Dear South Carolina (or Snow in Charleston)
Feb/104
by John Wilson
Dear South Carolina,
I hope this letter finds you well. Other than the Governor and his soon-to-be ex-wife on the television a bunch, things here in the “Low Country” have been going well. We’re getting our very own Boeing plant, the South East Wildlife Expo this weekend marks the beginning of the tourist season, and the recent oyster festival was one of the biggest yet. Not only those state-wide events, but something in the water caused my wife to get pregnant and now we’re expecting our first child, who will be a native!
I’m writing you today because I need to ask some questions about the pact we made when I moved down here. I promised you I’d pay my ridiculous tax rate, put up with the 107 degree summer days (it’s a wet heat), and learn to eat fish and all you had to do was hold up your end of the bargain.
You see, South Carolina, when all of my friends and family up north ask why I moved down here, I tell them it’s because it never gets below 50 in the winter. They’re buried in snow up to their eyeballs and I’m going for a jog in my shorts. I love to send them pictures of palm trees, and they think it’s funny when I tell them my friends from “down here” put on their heavy coats when the temperature goes below 50.
Now here’s the part I don’t understand. All the great times we’ve spent together, and when I’m not looking, you let it snow. LET IT SNOW?! Not to mention it is 30 degrees. You know no one knows how to drive when it gets like this, and you know that my Facebook page is going to be full of people who haven’t seen snow in ten years building snowmen and I’m going to have to say how cute their kids look… but I have to fake the smile because all I can think about is the fact that YOU LIED! I don’t even know if my house can stand up to this snow, the pipes could be bursting, the shingles could be falling off, my tree is already shedding branches…
South Carolina, do you know that they canceled school yesterday at 1:30pm because it was going to snow at 9pm? That is what I am dealing with down here. In West Virginia they go to school as long as the kids can see over the snow drifts. I swear the super-sized mortgage payment I pay each month has a “no snow” clause. I’m not even sure my hybrid car will turn on. I haven’t “warmed up” a car in five years and I don’t own a shovel, a scraper or a bag of salt.
To say I’m mad at you is an overstatement. Let’s call it “disappointed.” You promised me things that you haven’t been able to deliver on, and I’m not one to forget quickly. I can’t wait til it floods downtown Charleston today.
Cold with wet feet,
John Wilson
P.S. DirecTv doesn’t work in the snow. Lame.
See the rest of the photos at my flickr page here.
Aerosmith Tampa Cancelled
Jul/095
by John Wilson
I probably should have known. A 7.5 hour road trip to see a band of 60 year olds is a bad idea. Not to mention it was on the same night as UFC 100, arguably the best UFC card in the history of the sport.
There was no way I could say no – it was on my wife’s bucket list, and she rarely asks for anything.
As I was closing up shop at work, a co-worker who knew I was going to the show pointed out that Aerosmith had canceled several of the last shows because of an “undisclosed injury to a band member.” I surfed the web before we left and found several sites that said, “Aerosmith confirms they will definitely have the Tampa show.”
I left work early, set my new GPS for Tampa, FL and started the 7.5 hour road trip. Of all the trips on the whereisjohnwilson.com Summer Tour, this was one I was looking forward to.
Upon arriving at the Holiday Inn Express in Tampa, the desk attendant guy says, “Hey, you guys going to the Aerosmith Concert? They canceled about two hours ago (insert evil laugh).” Mind you, they said, “we are definitely playing tomorrow night.” After doing a little research from the hotel room, Joe Perry called into some random local radio show and announced the cancellation. Nice. Don’t you think they probably knew early that morning. Wouldn’t you think they’d imagine people would be traveling to see them?
We did get to visit the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino where neither of us gambled a dime (the place was packed and the lowest blackjack table was $25 a hand). We didn’t really find much to do in Tampa, though we didn’t look very hard. We drove back the 7.5 hour trip to Charleston just in time for UFC 100.
Update: Three weeks later and Live Nation still hasn’t refunded our tickets. They state they can’t give us our money back until the band reschedules the show. This makes no sense to me. No service, no pay. The way I see it, Live Nation is sitting on an interest free loan from the Bank of Wilson.
Update: see here for instructions on how to get a refund
Lessons learned:
- Never trust a rock star over 55
- Never travel more than four hours for a concert
- Tampa does a bad job of being appealing on the Internet
- Live Nation will hold your money hostage
Site of the Week – How the UFC Works
Jul/093
by John Wilson
The UFC Octagon
How the UFC works
How Stuff Works is a great site. They have well written and well researched articles on subjects from all spectrums. They also have an excellent general subject podcast available on iTunes, including my favorite, “Stuff you Missed in History Class.”
The particular article I’d like to draw attention to tonight is “How the Ultimate Fighting Championship Works.” This article covers the basics including:
- The Octagon
- Fighting Styles
- How to win
- UFC Rules
- UFC today
Each section gives a broad overview of the sport and what to watch for in a pay-per-view, Fight Night or The Ultimate Fighter show. Unfortunately, there is no one in the UFC named “John Wilson.” However, when you put “John Wilson +UFC” into Google, my website is on top.
Other Resources for basic MMA
If you’re interested in learning more about MMA (mixed martial arts) or the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) research the following search terms:
WWTT #1: Aciphex
Jun/092
WWTT is my new section called “What Were They Thinking.” I love to ask (typically out loud):
Were there 10 people sitting around a boardroom congratulating each other because they all thought this was a good idea?
First up on this column: Aciphex.
Ass Effects?
I seriously rolled off the couch when this commercial came on for the first time. You’ll run into it on TV (see below), they play it a ton.
I’m not kidding – Aciphex is pronounced – (Ass-e-fects) Ass Effects.
To top it off – it is the most expensive of the acid reflux medicines currently on the market (sourced from http://www.destinationrx.com/)
I get that it is an acid reflux medicine, but SOMEONE at the company had to snicker when whomever came up with this said it out loud for the first time. I can see the VP of Marketing combining a few of the words from their brainstorming session together to spell A-C-I-P-H-E-X. What I can’t see is how someone didn’t blurt out: That’s what she said!
Dear Bing – Where is “John Wilson”?
Jun/090
Currently, I bounce around the top of the Google search results. Sometimes one or two, sometimes at the bottom, but since mid last year I’ve always been on page one of the number one search engine in the world when searching for “John Wilson”.
Tonight, a friend of mine saw a commercial for Bing - Microsoft’s new search engine. I was tweaking the new design of my blog and thought I should search “John Wilson” to see where I was. PAGE TWO! This begs the question – how could the number one blog in the world get it right and Bing get it wrong?
Great question. I was playing around with Bing and searched the word “search”. You’d think (at least if I was Product Manager) that Bing would be the number one result. Not so:
Where is Bing? Or Google?
Yahoo? Dogpile (I didn’t even know they still existed)? AOL? Seriously?
I thought this was weird until I ran the same search at Google…
Where is Google, Google?
Where is Product Management? This is either an example of the most pure product management or the silliest thing I’ve seen.
Are you John Wilson?
May/091
Note: Though I don’t typically talk about work here, the next two posts will contain semi-work based information.
This week I learned about two John Wilson’s from two different partners we do business with (one with a similar job function as me), not to mention the other John Wilson at a partner of ours, who once a month or so, I accidentally get emails intended for him. So, in my relatively small work world, I’m aware of at least three additional John Wilsons.
- The idea – create a central location for “John Wilson.”
- The plan – find and interview each John Wilson I can find (most likely not related to my work)
- The site – add an index to the site that lists interviews and websites for each John Wilson I find (or finds me)
- The goal – meet a ton of John Wilsons and get the index listed on Wikipedia
Someone added me and this site to Wikipedia once, but then someone else took me off, probably because there was no accompanying article about me. I’m fine with that, but it seems like a moderately elite list. This list will be for every John Wilson out there, no “elite status” needed. There are only a few guidelines:
- Your name must be John Wilson (no Jonathan’s, sorry)
- You must contact me at whereisjohnwilson@yahoo.com
- You must be willing to answer a few interview questions
- Optional but preferred: You should have a reference to you somewhere on the Internet. Even if it is just a reference to you or a quote by you in a newspaper
- Optional: Submit a picture
I’ll take this information, and once a week or more, I’ll add John Wilsons to the new page on this site and post an interview about being John Wilson. Looking forward to hearing from you!
John Wilson Sponsored by…
May/090
I need a sponsor.
I’m a big MMA/UFC fan. For me, it’s a very “pure” sport. Man-on-man, limited rules, very entertaining.
One of my favorite parts of the fight occurs immediately after the fight is over. Drenched in blood and sweat an assigned member of the posse’s job is to make sure that the fighter gets the sponsor’s t-shirt on and designated beverage in hand.
In a classic piece of marketing gone wrong, the sponsors were having the fighters drink their beverage on camera, during the post-fight interview in the octagon. Great idea, except they forgot to tell the above listed posse member to open the can. On cue, however, the fighters would pretend to drink out of the can. Poorly. Several times they just tipped the can up around the general shoulder/ear area.
So, How do I get sponsored to go to work? I really want to finish a big client deliverable, throw on my Charmin (yes, the toilet paper) T-shirt, pretend to drink an unopened Coke, and thank my sponsors for helping me get to work and do my best. I wouldn’t charge much, and I promise to wear the gear and recite the taglines when appropriate. I think I’d want my work sponsors to be:
- Sugar-Free Red Bull (I’m not a morning person)
- Donald Trump Brand (so I could borrow his catch phrase “You’re Fired” when I kill a project)
- Wilson Footballs (I’ve always dreamed of turning in a document, spiking a football and doing the Ickey Shuffle)
- Xbox 360 (free games!)
- Condom Depot (because I laugh EVERY SINGLE TIME a fighter has that printed on the back of their fighting shorts)
Do you think maybe I could get Condom Depot on the back of my charcoal pin stripe suit?
John Wilson 2.0
Mar/090
To start this blog back up after a long hiatus I thought it may be useful to recap the initial goals of the site and a brief history of where it’s been. I’d also like to explain where I think it’s going, but I don’t quite have that figured out yet.
Goal: To be the number one site on the search results when a Google user searches “John Wilson.”
The point and the challenge is that I have such a common name. When I started this blog I thought having the number one search result on Google would be a great resume builder and new age business card. I checked tonight – after not updating for more than six months, and I’m the number three link under John Wilson!
Where is John Wilson?
As I was trying to think about how to get back into this, I began thinking about all the places I currently have a presence on the web. I was shocked at how many there were that were connectible to what others are doing:
- Facebook – “What are you doing” drink of choice
- MySpace – The Armpit of the Internet – I rarely update this
- Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/wilsonjs
- Twitter.com/john_wilson
- icyou channel (Wilson 2016)
- Gamespot Forums
- Rotten Tomatoes Forums
- Woot Forums
- youtube channel
- GoogleChat
- AIM
- Yahoo Games
- Netvibes
- ESPN Forums
- Sherdog Forums
Just to name a few. All of which can be traced back to me. Wierd. It’s very easy to just sign up for things.
Where are we going?
Great question. I have lots of travel pictures, which would take “Where is John Wilson” much more literally. There is also this voyage to the top of the search results. I’m going to start working as a boxing judge soon, and a football official in the fall. We’re doing lots of great things at work… there is a serious paradox of choice here. The most important thing will be to keep adding interesting content to move to the top of the Google rankings.
John Wilson at wvmountaineersports.com
Aug/080
Now that college football season is in full swing, you can read my articles at another blog called www.wvmountaineersports.com . They revolve around college football and the WV Mountaineers.
Guitar Hero Aerosmith – D’oh!
Jul/080
So close to finishing this game in two days. I only failed on two songs on hard (not sure what that says about my free time). Here is me 5 seconds after the last 5 notes of the last song appeared on the screen:
Painful.