Ladies and Gentlemen, geeks and nerds across the globe. I come to you today brimming with excitement, and drunk on the power of the Ultimate Gaming Machine, which I am thrilled to announce at long last I can call my own!
Leo announced his plans to build and give-away the Ultimate Gaming Machine almost a year and a half ago. Every step of the way since then the TWiT community has helped the project take shape. From selecting components to troubleshooting bsod's, from lusting over its performance to picking me as its winner. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to everyone who helped make my this contest possible.
While UGM is undeniably a community achievement; without the talent, dedication, and passion of one person in particular it definitely would not be what it is today, and probably would have never have happened at all. Colleen Kelly is the one person above all others who made UGM a reality. Her hard work, literally her blood, sweat and tears crafted this work of art that I most graciously accept. She is the one who sifted through hundreds of contest entries to find the ten finalists, and thanks to her persistence the competition was not abandoned. I only hope I can prove to be a worthy recipient of such heroic efforts. Thank you Colleen.
Of course it is the vision and leadership of our Chief TWiT Leo Laporte that gave Colleen the direction to create this masterpiece of modern technology.Thank you Leo for turning this dream into a reality.
Thanks to Ryan Shrout for lending his technical expertise, and an occasionaly nudging Leo when it looked like the contest was starting to drag on.
I'd also like to thank the entire TWiT Community. From the very beginning, I wanted this campaign to be a tongue-in-cheek jab at politics. I think most of you got that, and appreciated it as a fun and different way to participate in a contest; thank you to those folks for your support.
I realize that some of you did not enjoy my approach. I would like to thank my detractors for keeping me honest, and putting up with me when I got too excited, or started to pandered too much. I apologize if I annoyed or offended anyone along the way, I hope there are no hard feelings.
Without those who voted for me, I would be congratulating one of the other finalists right now, Syd, Meghan, Nmerichi, Ryan, Alana, Cameron, Jared, and Ken all had outstanding entries. Cameron 's iPhone app kept me sweating throughout the voting period.
Thanks to my family for voting for me, and my Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and everyone at ATOT for doing so as well. I could not have done it without you!
As for my campaign site, I plan to keep it online and update it with my adventures in Ultimate Gaming, and to track my progress on fulfilling my campaign promises, so keep checking back at http://ugm.gabmcg.com, and thanks again!
]]>Per contest rules, the winner will be notified by email on or about Thursday, October 1 2009. I'm hoping we'll get results sooner than this.
The only factors that might effect the outcome of this contest are postal votes, and disqualified online votes. My count omits several duplicate votes, and I believe that the margin of victory, which has been confirmed by 2 other contestants is enough to withstand all but a substantial incidence of postal voting/vote disqualification.
I don't want to be too presumptuous, but by the looks of it there will soon be cause for celebration!
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Your's truly is on the list of finalists, option (lucky) number 7! Congrats to all of the other finalists!
Voting ends at exactly one week from tonight, so cast your vote now, and then tell all of your friends to do the same! It's been a long campaign, and I'm incredibly honored to have gotten to know the entire TWiT Community along the way. Thank you all for your support.
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The Grand Rapids to Salt Lake City crew - From right: Marie, Chelsie, and myself
So far, so good for the GabeMcG for UGM road tour. Our jaunt from Grand Rapids to Chicago to catch a flight to Salt Lake City went off with nary a hitch.
The 'Campaign Bus' so to speak
Our friend awesome friend Maria was kind enough to donate her wheels to the cause, and even came out to SLC from Colarado to meet us!
Maria, Marie, and Chelsie the evening following our all night drive to Seattle
Maria's Friends, Kimmy and Jason live just outside Seattle, and have been fantastic hosts, putting us up in their spare room, taking us hiking and camping on Mt. Baker, and for a day trip around the San Juan Islands. Thanks guys, you rock!
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I'm writing this sitting in the Delta terminal at Chicago's Midway Airport, as I begin the first and only UGM campaign tour. I'll be making stops all across the greater Pacific region of th US. If you live in Salt Lake City, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Petaluma, the Yosemite area, or Lake Tahoe, pay attention, the campaign will be in your area soon!
The highlight of the trip for me is a stop in the heart of the Tech universe, the TWiT Cottage on Sunday, June 14th to watch a live broadcast of TWiT! I'm super excited to finally meet Leo, Colleen, and Dane in person. I'm going to try to rent a bike and ride it the 40 or so miles from downtown SF to the cottage (stopping only to rest and tweet). So keep an eye out on Sunday to follow my progress.
I have no idea who Rudy Warnock is
Here's a general itinerary for the trip:
6/4 - Mid-Day: Chicago
6/4 - Evening: Salt Lake City
6/5-6/6 - Seattle, WA
6/7-6/9 - Olympic Peninsula, Olympic National Park
6/10 - Afternoon/Evening - Portland, OR
6/11-6/12 - Redwood National Forest
6/13 - San Francisco, CA
6/14 - Petaluma, CA (Yay!)
6/15-6/17 - Yosemite National Park
6/18-6/19 - Lake Tahoe, CA
6/20 - Salt Lake City ---> home
Not a bad trip eh? I'm all decked out with camping gear, and campaign buttons (I wish). Drop me a line on twitter if you'd like to arrange a meet up at some point... I'll buy you a beer and do my best to convince you to get all your friends to vote for me for UGM.
Much more to come from me, and this will be the general hub... Or check out my FriendFeed for an aggregate of up-to-date info.
]]>As an avid cyclist, I've seen TerraTrikes on the roads and trials for years, but I never realized they were a West Michigan product! Just goes to show the power of TWiT. I happen to live less than ten miles from their headquarters, so when I heard they were launching a new model, I took Leo up on his offer to be a, 'Stringer' to hook up with Jeff, and produce a live interview with Leo via Skype-a-Saurus!
Check it out-
How fun was that? Again, a big thanks to Leo, Dane, Jeff, and Everyone else at TerraTrike for the opportunity and access!
And stay tuned, for some more behind the scenes coverage of my trip to TerraTrike, including some trike-mounted test-ride footage on the brand new SL!
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Let the hilarity ensue...
]]>Kiwinerd has set up a FriendFeed conversation, and Comment Page for those who wish to personally express their support for Ray. I encourage everyone to drop a line, if only just to let him know he's on our minds if not our screens this week.
]]>If this campaign is about anything besides winning the UGM; it is about giving something back to the TWiT community, and shameless self promotion. I'm blessed to have had the opportunity to do both this week.
On Wednesday's episode of This Week in Computer Hardware, (TWiCH, formerly PC Perspective, not to be confused with PC Perspective Podcast) with Ryan Shrout (also an UGM Judge) Leo offered, "a prize" to whomever could figure out how to turn off the small picture-in-picture video in his Skype call. The loyal masses, myself included, called out the answer. I was able to catch Leo's attention with it in the newly opened TWiT Conversations FriendFeed room.
As If I wasn't thrilled enough for the mention, and some direct info on the status of the TWiT UGM contest, Leo delivered on that prize promise the very next day. On Thursday, after Dr.Kiki's Science Hour, Leo took some TalkShoe calls as a way to get everyone re-acquainted with the service. Leo was gracious enough to take my call, and fill me in on his plans for UGM. I've interacted with Leo online for quite some time, but I had never actually spoken with him. I think you can tell from the video that I was actually a little nervous!
My Chat with Leo Laporte from Gabe McGuinness on Vimeo.
I apologize for the shameless plug, it was a bit rude, but I couldn't help myself... I think Leo understood ;) .
I mentioned my developing plans for taking this campaign on the road. I'll have more on this later, but start thinking, "GabeMcG for UGM meets Strait-Talk-Express meets a station wagon packed with camping gear and a few friends dicking around the North Western US. Also, if you are in Salt Lake City, Lake Tahoe, Seattle, Portland, or the Bay Area and would like to meet up for a 'Campaign Ralley' or. 'Townhall Meeting' (me buying a round of beer at the bar) just let me know!
I'd also like to take a second to thank everyone who has wished me well, or connected with the campaign somehow, I really appreciate it. And another huge thanks to Leo for the years of quality information and entertainment, and putting up with me always bugging him about the UGM contest. Of course without the help of the fantastic ODTV team I wouldn't have a recording of this memory, thank you all, especially Kiwinerd and DIX for all that you do. I encourage everyone to subscribe to the ODTV RSS feed for all of the latest releases as soon as they are available!
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Shrout suggested the time slot on the 29th instead be used to announce finalists, and begin the voting process.
Ryan Shrout asks Leo Laporte about the TWiT UGM Contest from Gabe McGuinness on Vimeo.
Watch Leo's reaction. Its funny how as soon as Ryan brings up the UGM contest Leo throws off the headphones, and scrambles to adjust the camera.
While it was good to see he hadn't completely forgot about it, this clip didn't offer much hope for contestants wondering what is happening with the soon-to-be year old project.
We got a little more info this week, but no announcement yet. My bet is for a mid-May vote, and actual delivery to the winner sometime by 2010...
While at the writing of this story the 29th has come without any official announcement out of the TWiT Camp, some additional information, and a bit of positive press coverage for this campaign blog came from Ryan Shrout's PC Perspective Podcast recorded that evening.
Co-Host Alyn Melventano picked my question from the Official TWiT IRC to answer on the show, and was even kind enough to give me a big ol' plug too! Thanks Al!
You can hear the plug and question, and really in depth answer in the clips below:
Update: Download the video here
Thanks agian to the PC Perspective (Soon to be This Week in Computer Hardware, or TWiCH) for the hardware help, and keeping the UGM contest alive! I'll let you guys know if the suggestions work.
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