Gavin Hall dot org

When traveling around I always see these great ideas that other cities and states implement that I wish Orlando would do. If only there was a "be Mayor for a day" program where I could create 3 laws in one day. If so here is what they would be (dealing with the food industry)

1) Food Ratings on Restaurants -- Stolen from LA -- Every restaurant has to have a letter grade displayed in their front window (A to F). It's great to know that the place you are eating at has passed health inspection and that the food you are eating is good to go.

2) Nutrition Info on Menus -- Stolen from NYC -- Every item on a menu has to tell you how many calories and grams of fat is in it. It's shocking on how bad some of the chain restaurants are for you. By doing this you are not only informing people so they can make better and healthier choices but you would also help the economy as it would lower rates of obesity in the state (currently Florida is 5th highest) thus lowering health care costs.

3) Local restaurants -- Stolen from Austin -- Austin has a cool "keep Austin weird" theme downtown. It gives tax breaks for owners of stores who live within the city limits. This encourages private companies to open up little places downtown and gives the city a great vibe. It could be taken a step further and allow alcohol sales to go an hour later for locally owned restaurants/bars downtown. Study show places with later alcohol sales have a lower rate of drunk driving accidents.

Seems easy enough. Of course I would demand a top hat during my be Mayor for a day. Demand!

Alex and I made it in the local paper today for one of our silly joke sites. Right before the picture was taken the phrase "do you want our shirts on or off" was said followed by an awkward laugh from the photographer.

I have a dream.
A dream that one day I would own an Armored Truck.

It mixes my love of transportation with my love of being bullet proof.

After sharing my dream with my friends they encouraged me to look online and I found this beauty.

A 1991 former Brinks Truck.

I called right away and sure the call was a tad awkward. The guy said "What will you be using this armored truck for?" I said "Mostly personal transport". To which he responded "You are just going to drive it around!?".

That's exactly what I am going to do. Drive it around while being awesome.

I know what you are saying. Why even post this? Why am I not the proud owner of this fine armored-mobile yet?

Because it gets better.

It just so happens this armored truck was in the last Batman movie. It says Gotham Police Department on it and it has 6 gun ports.

Yes, SIX gun ports!

Attached are the pictures of my future armored truck/tail gating awesomeness. There are a few hurdles I need to work out before I can call this mine.

Such as:
1) Where can I park this at?
2) How do you insure an armored truck
3) What do you do when you want to sell it? I don't think there is a huge market for used armored trucks with six gun ports.

All small details in the scheme of things. It is going to be harder to not be awesome while knocking over hummers/banks.

Now I just need a few backers and I can bring this puppy home....Who's in?!

My iPhone has a huge crack in it from when i dropped it. That's ok, I still enjoy it and it adds some character to it. I was thinking what would it take to upgrade me to a new iPhone and I can only think of one thing.

A second camera.

Why? Mix the 3G, the second camera, the headphones with a mic and years of experience with iChat.

You get the first perfect video conferencing device.

Imagine being able to take a call and if the phone is away from your ear (and you are talking to someone else who has an iPhone away from their ear) it syncs up and you can start looking at the other person.

The bandwidth is there. The headphones will give you a good experience of being able to hear and talk to the person with the phone away from your face. Apple has perfected video conferencing on iChat. And it is just creepy enough to make me want to dial random numbers to see what people are up to.

I'd upgrade the very first day and to be honest I think everyone else I know would too.

Hopefully the iPhone has the power to encode and decode video, AT&T has the bandwidth to support it and that the phones become very popular with slutty sorority girls.

Hey oh!

I don't know what it is about the Olympics this year but I am into them like a fat kid into a box of ho-hos. My guess is that it's the eye candy of HD.

I'll tell you what its not though...NBC and their group of commentators. Don't get me wrong Bob Costas, I love you for your role in BaseketBall but during the opening ceremonies you said the stupidest things I have ever heard on national TV and I've seen a lot of President Bush speeches.

Hey Oh!

But I wanted to tell you about my Olympic dream. Something on the level of Mike Phelps' eight gold medals...

You see I used to own www.olympics.com.

Hand to god.

Back when I was 15 there was all this talk about the Olympics coming the following year to Atlanta. I went to olympics.com to see if they had a site but it didn't resolve. I did a whois and sure enough no one registered it...so I did.

It was a great moment until a month or two later I got a letter from Internic (now called Network Solutions) saying that my domain and dream were taken and given to the IOC.

How freaking lame.

So instead of being able to trade it for something reasonable like to be the life time mascot of the Olympic games...it was just taken from me.

And with that my Olympic dreams were over and I was crushed.

It didn't need to end like that. At very least they could have let me be King of one of those smaller countries no one has ever heard of.

Pretty sure they have the authority to do that.

Everyone is going green. Not only because it's the right thing to do but because it typically makes economic sense. Cars make up about 40% of the fossil fuels and most people have been focusing their energy there. Tesla has their gorgeous roadster finally making it out to customers and every other car company has some sort of all electric or electric-hybrid car in the works. Sure they are ten years late but...actually I can't think of a nice way to end that sentence.

Everyone agrees using less foreign oil is for the best. Not only is it good for the environment and the US economy but shipping hundreds of billions of dollars to the middle east each year...some of it ends up in the wrong hands.

But 51% of the fuel is used for power of houses or businesses. In this space there has been a lot of advancements with solar panels and wind turbines but no game changer like the Tesla. T. Boone Pickens, besides having the best Texan name ever, thinks he might have a plan which you can read about online.

So today I started to look to see how I could do my part. I already walk to work (ahem) so I was interested in lowering my power usage. Orlando is blessed with a ton of sunlight so it seems to be wasted for it to not be making me money.

However solar cells are crazy expensive. Like 40k expensive. There are government grants and tax subsidies that bring it down some but still for that price I might as well just drill my own oil.

Don't think I haven't thought of that.

But I am more interested in a game changer. So until people start making drive ways out of solar panels...here is what I am thinking:

A company looks for people in high sunshine areas with high power bills (Cali, Florida, etc). They will come and install solar panels on your roof for free and then sell you back the energy at half the price you are currently paying from the power company.

They would be able to buy in bulk to bring down the costs and encourage growth in the market. Plus after they recoup the costs (in about 10 years) they then will be making profit for the next 15 years (typical solar panels are rated for 25 years of use).

For a home owner you are able to start using green energy with no upfront costs and able to slash your power bills in half. In Florida the power company has to buy back any unused power so I might be able to lower costs even more.

Maybe there is a company out there that does this or one about to start. If that is the case then sign me up!

Tonight I got a collect call from the Duval County Jail. The machine notified me that my line does not accept collect calls so I would need to enter in my credit card information to setup a "pre-paid account".

I think this is a scam.

I have a landline for just the gate at my complex. I think maybe three people know the number and none of them would be in Duval.

My hunch is this. They pick an area code (407) and then find a county in the area code (Duval). Perhaps they do a little research to find out what county in that area code has the highest crime rates. They then auto-dial all the phone numbers in the area asking for credit card information to accept this call. If you had a normal land line then it might really be your friend so whats a few dollars to find out. The scammers at that point have your credit card info and your phone number which they can reverse lookup to get your name and address. At that point they have everything they need.

Could it have just been someone dialed the wrong number? Perhaps...but my gut feeling is this is a scam.

Anyone else ever get called like this?

The dairy industry is so cocky with their lactose loving products that they now make a boardgame of what goes on inside my belly.



Yes, it's a real board game. I took this picture at a store in Winter Park.

I wish I could share the below image with a blog post saying I got upset with gas prices and totally hacked the gas pump.

Instead I was filling up and as I was almost done the machine started going crazy and I started crying.



Man I hope it doesn't bill my credit card for twenty thee grand...

I am starting to see how people are upside down on their homes in the US. The person who is supposed to be giving you the advice (your real estate agent) isn't always working towards your best interest.

In the current system the real estate broker gets typically 3% of the sale price. But if you are looking to buy a house you can afford and want to get the best price possible...why would they help you do that? The more they make you pay for the house the more they will actually make. Sure, they can only push it so far until you don't buy the house at all and they make no money...but still.

I think they should change it so real estate agents get 3% of the LIST price not the SALE price. That way you and their goals are aligned.

Of course if I was selling a house I would base it on the sale price...

Don't get me wrong...not hating on the agents..some of my closest friends are agents.

Crooks apparently but close friends nonetheless. ;)

Amber Alerts help find missing children. This is one of those easy things you can do that make a big difference. So how do you get involved? Text "AMBER 32828" (replacing 32828 with your zip code) to 26237. Any amber alerts that are sent out in your area will be sent to you so you can keep an eye out.

Go ahead and do it now...i'll wait.

We are all heading out to South by Southwest (SxSW) again this year and I'm super excited. Follow me on Twitter or drop me a line if you want to meet up.

"Every man is trying to either live up to his father's expectations or make up for his father's mistakes"

-Unknown, but frequently quoted by Barack Obama