife just stood up and started patting him down with water.  It took people a while to awaken from subway zombie mode to figure out what was happening.

I don't know if I have coherent thoughts here, so I'll just jot down some bullets.

• Subway cars are now locked.  That's to prevent idiots from walking between cars.  It also prevented us from reaching help right away.  If you're old... try to ride in the conductor's car.
  
• Someone told me to pull the emergency brake.  This is stupid.  Had I pulled that brake, that guy's dead... b/c that leaves you stuck in the tunnel, locked in a subway car with no help.  Never ever pull that brake unless you are at a station. 
  
• Neither of these people spoke any English and we were lucky to find a cop that spoke Spanish.  If you have a relative or someone you know who doesn't speak any English, or travels to a country where they don't, make sure you have a card or something on you that says, in a language people around you are sure to understand, whether you have any history of medical problems, allergies, etc.  
• I hope that when its my time, I'm with someone who cares about me... unless I die in my sleep or something.  I hate to think about how this would have turned out had his wife not been there to hold his hand and cradle him as he slumped around. 
  
• Thanks to the other bald guy who held the train doors open and made sure the train didn't leave while I ran to the conductor... and to the person who helped this couple off the train to the bench.

Interactive tour of my desk on Flickr taken with my new Canon SD 500.

I would love to see what other people's desks look like...  tag them "mydesk" in Flickr.  :)