Helped set up and strike a fireworks show at Dixie Speedway in Woodstock this past Saturday. It’s the smallest of the three to four shows I’ll be working on this year, but got some sweet pictures. A couple of these are courtesy my lovely girlfriend Annie. Thanks for shooting the other camera for me :)
More shots after the jump.
Recently I’ve been making posts on NASA and space exploration quite a bit, and I don’t think I ever shared with everyone the awesomeness that was the launch. Needless to say it was quite an experience. I’d love to go shoot the launch again sometime soon - that opportunity probably comes next time Doug Wheelock goes up. He was roommates with Mr. Parker - a good friend of ours - at West Point. Wheels went up on STS-120 and hopefully gets scheduled for another flight here soon.
STS-120
Enjoy the pic!
I promised more a couple days ago on the link between the Mars Phoenix rover and Georgia Tech. This is of particular interest to me because I would LOVE to get involved in this industry, even as a marketing/management guy.
The second-in-command on the Phoenix project is David Spencer, a 17 year veteran of the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. After the Mars Phoenix project winds down, Spencer packs his bags and heads to Atlanta to join the School of Aerospace Engineering as a faculty member. At Tech they’ll be starting a Center for Space Systems, where students get hands-on experience with space systems and flight project work. If you want to see what Spencer’s role is on the Phoenix project, check this out. Spencer also ran Deep Impact, where a probe was crashed into a comet.
It’ll be cool to have someone like David at Georgia Tech, where we’ve produced several astronauts (including Doug Wheelock, who I got to see take off on STS-120 last October). Welcome, David - looking forward to having you in Georgia. If you read this, email me - I’d love to pick your brain on how non-AE students can get involved in some of the projects you guys are doing this.
Colin
Let me start off by saying I have respect for those who have gone before me, but I am sick and tired of people using tradition as a crutch for a lack of being able to compete.
There are so many professionals in any walk of life who hate the young’uns who are undercutting them. They lash out with things like “don’t do stuff for free, you’ll ruin all of us,” and start ripping on anyone who is doing comparable work at a cheaper price.
You know what? If you can’t compete, you won’t survive. We shouldn’t encourage those who can’t compete to continue to exist. All we get is whining and complaining about the young whippersnappers who are stealing business. Quite frankly - if you can’t differentiate your product successfully to your client from the cheaper competition, then you’re worthless. Or worth less. Definitely the latter, probably the former. You’re definitely worth less than you think you are, and you’re likely worthless as a businessman.
Whether you’re a writer, a photographer, an artist, a cook, or a consultant, if you can’t differentiate, you won’t survive. And I’m sick of hearing “you shouldn’t charge less than me - I’m better at this than you are.” If you can’t compete at my profit margin, and you can’t convince potential clients that you’re worth the additional price, then your prices are straight up too high. It’s economics. The free market.
Here’s a quote from an actor/writer in a rant video:
“I get so angry about this, because you’re undercut by all the amateurs. It’s the amateurs that make it tough for all the professionals.”
What it comes down to is - if you can’t differentiate your product to the client enough that they’re willing to pay the big dollars, you’re going to have to charge less. Times change. Things will not stay the same, and if you cannot adapt to the new business environment, you will die. You’re facing the same problem steel companies in America are facing - and if you can’t handle it, you’re a worse businessman than you’d like to believe.
Buck up and start adapting. And never get comfortable in your surroundings. Always adapt. Always change. Always build flexibility into your business plan.
That goes for us young bucks who want to start companies or make money for ourselves. Don’t get too compfortable, the world we live in could be rocked at any moment.
Take care,
Colin
If you’re into the exploration that’s going on over on the red planet (Mars), you may want to be in the loop. If you register a Twitter account, check out @MarsPhoenix - or http://twitter.com/marsphoenix - for updates on the Mars Phoenix mission. They found ice water and announced it - on Twitter - a few days ago, and now they’ve run some soil tests and are expected to release the results of those today. You may see those first on @NASAFolkLife - or www.twitter.com/nasafolklife - since that’s the festival in DC that they’re announcing results from. Somewhere around 2:15 PM EST.
This is cool stuff. Could prove very useful in the future to people who want to visit Mars. Although I’d imagine that’s a lonely trip, being millions of miles away from other people.
Anyways, check out @MarsPhoenix, or http://twitter.com/marsphoenix - it’s sweet to be attached to the mission like this in real time.
Speaking of this mission, there’s a new connection between Georgia Tech and this mission - but I’ll blog about that soon.
Keep rockin’ - oh, and comment. And how bout them dawgs? :)
Colin
Lance was processing our bills for the month yesterday and ran across a bill that proves it’s summer. Instead of a $80-90 power bill, we paid nearly $180 this past month - and it’s not even super hot yet. What can we do to keep this bill down?
We’ve been turning the AC down when we leave so when we’re not there the house is warmer, and turning it back on at night - does that save energy or waste more when the AC tries to catch up with sudden thermostat changes?
Should we just learn to sleep in the heat instead of turning it back down to 76 or 75 at night?
How do you save energy in the summer?
Found this new comment handler called IntenseDebate over lunch - through the TechStars website. TechStars finances small startups by giving the winners of a competition free office space, free funding, and free legal/networking services to work for a summer before pitching the idea to investors, all in exchange for 5% of the company. Pretty nifty concept.
IntenseDebate is one such company - they handle comments differently than the normal WordPress comment system. Take a look and comment as to whether you like or dislike it. It’s a pretty cool system.
Thanks to Michael from IntenseDebate for stopping by and saying hi. I love it when companies are small enough to allow their people to do that.
UGA is playing Fresno State for the College World Series. My extended family (bless their poor souls) are UGA fans. If you’re not aware, I go to Georgia Tech, and we hate UGA. I pull for two teams - Georgia Tech and whoever’s playing UGA. I grew up that way, and the rest of the school is that way. That’s how a rivalry works.
Now when I mentioned I was pulling for Fresno State, I got the normal “I’d be pulling for Tech if they were still playing,” line. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that line. The Parkers give me a hard time about it - Mr. P went to West Point and Matt went to the Air Force Academy, and I can see how they pull for each other’s schools when they’re not playing - they have a common bond in military service. I heard it when I refused to pull for UGA over Hawaii, no matter what the odds. But for GT and UGA, there’s nothing more that I want in college sports than for UGA to be completely irrelevant. In fact, I want UGA to be ranked preseason #1 in football. That way there’s nowhere for them to go but down in the rankings, disappointment saddening their fans.
I’ll give you a rivalry - it’s so intense at GT that we want UGA to lose no matter who they’re playing. That’s animocity between two schools. None of this “we’ll pull for you when you’re not playing us” crap. It’s hardcore. There’s a reason they call the football game “Good, clean, old fashioned hate.”
That’s a rivalry. Go Fresno State.
What industry would be cooler to be in than the space industry?
I saw this CNN article on a new Google Lunar X Prize. $20mil to the first privately funded group to put a rover on the moon, travel 500 meters, and send back pictures, data, and video.
How cool is that?
If I had the choice of any job in the world - it’d be lending my skills towards a team doing something nobody had done before. Private space exploration would be the most exhilirating project ever.
This is officially my application - if anyone out there needs someone who knows IT, knows marketing, and loves a challenge, call me. If I could do anything, being a part of a team doing this would be amazing.
I think the coolest thing would be going to work every day and realizing how incredibly small and insignificant I am. I’d work for free on something like this.
