Gerard Ramos

I’ve been asked that question a few times since leaving New Orleans six years ago, but I won’t be asked again. I’m home.

I left New Orleans the night before Katrina and the move back home has been a long time coming. Over the past 6 years I lived in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and South Lake Tahoe. I’ve met incredible friends along the way that have been like a second family. I miss everyone on the west coast, but I’ll be back to visit often. A San Francisco – Tahoe trip is coming soon! Anyone else praying for snow?

So .. The big Question .. Why did I move back?

tl;dr .. New Orleans is home. Long answer ..

Family.

I’ve lived thousands of miles away from my family for 6 years. We have been able to visit each other, but we’re not getting any younger and as crazy as they are, they are a blast to hang out with and I’ve missed being around them.

The day I got back to New Orleans was also my grandmother (dads side) 80th birthday. She was pretty stoked.

When I was on my way home, my 90yr old Great Grandmother (moms side) was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I was able to sit with her for a few hours on my birthday. We had a great conversation, told some jokes and cut up, talked about the road trip, etc. She passed away the next day.

My other grandparents, mom’s side, just moved back to New Orleans a month ago.

I got to watch my little brother get engaged a couple days before Christmas ..

Congrats Patrick and Sarah!

It’s been awesome…

But anyone can experience events like these when moving home or being around family.

I get all that family jazz with a lil lagniappe, and sometimes, dare I say, too much. I’m in my favorite city on the planet. People write love letters to this place.

If you haven’t been to New Orleans in a while, get here. The music, food, culture.. it really is an incredible city. Voodoo Fest, Jazz Fest, and Mardi Gras, are just the tip.

Ok, cool. New Orleans is quite the party, but what about work?

Friends in San Francisco – January 25th. SANFRANOLA.

Here are a few initial thoughts from friends about New Orleans vs San Francisco..

- salaries are too low
- hardly any tech jobs
- no software dev talent to grow a startup
- no Angel / VC money in the south
- stay in SF or a bigger tech hub like Los Angeles, Austin or Boulder…

Here’s my take so far.

a. I agree that Salaries are too low in New Orleans, but this is starting to shift up due to competition and will substantially over the next couple of years.

b. Companies are hiring. I’m hoping to start hiring soon.

c. Engineers are in huge demand everywhere.

d. There are some angels, but there should be more and I hope we can convince some folks to bring it.

e….. Boucoup going on in NOLA.

Tribecon kicks ass every year right before Voodoo. Launch Pad Ingition, a new startup accelerator, and Second line, a conference around innovation, both had a successfulul inaugural year in 2011. There are around 70 companies in the Launch Pad NOLA co-working space. Ideavillage is incubating and has a few rad programs for entrepreneurs. The silicon bayou is growing. Lots of startups and a rockin community.

The vibe of the city is like no other. Especially when the Saints are marching to the Super Bowl! Who Dat!

Oh, and I almost forgot .. There’s this girl I’m in love with.

I’ve been writing a ton lately and spent the weekend dusting off the old blog. Still have some formatting to get through, browser testing and tweaking, etc.. but it’s close.

This site is now rocking the Boilerplate WordPress theme by Aaron Grogg which is a blend of HTML5 Boilerplate and Starkers Theme. Pretty rad stuff.

What a game. Last night the Giants broke a 6 game losing streak for games where I was in attendance :)

I ended up driving to the game, so I brought my laptop in with me rather than leaving it in the car. AT&T park has wifi, so I decided to turn on a Justin.tv channel and throw up a broadcast. Why not?

It was perfect timing. While I was broadcasting the Giants hit a Grand Slam! It was the first Grand Slam I’ve seen in person since I was a kid at a Kansas City Royals game with my brother Jeff.

Jeff tuned into the Justin.tv channel from Atlanta and got to see Renteria’s blast!

About 30-45 minutes after the broadcast, I received an email stating that MLB entities issued a takedown notice to justin.tv. Thanks AT&T for the wifi and Justin.tv for the platform. MLB- Sorry I broke the rules. Here is the letter I received from Justin.tv:

Dear Justin.tv Broadcaster:

The content you streamed and archived on Justin.tv at http://www.justin.tv//gerardramos was the subject of a takedown notice we received from MLB Entities pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”). This organization has asserted that it owns this content and that you streamed that content on Justin.tv without permission to do so. As a result we have cleared the offending archives, highlights, and episodes from your account and given you a 24 hour restriction from broadcasting.

If you believe your content has been taken down in error, please so inform us. In order to comply with the DMCA, your counternotification must include:

(A) your physical or electronic signature;

(B) an identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled;

(C) a statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled;

(D) your name, address, and telephone number; and

(E) a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which you reside, or if you live outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which Justin.tv may be found, and that you will accept service of process from the organization or an agent of the organization.

As stated in our Terms of Service, repeated incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your Justin.tv registration and prohibit you from streaming and archiving material on Justin.tv in the future. To prevent us from having to take these steps, please delete from Justin.tv any material you have streamed or uploaded and to which you do not own the necessary rights, and refrain from streaming or uploading additional material that infringes the copyrights of others. For more information about Justin.tv’s copyright policy, please read the Terms of Service located at http://www.justin.tv/user/terms_of_service.

Sincerely,

Justin.tv Staff

I’m pretty stoked about popping my SXSW cherry this year. I’ve come really close to getting there the past few years, but work has always gotten in the way. I was sure to start planning and booking things early this year so I would be committed. It all starts tomorrow morning.

My flight leaves around noon and has a stop in LA before the leg to Austin. Best part – some of my friends from SF and LA are on the same flight. Needless to say we’ll get the party started right. Things kick off on friday morning with registration, then keynotes and some meetups and of course kick-off parties. I’ll be attending sessions mostly geared towards web design and development, but hopefully catch a few on community, businesss, and whatever else sparks my interest. I’m sponsoring a party on St. Patrick’s day, St. Patrick’s Last Stand, so I hope to see you all there.

I’ll be live blogging some of the talks on avenuelabs.com (still got a little ways to go on the new design) and posting some video.

I’ve posted my tentative schedule over on sched. You can follow me on twitter, and if you want my contact info – txt gerard to 50500.

I’m looking forward to seeing so many friends and meeting new ones. I’m off to pack, see ya in Texas!