jbrown

You may have heard that we’re moving next month. WEEE!

I have a thought and I wanted to see what everyone else thought/willingness to participate.

I was reading an article about a nationwide event, Dining Out for Life. On April 29, 2010, if you dine at a participating restaurant, they will donate a percentage of the proceeds to the Dining Out for Life.

Dinging Out for Life supports different charities in different cities that provide support services to those with HIV/AIDS. Check out the website diningoutforlife.com if your interested in participating.

My idea – after we get settled in the new place, hold a dinner party and have everyone in attendance make a donation at the party. Don’t worry, no minimum will be required. If you cannot make a donation, your attendance is still welcome because at least you’ll be supporting the cause. 100% of the “pot” of donations will then be given to a charity (to be determined). I will, and most likely Aaron, cook the full course meal from scratch (he doesn’t know it yet, he will learn of the plot once he reads this post). It will be an evening of fun-ness and generosity.

Thoughts? Who’d be interested in attending and supporting a cause, to be decided J

If the consensus is in agreement with the idea, I’d love to hear ideas for worthwhile charities in the area!

jbrown

It’s been a while since the last post, I know. What kind of blogger am I? *Heavy SIGH* I’m sorry…

I haven’t had many rants worth authoring an entire post about, nor have I had the time to report any stories that may be of interest to you…. But, here’s one!

Have you got your fill of fiber lately? NO! It isn’t possible! How could you have possibly received ANY fiber without a fiber-to-home network in Portland! YUP this post is about Google.

If you haven’t heard, Google is going to bring a fiber-to-home network to a lucky test city. What does this mean for you? Fast internet! Faster than Comcast, Qwest or Verizon can give you…Anywhere. Google is promising speeds at least 1 gigabit per second. How fast is that? Roughly 100 times faster than the internet you likely have from any of the afore mentioned service provider.

The problem? Only one city will get it. Possibly hundreds of cities are trying to convince Google they are the best pick. Yesterday Portland City Council voted unanimously to join the competition!

Why Portland? Portland has been on board for a fiber network for several years now. The project was scrapped because the city could not find a partner to help front the cost of the project. That puts Portland ahead of the crowd because we already have an idea of what needs to be done to deploy this awesome new infrastructure.

This opportunity will put Portland ahead of the curve! Not only will you have super fast internet at home, it’s likely this new bandwidth will attract new businesses to the city. With the increased bandwidth, OHSU can do more research; real time video conferencing will be more reliable, allowing multi-national corporations to communicate more easily with each other; the list really is endless. We’re going to need this infrastructure eventually due to the increasing demands on bandwidth (usage) and what better way to get it than to have Google front at least part of the price tag?

To throw in your two cents, visit Google’s fiber site and click nominate your city and fill in the info. The more people we get on board the better changes we’ll have convincing Portland is the best choice. Also, join the Facebook page for Portland fiber.

Thanks for Reading!

Jered

jbrown

After you’ve gorged yourself on Thanksgiving Day fare, why not visit the 25th Annual Holiday Tree Lighting Downtown?

On November 27, 2009, Portland will light their annual holiday tree in Portland’s Living Room. I’ll be there for the first time ever. If you haven’t been, come out and join us! The event is planned for 5:30p, I’ll be there significantly early, especially with the 25k expected people in attendance.

Let’s grab some coffee or coco, huddle togehter in the cold and HAVE FUN!

Hope to see you there!

-Jered
Portland’s Underground Inkslinger