This morning I woke up extra early, in order to go cast my vote in the Presidential Election. Today was the last day for early voting in Texas.

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The lines have been crazy. Some people I know have waited for nearly two hours to cast their vote. We’ve had record turnouts here in Harris County, and last I heard there would be an estimated 750,000 votes cast during early voting.

When we pulled onto the street of the polling place, I quickly realized that we were in for a very long wait. Dozens of cars were parked along the side of the street for about half a mile. People were walking in the busy street, just so they didn’t have to walk in the ditch. I thought I was going to run over somebody. It was insane.

Texas Voting Links:

Special Needs?

First Time Voter?

Are You A Student?

The Voting Machine

Texas Voting Rights

The parking lot was pretty much full. But, I was able to park in handicap because my (disabled) mother came with me to vote. Luckily, we ended up getting the last handicap spot available. The line was wrapped around the entire building, and started to wrap around a fence, heading back into the parking lot. I would guess there were about 300 people in line.

We walked all the way across the parking lot to the end of the line, where we met a worker for the polling place named Eric. The guy was great! My mom came walking up to him with her rolling walker. We were basically standing in the grass of a playground next to the polling place.

Because my mom is disabled, he told me that he could take her directly up to the front of the line, and that I was welcome to accompany her. I couldn’t believe it! I was trying to figure out how I would be able to make sure my mom could stand for so long, on an awkward terrain. And then Eric, the polling place volunteer, gives me a free pass to the very front of the line.

Sure enough, we walked around the back of the polling place and he took us directly to the very front of the line. Once we got in there was another guy working in there. I guess he could tell my mom may have needed a little assistance getting the voting process started, so he was right there. Not hovering above her or watching her vote, but just standing near in case she needed some help. The guy was great! He even got her a magnifying glass to help her see what she was doing.

I was blown away at how courteous everybody was to my mom. I know that election time is always a busy time, but the actions of this crew, at my local polling station, stood out in my mind.

My mom and I walked out of there with that ‘I Just Voted’ feeling. It was great! Even though I know that I’m basically throwing my vote away, because… well, I live in Texas. Ironic, huh?

Well, we made it. Hurricane Ike did not blow our house down, but the winds did cause some damage around the outside of my house.

We had power until about 4:15am, despite the 20+ power surges that came and went throughout the night. My brother lost power around 8:30pm. My dad lost power around 11pm. My girlfriends family lost power sometime around midnight, but we were lucky enough to have power until about 4am, which is when the winds of Hurricane Ike really started to pick up in my area.

Once we lost power, we stayed up for a while longer, but eventually fell asleep due to the darkness that surrounded us. The winds were swirling around us at speeds higher than I’ve ever experienced. The trees outside my window were dancing to the rhythm of the wind. The rain was coming down horizontally. The transformer in my neighbor’s backyard kept making loud noises, which I assume was it trying to start up again.

When the morning came, and Hurricane Ike was long past us, I went outside to analyze the damage that Ike brought upon us.

Compared to Galveston and communities closer to the shore, we were pretty lucky. My fence in the backyard has basically been crumpled. The supporting posts planted into the ground have been snapped at the very bottom. It appears that the wind and the ground played a quick game of tug-of-war, but the ground was no match to the powerful wind swirling around my house.

Multiple trees around my house have been snapped like twigs. The largest branch that was broken has the radius of approximately 7 inches. My driveway was blocked by a three large branches that were broken towards the top of my tree. I managed to pull them out of the way just enough to pull my car out of the driveway, but without power I can’t use my electric chainsaw to chop up the rest of it and safely clear it all away.

When I first walked outside, everything was covered in green. There are thousands of leaves covering everything in site. My car was covered in green. The street was completely green. Even my garage door had a greenish-leopard pattern.

Even though the wind died down by the time the sun came up, it still rained until about 1pm. I spent the next three days cleaning up all of the debris in my yard and in the street. It took fifteen 55-gallon black trash bags filled with leaves & twigs and a pile of branches that measured about 8 feet wide, and 4 feet high.

All in all… I realize that it could’ve been worse. Alot worse. One look at any Hurricane Ike photo gallery, especially of Galveston, will painfully bring reality back into perspective.

So this last week I’ve been in California at the 2008 SES Conference in San Jose. I had a great time. I learned alot about SEO & SEM, even though alot of it was a reinforcement of the basics.

One of the highlights of the conference was on Tuesday, Google threw a big party at their campus. Officially called the Google Dance 2008: Glow in the Dark. It was a great time! There was all sorts of food, goodies, games & dancing…. not to mention the free beer!

At the Google dance, they gave you a really cool black shirt. I really wanted the light grey color, but I was told that was for the ‘Staff’ only. Most of the nite, I walked around asking people if they wanted to trade shirts. I found it quite odd that 17-out-of-20 people with the incorrect sized t-shirt said “Yea, sure. Let’s trade!”. But nobody with my size (XL) wanted to trade me shirts. I only found eight people with Grey-Google shirts that were XL’s, and every single one of them told me “No Trade!”

I guess my A/B test concluded that Fat people like the color grey! (And I got stuck with the traditional black)

Google Dance 2008: Glow in the Dark Photos:

Below are a few images I snapped at the Google Dance and posted on my flickr account.

flickr link	flickr link
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The Obligatory Self-Pic	My ‘Glow In The Dark’ Look

Were You At the Google Dance? Send Me Your Flickr Photos!

If anybody has any photo’s they took at the Google Dance 2008: Glow in the Dark, feel free to drop me a comment with a flickr link to the photo. Or send me an email.. For the next few weeks, I’ll continue to update the page, as people start to upload their photos.

But, please make sure that you change the Creative Commons license in flickr.

Random Flickr Images of Google Dance 2008
flickr photo by IAmAGenious	flickr photo by DennyTerrio	flickr photo by DennyTerrio	flickr photo by IAmAGenious
flickr photo by DennyTerrio	flickr photo by DennyTerrio	flickr photo by Jyri	flickr photo by Jyri

For more photo’s of the 2008 Google Dance, check out the below galleries.

• TopRankBlog.com - Google Dance 2008 Photos
• Andy Beal’s Flickr Photo Gallery of the Google Dance 2008
• Google’s Official Photo Gallery of the Dance (check out pic #8 & #21)

It’s been awhile since I published a photoshop tutorial. So, I figured I’d take some time to publish one of my favorite photoshop text effects.

I’m not really sure what you would use this text effect for, except for maybe text on desktop wallpapers, but it just a looks cool. I used it a few times for random design projects back in college. But, I haven’t really used it since.

Either way… Here’s how you create a pixelation background for text.

How to Create a Pixelation Background for Text

Step 1:

The background and font colors are up too you, or the project at hand. But, I’ve generally found that a white font on a darker background looks the best with this text effect.

For this example, I choose a solid dark red color (#BA3422) because it goes along with the colors of my site. The end result of the pixelation text effect may vary on font color, background color, and the font itself.

Step 2:

Create your text, and then duplicate that text layer.

Select the duplicated layer, and Rasterize it. This will allow us to apply a couple filters to the text layer, and create the pixelated background. Apply the following filter:

Filter ::: Blur ::: Gaussian Blur

You should now be asked to enter a radius. This is completely up to you and what fits best with the font you’re using. For this example, I selected a radius of 10.

Step 3:

With the same duplicated text layer selected, you will apply another filter which will be the one that brings the pixelation out.

Filter ::: Pixelate ::: Mosaic

You should be asked to put in a cell size. This will determine how big the pixelation squares are behind the text. For this example on the right, I used a cell size of 7.

Step 4:

You should now see a ‘pixelated’ effect behind the original layer of text.

Select the original layer of text and apply a drop shadow to it. This will help it stand out from the pixelated background.

The settings of the drop shadow should be determined by what looks best for the text in your project.

Step 5: (Optional)

If you want your pixelated background to stick out a little more. Apply the following filter to it.

Filter ::: Sharpen ::: Sharpen

This will give the pixelated background a more defined look. Feel free to repeat this filter as you see necessary, but for this example on the right, I only applied the filter twice.

More Options for Pixelation Text Effect

At this point, you have many options. You can continue to change the way the pixelated background looks, by adjusting the settings in various ways. The most common adjustment you might want to make, is the opacity or brightness/contrast settings.

I hope this text effect tutorial was helpful and you were successfully able to apply the pixelation background to your project.

Please check out my other photoshop tutorials listed below.

How To Turn A Photo Into A Sketch

Learn how to convert an ordinary photograph or snapshot into a Black & White sketch using photoshop.

How To Turn A Photo Into An Oil Painting

In this 4-step tutorial, you will learn how to convert an ordinary photograph into a beautiful oil painting. Perfect effect for Landscapes & Sunsets!

I just got back from a weeklong vacation in Cancun, Mexico. It was great! We had an awesome time. We definitely took advantage of the “All-Inclusive” part of our stay, as well as get to know the bartender’s at the “pool bar” pretty well.

Not too long before we left for Cancun, I started getting more active on my YouTube account. I like to surf around and find good videos, in order to submit them to digg and the various other social media sites. Because I have this account, I figured I should at least put some kind of content on the profile. Which was one of the primary reasons I wanted a Flip.

While I was in Cancun, I set up my Flip Video Camera, and recorded a LONG video of the Lagoon in Cancun. We stayed on the 6th Floor of the Oasis Hotel, so we had a pretty nice view of the lagoon. I didn’t have a tripod, so I had to make the equivalent out of what we had in the room. I ended putting a patio chair on top of a glass table. Then stacked a layer of books, set of domino’s, a box of wheat thins, & then two container’s of nuts. Check out this crazy tripod setup I had going.

I ended up capturing 90 minutes of film. So I just condensed that down to 60 seconds. The below video is what ended up coming out. The quality of the flip isn’t too great, but it’s still pretty cool to watch all the boats & waverunners in the lagoon. My timelapse from Cancun.

Timelapse: 90 Minutes in Cancun (in 60 seconds)

I’m pretty excited about it, because it’s my first REAL video-editing project.

Any thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

UPDATE - 06/09/2008:

I just wanted to quickly update this post. I also submitted my timelapse video to digg, and it almost hit the Front Page. Ended with 178 diggs & 17 comments. But never popped. I’m thinking of submitting it to Reddit tomorrow, but probably won’t. We’ll see.

The amount of views on the YouTube video itself, is currently sitting at 817. It’s received 2 comments, and was rated 3 stars, after 13 ratings..

That is all. Comment away…

I had something pretty cool happen to me the other day.

On April 23, I visited the Blog of the Houston Chronicle’s Cartoonist, Nick Anderson. He had a pretty funny animated clip of Hillary Clinton & her presidential campaign, and wanted to submit it to Digg. (Check out the post & read all of the comments.)

Unfortunately, digg gave me an error message when I tried to submit it, so I decided to send Nick Anderson a blog comment asking him about his video. Which started a very interesting dialogue that gave me an interesting new insight into the power of the internet.

• 10:08am - My first comment to Nick Anderson: “That’s hilarious! Are you going to post this on YouTube? You definitely should.”
• 11:36am - Nick Anderson responded to my comment: “Yes…later today or tomorrow.”
• 6:00pm - I responded: “Hi Nick… What’s your YouTube channel/username? Or are you just gonna post the YouTube-link to the video here on your blog?”
• 10:34pm - Nick Anderson responded: “Bukowsky, the link to my channel is http://www.youtube.com/user/andertoon I haven’t done much with it, yet. The animations tend to get a lot more views when they are posted on the Chronicle’s channel, but I’ve started putting some of them into mine recently. I’ll get this animation posted

This is where it starts to get interesting. I’m not sure why, but is last response made me laugh. It almost seemed like a challenge, and I was pretty confident that if I got one of his YouTube video’s to the front page of Digg or go popular on StumbleUpon or Reddit, that I could get him at least 1,000 views on YouTube. So, I left him this response:

• 11:30pm - “Probably… What do you want to bet, that I can get your Move Over Obama Girl video to over 1,000 views by the end of the week?”

I didn’t even give him a chance to respond, because I knew that it was possible. So, first thing that next morning, I submitted the below video to all of the social media sites.

I then left Nick Anderson this comment:

• 8:40am - “The race to 1000 Views has officially started…. The Move Over Obama Girl video is currently is sitting at 359 views on YouTube. Let’s see how long it takes to reach 1,000.”
• 1:58pm - Nick Anderson simply responded: “Did you post it somewhere?”
• 2:26pm - I responded back with a bunch of links to where I submitted the ‘Move Over Obama Girl’ YouTube animation

Apparently, there were some random readers of his blog, that started to get into it, because at 9:46pm that next night, somebody called flypusher left this comment:

• 9:46pm - “I just bumped it to 925!!”

It was pretty cool to read what flypusher wrote, because I was constantly hitting refresh on the YouTube video page, just to see how many views it now has.

Long Story short, the ‘Move Over Obama Girl’ animation did well on both Digg & StumbleUpon, but failed miserably on Reddit. Although, it didn’t make the Front Page of digg, the final result was 155 diggs & 6 comments. It did exceptionally well on StumbleUpon, and was prominently featured on popurls.com. However, the folks over at Reddit voted it down within minutes of it being submitted.

That very next morning, at 8:56am, I checked and the video had 1,364 views! So, basically, within 24 hours, this video on YouTube received over 1,000 views, ALL because I submitted it to different Social Media sites. I could only imagine how many views it got if it hit the Front Page of digg.

Just recently, I got a new Flip Video Camera. So far… I freakin’ LOVE it! Although, I still need to figure out a way to disassemble the BRIGHT red light in the front. It prevents me from going “undercover” & getting good guerilla-style footage.

Anyways, I’ve been playing around with the Flip a bit. Filming random stuff. My girlfriends birthday was this past weekend, so I got some good footage during the celebrations! Of course, she won’t let me upload any of it. Figures.

However, I do have a short video of my dog Harley Jane playing in the backyard.. She’s a pit bull, and people are generally a bit timid of pits. Understandably so. But, I will say, Harley Jane is one of the sweetest dogs you will ever meet. She helps my disabled mom around the house, and is very smart. She just looks mean!

So, for my first video I posted on YouTube is a short clip of Harley Jane & I.

Nothing great, because I still need to find a good video-editing software… Just 37 seconds of Harley Jane running around in the backyard. Enjoy!

Yep. I know! You’re wishing you had the last 37 seconds of your life back. But that’s too bad. Let me know via comment if anyone have any suggestions for a Free or Cheap Video-Editing software?

So, over the weekend I was hanging out on 6th St. in Austin, TX.

Check out these Homeless Hippies on My flickr.

As we were walking from bar to bar, we saw these two homeless guys sitting on the corner. They literally just finished writing this sign and were laughing about it amongst themselves.

Once I read what the sign says, I knew I had to take a picture. I told the guy I would give him a dollar if he let me take a picture of him and put it on the internet so I could take him “Viral!” He gotta pretty excited! His friend got a little pissed!

I mean no disrespect to these two random homeless guys, but just from the looks of your sign…. I can see why you’re on the corner.

Long story short, I totally lost that bet. I read the sign. We all had a good laugh. My friend & I each gave them a buck…. and I wouldn’t doubt it if they spent my money on some sort of ‘illegal substance’ by the end of the night! But it’s all good…. I’ll make more than that on the AdSense below.

Flickr Image - Jon Lajoie by Sampik

So… earlier today. I submitted something to digg that I thought was freakin’ hilarious. It was entitled “Pedophile Glasses by Jon Lajoie” It’s easily the stupidest, most pointless thing you’re going to watch all day, but totally worth 1:18 of your life.

Then I started watching the related videos that YouTube puts on there.. and I think I found my new theme song. Actually, it’s two songs with the same premise. But, it’s freakin’ hilarious, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I can relate in many ways. Which is frightenly scary!

The Everyday Normal Guy

The Everyday Normal Guy (Remix)

Yes.. I know. It’s sad. But laughably ironic, because I’m sure we can all relate to these in some way. Because I know I make a killer spaghetti sauce!

Check out the dude’s website - Jon Lagoie.com or his videos on YouTube. This guy has talent, I got a feeling we’re gonna see more of him down the line.

So, lately.. There have been alot of diggers complaining about the algorithm changes. I understand why they don’t like the algo changes, and I feel the same about many of the changes too. But, I know that in time, smart diggers will realize that in order to be successful you must evolve in the way you digg, just the same as the digg-algo evolves itself.

Due to these digg-algo changes, I’ve been spending less & less time on digg. I still surf around my RSS feeds and submit stuff to digg, but I find myself spending more of my time and submitting more content to StumbleUpon, Mixx, Del.icio.us & Reddit. I’ve also started utilizing my Twitter account, which I have grown very fond of.

Because of all of this extracurricular social-media activity, I went to update my digg profile and drop a link to all of my other profiles, so that anyone who cared, could easily find me on other social media sites… I mean, that’s why Digg built in that function, right?

That’s when I noticed something. If you want to add a link to your StumbleUpon or Del.icio.us account, Digg will put the logo of that Social Media/Bookmarking site next to it. But, there are a few sites, such as Mixx, Propeller & Buzz that Digg does not put the logo next too. These other sites merely get a ‘generic page’ icon next to it.

Why is that? Is Digg purposely censoring Mixx, Propeller & Yahoo’s Buzz?

I understand that things are pretty busy around the digg office, but seriously… how long does it take to create 19×19 icon’s, then program it to specific profiles, just like you’ve already exhibited when people link up their StumbleUpon, Reddit and the other Social Media profiles.

The picture to the right is a screenshot of my profile. It’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I can understand why Sphinn doesn’t have their own logo-icon. It’s an SEO site, and the digg community generally frowns upon SEO stuff. Ok. I get it. While I think Sphinn should have their logo present, as ALL social media sites should be represented fairly, I can understand why Digg knowingly leave’s Sphinn’s icon off. Fair Enough.

But what about Mixx, Propeller & Yahoo’s Buzz? These are all big, upcoming player’s in the social media world. Why does Digg refuse to give them equal representation?

I understand that Yahoo’s Buzz is fairly new. But, Mixx & Propeller have been around for awhile now. There should be some sort of icon associated with these two social media sites by now. They’ve obviously proven that they are not just “fly-by-nite” social media sites that are going to slowly waste away. They are here and they are here to stay. In my opinion, it’s time that those social media sites get represented fairly on Digg.

I know the logo-icon is a very, very small (and unnoticeable) function of everyone’s Digg Profile. It’s on the back burner, the end of a very long list of things to do at Digg. I understand that. But, it just seems that anytime somebody submits something to Digg that is somewhat positive about other social media sites, it gets buried and never see’s the Front Page… hmmm?

So, the question remains - Is Digg purposely censoring these other social media sites? Perhaps, Digg is just intimidated by Mixx, Propeller & Buzz? Why won’t Digg just admit that they have some new competition on their hands?

And, if they are purposely censoring these other sites, then Kevin Rose & Jay Adelson need to realize that it’s starting to become noticable.

The Good News

I have taken the liberty to create icons that would work for these three social media sites. They are the same size as the other logos - 19×19. So, all the Digg programmers have to do, is drop by and download them below!

	Mixx Logo Icon - [DOWNLOAD.jpg] [DOWNLOAD.gif]
	Buzz Logo Icon - [DOWNLOAD.jpg] [DOWNLOAD.gif]
	Propeller Logo Icon - [DOWNLOAD.jpg] [DOWNLOAD.gif]