Reminder.

The music festival I am going to this summer is about a month away.  Needed this to remind me and my friends.

Checklist

1.  FIRST, do not forget your tickets!

2.  Bring your ID

3.  Sunglasses

4.  Some sort of head protection -  hat, beanie, bandana, etc.

5.  Poncho or raincoat

6.  Rain boots, it is better to be prepared for everything than not.  Sadly, I know from experience.

7.  A decent tent, save up money and buy a decent tent.  Not a good idea to go with the lowest grade of tents.

8.  Umbrella

9.  Torch or Flashlight

10.  This is a huge one that a lot of "noobies" do not think about, bring a FLAG.  A flag is something you can hang high at your campsite so late at night or during the day you and your friends can locate camp.

11.  Phone, Camera, Wallet.  My girlfriend always wears a fanny pack to hold our money and phones in, that way it never leaves her side.

12.  Sleeping bag, pillow, air mattress, roll mat

13.  Toothpaste, Toothbrush, Baby wipes, Deodorant, no one likes a stinky hippie.  BUG SPRAY as well.

14.  Lighter, Duct Tape, Advil, Sunscreen, Knife, Disposable cutlery

15.  YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY TARPS.  Tarps will be a life saver if the rain comes a splashing on in.

16.  Camelbak.  There should be water stations everywhere but I still recommend bringing lots of bottle water to keep at the camp.

17.  Food.  Food is a big one that you have to decide what you want.  You can buy food at the festival but when the bad weather hits you better hope you have food at camp.  Lots of protein bars, beef jerky, sandwich meats, freeze dried foods, these are easy things.  If you want bring small cooking appliances and stuff for breakfast and dinner.

18.  HAVE FUN.  For example my last festival experience was my first to deal with TERRIBLE weather and my group still had FUN.  It is all about the people you go with first off, second you just need to be prepared for anything and you will be alright. 

DJ to go see

Skrillex is a great DJ that is coming to Oklahoma City on May 23rd, which is a Friday.  I have seen him perform live once before and he puts on a great show if you are into dubstep/electronic music.  What is going to be really cool about this is that Skrillex is performing at the Zoo Amphitheatre so it will be outside and not inside a crowded venue.  I will be there with close friends and I know I will run into some of my concert friends as well.  Here is a link to what you can expect to experience at a Skrillex show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJVO2CKg3q0

Gotta love Oklahoma

Yesterday I was driving in my car having to use the AC because it was 80 degrees out.  I took my dog on a walk in shorts and a T-shirt.  Really wish I could have played a round of golf or went biking but instead I watched the Masters and had to work at the bar.  Today I wake up and it is 35 degrees and snowing and the walk to class was brutal.  This is why you gotta love Oklahoma because tomorrow and the rest of the week it will be back up to the high 60's to 70's.  I am also not looking forward to tornado season, as we all know last year was not a good year for us.  Lets keep Oklahoma safe this year weather gods.

My dog

My dogs name is Abbey.  She is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, such a fancy name huh?  She has one of the most unique personalities out of any dog I have ever owned growing up or met.  She can be a pain and I wanted people to get a feel of what I have to go through every night while trying to sleep.

Blog Presentation

http://www.johnnycupcakes.com/blog/

            The blogger I chose to write about and talk to is Johnny Earle, otherwise known as Johnny Cupcakes.  I didn’t choose him because he is the best blogger or has the most useful content, but because of the type of person he is.  Earle is a down to earth guy who owns a clothing line called Johnny Cupcakes that he started out of the trunk of his car.  He believes with motivation and hard work a person can accomplish anything they want to. 

            Earle is in his early 30’s and is a successful entrepreneur.  He owns a clothing line named Johnny Cupcakes and tours the country giving motivational speeches.  He started his clothing line in 2001 and was in a hardcore band.   He quit the band to focus on his company after it developed almost a cult like following and opened his first store in 2005. 

            Earle began blogging over five years ago.  The purpose of his blog is mainly for his fans and supporters of his company.  He is from Boston, but as I mentioned earlier he tours around the world so essentially he blogs from a lot of places.  It is hard to get a number of followers because his blog is posted on his clothing lines website, but I am willing to bet 100,000’s of people read his blog.  He told me his website gets 100,000 plus hits a week.  He doesn’t make money off of his blog because his blog is for his fans that frequent his website.  He blogs for his fans so that they can get a feel of what his life is like.

            I think that his blog is unique because of the content that he posts and because with all of his success he could just have a staff member write for him.  I also think it is unique because of the type of person he is and he is an entrepreneur not a writer. 

            The strengths of his blog are that he blogs for his fans and employees.  He likes to support all of the people who support him.   I think a strength is that it is attached to his company’s website so people do not have to go looking for his blog.  He also posts a lot so there is always new content.  It’s hard for me to find weaknesses because I might be a little biased but he isn’t a professional writer.  Some people might find it a weakness that a lot of his posts do not provide you with information that will teach you something, but he says in every weakness you can find strength. 

            His advice is to blog about something you love and not to be concerned by what others may think.  He says to always follow your dream and treat every job like it is the best job in the world, you never know who you could meet that will help take you to where you want to be.  I gained great information from a great guy that let me know you don’t always have to settle for less but that you can always strive for more.  As far as influence for my blog I gained that I shouldn’t be concerned about others opinions and post what I want to post to define myself.  I like that he blogs for fun and his content is all for his fans and not for a paycheck. 

This is an addition to my tuesday post

I posted on Tuesday about how close Wakarusa is.  And it really is only two months away, which means I need to be saving some money.  BUT anyway the reason for that post was out of excitement and also that I need the weather gods to be in our favor.  Don't get me wrong I will have fun at any music festival no matter what the weather is like, as long as there is no tornado.  Hail is not so fun either.  BUT I wanted to show people a picture of what Waka looked like last year.

Here is a picture of a bunch of destroyed canopies after a night of 50+ mph winds

electronicmidwest.com  

This is a picture of the ground after the three flash floods we had.

pastemagazine.com

Technology

I was going to do a technology blog at first, but i realized there are so many and there are other things I would like to blog about.  But I have talked about 3D Printing so I wanted to do a post about the Oculus Rift. 

For a quick example the Oculus Rift is about the closet thing we have to virtual reality right now.  A friend of mine actually owns it and it is a headset that you wear that puts you into the video game.  ALL you can see is what you are playing. 

The big controversy right now though, is that Facebook just bought the rights to the Oculus.  It is basically like playing a game in 3D and there are other things you can do like watch 3D movies.  I think Facebook bought it for one big reason, and that is so they can throw ads at you and then they generate more money. 

I hope they stick to the path the original creators had in mind because this is the next big step in the gaming industry, a long with also many other things one can do.

About Oculus Rift and Facebook

This is a link explaining why Facebook bought it and for those who have no general idea about the Oculus Rift, there is a video explaining what it is.  Here is a image from Forbes showing what the finished product should look like.