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Saturday, January 31, 2009
Recently from Friends in Tech: Geek Cred Episode #29 - Wil Wheaton
This show is from a fellow member of Friends in Tech. For more information, visit FriendsinTech.com
Geek Cred Episode #29 - Wil Wheaton
This episode of Geek Cred features the one and only Wil Wheaton, actor, writer, and Über geek best known for playing Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Will talks about growing up geek, what it was like on the set of Star Trek, his appearance on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the geekiest thing he’s ever done, and more.
Length: 35:24
Size: 24.3 MBSponsor:
Try GotoMyPC free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomypc.com/techpodcasts
Friday, January 30, 2009
Valentine's Day at Madeleine Bistro
This is a bit more expensive than most things I post to this list, but Chef David Anderson creates some of the most amazing vegan food I have ever seen. Even as a confirmed carnivore, I love nearly everything he serves. If you are looking for special event for Valentine's Day, Madeleine Bistro would be a wonderful choice. -- Douglas
Greetings!
It's not too late to celebrate Valentine's Day at Madeleine Bistro. Please call us today to reserve a table for our very special six-course Chef's tasting menu. And please note that we will not be open for lunch for the week of February 9th through 13th, as we will be preparing for this special event.
Hope to see you soon!
Valentine's Day Chef’s Tasting Menu
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Asparagus: Two soups sharing one bowl…
“Butter”-poached white asparagus, lemon-cardamom bubbles
Truffled shiitake mushroom tartare
Watercress, purple potato, radish, champagne vinaigrette
Pan-seared tofu medallions
Purple sticky rice cake, green papaya salad, Thai green curry sauce
Panko-crusted seitan schnitzel
Herbed spaetzle, smoked celery root puree, parsley coulis
Traditional carrot cake, non-traditional garnishes
Crème cheese frosting powder, grilled pear steak, golden raisin gel
Chocolate with orange variations
Chocolate twist, blood orange sorbet, gran marnier French toast, Earl Grey panna cotta
$125 per person
Price does not include tax or gratuity.
Reservations required.
Madeleine Bistro - Organic Vegan Cuisine
18621 Ventura Blvd, Tarzana, California 91356
818-758-6971 -- dine@madeleinebistro.com
http://madeleinebistro.com
Monday, January 26, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Elsewhere Online: Download The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Audiobook for Free
You will have to create a free Audible.com account in order to download this free book. -- Douglas
Download The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Audiobook for Free [Audiobooks]
Audible.com is offering a free audiobook download of the best-selling Stephen Covey book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Since its original publication in 1989, Covey's book has sold over 15 million copies and is part of the early canon of productivity and self-improvement books that launched popular interest in the genre. Follow the link below to download a copy of audiobook for free and listen to some time-honored advice on your next commute. When you download, you need to specify that you are in the US. Chime in and tell us if it checks your IP address if you give it a try from abroad. If you're new to audiobooks, check out how to enjoy audiobooks and where to download public domain audiobooks.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Douglas explains New Media Interchange
My friend, Michael, got this nice shot of me explaining New Media Interchange to a first time attendee at the New Media Interchange Media Walk at Travel Town.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
FDR's Speech could be given today with few changes
With everyone's comparisons between our current economic hardships and those of the Great Depression, I wanted to take some time to read through Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address and see what lessons we might draw. Unsurprisingly, there are sections of the speech which could be delivered today without much change. Above and beyond the "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" there is much here to think on in the coming months. I have highlighted my favorite sections in bold. This text comes from “Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”: FDR’s First Inaugural Address
I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.
Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.
Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.
Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.
There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.
Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.
The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.
In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.
With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.
Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.
It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.
I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.
But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.
We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.
We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.
In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.
Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, as published in Samuel Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of Crisis, 1933 (New York: Random House, 1938), 11–16.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Coffee? Well, sort of
It is indeed coffee-flavored, if also waaaaaay too hot. I think I should have walked further up the street for something better but one must make do when out on client calls.
At least they have ATT Wifi here. Small favors.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Audio: BBC Radio 4 show In Our Time hosts 4-part series on Charles Darwin
I have been listening to this amazing 4-part series on Charles Darwin from BBC Radio 4 show, In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. Just like the weekly episodes, these shows are a remarkably detailed discussion of a particular topic, in this case, Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species.
I highly recommend you check out this special as well as subscribe to the In Our Time podcast to get their great shows each week.
You can read On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (2nd edition) FREE from Project Gutenberg.
I have also downloaded the free eBook of Origin of Species to read with the new FREE Stanza eBook reader for the iPhone.
If you wish, you can also buy a copy of Origin of Species from the WelchWrite Bookstore.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Monday, January 05, 2009
What I'm Reading...Wikipatterns
I had seen mention of this book online and requested it from my local library. It is an interesting look at how you can drive and manage the use of a wiki in your company or group. The author has obviously been around the block in getting wikis accepted inside of companies and offers up Wikipatterns, or scenarios about the type of users and uses you will see in a typical wiki project.
Additionally, I wanted to read this book to see how these patterns also might be used to understand and manage the dynamics behind forming groups, both online and face to face.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Cool: Typical Shutterbug Podcast and Blog
Fellow Friends in Tech member, Victor Cajiao, has started a new blog, group and podcast dedicated to photogrpahy, the Typical Shutterbug.If you want to learn more about photography and share the hobby with others, this is a great place to start.
The Typical Shutterbug Community and Podcast is coming
So, you probably know me as the host of the Typical Mac User Podcast. I've decided that I'm going to do a podcast based on the concept that- like many of you, I am a Typical Shutterbug. That is, I know a little about photography but want to learn a lot in 2009 and beyond. This won't be a weekly show , it will be occasional. This way I can actually get time to do it without feeling the pressure of a weekly show. Sometimes it may be weekly other times not. (that's my sanity check)
I'm starting the community by starting a Flickr group join in right now and start contributing, learning and sharing.
From there I'll start the wheels in motion to prepare for the show to launch in mid-January (after Macwold). I have the url www.typicalshutterbug.com but with a new show comes lots of prep work. If you like photography or want to learn more. Join me as I take my trip in learning how to be a better shutterbug. Just like the Typical Mac User it will grow and flurish, but only with your help.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Career Opportunities: A Year of Leadership
I am re-posting this Career Opportunities article here, as I think it is an important message for all, not just those trying to develop their career. Enjoy!
It's time to lead again!
A Year of LeadershipBy Douglas E. Welch
Listen: A Year of Leadership
[audio:http://welchwrite.com/career/audio/2009/career-op-20090102.mp3]
Join the new Career Opportunities Community site!
Free book giveaway contest ends January 15, 2009
When looking back over 2008 I see a number of issues, but one that presses most deeply on my mind was a lack of leadership. From the highest government offices to the individual in a cubicle, it is as if we had collectively forgotten how to lead. We seemed to stand around looking at one another, expecting someone else to fix the problems. It should be clear by now that when leadership is lacking from above, it is imperative on each of us to take up the reins of power and help both ourselves and those around us by leading. For that reason, I declare 2009 the Year of Leadership. A year when we all reflect on what it means to be a leader and how we can exercise our leadership every day.
Small steps
First, leadership isn’t something that happens out there, or more usually, up there. Leadership is an integral part of each of us. It is in our DNA. It is only when we ignore its call that our lives run off the rails. You may be thinking, “What is Douglas talking about? I don’t have any power, let alone the power to lead others.” This is where you are wrong. It is the small efforts that we provide every day that allow us to lead. We do have power. If nothing else, we have the power to provide a good example. We can choose to not do those things that make our lives more difficult, that abuse out bodies, that cause pain to others. In fact, I believe this is the most important power at our command – the power to do good.
Second, we need to show leadership when it is most uncomfortable and sometimes, the most dangerous. Corporations and con men take advantage of people’s fear and discomfort in “rocking” the boat. Whether we are inside a group, club or corporation we fool ourselves into thinking that the problems we encounter aren’t our problems or that someone else will take care of them. We have seen where this has led with Exxon, the mortgage crisis and, most recently, the alleged Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. If we continue to do nothing while customers get abused, investors get cheated and companies misstate profits then we have only ourselves to blame for our collective troubles. Again, leadership is not something that is handed down from on high. Leadership is in the small everyday actions we take to make ourselves, our companies and our government better, even when it is uncomfortable to do so. Imagine all the great works in the world that would have remained undone had not someone conquered their fear and chosen leadership over laissez-faire.
What will you do?
For myself, I am already starting in on the year of leadership. I am determined to lead in my two groups, New Media Interchange and LA Friday Coffee, as well as a new group for LA Organizers. I will strive to lead you all (and myself) to the “career you deserve” through these columns. I will lead my family through increased commitment to make the right decisions when they have to be made. I will lead by continuing to write my blogs on technology, podcasting, gardening and more. I will think twice before I ignore problems and allow them to fester.
There are so many opportunities for you to lead, too. Move ahead a faltering project. Solve an on-going and intractable problem that everyone hates, but no one takes the time or responsibility to solve. Share yourself and your knowledge to lead others in your area of expertise. Stand up and make a decision when no one else seems to be able. Even making a decision about where to have lunch with a group is a small act of leadership that needs to be achieved.
How will you lead in the New Year? What, long delayed, actions are you already considering with your new found focus? How will you exercise the new power that comes from a leadership focus? I would love to hear how you tackle this Year of Leadership. Send in your comments and questions either to the Career Opportunities blog or join us on the new Career Opportunities Community site. You’ll find a link on the web site. That, in itself, is a small act of leadership that can help all of us grow.
2009 is the Year of Leadership. Let us renew our commitment to leadership and all that it has to offer. We need it more than ever before.
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Thursday, January 01, 2009
A new journal for a new year
I just started a new journal for 2009 that was hand made by one of my friends from my library class. Many ideas are already being commited to paper.
Happy Cat in the Sun
Jen basks in the warm New Year's Day sun. He has been following the sunny spot around the room all morning.
Most popular "My Word" posts for 2008
Elsewhere Online: 10 Ways to Add Variety to Your Digital Photography
Lunar Eclipse visible in California - February 20, 2008
YUM! - Ferrero Rocher reviewed on CandyBlog
Palm Trees Sketch from May 2006
Deceptive Food Packaging - Welch's Concord Grape
Make a desktop trebuchet
The Ultimate Paper Airplane
Dilbert gets too close to the truth about tech support
Book: The Lost Gardens by Anthony Eglin
Audio: A Year of Visibility from BarCampLA-5, March 1, 2008
On Hawai'i: Waikiki
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