As I’ve grown older, making a difference has become more and more important.

How did this start?

Recently I spoke at the 140Conf, a conference held by Jeff Pulver (CoFounder of Vonage.com, and the guy who is responsible for VOIP (Voice Over IP — Internet-based telephone calls) being free, rather than billed per-call by the phone industries).

I met Jeff prior to the event for coffee and a chat. He was (is) an incredible person. He has a good sense of humor, and helps many people.

His passion for what he does, as well as his intelligence are both quite apparent. I decided I wanted to get involved in spreading the word about the uses of social media for other reasons than just marketing or being social. Jeff recently started his 140Conf Small Town as well, to spread the knowledge of what industries and individuals in those towns can do with these real-time technologies.

Basically, it’s how to leverage social media for social good. That’s a cause I can believe in! I’m not the only one, the mayor of Detroit is opening up the event!

I’ve used social media to connect with people, to connect other people with the people that have exponentially increased their business, with people that can solve their problems, to raise funds for a poodle that needed a $2,500 operation, and much more… the speakers at the 140 Conf have even bigger stories than mine.

So what’s this trip?

I am driving from Las Vegas to Detroit, then down to Kansas.  I will be using Social Media (Facebook / Twitter / 4Square / etc) to announce my locations, and I will have Tweetups (get togethers at certain destinations, generally announced on Twitter).  I am looking to spread usage of social media as a tool for social change, and business growth, while meeting characters. As I find characters, I will be filming their stories.  I am also, as always, looking to connect with great individuals along my route.

If you caravan with me, you get in for free!

That’s right, Jeff Pulver agreed that anyone going with me to the Detroit 140Conf or the Kansas 140conf gets in for free.  Tickets are generally $140, which is a bargain to see the panels and speakers that Jeff has lined up. I’ve never had a Caravan, and that would be rad!

What’s my Route?

I leave Las Vegas on Sunday morning, with pit stops in

Richfield, UT
Grand Junction, CO (Stop for the night here)
Brighton, CO
Grand Island, NE (stop for the nite)
Cedar Rapids, IA
Chicago IL
Then of course Detroit, MI.

Tell Me Your Story!

I, like Jeff Pulver, am looking for characters.  If you have a great story, are a character, and/or are using the internet to affect social good, then I want to know you!  I want to meet you on my journey, and film your story.

Want to be a Couch?

I am also looking for people to Couchsurf with along the way.  If you want me to stay with you, fill out the form at Crash My Couch.

Know Characters?

I’m looking for characters, so if you got them, let me know!  Use the contact form on my site, and let me know who they are …. especially if they are on my route.

Want to go to the 140Conf for free?

Just caravan with me!  Contact me (on Twitter would be great:  I’m at http://twitter.com/couchsurfingori), and let me know!  We can drive together!

Where to have a tweetup?

If you know any places in those cities that would make for good tweetup spots, or own them and want the promotion, then let me know, and I’ll make sure we do it there.

Spread the Word-

Since I need to get the word out about my trip, get people interested in the tweetups (and decide where to have them), and of course to spread the word about the 140conf, I need to bring attention to this post.  So, please post this on Facebook, Twitter, Social Bookmarking sites, StumbleUpon it, e-mail it to your friends, e-mail it to your enemies, forward it to reporters, forward it to bloggers…. just get the word out!

Thanks, and I’ll see you on the road!

4th of July pic from Wikipedia

4th of July / Independence day… a day where 234 years ago we told the Brits to suck it. It doesn’t seem to mean that much as a holiday these days.  Most holidays don’t seem to mean that much. This one is an excuse to play with fireworks – or break the law in certain areas to get the fireworks – over eat BBQ food, get drunk, and occasionally catch an orchestra.

This year I’m in the middle of a health kick, so I don’t care about the BBQ food.  In La Jolla, it was cold today, so I didn’t feel like taking people up on their beach BBQ offers.  For some reason I was really tired, so slept a lot during the day (my neck still hurts, and my head’s a bit foggy.  Glad it’s my day off P90x).  I did walk outside to watch the fireworks for a few minutes, then yawned and walked back in.

Why? Because in 2007 I ate shrooms at Burning Man, and watched a (literally) 1,000 foot fireball come out of an oil derrik, followed by probably about 40 minutes of the most amazing fireworks I’ve ever seen!  Since then, nothing compares.  These were not the skimpy one firework at a time stream that you see in most fireworks show… these were hundreds of them at a time…. the sky was filled with them!  Like most things at Burning Man, these were done by artists who put everything into it… and probably didn’t have nearly as many fire-safety ordinances as most cities.

This year’s fireworks sounded about the same to me as a bag of popcorn getting ready in the microwave.  I went inside to hang with Webber, whom I was informed ahead of time hates fireworks.

I just don’t feel this holiday anymore. This year, to celeebrate independence, the United States has decided to pass a new law that suspends the 1st ammendment.  Yup, media is not allowed to get near anything having to do with the oil spill.  The United States of BP will now arrest you if you try to show the world how they’re killing the planet.

That pisses me off, and not just because I’m a photographer, but because this proves some more that the United States has gone from claiming independence from Brittain to becoming the world’s biggest bully.  I’m not going to blog about the middle east bullying for oil.  Seems a lot of it has to do with oil, eh?

This site has a good article on the new rule.  As far as where things are going, 1984 (a reference to the book by Orwell, not the year before I came to the USA)…. Big Brother Is Watching…. the government in Orwell’s book figured that if you control men’s minds, you control the truth.

You can listen to 1984 for free at this site: http://www.archive.org/details/George-Orwell-1984-Audio-book

There was a bill just passed by the Senate Committee… the thing we call the “Internet Kill Switch” (Google it)- which lets the government decide when and how to turn off the internet… but now passes the power from the president’s hands, to a committee’s hands as well.

Photographers and journalists (and anyone else) are not allowed anywhere near the BP “cleanup”…. that’s a semi media blackout… but that bill as far as I’m concerned will probably pass, and let the government shut down blogs that feature footage that wasn’t supposed to get out.

What I’m wondering is why people aren’t using the equipment that was used to make Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth – This is one of the clips that talks about it.  Sure… it’s expensive, and the coast guard may try to arrest you or crash your chopper into the water, where no one will know the wiser, and the oil that leaks from your wrecked chopper is nominal compared to the non-stop mileage of oil that BP’s unleashed… but… if you do succeed– which you can certainly do at a larger distance than 65 feet (can you believe they originally wanted 300 feet?) — you’ll capture amazing footage of all the oil-soaked birds, etc….

I can (and often do) write for hours… so, I’m actuallly going to stop now, and go work on my book instead.

My points though for tonight’s post:

1. If you have something that’s too good and rare, it will destroy normal moments for you (i.e.  fireworks are now lame after the fireworks at Burning Man)
2. BBQ tends to be bad for your health… I still love it though, so the best way to stay healthy is to not to put yourself in situations where you’re surrounded by what causes your problems (i.e. if you’re a drug addict, don’t go to a rave, or your dealer’s house)
3. Independence day seems like a joke these days, because we are heading towards a complete lack of freedom…. but enjoy your 3-day holiday weekend!

Small add-on:  Since I offered a link to 1984 for free (yes, I post on Facebook / Twitter WHILE I write blog posts), someone gave me this fun piece of conspiracy theory, The Obama Deception.  It’s been a little while since I watched a good conspiracy film, and how can you not believe everything they say with those awesome narrators they have, and that awesome background footage…. and perhaps also that much if not all of it makes sense.

I have something really important to tell you. It’s very exciting, and very difficult for me all at once.

I’ve arrived here in La Jolla, CA where the weather is truly amazing, and I am house-sitting for the next 5-6 weeks.

On my drive here from Austin, TX I had a lot of time to think, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that the best answers come from asking the right questions. My question that I chose was “How do I make the best use of house-sitting near the beach for 6 weeks?”

I came up with many ideas, but the ones that made the most sense are also the most difficult, and I’d like to share them with you.

I have completed 3.5 years of couchsurfing around the USA.  I’ve met the most incredible people that I could ever imagine.  I have had amazing adventures, where I do things I never imagined or even heard of before (like Bull Poker, or training with UFC cage fighters, or staying at an all girls’ college).  I’ve loved and fallen in love (not at the all girls’ college).  I’ve seen (and photographed) amazing sights.

The bottom line is that I have more than enough “content” to write my book.  I’ve begun writing of this book numerous times, and I generally get distracted, as I am such a social creature.

Ooooh! Someone left me a comment on Facebook!

I better respond to that tweet!

A truck that has giant chicken legs coming out of it?  I better send out a social-media update about that!

I wonder what ________ is up to…. better text/call/skype/tweet/fb/email and find out!

Yup…. as my buddy Peter Shankman says “You may have heard of ADHD, but I suffer from something much worse… it’s called ADOS — Attention Deficit… Oooh! Shiny!”

With that in mind, there are three major things I am going to work on.
1)Writing and finishing my book.
2)Releasing 100 photos a day from my travels!
3)Exercise and be healthy.

The photos will be released in a number of ways– onto Flickr/Picassa and of course blog posts.  I will also make a video of each set of 100, and tell the stories that go with them.  If a story encompasses less than 100 photos, I will tell as many stories as are encompassed in 100 photos.

In case you are wondering, I have hundreds of thousands of photos.  In 2007 alone I took 370,000 photos.

So, if I have all this content, why is this so difficult, and what am I going to do about it?

As I mentioned earlier, I am easily distractible.  So, I am going to do the impossible, and unplug.  I am going to go off the grid! Something that many people say is impossible…. but I think it is possible.  Why?  Because I finally have a sentence that gives me a hard punch in the face, nearly unhinging my jaw, and breaking my nose.

“I don’t want to be that guy that tells about how he’s going to write a book!  I want to be the guy whose book you’ve read!”

I will keep adventuring, have no doubt about that. My plans are to go international: visit my homeland of Israel, party in Thailand, play with dangerous animals in Africa, get my squirrel-suit certification in Switzerland, eat some space-cake in Amsterdam, maybe take a ride with GreenPeace and blow up some whailing ships…. who knows…. the possibilities are endless… but I don’t want to go until I’ve finished this book.

I have hired an assistant whom will check my e-mails and voicemails for me, and forward the uber-important ones to a new e-mail account that I have created (that no one else knows about.  It’s very random, so don’t bother trying to guess it (don’t forget, I own many domains)).  I’ve set up a Skype-Phone so that I can speak to those who need to get a hold of me.

To keep my sanity, I will play with Webber (Jason Moffatt’s dog, whom I am taking care of), try to improve my piano and guitar skills, run on the beach, and learn to surf (Jason was kind enough to leave me a plethora of surfboards).

I will have interaction with the Surfers that are teaching me to surf. I’ve also volunteered to do some photography for a charity event.  Other than that, I plan to be off the grid.  I’ve even informed my parents that they should not expect a daily phone call from me, and that they can start reading my blog to know what is going on — or what has gone on — in my life.

The few close friends I’ve run this by think it is a wonderful idea.  It resonates with my heart, despite striking much fear in it… a 6 week commitment!  6 weeks of not being on Facebook and Twitter!  Trusting someone else to go through my e-mails and voicemails!  Having to finish something big!

It is scary, but I know it is worth it!

I appreciate that you have visited my site.  I am saddened that I have not told you but a tiny fraction of what has gone on… as it takes time to edit videos, to blog, to process and upload photos.  So now, I will finally tell the whole story.

The book will consist of my adventures, the people I’ve met, the places I have been to, how I’ve stayed on the road without “a real job”, the lessons I’ve learned, and the things that I have come to believe as truths because of my journeys.

Please check back here daily, as I will have 100 new images, and god-knows how many stories posted.   Spread the word, leave comments, and let me know which pictures and stories are your favorite, as I will also be making a photo-book of the best images.

Wish me luck!

Ori

—

P.s.  On the right hand side of this blog is a box you can put your name and e-mail if you’d like to know about my book, when it comes out, etc…

Sponge Bob Square Pants died in BP oil spill!

Here’s a fun one to share with your friends!

British Petroleum has a gag order on their staff.  During this cleanup, no one can tell you what’s really going on.  So… all those dead animals, all that failure on stopping the flow of oil…. yeah, they can’t

Click this to see BP's "Oil Spill" ad

talk about it.  Additionally, BP is paying for sponsored ads, so whenever you search for a term like “Oil Spill” their ad shows up at the top, like so (see image on left).

Their BP ad (the one with the yellow background) costs them money for each click.  It takes you to their page, where they get to present the information however they want to… i.e. “BP cares, loves you, are the good guys, and are really making the world a better place…. and a little oil in your sea food is good for you!”

Now, I may be paraphrasing a little bit, but you get the idea.

The sad part is that millions of people do not know that it is an ad.  They search for “Oil Spill” (or any other term relating to the worst ecological catastrophe in history), they see “BP”, click on it, and think they are seeing the real news, and thus believe it.

So, to show BP that this campaign is just a waste of their money, and that people are smarter than that, just keep searching for Oil Spill, and clicking on BP’s ads!  Then just hit the back button on your browser, you’re back in the Google page, and you can click again… rinse and repeat!

Send your friends to this page! With enough people doing this, maybe BP can invest their resources into cleaning the environment, rather than just trying to bully us into thinking that everything’s peachy.

Here! I’ll save you the effort– Just click here, and it will take you to a Google page where you can click on oil ads.

Have fun!

Wave hello to the drone that's spying on you

Grrr…. Houston Police has been lying to the press about restricted airspace (and god knows what else), in order to test out their new secret drones.

Channel 2 in Houston had the balls to check with the FAA, and investigate/film anyways. These drones can fly ofor 15-24 hours, look into your house, car, etc… and of course, be equipped with various other sensors.

Will they be giving speeding tickets? Will they be spying on you? I don’t know about you, but I’m not thrilled about this.

I think that if enough of our rights are violated, and we’re spied upon, someone will fight back… destroy these things (using something like uni-directions EMPs), and waste tons of tax dollars that you paid.

It may be entertaining to watch what they’re watching though

The following video is brilliant. Channel 2, you’ve earned my respect.

The Couchsurfing Radio Host- Couch Surfing Ori

Have you ever felt you were destined to be on TV or Radio?  Yeah… me either.  But I sure was told it often that I should have my own show.  At least for 10 yearas now.  So… here it is

I present to you CouchSurfingRadio, my latest creation. Right now it will be on Monday nights at 11pm EST, with replays available for your downloading pleasure (so you can hear it again and again… have it on as you clean, drive, work, jog, poop, etc..).

The show will cover many topics, but most of them will be what I often blog about: adventures, travel, incredible people and places, marketing, life lessons, motivation, design, jokes, and of course, my odd perspectives on everything.

Here is the very first episode.

[podcast]http://www.CouchSurfingOri.com/couchsurfing-radio/couchsurfing-couchcasts/Couchsurfingradio-couchcast-number1-december28-2009.mp3[/podcast]
Download the episode for home/car/plane/etc.. listening.

It’s a great story… the forming of this radio show:  I felt like putting on a radio show, I tweeted and facebooked that in 2 hours I’ll be putting on a radio show, and then I put on my radio show.  Exciting, huh?  There was more to it than that, of course. I didn’t figure out how to log-in to the host number until (literally) 3 minutes before showtime. I was a distracted spaz.  I didn’t know how to read the questions that were coming in through the show’s chat-room, through twitter, and through skype. So.. yeah.. I was all over the place.

The feedback thus far has been great though!

For next episode, I will have a surprise guest, someone to filter the questions/chat for me, and segments… so, some kind of structure.

Take a listen, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show (Leave a comment below please)

Oiled up the machine

I find that I’m a lot more productive when I work through the night.  Last night, not only did I write an awesome article on Falcon, the not-so-adventurous Balloon Boy (I wonder how many years that name will stick), but I also tinkered around under the hood.  Some of the changes I  made to my site:

• Made it interact with Facebook.  You can now share your posts on Facebook, become a facebook fan, etc….
• Added Tweeting functionality.  You can now push that green button in the top right of every single post, and instantly tweet that post.
• Added Disqus & Tweetmeme — Now it’ll be easy to track not only comments, but the replies they’ve gotten around the web.
• Swapped out analytics code.. it turns out my last structure was slowing the site down.
• Added site-caching to try and speed up the site.
• Added mobile-phone support, so that Iphones/Blackberries/Androids can all enjoy the site in a more convenient manner.
• Fixed a few things on the SEO front, so the site will be easier to find.
• Backed up site database & files (WAY past due on that).
• Added some idea-organization tools.
• Improved my mailing tools, so I can actually keep in touch with you better.

Awww heck… there’s a bunch of new things.  I’m usually so busy doing the site building/repair/upgrading for everyone else’s sites & projects, that I don’t have time to tweak my own site.  Well.. it’s time!   And you can expect more cool things… I’m even toying with a complete re-design… though, I do like my existing one.

So… the topic is Ballooon Boy.  One of my favorite movies is David Spade’s Bubble Boy.  Bubble Boy is one of those awesome feelgood movies.  They have wonderful character development, and he gets into all sorts of adventures, discovers the real world, and everyone loves him for not being afraid.  This is what happened here.  Falcon was thought to be in trouble.  The whole country wanted to have an innocent reason to come together.  Falcon became a beacon of hope…. “Gosh, my prayers go out to him and his family.  I hope he lands in one piece.”  Yeah…. that’s nice.

I was being a dick about it yesterday, but I think I’m being a bigger one today, because now there’s been talk of all the tax money wasted to look for the little bugger, and he was at home.  Then he said on TV that it was all for a show.  So… is this a really expensive hoax?  The sherrif’s saying it’s not, but I don’t buy it.  This reeks of hoax. And within a day or 2, no one is going to care about the boy or his hoakey family.

The kid is already in WikiPedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_balloon_incident – it’s been flagged for deletion, and for rescue.  I hope it stays rescued.
Falcon puked twice during his interviews… maybe all that lying is making his stomach feel ill?
Major WTF moment for me:  The white house is being congratulated for the rescue.  What rescue!?  And now Obama is turning this kid’s PR into some crap about the health care system? I mean… come on!  I feel even more correct now  about what I said regarding Wag The Dog!
Why do I think it’s a hoax? Other than the kid vomiting, “magically appearing safe & sound”, and all that crap?  Well… the family has already been on Wife Swap (TWICE!).  They clearly are desperate for attention  Episode 1 of Heene on wife Swap / Episode 2 of the Heene family on Wife Swap. How screwed up does your family have to be that you’re trying to ditch the mom twice?
The kid said “You guys said that we did this for the show.”  wtf?

Heck… one blog even points out that the mother farted when the kid got questioned. Ain’t online video grand?

The frigging balloon couldn’t even support the kid’s weight!   So… this whole thing is lame, and I”m pissed off that I had to keep hearing about it from everyone yesterday/today.  I’m pissed off at the wasted amount of tax dollars.  Notice how the whole country banded together in hope for the kid’s rescue (the whole country but me)…. well.. now we’re all banded together to see them burned at the stake.

If the parents have a need for attention, why don’t they just do the normal thing and get Munchausen syndrome, and keep taking their kid to the ER after they made him sick… then at least they’re not wasting the whole world’s time and money.

If you’re going to go flying on a piece of junk, at least do it in style, like Lawnchair Larry!  That dude was cool!

The sherrif says this isn’t a hoax…. but that seems like crap.  I hope that when they bust them, they at least make them repay all the resources they wasted by crying wolf.

It's Falcon! The balloon boy!

This 6 year old kid, Falcon (I think that’s even more ridiculous– the kid goes flying, and his name is Falcon? Hmmm) climbs in his Dad’s helium baloon that looks like Jiffy Pop.  The baloon takes off.  The whole nation is talking about it.  Everyone’s tweeting and facebooking about it… I even know of a certain stay at home mom that got her drink on ’cause she was so worried about this kid.  I was already making jokes (If “He tried to go visit Michael Jackson one last time!” gets popular, just remember, I made it up! Funny enough– I just looked up the newsline, and there WAS a Michael Jackson single that just debuted online just the other day), and people were giving me grief, “Oh… you gotta at least wait till he lands safely!” People were telling me how they’re praying.  Wow.  What concerned people we have, it’s nice.  It’s also not nice, because they were bamboozled into being concerned.  What a waste of positive emotion.  Oh yeah… I forgot to mention, for those who haven’t heard, turns out that the kid was never in the baloon… he was hiding at home in the attic, in a box or something.  So… let’s take a look at what happened.

This kid sat in the attic for a few hours.  In arts and crafts, you’d see that for less than $100 you can get some shiny fabric, a glue gun, and a helium tank at the party store.  Glue it to look like some jiffy pop, let it fly out of site, tell the world that your kid is on that arts project, look concerned… and voila… social media takes over.  People are hungry for something to unite over.  This thing took over every media stream!  He is famous.  His parents are famous.  They can do a book deal if they want now.  This spoof video really captures today:

Thank you College Humor!  I love their stuff.  So, did they capture it or what? The news is saying stuff about the kid was talking about that this is for show.

But… wait… there’s more!  Not only are there news video, articles, blogs, tweets, and spoof videos all in less than a day, but….  yup… you guessed it…You can buy your very own baloon boy shirts– Here’s 2  awesome designs (click on ‘em to buy ‘em)

Here's Balloon Boy's aircraft. Suppposedly capable of 10,000 feet

Now… let’s think about this.  It won’t be long before this kid’s on the daily show, Jay Leno, Oprah, Jerry Springer, a book tour.  He’s 6 years old, and not a very good actor… so… what can YOU do to concern the entire nation?  How can you steal all the attention from everything else that’s in the news?  I believe my friend Ben Mack would tell you that this is just an example of a social meme spreading.  It would cost you so much money to buy this kind of media exposure with ads, so.. why not just be creative, spend a tiny bit, and land all the exposure you want.
(this photo is by the associated press)

I highly recommend you view Wag The Dog – it’s only $6  (maybe something crazy happened in Afghanistan today, and little Falcon was used to distract us?).

Another amazing book that I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend! Especially if you have a business, or want to get PR for others is Peter Shankman’s !Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work–And Why Your Company Needs Them.  This is not only a fun read, but is completely filled with wonderful tips on how to generate massive PR.  Not only that, but Peter also covers so many of the things that you might completely forget to think about… how to make sure things don’t backfire.  How to be more creative.  Shankman’s a really cool dude… check out his blog sometimes. I even consider him a sort of roll model, as he is genuine, funny, a spaz, creative, and an adventurer. Back to the book… Book + Shipping is less than $20 on Amazon, and is probably the best $20 you can spend.

Watch “Wag The Dog”, read Can We Do That?! evaluate Falcon’s stunt, and voila… you’ll be primed to get millions of dollars of airtime for practically nothing.  But, maybe you should start writing your book…. they’ll want to publish it while you’re still hot!