Many things have happened since my last blog post. I’m not sure the fact that so much has happened because I  had lots to going on or is simply due to the fact that I don’t blog as often as I should. Regardless,  I want to share three and half new things in life.

First,  I have a new place in Mt Pleasant/Columbia Heights.  Per my previous blog post, my last living situation was not ideal and I choose to move on my own.  Unlike with my previous living arrangement, I will not be hosting a house warming party. Sorry to disappoint those of you had had gotten used to the tradition.  That being said,  feel free to come visit.  Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights are full good bars and eateries that I love check out with some good company.

Second, I’m DONE with school. That’s right.  I’m going to add “M.B.A” after my name in my e-mail signature.  I kid, I kid. While I didn’t finished with my 4.0 like I intended when I started the program, I’m very happy with my end 3.5 that I ended with. Overall,  I thought the program is wonderfully designed so that students were able apply the lessons learned in class in their daily workplace. Another aspect of the program that I really enjoyed is that each class built on previous one. And this class brought together many of the lessons from the previous classes. I was also very pleased with the quality of the professors throughout the program. Though, I may have had qualms with some of  their teaching style, it never occurred to me that the professors or teaching assistants were unqualified to discuss the topic that were being brought up in class. I walked away from the with better research skills, better critical thinking skills, better writing skills (don’t use my writing on this blog as evidence) and better presentation skills.  During the entire two years, I also had the pleasure to work with an amazing cast  that made group work enjoyable. And to them I say, “Thank you”.   I had planned to go law school after the finishing this program but as of right now those plans have been pushed back — pending further evaluation.

Lastly, I’ve moved on from DCI Group LLC. I very much enjoyed my time at DCI group.  During my time there, I had the opportunity to meeting and work with some nice people on some very interesting projects that provided me unparalleled experience in the world of public affairs and government relations. As f this week, I now employed with Blue State Digital (BSD).   My move to BSD will also take me to Boston late this year or early next year. While I love DC and its atmosphere, I’m excited about the prospect of living in another city.  Although to be quite honest,  It’s freaking cold in Boston. P.s. The  move to Boston is the half item that I referred to in the first paragraph.

And that’s  all for now folks.  I’m looking forward to riding the quiet wave for a bit before getting busy again…. at least outside work.

Technorati Tags: Blue State Digital, Boston, DCI, Job, MBA

From the looks of this blog, it would appear that I’m dead or something. But in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.  I’m very much alive, just busy.  Honestly, I spread myself too thin and I’m now in the process of regaining a more suitable schedule that will allow me to write more often and focus on items that will further my career in the right direction.

Well what I have been up too?  I moved (again), and the possibility does exist that I will move again as soon as next week. Beside that,  my number 1 focus recently has been helping the gff move Beantown. It’s a big move for her and I’ve been trying to be supportive…or something like that.  It looks like Beantown will be my second home for the foreseeable future. With that said, I don’t think I’m quite ready to become a fan of Boston sports. If you know of any spots in Boston that I should check out,  let me know.  My second priority has been school. I’m currently taking my last class which ends on 9/15.  I’m counting the hours till the end of the program. I’m excited about finishing up. I’ve learned tons thanks to my professors and classmates.  The entire ordeal has been both humbling and rewarding but I’m ready for the end so I can come out of my rat hole.

Lastly, based on some feedback I’ve received from the very few loyal readers that I have, I decided to launch another blog.  The blog is called LocalPolitechs and will focus on politics and technology. If you are interested in those topics, please head over to http://www.localpolitechs.com.  This blog will remain remain personal  as requested keep my loyal readers.

Technorati Tags: Boston, LocalPolitechs

I was planning on boycotting this chain as I have done others.  However, it seems that I do not have the strongest of will this time around.  I figured if it’s going to be on FB, it might as well be on my blog.  So here we go.

The instructions are as such:

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.
(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people, then click publish.)

1.    I’m invested in the idea of having a JD and an MBA (highly unpractical i know)
2.    I once considered changing my name to Henry Williams (Don’t ask)
3.    I want to join the Marines to see if I can make through boot camp and I like guns
4.    I like chick flicks (Love actually being my favorite…If you haven’t watched it, go grab it)
5.    I rarely buy art because I don’t like the idea of someone else owning the same art as me
6.    I watch and record King Arthur every time it’s on TV (I don’t own the DVD and I don’t know why)
7.    I haven’t gotten a tattoo because I can’t decide if you want it on my shoulder blade or chest 
8.    I’m a political junkie and I don’t where i got it from nor when it started
9.    I pay a lot of money for convenience
10.  I’m a USC Trojans football fan
11.  I started college at 16 and pledged a Fraternity at 17… Part of me still thinks it was illegal
12.  I prefer my tea with sugar cubes
13.  I applied to college as a Pre-Med major.  (Dr. Henry Williams…kinda hot)
14.  I don’t like branded clothing except for athletic clothing
15.  I’ve worked at Michael’s Arts and Craft
16.  I’m not big on sleep.  It slows me down
17.  I strive to be the exception to the rule (Not really sure if this is good or bad)
18.  I’d like to think I’ve flexible morals but I’m not sure (think Thank You for Smoking)
19.  I want a horse and two swords a la Lancelot
20.  My first car was named the "pimp mobile", it was everything but pimp
21.  Girls I date think I’m nice guy, I disagree
22.  My first out of state trip was to Flint, Michigan (I swear)
23.  I’ve been trying to gain 10 – 15 lbs since Brady Quinn was a Senior at Notre Dame (I’ve failed ever since)
24.  I die in the vast majority of my dreams but she lives so it’s ok
25.  I’m more of behind the scene guy not because i don’t like the spotlight but because i feel that i have more flexibility to make things happen

What are 25 random things I don’t know about you? feel free to email me if you don’t want to put them on the web.

Looking back 2008 was a very challenging year both professionally and personally.  I stepped out of my comfort zone and went after what I wanted. I’d be lying if I said I did this voluntarily every time.  Sometimes, the situations left me no other but to venture out.  With some planning and some luck I end up where I had hope to be by the end of the year.  Along the way, I met some great folks, made some new friends, became more idealistic, lost faith in the baby boomers,  and gain faith the millennials.  Most of you probably watched this chapter of my live chapter unfold live via Twitter, Facebook, Frienfeed, Tumblr and this blog….whenever I updated it.  The highlights of 2008 include South Carolina primary, 1631 S Streeet NW, ServiceNation Summit, DC Primary,  November 4th, Frat house 2.0, Boston/NH, my investiture, and becoming an American.  I will remember 2008 as the year I decided to get involved.

As for my resolutions,  here is how faired:

1.  Maintain a GPA above a 3.5 -  DONE. I was able to keep a 4.0 GPA.

2.  Read 6 books (outside the classroom) and write about them on here  – FAIL. I did not read six books I think I read 3… Sad I know. This is commitment that I make every year and continuously fail at it.  I’m not really sure why.  I’m an information junkie and I do read a lot but I haven’t managed to read books.  I blame it on the amount of reading and writing I have to go school.

3.  Reconnect with 5 or more family members back home – DONE.  I think I reconnected with more than 5 family members.  But I still don’t talk to them on the regular basis.  It gets quite expansive to call home regularly.  And Skype does not have exactly have stellar services.  If you’re using a software to call Africa or other third world countries, I’d love to hear about it.

4.  Record all financial data for the entire year – FAIL.  I’m going to try again this year. I will be switching to Mint something this month. 

5.  Bring in 10K to 15K through freelancing – DONE and most of the money went to paying for school.

6.  Open an IRA or Home buying fund – FAIL.  Instead, I focused more on the opening and beefing up an emergency saving account.  It came in handy when I was let go earlier this year.  So I’m glad I went that route instead.

7.  Go to 12 museums – FAIL.  I think I went to 2 museums,  I did do more cultural stuff around the city including BSO, Kennedy Center, Book signings and lectures.

8.  Learn Ruby on Rails – FAIL. I don’t even have it installed on any of my computer.  I instead focused on learning how to customize WordPress and give it a professional touch.

9.  Be a better boyfriend/Better Work life balance – FAIL.  At some point during the summer, I was working, going school, working on a the Silverman Campaign and doing freelancing.  That’s not balance at all.  However, I have become much more organize and learned how to schedule leisure time as well.

10. Get Management Position in IT or Public Policy – I did get a management position at Be The Change, Inc from which I was let go earlier late in the Year  and I’m now at a Public Affairs firm.  I’d say I’m moving towards the right the direction professionally. I’ve moved a way from a purely technical background which was the real goal here.

I could have done better with my resolutions, but I’m satisfied with my performance.  I’m will my 2009 resolutions up shortly

Technorati Tags: 2008, goals, resolutions

The past week was a crazy one; the end of another semester and the start of a new gig.  Now that life has calmed down a bit, I wanted to take a second to say a big thank you to everyone that helped me during my job search. My job search ended late last month when I accepted an offer for the position of Web Strategist at DCI Group, where I will be helping our clients navigate through the social media interweb.   In these tough economic times, I was lucky enough to received multiple offers.  However, I would be lying if I said I did all the work that got me these offers. In fact it was quite the opposite. During my search, a number of people graciously volunteer their time to proofread my resume and cover letters, help make video resumes, offer career advice, make introductions on my behalf,be a reference, and pass my resume along. Between writing cover letters and submitting my resume for various position, I attended a number of social media/technology events around town where I met an incredible number of nice and smart folks using the web to bring attention to some great causes.  I will work to keep in touch with as many of them as possible.  But more importantly, I hope to work with some of them (in pro-bono capacity, of course) on some of the projects that they are currently undertaking.

The entire job search experience was very humbling and I’m very grateful for all the help I received.  Again Thank you.

Image by d0ntblink

Technorati Tags: Career, Job, Personal

In this video (taped yesterday) I share some good news and some bad news.  Bad News – I got laid off yesterday,  Good News – I’m closer to becoming a U.S. Citizen.

As I said in the video, I’m looking for a job so if you know of anyone hiring please pass along my resume.  Thank you.  As always, comments/suggestions about the video are welcome.

Technorati Tags: Be the Change, Career, Job, MakembeTV, vblogging

My first video. Enjoy. Leave any feedback. Sorry for the cheap camera. If I follow through, I will upgrade.

Wei and I’ve been friend going to back to my years in undergrad.  He was a big influence on me getting involved in web dev.  We started by writing our blogs in ASP and Access DB (remember when that was cool?).  Over the years, Wei and I have come up a multitude of ideas for websites and the services we would offer.  Some of the ideas  include sitter (pets and kids) search site (http://www.sittercity.com/)  and teacher document share (http://teachers.yahoo.com).  As we grew older, we spent nights coming up with these ideas and the proceeded to develop a multitude of excuses (lack of staff,funding, hardware expense, etc…) why we could not get them up and running.  Eventually, someone implemented our ideas close enough to what we had in mind and we would abandon our idea.

Recently, Wei had idea for  another website.  Instead of just talking about like we used to, he researched the idea more and when he decided it was feasible to implement it, he quit his job and started working on it.  That’s how easyautosales.com came to be.  The site is a place where people can sell cars as well as buy new or used cars.  Based on his research, Wei decided his latest idea was good enough to compete with the likes of cars.com, carmax.com, vehix.com and even craigslist.  It’s hard to know whether or not Wei and his team are going to be successful but since their launch 2.5 months ago they managed to  have a million cars listed, have over 100,000 pages indexed in Google, achieve over 100,000 visits to the page and as he put it “spend a crap load of money with Amazon Web Services”.  If you’re bored enough, you can follow the trials and tribulations of Wei and his team over at http://comefortheride.com/.  Of course if you’re in the market for a car, you should include http://www.easyautosales.com as one the websites that you visit.

Congrats Wei, Way to go all out.

Over the last year or so, I’ve been working at the National Association of Home Builders as a Developer.  Tomorrow will mark my last day there.  For me, NAHB was the perfect second job out of school.  While there,  I had the opportunity to work with some great people and develop my technical skills as well as my interpersonal skills.  Everyone in my department took great pride in servicing our clients, which were the various departments, and working harmoniously with our vendors and vendors selected by our clients. Moreover, I moved closer to reaching an equilibrium between life and work or as the girlfriend would probably say “between work and more work.” I will truly miss working with the people at NAHB.

As of Monday, I will be employed with Be The Change, Inc. as Director of Web Technology.  Be The Change is a startup non profit focused on public service and was founded by Alan Khazei who also founded CityYear.  The Organization’s two key missions are:

Crafting a bold and innovative policy agenda that is rooted in the practical experience of social entrepreneurs and civic leaders and sets a pragmatic ten-year time horizon for major systemic change.

  and

Building a broad-based, web-fueled, citizens’ movement that will campaign for better public policies, promote active citizenship and citizen democracy, and give Americans who are frustrated with the status quo a place to channel their ideas and activism.

I was introduced to Be The Change, Inc. through a friend and I have been working with them as a “pro-bono consultant,” for a lack of better word since the summer.  I have an understanding of where the organization is, what it aims to become and how I can help. Needless to say I still have a lot learn about the organization and the rest of the team.  And as with any new endeavor, there will be challenges.  Regardless, I’m very excited for this opportunity and ready for my first week¹.

1. I will be slightly distracted on Tsunami Tuesday.  Are you registered to vote?

I’ve been following the primary on both side for what seems like forever now.  So when a friend who is involved for MD for for Obama group called me to ask to go volunteer for Obama in South Carolina I jumped on the chance.  We agreed to go down on MLK  weekend.   We left Friday after work, drove down to NC and spent the night at my friend’s uncle place near Raleigh, NC.   Saturday, we left around 2 pm and headed down to Columbia, SC.  We checked in the most ghetto hotel available. The TV didn’t work in the first room and we were moved to another.  Since we had not contacted the Obama campaign before going down, we did not know what they had planned for the evening.  We decided to watch some political shows.  After about 2 hours, we were bored and I suggested that we go party hop around all the Republican primary parties.  We started at Fred Thompson’s Headquarters then to his party.  Fred’s Party was really sad.  They were about 30 people there  and at least 10 of them were members of the Media.  My friend and I provided all the diversity for that party.  When we were  there we could Fred was going to drop-out  of the race.  As we were leaving, a Giuliani aide/volunteer was recruiting one of Thompson aide for Florida. 

Rumors of the street had it that Mike Huckabee’s (a.k.a ”The Huck”) party had good cookies and brownies, so we decided to head there next.  The Huckaparty was much more happening then Fred’s.  The Huckabus was huge, although the C-SPAN bus held its own.  We barely missed the Huck’s speech but managed to get a few pictures as he exited stage right.  Since McCain was in Charleston and the rest of Republicans were to lazy to compete in SC, that was all she wrote for that night.  We got some food and headed to the ghetto hotel only to find 10 cops in the hallway.

On Sunday, we woke up bright and early to run some errands only find out that county law does not allow for sale of general goods before 1:30 PM on Sunday.  No lie.  We headed to Obama’s headquarters.  As soon as we walked in a gentleman said that we would be volunteering at an event where the senator was to speak.   GREAT!  At the event we were assigned to be Press volunteers or Press chaperone and bouncers as I called it.   We help set up, we regulated rowdy photographers with the help of secret service, but mostly we took pictures and help ADA individuals.

On Monday, We woke up bright and early to march in the freezing cold and listen to Clinton, Edwards and Obama speak as well as some less than impressive NAACP leaders.  At the end of Clinton’s  speech we bolted out of there.  The trip felt a bit rushed, I wish I could have stayed a bit longer, maybe till the primary.  Unfortunately work and other obligations called. I would def do it again. Although, I think I would have to be at least sympathetic to majority of the the candidate’s views.  It’s just too much work for someone whose idea you disagree with.