Philip Robert

There seems to be a lot of talk in the air lately about how much money someone should be allowed to make. What size bonus's they get and so on. Just a few moments ago one of my Facebook friends posted this:

If your bored one day and you have 8 billion dollars to spare maybe you should build a machine that creates mini black holes, yeah what a fantastic idea! The large Hadron Collider! next they will be splitting atoms! oh wait they already did, ladies and gentlemen, the Hydrogen Bomb. surely there is a better way to spend such wealth?

Which made me wonder where the money for the LHC comes from, and is it worth it. There are a few threads out on the internets about this subject. Quite a few people question the validity of the project and question its cost. Do you know how many people that money could feed? could educate? could save?

I wonder how many people consider the opposite question. What is the cost of not building the LHC? What knowledge do we miss out on that changes our lives forever?

It got cold in Bend last month, and I realized that I wanted a nice winter hat. Inspired by my friend Brianna's beautiful bearskin fur hat I began searching for something, distinctive. I found Fern Stanton near Lake Tahoe. Her hats are amazing! They're custom made with wonderful faux fur, and they look great.

I had some questions about the color available. After a couple of email exchanges I got my hat in the mail for $39. This is a great deal on a hat like this. It's very comfortable, very warm, and very good looking. You can wear it with the fur flipped down to cover your ears or flipped up.

She asked me to send her a photo because her husband is her only model. Here's what she said:

OMG Philip. That hat looks fantastic on you.....and what a handsome model
you make. I know why your boss at work told you to charge me...but I'm glad
you didn't...since I'm poor and hoping that someday these hats will find
their way to the top of every head out there. I'll try to link your site to
the photo. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm up for the challenge. Thank
you again and I'm glad you look so frickin cute in that hat.
Take care,
Fern at the Fernie Farm

Here are some more photos of the hat.

She says there are two rules for this hat.
1. Don't put it into a dryer.
2. Don't sit too close to a wood stove.
The faux fur will melt.

At 11:45 AM on December 5, 2009 the citizens of Bend, Oregon witnessed a flash mob. Just prior to the start of Bend's annual Christmas Parade a young girl touched off a dance number in the middle of the street that would end up having over 100 participants. This incident has become known as the Christmas Parade Flash Mob!

Video by Philip Robert

Roll35.com is imminent. We will be launching today, today, today, today, ok, maybe tomorrow. We're working our tails off and the site will be live soon. Roll35.com the Social Networking Publishing Company of the 21st Century.

These last few months have seen small activity here on the blog. My apologies, live happens and other things have been taking up my time. What sort of other things? Go-Go kinds of things. I've been shooting and editing a ton of video for OntheGo-Go.com which is going to transition into Roll35.com on December 1st. We're very excited and I've been doing a ton of work to help launch Roll.

Here are some of the videos I've been doing.

This first one is my favorite. It's a spot for a local clothing store in Bend. Local Joe is a great place for Jeans, and it was fun putting this one together.

This next video is one in a series that we're doing with the Blacksmith one of Bend's great restaurants. The Bar Manager at Blacksmith is Columbine Quillen, and every month or so we get together to do a little cocktail how to.

The Portland Museum opened a great exhibit last month and Go-Go was there getting ready for Roll35. The exhibit "China Design Now" showcases the amazing things going on in China design wise. Footage was shot by Matthew Bowler one of Roll35's partners with Susanne Orton of course Roll35's founding partner. I edited the sequence and animated the Roll35 logo.

Last Week we went up to Mt Bachelor to get some comments from Alex Kaufmann the marketing director for Mt Bachelor. Note the Roll35 logo animation sound change. We're trying to find a trademark sound to put with this. The logo will evolve.

Mt Bachelor's opening is exciting news for Central Oregon. The way the snow's been flying we're looking forward to an excellent ski season. I'm particularly excited because it's been 10 years since I've been skiing. Last time was in Japan in 2000. Yay for skiing.

As you can see I've been pretty busy shooting and editing videos for On the Go-Go and Roll 35. My Canon GL1 has been a workhorse, but I'm seeing some limitations. The biggest is that it doesn't shoot HD video. My goal is to acquire a camera that can shoot good quality HD video by February 1st 2010. Here's the camera I've decided upon.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 DSLR

This little camera shoots some AWESOME HD video with the added bonus of interchangeable lenses. Used to be when I was working at the Apple Store in Northridge, Ca when someone would ask me about the video capabilities of a still camera I would ask them if they really wanted a video camera. Back then you needed to buy the tool for the kind of work you were doing. Now, since Nikon introduced the D90, all that has changed. A new class of digital single lens reflex cameras has emerged. Cameras such as the Nikon D90, The Canon 5d Mk II, or the Canon 7D, and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 have the capability of shooting very good HD video. Now I can buy one camera that will serve for shooting still images or shooting High Definition video.

This was the scene from the front porch this morning. It's October 4th, and we're in the middle of a blizzard. Mt Bachelor says that there's 3-4 times as much snow coming down at 6300 ft, and I'm hoping (praying) that this means we're in for a fabulous ski season.

Things may be a bit messy in Bend today because of the snow, but it is a gorgeous day.

My friend Deno sent this to me in an email and I think it's worth posting here. Deno thanks for sharing an awesome lesson.

The Charles
Schulz Philosophy

The
following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz,
the creator of the 'Peanuts' comic
strip.

You don't
have to actually answer the questions. Just
ponder on them. Just read the post straight
through, and you'll get the
point.

1. Name the
five wealthiest people in the
world.

2. Name the
last five Heisman trophy
winners.

3. Name the
last five winners of the Miss America
pageant.

4. Name ten
people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer
Prize.

5. Name the
last half dozen Academy Award winners for best
actor and actress...

6. Name the
last decade's worth of World Series
winners.

How did you
do?

The point
is, none of us remember the headliners of
yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers.
They are the best in their fields. But the
applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are
forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried
with their owners.

Here's
another quiz. See how you do on this
one:

1. List a
few teachers who aided your journey through
school.

2. Name
three friends who have helped you through a
difficult time.

3. Name
five people who have taught you something
worthwhile.

4. Think of
a few people who have made you feel appreciated
and special!

5. Think of
five people you enjoy spending time
with.

Easier?

The
lesson:

The people
who make a difference in your life are not the
ones with the most credentials.. the most
money... or the most awards. They simply are the
ones who care the most!

Pass this
on to those people who have made a difference in
your life, like I did.

"Don't
worry about the world coming to an end today.
It's already tomorrow in Australia
!"

"Be
Yourself, Everyone Else Is
Taken!"

A Gömböc is a strange thing. It's a shape that has only one stable equilibrium point which means if you place it down on a flat surface on any other point it's going to right itself. COOL!

Patrick Swayze passed away today. Now he'll really find out what that bright light is all about. May his soul travel fast and far up to God's great heaven arriving safely a half hour before the devil knows he's dead. Best wishes Patrick.

I just watched a new video on Jeff's blog.

And it rocks!

http://undergroundtraininglab.com/975/super-affiliate/?1052996

I can't believe this...

In the video he tells you exactly which products he's promoting... and how much money he's making with them... and it's a lot!

He literally hands you his best money-getting affiliate promotions on a silver platter.

Here's your free...

"How To Become A Super Affiliate In 5 Easy Steps" video:
http://undergroundtraininglab.com/975/super-affiliate/?1052996

Enjoy!

P.S.

You don't have to give your email to watch it or anything like that.

But I'm on this guy's mailing list and he sends out great content and free software all the time.

Watch the video and if you like it...

Join his list.

You'll love his stuff.

Here's that free video:
http://undergroundtraininglab.com/975/super-affiliate/?1052996

Eight years ago on September 11th 2001 I was the Leading Chief Sonar Technician onboard USS Curtis Wilbur DDG-54 homeported in Yokosuka, Japan.

Tuesday September 11th broke with a typhoon heading towards Tokyo Bay so our daily task was to secure the ship for the storm. Around noon someone made a decision to send everyone home except for the duty section. It was a quiet lazy afternoon at home waiting for the typhoon.

The naval station in Yokosuka is a tight harbor. It's securely protected from Tokyo bay by two pennisulas, and Tokyo bay is protected from the Pacific Ocean by the Chiba pennisula.

Typhoons almost never hit Yokosuka, and this one wasn't any different. We make all the preparations though for the excepting. It's better to be ready for a typhoon that never hits than not be ready for the typhoon that does hit.

That evening at 6pm we got the all clear. The typhoon had passed, and everything was safe. No of new about the typhoon that was about to change our world forever. It was 5am in New York.

At 10pm I checked my email on yahoo before going to bed, and there was a news report that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. Scanning the report I had the impression that some silly idiot in a Cessna had accidentally flown into one of the towers. I shut my computer down and went to bed.

The Officer of the Deck called my home about 4:30am the next morning. It was the Chief Gunner's Mate, and he told me that I should take the train into work because they weren't letting cars on the base. I asked him if they were running a security exercise on the base. He said "yeah, you could say that." I went back to sleep until 6am.

As I checked my email before going to the ship I was shocked by the headline on yahoo. "Twin Towers Destroyed. 10,000 Dead." What had happened? I thought some hacker had made a bad joke. A quick check of the New York Time's webpage confirmed that the World Trade Center's twin towers had collapsed after two passenger jets had flown into them.

Work on the ship was almost at a standstill that day. We spent a lot of time watching the news reports and the endless clips of the towers collapse. The Chiefs all got together under the direction of Command Master Chief Joe Campa and began reworking duty sections, beefing up security on the ship and the pier, and making preparations for the unscheduled deployment that we all knew was coming. We were forward deployed just for this reason. Because of the USS Cole we had heard of Al Queda, and the Taliban. We knew that we were headed for the Indian Ocean and Afghanistan. The only question was when would we weigh anchor? When would the battle group deploy?

For me September 11th was about securing my ship for a typhoon one minute and preparing to go to war the next.