Gaia Community: Frank's Blog

Top 10 Reasons to Vote for Barack Obama or Ron Paul

http://frank.gaia.com — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:30:46 GMT

Please check out the article I wrote on my strong beliefs about the upcomnig Presidential primaries. These primaries are the most important in the history of this country. Please act! Don't let us get to the point where we have only to choose the least of two evils again between Hilary Clinton and Rudy Guliani next November!

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Top_10_Reasons_to_Vote_for_Barack_Obama_or_Ron_Paul

Tags: politics

What values shape your life?

http://frank.gaia.com — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 10:32:21 GMT

Do "values" have to be summed up in one word? If not, I'd have to say my love for my family is the one thing that comes to mind. That love shapes my life in a number of ways. My love for my wife prompted me to up-root the family rather quickly and move all of us to Pennsylvania where my wife grew up. My love for my children keeps me in my car acting as taxi driver a great deal more than I'd like. My love for my parents keeps me in the business of taking pictures and uploading them to flickr. My love for my in-laws allowed me to purchase their home for my own and allow them to move in taking a huge burden from them.

So I guess I'd say the "value" of love drives me more than anything else.

Of course one could argue that these things are just my "life situation" and not really my "life". In that context I'd guess I'd have to say the value of "asking questions" or my inquisitive nature is the answer. I question just about everything. Again I don't know if the average person would consider this a value. But I guess I do. What do you think?

Tags: QaR, values, life

What is your recipe for world peace?

http://frank.gaia.com — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:38:18 GMT

I'm spreading my love for life through my photography. I'm taking pictures of people doing the things they love and loving what they're doing. What could be more peaceful? Take pictures of people having fun, spread them around the world on the Internet. Find ways of taking photographs that "go viral" and send a message... That's my plan.

Tags: QaR, peace, world peace

Free Photo Shoots for my Zaadz Buddies

http://frank.gaia.com — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:39:19 GMT

Good Morning Everyone!

This note is one attempt by me to announce to the Zaadz world that I'm offering free photo sessions to all of my local Zaadz buddies. I'm starting a photography business and need all the experience and exposure I can get. Please refer to this article or my zPro page for more information on how I'm running my "enlightened" business. This offer is for a limited time.

Peace!

Frank

Tags: photography, dream

Enlightened Business Practices and Photography

http://frank.gaia.com — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:51:14 GMT

I have been following the efforts of a friend named Brian Robertson of Ternary Software to bring enlightened business practices to the Software Industry.

It occurred to me today that if I'm going to build what I consider a successful business out of my love for photography that it would have to be done with some of these concepts in mind.

Here is a summary of how I'm applying enlightened business practices to photography:

1. Customers should have unrestricted access to their photographs.
2. Customers should only be required to purchase prints they want.
3. Customers should pay a fair hourly rate for the photographers time.
4. Printing of photographs should be limited as much as possible.
5. A portion of time should be dedicated to mastering the craft.
6. A portion of time should be dedicated to worthy causes.

This is no doubt only a beginning but I'm looking forward to the remainder of the journey. If you have any ideas on how I can better apply enlightened business practices to the business of photograpy shoot me an e-mail or leave me a comment

Tags: photography, enlightened business

Taking Pictures of People Doing Stuff

http://frank.gaia.com — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:19:24 GMT

I recently revived an effort to begin building a business around my love of photography ...

I believe your pictures are your own and shouldn't be held for ransom.

Pay me a low flat rate of $25 an hour to cover your event or activity.

I'll give you a CD or DVD with full resolution, high quality images for free. Yes that's right, included in the flat rate is a digital copy of all of your photos.

I'll also post them to a professional print fulfillment site for you to order prints at cost, if you so desire.

The rest is history ...

Tags: photography, dream

What, currently, is your greatest challenge?

http://frank.gaia.com — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:25:35 GMT

This is a great question. I probably say that too much. I promise i'm not kissing Zaddy butt. These questions always make me think. My biggest challenge use to be figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I now know what that is. I want to live and work, having fun taking pictures of people and exploring the internet. Any synergy I can build between photography and exploring the internet would also be cool. My biggest challenge now is simply letting everyone know that I now have a dream!

Tags: QaR, challenge

My Accidental Activism Efforts

http://frank.gaia.com — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 11:26:00 GMT

Good Morning to all of my Zaadz buddies. It occured to me this morning that I haven't been keeping you folks posted on a string of things that have been occuring in my on-line life lately. I think the posts on my regular blog explain it all, so I won't post much else here.

In summary, the articles below detail my frustration recently with a decison by Motorola to close a site I use to work at. That story was picked up by a few media outlets and I've joined forces in a way with Eric Jackson who has started a grass-roots effort to get Ed Zander, Motorola's current CEO, to step down due to the company's dismal performance.

Happy reading ...

http://www.frankgilroy.com/2007/06/open-letter-to-ed-zander-of-motorola.html
http://www.frankgilroy.com/2007/07/eric-jackson-and-motorola.html
http://www.frankgilroy.com/2007/07/chicago-tribune-interest-in-my-open.html
http://www.frankgilroy.com/2007/07/naples-daily-news-after-taking-aim-at.html

Tags: work, business, finance

What were you like as a child?

http://frank.gaia.com — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:40:21 GMT

Shy and easily intimidated ... much like I was yesterday.

Tags: QaR, child, childhood, personality

Pick three words that describe you as you are right now.

http://frank.gaia.com — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 02:28:33 GMT

fat, hungy, and tired.

Tags: QaR, words, description, self

Recommend something you love to the community.

http://frank.gaia.com — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:08:42 GMT

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter! I've been an active user of twitter almost since it's inception. Twitter is a website that allows you to register and stay in contact with all your friends, aquaintances, lovers, family, and pets in the way they choose. You can sign up with IM, by sending SMS text messages or strictly on the web. I've even figured out ways of integrating it with my Jott account and e-mail.

Join twitter today! It's free it's fun!

... and don't forget to add me as a friend!

Tags: QaR, community, recommendation, taste

Today is June ...

http://frank.gaia.com — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 04:08:16 GMT

Today is June 25th 2007 and I am going to write a book today. I think it takes a pretty special person to sit down one day, make that simple statement, with no clue on how to do it or what the book will be about. But that's what I did. The paragraph you're reading right now was written on that great day. I have no clue if or when the writing of this book will be complete but I can't wait to read the ending.

You see I've attempted this before. I've thought long and hard about what it is that I think I'd have to offer the world in the form of a book. I don't know why exactly, but I've also had this feeling deep down inside that I had something more to give to the human race. And this is it, this book.

My name is Frank Gilroy. I'm the son of a pretty simple couple of mid-western Caucasians of various (mostly Irish) cultural decent. My father was a police officer for most of his life until finding out that he had a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy. My mother was primarily a blue collar worker, doing everything from administrative work, to waitressing, to spending the bulk of her working life in the stock rooms and sales floors of a small college town's local K-Mart.

Not too interesting sounding yet huh? I didn't think so either. That's the main reason I had several false starts on the writing of a book. What did I have to offer? I'm primarily a Software Engineer (translated Computer Geek) by trade, although I dabble in Photography and Blog writing like a great many other people in the world these days. I almost finished college with a degree in Computer Science but have been lucky enough to gain work without having motivated myself to get that damn degree finished. So you see I'm a pretty regular yet average kinda guy.

The one thing however that has always nagged at me is my creativity and my honesty. Neither of which is really all that spectacular in their own right, but together I'm thinking could make for interesting reading. You see I really don't have that great of a command over the English language. English is my only language unfortunately but it's not like I'm any phenomenal writer. I had average grades in school and could put a fair sentence together but never felt as if I was always putting together complete thoughts or paragraphs.

Recently however I've been told by several people, as I've attempted to a larger degree to make my presence known on the Internet, that I'm a pretty funny guy. I said "me, I'm funny, you've got to be kidding right?" But that's the feed back I was getting. I've always loved being creative. Love art and photography but never really made it the passion that I think is required to really be successful. But people seem to think I'm pretty creative in the writing of some of my blog posts and things and have a fairly unique out look on life.

In my mind, I'm simply brutally honest. Or at least I try to be. I pretty much wear my emotions on my sleeve and try to call things the way I see them without adding too much pomp and/or circumstance. It seems that this rare form of honestly is considered rather refreshing these days. So I thought I'd simply sit down and write out some thoughts, trying be as honest as I could about myself, and a few other hopefully more interesting topics.

So here we go ...

Tags: book

When was the last time you were surprised?

http://frank.gaia.com — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 03:35:36 GMT

Ah yes, surprises. Honestly, I think I'm surprised every day. Today for example, I was surprised by everything from the vocabulary of my four year old son to the out-come of the Nascar race I was watching. I think the cool thing about life is that you never really know what's coming.

Yesteray for example I had grand plans of getting chores done all day, and it turned out I spent have the day in the doctors office for poison ivy (again!) and the other have of the day get a flat tire on my wife's mini-van fixed.

What the one thing that has surprised me the most as of late, is my ability to deal with these surprises themselves. It seems the older I get the more 'laid-back' I get. I think that's a good thing in many ways. I just hope that I don't get so laid back that nothing surprises me any more.

Tags: QaR, surprises

Describe a sensation or feeling that lacks a specific word.

http://frank.gaia.com — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:12:53 GMT

OK, now please, please don't think I'm some kinda weirdo or sado-masacistic kinda person but something along the lines of this question occurred to me, just the other day in the shower.

I've recently come down with a case of poison ivy. At times I can be very susceptible to this sort of thing. I deserve it ... I mowed the lawn again shorts and flip-flops on, go figure. But in the shower the other day, while I was feeling particularly ichy I let some pretty darn hot water run on my lower legs and ankles where the poison was really 'gettin' the ich on'.

I can't descirbe in words the level of relief mixed with pain, mixed with what almost seemed like pleasure that I experienced. I know, I know, I'm weird. But what had me so surprised about it was the degree to which I experienced it, it almost made me dissy.

Anyway, that's it. This is one of the first times in recent memory that I've almost competely kicked poision ivy, on my own, without cortisone. I think I might miss it in a pshyco sort of a way.

Tags: QaR, feeling, intangible, description, words, language

Who was your best friend as a child?

http://frank.gaia.com — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:57:14 GMT

Hey I can anser that one! Sometimes these things make me think too much, and that can be painful :) But I had too main best friends in childhoon. One was a guy by the name of Jimmy R.. He was my best friend during the early grades, say Kindergarten to 2nd grade or so. After that it was David H. He was crazy. He was that text book best friend that was the opposite of you, the guy you wanted to be able to act like sometimes. I miss him quite often.

Tags: QaR, friends, childhood

What's your favorite chore?

http://frank.gaia.com — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 02:49:02 GMT

I tend to associate the word chore with the negative... if I consider it a chore it, by definition, is probably not something I enjoy. However, I've been trying pretty darn hard not to look at things this way any more, and I think I'm suceding. My favorite thing to do these days, that I would have previously considered a chore is write. LIke this blog post for example.

But right now I'm a little tired and hitting the hay. Maybe I'll post more on this topic tommorrow, maybe I won't :)

Tags: QaR, chores, tasks

I have a dream!!!

http://frank.gaia.com — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 11:57:47 GMT

Hey folks! To those of you who know me, this simple article may bring a tear of joy to your eye. For those of you who don't, well you may think I'm nuts. If you're part of my family and still think I'm nuts, well you may not know me as well as you think you do.

On June 4th, 2007, at the age of 36 I once and for all figured out what my dream is!

"It is my dream to become a full time photographer and explorer of the Internet."

Now that might seem like a silly and simple dream to most of you. But in my mind it does imply a few things. First of all, since I have a family of 5 that I love and feel responsible to feed and cloth, it means I have a dream to get "paid" to do these things.

I obvisouly don't know yet exactly what this dream is going to mean in my life yet, but for now it means I'm going to spend more time giving in to my "addictions" and that you're going to hear a whole lot more from me!

See ya around ...

Tags: dream

A Zaadz Call to Arms: Smart Fortwo

http://frank.gaia.com — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 01:33:41 GMT

Good people of Zaadz, I wrote this article this evening in a rage after reading a Forbes article bashing this car. I want one bad. What about you?

http://www.frankgilroy.com/2007/06/found-my-new-car-smart-fortwo.html

I think we should all get behind this car based on the fuel efficiency alone. Let me know what you think. And if you agree with me... Digg it!

Tags: green, transportation

My New Capitalist Adventure

http://frank.gaia.com — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 17:04:19 GMT

Hey folks. I've started a new blog experiment. Check out the following site and let me know what you think, good or bad:

http://www.the312thousanddollarblog.com/

I've had this dream of getting paid to spend more time living in the Internet. This is yet another adventure in that direction. If I can make this work, I am officially an Internet Marketing genious.

Tags: internet

What do you say when you talk to yourself?

http://frank.gaia.com — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:31:36 GMT

Wow now that is a good one. I haven't answered one of these in awhile. But this one... I just can't resist. Perhaps part of the reason it's so easy for me to answer this one is the fact that I talk to myself way, way, way too much. Most of the time I'm going over ideas in my head for ways I could make some residual income that would allow me to spend more time with the people I love while doing something to help make other peoples lives a little easier. Most of the time I'm explaining to myself why I can't possibly get some of these ideas implemented.

Darn it.... now I'm mad at myself.

Tags: QaR, alone, thoughts, monologue