Donna Dowless Is Amazing

Last Friday afternoon, we at NFi (plus a few friends), were honored to have Donna Dowless chat with us about her life, and about life / business success. She spoke of common themes, like ingenuity, patience, self-confidence, and most importantly, perseverance.

I feel like I’m part of something. There’s a growing movement in Orlando, to get the outside world to notice that we’re more than Mickey Mouse . I spoke previously that Orlando has a growing artistic community as well. Donna has done much to help realize that.

Listening to Donna Dowless’s life story is like hearing a tall tale. The only difference is, it’s real. Donna took 90 minutes to tell us her life story, and every minute is filled with one unbelievable tale after another.

Donna grew up in a military family, and was taught to have humble aspirations. Her father had hoped she would join the military when she graduated high school. Her mother wanted her to become a secretary instead. Donna took her chances with a secretarial career.

Long story short: Donna wound up doing secretary work in the entertainment industry, where she climbed the ladder until she was a venue director. Not one to rest on her laurels, Donna jumped on board with Tickemaster during the beginning of that empire. Donna left Ticketmaster when she was senior Vice President of the company.

All I can say about it all is: wow.

Many thanks to Donna, for all the inspiration. My continued sense of opportunity has been heightened by her.

Orlando (likemind – ed) Tech Folks

Last night, Chris and I went to the local web developer meetup group. There’s always a mix of folks at those events. The hardcore guys stayed around a while later than we had originally planned, but the talk was great.

The topics were varied. Subjects like iMIS integration, LISP for AJAX, new time-sensitive transport protocols, and general business stuff. It’s always a good time. Plus, I’m a big believer in the local tech crowd here. There’s some amazing stuff going on around here, so it’s great to get everyone together to talk about it.

Chris and I also met up at the B&S Local Market for the linkmind event there at 8:00am this morning. It was much of the usual suspects. Alex , Ryan , John , Chris , another Chris , and I were there. Greg even made it out there, which was really cool. A local newspaper columnist, Etan , made it to the event as well. Anything that happens at 8 in the morning on a Friday has better be good, and the likemind events always are.

It was really interesting to hear the things some of the guys had to talk about. Alex discussed his recent success exposing poor customer service at Spirit Airlines (google “Spirit Air”, you’ll be impressed). Etan, being a tech reviewer, had some interesting things to say about the new iPhone. John is always fascinating to listen talk about the local business scene.

Overall, both events were a great time. The exposure to people like us is a great thing. There are far too many socially-inept geeks out there. That’s the sort of thing that’s slowing down tech culture in the world.

So, kudos to those who are running these events that bring us all together. It really helps everyone.

The New iMac – A First-Hand Review!

Recently, I’ve completed enough side work to be able to purchase the recently announced iMac. Its the next generation for iMac, and rumors have been circulating about it’s coming for a few months now.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited as an editor on TweakOSX to review the machine. I don’t know what to say about it that I haven’t said in that review, other than “wow”. This thing is absolutely incredible. I got the 24″ model, with 2.4GHz dual core intel processor, 2GB of 667 MHz RAM, and a 320GB HD.

The computer is, in a word, incredible.

Here are some pics!!!!!!!!!


My First Home

Today my wife and I closed on our first home. It’s a 3/2/2 in Altamonte Springs, FL. We’re paying about a quarter million dollars for a house with less than 1,400 square feet. However, the house is full of amazing upgrades that really sold us. Full granite counter tops throughout the house, 18″ tile floors, stainless steel appliances, cooktop stove, big yard, etc…

I can’t begin to mention how excited we are about everything. We were pretty lucky that pretty much everyone we worked with was amazing to have around. Our realtor Colleen Offner , lender, parents, and even the sellers were all amazingly helpful.

I’ll have some pictures of everything soon.

Update August 12, 2007 – Pictures

Here are the pictures I promised:

The front view of our house This is the front view of our house. I got a lawnmower yesterday and mowed the yard. It sounds lame, but I can’t express how excited I was to mow my own yard.
The yard itself is 115 x 75. That makes it over 8,600SF, or about 1/5 an acre.
That is stone you see in front as well. There’s also some faux hurricane shutters on the office window in front as well.
The garage is 2 car, though I’m sure my truck will never be parked in there.

The backyard of our new house Here is a picture of the backyard. It’s not very deep. Most of the yard is in the front and on the west side.
There’s tons of trees on the side though, and that’s always cool.

Kitchen Here is a picture of the kitchen. It’s the first thing you see when you walk inthe front door. Look at the lower left corner of the picture. That’s stone that wraps around the bar. Hell yes!
We have a cooktop stove, and all stainless steel appliances. We also have a hellacious amount of cabinets.
Most of the house is 18″ tile floors. We intend to change to hardwood, but that’s going to have to wait a while. We’re a bit tight with money right now.

Inside the kitchen, looking at the door to the garage. Here is a picture inside of the kitchen looking at the door to the garage. The chandelier is pretty low right now, so we’re going to have to swing it a bit.
The open door you see is to the laundry room. That room also contains the location of where we would install a ‘smart’ system for the house.
Think Jetsons here: You walk in the house and say “kitchen lights”, and they come on for you. If only I could say, “pay bills” ….

Inside living room looking at the kitchen This is a picture from inside the living room, looking into the kitchen. The hanging lights over the bar are really nice.
Notice the wood veneer covering the wall underneath the bar. It’s not our first choice, so we’re thinking we might run the stone around the whole under-bar area.
If that prooves to be a bit too expensive, then we might just tear off the veneer and paint dark red underneath.

Master bedroom Here is the master bedroom. I don’t think this picture does justice to the size of the bedroom. It’s a good size room, and the ceilings rake from 12ft high to 10ft high.
There’s already a ceiling fan installed (thank you ceiling fan gods), and there is a cool ledge over the entry way to the bathroom.

Master Bathroom Here is a picture of the master bathroom. There’s a good size tub, and a glass shower in there.
It’s nice, though the tub could be a little bigger. The location of the faucet and levers aren’t condusive to more than one person in the tub at a time.
The tile along all of the walls is super-cool though.

Master Bathroom (another) Here’s another picture of the master bathroom. Note that there’s only one sink in the master bathroom. :/.
However, it’s hard to complain with the granite counter tops and custom mirror job. The vanity lights are well done too.
The knobs for hot and cold water are a little close together.

The living room And now, a picture heading toward the living room. The stone in the kitchen is more apparent here as well.
This picture also doesn’t give a good idea of just how tall the slider is going into the backyard. I’ve not seen sliding glass doors that tall in my life.
We’re going to have to get new drapses to handle them.
The ceiling fan is controlled via a dimmer switch on the wall. That’s great, since I’m not a fan of pulling chains.