Facebook, an online memorial: a place for grieving, sharing, healing

I never realized just how powerful facebook really is. While waiting at the carwash, killing time with a casual facebook check, my world changed.  My jaw dropped, tears rushed to my eyes and I was hit with the heavy news...

Today my post will be a bit different than normal.
It's time for me to get on my soap box and make sure you remember how precious life is...because all too frequently we forget.

This past Friday, my childhood friend, Indiana Graham, lost his five year fight with cancer.
He was not only my middle school sweetheart but the guy in high school that everyone loved.
He was the class clown, the baseball player, the friend of every person he met.

Even after being diagnosed with cancer sophomore year of high school, he kept a positive attitude and that big smile of his on his face. After graduation, while we all went our separate ways, he stayed at home to go to community college and receive his necessary treatments (always trying to persuade me that his dream college, OSU, was better than UT). But, despite his poor college allegiance and thanks to facebook, we were able to keep in touch and stay friends.

It was through facebook, that I stayed up to date on his life: his family, his treatments, his true love (his Mustang), his recent Make-A-Wish NYC trip and at 2 p.m., Friday the 30th, at Arbor Car Wash, the news of his passing.

Through facebook, I found out an hour after it happened.
An hour.
News that used to take a few days to circulate from family members to friends, now takes literally seconds. A gift and a curse for everyone involved.

All in all, I think the lightening-speed information sharing via social media is a good thing to have. I'm appreciative of the quick news, allowing me to quickly move my schedule around to attend his funeral service back in Dallas. I'm also appreciative of the memorial power of facebook. I think it serves as a powerful, online place for friends to grieve, share photos and memories, and ultimately start the slow healing process. As trivial as it sounds, embrace facebook and the ability it has to keep those you care about connected with each other.

I write this not to be morbid, depressing or dramatic, but to remind you to tell your friends you love them. I don't think it gets said enough. Life is short: conquer your goals, embrace your hobbies, but most importantly enjoy the journey.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"When I get where I'm going, there'll be only happy tears, I will shed the struggles that I've carried all these years, yeah when I get where I'm going, don't cry for me down here"

RIP Indy

What do chicken, seafood and barbecue all have in common?
One thing. McGuire Moorman Hospitality group.

After the success of Lambert's Downtown Barbecue and Perla's, Larry McGuire and Tommy Moorman seem to do no wrong in the restaurant industry. Now, their latest venture, Elizabeth Street Cafe, a french-vietnamiese fusion, is receiving great reviews as well.

Larry McGuire started all three of these restaurants and watched them grow and flourish all before his 30th birthday. However, his entrepreneurial spirit isn't stoping here. Now he, along with a few partners, are delving into the drive-through restaurant market with Fresa's Chicken opening later this year.



However, with this group's track record, it won't be your typical greasy, fast food drive-through. The same quality preparation and ingredients will go into making these to-go meals. Like the group's three previous restaurants, almost all ingredients are from local sources. Even the chickens are sourced from Peeler Farms in Floresville, Texas, where they're pasture-raised and fed non-GMO feed, resulting in a top-quality bird.

To me, it's about time Austin gets a drive-through style restaurant with a sit-down-quality taste. Sure, there are a ton of burger restaurants such as P. Terry's and Hat Creek Burger Co. that use local ingredients, but unless you want burgers every time you want a quick meal, these choices aren't very helpful.

Fresa's Chicken Al Carbon will offer half or whole slow-roasted chicken breasts and sides such as mexican street corn, grilled vegetables, spicy potato salad and various side salads. Now, busy Austinites can pick up a whole, healthy meal on the way home for their families.

So if the past is any indication of the future, I'd say these entrepreneurs have a good chance for another restaurant success story.

Homeless Hotspots: ethical or offensive?

Another SXSW has come and gone, and in the aftermath, its time for people to critique its many shows, films and...labor practices?

Yes. In case you've been living under a rock, or just have been mentally checked-out over spring break, SXSW's use of homeless hotspots is creating some extreme debate over ethical labor issues.

Thirteen volunteers from a local homeless shelter worked for the marketing agency BBH throughout the week. Each carried around a wi-fi device and donned t-shirts with, "I'm ____, a 4G hotspot", then further instructions on how to connect to the device.

ReadWriteWeb called this a "blunt display of unselfconcious gall". While a Wired blogger described it as “something out of a darkly satirical science-fiction dystopia.”


However, those working at the shelter, marketers at BBH and the actual volunteers all disagreed with the backlash of negativity.


Mitchell Gibbs, director of development at the shelter where volunteers stayed, said he was surprised by the criticism of the project. Gibbs said the project inspired "entrepreneurial spirit" among participants. He even advised BBH on the best ways to set up the pilot program.


One volunteer, Clarence Jones, 54, told The New York Times that, “I love talking to people and it’s ...an honest day of work and pay.” And, while he knows others think that he's getting "the rough end of the stick" he doesn't feel that way. 


Personally, I don't see what all the uproar is about. While I think this could have been carried out a bit more tactfully (e.i., ensuring minimum wage is met), I think the idea is legitimately good and heres why:

• The work isn't demeaning in anyway. I think everyone would have been on-board if there were unpaid interns walking around as wireless hotspots.
• Volunteers, volunteers, volunteers: It's not like BBH picked up someone off the street corner, slapped a shirt on them, and glued a wireless device to their hand. BBH collaborated with the shelter and paid the volunteers wanting to earn money during SX.

However, that being said, I do think opponents to this have a point. From what I've read the volunteers only got paid $20-$50 dollars a day, which depending on the hours worked isn't even minimum wage. 


I think it boils down to an underlying factor of guilt. People don't want to necessarily pause from their carefree SXSW experience to talk to someone who may not have such a carefree life. Though it sounds harsh, people are attending the festival to network, relax and party; not to have to think about real-world problems facing others.

Football or music, THAT is the question.

It's the choice everyone has been talking about.

Since Feb. 14th, when next season's Big 12 football schedule was announced, students have had a dire new decision looming over their heads...attend TX/OU weekend, an 83-year-old tradition between the rival universities, or attend ACL, the largest concert weekend in Austin.

For me, the choice is a no-brainer: Rid River Shootout it is. There's just simply no way I could miss it. I'm an avid Longhorn football fan and hate that Godforsaken land north of the Texas boarder. Oklahoma, I hear it's called?

However, for other UT students the choice may not come so easy. Austin City Limits is obviously one of the largest events in the city. To give you a little perspective, last year it generated nearly $73 million in visitor spending. I mean, where else can you hear the vast array of talented artists all in one weekend? So for music lovers, and partiers alike, the choice could get pretty tricky.

However, putting my critical thinking skills to use, I feel as if there's one underlying theme in both of these weekends: getting hammered. You know it's true.

Therefore, here is your 2012 TX/OU/ACL weekend plan...you're welcome.

Paint those coolers, pack your bags and hop on that bus to good ol' Dallas, Texas. Thanks to the nice 3G coverage area conveniently lining I-35, stream the live ACL acts strait to your mobile device while you sip on your beverage of choice. What did people ever do without internet?

Not only will you be getting shwasted in the comfort of a climate controlled bus, by streaming the concerts you get front-row viewing capabilities while on the way to one of the best rivalries on earth.

Now that's what I call killing two birds with one stone.

Who are you wearing?

Unfortunately, for Ryan Seacrest, it's the late North Korean dictator Jim Jong Il.

In case you missed the Academy Awards last week, the comedic actor, Sacha Baron Cohen, was up to his usual tricks as he arrived dressed as the fictional character, Admiral General Aladeen, to promote his upcoming movie, The Dictator.

Just as the red carpet interview was going smoothly, perhaps too smoothly, Sacha "accidentally" tipped the urn, pouring the Bisquick "ashes" all over Ryan's tuxedo. Although trying to keep an upbeat appearance, Seacrest obviously wasn't amused by the publicity stunt.

What seemed to be body guards brushed Cohen away as Ryan dusted off his jacket and for once, he seemed to be at a brief loss for words.

"I was surprised, but not surprised," Seacrest told an E! blogger. "In the back of my head, I said, this guy isn't coming as the Dictator to not do something—to what extent, I don't know. Whether it be a joke or something physical, I don't know."


Seacrest, being the pro that he is, said he always brings an extra jacket with him in events of unplanned spillage. In addition, you know that his costumers at E! would be all over that situation in a heartbeat as well. So personally, I don't see what the huge fuss is about.

I think it was a clever little way to draw attention to the movie and coming from Sacha Baron Cohen it's not a huge shocker. And, call me cynical, but I'm sure it was probably planned from the beginning and was okayed by Seacrest or his people.

Either way, the little publicity stunt worked. It certainly got people talking, and while the movie will probably be mediocre at best, I may have to go see it.

After all, "the heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed" sounds so ridiculous it could actually be pretty funny.