However, each year, there is one single event that rises up above them all. While I've only had the privilege of attending one of these events, I can tell you with certainty, that Gnomedex is a special event. Chris Pirillo takes it to new levels each and every year. Now granted, there have been some controversial talks, and heated discussions in years past, but what he's put together over the past 10 years is truly special (has it really been that long?).

I was quite upset that I missed the opportunity to attend last year's Gnomedex event due to a conflict with my summer vacation. That said, I'm definitely going to be around this year, and look forward to attending.

The reason why I feel I deserve to Tungle with Chris is that I'm pouring every last bit of effort into getting my startup (StratusQ) off the ground. We are self-funded at this point, and our battle-scarred team of four are pouring every extra penny we can spare to grow the business. As such, it's harder and harder to hop on the conference circuit without having the backing of an employer or other source of funding to help subsidize costs. I'm not a serial entrepreneur, but I've been waiting patiently for over 10 years for this opportunity (see: The Art of Bootstrapping in 2010) and having the ability to network with other like minded individuals at an event like Gnomedex is what I live for.

I also happen to be a user of Tungle.me (see: http://tungle.me/brianeisenberg) , which hopefully puts me in a favorable position to win a free pass to Gnomedex. If not, I'll continue to save my precious pennies and maybe scrape up enough $$ to purchase a conference pass.

Kudos to Chris and the rest of the Gnomedex volunteers for putting together the 10th installment of this special event.

Respectfully yours,

Brian Daniel Eisenberg

@infinitelymeta

The hashtag for this party/event is #july4eastlake and we'll also entertain the Friendfeed crew in this new group I just created: http://friendfeed.com/july4eastlake

Where: 2218 Franklin Ave East, Seattle, WA 98102 USA (Lake Union)

What: A party of course. BBQ, drinks, food, & FUN!

Food: Assorted burgers, hot dogs, skirt steak (for carne asada), salmon, chips, dips, cherries,. Don’t see anything you like, then bring you’re own.

Drinks: BYOB - I'll have some beer, wine, soda, but highly suggest you bring your own if you're going to be hitting the sauce hard this weekend.

What to expect:

* Great people, food, drinks, etc. You’ve heard of “block party”. This more like “neighborhood party”. There are pretty much parties at every house for a 10 square block area. Riley hosts the infamous party down on Minor St. - this year I think they have water slides planned and I'm sure they'll be doing other assorted craziness.
* Fireworks - all day, all night. For the big event, those brave enough can climb the ladder and get on top of my roof for an UNABATED view of Lake Union, the fireworks barge, and Gasworks park. It’s insane ...the view. I’ll be streaming it live on UStream and also recording some HD video.
* Tons of traffic. If you want to come early, it is highly suggested. Street parking fills up by about 2pm. I have no off street parking available, so if you can use public transit or ride a bike, that’s the best way to get around.
* They close the streets to through traffic for like 10 square blocks around my neighborhood so don’t count on being able to take the side streets.
* If you are planning to stay and watch the fireworks, plan on staying LATE. If you thought it was bad getting into Eastlake, wait till you try to get OUT. There’s no rush, so if you are planning on driving down and then driving back, expect to get out no earlier than 1am.

I think that’s about it. If you are in Seattle and in the Eastlake neighborhood, I highly recommend you stop by and at least say hello. Great old article on Eastlake Community / neighborhood - http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19910425&slug=1279531

Call me on my mobile @ 206.227.8535 if you have any questions or get lost.

Happy 4th Everyone! Despite what everyone else around the world thinks of US, I am still DAMN proud to be an AMERICAN.

Meeting this challenge required 4 near sleepless nights, working through the entire weekend and around the clock with a virtual team distributed around the globe.  While it was a pretty intense and tiring effort, we were able to put together an impressive demo showcase and I'm happy to report that the entire management team was quite pleased with our execution and delivery.

The demo showcase we built was delivered earlier today by Software AG CEO Karl-Heinz Streibich to German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at a VIP press & media event at the CEBIT conference in Hanover, Germany.

Here are some pictures from the event. You can see one of demo pages we built being shown on a 60" Flat Panel touchscreen monitor that was used to "deliver" the demonstration.

Image source: http://www.softwareag.com/Corporate/Press/photos_artwork/events/pg_cebit_2009.asp

Now that this mini-project / event is over, I'm going to try and catch up on some much needed sleep. It was a privilege and honor to work with such dedicated colleagues around the globe, with a near impossible deadline, to pull this off.  Now I can add a new line to my list of accomplishments on my resulme: "Built a demo for the Terminator!"

Hasta la Vista baby!

Follow the Friendfeed conversation.

I think right now I need to continue to focus, not lose track of what is most important, and constantly assess and re-assess my priorities in how I spend those 24 hours each and every day.

With that, I'm off to meet Sarah Lacey and friends for her User Generated Book Tour - SEATTLE.

Tomorrow I have a VERY special meeting with one of my advisors who is going to give me a personal tour of what he is working on. I'll take lots of pics, ask questions, and blog it when I get back. Then it's off to the Tweetup and finally the Gnomedex 2008 kickoff.

Hopefully this torrential rain will let up soon. Currently looking strikingly similar to the Pineapple Express weather pattern that we had back in 1997. Time will tell. Personally, I don't mind the rain. What I do mind are the CRAPPY Seattle drivers who seem to not know how to drive in it.

Onward!

- ∞ +

9. I've had breakfast AND lunch with Scoble.

8. I once strapped a camera on my head and pretended to be iJustine.

7. I got better Gadgets than Nik Cubrilovoic.

6. I got .flv video clips of Mike, Shel, Nik, Loic, & Calley talking all sorts of nonsense on Qik.

5. http://federatedclouds.com

4. http://reefinabox.net

3. http://infinitelymeta.com

2. http://refriend.me

1. http://ytranslate.us

0. UPDATE: I had to unblock Jason McCabe Calacanis before I sent my @reply on Twitter.

- ∞ +

*****below is pasted from linked in profile *

8 year veteran in the enterprise software space with experience in pre-sales (Systems Engineer), Product Management, Standards & Evangelism (Standards & Technology Liaison).

Current role: Senior Systems Engineer, Business Process Management & Composite Applications. I'm one of 4 navy seal like SEs that make up the "Solution Center" team at Software AG. We are a "swat team" that can be deployed across the globe (virtually) to support pre- and post- sales activities. We support regional sales reps and SEs with the delivery of customized VMware-based demonstrations that showcase the breadth and depth of the Software AG Product Suite. My area of focus and expertise is in Business Process Management, Human Workflow, and Composite Applications. I'm fluent in most BPMS lingo, can crank out JSF-based webapps, and know enough Java to be dangerous. When I'm not building custom solutions, I'm supporting colleagues in the field and across the organization with a wide range of support duties that range from leading training sessions, generating content (whitepapers, tutorials, webexes), traveling on site to conduct on site demos / proof of concepts, online training & mentoring, remote web conferencing (webex). I also own and manage the 5 core business processes that govern what we do as a team (Solution Center).

Senior Product Manager - for about 5 years I was the product manager for an enteprise portal technology suite, first called DataChannel Server, later renamed Netegrity Interaction Server, then changed to webMethods Portal, then webMethods Access, then My webMethods Server, then webMethods Composite Application Framework. Whew. Lots of names, 3 major re-architectures, 4 major releases, countless minor releases, and god knows how many service packs, hot fixes, and feature roll-ups I've been through. I acted as PM for the Portal technology from roughly 2001-2006. In 2006, I transitioned out of Product Management into the Sales Organization where I currently serve as a Senior Systems Engineer.

Standards & Technology Liaison - I was originally hired by DataChannel, Inc in May of 2000 to serve in this exciting new role. I reported directly to DataChannel's CTO Norbert Mikula, where my primary responsibilities were to participate and sit on relevant standards bodies, seek out speaking opportunities at industry conferences, and generally oversee DataChannel's strategy with respect to leveraging emerging Web standards in our products and services. I was DataChannel's Advisory Committee Representative to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), sat on the OASIS XML.org Advisory Committee, was co-chair and co-editor of the ebXML Technical Architecture Standard, and particiapted in some capacity to the following standards efforts: SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, SAML, webDAV, XML Schema, SSTC, RosettaNet, ebXML, BPML, BPMI, and a few others that escape me now. When DataChannel was about to be acquired by Netegrity, I realized that my role as standards guy were probably targets for elimination, so I started building demos that showcased what our portal technology could do. I did that for about 6 months and then moved into my role as product manager for Netegrity's Portal technology initiatives, which were done under the brand "Netegrity Interaction Server" and later "PortalMinder".

This effectively sums up the past 8 years of job experience for me. I've only been hired once, back on May 8, 2000, but I've now officially worked for four different official business entities. I'm thankful to be working (albeit indirectly now) with the same core team of Java devs for 8+ years and that is the only thing that keeps me going during challenging times.

• Streaming the iPhone launch from Apple Store on Stockton St.
• Buying new iPod Touch, upgrading to 2.0, loading Pandora and other apps from the AppStore
• Discovering my new addiction at the Blue Bottle Cafe. Siphon Pot coffee is unbelievable. Check out my Flickr pics.
• Super secret meetings with some very big names that I can't really talk about.
• Rocked the Mechanicrawl, met Terry Lindell (uber-master of the Mark IV TDC).
• Attended Gary Vaynerchuk's party for taping of the WLTV 500th Episode  (insane energy and good vibes at that event). Ran into old friends like Scott Beale (@laughingsquid) and an old college buddy - Brad Murphy - who is VP at Revision 3. Got to meet/talk to Kevin Rose and many other notables in the local tech scene.
• Attended the Freshbooks Tweetup at 21st Amendment. Geeked out with fellow iPhone/Touch enthusiasts. Drank 9.2% IPA that was out of this world.
• Attended Social Media Camp San Francisco. Met some AMAZING people at this event. Met Erica O'Grady. Hung out with @danielbru and the Qik guys. Got to meet @Corvida and a lot of other awesome people.
• Attended Mashable SummerMash San Francisco. Met Pete Cashmore, ran into lots of friends & met new ones. Met Steven Fruchter, CEO of Stickam. Discussed some ideas / opps for collaboration.
• Dinner with Yeshi Govindas Friedland and drinks with Brad Murphy. What happens when you get together with 2 college buddies who haven't seen each other together since around 1996? A late night that ended at 2:45am this morning.
• Upgraded to First Class on Virgin America flight from SFO -> SEA and had the absolute pleasure of meeting and talking with Actor Peter Coyote (wikipedia him). Overhead voicemail on ride from SEATAC (he offered to share his driver) from Matthew Modine.

That about sums it up. Tomorrow I attend a day long course by one of my true idols, Mr. Edward Tufte.

I have a crapload of stuff to do between now and next Weds, when I fly to Albany, NY and head up into the Adirondack Mountains to a little area where there is still no mobile phone coverage. There I will continue work on one of my engines. This is a VERY exciting time for me right now.

Thanks to all my new friends, followers, and supporters!

Onward & Upward.

--Brian

- ∞ +

I typically invite those who are brave enough to climb both ladders and view the fireworks from the roof of my 4-plex building as there are unabated views of the Fireworks barge and Lake Union from there. The view is spectacular and the Fireworks show this year was most excellent.

What I hadn't expected was the mass migration of people from surrounding houses/parties to my roof! At one point, my brother in-law counted over 50 people on the roof. There was even a DOG! Someone even brought the KEG up. It was unreal. I was a bit nervous about the structural integrity of the roof, but I asked everyone to spread out and distribute the weight. I also asked folks to stay away from the edge and just be careful.

The fireworks show was most excellent and I'll be importing and converting the HD video I shot as soon as possible. Until I get that up, here's the raw video footage. There is probably some language and conversations that are NSFW, so apologies in advance. I claim no responsibiilty for the content (audio) portion of the video. Enjoy! We did.