Inspired by my buddy Ben Rasmusen’s attempt, I thought I would also google myself and check out the results. Fortunately, the first result was ryanwaggoner.com. There was one or two other results for profiles of mine around the web, but nothing substantial. I tried “waggoner” but stopped caring after 20 pages. It doesn’t really matter if you’re on page 21 or page 57,567; no one will find you. Guess it’s time to ratchet up my SEO efforts.
Alexis and I were sitting in our apartment on the 10th floor last night. I started feeling like my chair was vibrating or something. It took us both a second to realize what was happening, but the tremors got worse for a second, and then all of a sudden, there was one big shake, and our entire building kind of groaned as the shockwave passed through it.
It freaked me out, but I also find it pretty fascinating. To think that thousands of square miles of land are essentially jostling and bumping into each other is incredible. It’s also pretty amazing to think that a city with millions of people and hundreds of thousands of buildings could just disintegrate into dust if we got a big earthquake. It’s like building a sandcastle on a cookie sheet and then shaking the cookie sheet back and forth violently and watching the sandcastle turn into a pile of sand.
We found out later that it was a 4.2 magnitude that occurred about 20 miles from us. We still love it here.
About once every week or two, I indulge in a guilty pleasure and enjoy a small fries and double cheeseburger from the $1 menu at McDonald’s. I know, I know, it’s horrible for you. That’s why I indulge only once every week or two. Anyway, I was on my way into McDonald’s last night when I was accosted by one of the many homeless who decorate the fair city of San Francisco. They’re everywhere.
I’ve lived in a few decent sized cities, and I’ve traveled enough to see homeless everywhere. But when I moved here, I was stunned by the sheer number of homeless, especially in my area. We live in an area that is popular with tourists, and the homeless are always hanging around to beg from them. Tourists might be the smartest people elsewhere, but they turn into complete idiots as soon as they step off the plane. That’s a topic for another post, though.
Anyway, this particular homeless man gave me a pitiful look and recited his line about needing money for food, something like “Please, sir, I’m trying to get enough money to buy a little food.” As usual, I averted my eyes to avoid him and walked on by. But then something stopped me. Being hungry sucks, and I can easily afford to buy this guy some food. So I turned around, went back, told him that I was heading into McDonald’s, and asked him what he’d like.
He looked me square in the eyes, and said “I was actually trying to get enough to buy a half-pint of vodka.” He then turned and walked away.
When I first moved here, I had a hard time walking past people who have nothing and who are begging for a few pennies to buy some food. I felt something for those people. But after awhile, and after a few encounters like this, it’s hard to not become a little cynical. It’s still sad, and I will still offer to buy food for homeless people from time to time, but my emotion about the situation has largely been removed. Maybe it’s for the best.
So today I was pondering electronic journaling, after being prompted by this post on stevepavlina.com. However, I move between multiple computers all the time and installed software doesn’t seem like a good fit for me. I want something more private than a blog, and preferably with decent search capabilities. That’s when it hit me: Gmail!
Here’s what I did:
That’s it! Now I simply go into Gmail and compose a new message to journal. I can search these journals with Gmail’s fantastic search capabilities or even apply other labels as well. An added benefit to this system is that I can journal from anything that can send email, such as a handheld, simply by composing my message to sam+journal@gmail.com.
An actual announcement I heard yesterday in English only on Walgreens PA:
“Walgreens is your language-friendly pharmacy. Have your questions
answered and your prescription explained in your language. If no
one at your local Walgreens speaks your preferred language, we’ll
immediately call a licensed Walgreens pharmacist who does.”
1. Excellent Mass Transit Options. I can jump on the subway just a few blocks from my house and be at my friends house in 5 minutes. Yes, I know that driving in smaller cities is just as convenient in some ways. But there’s just nothing like taking the subway. It’s like magic.
2. Parts of the city are still buzzing at 1am. Granted, it’s not NYC, but it’s nice to know that you can find something to do at midnight on pretty much any night of the week.
3. People here are crazy and very entertaining. I watched a woman try to parallel park in a space twice the size of her car today and it seriously took her like 5 minutes. Even after she was all the way in, she kept backing up and pulling forward. There’s always someone on the sidewalk screaming or singing or whatever. And there are street performers and musicians on most of the corners in our area.
4. You know how the best stores in the world always list the cities that they’re in? Like this: “London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Rome, San Francisco” Enough said. There probably isn’t a clothing store or fashion label that doesn’t have a store within 10 blocks of where I’m sitting. And the stores they have here are the flagship stores, so you get the best selection and the sweetest sales.
5. Companies do the best new test programs here. Things like car-sharing, free wifi, grocery delivery, and 24 mbps internet were made for San Francisco. I haven’t been in a grocery store in months. I pay $10 and the guy from Safeway.com knocks on my door and drops off my $200 of groceries. How can you beat that?
A quick shout-out to anyone who needs an event or wedding planner in the Atlanta area. Erin Stroup, a good friend of mine, has started a fantastic event planning business called It’s All In The Details. Her rates are very affordable and she can make sure your special day goes off without any problems. Check out the website below:
I’ve noticed that I’m addicted to multitasking. I have a very hard time sitting down and watching something without doing anything else. I can’t have just one window open or one tab open in firefox. I feel this compulsive need to carry on 18 things at once, even though it stresses me out sometimes and I probably do each thing less well than I would if I just focused on one thing.
Why is this?
Maybe it’s because of the incredible rate that information is flooding our world. There are billions of blogs to read, videos to watch, discussions to join, friends to talk to, etc, etc. When I’m not doing those things, I feel like I’m missing out. I was missing out before the Internet, but it was such a pain to NOT miss out. Now, it’s only a click away, and if I’m signed on to AIM, these things often come to me!
I need to work harder to be more focused and more respectful of my own need for mental peace and occasional unproductivity.
So my two good friends (Ben and Ben) and I are all players of The Game, which can be referenced below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(game)
Essentially, there are only three rules:
So I’m trying a little experiment with one Ben where I am systematically trying to associate Adam Phillips, one of his favorite animators, with The Game, therefore causing him to think of The Game when he thinks of Mr. Phillips, which, judging by his blog, is quite often. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m still devising a strategy for other Ben, who best watch his mental back without thinking about why he’s watching his mental back.
Man, I love The Game.
PS - In case you’re wondering, I lost and then devised this strategy immediately after so this didn’t cost me a loss.
I'm a web professional living in San Francisco, learning how to use social media to help individuals and organizations build strong brands online, connect with their customers, and add value. In addition to my web development and consulting work, I'm involved in a variety of entrepreneurial pursuits of my own, both on the web and out in the real world. [more]
"Ryan is a consummate professional and entrepreneur. His cool demeanor, intellect and great results make him a large asset to any development team or individual project. On each venture he has been involved with he is able to deliver solid results, on schedule and within budget. I would highly recommend Ryan to any person considering his services."
- Lee Egstrom
"Ryan has a rare combination of business knowledge, critical reasoning skills and the ability to adapt to a broad range of environmental changes that makes him invaluable as an employee. He is technically talented and still capable of seeing the 'big picture', which is also quite rare. He's fun to be around, too. I highly recommend him."
- Todd Colletti
