Our Minds Are Time Travelers

by Jon Henshaw on December 31, 2008

I found an interesting article over at The Daily Galaxy on how the mind is a virtual time traveler.

The human mind can move through time from past to present or present or past to future and in any gear. Our ability to imagine future events is a recent evolutionary development, and unparalleled in the animal kingdom. “We are a race of time travelers,” Gilbert says “unfettered by chronology and capable of visiting the future or revisiting the past whenever we wish.

Read the full article: Homo Sapiens -The “Time Travelers” -A Galaxy Insight

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Did the Last Three Years Really Happen?

by Jon Henshaw on December 29, 2008

It was just over three years ago that I left a very comfortable corporate job to join the tiny, scrappy, tw0-person team of Sitening. Moving from Denver to Nashville didn’t make sense to anyone – especially my parents who live in Denver. But I knew I had to leave, even under impossible and ridiculous odds and circumstances.

At the time, my wife was 6-7 months pregnant with our second child. It wasn’t exactly the best time to move anywhere. I also had a thin contract with the two founders (and only employees) of Sitening. My new office was a scrappy wing of an apartment where the three of us all sat closely next to each other, trying to keep the farts and burps to a minimum.

Somehow the company survived – sometimes barely. Three years later we now have sixteen plus employees, not including people we contract and outsource to on a regular basis. But what’s really different is what I’m doing today. For the last three years I’ve helped shape and mold Sitening from an online database administration company to a full service search marketing agency. However, as of the last several weeks, I no longer have anything to do with it!

I didn’t leave Sitening. Instead, I gladly replaced myself with Kate O’Neill and a few others so I could pursue developing and marketing Raven, Sitening’s industry standard suite of SEO tools for search marketing agencies. I love building Web apps and I love online marketing, so being the Product Manager and Cheif Socializer for Raven is a dream come true.

The best part is how much I love and appreciate my business partners, Scott Holdren and Patrick Keeble. I’m extremely fortunate to be partnered with individuals who are very intelligent, hard working and fun to be around. We also have an amazing staff of highly talented people who make each day at Sitening a blast.

I never knew that what happened in the last three years was possible – at least for me. I’m extremely grateful and can’t wait to see what 2009 is going to bring.

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Brilliant Obama Ad

by jonhenshaw on October 30, 2008

Not only is this a good ad, it also uses music from The Weepies.

Found via NY Nerd

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GOP Hypocrisy, Daily Show Style

by jonhenshaw on September 4, 2008


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8 Reasons Why Palin Sucks

by jonhenshaw on September 4, 2008

Certainly there’s many reasons to dislike Sarah Palin, but here are 8 good ones that AlterNet compiled:

  1. Palin Tried to Ban Books From Local Library
  2. Palin Apparently Doesn’t Put “Country First”
  3. Palin’s Love Affair With Earmarks
  4. Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms
  5. Crazy Reverend, Crazy Church
  6. McCain Picking Palin Reeks of Sexism
  7. Palin Can’t Even Run a Car Wash
  8. Lied About Foreign Travel

You can read all the juicy details from 8 More Shocking Revelations About Sarah Palin.

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Preparing for Fun at Barcamp Nashville 2008

by jonhenshaw on August 29, 2008

I had to miss the first Barcamp Nashville because I was on vacation. However, this year I’ll be there in full force. And by full force, I mean for half the day, right after my daughter’s birthday. Assuming they don’t kick me off the speaker list for being unruly, I’ll be sharing secrets on how to Make Google Your Bitch – aka, awesome search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing techniques for driving exposure and targeted traffic to your site.

Barcamp Nashville

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Sometimes I come into work early and the only coffee shop that’s open (other than McDonald’s, which doesn’t exactly make what I would call coffee) is Starbucks. They’re open at 5:30AM and I’m usually to the office no later than 6AM, so it’s my only _good_ choice for coffee. I also happen to really like Starbucks coffee. I think it taste the best out of all of the coffee shops I’ve been to and it also has about double the caffeine (sweet!!).

Then there’s the the local coffee shop a couple blocks away called Fido. It’s a decent place that’s very popular around town and they have great food and _good_ coffee. However, regardless of how much pride they take in their coffee and coffee making skills, it’s still nothing I’d write home about.

So today I was in Fido. I wanted breakfast, which they do an excellent job of, and I brought along my dreaded corporate infested Starbucks coffee cup. I still had 1/2 a cup left and didn’t want to waste my money buying coffee I didn’t need. I’ve done this plenty of times before (not frequently, but definitely more than once). The cup itself looks about the same as their cups and also has about the same kind of cardboard sleeve. The only way you would notice the difference is if you were looking at everyone’s cups for some strange reason, instead of minding your own business and not giving a damn about unimportant things.

Unfortunately, I had to be confronted by the same annoying guy who was in front of me in line and took forever to make his order. I remembered him, because his overall demeanor annoyed me. He seemed scatter brained – like the kind of person who has been to too many protests about things he couldn’t truly grasp in its entirety, and the kind of person who has had part of his mind altered from smoking entirely too much pot. He reeked of that self-righteous bandwagon mentality that is confused, but stubborn about things in the world he doesn’t really understand or hasn’t fully contemplated.

The exchange was brief. He came by my table and said something about sacrilege for me having a cup of coffee from the evil empire. I told him it was fine. He then told me that their coffee sucked and that Fido’s coffee was way better. I knew of course that he had no idea what he was talking about and was talking out of his ass. His assault on my Starbucks coffee was rooted in the dislike for a corporate entity, not the actual taste or quality of the coffee. So my reply to him was that I actually liked their coffee better than Fido’s and that was about it. An honest answer to a lame interruption and scolding.

About a minute passed before I was confronted by someone who worked at the coffee shop. They said management wanted me to pour my _illicit_ coffee into one of their cups. At first, I was thinking about how silly it was. Even sillier, I know the management. Why couldn’t Jeff just tell me that himself? Why the sudden chill in the air for having outside coffee for this brief moment? I got up and confronted Jeff (nicely, mind you) and asked him what was up. His response was that they’re a coffee shop and that I was advertising a competing coffee shop by using that cup. I complied, but couldn’t shake the silliness of the situation.

It wasn’t until I sat down and kept thinking about it that I realized what had happened. In my honesty, and in typical Jon style, I had insulted them. Where I was sitting, everyone was to my back, and they must have watched the entire exchange between me and that asshat. I’m sure that saying confidently that I like Starbucks’ coffee better than theirs must have struck a nerve, especially since I know that they take their coffee making skills seriously (I’m not kidding there, I know for a fact from past conversations that they really take it seriously). That of course wasn’t my intention with my comments, but that’s what happened – I’m sure of it.

Regardless, there’s nothing I would take back. I can’t apologize and say that I really like their coffee better, because that would be a lie. I also can’t take their “advertising” complaint all that seriously either. Being a business owner, and understanding the niche they fill – not to mention the people who are their patrons – they really have _nothing_ to fear from a rogue Starbucks coffee cup floating around. Instead, I think the fear may be more deeply rooted with the truths of that coffee shop. That being, their coffee is _not_ special and their service, overall and compared to Starbucks, really, really sucks. But alas, I go there for the convenience of it all and to get a break from my daily grind.

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Obama Biden Text Message Announcing VP

by jonhenshaw on August 23, 2008

Barack Obama announces Joe Biden as his VP running mate for the 2008 election. Here’s what it looked like on my iPhone.

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Salon Opens Doors To “Open Salon”

by jonhenshaw on August 11, 2008

I’ve been using “Open Salon”:http://open.salon.com for the past couple of months. It’s not a new idea, but it makes up for it by the quality of the people and the content. They also seem to do a good job of filtering the best content to the top. Every user get their own blog – “this is mine”:http://open.salon.com/user_blog.php?uid=1091

You can use Open Salon just like any other blog. It’s not super sophisticated, but you can upload images, stylize text and leave links. All of which are the most important things to me. It will be interesting to see what type of impact the site makes on the political netizens as it rolls out.

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Watchmen Graphic Novel Doesn’t Disappoint

by jonhenshaw on July 23, 2008

Watchmen Watchmen by Alan Moore



My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first graphic novel that I’ve read fully. Although I’m still not turned on by graphic novels – I prefer to use my imagination – I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to some of its semi-complex, parallel story threads, and its complex characters, I was easily engrossed.

The author gave a realness to the characters, much like Chuck Palahniuk does for his characters. He makes you believe that the character is real, instead of a weak extension of the author’s psyche.

I know the movie is coming out soon, so I’m looking forward to seeing the cinematic adaptation. Regardless, if you get a chance to read this book (especially before the movie comes out), you’ll be in for a treat.

View all my reviews.

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