The following is a guest post. I never have guest posts, but I made an exception this time as the guest post is written by someone who has me wrapped around her little finger. She is part of a group of university students participating in Vanderbilt Owen School of Management’s Accelerator Summer Business Institute and is on a team that is making recommendations to a local architecture firm. She’d really appreciate your help. Also, if you share your opinion, it could prove to her that someone actually reads this blog:

I need some advice from Nashvillians who are concerned with the future development of downtown. I’m a part of a team of university students involved in a month-long business program at Vanderbilt’s Owen School of Management.

Currently, our team is involved in a project to consider viable alternatives for the 10-acre waterfront property between the new Gateway Bridge and the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge. You may know this piece of land as the site of the former thermal plant. And you probably know that it came close to being developed as a joint-use baseball stadium for the Sounds along with a retail, office and residential development before the financing package of the project fell through.

Our team is working on a project that asks (and we hope, answers), “Now what?” So I wanted to ask the best experts — Nashvillians — what your ideas are for what should become of this city-owned prime location? What’s missing from the downtown experience? As a Nashvillian, what are your thoughts, ideas or concerns for the future of the site?

Post your thoughts as a comment below (we will credit you in our recommendations) or email our Accelerator Program group if you prefer at annparker2008@gmail.com. Thank you for being a part of our “community focus group.”

Your ideas are greatly appreciated and I look forward to my dad the RexBlog updating you with our progress!

Ann ParkerThe 20-year-old & Team (Vanderbilt - Accelerator Summer Business Institute)

Posted on February 23, 2008

Over the years, I’ve heard lots of stories about couples meeting online. And I know that an online industry has grown up around helping people connect with others who are of the same mind — or heart — or both.

Yet when I started blogging, the last thing (but definitely the best thing) I ever expected to post one day was a photo of a happy couple who are getting married this weekend who first met because of this blog. I feel like Michael from The Office when I interject myself into this couple’s “how we met” story, but they’ve told me they first became aware of one-another through comments on this blog and the first time they actually met was at a blogger event I co-hosted with the guy on the left, a Nashville lawyer who was a legendary early “persona” blogger who went my the name Mr. Roboto. Yes, that’s Mr. Roboto.

Anyway, I’ll skip the rest of the story and merely say congratulations and best wishes and I hope the weather is swell in Hawaii where you are arriving and preparing for your wedding — however, I know that first, Mr. Roboto will be watching a little basketball game.

Congratulations, David and Lena.

A few months ago, I blogged about the New York Times hiring Brian Stelter as a reporter straight out of Towson University where he was tapped for membership in the prestigious honor society, Phi Beta Blogga. According to FishbowlNY, Stelter had five (5, V) by-lines in today’s New York Times. That sounds like a lot, but it’s fewer than what he’d post each day when he was at FishbowlNY’s sister site, TVNewser, going to school full-time and hanging out at Phi Beta Blogga keggers.

Just passing through: This is not me actually blogging. It’s just me
pointing to a story in the NY Times that rehashes an old theme here
on the rexblog: the magazine category we call the “nouveau niche.” More nouveau niche posts.

Blog late day: I’m away until
later today. Also, I’ll be posting my travel schedule later today as
over the next couple of weeks I’ll be places where some of the readers
of this blog may be and would love to get together with anyone who’ll
actually admit they’re one of its seven readers.

Apple-free speech: I’m in day three of my Apple-free speech movement
which will last until the company
drops its legal argument that fan websites are not protected free
speech (mine is a very narrow protest). Back before I switched from
being
a Mac zealot to merely a Mac user, I doubt I would have ever linked to Seth Godin’s 2-part blog post on why Apple’s service sucks so badly.

Questions worth pondering: John Battelle asks, “What happens to advertising when distribution is secondary, and audience and content is primary?”

One small step for magazines: Newsweek has started a new feature called “BlogWatch.”

(via: Steve Rubel)

Introducing the Apple-free speech movement:
Okay. I used the word boycott and yes, I did call on bloggers in the
Apple community to rise up and be heard. But I have not the foggiest
idea of how to organize anything like this that’s getting noticed, even on another continent. So, please, if someone wants to pick up on the boycott
meme, I’ll gladly pass it on.

Also, after a night’s reflection, I’ve decided to clarify my position
and redirect the focus of my personal protest against what I feel is an
alarming and misdirected action
by a company I have admired and depended on for over two decades. I still think the products Apple
make are insanely great. I just think that suing fan websites
using the legal argument that they are not protected “free speech” is
merely insane.

Here’s exactly what I’m doing:

I’m
switching.  I’m switching from being a fanatic about Apple products to being a
mere user of them.

I’m not giving up my appreciation of the elegance of the products, but
I’m switching from being a 21-year member of the cult of Mac to being
simply a “consumer”(don’t even call me a customer) of Apple products.

I’m going to start practicing something that I’m sure is protected by the U.S. Constitution and UN Charter, something I call: Apple-free speech.

Apple-free speech means there will be no more talk by me about what I love
about Apple products.

Apple-free speech means no more suggestions from me that those who don’t use the Mac platform are crazy.

Apple-free speech means no more talk from me about how iPod/iTunes crush the competition.

Apple-free speech means I’m calling it “blogcasting” instead of podcasting.

Apple-free speech means that’s it from me on this topic.

And, at least for me, Apple-free speech means I’ll be making no
discretionary purchases from Apple until they back off this insanity.

If others want to organize something, I’ll be happy to point links in your direction.

The rexblog (you won’t believe this) is boycotting
Apple: [UPDATED] While I don’t believe that FEC crackdown meme, I DO
believe there’s a real danger to blogging in the
judge’s decision in favor of Apple, which, if upheld, will
force several enthusiast websites to  disclose their sources on
articles they published regarding unannounced Apple products.

According to reports, Apple used the argument that the
web sites were not protected by free speech because they are not
legitimate members of the press.

Dear Apple: I’ll tell you what FREE SPEECH is. Free speech is 
what those of us who evangelize your products FOR FREE do. I’ll tell
you what EXPENSIVE SPEECH is. When you start suing those fans (like me)
who you don’t think should be protected by the Constitution and we
start using that FREE SPEECH to tell the world not to buy products from
companies who want to take their freedoms away from them.

While it will have absolutely no impact on anyone’s bottomline (as even I forget to use it most of
the time),  I am removing the iTunes affiliate link from this
weblog. In fact, I suggest all bloggers who have one do the same.

A little background: I purchased my first Mac in the spring of 1984
after selling a car to do so. Since then, I have purchased hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of Apple products for the companies I have
run or owned. Last year, in an upgrade at Hammock Publishing, we
purchased close to $100,000 worth of Apple products. And, we all know
my personal obsession with the brilliance of the company and its
products. For example, on December 29, I posted a long list
of reasons why I didn’t think the iPod could be killed.

If Apple continues with this assault on its customers and biggest fans,
then those customers — especially those obsessed Macophiles who, like
me, blog — must display where the real power of the Apple community is.

Perhaps a display of what a day without any of us Apple zombie-evangelists downloading an iTunes song would send a message.

Perhaps an Apple Store-free day.

Perhaps a week, a month or from now until they drop this ridiculous lawsuit.

Ironically, I’ve never supported boycotts of any type because, frankly,
I think it’s crazy when some religious group says they’re not going to
buy something they weren’t going to buy anyway.

But in this case, Apple is assaulting its own customers. Those of us
out here who love their products so much we spend time sharing with the
world how crazy they are not to also own the products.

Apple is the last company in the world I thought I’d be
saying this about, but if Apple can do this to its customer-fanatics
(like me) and we don’t answer back in a way where they’ll clearly get
the
message, then, let’s just drop some of the hyperbole on the whole
concept of “the markets are conversations” because if Apple can show
the world how to shut-off the conversation, the notion has not only
been cracked, it has been broken.

Update: I wonder if Apple thinks dog photo blogging is protected free speech.

Update Saturday 3.5: Here is a link to the wikipedia entry on the Apple vs. Does case.
Also, and I’m going to post this separtely as well, more than
boycotting the purchase of Apple products, I’m boycotting the FREE
SPEECH I provide Apple by serving as one of their cult members. In
other words, I’m switching. I’m switching from being a fan of Apple
products to being a mere user of the company’s products. I still think
the products Apple makes are insanely great. I just think that
attacking fan websites using the legal argument that they are not
protected “free speech” is merely insane. I’ve decided that in this
case, I’m going to practice Apple-free speech. In other words, no more
talk here about what I love about their products. No more, anyone who
doesn’t use the Mac platform is crazy. No more, iPod/iTunes crush the
world. Hell, I’m even wishing we could call it something other than Pod
casting. I’m going to start practicing Apple-free speech.

Some dog photo blogging for Friday afternoon: