I'm Gina Smith

I am a gypsy princess on Halloween. This was my high school prom dress!

A day on Leo Laporte's TWiT with TeamBYTE

I had the best intentions. Leo, my old buddy and cohost from On Computers 1990s era, is of course now a celeb (and a cause celebre) to folks who know tech. He's got a network of amazing shows.

I once again guested on This Week in Technology (TWiT) yesterday with two excellent folks (one of them an old colleague mine, too, the encyclopedic and ever-wise Patrick Norton of Revision 3.) But that was a lot of alpha broadcast personality for one room. You be the judge.

Check out www.twit.tv.298  to check out the show, not sure video is up yet but it's coming. It's the one about the hole in the boat on fire : )

A couple of regrets. An active subset of my BYTE contributors -- I call them teamBYTE -- showed up in force in the TWiT chat. They did so because I asked for their support. It was Easter Sunday and they showed up anyway. I wanted to mention them by name to demonstrate the level of quality editors and contributors BYTE is gathering. But I never was able to get 10 secs to give a shout out to them -- not in all the chaos. It killed me!

So you know, I chose our 61 teamBYTE members out of well over a thousand applicants. TeamBYTE is best and brightest. BYTE (www.byte.com) is launching in July. I guess I'll have to wait till next time to mention some of this great talent.

A special thank you to:

Brian Burgess

Jeremy Lesniak

Joey Kelley

Emmet Williams

Duane Craig

Eric Finkenbiner

Mike Rothman

Chris Spera

Todd Moore

Todd Ogasawara

Jacob Lopez

Craig Johnston

Fritz Nelson

Serdar Yegulalp

Chris Miller

Chris Spera

David Biedny

Thanks for rocking the chatroom and beating back the trolls. You know you've got it when you've got trolls!

Seriously, re BYTE. There is no success for a giant project like this without an aligned and psyched team. Teamwork is essential. Being able to move with agility as one team is going to be essential, too, once BYTE launches. But I tell you this. BYTE is going skyrocket because of the strength of teamBYTE.

For teamBYTE and me here at my ancient blog, thanks again to Leo and gang for a fabulous time. It was a great show, despite my disappointment on not getting to shout out teamBYTE members.

Are you a regular IGS reader? Let me know what you think of the show. I'm @ginasmith888 if you want to follow the progress or email me via my link on the BYTE homepage.

gs

p.s. The book I wrote with Herta Von Stiegel -- The Mountain Within -- is coming out this fall (McGraw Hill). It's all about teamwork and other key lessons possible for successful launches and projects. It's based on her trek up Kilamanjaro.

I couldn't stop thinking about team strength while I watched these folks in the chat.

Many thanks to all of you! Go BYTE.

www.byte.com

 

I spent the last week in Mougin, near Nice, in the South of France.

Though I've been to Europe -- my family is in Yugoslavia and Germany -- France was a first. Here are some interesting things I noticed.

- All the men wear hair products. Mousse, I think. Gel?

- All the women have long hair down or in loose, messy buns. For once, I don't feel disheveled.

- Everywhere, you are either hearing Cole Porter covers (usually Mel Torme) or Supertramp!

- The people in the south of France are so totally friendly. This reminds me of the American South, where I grew up -- where it is considered rude not to greet a stranger, anyone and everyone, with a hearty Bonjour or Bon Soir! (When I moved to Boston from Florida, I said Good Morning to people on the street and they literally scattered. Probably assumed I was nuts.

- There is a town named Mougin with ancient Roman walls and medieval homes. Art galleries. Bistros. Not a tourist shop in the whole place. Picasso spent his final years there.

- It is absolutely gorgeous here. I thought my home now, San Francisco, was the most beautiful place on Earth with its panoramic views and mountains, ocean, Bay. Sorry, SF, but the South of France is SF plus one.

- People tip very little here. Literally. I kept being told to leave only a 2 euro coin as a tip for everthing, no matter how much it cost!

- WIFI is free everywhere. Even in the ancient towns.

- Monaco looks like paradise. You could eat off the streets. You can sit in front of the palace. I have never seen so many Ferraris in my life, in front of the famous casino (the one from all the James Bond movies) in Montecarlo. Literally, 200 Ferraris in a parking lot.

- I heard a couple complaining that they were shocked that a restaurant wouldn't serve them dinner after 11! I was surprised they wouldn't even give me an appetizer until 7:15 p.m. I knew they ate late here, but sheesh.

- Following on that thought, I woke up early today to take my plane back home (am writing from Nice Airport now) and at 7 a.m. there was not a single person at breakfast. When I left at 8:30, I checked, and still no one had woken up.

- Various types of ham, a lot like prosciutto, seem to be the mainstay of most meals.

- There is a pizza place on every corner. They love that Italian food, I suppose. I didn't see a single Starbucks and only a sign for a Macdonalds that was "coming soon." Somehow I doubt this.

- I speak German and Spanish quite well and guess what, when I couldn't communicate in French with the locals, I found they could speak one or the other, too.

- They don't speak fondly of Proust here. That surprised me.

- Of course, everyone smokes. Ashtrays everywhere. Coming from California, this looked so surprising to me. But do you know what they are smoking: Marlboro Red. No warning label.

- The weather feels a lot like San Diego in early spring. A little brisk. But the palm trees, etc., let you know you're in the Riviera.

- All women wear scarves.

- People kept calling me Madame. To be honest, I wish they'd said Mademoiselle.

- In all, I love it here! I have heard stories about the French being brash, disdainful of those who butcher their language, hating Americans. Maybe in Paris (I have no clue). But not here. Maybe it is the southern thing -- in France or in the US -- that helps make people more relaxed and a whole lot friendlier.

- Off to my flight. I'll post some pics.

What I did on my 2000s vacation.

Well, it was no vacation, but it sure was action-packed.

In 2000, I founded a network computer company (NIC) with Larry Ellison, only to fold it three years later. I learned to play guitar. I became very ill and with the help of great doctors, survived.Spent a summer at the Iowa Writer's Workshop and finished half a novel. I blew every ligament in my left leg while skiing badly. Wrote two books (The Genomics Age and iWOZ) and got to watch my co-author, Steve Wozniak, on Dancing with the Stars. Got an essay published in a great book edited by Margo Perin, How I Learned to Cook. My mom died. I had a baby. Started a blog. I completed a graduate degree. Made some great friends. Lost one. Made some bad decisions and a great one: I went to work for the very same guy who hired me for my first tech job, only now as a partner at a kind of incubator/angel firm, first30services. Fell in love with inventions and ideas, ideas that I know will bear fruit this coming year. Nevertheless, the coming new decade looms faceless and gives no hints ...

That is one whole helluva lot for a decade, no? Life is a not a race or a contest, but the 00s will be hard to compete with.

Happy New Year one and all. And thanks to all of you who've been following this blog so long.

Gina

I think you're fat. (Esquire).

Click here for one of the funniest articles I've ever read. It's all about a movement called Radical Honesty. Excellent journalism.

You've got to do this if you do weird eclectic things on your iPod.

Ignore this posting if you don't like eclectlic music, but I recommend you download every version of Begin the Beguin (by Cole Porter) you can find on iTunes from every possible artist. In every style, every decade. Download, then play them in order. It will blow your mind.

Let me know what you think. I think it's amazing. Maybe you have another suggestion.

You may know Begin the Beguin it was voted in the Top 5 songs and lyrics of the entire 20th century. Popular for more than 40 years. Amazing more people don't remake it now.

Begin the Beguine (Cole Porter)

When they begin the beguine
It brings back the sound of music so tender
It brings back a night of tropical splendor
It brings back a memory ever green

I'm with you once more under the stars
And down by the shore an orchestra's playing
Even the palms seem to be swaying
When they begin the beguine

To live it again is past all endeavor
Except when that tune clutches my heart
And there we are swearing to love forever
And promising never, never to part

What moments divine, what rapture serene
Till clouds come along to disperse the joys we had tasted,
And now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted,
I know but too well what they mean.

So don't let them begin the beguine,
Let the love that was once a fire remain an ember
Let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember
When they begin the beguine

Oh yes, let them begin the beguine, make them play
Till the stars that were there before return above you
Till you whisper to me once more, Darling, I love you
And we suddenly know what heaven we're in
When they begin the beguine
When they begin the beguine

Says Boy George (on tea vs. sex)

"I would rather a cup of tea than sex." Boy George.

Can you give up Lent for Lent?

And is Jerry Garcia grateful to be dead?

In a search just now for Lent-appropriate quotes, I found this cute site.

To dust you will go.

When I was a child, this was the day they smeared ashes on your forehead and told you: You are dust and to dust you will go. Something very close to that, anyway.

To me back then, Lent was a 40 day build-up to Easter chocolate and, meanwhile, a time to give up the things you love too much.

I read today that Lent originally was a 40-hour period (symbolizing the 40 hours between crucifixion and the biblical resurrection) and that the word originally just meant "spring." I never knew that.

It feels like spring today in San Francisco. It finally stopped raining. And there are people walking around my neighborhood with ashes on their foreheads. To dust we will go, I suppose.

Who cares?

This song (and these lyrics) were on the CD I told you about yesterday. God, they almost made me cry driving home from the Woz interview yesterday, and crying is not good going down 280 90 miles an hour in heavy rain.

So I looked up the lyrics to see what the heck made me so sentimental.

Answer below:

who cares

by Suzzy

I like to watch tv
listen to the news
hear what everybody is saying
there's a lotta talk about God
peace and safety and
war and fear and
there goes a girl in a bikini

this guy's saying that guy's an idiot and
she's on the right he's on the left and
everybody's screaming and yelling at each other and
calling each other jerks
it's a party

who cares where the truth lies
who cares where the truth lies

guys dressed up in suits and ties
look you straight in the eyes
telling lies
but I really wish I knew
what they were talking about
meanwhile human beings
are being strung up on bridges and
little kids are getting their legs blown off and
young soldiers are coming home no more

if you live in new york city
keep your eye on he sky
afraid to take a subway ride
wondering about the next time
the next time

who cares
who cares

so I look inside my own angry heart
the violent world
of my misdeeds and my mistakes
my old messy heartbreaks
and fantastic fakes
the good intentions paved in gold
another war story gets told

I like to watch tv
listen to the news
hear what everybody is saying
I think that I'm a dove but
maybe I'm a hawk and
someday I will fly away

who cares where the truth lies

What Tom Delay said at Ruth's Chris Steak House.

Contributed to me by Steve Wozniak, who got it from Sharon G.

1) "I AM the federal government." Tom DeLay, to
the owner of Ruth's Chris Steak House, after
being told to put out his cigar because of
federal government regulations banning smoking in
the building, May 14, 2003

2) "So many minority youths had volunteered that
there was literally no room for patriotic folks
like myself." --Tom DeLay, explaining at the 1988
GOP convention why he and vice presidential
nominee Dan Quayle did not fight in the Vietnam
War

3) "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of
fun?" Tom Delay, to three young hurricane
evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in
Houston, Sept. 9, 2005

4) "We're no longer a superpower. We're a
super-duper power." Tom DeLay, explaining why
America must topple Saddam Hussein in 2002
interview with Fox News

5) "Nothing is more important in the face of a
war than cutting taxes." Tom DeLay, March 12,
2003

6) "Guns have little or nothing to do with
juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence
are working parents who put their kids into
daycare, the teaching of evolution in the
schools, and working mothers who take birth

control pills." Tom DeLay, on causes of the
Columbine High School massacre, 1999

7) "A woman can take care of the family. It takes
a man to provide structure. To provide stability.
Not that a woman can't provide stability, I'm not
saying that... It does take a father, though."
-Tom DeLay, in a radio interview, Feb. 10, 2004

8) "I don't believe there is a separation of
church and state. I think the Constitution is
very clear. The only separation is that there
will not be a government church." Tom DeLay

9) "Emotional appeals about working families
trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum
wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately,
such families do not exist." Tom DeLay, during a
debate in Congress on increasing the minimum
wage, April 23, 1996

10) "I am not a federal employee. I am a
constitutional officer. My job is the
Constitution of the United States, I am not a
government employee. I am in the Constitution."
Tom DeLay, in a CNN interview, Dec. 19, 1995

(from Sharon Blasgen to Woz...I guess this should appease everyone, pro- or anti-DeLay)

Says Don Cuppitt.

A God out there and values out there, if they existed, would be utterly useless and unintelligible to us. There is nothing to be gained by nostalgia for the old objectivism, which was in any case used only to justify arrogance, tyranny, and cruelty. People [forget] ... how utterly hateful the old pre-humanitarianism world was.

Jaws was never my scene, and I don't like Star Wars.

Today, probably due to the stress and energy of trying to promote my new DNA book along with my new company, the brand new webcam game company Eye Games, I found my mind wander to the oddest place.

I started thinking about that bizarre Queen song, Bicycle Race,and obsessing over where he actually attacked pop culture by saying "Jaws was never my type, and I donj't like Star Wars."

I guess he was one of the earliest rebels of pop culture, which inevitably leads to filthy,germy action characters under your couch. (I have a little boy.

Anyway, here are the lyrics in case you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about.

by Freddy Mecury

I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like
You say black I say white
You say bark I say bite
You say shark I say hey man
Jaws was never my scene
And I don't like Star Wars
You say Rolls I say Royce
You say God give me a choice
You say Lord I say Christ
I don't believe in Peter Pan
Frankenstein or Superman
All I wanna do is
Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my
Bicycle races are coming your way
So forget all your duties oh yeah!
Fat bottomed girls
They'll be riding today
So look out for those beauties oh yeah
On your marks get set go
Bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race
Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
Bicycle bicycle bicycle bicycle
Bicycle race
You say coke I say caine
You say John I say Wayne
Hot dog I say cool it man
I don't wanna be the President of America
You say smile I say cheese
Cartier I say please
Income tax I say Jesus
I don't wanna be a candidate for
Vietnam or Watergate
Cos all I wanna do is
Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

The not-so-humble story of me. (Ahem.)

An article about me appeared in the San Francisco Biz Inc. last week. I finally received permission from them to post it here.

My favorite part: Where the writer says I have the humility of someone who is not humble.

Hey, I resemble that. No humble person would ever publish a blog. Would they?

Published: Friday, June 04, 2004

BY RHONDA ASCIERTO

Rarely is opportunity fortuitous. Though Gina Smith says hers is a story of luck, her trip from journalist to CEO to novelist has everything to do with hard work and tenacity.

And, well, maybe a bit of luck.

Of the swarm of reporters covering Silicon Valley's tech boom in October 1999, it was Smith whom Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison handpicked to run his latest startup, The New Internet Computer Co. (NIC), based in San Francisco.

That's right, a journalist with no management experience to run his fledgling company.

At the time, Smith was fresh into a TV job co-hosting CNET's hour-long tech show on CNBC with Richard Hart. She was approached for the spot after a four-year stint as a tech expert for ABC shows including "Good Morning America" and "World News Tonight" with Peter Jennings.

Smith has that rare mix of being accessible, attractive, likable and knowledgeable about computers -- and her journalism career was on fire.

When Ellison asked her to dinner that fall, Smith already had co-authored two books, "Toolbook: Programming for Non-Programmers" and "101 Computer Answers You Need to Know." She had spent 11 years as an editor and writer for various computer magazines, writing the "Inside Silicon Valley" tech column for the Sunday Examiner Chronicle and hosting a radio show about computers.

When Ellison stunned her over dinner with his offer to maker her CEO of NIC, her career was at an unlikely turning point.

"He said, 'I'm convinced that executives make messes of things' and he didn't want to hire somebody who was already bureaucratic, you know, from a computer company," Smith recalls. "He said he wanted fresh, out-of-the-box ideas and that I knew everybody."

After two months of deliberation, Smith agreed to run NIC, a maker of bare-bones, Internet-only computers that sold for $199.

"I thought 'When am I going to get another opportunity like this?' I mean, Bill Gates has never called me and asked me to run a company for him," Smith jokes.

The 39-year-old is plain-spoken and friendly, with the humility of someone who is not humble but confident enough not to pretend she is just a clever writer.

Intelligent, charming and competitive is how mentor David Street describes Smith.

"I wouldn't call her over-the-top bubbly. She's friendly, she's warm, she's engaging," Street says. "If you have to name her greatest skill, it's engaging with people and getting positive results."

Street hired Smith in 1987 to be a writer for computer disk-drive maker Core International in Boca, Fla. At the time, Smith had been a crime reporter at The Boca Raton News for two years, but was looking to specialize in a beat that didn't already have a large pool of reporters. She had the chance to cover Microsoft Corp. for the newspaper and figured that if she could learn more about computers, an area not well-covered by the media at the time, she would boost her likelihood of being successful.

"I've always tried to identify something that's going to be big and then be a journalist or a commentator, or have a company around it," Smith explains.

She left the computer company after a year to work for PC Week, thanks to a brilliant stroke of luck. Smith had written a letter to the magazine -- on bright blue paper, as is the want of a 23-year-old -- asking for a job. The letter lay crumpled up in the trash can of PC Week's human relations' office when the editor noticed its bright color, pulled it from the trash and called her for a job.

Of course, luck had little to do with her success as a journalist for the next decade or so.

Smith says her CEO stint was a blast and "one of the most interesting times in my life."

Armed with $10 million from Ellison and a Rolodex, she launched the company and sold thousands of its machines. NIC got great media coverage ("I knew how to deal with the press because I knew what a good story was," Smith says) and the kind of access to large corporate partners that only non-reporters can dream of.

"I could easily call [Sun Microsystems Inc. CEO] Scott McNealy and set up a meeting to see how the NIC could work with the Sun servers," Smith says. "Whereas if I was a startup that didn't already know Scott, gosh, good luck meeting with Sun."

And, yes, Sun did end up doing a deal with NIC.

NIC folded in 2003, about a year after Smith left, having failed to make sales goals at a time when personal computers that offered more than Internet access became ubiquitous and cheap.

Smith was offered jobs as "vice president of this and that" at various Fortune 100 companies. But she returned to her passion for writing and enrolled in the Iowa Writer's Workshop. She wrote the non-fiction book "The Genomics Age," slated for publication in September, as well as a partly autobiographic novel.

Smith says a personal turning point was when her late mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1998. Her mother, who was part-gypsy, part-Serbian and raised in an Auschwitz gypsy concentration camp, became an epicurean and enjoyed fine wines, rich food and cigarettes. Her mother's illness prompted Smith to become vegetarian, start practicing meditation and run five miles every day, which she still does every morning.

Smith says her priorities shifted again from her career to being healthy and well-balanced when son, Eric, was born 14 months ago.

"Before I was all about achieving. É Now I think a lot about Eric and [whether] we can potty train him," Smith says buoyantly.

Smith may have re-prioritized, but she's still chasing the latest technology. Smith recently became president of Eye Games Inc., a San Francisco-based company that has developed games for the personal computer that put the physical actions of the player onto the screen. A small Web cam records the player's movements while sitting at their computer and beams it on-screen into a computerized basketball game, for example. So the image of the actual player acts like a cursor to shoot a hoop.

At a small San Francisco cafe, Smith began an Eye Games demonstration for the benefit of this non-gaming reporter. Her enthusiasm soon had the handful of coffee-drinkers in the place swarmed around her computer.

In no time, she was laughing and chatting with everyone.

Rhonda Ascierto is a Biz Ink reporter. You can reach her at [email protected].

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title/company: President/ Eye Games Inc.

Age: 39

Birthplace: Daytona Beach, Fla.

Residence: San Francisco

Education: Bachelor's degrees in chemistry and English, Florida State University, 1985

Family: Husband, Henry Schaefer, 41; son, Eric Schaefer, 1

What do you listen to on the way to work? KQED

What did you listen to 20 years ago: "Soul Mining" by The The

Favorite comfort food: Raw oats and milk

Most adventurous act: At 18, I was the first person to demonstrate parasailing in Florida. I went up and down the coast 100 miles, demonstrating to tourists what parasailing looked like and that it was safe. At the time, you had to be a strong swimmer, because parasails didn't land you on the beach -- you ended up 25 to 50 yards offshore.

Favorite meal: Be bim bop (Korean mixed vegetables with rice)

Favorite home cooked meal: Penne primavera

Three items we would always find in your refrigerator: Pellegrino, carrot juice and whole wheat bread

Three programmed radio stations in your car: KFOG, KQED, KCSM

Drink of choice: Sparkling water

Decaf lowfat latte or just a cup of Joe? Venti soy vanilla latte

Dream vacation: A month at Esalen, Big Sur

Movies or theater? Theater

Evening out or evening in? In

Which Peanuts character am I?

Take this test at Quizilla. I did.

You are Snoopy!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

No pain, all gain. (Reuters)

I am back to running. It feels great. I'm doing about four miles at a time, every day or every other day. It is difficult and it is a rush.

I've worked hard to get to the point where I enjoy the extreme exertion. Even so, an article in Reuters today made me wonder if I'm working too hard.

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

Excerpt:

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - "No pain, no gain" may be the mantra of coaches everywhere, but it's bad advice for most exercisers, research suggests. \

In a new study, pain or displeasure was the most accurate indicator that a person had crossed a threshold believed to be the optimum level of exercise.

"As astonishingly simple as it sounds, perhaps the most appropriate level of exercise intensity for health-oriented exercise is the intensity that does not feel unpleasant," lead author Dr. Panteleimon Ekkekakis of Iowa State University, Ames, told Reuters Health.

Love really is blind. (Reuters)

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

Maternal Love Affects Brain Like Romance - Study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Love may indeed be blind, whether it is love for a newborn or its father, British researchers reported on Friday. Scanners showed the brains of young mothers lit up in the same way when they looked at their babies as the brains of people who looked at images of their lovers.

And the region activated told an important story, too. It was an area known as the reward system.

Parts of the brain also turned off when looking at a lover, spouse or child -- and that was the system involved in making negative judgments, the team at University College London said.

Writing in the journal NeuroImage, they said their finding suggests that to some degree, love really is blind to faults.

"Both romantic and maternal love are highly rewarding experiences that are linked to the perpetuation of the species, and consequently have a closely linked biological function of crucial evolutionary importance," said Andreas Bartels of UCL's Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, who led the study.

His team scanned the brains of 20 young mothers using functional magnetic resonance imaging, which can show brain activity as it happens.

They had already documented how the brain responds when people see images of their lovers.

The young women were shown pictures of their own children, children they knew and adult friends, to make sure that feelings of familiarity and friendship were not interfering.

There was a special pattern when the mothers saw their babies, and much of it overlapped with the pattern seen when people look at their lovers, Bartels and colleague Semir Zeki found.

The areas activated were brain cells known to be sensitive to oxytocin, a message-carrying chemical associated with sensations such as euphoria, pleasure and love.

This explains the "power of love to motivate and exhilarate," the researchers wrote.

The deactivated areas included those involved in negative judgments and critical thinking.

"Our research enables us to conclude that human attachment employs a push-pull mechanism," they wrote.

The Automatic Poetry Generator

Okay. Now I know I am blogging just a little too hard. I found an online automatic poetry generator.

This one asks you to provide the first line, it does the rest. Here's what mine came up with. (My line is the first line)

Mendel's Serenade
Tell me your story, I'll tell you mine.
Peace of mind goes out the door, as the absurdities pour in
And finally decide on a solution so saline
each quiet and brooding to escape his burden.

You think I could copyright? : )

What U.S. State do I belong in? (I found out on Quizilla)

California. Good thing I'm here already. Find out where you belong, too..

The odds of my getting struck down by lightning.

Courtesy of outerlife, I now know the odds of my getting struck down by lightning.

How Southern?

Courtesy of Swamplog, I learn that fewer Southerners are calling themselves so. (I am a native Floridian who lives in San Franciso, but I still think of myself as Southern. And we had the sweet potato pie tonight to prove it!)

Average rate at which residents of the South think of themselves as Southerners from 1991 to 2001 by state:

Florida 51.1
Oklahoma 53.4
Virginia 64.1
Texas 69.4
Kentucky 73
Georgia 80.3
North Carolina 80.6
Arkansas 83.6
South Carolina 84.3
Tennessee 86
Louisiana 88.5
Alabama 89.7
Mississippi 90.1

SOURCES: Larry Griffin, Vanderbilt University; Southern Focus Polls, Center for the Study of the American South, University of North Carolina

On This Day in 1989

Today was our wedding anniversary. It is not even midnight yet, so I am still holding out for jewelry. (We did get to pop out to see Lost in Translation, though. Finally. We are the last people in the world to see it.)

I liked Lost in Translation. I am not a huge fan of Bill Murray's -- he was rude to me at a press conference once, so I suppose I have a hard time letting go of grudges. But his performance was clean and subtle. And the movie was beautifully shot. It had a kind of a blue look and cold feeling that really worked.

(David Denby, my favorite film reviewer, had this to say in his review of it in The New Yorker:

Not much happens, but (Sofia) Coppola is so gentle and witty an observer that the movie casts a spell.

In case your anniversary is coming up, here's a link to a site that describes all the appropriate gifts for every year.

What Sting, Bill Clinton, O.J. Simpson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and I have in common.

We're all a 3 on the enneagram! I have no further comment.

free enneagram test

I will live until I'm 91 years old.

So says the Life Expectancy calculator.

How long will you live? Take the quiz.

Says Cicero.

"To live long, it is necessary to live slowly." Cicero.

This is my second quote from Cicero this month, but it fits. Today, I interviewed for my book Dr. C.K., a scientist renown for her anti-aging research. We talked a lot about gene mutations she's encouraged in round worms -- mutations that, in some cases, increase a worm's lifespan six-fold.

But our talk also turned to diet. It is quite possible, she said, that insulin reduction may lengthen life. We Americans eat too much sugar.

In other words, cut the Mocha Frapuccinos, the m&ms, the pasta and fruit. Possibly, the Atkins diet -- meat, vegies and fat -- is the way to go.

Man. Here I am, a veg and fruitarian for 10 years or something, but I've been gumming up the works with sugar.

My first thought is, hey, I need the sugar: To write faster and better, to wake up more eagerly, to work my way down at night. But perhaps what I need, as Cicero said, is just to live slowly. A little more slowly.

I will think about this. If anyone has anything to add, please post. I'd love some different points of view.
Thanks.

What would I go to jail for? (A Quiz)

Here's what Quizilla predicted:

You're goin' down! FOR HACKING INTO COMPUTERS!

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The Gypsy Lore Society

Thinking about my mother and our heritage, I have decided to pitch a book about gypsies after this biotech book and the novel are done. There is hardly anything out there on gypsies -- in particular, the gypsies in North America.

Here is a link of all things gypsy.

The Gypsy Lore Society

I just noticed my old book on Amazon.

Back in 1995, I was still co-hosting On Computers with Leo Laporte. We wrote a book called 101 Computer Answers You Need To Know. I was thrilled about it because, frankly, I thought we'd beaten the competition to create the first book that really explained how to use PCs in plain English.

(Also, John Dvorak wrote the forward, and also, there were two really cool caricatures of Leo and me. Back then, I thought that pretty cool. Maybe I wasn't that sophisticated after all.)

Unfortunately, the book came out three months before Windows 95. which did change a lot

So this is just the long and (sorry) boring way to say that I found our old book still listed on Amazon tonight. With a good review. And cute pics intact.

I wonder if anyone is still buying it -- and if so, where's my royalty check? Ha.

No. Seriously.

What Mythological Form Am I?

I may be too much of a people-pleaser. And I certainly take things way too far. So I concluded from this new Quizilla quiz: What Mythological Form Am I?

You are Form 0, Phoenix: The Eternal.

"And The Phoenix's cycle had reached
zenith, so he consumed himself in fire. He
emerged from his own ashes, to be forever
immortal."

Some examples of the Phoenix Form are Quetzalcoatl
(Aztec), Shiva (Indian), and Ra-Atum
(Egyptian).
The Phoenix is associated with the concept of life,
the number 0, and the element of fire.
His sign is the eclipsed sun.

As a member of Form 0, you are a determined
individual. You tend to keep your sense of
optimism, even through tough times and have a
positive outlook on most situations. You have
a way of looking at going through life as a
journey that you can constantly learn from.
Phoenixes are the best friends to have because
they cheer people up easily.


Which Mythological Form Are You?
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Tao of the Day

The Tao of the Day is easy:

The saying is:" When the shoe fits, it disappears."

In other words, when the shoe fits, it's so comfortable you forget you're wearing it.

Disaster Is Coming. (Maybe)

When I was a kid growing up in Florida, we always had a good day's notice before a hurricane -- plenty of time to pack a bag, tape up the windows and head inland. Here in San Francisco, the Big One could come at any time. (In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey says that a big quake 7.0 or stronger is more likely than not to hit in coming years.)

Now that I've got a full house of people to think about (Henry, Laura, Alex, Nicky, Belle and Baby E.), I'm resolving not to slack on this. Here is an excerpt from Lynette Evans' excellent How We Live column in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Hey, I'm not preaching. But if you live in a disaster area, think about doing this:

Disaster preparedness checklist Complete this checklist to make sure your family is safe. -- Post emergency telephone numbers by phones (fire, police, ambulance, etc. ). -- Teach children how and when to call 911 or your local emergency medical services number for emergency help. -- Show each family member how and when to turn off the utilities (water, gas, and electricity) at the main switches. -- Check if you have adequate insurance coverage. -- Get training from the fire department for each family member on how to use the fire extinguisher (ABC type), and show them where it's kept. -- Install smoke detectors on each level of your home, especially near bedrooms. -- Conduct a home hazard hunt. -- Stock emergency supplies and assemble a disaster supplies kit. -- Take a Red Cross first aid and CPR class. -- Determine the best escape routes from your home. Find two ways out of each room. -- Find the safe places in your home for each type of disaster.

Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross

Supplies kit
Here are the items that FEMA and the American Red Cross recommend be kept in sturdy, easy-to-carry containers:
-- A three-day supply of water (one gallon per person per day) and food that won't spoil.
-- One change of clothing and footwear per person, and one blanket or sleeping bag per person.
-- A first aid kit that includes your family's prescription medications.
-- Emergency tools including a battery-powered radio, flashlight and extra batteries.
-- An extra set of car keys and a credit card, cash or traveler's checks.
-- Sanitation supplies.
-- Special items for infant, elderly or disabled family members.
-- An extra pair of glasses.
-- Important family documents.

Source: FEMA and Red Cross

What Movie Do I Belong In?

Fight Club!


What Movie Do You Belong In?
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What Religion Am I?

My mother was a Muslim, my father was half Jewish. I was baptised Catholic and raised Methodist. Now, I do a lot of yoga (a Hindu tradition) and deep breathing (Buddhist). Sigh.

No wonder I decided to take the quiz on Belief.net. I found out that I now fall somewhere between agnostic and Unitarian. So now you know.

Feel free to click on the link below to find out what religion best describes your beliefs, if any. And let me know, would you?

Belief-O-Matic -- A personality quiz about your religious beliefs and spiritual beliefs - a quiz answering What Religion Am I -- Beliefnet.com

What Personality Type Am I? (A Quiz)

My results below.

Seer


The ULTIMATE personality test
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Girl Surfer Loses Arm in Hawaii Shark Attack (AP)

Awful news. In Hawaii today, a shark ripped off the arm of a teenage girl. Man.

Just last night, I was bragging to Nick (the 7-year-old who is staying with us) that I am unafraid of sharks. I told him that I used to swim way past the breakers when I was a kid growing up in Florida. And I told him I would do it again now. I bragged that the movie Jaws never bugged me, that I wasn't scared of spiders and snakes, either. I laughed off his nervousness, saying, "What kind of Floridian are you?" (He is originally from Florida, too.)

Now, today, this. I sure hope Nick doesn't see this headline. He will think I am an unfeeling idiot.

Yahoo! News - Surfer Loses Arm in Hawaii Shark Attack

Excerpt from AP

Surfer Loses Arm in Hawaii Shark Attack

By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writer
LIHUE, Hawaii - The water was clear and there was no indication of danger when a 13-year-old surfing star went out on the waves with her best friend and her friend's father.

But while Bethany Hamilton was lying on her board off Kauai's North Shore, a shark bit once and then disappeared, taking off her left arm just below the shoulder.

"Nobody saw it happen. She just yelled, 'A shark bit me!'" said her father, Tom Hamilton.

Bethany Hamilton remained in stable condition Saturday after the attack Friday morning. Doctors at Wilcox Memorial Hospital said her top condition as a competitive athlete helped her survive the attack.

Bethany, of Princeville, was attacked in an area known as Tunnels a quarter-mile off Makua Beach near Haena.

Bethany was surfing with best friend Alana Blanchard, also 13, and Alana's father, Holt Blanchard, her family said.

Blanchard immediately applied a tourniquet to Hamilton's arm using a surfboard leash, the family said.

After the attack, lifeguards from Hanalei went out on personal watercraft to warn people ...

World's Smallest Political Quiz

Courtesy of Zapto, I have found the World's Smallest Political Quiz. Just a few questions, and it will tell you where on the political spectrum you fall.

I turned out to be a "left liberal." Hey. I think I knew that.

What Halloween Character Am I?

Hello, my happy friend. You have high spirits and know how to have a good time. When your friends go out, most likely they invite you almost all the time. You most likely will enjoy your Halloween. Good for you. Keep up the experiment. You probably light people's dark days with your smiles and laughter. Although you're good, doesn't mean you're an angel. You can tend to have a scary and/or other type of side to you. As long as you have fun, do your scares this Halloween. Have a safe and happy one, Joyous Pumpkin.


What Halloween Figure Are You? (Fun Quiz! MANY RESULTS!)
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Which of the Greek Gods Am I?

Morpheus


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
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One Year Ago Today

Okay, a little blogging during another book writing break. I am putting together my notes for the interview with L.H. tomorrow. He is one of the guys responsible for originally automating the DNA sequencing project.

I have decided to refer to official people I am interviewing by their initials. It struck me that they might be ego-surfing and accidentally arrive at my personal blog, as opposed to the biotech one. Must avoid that. Bad idea.

Anyway, the biotech book is going fine. The Little Gypsy manuscript is on target. The baby is acting like a genius and growing bigger every day. My wireless connection is flawless. Even my vegetarian lasagna has reached a new level of tastiness. Things couldn't be any better.

Then I looked at the calendar and realized, hey, my mother died a year ago today.

I was with her -- called down there to Daytona Beach for the occasion. She died according to script. The hospice person said, "it could be any time now," and actually gave us a handout titled "top 10 signs that death is near." Check, check, check, check. Check.

Here are things you don't know: My mother was in a German concentration camp until she was about 7. (She was half-gypsy.) She haunted her own life (and mine) with stories about these starving, tortured holocaust people. Grim. grim stuff. And it never really fit. Because my mother was the polar opposite of that concentration camp image: She was Uber-Alive. Red-lipped. White teethed. Supple. Buxom. Manicured toes slipped into 5-inch heel pumps in wild colors. Elton John glasses. Zsa Zsa accent. You go, dahlink.
Turbans. I bet you get the idea.

A year ago, the day she died, all I could think about was the concentration camp -- not the bodacious presence she'd assumed for so long. She looked and smelled as a starving inmate with a few hours to live might. Her breath labored. Her eyes yellow and dimming. The toes going blue, which turned out to be the first sign.

I'm depressing you tonight? Not the intention. I'm just trying to remember back, just a year ago, where the shock of my mother's death lies. I guess it lies in that image that, no matter how much she buffed up and polished herself all those years, her body was still to eventually return to the starved out state it would've been had she never left Auschwitz in the first place.

The sixty years of living on the beach and having a blast dating or marrying any rich man who interested her -- well, that was a nice buffer. But was it enough? Is anything enough when you know that you are probably heading for a painful and prolonged death?

Questions, questions. Watch this space tomorrow for a return to the regularly-scheduled lighter version I Am Gina Smith. It seems there is a lot of you. I am nearing 10,000 hits for just two weeks. Hot dog.

Send me an email and let me know what you want out of this. If anything.

ABC News Reconstructs Kennedy Assassination, confirms Warren Commission conclusion

I noticed a big bump in hits today. Just hit the 8,000 mark.

Then I saw that my old friend, Dave Winer, the godfather of blogs himself, linked to me. Wow. I knew him when.

I find this medium so interesting as a writer. It's shameless, a blast. Still: I noticed that I've been getting a little nervous about people I know finding this blog. Isn't that wacky? I am only promoting the biotech blog. This personal blog is my little secret. Some secret. Well, let it all hang out and the more adrenalin the better, I suppose.

Speaking of secrets. My old employer ABC News says it has reconstructed the Kennedy assassination, says Oswald worked alone. That bullet bouncing around always seemed to me to defy physics, but hey, I'm no expert.

ABC News reconstructs Kennedy assassination, confirms Warren Commission conclusion

Learn an Arabic Tongue-Twister and Save the World!

Okay, I admitted in an earlier post that I love languages (was taught both German and Spanish as a child.) But what I didn't say is that I love tongue twisters -- and since I was a kid, I have collected them in many different languages. (Sometimes from cab drivers, see previous entry.)

Anyway, here is a link to the biggest, most international collection of tongue twisters EVER.

Fishers Fritz
fischt frische fische
frische fische fischt
Fishers Fritz.
gs

The last time I read Plato

was today.

Via abyssal mind, I came across Plato's Myth of the Cave this morning. Monday morning is a good time to evaluate wisdom and happiness.

I am conducting two big interviews for my biotech book today. One is with a leading ethicist about the issues surrounding DNA patenting, testing, criminology and so on. Maybe that is why I am thinking of platonic virtues.

Which Dr. Seuss Character am I?

Which Dr. Seuss character are you?
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The Torment of Jet Lag

There was a time -- between 1994 and 1998, to be exact -- when I flew to New York from San Francisco and back once a week.

My schedule was hellahorrible. I flew to NYC on Tuesday. Woke up at 4 a.m. EST (which is 1 a.m. PST) to get in makeup and do a spot for Good Morning America, worked for two days in Manhattan, and flew back to California Thursday evening.

After a time, I became a million mile flyer. All the baggage people knew my name. And a little patch of hair near the crown of my head starting falling out. (On TV, I would fill it in with brown brow pencil, just like balding male newsanchors do.)

At one point, I turned to melatonin, a vitamin supplement that worked a little.
But that was just a band-aid.

Anyone who's ever suffered from jet lag would be interested in this article. It ran in today's Science, and is summarized in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article linked below.
STLtoday - News - Story

What I Am Struggling With

Here is what I am struggling with. It is so odd to reveal yourself in these digital pages, even if you don't know who or what is reading.

I don' t know why this is. Anyone who ever wanted to know anything about me will next fall -- when a big portion of my memoir appears in a high-profile book Penguin/Tarcher is publishing. The book is called Unholy Mothers. That says it all.

If my mother weren't dead already, this book would kill her.

None of this explains why it is harder to write a blog than it is to write about my life in a book that may sell a million copies, thanks to Oprah.

Maybe it is because the potential blog audience isn't anonymous. The kind of person who reads blogs is probably the kind of person who read PC Week when I wrote for it, or listened to my radio show. The scary thing about the blog is that there are people who might know me, versus some anonymous guy in Barnes & Noble who picks up Unholy Mothers because Joyce Maynard is in it.

Whoa. That's it.

More on The Singularity

Alright. I've resisted long enough. And I'm going to admit now, once and for all, that I have been kind of consumed with the concept, even if that does make me geeky and sci-fi.

What I'm talking about is The Singularity. Here's info via Meaningful Media, that indy news blog I like.

An excerpt:

"Or the baseball pitcher, whose cyborg implants allow 200 mph pitches, and implanted radar and trajectory management systems mean he can hit any 1 mm area of space above the plate. What would that do for the Cubbies? What if Atlanta was the only team that had rights to the technology?"

How Old Is Your Inner Child (a quiz)

My inner child is ten years old!

I thought I was about 14, but the inner child quiz told me I was 10.
I took the quiz and it said:

"The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I'm off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don't understand."


How Old is Your Inner Child?
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