Koni Challenge Debut This Weekend

Well, I'm off in a few minutes to lovely Canada. I'll be racing in the Koni Challenge race on Saturday at 1:30PM, EDT. You can follow the action online here. No TV for this race as of now, but it may be tape delayed later. I'll be partnered with Jason Saini, so look for one of us in the results (it should be listed with both names, but I have no idea what order they'll use).

Because we share the road with teens...

...let's make sure they can drive. Driver's Education classes don't cut it. More must be done. Seeing this project get funding is one way we can help. Kudos to The Tire Rack for sponsoring this project thus far. Let's get some free money for it from American Express, too!

Did you know?

Did you know the same person who wrote Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" was also the voice of "Chef" on the popular (and adult themed) "South Park" on Comedy Central? That was Isaac Hayes, who died today at the age of 65. Rest in peace, Chef. You will be missed on many levels. Your body of work speaks for itself.

Olympics Wish List

Just once I'd like to be watching the Olympics and when an American wins I want them to play the Jimi Hendrix version of the Star Spangled Banner. Just once.

Good Times on the Lake

So, Matt, John, Alan, and I are at the lake for the weekend having a little fun. Maybe too much fun. We hooked up the Manta-Ray behind the Waverunner and played a good bit with everyone taking turns before we got Matt on there with Alan driving. John was filming and I was driving the chase boat.

Matt got some good air before falling into the side of the Manta-Ray. Then he sort of gets stuck there and Alan wouldn't stop to let him up. Youtube isn't the greatest, but you can see his legs flailing. We've had lots of other good crashes and big air, but this is some of the better footage we got of air.

Another movie review double feature!

I guess I watch them in pairs. Got both of these watched while traveling on airplanes this past week. Man, I love that iPod Touch!

First up is Dan in Real Life. This is sort of a combination of a chick flick and long Seinfeld episode. It has some of the most awkward moments in it you can imagine. I mean I was almost in physical pain for the guy a couple times. It was that well done. I definitely recommend this one. Funny, warm, and well written.


Next up is The Great Debaters. This is a Harpo Productions film, which means Oprah had a big part in it. It's an excellent story of civil rights in the south, and has some amazing acting in it. It's a little bit long, but don't let that scare you. Totally worth the investment. I do think some of the wardrobe and setting was a tad over the top, but all in all it was a great movie.

Who owns your internet identity?

To answer this question, first we must define what your "internet identity" really even is. Is it your blog? Your web page? Your custom domain name? Well, technically it could be any or all of that and then some. But what I'm talking about is your email address. Seems relatively simple, doesn't it? Sure, but there are a lot of issues that people don't think about when it comes to how important their email address is.

Who owns your email address? You think you do? You might or you might not, it depends on the address. For example, everyone uses some sort of Internet Service Provider (ISP) to connect to the internet. In most cases that's your cable TV company or your telephone company via cablemodem or DSL. Many people use the email address that their ISP provides.

Many people also have internet access at work and were given an email address there so they use that for everything. And still others sign up for "free" email hosting at places like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, and even AOL (most started with AOL addresses when they had that as their dialup ISP but kept the AOL address after moving to some sort of high speed internet). A few folks use hosting services to register their own domain and then use those services (or even their own server somewhere) to host their email.

But none of that answers the question I asked of who owns your email address, does it? Nope. But it should make it a little more obvious that maybe you don't. Let's start with the places you should not use for your personal email. The worst two places I can think of are your ISP and your employer. How many people have the same ISP or the same employer forever? Not many. These things change. Why tie your personal life to a company that can terminate you or that you may want to terminate for a cheaper alternative? Don't do it. There are options.

The best thing to do is have a personal account either on your own server or hosting service (complicated, but if you want to truly own it, this is the best way) or go sign up for one of the free services. Which one? The best one I know of is Gmail. Hotmail is owned by Microsoft. Enough said. AOL is a strange company with a shaky foundation. Okay, I suppose, but they often have technical issues and don't always play well with other services. Yahoo! is likely to get bought by Microsoft, and even if not, they aren't much better than AOL in the technical department. Google is behind Gmail, and seem to be the best "steward" of free email services. They play very nicely with other services.

But why does this matter? Because your email address, unfortunately, really is your internet identity. When you sign up for a web forum or online banking or buy products online, everything is tied to your email address. Even if you select an actual "user id" on the system you're signing up for, that really gets tied to your email address because that's the only way you can retrieve or reset a lost password. What happens if you forget your password on an account you've signed up for but you've switched ISPs and thus email addresses in the meantime? You might be able to have your old ISP forward email, but what about a job change for those of you who use your work email? Most companies don't forward email for you simply because they don't want something work related getting out into the wild by accident. And guess what? You no longer work there and are thus now "in the wild" yourself, as far as they are concerned.

Gmail is free. They simply use keyword target advertising to have very easy to ignore advertisements on the sidebar of the web interface. But you can still use popular clients like the Mac Mail application, Outlook, Thunderbird, etc, to access Gmail and skip the ads. Google provides client applications for Blackberrys and other smart phones, too. And you can always log in via the web from anyone's computer. Yes, you are submitting your identity to the trust of Google, but for now I feel like that's a safe thing to do. Completely safe? No. But much safer than AOL, your employer, or your ISP.