it's my island

Sipping Coffee Thoughtfully

// January 29th, 2008 // Comments Off // Points In Time

Robin and I are out at Smelly Cat in NoDa, reflecting, pausing before running more. I wish I could have bought this place a few years ago. Man I’d have turned it into something special. Ah well, in another reality I’m sure it’s going on and I rock. It’s all good though, we’re going to rock in any reality. hah!

Strobist gave IMI a little link mention with the video we put out of the recent meetup outing. We have nothing but love for the growing communities around us and are glad to see them blossoming.

To the extent that I’ve started a new blog, Charlotte Art (.info), in an effort to start tracking down and helping local artists into the light. There are many and they are all so impassioned.

I like to think I’m building a bridge between the constructive—imaginative local artists and local designers, decorators, project coordinators, editors, etc, that can utilize the talented people around us.

Signups for either way of traffic coming soon. You can email
me as well.

I’ve been running so fast from one event, fire, request, meetup, responsibility, after another. It has been a great pleasure to meet many new faces, artists, farmers, people.

Somehow I managed to create a plethora of new sites (if you use IE stay away for now or install firefox today). More like they have finally matured to semi-usable states. Check out the new IMI landing page and see for yourself. The main Photography site needs love but it feels pretty solid, the real one that I need to finish up is the new gallery / portfolio. I just need more time in the day. Who doesn’t. Luckily I really enjoy the work.

Lots of new initiatives and maturing other ones on the horizon. 2008 is feeling pretty strong.

-a

Where-oh-Where is Andy..

// August 6th, 2007 // 5 Comments » // On the Radar

I wish I could clone myself. Hell, I wish I could clone a bunch of people I know. We’re all moving so fast.

Blur’s I Know Of

Chuck and Julie have opened Cupps Cafe in Rock Hill, SC. _Fantastic_ place to be, by the way. A biased writeup is on the way….somewhere. Glad other [real](http://www.heraldonline.com/109/story/82913.html) [reporters](http://www.charlotte.com/503/story/215744.html) have done the job first. Team Blur

Lell is working as Chuck’s chef. Rocking the goods and driving to Rock Thrill six days a week. Blurrrrrrr.

Jeff’s so focused I think if the house blew away he’d still be immersed within a psychic shield. Blinders Blur

Cassie & Natalie are working overtime cranking some serious good eats out in the heat. Smokin’ blur

Robin spent most of her summer break securing her job. A long story to be asked from her directly but she triumphs with a great new placement still in Union County albeit much closer which is great. She’s also been of a great service to the farm book project and getting the educators portion ready for the Alice Waters visit in September. She’s also cashed in her dance lessons and is dragging me out during lunches here and there to put our feet to coordinated motion. Sometimes I can’t help but just laugh when we dance, what a great feeling.

I’ve have had a loaded schedule to say the least. Nuance Labs is a new company and all the fresh infrastructure building is weighty. Liquid Minded, the product, is in alpha and getting shaped like a blacksmith would forging a sword. It’s going to be sweet.

Somewhere in the breaks of insanity I’m getting closer to finishing the farm to table book for Grateful Growers farm dinner. Which is really beautiful to see coming together. I just wish I had more time to give to it.

On a similar vein I migrated the Slow Food Charlotte website from Drupal to Ning and so far couldn’t be happier. Ning has some further maturing but it’s growing well. One less thing I have to worry about being up is nice too.

I’ve been able to catch a little air here and there. My parachute this week is going back to the manufacture for some diagnostics. It has a pull to the right after I unstow the breaks and while maintainable I shouldn’t be dealing with.

To summarize the rest, lots of gardening, lots of cooking, lots of working. I twitter in more frequent cycles so check me out there if you want the granularity.

I’m glad we have a few groups of friends who have taken the summer off and are traveling through Canada and the Rockies. I can only imagine what a seasonal time-out would feel like, hehe!

On and on we go,

-a

The Time, How it Flies

// April 4th, 2007 // Comments Off // On the Radar

The weeks are peeling by. I seem to step out of focused work later and later. My drive is amped and everyone around me is spinning plates at high velocity.

Nuance Labs has cleared the hurdles of birthing all it’s business, presentation, and pitch materials. We’ve got so much passion for our product it’s unbelievable. Now we’re on the prowl to fund the beast properly. The [Nuance Labs](http://blog.nuancelabs.com) website is on the verge of upgrade completion too. It’s great to fully bring our new brand together. I’m really psyched.

Robin’s working part-time at the [DZ](http://www.skydivecarolina.com). It lets her stay involved and make a quick buck while I’m riding the air (up to 26!). We’ve even decided to pick up a little cabin on site and are going to make it a little home away from home. Can’t help but want to hang out where all the cool people are. ) If you need a change of venue and some spirits that stay pretty high, check out your local DZ.

The day’s are getting longer and I’m using all the time it provides. I’ve yet to discuss the [Grateful Growers](http://www.ggfarm.com) farm dinner [project](http://www.ggfarm.com/?page_id=9). Great food plus awareness makes for a fine evening in September. We’ll be doing a silent auction and I’m providing some photography and a book photo journaling the making of it all. That means I have a lot of field work to do and Spring has sprung into action. Time to get out to the farms which are providing the dinner elements.

Myriad of things in between but every time I editorialize this simple rant the more time I’m spending not progressing elsewhere.

-a

Summer so crazy

// July 18th, 2006 // 1 Comment » // On the Radar

I bet you all think I’m next to a pool, drinking coffee with a little absolute and just floating the summer away. In my mind. If I had room. hehehe. The summer has really been a whirlwind.

[Transformus](http://www.transformus.com) is upon us and the last two weeks that has drained most of my mental capability. Our theme camp [TikiTorchure](http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciordia/sets/72057594140450404/ “Flickr Photo Set”) is ready to go with the big head, fire, and rock and roll. It’s going to be an event I’m sure will be hard to condense into words…but I’ll try.

Bill Dietz, my father-in-law, and owner of [Mostly Muffins](http://www.mostlymuffins.biz “Bakery out of Columbia”) has taken a position with [Sonoma Restaurants](http://www.sonomarestaurants.net/) in Charlotte and we couldn’t be happier. Bringing Bill & Karen up to Charlotte has been on our list since a lot of how we unfold our future strategy in the food service market is dependent on Bill being near. Once he consolidates, migrates, and has time to get comfortable in the area we’re going to start one of those devious little plans we’ve been cooking up. Weeee!

I’ve been gaining slow traction on our local [Slow Food](http://www.slowfood.com/) website. One of those part-time volunteer efforts but it’s going to be great. We plan on pulling our local contingency together through events, discussions, personal blogging, editorials, and regional harnessing of our food resources. On top of that the group wants to take charge of a few activism stances which will surely be an interest to watch.

The [day job](http://www.pgdc.com) is producing some interesting results as well. Jeff has been really really hard at work the last few months building a new stock-gift transaction service and I think it’s going to blow the doors off of the way you do stock transfers. On top of that Jeff and I have been inchworming our own solution to scratching itches we share. Maybe it’s cliche to say it’s a great time to be in technology, maybe it always is, but it is. heheh. Hopefully in the next 30-60 we’ll start our private alpha/beta and see if others like what we like. I think the koolaid tastes graperrific.

I’m around, busy as a bee. I just can’t seem to sit long enough to staple my thoughts into a post recently. You’d be ashamed at some of my to-do-graphs!

Pulse ok, breathing ok, EEG..well he’s breathing.

-a