Archive for December, 2008

So Long 2008

Dec 31, 2008 Information


Downtown Phoenix from Above

Originally uploaded by phxwebguy

As we make it through the last day of the year, I would like to say thank you to everyone that has stopped by. I have kind of been all over the place trying to manage multiple blogs and to craft content that is applicable to each. So, what I plan on doing is really making a point to keep it that way.

What do I mean by that? What I am talking about is keeping the personal stream of consciousness both here and the old blogger site, baseball at AZ Hardball and project related summaries at a location to be named later. I know that it has been a while since I posted here but, I think that I will try to add this to some type of rotation.

2008 ended with a bang for me. I have met tons of new friends through networking, been able to keep the business profitable and maintained my health. What more can you ask for? I would like to say a special thank you to my family, who has been extremely patient with me over the last year. It has been a busy year for me and they have been extremely supportive.

Until next year, the very best to you and yours. Cheers, Paul

Phoenix Light Rail Grand Opening Celebration

Dec 28, 2008 Information, Phoenix

The grand opening of the Phoenix Metro Light Rail was a pretty good time. I had a lot of fun going across town, meeting friends and discovering new parts of the cities. In my eyes, the event was a success. There have been some interesting comments in regards to how people are judging success due to the fact that the trains we simply packed with people. At some stops it was hard to get off at times and other stations were pretty much vacant.

It was awesome to see such a great turnout and it remains to be seen how the new light rail will benefit the Valley transportation. I believe that the Light Rail is a great addition to the Metro area and I am excited to see how it evolves.

This video contains some clips that I was able to get before my battery quit on me. There are additional pictures that can be found on my Flickr photostream. Feel free to give those a browse.

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Light Rail Opening This Weekend

Dec 25, 2008 Phoenix

I am really looking forward to the grand opening of the light rail in the Phoenix area. I feel like a kid again every time that I see the train running through the city. This weekend I plan on breaking away from the computer for about a day to make a little excursion to all of the festivities. There plans to be tons of festivities including celebrations at each stop.

Through networking I have had the pleasure of meeting Nick Bastian who heads up the Rail Life blog. He has been working extremely hard to keep us all informed of all of the latest and greatest information about the Light Rail, the cities involved and all of the upcoming events. You can check out his blog at the following location: Rail Life.

The plan is for me to get tons of pictures and such of this really exciting event. Although I may not be able to cover all of the ground, I am looking forward to the opportunity to be able to share the sights of the day with you, my friends and family. Check back as I share some pictures and perhaps some video of the momentous occasion.

Additional information about one of the hilights can be found at the following location:

Leandro Barbosa and RailLife,com Team Up with Tempe Chamber of Commerce!

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7 Things About Paul

Dec 25, 2008 Information

A friend of mine and local SEO guru, Chuck Reynolds, recently passed the torch on to me to describe seven things that people might not otherwise know about me through random conversation or otherwise. I like to think of myself as open and willing to share things about me and my past. I though that this would be a great opportunity to give people a little more insight into who I am than that of a mini bio.

Played Horse with Byron Scott – Current coach of the New Orleans Hornets and former Los Angeles Laker, was close friends with my first High School Principal. Before moving to Arizona, I attended Santa Margarita High School in Southern California. Since I just wanted to play in the gym, some of my “dunk ball” buddies would scrimmage against the Freshman A team. Having performed well, I made the Freshman B team and ended up winning Most Improved Player recognition after not even being on the team for the team photo. I also earned the opportunity to start at our championship game at the Bren Events Center at the University of California, Irvine. Anyhow, we were practicing one night and Byron Scott showed up with the principal. I was there, as were two of my other buddies. We locked the gym and played Horse. I didn’t last very long but, the final two were Byron and the principal. Byron Scott won with a dunk.

High School Drop Out – Kind of… Born and raised in Southern California, I spent my Freshman year with some familiar faces at Santa Margarita High School before my Father transferred to Phoenix. In 1993, I attended Brophy College Preparatory in Central Phoenix and was on the yearbook staff before transferring again to Scottsdale Saguaro. While at Saguaro, I worked three jobs and had my own apartment at the age of 17. I left my Senior year to work full-time before joining the Marines. Since a high school degree was a requirement, I returned in the winter of 1995 to complete my degree and my remaining semester. I received my degree by mail while in Marine Combat Training at Camp Pendleton, California.

Nominated for U.S. Embassy Duty – Some of you may or may not know that I served in the United States Marine Corps. While in the Marines, I was meritoriously promoted to Lance Corporal and ended my enlistment at the rank of Corporal. Having an exemplary record of appearance, military knowledge, leadership training and combat training, I was nominated to guard U.S. Embassies overseas. Guarding a U.S. Embassy requires nomination from two senior officers, peak physical condition, no visible tattoos, excellent marksmanship, a psychiatric evaluation and a top-secret security clearance. Once all of the requirements had been met, I received orders for training at the FBI training facility in Quantico, Virginia. The orders included a 6-year extension which made me think twice about my decision. As it turns out, the training is a lot like the show “Survivor” where you can get voted out by your colleagues only to be stuck with the 6-year extension.

Spent 1999 in Japan – After denying the orders to Embassy duty, I received orders to Mainland Japan where I served in a support detachment at the Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni, Japan. While there I was placed in a unique position that the organization called an X-Man. I was not a comic book hero but a mission critical parts expeditor for the unit in Japan. Basically, I worked stateside hours and would show up to the office from time to time for reporting on procurement progress. The general practice was to find unique ways of saving money and expediting high-priority parts for the unit. As a result of success, the unit experienced a 100% mission readiness rating for two months. Might not sound like a big deal but with thousands of pieces of equipment either in maintenance with all of their parts or deployed in “Theater”, it was a big deal. I was then asked to train neighboring units on my research techniques that involved scouring the World Wide Web.

Have Prosthetic Porcelain Teeth – Seriously… I do. In a basketball accident in 1997, I lost four of my front teeth as a result of the most painful meeting with the basketball hoop’s pole. In a temporary reconstruction effort, my teeth were reconstructed temporarily before arriving in Japan. Japan just happens to be well-know for their military dentistry, second only to San Diego. They were knocked out again with the butt stock of a rifle in 1999, during a training exercise, before finally receiving the full surgery that year. The Navy dentists did a wonderful job.

Part of the Collapsed Arthur Andersen – My first job in the workforce was as a data entry guy. Arthur Andersen had entered the Outsourcing market in 2000 when they began hiring for a service center in Tempe. I saw the position and applied. At the time, I thought that I wanted to remain in Finance and Accounting and that would be an excellent name to have on the resume. I quickly moved from entering banking information to Accounting Analyst, becoming the first Analyst without a degree which caused quite a stir. While there, I designed an online application that would reconcile data transmission detail between General Motor’s vehicle plants and the GM Accounting Information System. The Andersen operation was purchased by Affiliated Computer Services right before I earned my degree in accounting and leaving the organization to be a software project manager for a local eLearning company.

I Have a Huge Family – I have six brothers and sisters and ten nieces and nephews as of this post. There are four sisters, three of which are older and two brothers, one older and one younger. My brothers and sisters are spread between Arizona and California but are a tight-knit group. My parents have been married for over 40 years, put up with some amazing changes in the family throughout the years and live in Scottsdale, Arizona. I love them all and I am blessed to have such an awesome family.

I am also blessed to have such great friends. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I would be interested to learn what surprised you the most. A special thanks to Chuck Reynolds for making me do a little reflection for this post and thank you to all who have supported me and my ventures throughout the years.

Matt Clower (@clowerpower) http://www.clowerpower.com

Xavier De Castillo (@Xavierism) http://xavierism.typepad.com

Tyler Hurst (@tdhurst) http://www.tylerhurst.com

Chris Altman (@ChrisAltman) http://www.chrismadethis.com

Chad Swaney (@chadarizona) http://chadswaney.com

Dean Ouellette (@deanouellette) http://deansellsaz.com

I’ll add the last one later.
These are the rules to play the game:
1.    Link your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
2.    Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
3.    Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4.    Let them know they’ve been tagged.

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Suns and Twitter Equals Fun

Dec 17, 2008 Advertising, Interactive Media

Okay, so how cool is this? I have been a little hooked on Twitter recently and made a ton of new friends and new business acquaintances by using the online application. On my main account you can find random thoughts and happenings on “What I am doing now”. I have had some fun sharing thoughts and exchanging conversations with friends.

For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, it is a micro-blogging tool that is a pretty slick idea that has been sweeping the internet and its social circles for quite sometime. Although I do not consider myself to be a power user, there are so many fun applications such as twit.pix.ly the Twitter avatar battle. This fun app is a spin-off of pix.ly a flickr photo contest application built by obuweb superstar and Phoenix internet entrprenuer Joshua Strebel. (cool guy) An interesting article on the business application of Twitter can be found at Creative Ops.

What do the Suns have to do with this? (Get to the point Paul.)

In the social circle meet up better known as “Tweet-ups” have been formed and are sweeping Phoenix among other places. A group of “Twitteratzzi” better known as PFN can be found sharing the 5th largest city’s fun and downtown nightlife online. The Phoenix Suns, thanks to the help of the Suns Director of Digital Media, @PhoenixSunsGirl, as shes known on twitter and @SunsGroupie, the Direcor of Group Sales, have created a Suns Tweet-up for their fans. For those of you that don’t already know, Shaq is on Twitter as well.

The following are some of the exciting benefits of joining us for the Tweet-up:

  • At 5 pm, we’re all going to get access to the building early, before the general public, to watch players warm up from front row seats.
  • Upon entry each of us is going to receive an exclusive Suns Twitter t-shirt we can wear throughout the game and a Suns player jersey bag.
  • During the game we will all have seats in the same section – Twitterville – to get to know one another.
  • After the game, we will all go down to the official Suns Practice Court to mingle and possibly even meet a surprise Suns personality.

More information can be found at the official website of the Phoenix Suns.

Suns Tweetup

I am totally excited about the game and I am looking forward to seeing familiar faces and some new. Come join us as we cheer on the Suns as they take on the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Finally, if you are not already, feel free to follow me on Twitter @phxwebguy.

Cheers Phoenix and Go Suns!

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