The Answer is…

OK, enough suspense….

#3 I was a professional child actor.

When I was in grade school I was already doing high school musicals. When I was in middle school I went to NYC for an acting camp and one off Broadway variety show. I then came back and did multiple professional regional theaters. I continued my acting career until I was in high school. At that time I decided actors were too weird and I wanted to go into music.

So there is question one. Joann, I know you had it right but yes, yo’ve known me forever. And I kept Mary from voting because she would have given it away.

Continue checking back for more questions!

 

Let’s get more answers…

Ok I know more people read this than just Taylor. But so far Taylor is the only one who has provided an answer to the question. We are going to have to give some more guess before I give the actual answer!

So which one do you think it is?

 

Game time

We are going to play “Get to know your blogger” over the next few post.  Hopefully all of you will participate and also continue this on your own blogs too!

Here’s how it works.  I ask a question and you all answer in the comments.  Then I will post the answer in a day or two (depending on the number of answers received.   So let’s get started.

Which of the following is true about ConcertMan?

1. Placed 4th in the National Spelling Bee
2. Learned to drive when he was 10
3. Was a professional child actor
4. Has visited all 50 states.

Make your choice and post it in the comments section, starting…….NOW!

 

My next car…

Will not be a car at all.  This is what I’m saving for now.  Once my current car is paid off I will be buying one these.

What’s cooler is that you can add an electric motor to them and get up to 30mph!

As part of the new ride I think my next experiment is going 6 months with riding my bike to work every day.  I think it will be much easier than previous experiments.  With 6 months though I will have to experience most of the yearly weather changes that Kansas City has to offer.

So if you want to help me get to this point I will be taking donations to get the bike   Just let me know!

 

It’s over

The experiment is over.  I’ve officially ended it.  There were a lot of things that went into this decision but mostly it was out of frustration and expense.  I had figured that I had learned the things I was wanting to learn during the experiment period.  And most importantly I learned them much sooner than I thought I would have.  So what did I learn?

1) America is not a socialist country.

Yes we are a capitalist society.  Everyone is trying to get their share of your money.  Capitalism helps to breed innovation.  It has brought us to the point where we lead the world in ideas and creation.  There is a downside though.  Capitalism can create a since of each man for himself.  Yes this is a downside because it leaves people behind and we do not share resources.  Those resources can be everything from money to natural resources to internet.  Everywhere I tried to get internet was always a business in which I needed to buy something before I could fairly use the internet provided by the place.  Then even after paying there were some places that the level of internet quality was extremely low.

Right now there are many cities that are considering city wide free wifi.  Right now there is none in place.  Kansas City is even one of these places.  A new mayoral canidate, Henry Klein, is using this as part of is campaign platform ConnectKC.

There are also some other companies that are working on city wide WiMax installations.  Of course that will be a paid service

2)  Available time

I just don’t have the available time it takes to get all the internet time I need and do it away from home.  Will all my homework and work stuff and then with trying to keep up with my girlfriend there just wasn’t enough time to do it away from home.  It just wasn’t going to work.

3)  Price

When using internet at other places I found that even if I was not trying to spend much money I would end up spending more than what it would cost me monthly to have internet at home.  AT&T DSL is only costing me $27 a month and I’m getting the same, if not better, quality of service I was getting with TimeWarner cable that was costing me $50 a month  It just made better sense.

There are some other reasons for going with this too but I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the USA is not a country that is ready for social internet sharing.  Maybe in Europe or Asia this might be possible but not in the Kansas City area, not yet.

Stay tuned to the site for some other experiments that will be coming in the future.  Something that is in the works is an entire month without my car.

Stay tuned.  And if you have any suggestions for other social experiments just post a comment and I will evaluate the experiment for future runs.

 

Internet

The ongoing experiment has proven tougher than thought. I ended up spending the night at my parent’s last night because I was running a World of Warcraft instance with some friends. By the time we finished (took like 3 hrs) it was late enough that I didn’t want to drive home (read as it was 2am). So I stayed over and used more internet in the morning after I woke up.

Today after class I’m probably going to stay at the school a little longer so that I can get some homework done for my programming class.

 

The Roasterie…

So I am one of about 6 computer users right now, and one of two Mac users.  The interesting this is that the guy in front of me is using Suse Linux.  You totally don’t see that too often.

Anyway,  this experiment is getting into the uncomfortable zone now.  I’m not gettig the amount of internet time that I want, which was expected.  But I’m also not getting the quality of time that I want.  Meaning that when I’m online in certain places it doesn’t seem like I’m getting the most of what I’m doing.  I’m rushing through things and not able to fully get done what I want.

Case in point.  Last night I was at the school and working on some projects and trying to get some assignments turn in.  Well I had to use the bathroom pretty bad.  Of course being in a public place this was not the easiest of situations.  I had all my books and computer spread out and I didn’t know where the restroom was and also didn’t just trust leaving my new machine right there while I go take care of business.  Packing everything up would have been a hassel but a required part of the environment.

Needless to say I was a bit uncomfortable.  I was able to get done what I needed to online and then go home and take care of business.

Right now I’m sitting at the Roasterie Café in Brookside.  Very trendy place and one of those places to “be seen”.  But honestly, I don’t think anyone is looking.  They all have their faces in their computers with headphones on or their bluetooth headset on.  Kind of surreal.  I didn’t teleport to LA did I?  This is still Kansas City right?

 

Mercy….

I am at the mercy of others that is. When you do not have your own internet connection at home you are at the mercy of other people’s quality of service. Such as Panera Bread. Today I was hoping to go get some homework done for my programming class, homework which is due today, and I had planned to go sit and have a bagel and do my homework. Well their wireless network was not working. So for the time I was stuck. I could either go to work and use the one there, with all the noise and craziness that comes with that, or I could just postpone it and try and find another way to get my homework done.

I think I’m going to have to find somewhere else to go.

The worst part is I can’t even email my professor to let him know.

 

Choices

So I made a realization today about this experiment. Since my time online has now been drastically cut I must now be very judicious about what I choose to do with my internet time. It’s not a matter of trying to squeeze more into less time but a matter of making that time have more quality.

Case in point. I have a list of about 150 websites I like to read on a daily basis. The average number of post to those websites per day is about 10. That’s 1500 articles on average. Usually it can be more than that. Now if I were to get 3 hrs of internet time a day would I still be able to read all those articles and get done the other things I want to get done (school and Warcraft)? The answer is no. So I must trim down those sites and read just the ones that are the most important to me.

Maybe in my future surfing I will find something that downloads all my RSS feeds and lets me read them away from the net. I know there are some apps like that out there but I just haven’t spent the time to find them yet.

Anyway, I wanted to leave you with this parting thought for today….well parting video….