Schiavoni Files

Three housekeeping items:
1) I've moved my blog to a new url so I can take advantage of all the cool new comments/tracking features that the new templates have to offer (I'm not technical enough to add the new code myself so I figured moving is easier:

New URL: http://schiavonifiles.blogspot.com/

#2 and #3 items will be found on the new Schiavoni Files.
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Post party for papa Sturm.

From left: Mary Jo Schiavoni (mom), Ted (the neighbor), me, Dan Schiavoni (cousin), Luke Munz (honorary schiavoni for the night), Lisa Schiavoni (aunt), Gabe Schiavoni (cousin), Joan Schiavoni (aunt--Uncle Lou may be lying down on the stage behind us at this point), Joe Schiavoni (cousin), Erica Turner (sister-in-law), Jim Sturm (dad and reason for the party), Tony Sturm (brother), Zaid Maxwell (cousin) & Amelia (fiance').

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I was watching TV in Wisconsin on Saturday and this commercial came on:

It really made me mad. It's one thing to see it in California but entirely something else to see it in Wisconsin! I mean they are blatantly taunting Wisconsin farmers on their own turf! If I had more time on my hands I would investigate why the Wisconsin farmers don't fight back, I might even lobby for an organized response. Trust me, I have driven route 5 past all those sprawling, disgusting, packed cow farms and those cows are anything but happy.
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I went home to Wisconsin this weekend for my dad's 60th birthday/retirement party. We had a blast. Some of the Schiavoni boys flew in (pictured right at a previous schiavoni reunion) as well as some Sturms including Uncle Bill, Aunt Glen and cousin Zaid with fiance' Amelia. Tony and Erica were there too. We pretty much all partied like rockstars (car bombs, lemon drops, millerlites and my all-time favorite: the flaming dr. pepper). We so destroyed team Sturvoni every night that all we could really do during the days was sit around watching episodes of Arrested Development and eating. It was a great weekend.
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In case you haven't seen this yet...
So ridiculous it's hilarious.

If I had the money I would start buying up property in my hometown of Madison, WI. It's such a great place but just too cold but mark my words that in a few years because of global warming people are going to be flocking there.
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Watch this video:


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Also exciting is the official launch of my company's new website: www.newprogressivecoalition.com.

It's neat because not only does it have political networking capabilities where you can contact other members directly, etc., but it also helps you find specific targeted resources and information based on the political interests you define on your profile.

There's a catch though, you have to be a member to use it. My company's goal is to find, grow and engage the next generation of progressive political investors. We want to make sure that people have a way to be more strategically engaged in progressive politics, connect with other like-minded people, and be treated like more than just an ATM machine every time a candidate rolls through town. It's time we get serious about building our progressive political infrastructure folks, and leverage the talent of the next generation of entrepreneurial individuals and organizations. As our CEO always says, remember what happened when the small financial investor got access to the research and information they needed to make smarter decisions about their financial investments? The market grew. It's not time for us to do the same in politics.

And we have kick-ass parties.;o) Tomorrow we have a PACKED launch party at this really cool new restaurant/speakeasy called Bourbon & Branch. Pictures to follow after tomorrow.
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How cool is this website my friend created? (Click"open we feel fine," load the page, and start clicking on dots, squares, mounds, etc.). How does it do that? I have no idea.

According to the site description: The system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.)... [and] the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written.

Of course this guy is also the brains behind Google's personalized search, but even so, I still feel impressed. (now I'm off to search for my quote particle).
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We've all had them at one point or another.

They finally came up with a mathematical formula to explain them (although they forgot to factor in variable "D" for desperation level).

The more interesting phenomena is some of the non-alcohol related slumming that happened to many of us in college. We called them Wesleyan goggles. I'd like to figure out the mathematical formula for those.

Then you get out of college and realize you weren't slumming after all, the pool was just much more quality to begin with (or at least it would be 5 years later when they turned from boys to men).
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