From Antonio S in Croatia – one of the coolest viral campaigns I’ve seen for a while. Check the outtakes at http://5x5m.com/files/xtremefootball/
Blog
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We Caucused Today in Sammamish, Washington
We went to Beaver Lake High School and Caucused today. It was jam packed and old timers were telling us this is the fullest they’ve ever seen it. The table next to us got 50 votes for Obama and only 4 for Clinton. Our table (or precinct) got 25 for Obama and 14 for Clinton. That resulted in 4 delegates for Obama and 2 for Clinton at our table. Kerry was elected as a delegate for Obama so she has to go to the regional caucuses in April and then maybe county and national.
It sounds like Obama took WA by storm today which is really great news and it was awesome getting together with our neighbors and chatting about how much we think Obama rocks.
I think one of the big differentiators with Obama is that he gets you thinking about how you can get involved and how you can help your country. It’s a very Kennedy-like approach to politics (…ask what you can do for your country) rather than Clinton who simply tells you what she’s going to do while she’s in office. It’s the people in a country that make it great, not the politicians and Obama gets that.
Based on the passion of the people I was seeing today, if for some reason the Democratic party superdelegates intervene and elect Clinton as the nominee, it will shatter the party like never before. The folks who support Clinton aren’t as passionate and as vocal as those who support Obama – at least here in Washington and in many other states from what I gather – and my guess is that we’ll all hit the streets and make a lot of noise if something like that happens.
This is a very exciting time for the United States and it reminds me of South Africa in the early 90’s when the ANC came into power and Nelson Mandela was released from prison and took presidency. I was in the Cape Town city center when Mandela spoke for the first time and one senses the same kind of enthusiasm at Obama rally’s that we had back then for someone new and a great change in the direction of our country.
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Obama in Seattle, Lipitor and the Lake Washington Rowing Club
Kerry and I hit the Obama Rally at the Staples Center today at 11am. We got there late and it was already full to capacity – which is 17,000 people. So we decided to hang around outside with a crowd of around 5,000 other folks in freezing rain. The buzz was awesome and when Barack showed up he did a little impromptu speech on the stairs with nervous secret service agents behind him with an SUV with the door open and the engine running. Then they broadcast the speech from inside on the speakers outside. It was more like a rock concert than a political rally.
The message that resonated with me was “We don’t need a disease care system we need a health care system” – talking about preventative maintenance in health care rather than treating illness once they arise.
A few years ago drug companies started moving their focus to ‘lifestyle drugs’ like Lipitor that provide a constant revenue stream for the entire life of the patient. Lipitor is the worlds top selling drug incidentally. Keeping people healthy is not very profitable but treating sick people for their whole lives is very profitable.
The NY Times had an article yesterday on Lipitor and how it is being investigated by a congresional committee. There’s an interesting follow-up article today about how the congressional committee is trying to track down the stunt double that actually did the rowing that Dr Jarvik was supposed to be doing in the Lipitor ads. The NY Times says the rower is from Seattle and is a member of the Lake Washington rowing club and it was filmed locally.
A friend took this photo inside the staples center (right-click and view image for a much larger version)
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Snowkiting and Powder in Utah
CRV and Bill Tai put together an awesome weekend in the mountains of Utah snowkiting. Thanks Jeff Kafka and team for some awesome instruction. I think the most memorable moment was Chris Sacca getting up on stage at the local bar and singing Stairway to Heaven including the screamy bits at the end. Tell me someone got that on video!!
I didn’t have a camera but hopefully some photos will be on Flickr soon.
Saturday we snowkited and I had a few great runs although I got my ass seriously whipped by a 10 meter kite on top of the windy ridge until one of the guys on a snowmachine came and grabbed my kite for me.
Sunday the conditions were whiteout and it was snowing heavily so we hit Park City for the deepest powder I’ve ever seen. It was a warm clear beautiful day and I hung out with Sunil Paul and Sebastian Thrun and turns out Sebastian is a spectacular skier and he gave me some great pointers on how to ‘bounce like you’re on a trampoline’ in powder. We did a few really challenging (for me) runs through trees and it was awesome!!
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Bald Eagles on Sammamish Pathway
Our morning walk took us past two bald eagles sitting in a tall tree with no leaves so we had a great view. The NW Rocks!
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I'm Apple'd
I spent some time with Marc Andreessen and Naval Ravikant yesterday which was a lot of fun. They’re both Apple converts and Marc is a recent convert. So today I decided to take the jump. I’ve had a macbook lying around for a while that I use as a dev server but my dev server is now sitting in a cosy hosting facility so I grabbed the macbook, bought Office:mac which was surprisingly cheap at about $150 and – what the hell – bought an iPhone while I was at it.
So I’m all Appled up. Of course I’m waiting for my iPhone to activate – I got a lot further than Kerry did before she got stuck, but based on her experience I’m expecting the worst so maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Update: I was pleasantly surprised. The trick is to enter a ZIP code that is in the same area code as the cellphone number you’re trying to transfer. That’s what caught Kerry and I didn’t make the same mistake and my number transferred without a call to AT&T. SWEET!!
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The Kennedy's and the Obamas
Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, has an excellent op-ed piece in the NY Times tomorrow titled “A president like my father” about why she supports Barack Obama. Here’s a quote:
I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.
If you saw Barack’s victory speech in SC this evening (transcript) and it didn’t give you goosebumps then you’re probably dead. [The video is on cspan’s website but you have to have realplayer installed]
If you haven’t already donated, here’s the link.
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The best coffee houses in Seattle
Courtesey of Sam Tingleff on the Seattle Tech Startup mailing list, here’s a map of the best coffee houses in Seattle:
And here’s the list:
Uptown Espresso
525 Queen Anne Ave N
Seattle, WA 98109
(206) 728-8842Caffe Ladro
600 Queen Anne Ave N
Seattle, WA 98109
(206) 282-1549
more info »Zoka Coffee Roaster & Tea Co
2200 N 56th St
Seattle, WA 98103
(206) 545-4277
more info »Verite Coffee
1101 34th Ave
Seattle, WA 98122
(206) 709-4497
more info »Cupcake Royale
2052 NW Market St
Seattle, WA 98107
(206) 782-9557
more info »Fuel Coffee
610 19th Ave E
Seattle, WA 98112
(206) 329-4700
more info »Tougo Coffee Inc
1410 18th Ave
Seattle, WA 98122
(206) 329-2869Caffe Umbria Retail
320 Occidental Ave S
Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 624-5847
more info »Cherry St Coffee House
103 Cherry St
Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 621-9372Essential Bakery
2719 E Madison St
Seattle, WA 98112Fuel Coffee
2300 24th Ave E
Seattle, WA 98112
(206) 328-0700Caffe Vita Coffee Roasting Co
1005 E Pike St
Seattle, WA 98122
(206) 709-4440
more info »Victrola Coffee
413 15th Ave E
Seattle, WA 98112
(206) 568-2086
more info »Top Pot Doughnuts
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Facebook widgets slow your site?
Not to give widgets a bad name… (ours are FAST!!) but a friend is on the front page of Delicious and his facebook widget has just slowed his site to a crawl. It looks like badge.facebook.com is down right now.
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Startup tip: Buy from Dell at end of quarter
Dell’s fiscal year ends Feb 2nd. If you want the best deal on servers negotiate with a Dell sales person at the end of a quarter. This one ends in a few days so you’d better hurry if you’re going to place an order. If you want slightly cheaper prices and same day shipping (Dell takes 2 weeks to ship) then email me – I’m trying out a guy who resells “previously ordered new” 2950’s in Florida.