If you have any interest in Nashville, or an inside look at Griffin take a look at this video, it really is well done. Also, I highly recommend the HD version to avoid the stutters and audio sync problems. And, lastly, while you’re watching, keep an eye out for some Griffin / Nashville area Twitterers.

Twitter credits:
created by: @blatherskyte
music by: @tomyarbrough
cameos: @davedelaney / @griffintech, @keydesign, @rvalosik, @webslog, @jmrowland, @bradleyspitzer, @camerondaigle, and probably some others I missed.
sir not appearing in this film: @somegeekintn

Update: It looks like the video has been made private for some reason. I’ll update this if it is made public again.

So, what to do? What to do?

[ time passes ]

I just read this post that Kathy made and how there are now at least four of these sort of meta blog thingies: NiT, About-Nashville, Music City Bloggers, and Metroblogging Nashville. So it could be argued that TN Blog Watch only contributes to the problem. But then I wonder… perhaps these sites already have their audience, and the existing audience is the primary source of material. If that’s the case then is there room for another whose aim is to find those bloggers who aren’t yet showing up on the radar screens of the big four? Well, probably not But, that’s what I’m going to try and do with TBW. It’s either that or abandon it to my junk drawer of ideas. Not sure anything else will fit in that drawer. Besides that I just got finished making it all purty. Not the drawer, the web site. You know. Anyway, with that in mind, if you read someone local that doesn’t seem to show up on any of those sites I mentioned above, be sure and give them a plug on TBW.

You my recall that some time ago I put together a digg clone for local bloggers called losobo. That experiment never really got off the ground for a couple of reasons, but I thought, and so did others, that the general idea was valid. So I’ve site up yet another site called TN Blog Watch. It is also based on the same software, but I’ve restructured that categories and added automatic RSS importing so it won’t have to rely completely on manual input. It can also form the basis for local RSS aggregation if it does nothing else.

Of course if TN Blog Watch ends up as a nothing more than a glorified aggregator, I’ll be a little disappointed. The idea is for TN Blog Watch and Music City Bloggers to form a symbiotic relationship. TN Blog Watch will gather posts and the editors and could use the Live page to take the pulse of the community by watching what is being voted and commented on. It’s also hoped that the live page or the Upcoming page could live in a sidebar over at Music City Bloggers.

Like any site, TN Blog Watch is useless without people. To reach its true potential, it needs people to vote for and discuss those posts that are really interesting. I’m also really excited that TN Blog Watch includes community comment moderation. If you are a regular from NiT, you may recall one post in particular where trolls got out of hand, but there was no way to moderate some of the very nasty comments. That won’t happen here.

If you need a little more info, please take a look at the TN Blog Watch about page. I look forward to seeing everyone there.

One other little note: If you would like to add your Tennessee blog to the list of those being watched, please send email to admin at tnblogwatch dot com and ask to be added to the RSS feed importer.

Yesterday there were some videos posted on NiT which showed a man riding a scooter with his dog (Sandy) riding pillion. The post is titled Someone Call PETA and included the phrase “another video of that same awesome dog riding on the freeway with his boneheaded owner”. Well it turns out that I know this “bonehead”, or more accurately, I know of him. He is an active contributer to the BurgmanUSA forums and we’d exchanged a couple emails awhile back. Now I figured I’d let him know about the post so he could tell his side of the story and leave it at that. But, I was so impressed with his (Bill Meek) and Phil’s response, I just had to repost them here.

Bill’s response:

The only boneheads are the ones out of the road endangering us while riding. In over 23,000 miles, the only time Sandy’s came off the bike on the road is when some idiot hit us while trying to take a picture with a cell phone looking out the passenger window. If I notice anyone driving and trying to take a picture at the same time, I WILL move away from them. If you want a picture, flag me over and I gladly stop to let you safely take photos.

Sandy’s riding abilities are beyond what you might imagine. She uses the passenger backrest (with a specific position to place her butt) to allow us to accelerate and uses my back or shoulders to brace against during hard braking. And “yes”, we’ve done MANY panic stops in her 23,000 miles of riding. Sandy also leans into curves just like any good passenger should and it was pointed out to me by another rider that she watches the road ahead and switches sides before we reach the curve to be in the correct position to lean.

I’ve been asked why I don’t strap her to the bike? For the same reason you don’t where a seatbelt when riding a motorcycle: In case of an accident, you must be able to get away from the bike. If strapped to the bike, it’ll drag you down the road with it. And if the bike high-sides, there’s a good chance of a flip that will crush you if you can’t separate from the bike.

If you read the second thread Casey posted you’ll notice that I don’t suggest other people try this. Before Sandy ever sat directly on the seat, she’d already ridden over 5,000 miles in the box learning her unique sense of balance required to ride pillion. The only reason she was moved to the seat is when she got to be (about) 30 pounds, moving quickly from one side of the box to the other would move the entire bike on the road. I spent time testing and retraining Sandy to ride pillion including buying a Corbin seat so the pillion seat was ‘dished out’ rather than humped providing her a better place to sit.

Do I think riding a motorcycle is safe? No… but we all assume some risk with many things that we do in life. You have to balance the risk with the joy you get from the fun things you do and Sandy certainly enjoys riding the Burgman. The Burgman is not just a “fun thing to ride” for us. It’s our primary transportation. How else would she have ridding that many miles and yet is only 2 years old?

Don’t waste your time calling PETA. They’re the type of people that would intentionally try to run both of use of the road… for (ahem) Sandy’s well being. Instead you may call the Lawrence County Animal Welfare League (931-231-0996) who works with the local Sheriff’s department to prosecute animal cruelty cases where I live. Be sure to say that, “Sandy the dog says HI!” If you really want to make a difference in a dogs life, go out and volunteer some of your time to a local pound or shelter and help dogs that need a good home FIND a good home. Or better yet, adopt a dog and PROVIDE it a good home.

Bill and Sandy

Phil’s response:

I’ve personally known Sandy since she was quite small. In fact, if memory serves, I met her a day or two after Bill found her crying under his back porch, in a cold rain, about six weeks old and dying of hypothermia and starvation. She’d been dumped, like so many other unwanted puppies, and was so traumatized that Bill actually had to disassemble the porch in order to get her to come out, again in the dark and a steady, cold rain.

When I first met Sandy, Bill hadn’t even named her yet. He asked my opinon as to whether or not he ought to keep her, and I said I thought they were a perfect match. I should mention in passing here that Bill is hardly wealthy. He’s got a severe physical disabilty that prevents him from sitting for any period of time in what the rest of us might call a “normal” position, and draws a small pension that is just about his only source of income. While he can ride in an ordinary car for very short distances, after a few miles he begins to experience severe pain. His scooter’s seating position, however, is quite tolerable. Thus, by no choice of his own, Bill rides his scooter pretty much everywhere he goes, year-round.

This included Sandy’s first rides to the vet, when she was still just a tiny thing. he had no other way to transport her, so she rode the scooter. I was present on many of these early rides, and it was clear that Sandy absolutely loved the exerence. When she outgrew her box and began riding in the manner she does today, it was pretty clear to me that she was fully as capable of holding her seat as most humans.

What is perhaps most important to understand here is the bond that has grown up between Sandy and Bill. They are closer than any dog/owner combo I’ve ever known. he would never do anything that he believes would put her at excessive risk. Sandy has learned a whole bagful of tricks, and it’s clear as one watches her perform that she performs them out of love for her master. In turn, Bill has reorganized his whole life around Sandy, in a way that most dogs can only dream their owners might do for them. Excepting time in stores and restaurants, they are together pretty much 24/7, and both seem quite happy with the arrangement. Bill and Sandy have also entertained hundreds if not thousands of bystanders with their antics.

I’ll admit that at first I had some doubts about the wisdom of all this. I even voiced my opinion to Bill, and we discussed the matter in some depth. But, in the end, a near-miss of my own while riding (someone in a full-sized pickup decided they wanted to share a lane with me at 70 MPH on I-65) helped me put the whole thing in persepective. First, Sandy wouldn’t be alive at all without Bill; the first thing he ever did upon meeting her was to save her life. Second, Sandy isn’t taking many chances that humans don’t routinely take in the name of their love of motorbikes. No, she doesn’t have a helmet, and that’s unfortunate. But lots of humans ride without them (where legal), and if there was one avalable for her I’m sure Bill would buy one and make Sandy use it. She loves motorcycling as much as any grizzled old Harley rider. We accept that humans are allowed to take risks in the name of pleasure and excitement, or else no one would be allowed to climb mountains or skydive. So, why not dogs? Thirdly, I think Sandy’s thick fur coat constitutes pretty good crash gear, certainly better than anything I can buy for myself at the motrcycle shop. And fourth…

Well… This one’s kind of hard to explain. But I for one am tired of living in a world where everyne is so terrified of risk. We are mortl beings, and every one of us (dogs included)is going to die. Most dogs will have known no more than the confines of their backyards and maybe a little park they get to go “walkies” in twice a week. Sandy, however, will have known the freedom of the wind in her fur, the world speeding buy, and the smiling faces of thousands of admirers. Who is to say that this is not worth risking a shortened lifespan for?

So, I’ve made my peace with Sandy’s riding style. I’ve ridden a long way with her, and she’s as good a biking buddy as a man can ask for. And Bill, who volunteers hlping out a local animal humane group from time to time, rides to and from their meetings with Sandy on pillion. These animal lovers, kowing all the facts, raise no objection.

In my book, the people who try and keep large breed dogs in tiny apartments, locking them in all day and then neglecting them all evening, are animal abusers. Bill Meek, whether you agree with his choices regarding sandy or not, is no such thing.

Now to be fair, Brittney responded that the headline was a joke (no word on whether “boneheaded owner” bit was a joke as well). But, I’m not posting this not to demonstrate that Bill is right. Makes me a bit nervous to be honest. Rather, I found the story of Bill and Sandy and their love for one another and motorcycles so compelling I wanted to post it here on its own.

You might interpret these actions as cheating, but take a look at this email sent to all the wild card entrants from the Nashville Flugtag flight control:

Hey Wild Cards!!!


Here is a link that you an send to friends and family to vote for you!!!!


http://redbulli.com/flugtagNashvilleWildcard/wildcard.html


Also- I found a sneaky way for you to vote for yourselves more! There are cookies that are enabled in your computer which is how Red Bull can tell if you’ve voted that day or not. If you clear your cookies you can vote over and over again for yourselves!


Let me know if you need anything else!


Good luck guys!

All of the other teams are using this information to their advantage, and so no one was worried that they might be casting any illegal votes.

At the time I posted yesterday, our total stood around 13%. Shortly before lunchtime today we were threatening to overtake the 2nd place team with around 24% of the vote. Thanks to you all that made that happen… however, the folks running the show over at Red Bull have decided to eliminate all of our votes from yesterday plus hundreds more for good measure. Our percentage dropped all the way down to 9%! In addition it seems they’ve blocked votes coming from certain versions of Firefox running under Mac OS X. Obviously Griffin is pretty big in the Mac world so this is a pretty big handicap to overcome.

Despite Red Bull already having crowned the New York team as the winners, I’m not quite ready to concede just yet.

Barring a last minute come back, it looks like the Griffin Flugtag Team will not be the Wild Card entrant into this year’s Nashville Flugtag event at Riverfront Park. Adding insult to insult the injury, the team that is currently leading the pack is not from Nashville, or even Tennessee. The Halo 2 Ghostbike team is from Ellicottville*, New York!

Come on Nashville, we have until Friday (May 18) to turn this around. So please, take a moment (or several) to vote Nashville and vote for the Phalanger. Or if you simply must, vote for one of the other local entrants.

Oh and one other item. Although it says you are limited to one vote a day, if you disable cookies on your web browser, you can vote as many times as you like. We suspect that is how the team from New York has managed to pull so far ahead of the rest of the pack.

* Ellicottville is technically about as far away from New York City as you can get and still be in New York state, but still.

A group of cube neighbors here at Griffin have submitted a design for the Red Bull Flugtag event being held in Nashville this summer, and that design is among four others being considered as the final entrant! I would so very much like to see these guys plunge into the Cumberland River on June 23… assuming the whole thing doesn’t collapse spectacularly, which would be just as good really. Please take a moment to visit the wild card voting page and vote for the Phalanger. We are really way behind at the moment, but if we win, I’ll give everybody a nickle*! That’s Phalanger!

*Not really, but please vote for us anyway?

This weather we are having lately confuses and frightens me. 70 degrees and it’s January 4th. Looking at Ye Old Almanac, I see that today’s temperature may very well be a record. Why we haven’t seen temperatures like these since way back in… er… 1998 when it reached 69 degrees.

Now I really don’t know the details of the whole global warming debate and today’s data amounts to nothing more than a statistical blip. But thinking back about the odd weather over the past few years does tend to raise an eyebrow.

Still, it’s hard to get too bent out of shape when it’s gorgeous and sunny out when it should be cold, gray and miserable. I just hope it doesn’t translate to 105-110 degree days come August.