steve kiene

104.1 The Blaze and Kamp Out for Kids

2006-12-09T16:07:00.000-06:00

Every year (well, for the last 15 years) Tim & The Animal from The Blaze have had a 30 hour camp out to raise money for presents for less fortunate kids. This year was no different and I'm happy to report that they raised about $42,000 (without counting the proceeds from the concert on Tuesday which should put the total to around $50,000).

And, for the 15th year, the Lincoln newspaper has NOT reported on this. These guys have raised probably somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million dollars to buy toys for kids. Assuming $30 per toy, that's over 16,000 toys. Add in the toys that are donated directly, and I'll bet there have been over 25,000 toys made available to needy kids over the last 15 years. If that's not something to be reported, then I don't know what the hell is.

My first step against the TSA

2006-12-09T16:02:00.000-06:00

So yes, I complain endlessly about commercial airline travel and the TSA. Well, unlike 99% of the people out there, I am ABLE to do something about it and therefore I AM DOING something about it.

I am getting my private pilot's license. I took my first lesson on Friday. With any luck I should be finished in mid March and then I won't need to ever go through security again at an airport. Until my plane is finished in about 16 months I'll have to rent a plane to fly, but that's fine with me.

To clarify my previous post, yes, I think the rules shouldn't apply to me. But I think the rules shouldn't apply to ANYONE. They are stupid rules that accomplish nothing useful. They won't stop a terrorist from using an explosive made of liquid. They aren't making people feel safer. As far as I can tell, those are the only two reasons for the rule. Since it's not working, why have the rule at all?

Holiday travel

2006-11-22T23:31:00.000-06:00

Pam and I flew from Omaha to Phoenix today and had a wonderful experience with the TSA. Apparently people are still irrationally freaked out about liquids and gels, so we went through the trouble of checking a bag with all our shampoo, etc in it. Pam left a couple of things in her purse: lipstick, hand lotion, etc. The security nazi freaked out and wouldn’t let her take it unless she had it in a ONE QUART CLEAR PLASTIC BAG. Putting it in a mesh pocket in our bag apparently is unsafe. They made her go back out, buy a plastic bag, and put the items in the bag. Now she’s safe for air travel. I hate to think what might have happened if I had just put those items in my pocket when I went through security! Would it cause the plane to crash? Would terrorists steal them and hijack the plane? I suspect none of that would have happened, because I DO take toothpaste, lip balm, etc with me in my pockets because of course they have no way to detect these things.

While I’m on the subject of air travel, do you ever wonder what would happen if you didn’t put your cell phone on “flight mode” during take-off and landing? Would the instruments on the plane go haywire and cause a disaster? Of course not- how many people do you think honestly forget to turn off their phones? I know I’ve forgotten many times. Irrational, arbitrary rules like this piss me off. When I used to run a company, I was adamant about not creating rules just for the sale of having rules. If I couldn’t rationally defend the rule, then it wasn’t going to become one. Companies typically create a rule after a problem occurs. This is stupid. It’s reactionary and serves no positive purpose. If a company has been operating just fine and then an incident occurs which requires intervention- oh, let’s say someone is leaving work too early, then creating a rule that says everyone must stay at work until 5pm is stupid. The proper thing to do is to sit down with the individual and correct their behavior. Better yet, talk to them and understand why they feel they can leave early, explain your viewpoint, and make a change together. There’s no need to create a rule that is placed on everyone. Doing so causes negative feelings from the employees who haven’t caused a problem. When you introduce a new rule, people take it personally and the feel like they are being punished, and they don’t know why.

Rules are also pointless unless there are consequences. When I was in high school I was exposed to all kinds of rules. For the most part I ignored them and did whatever I wanted. Thankfully, “what I wanted” was within a boundary that matched up fairly well with the rules. But there were some exceptions. When I did break the rules and was “caught”, nothing really happened. Ohh, they’re going to put a note in my “Record”. Big deal. What the heck are they, the U.N.? “If you do that, we’re going to be very angry and we will write you a letter!” Uhh, whatever. No consequences = no rules, plain and simple. Any parent knows this, so why do adults seem to not understand that it applies everywhere, not just in parenting.

This is enough ranting for one post. We’re about to land in Phoenix to spend Thanksgiving with Leah. It’s now time to start reflecting on the past year and to be thankful for many things.

Pam's new Jeep

2006-10-31T00:54:00.000-06:00

Pam got a new 2007 Jeep Wrangler. She's showing off by driving places I can't go with my Mercedes. It's not a bad vehicle- not something I'd drive, but it's her's so it doesn't matter.
Now... if you tripled the horsepower then maybe...

Gotta get there faster

2006-10-20T01:26:00.000-05:00

Now that we're building a home in Colorado, we're going to need to get back and forth in an efficient manner. Enter my newest toy, a private plane. Pam and I went to Redmond, Oregon this week to take a tour of the Lancair aircraft factory and we made the decision to purchase an aircraft. It will take only 90 minutes from takeoff in Lincoln to touchdown in Granby, Colorado thanks to a cruising speed of 370MPH.

If you're curious to see the type of aircraft we purchased, check out the company's website: http://www.lancair.com/Main/propjet.html

I hope to get my pilot's license by March of next year so I can actually FLY!

I'm building a new home

2006-10-09T17:33:00.000-05:00

Just purchased this land in Colorado. Next spring I'll start building a house on it. Hopefully I will actually get some work done it and not get distracted by this gorgeous view.

Saw 3

2006-10-08T22:29:00.000-05:00

October 27th is the premiere of Saw 3. Sweet. I'll be there.

Every time Lionsgate releases a movie, I go see it. They release a lot of great horror movies and they aren't afraid to tackle a controversial movie. We need more independent producers like them.

Wifi Security

2006-10-08T22:12:00.000-05:00

I was reading Robert Scoble's blog tonight and saw a post regarding Wifi security, or lack thereof. Someone told him that if you are sitting in a coffee shop, someone next to you can sniff your traffic and see what you are typing on IM, etc.

This is not new news. Perhaps some people didn't realize that IM messages are sent as plain text, but most people know that wireless traffic can, in many cases, be sniffed.

I've always dealt with this in a simple way: I am always connected to my corporate VPN, so all of my traffic is encrypted across the wireless network.

Let me explain in more detail:

When you connect to a VPN (virtual private network), all of your data is encrypted between your computer and the VPN server. In my case, my VPN server is located at my office. There is no way for someone to sniff my traffic over WiFi (or a wire) and see what is flowing between my computer and my VPN server. Once my traffic reaches my VPN server, it is on my corporate network and it gets to the internet from there. In essence I am "at" work with regards to traffic that goes to the internet. I am bridged from whatever location I am really at, into my office. That's the purpose of a VPN. It connects you into your network as if you were physically there.

The first thing my computer does when it connects to a Wifi network is to connect to my VPN. This ensures that all of my traffic is encrypted. Technically there is a small performance penalty for this because traffic has to "bounce" through my offfice, but it's a small price to pay for security.

Catholic priest is delusional

2006-06-30T01:32:00.000-05:00

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/29/billionaires.abortion.ap/index.html

This idiot is comparing Warren Buffett to Josef Mengele? That is just plain offensive to me. I don't care what else this jerkoff has to say because he's lost all credibility with that statement.

And then Steven Mosher, President of "Population Research Institute" claims that Buffett and Gates are trying to decimate the population of the developing world by forcing abortions, sterilization, and contraception. Umm, excuse me, but that just retarded. Countries like Africa are facing an AIDS plague. The population will extinct itself without any outside help. The immense amount of money that Gates is spending is HELPING. Innoculations for children, sexual education, etc are things that help the people. Gates isn't doing anything to promote abortions or sterilization. And lastly, if this bunghole had any sort of brain, he would use the word "decimate" when he means annihilate. DECImate means to reduce by 1/10th.

Yes, I sold MindVision & eSellerate to Digital River

2006-06-16T13:51:00.000-05:00

Yes, it’s true that I said I’d never sell to DR. In fact, I was quite adamant when I said that. What has changed since I said that are many things. What has not changed is my loyalty to my employees or the customers of esellerate. I have always tried to provide the best environment I could for my employees- a place where they could feel at home, where they could make a different, where they had a vested interest in the success of the team, where they could make good money, and finally, a place where they could grow. It’s this last item that is important to talk about. We made a decision some time ago to focus on improving ourselves, our services, and our value to our customers. There has not been the need to hire more people, and so there hasn’t been much of a chance for employees to “move up” in the company. Many of the employees are happy with the jobs they have, but some want bigger challenges. This is not something I have been able to provide in a way which can satisfy the “hunger” of these employees. I’ve been very fortunate that these employees have chosen to stay at esellerate, even though they want more. I believe it’s a testament to the strength of the culture and the team. Another item is, of course, money. I believe everyone at esellerate is paid fairly, but I want to provide more for the employees. I want to provide long term financial security. I looked at the next several years of esellerate’s financial picture and determined that it would be better financially for the employees if we could sell the company to the right company for the right price. This is what got me started on looking for a partner. Sure, I could have just put more cash into the company and paid the employees big bonuses, but that would have ended up meaning the company was operating at a loss. Who wants to look at the bottom line and see a loss? It’s de-motivating for the employees. Another concern I had was that we were not able to keep up with DR in providing value to our customers. I believe that we provided better customer service, but what seems to be more important is money. DR has a huge affiliate network and huge marketing channels. Every year they convinced more and more publishers to sign up with them in order to be in their affiliate network. We worked hard to build our own network, opting for quality over quantity, but I don’t believe we were able to keep up and offer our customers more value for affiliate sales channels. This was also an important factor in my decision to look for a buyer- I wanted someone who would be able to bring more marketing channels to out publishers so we could offer more financial value to them.

I think it’s been about nine months since I hired a M&A (mergers & acquisitions) firm to start looking for buyers. At that time, DR wasn’t even a consideration. I won’t disclose who we were talking to, but there were several interested parties. Our M&A firm felt we should take a look at DR to see what kind of offer they could make. I don’t think it’s a secret that we’ve talked to the DR folks many times in the past- people have seen me talking to Joel Ronning and Alex Dansberger many times at conferences. They talked about parameters of a deal that ended up not being interesting to me, so we never did anything with them. This time, however, they took the time to figure out what esellerate offers to its customers and to its employees, and they put together an offer that was very interesting and took into consideration all the things that we feel are important. I could have probably gotten a little more money with someone else, but I felt DR was the best overall choice. They have a huge affiliate network that our customers can use. We have lost customers to DR because those customers felt DR’s marketing options were worth putting up with the other things the customer didn’t like about them. Now our customers can have the best of both worlds- they can stay with us AND have access to DR’s marketing options. It’s a win-win for our customers. For the employees, I believe it’s better in almost all respects. Now that we don’t have to spend so much energy competing with DR, we can spend that energy on improving the esellerate offering and leveraging DR’s strengths. Employees will have more options in jobs- some have expressed interest in working for DR in other countries. That is something I have never been able to offer. Sure, there is some additional uncertainty for the employees because of all the things happening at the moment, but things will calm down and everyone will start to relax again and they can stay focused on their work. I’m not going to disclose details of what the employees got out of the deal, but I believe they all received far more than they thought they would receive. I absolutely, positively believe that the employees are the reason I was able to negotiate a deal to sell the company. They are the ones who have worked very hard to build the value of the company. It is only fair that they share in the financial rewards of selling the company. I believe that virtually all of them will stay at DR and work just as hard as they have been. Esellerate is still a team. It’s still a small group of people who believe they can make a difference. What’s new is that they have many more tools available with which to make that difference. In today’s world, nothing is guaranteed. The terms of this deal are no exception. I do believe that DR has an incentive to keep the company in Nebraska and to keep the employees around. They bought the company because we have been successful. They are smart enough to understand not to mess too much with things. I will be involved in various ways, but I’m not sure of the details. My life has changed dramatically since I stepped down from esellerate. I’m now married and have two kids and I’m quite involved with local charities, so I do not have the same amount of time or energy to dedicate to work as I used to have. I am excited about the possibilities for esellerate and I’m excited about what I can offer to DR, so I hope that things work out in way where I can be of value to them and keep a balanced life with my family. I also know how hard it is for someone like me, who is used to being able to do whatever he wants, to fit into a company of over 1000 people. Being an employee is not right for me. But that doesn’t mean I can’t contribute my skills to DR in other ways.

As you can probably tell, I’m not as outspoken as I used to be. There is a simple reason for this. When I owned esellerate, I could say whatever I wanted because the consequences fell on my shoulders. In selling my company to DR, I have to be respectful of them and the fact that they are a publicly-traded company. I need to keep certain things confidential, and therefore I can’t tell you all the details of the deal and what will transpire in the near future. But I do believe that this deal will result in better value for esellerate’s customers and a better life for esellerate’s employees (I will very much miss calling them “my” employees). I know I’ve probably lost quite a bit of credibility with everyone since I broke my promise of never selling esellerate to DR, but I believe in my heart that this is a better long term future for the customers and the employees. All I can ask is for everyone to decide if they agree and to stick with esellerate if they do. In closing, I want to publicly thank everyone at esellerate for all their hard work, dedication, trust, and loyalty. They will always be my family.

It's done

2006-06-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

It's done. I'll explain later. Must sleep now.

2006-05-30T16:58:00.000-05:00

Here's my new license. I get to have pink on my license picture until next August. Sweet!

A Friday like any other

2006-05-19T21:33:00.000-05:00

Well, not really. Not at all actually. Today my driver’s license was finally re-instated. Just another amazing example of the inefficiencies of local government. Apparently the computer systems at the court house don’t talk to the systems at the DMV, so a person has to actually take paper files from the court house to the DMV building, then enter information (which has already been entered into the computer system at the court house) into the DMV system. Can you imagine a private business operating this way on the same scale as the government? No way! The systems would have been connected long ago. The part that totally bummed me out in all of this was that I didn’t get a new license. They just mailed my old one back to me. I dyed my beard pink hoping that I’d get the picture on my driver’s license, partially to try and make a friend of mine laugh, and partially just to be me.

I was hoping to have some really cool news for today but unfortunately I have nothing cool to report. Hopefully next week will prove to be more interesting.

Random things going on that are good:
Kirsten is getting closer to getting Jeremy back to Lincoln. You go girl!
Pam and I planted our lilacs. Grow grow grow.
Rob Zombie will be playing in Omaha on July 11th. Of course I already have tickets.
Mike’s daughter Cecilia leaves for the Destination Imagination finals on Monday. Good luck!

Steve spotted? In court?

2006-05-18T00:35:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's true. I finally gave up my pitiful one-man crusade against the dishonest Nebraska State Patrol and went to court to sort out my revoked driver's license. I've got a new attorney and this is the first time I've met him. Things went amazingly smooth and I walked away with minor damage to the pocketbook and... I'm now eligible to get my license back. Tomorrow afternoon I can go to the DMV and get re-instated. Not really sure what I'll do with my license since I haven't needed it for the past year and a half.

I do have a surprise for everyone when I get my new license. You'll just have to wait to find out.

2006-04-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

Me with Rob Zombie at the Phoenix airport

OH MY GOD

2006-04-28T10:50:00.000-05:00

So Leah and I were at the airport going through security and guess who was in line in front of us??? ROB ZOMBIE. No shit. THe whole band. We got a picture with them but I can't get it off Leah's camera at the moment. When I get home I'll snag it and post it. ZOMBIE rulezzzz.

Rob Zombie

2006-04-28T01:13:00.000-05:00

Just got back from the outdoor Rob Zombie concert in Mesa, Arizona. Fucking rocked. Went with Leah and Tia. We hung out on the grass while Lacuna Coil played because I don't really dig them. Once Zombie came on stage I left Leah and Tia and went piling down into the mosh pit. After getting smashed around for a couple of minutes in the pit I started pushing my way to the front center. It took me a few minutes but I made it up to the second row and thrashed around for most of the main set. I finally had enough and jumped up and let them drag me over the front. The fuckers wouldn't let me go out on the side towards Leah and Tia so I had to walk all the way around the place to get back to them. We watched the last couple of songs and then started walking towards the exit so we wouldn't have to wait forever to get out. We watched the last two songs from the second encore and as soon as they were done we headed out. It was a great time and I'm glad I fly out to see them. In July I'm coming back to see Slayer. That will fucking ROCK!!!!!!!!

Bad boys...

2006-04-20T09:58:00.000-05:00

Uh oh. I guess I ought to get those speeding tickets taken care of. It's taken our fine police department over a year and a half to finally send this to me. Nice to know if I ever decide to commit a serious crime. ;-)

Smell-O-Vision

2006-04-12T14:30:00.000-05:00

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1835027&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

I wonder what scents they'll use for porn movies?

SEVEN? deer

2006-04-10T12:59:00.000-05:00

Holy cow. I woke up this morning, looked outside, and there were SEVEN deer enjoying a breakfast snack. Whoa. I just stood there in awe.

In other news, Pam is in Arizona visiting Leah. And the big news: Andrew got hired on full time at Ameritas! That means health insurance (yea!) and a stable position. That's so awesome.

I'm up in Omaha this week attending Oracle database training. This is my first time doing something like this. So far it has been very slow paced.

Marvin's growing

2006-04-03T09:56:00.000-05:00

Marvin had another appointment at the vet today. She's 7.5lbs now. Wow! The little turd is really growing. She's nearly doubled her weight since she found us. She still has tapeworms but that's no big deal. However, she somehow damaged one of the claws on her right from paw and the vet said she has to have it removed. It was bleeding on Saturday and she wouldn't let me near it. Poo. :-( She goes in tomorrow morning to get it taken care of.

My life is so good

2006-03-30T10:39:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure why I'm so lucky, but life is good. I woke up this morning and saw the deer eating, the birds singing, the woodpecker eating, and lots of cats surrounding me. I am pretty damn fortunate. At times like this I always remember that not everyone is so fortunate. Sometimes good people go through bad things. My thoughts are with you, T.P. Things will get better.

Widgets for blogs

2006-03-30T10:35:00.000-06:00

http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/widgets/

Some more cool stuff.

Different perspective of a solar eclipse

2006-03-29T23:05:00.000-06:00

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_538.html

This is way cool. It illustrates that you can have very different perspectives of the same thing.

DSL is gay, Cable modems rock

2006-03-29T13:04:00.000-06:00

http://www.betanews.com/article/Comcast_Ups_Cable_Speed_to_16Mbit/1143653359

16mbit? Awesome dude. That's faster than my connection at work. I doubt it's sustainable though as more people start to use it. Nonetheless, speeds are ramping up and it opens a whole new world of possibilities.