First off, welcome to my new website. You might be thinking, it looks the same. But trust me, a LOT has changed behind the scenes. Last week, I made the leap and left my longtime host, Doteasy, and CMS, Blogger, and moved my site to Dreamhost and Wordpress. Why did I make the change? As of March 26, Blogger is no longer supporting FTP publishing.

Warning: extremely geeky and lengthy post ahead. Back in 2001, I opened an account on Blogger and started typing away. I first hosted the site for free on tripod.com. Once they force placed ads onto my site, I bought my own domain name and hosted the site at doteasy.com. It was a pretty good deal, you buy your domain name through Doteasy and they provide free hosting. I had Blogger publish updates via FTP and also hosted a couple static pages. To make edits to the static pages and make updates to the site, I accessed my server via FTP. Blogger also published new posts to my site via FTP. So now that Blogger was canceling FTP support, I had to look for a new web host.

I didn’t start off my search looking for a new host, I started by looking for a new CMS. There were only a couple solutions I looked at; Movable Type, Tumblr, and WordPress. I didn’t give MT too much of a shot at all. Tumblr was a little too simple in my opinion. I did have a tiny bit of experience working on a WordPress blog in the past so naturally I went with that. As for my host, I chose Dreamhost because they have reasonable hosting fees and offered one click installation of WordPress.

Once I got familiar with how WP was set up, I backed up my old site, imported my Blogger posts into WP and made sure all the aspects of the old site made it to the new one. It wasn’t perfect. For some reason, about 16 months worth of posts from 2003-2005 weren’t imported. I ended up manually putting them back in which was not fun at all. I still need to finish a few things up, mainly the photos page. Most of the albums I posted were really old HTML (can you say iframes?) and some of the newer ones I just linked to their respective albums on my Flickr page. Once I figure out how I want to display them, I’ll put them back up. I also need to get a real links page up as well. I just need to make a few tweaks here and there but the main content, the blog, is good to go.

Enjoy.

How Sony Lost Its Way

Sony became spoiled. For decades, a success in a new media format meant that Sony could expect to make money selling the media itself.

This is the EXACT reason why I don’t like Sony. It all started with their digital cameras. Sure they made sexy hardware but I have to use a MemoryStick? You mean I can’t use the SD card I used in my Canon? The PSP looks cool but if I want to watch movies on it, I have to buy a UMD? Sure they won with Blu-Ray but I don’t think it’ll be as successful as the DVD since I believe we will consume all our entertainment over the Internet some day. The author summed it up best by saying that Sony is “an also-ran who wants to be respected like a market leader.”

The Register:

Start-up airline Virgin America has decided HTML is “good enough” for animating online content on its brand-new website, which went live Monday, dumping Flash.

I thought I’d take a moment and update everyone on my marathon training. I unofficially started training at the beginning of the year when I got my Nike+iPod sensor. This is seriously the best marriage of technology and fitness. I’d love to do a review of my own at some point. I’m up to running 6 miles at barely under a 9 minute per mile pace.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m running the San Diego Rock ‘N’ Roll marathon coming up this June. Two weeks ago, we had our summer season kick off meeting. I had no idea how big of a deal this was until I walked into the gym. Just the OC/IE marathon group was almost 90 people. There were probably almost 200 people combined doing different events. And all of us are training to raise money for LLS.

Our first official training was this past Saturday and if you remember, it was raining that morning. Marathons are held rain or shine and so are our practices. It was only 2 miles so it wasn’t too bad but I was soaked by the end of the run. The thing that struck me about Team in Training is how friendly everyone is. I joined not only to complete a marathon but I figured this would be a good opportunity to meet people. TNT makes it very easy to meet people who are not only really friendly, but they are also into running and being in, or getting into, good shape. I finally got to meet my assigned mentor, Paul, who is planning to run SIX marathons this year! I also met John who is training for his third marathon overall. This coming weekend is our 3 mile run and also our shoe clinic where we have the option of getting properly fitted for shoes. Even though the practices are early on Saturdays and it keeps my from going out on Fridays, I know that once I cross that finish line, it’ll all be worth it.

I’m up to almost $300 in my fundraising efforts and I’d like to thank everyone who has already donated. I need a long way to go before I reach my goal. As an incentive to get you all to donate, I came up with a way that might motivate you to donate. I’ve decided to put up my body for sale as advertising. Similar to NASCAR, depending on how much you donate, I’ll write your name on a part of my body. Here’s how I decided to break it down.

• $50: Name placement on my leg
• $100: Name placement on my arm
• $250: Name placement on my cheek (On my face!)
• $500: Name placement on my forehead
• $1000: I’ll shave my head and place your name on my head (!)

I’ll use Sharpie, nothing permanent, but I thought it would be a great way to recognize my donors. And for those that have donated already, I’ll grandfather you in. If you haven’t donated, please go to my fundraising page and help out however you can. I’d like to meet my goal and concentrate on training. Thanks for checking in and I’ll post more updates and pictures soon!

January 22nd marked the end of Conan O’Brien’s short run of host of The Tonight Show. The entire NBC debacle made a lot of noise in the media and I’m not going to add to it here. This is just to merely share something that Conan fans may not have seen.

Conan O’Brien gave the commencement speech in 2000 at his alma mater, Harvard. The quality of the video isn’t great, but he talks about his years at Harvard, his early years in LA and gives the graduates overall great advice.

And this 3rd clip shows Conan backstage during a show rehearsal. It looks like they’re in between segments and it seems like they’re going over some bit they plan to do on a show but I don’t know if he knows he’s being filmed. I like this clip because it shows Conan in a natural setting. Enjoy.

The earliest we’ll see him back is September of 2010. As a fan of his since The Simpsons, I can’t wait.

Running a marathon has always been a personal goal of mine. This past Christmas, my cousins and I talked about running the San Diego Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon this year on June 6th. I like to think I’m in good shape and every so often, I’ll run a couple of miles to get cardio into my workout. The longest I have run in one workout was 6 miles. I know with proper training, I’m confident I can complete the 26.2 miles in a marathon.

While I was researching on how to properly train for a marathon, I ran into The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. TNT is the world’s first, largest and best charity sports program. They provide very structured marathon preparation and expert training all for free. In exchange for this, I have agreed to raise funds for LLS.

My personal goal is to raise $2,620, (a marathon is 26.2 miles, $100 per mile) by March 12th. When I decided to run this marathon, I was doing it to fulfill a personal goal of mine. But now that I’m involved with TNT, I’m running to help thousands of people who are suffering from leukemia or other forms of cancer and to raise funds for blood cancer research and patient aid. I am also running in honor of my Mom, who is a breast cancer survivor and in memory of her sister, my Auntie Alice Jamero. You can help me in this cause by donating to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

The EASIEST way to donate is through my fundraising website. My SDRNR Fundraising Page is set up to make it easy to make your tax-deductible donation. I have also added a badge in the sidebar showing my progress and it also includes a link to my fundraising site. Once you click “Donate Now” you’ll receive email confirmation and a tax receipt.

Thanks for visiting my blog and reading this post. It’s not often that I reach out and ask for this type of feedback and support on my blog, but this is something that I truly believe in. There is no minimum to donate, you can donate whatever you’re comfortable with. If you can’t, no worries. I know times are tough but they can’t be any more difficult than what people who are suffering from these diseases are going through. If you have questions, you can leave a comment or email me at jaytorres at gmail dot com.

Thank you all for your support.

If you would’ve told me at the beginning of the year that everything about my life would be completely different by the end of the year, I would have a hard time believing you.

Two weeks into 2009, I was laid off. I invested four and a half years into a job where I worked my way up from an afterthought hire to an inside sales assistant to a fully commissioned outside sales engineer. I completely remember the events of that day.

I got an email from my boss asking if I was going to be around after our weekly Friday sales meeting saying that he had some things to discuss. My boss NEVER asks to speak with me. He pretty much let me do my own thing and occassionally he’d stick his head into my office making sure I WASN’T there and I was out visiting clients. So when I got his email, along with rumors of layoffs, I couldn’t help but freak out.

After talking to a coworker, I grew the balls to go in and ask him if we could talk about it immediately as I couldn’t stand to obsess over what he needed to talk to me about overnight. As soon as I walked in and brought up the email, he quickly said, “No, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.” I even asked if he could tell me what it was about. At this point my voice was quivering and I was breaking into a sweat. Again I got, “Nope. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” What. The. Fuck.

By now, I pretty much knew what all this meant. Later that day at around 4pm, he stopped by my office as he usually does but instead of just checking in, he came inside and closed the door behind him. He ended up doing the decent thing by letting me know I was getting laid off since he knew that I wasn’t stupid and that I probably figured out what was going on. So he gave me all my papers the day before and spared me the humiliation of having to clean out my office the next day in front of all my coworkers. In the end, being laid off wasn’t so bad. I got unemployment, I was able to find a new job quickly and with the time off I was able to take a “vacation”.

Shortly after starting my new job, I took the leap and decided to move into an apartment on my own. No longer would I be living in a frathouse-style living arrangement. I’d be paying the rent and the utilities all by myself. I found a great move in special in the Artists Village area in Downtown Santa Ana. In retrospect, it was totally an impulse move and if I sat down longer to think about it, I wouldn’t have done it, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. I enjoy having an entire space to myself and the bars and restaurants that are within walking distance are about as unique as you’ll find in Orange County.

Those were the two biggest changes for me in 2009 but a lot of other things happened as well. I snowboarded for the first time in Mammoth. I had my own housewarming party. I attended two weddings this year. My good friend, and old coworker, Christian got married in August. And my parallel Van literally had her dream wedding in Washington, D.C. in September. Two more of my close friends got engaged in 2009 so that’s at least two weddings to look forward to in 2010. Throw in a Vegas trip, a camping trip, and multiple drives down to San Diego and that pretty much describes how I spent 2009.

I found out first hand that A LOT can change in one year. Here’s to looking forward to all the changes and events I’ll encounter in the next year.

For Thanksgiving, my family went on a 7 day cruise to the Mexican Riviera. We had three stops in Acapulco, Zihuatanejo and Manzanillo. As my first experience on the cruise, I thought it was a great experience overall. The unlimited food is a concept that I had to get used to at first but it didn’t take me long. I was ordering room service late at night just because it was there. That said, 7 days on a boat is a little bit too long. Once we left the last port at Manzanillo, I realized it would be TWO full days before we got back to port in San Diego. I would definitely do it again but would opt for a 4 or 5 day cruise instead.

My Friday night.

Great selection of beer and home of the best burger. Ever.

Eight years ago this month, I signed up for a Blogger account and started this website. I always take time to commemorate this because I’m actually proud that I’ve maintained and updated something throughout the years. However, there was a point in 2008 where I didn’t post from May until November. That was the longest stretch of inactivity for this site. Since then, I’ve made an effort to post more updates. I’ve been pretty consistent by posting at least once a month and I even got around to that long, LONG awaited redesign. It’s safe to say that this design is probably the one I’m most proud of, which might not be THAT pretty, but not bad considering I consider all this a hobby.

While I still have no “real” direction for this site, I’d like to post even more frequently than once a month. As sort of an experiment, I’d like to see how many people I can get to read this site through Twitter. I’ve noticed that whenever I announce new updates through Twitter, page views spike. That’s obviously a no brainer but it’s a lot harder to come up with content to write about than it seems. When I was in college and did this for fun, all I wrote about was all the mundane things I did during the day. Nowadays I write more about things I take interest in, mostly Apple, tech stuff and the occasional interesting web link that I’ll post and then add my own thoughts. I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing for the past year but with a little more frequency. Previously, when I’ve solely used Twitter to post interesting links that I find, I’ll try to post them to my site first, then add my comments and blast that link to my site over Twitter. I’ve seen some bloggers/Twitterers do this already so I’ll try doing that for awhile.

In 8 years, I’ve written 347 posts. Here are some of my personal favorites.

Best Camera
I particularly like this post because it was the first time that I considered any of the pictures that I took as art and posted them as art. The great thing is that they’re from my camera phone. I don’t even use a traditional point and shoot anymore.

2004 Year in Review
This started the yearly tradition of going over everything that happened in the past year.

Guest Blogger
The first and only time I’ve had someone else author a post on my site.

Well I Guess This Is Growing Up
My favorite thing I’ve ever written on this site, not only because of all the reaction it got on Twitter, but of the subject matter and relevance to my life at the time.