This short video explains the military origin of my nickname — foleymo.

12challenge: Where does your name come from? on 12seconds.tv

Starting on my 29th birthday (Feb. 17, 2009) I’m aiming to document the entire year leading up to my 30th birthday. To make this as simple as possible, I’ve selected very brief ways of updating.

First, I’m going to try to post a video every day at 12Seconds.tv. These are just quick, bite-size videos to let people know what’s up. Nothing serious. I’ll tag them all with #29to30 so everyone can easily follow them. Here’s the first one:

Turning 30 — 12 Seconds At A Time [Day 1] #29to30 — My 29th Birthday on 12seconds.tv

Second, I’m going to try to take a simple still photo of myself every morning from my webcam. I’m trying to make them as standard as possible so I can mash them all into a 365-frame 12Seconds video at the end of the year. Hopefully it will look like a flipbook of me aging, growing head and facial hair and be not nearly as cool as the guy who ages 17 years in a two-minute video. Here is my first such photo.

Third, I’m going to try to post a six-word memoir about each day to my Twitter account. I’ll also be tagging these memoirs with #29to30 on Twitter. I got the inspiration from a SMITH magazine project. You can even add your own six-word memoir.

Hopefully at the end of this project, I’ll have a fun little journal, of sorts, to help me remember the last year of my 20s.

Merry Christmas to my family on 12seconds.tv

Starting to make Internet video on 12seconds.tv

That’s right. I’ve now got the IceCam2 made by Macally and the DV316L digital video camera made by Mustek. I got the latter for free in the mail today from Travelers Advantage. I signed up for a trial of their service to get this free gift and promptly canceled my service with them. It’s a very cheap camera, but at least I have something to make video with now.

So now you can catch me on my YouTube channel and my 12seconds channel. I’m really excited about my 12seconds channel. I just signed up for it and created the above video with it. The site is in alpha right now and you need to get an invitation to create your own channel. I have a few invitations left. Let me know if you want join.

UPDATE (12/18/2008): 12seconds.tv has moved from private alpha to public beta. Of course it had to be the day after I got my alpha invitation. You can now sign up for an account without an invitation. Just go to their registration page and fill out the form.

I got probably the best white elephant gift ever given at an office holiday function — a complete Santa suit! Help me come up with ideas of zany things I can do in my new costume.

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

I heard the above radio story this morning while listening to NPR’s Morning Edition on KUOW. During one of the breaks, the station filled the time with this story from Sean Cole of Marketplace.

The story delves into the issues folks are having with stress and anxiety over the current economic debacle. 

After highlighting a few case studies from therapists, I figured the journalist would steer the story toward ways people can reduce stress and get their anxiety under control.

The solution? DENIAL!

From the transcript:

COLE: Turned out the guy had been checking his retirement balance every day. Hollis’s advice?

HOLLIS: He could choose to not only stop tracking his financial balance sheet on a daily basis, but he could also choose to not open his monthly 401k statement, for example.

COLE: So the guy stopped. And it helped. And that might sound like denial, but Arnis Berger says denial can be healthy.

That’s right, everything is going to be fine. No belt-tightening required. Go back to sleep, America. Nothing to see here.*

* Sarcastic comments