What Makes Me Happy

My nieces are amazingly cute, I think.

No.

Wait.

I think that's objective.

My nieces are amazingly cute.

Ellie is now at a point where she can actually hold a conversation with me, which is awesome, and Cara, while not quite there yet, is a master of the call and response uttering, listening, responding, and so forth.

And while this, in general, makes me happy, I had a recent conversation that I found to be particularly hopeful.

It was shortly after the election, and I was talking with Ellie, and asking her if she had heard about the election - did they talk about it at her school? She said yes, and we talked a little bit about how Obama was our new president.

Adrianne had told me that her teacher had explained that this was a big deal because he was our first African American president, and, more than that, the first time that a minority was in such a visible position of power. Blah, blah, blah. So I asked Ellie about this, and in her kid-like agreeability, she affirmed all the things I was saying about how important that was, and what a big deal this was for society.

"Uh huh."

But it was in talking to 3-year-old Ellie and understanding that she didn't really grasp the gravity of what had just happened, that I found the most poignant reason for feeling hopeful: realizing that she was part of a generation that would grow up to accept the concept of a black man running for, and winning, presidency of the United States, as common, the simple reality that they've grown up with and accepted as life.

I just really think that's inspiring. Thanks, Ellie. I can't wait to watch the steps your generation takes to help move the world forward with open minds, open arms, into a wide-open future of possibility.

Spa Treatment!

So one of the clients I work with doesn't have that much money - so I only do a little bit of work for her here and there when she gets paid. Usually at some point near the end of the month with her saying that she has x amount and was hoping I could so y and z. And she's a wonderful woman, so I always say yes, even if it's below my normal rates. I've got a soft spot for good people, I suppose.

Anyway - recently she said that, since she knows she underpays me a lot of the time, it was the least she could do to give me an hour at the spa she worked at with the person who was, in her opinion, the best there… so we booked a day - which happened to be today, and I went out there to have my massage. Tip was included… so I just had to show up, and relax.

Very nice.

So I get there, and the woman (my masseur) has me strip down and get under this blanket (so I'm covered - nothing sketchy, guys) and begins giving me my 45 minute head-to-foot massage.

Now, I've both given and received a lot of massages in my life - and when I think of massages, I think of kneading out knots, hitting pressure points, lots of hard pushing and pounding (well, not pounding, but you know what I mean). And this was far from that. In fact, there were time when I wished I was being handled a little more firmly - but she spent a lot of time just kind of running her hands over my back, arms, legs, etc. Some massaging, sure - but a lot of it was more just comforting, rather than satisfying, if it makes sense to use those words.

I don't know. Maybe this is not a typical massage - but, as I was lying there, feeling her hands gently on my back - what it made me think of… esp. because I was under a blanket, was getting tucked in at night as a little kid. You know? Your mom tucks you in, says good night, and, perhaps, runs her hand along your back as she walks away. As I said: comforting.

And I wonder - if this is other people's experience, is that the point? Is the point of a massage not really about getting your body worked - but about just feeling that sense of "I'm in your hands, take care of me…" that bring us back to feeling secure in the wombs of our childhood beds?

Just throwing that out there.

Here's to hoping

This is the latest entry that I wrote for the PeachyHost Blog.

As my last post commemorated, November 7th was PeachyHost's official launch date. On the 9th or so, I talked with a good friend of mine and told her, "So… guess how many sites we have on PeachyHost?"

She thought for a minute and ventured, "100?"

"Nope," I replied, coyly… "zero!"

And we both had a laugh.

But I was only laughing on the outside. Inside I was thinking, "I gotta start pounding some pavement, and getting the word out, because clearly, the word isn't running all over town by itself. It's much too modest."

So the next day, Keith, Nam, and I made a concerted effort to start hitting up people we knew and really spreading the word in a contagious way. By the 11th, we had our first official customer, and are proud to be hosting Thymos.org, a northwest-based Asian American Activism organization. Byron Wong, who writes his own blog, the Big WOWO, focusing on Asian American Activism and Intellectualism, was the first of our friends to get his act together and get his site completely transferred over to us. Thank you Byron, and thank you Thymos.

Several other of our friends and family are in the process of transferring their sites, and we are happily awaiting the opportunity to help them along in this process.

I'm sure that, at some point, all of these technical motions will become mundane, but for now we are savoring every moment of each transfer while we plant the seeds and water the roots of PeachyHost. I'm excited to see the list of sites hosting on PeachyHost grow, and proud to be able to deliver honest and open service to them.

Which brings me to what I really wanted to talk about in this post… and that is the principles upon which PeachyHost was founded. "They" (whoever they are) say that brands and names need to be heard a certain number of times before people will remember them in any sort of meaningful way. I'm sure that the mission, vision, and passion behind an organization also has to be voiced multiple times for them to be apparent as well. And I will be the first to say that I rarely read all the small print - so if a company wants to get something across to me, they better hit me with the big.

So with that as a disclamatory preamble, I am resolute in talking about PeachyHost as, not only a wonderful collaboration of friends (and not just Keith, Nam, and myself, but also Byron and anyone else who wants to join in and Peachy-Power their sites), but as a company that is curious to find out how a company that is open and, more importantly, honest, can fare in a society and an age that is becoming more and more technologically and informationally savvy.

A good friend of mine asked me today about the specs on our plan, and pointed out that 5GB of space wasn't as much as some other hosting sites will promise for comparable prices. And this is true, I told her - she had done her research in terms of what plans advertised well. BUT, as Keith aptly pointed out, "those jokers will shut you down long before you use that allowance."

The idea is this: most people don't use more than 5GB of space, and that is precisely what some other hosting sites bank on when they advertise their specs. And I've heard many a horror story of people who approached their quota and were shut down because at the specs that were promised, it's not actually worth it for the companies.

To make sure I could back this premise up, we did only a quick search and found these:
http://corlan.org/2008/10/13/my-nightmare-monday-thanks-to-godaddy/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-fendelman/why-i-dont-owe-godaddy-65_b_129276.html

The second story was picked up by consumerist and discussed here:
http://consumerist.com/5056063/perhaps-you-dont-owe-godaddy-6579

These companies hope to make money on a false sense of "value" since they sell you things they hope you won't use.

PeachyHost is a reaction to that kind of business model, and we hope to "fight the good fight" so-to-speak, and be straight-up about what you will get for each penny you invest in your company and in your website.

If you need more space then we've allotted in our initial plans, then talk to us, and we will work out something fair. If you purchase an initial plan and start to find out six months down the road that you've grown and need more of everything - that's fine too. We will not shut you down when your usage increases. We will simply contact you and figure out what kind of plan would now suit your bigger business.

This is the first of, I'm sure, many iterations of this ideal. But I think it's important to get across. PeachyHost is not simply trying to provide a cheap alternative to already cheap alternatives. And you should not join up with us just because we are a smaller company that won't have over-saturated servers.

PeachyHost is a reaction to slimy business practices, and an attempt to bring honesty to that invisible hand that runs a capitalist market. Because while the best man may not always win… wouldn't it be nice to hope that he could?

Raise a glass, or pick a peach. But here's a toast to hoping.