Recently in people Category

While attending a Poker Awards Banquet earlier this year hosted by the good folks from Flop Magazine here in Brazil, I had the great pleasure of meeting Gustavo Andrade the legal counsel for The Brazilian Confederation of Texas Hold'em as well as legal adviser to the Sao Paulo Circuit, Poker Tour. We hit it off from the beginning, finding that we had lot's of things besides an overly healthy interest in the business side of online gambling in common, so it was always fun to get together and compare notes about the industry of online poker in Brasil, I recon Gustavo knows as much or more about this industry as anyone in the country, especially as it pertains to the laws.

For several months Gustavo and I would get together on Thursday nights for a few cold beers at the "Blue Pub" in downtown Sampa (Sao Paulo) and talk shop, then one day I suggested to Gustavo that he should publish a blog, focused on poker in Brasil and promote some of the companies we know, including Reefer Poker. Well back in August we came up with the name "Poker Brasileiro", registered it and I set-up a personal publishing system on the Domain and gave Gustavo a short tutorial about how to publish stories, now some 4 months and 100 articles later Gustavo is really getting some traction on his blog, with as many as 250 readers per day and a growing syndication via RSS to some leading Brasil poker portals. He's a true natural, loves blogging and people love reading his stories.

Poker Brasileiro is not just about poker in Brasil but also sheds some light on the popular players from here who play poker professionally, as well as sharing some travel stories and photos about the great lifestyle, beaches, cities, the food, plus the wonderful culture of Brazil.

Mark Joyner is one of the Guru's of on-line marketing. For me, one thing that makes Mark interesting is that he does his own thing and lives his life the way he sees fit, whereas many of the U.S. based Internet marketing experts require the approval of the other Guru's, so in the end you have a pack-mentality, where one product launch becomes the product du-jour for the entire pack. Maybe some, or all, of these new products (now mostly coaching programs) have value but it's dubious when the inbox fills up with "last-chance, don't miss-out" recommendations.

The other thing I like about the approach of Mark Joyner is that it's Simple, as in Simple-ology, and he has a way of consistently making his message fun to read.

Today I found a free course about Blogging that I decided to try:

The Redneck Riviera earns it's nick name honestly and in my opinion it's the Carolina Redneck's that make this fabulous beach town so great. Having lived in South Florida for 12 years and only visited Myrtle Beach a couple of times, mostly just a drive-by kind of thing, I was under the impression that the people and the place would be more like Ft. Lauderdale, which can be described as a sunny place filled with shady people, but alas I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the two beach towns have very few similarities.

Click on the photo for a larger picture.

"The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion... It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation - persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree."

It turns out that my Mom is born in the year of the pig, so we've been writing back and forth to share little things we've learned about this auspicious year. Now an Asian friends from Vancouver informed me that Chinese people are excited because we're entering the "Year of the Golden Pig" and it only happens every 60 or so years.

This morning I watched a chilling report on BBC World about how websites and the Internet are used to promote and recruit for global Islamic terror networks. Just writing about this topic makes me nervous because we're such a networked world and the search engines pick up and connect every word, which is why I'll avoid using any organization names or provide any web site locations. The power of the Internet to bring good into people's lives has always been the focus of my attention, so much so that I neglected to think much about how the web was being used for evil.

I stand corrected about the concept of a "Social Footprint" thanks to a message from Mark McElroy the Executive Director of The Center for Sustainable Innovation, I've learned that a team of esteemed sustainability researchers, and management consulting veterans, introduced the Social Footprint methodology and Proof of Concept to the world, just one year ago this coming March.

"The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved."

-Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

Especially pertinent to people in the on-line gaming industry that enjoy travel to, or living in USA.

Wallace Arthur Day

Today is my Dad's birthday; born this day in 1931 he'll be 76 years old. I imagine he's celebrating the day by skiing at his local ski resort Big White.

My good friends from Miami own a landscape business, they impressed upon me the beauty of landscape as an art-form, and then introduced me to the work of a Brazilian legend.

Roberto Burle Marx is internationally known as one of the most important landscape architects of the 20th century.

An artist of multiple facets, besides being a landscape designer he was also a remarkable painter, sculptor, singer, and jewelry designer, with a sensibility that is shown throughout his work.