Met Teddy Riley & Miguel Angel Rodriguez

Tonite at Arroyo (in Arcadia, CA). While posts like these are rare, I was overly-impressed by how nice, easy-going & humble they both were. Of course, my phone's on the fritz so couldn't take a pic w/Teddy Riley (/sigh) but my boy Obie was with me later & Mr. Miguel Angel Rodriguez was nice enough to grace me with a picture (boy is my mom going to be happy about that as it is one of her favorite artists).

Good music + good friends + (unexpected) down-to-earth folks = a good night!

I chose a CMS

So after checking out all the rest, I think I chose the best: Drupal! While I made this decision a couple months back, it´s just now that I´ve gotten the sandbox & time to actually start playing in it- after testing distros & configuring LAMP stacks.

I can´t wait either, as I´ve got roughly 8 sites to work on by the end of the year. Drupal + teaching myself PHP = fun times ahead.

I should note that my old work buddy & good friend, Marco hooked me up with his old Professional PHP Programming book...good lookin´ out! :)

Super_Saturday!

My International Women's Day celebration started by giving thanks for being blessed with having so many wonderful women in my life- my mom, grandma, sisters & close female friends.

It continued, although in a completely unrelated manner, by picking up a friend so we could carpool over to the LA Webspinners meeting. Pete Benjamin was discussing SEO strategies so it was a very worthwhile drive to the Westside.

I then headed over to the Mujeres de Maiz event @ Self Help Graphics to continue the festivities. A bit about the locale:
-lots of GREAT art & artists on hand
-a wonderful movie presentation where 6 international films were showcased (all roughly 10 minutes long, each) on a continuous loop in the theater
-great skits & musical vibes headlined by In Lak Ech
-wonderful people & a great, family-type environment where I saw babies in their mothers' arms all the way to grandparents!

Then, I was fortunate enough to attend DFR´s 10th Anniversary Benefit concert again this year (thanks for the phat hook Fidel & B12!). Last year's concert was bangin' & so was this year's!
-Medusa killed it AGAIN, this year! I couldn't make it out to her album release party but made up for it by not just vibin', I actually found myself breaking out the old hip hop moves (phat beats + great lycs will do that to your body hehe)
-different venue (last year was more all day event vs. this year's downtown rooftop, nighttime affair) but very good to see the crowd growing yearly.
-CYPRESS HILL was the surprise performer this year (last year it was Will.I.Am from Black Eyed Peas)! DJ Muggs was already there, so it was hella cool to see 'em all together again!

-I also met this cat named Tolteka (@ both events) & his album is HOT!!!

A GREAT day filled with knowledge, culture, great music & cool peeps!

International Women´s Day!

Today, March 8th, is International Women´s Day. It has been getting celebrated since 1911. There´s a local chapter here in LA.

Suheir Hammad has a poem as a blog entry there. I was blessed to hear Suheir at last year´s Divine Forces benefit concert where part of the proceeds went to inner-city youth programs.

Lots of events going on today including:
March in front of federal bldg @ noon followed by rally. Heck, Bambu is even going to be droppin´ some lyrics
Mujeres de Maiz event @ Self Help Graphics - 5-9pm
DFR´s 10th Anniversary Benefit concert - while not an event tied to International Women´s Day, it´s still a red pill slangin´ event!

MySQL the focus at the next LAMPSIG

MySQL will be getting discussed this coming Saturday at the next LAMPSIG meeting. Looks like it´ll be a discussion on how to use more familiar languages to execute stored procs in MySQL. I couldn´t think of a better way to exercise my old PERL skillz! ;)

Ronald Stewart presenting at the next SGVLUG

Ronald Stewart, Creative Director of the Trinity Audio Group will be speaking at the next San Gabriel Valley Linux User Group. He will be presenting the yet-to-be-released InDaMixx appliance. A full-featured, hand-held recording studio built on Linux (a customized version of 64Studio, to be more specific).

I met Ron at SCALE 6 & am excited to be working with him on the InDaMixx project. I´m doubly-excited because having this type of talk might be just what the Linux ProAudio SIG (special interest group) needs to get kick-started. I´ve heard zero traffic on that list since I joined a while back.

Hmm, thinking I should just take the lead & start drumming up support to get the Linux Audio group going...

BarcampLA-5 was pimpin´!!!

My 2nd most favorite saying is ¨Pimpin´ ain´t easy, but someone´s gotta do it!¨ It seems like I´ve been missing out before this weekend but BarcampLA-5 sure was ¨doin´ it.¨

Great event. Every single person I met was very cool, down-to-earth & into technology. I spoke with some great folks & can´t wait to go to the next one. The tracks were so good, that I stayed late on Sunday to catch the SEO talk (which was very informative) even if it made me late for my LAMPSIG Planning Committee meeting. Like I said about SCALE 6X, you know an event is good when you´re having to make really tough decisions on which talks to attend.

Every talk I attended was really great, but the highlights (for me) were:
Travis Savo´s talk on Digital Lifeforms (I´m still trippin´ out on that concept & what they´ve been able to do).
Alex Peake´s presentation on his very cool company & what they´re doing to change the world (really looking forward to collaborating on some things, both musically & on the non-profit tip).
Ethan Bauley´s chat on business models & getting VC funding (really smart, cool cat who I´m so taking to lunch!)
Strom Carlson´s impromptu session on how to DJ 101 was awesome. Matter of fact, I´ve already told all my Morrissey fan friends about where he spins on Saturday nights @ Hully Gully in Downey & we´ll be dropping in on some of his sessions.
ArtLung´s interactive chat on Wordpress was really informative. Everyone there was really helpful & there was a great discussion on what folks were using w/their Wordpress sites.

There were others who were also good & a TON of others which I didn´t have a chance to even visit. I can´t wait ´til the next one & run into some of the cool folks there!

Heading over to Barcamp LA

Barcamp LA starts later this morning! I can´t wait to attend as it´ll be my first one.

I was hoping to attend the 2012 Conference as it´s only a 1-day event & there´s NOTHING like this that´s ever gone down. I´m hoping to drop by regardless & soak up some knowledge...

Having to decide between two very revolutionary conferences is a nice problem to have. :)