I used to do this for hours while eating gummy worms

Beach Party!

I used to be a lot cooler

Below is a 48 minute video of one of the best Ester Drang concerts I was able to be a part of. You can see Melissa(my wife) standing near me watching. We had only been dating for about 3 months at the time. This was also early in my brief time with Ester Drang. I miss those guys, and those tunes.


Ester Drang - Live March 3rd 2001 from Brian Brewer on Vimeo.

Tougher then Hell

So I made it back from Las Vegas last night. I always look forward to coming home no matter where I go or what I am doing, but this time was especially looked forward to. Las Vegas is a place I don't look forward to visiting again. I am glad I got the opportunity to see it, but 12 hours would have been enough. Did I mention that it was about 110 degrees everyday?

I saw enough fanny packs to hold me over for awhile. I was expecting Vegas to be this "crazy" decadent, free for all. It really seemed to be a pretty tame place. Kind of like Disneyland for adults. Overpriced, over-hyped, tourist trap. Wait, I actually like Disneyland, but I think you get the idea.

I did have "some" fun. We(my co-workers) had a good time a couple of nights. I think I liked the older Freemont street area the most. I did learn how to gamble a little, I made 10 bucks on 21 and got out. It made me too tense. I did play a hell of a lot of penny slots, it killed time pretty well.

So glad to be back in cloudy 75 degree weather. There are pictures and videos up above, click around for more. Thanks for reading.

Best part of Vegas so far

David Pogue gave the keynote address this morning to the conference I am attending:

David Pogue - Song for nerds from Brian Brewer on Vimeo.

Definitely the best part of Vegas so far, minus the lady cackling as loud as possible nearby. She looks to be trashed, it is not even noon yet.

Switching to Vimeo

I am tired of the terrible compression YouTube uses. Unfortunately, I didn't save the raw videos after uploading to YouTube. So, we will start fresh. Sound good?

5 Reasons Obama will beat McCain

5 Reasons Obama will beat McCain

This one is my favorite. McCain had admitted recently that he is completely computer illiterate, he depends on his wife to run it for him. wow.

That's what I am talking about

OBAMA!!!

Sick Day

Sick Day, originally uploaded by Brewcaster.

Wasn't feeling well today, so I had to call in sick. Daisy supported the idea.

My First Flat

My First Flat, originally uploaded by Brewcaster.

Caused by this little jerk. Can anyone identify what the heck that is? Where it is from? And if they can multiply?

Ride bikes with Obama

Anyone have $2300 they can give me for this?

+10 Internet Cred

I made it to Wikipedia*, but not for me alone.

*I am not really a sitar player. True I played the sitar at one Ester Drang show, but I mainly played an electric guitar with them. And a lot of smoke and mirrors. (sold the sitar for the move)

Soaked

So the water resistant shell I have is no longer cutting it. I showed up to work drenched from the waist up. Must buy a new one. Any suggestions? I don't want to spend a stupid amount either...

Melissa and I found a new love. Bar biking. Bar hopping on bike, brilliant.

Twitter and I don't hang out anymore

I deleted my Twitter account a few months ago. I can say it has been one of the best decisions I have made for myself. For those of you who don't know what Twitter is, you will, or someone close to you will make it known to you.

Twitter became what some might call an obsession. As you follow more and more people, you must devote more and more time reading what mostly works out to be tripe and/or self serving advertising. I always had the nagging feeling when I tried not to keep up with it, "What if I miss out on something important?!?!?" Never happened.

I am curious about some of the folks I followed on there. They wrote tons of Tweets, and seemed to read each and every one sent to them. These are people with day jobs, spouses, kids etc. Does their family just accept seeing them stare at their PDA or cellphone every 5 minutes? My friend Julian pointed out that people seem to use it as a public IM system. That is insane. IM is meant to be private, and I have systems for using IM already.

Those crazy kids and their new-fangled technology fads.*

Before Twitter, I thought the term internet addiction was a buzzword myth; I was wrong.

*Shout out to John C. Dvorak

Tipping Point?

According to this CNN article, Americans have reached the point of no return for gas prices. I think it is a shame that it really takes prices getting this high for our country to re-visit when and why they drive. I also understand and feel bad for those that HAVE to drive for their jobs or other reasons because of lack of alternatives in their city.

Now that gas costs more than a comfortable amount, we can look to the future of transportation. Will cities like my previous home (Oklahoma City) start getting serious about public transit? Will these cities start to see the adverse effects of suburban sprawl? Will people get over their privacy bubble and start car-pooling? Will those that can, start biking or walking to work?

I have to reflect on how fortunate Melissa and I are to live in a city that has what could possibly be called the best public transit system in America. On top of that we also live in a city that refused to allow sprawl, which ends up making our city completely "bikeable". We have our youth and health, so we do our part by cycling as much as possible to get to work, hang out with friends, etc. When we can't, or refuse to, we can take train or bus. Last resort is the car in the driveway. Everyday that passes makes me hate starting that engine more and more. We are down to driving once or twice a week now.

I don't say this all to sound braggish; I point it out to give others hope and influence. It is time for our cities to change. It is time for our citizens to change. They didn't listen when we called it global warming, but at least they listen now as driving leaves you broke.

I think it is time for our generation's "New Deal". We worry about our jobs in a global economy, we worry about our countries dependency on foreign oil. FDR would have a fix for this. Create Government programs/jobs to re-purpose America's infrastructure. America cannot stay this way and expect it to work. Much like the industrial revolution, it is time for an environmental revolution in America. We excel in the science and technology that may just save us as the world is forced to change.

Do I sound like a crazy hippie?