I'm in New York on a one month stay to get familiar with the work environment at Google, and to see if I can find a permanent place to live.  Here's a summary of what's up so far...

Google is great... everything you have ever heard is true!  Massage chairs, free gourmet meals, lots of toys to play with, and the hippest work space you can imagine.  I am really happy that I have this opportunity, even though I know it won't last forever.  The next six months of my life will be a unique and wonderful experience that will take me somewhere new.  After all, it's not about the destination, it's all about the journey.  Here's to adventure!

So far I have been pretty wrapped up in work, and getting familiar with the city, but I was finally able to really hit the town last night, and upon doing so, remembered why I LOVE this city so much, and why Los Angeles is not the place for me.  I made more friends in one night in New York than I have made in years in Los Angeles, and most of these new friends were made before I even got into the club - Top of the Roof, which is a sick, 40th floor, roof top, penthouse club... AMAZING!  I'm not usually into the really posh clubs, but when the views are epic, the DJ is rockin', and the girls are georgous, it's hard to not have a good time.  New York definitely has more attractive women in it than Los Angeles, contrary to common belief.  The bartenders are more nice here.  They actually come up to YOU and ask YOU what you want to drink without having to fight just to get the bartender's attention.  One bartender lady even bought me a drink!  That has never happened to me in Los Angeles!

There weather has been really nice which is great because I am staying in a place that doesn't have air conditioning.

Possibly the best part of New York, namely Manhatten, is that you can walk out your door, and turn a corner to find a whole world of everything you need from restaurants to pharmacies to bars to yoga clubs - then walk around the next corner and discover something new... it's so fun!

So, here are  just a couple pictures that I have... for some reason, I haven't been very good about taking pictures on this trip.  I will try to take more.

Ok, it's been months since I have written a blog because I have been so insanely busy.  However, this is so absurd that I had to write about it.

Former engineers of Google decided to start their own search engine called "cuil".  I took at look at cuil.com to give it a test drive, and here is what I think:

1. What does "cuil" mean?
2. Most people have dislexic tendencies, they are never going to remember how to spell "cuil". (Caitlyn Carradine was the one who pointed this out)
3. When you query the search engine, it takes at least 60 - 120 seconds to see any results... you're lucky if you get any results at all
4. I searched for "grant powell", a query that returns 13 MILLION RESULTS on Google!  cuil claims that their search engine has more than 3 times as many searchable pages than Google, yet when you search for "grant powell" it returns 0, thats right ZERO results.
5. You can't search for images... useless
6. I think CUIL stands for COMPLETELY USELESS INTERNET LOCATION

So... I am still uncertain as to what exactly happened with my Biodiesel Website and why it got blacklisted by Google.  All I know is that it was on the first page of the search results when you searched for "biodiesel stations" for a long time, then BAM, it just disappeared.  A month later, it's back!  This is great news, looks like I've got to get to work writing some content for the site.

www.biodieselstations.org

I just started working on my Biodiesel Fuel Stations website (www.biodieselstations.org) which features a search function to locate gas stations by zip / postal code that pump biodiesel and other alternative fuels.  The next step for me was to start writing relevent and information articles about alternative fuels and what they mean to the world of ecenomy, energy and the environment.  I even lined up a couple contributing editors: Gerard Griesbaum, Caitlyn Carradine and Levi Powell.  After only a couple weeks, the website started coming up on the first page of Google for search terms such as "biodiesel stations".

Things were looking great until Google decided to BLACKLIST our website!  I can't figure out what would have caused that, and apparently there is no way to get yourself un-blacklisted.  One source suggested that you "write" Google to consider removing you from the blacklist, but it sounds pretty hopeless to me.

I have heard before that Google blacklists for duplicate content.  I did "borrow" some content from www.biodiesel.org, but I placed a link with it so that people would know where to go to get good information since mine didn't have any yet.  That's what I get for trying to help, eh?  Now the website is hopeless.  I don't know if Google will ever un-blacklist the domain name.  And without Google on our side, the website will never succeed.

It's really amazing to think about the power that Google has.  They giveth and they taketh away.  By using Google correctly, you can make million!  But one slip up, and BAM!  You're broke.