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Happy New Year!

I hope this letter finds all of you well. I managed to find time over the course of several late nights to gather my address book, but ended up having to wait until after the holidays to sit down and write. Lots go through my head when I do this and rushing the letter won’t do any good for your enjoyment. I would hate to have the worst happen, losing touch with those I grew up with or made a difference to me.

2011 was a year in transition for me, after graduating from the College of Business at CSU Long Beach the prior spring. Throughout the year, there was a lot of traveling to and from the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Dallas, and Portland, attending conferences and meeting with prospective business partners and tech start-ups regarding my next step.

After three and a half years, I departed my full-time involvement with PeacePartners Inc., in Long Beach. While the staff was much loved for its atmosphere and attitude, many knew that it was a matter of time before I was going to move on to bigger and better things. It was this time last year I had announced to many colleagues and friends that I was planning to move on, possibly even relocate, in search of my next move. I was grateful to have started here as an intern back in 2008 while I was working for the CSU Chancellor, and two years later, becoming full-time staff. I am thankful for the chance I had to be with them, especially considering how hard it is for students to find opportunities while in college. They have been greatly missed and I hope to remain good friends with everyone.

On a related note, after a five-year run, it was time for me to depart from my managing duties with athletics for the rowing team at CSULB (Beach Crew). It was a hard decision to make but everyone gave me their best wishes as I departed from the everyday duties. The response was overwhelming, going beyond the CSULB campus, throughout many western collegiate institutions. I have to say that in the past five years I was involved more off the water than actually in a boat. I met so many people from around the country. I am glad that there is a sense of respect for the institution up and down the state. I am honored to have been the voice for the team for all of those years. Today, Matthew Dalton has taken over my duties as the General Manager of Rowing. We talk on a weekly basis, sometimes even daily. I have retained my involvement with the Beach Crew Alumni Association as an ex-officio member of the Board of Directors, not to fully abandon my relationship from my roots. Sometimes I miss Long Beach and the chance to travel around the country.

Unrelated to rowing, a former professor of mine from the CSULB College of Business keeps inviting me back to teach a seminar to students during the spring semesters. The topic changes from introducing students new kinds of information systems beyond the classroom, informing students about current changes in the industry, and defining applications for mobile devices. The grant I helped obtain from Boeing is still going strong, which obtains testing equipment and funds a course for students seeking careers in mobile device applications.

As of September 2011, I have moved out into a place of my own residing on the north end of Lake Mission Viejo in South Orange County. Views of Modjeska and Santiago Peaks can be seen from the backyard since we’re in the foothills. I live with two former rowers from Orange Coast College, one I have known since middle school.

In October, out of the blue, I received a phone call from a company about five miles from my home, inviting me on board to their team of 12. The company, RockLive, was founded in 2010 by two brothers and has already released two major mobile applications for iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad. RockLive has very good connections with other companies, including Apple, Twitter, Facebook, EA, and several celebrities. I have to say I never saw myself working for a game company. There are hard 10-12 hour days to be worked, and I’m usually on-call when I’m not working, but I think the commitment will pay off soon. We’ve already been featured in major news sources, including a feature with me in it on Bloomberg West. Maybe a year from now we’ll be all over the news.

I can write pages about this past year, but I think this sums up a year in transition, getting back to the things that mattered, and fulfilling my desires in life. I wish all of you the best, good health, and prosperity this year.

Best Regards,
Brandin

All,

Feel free to copy-and-paste to use in your own letter. You’d have to rewrite it a little, but it should help. Find your representative in the house and tell them to stop this when Congress is back in session after the winter recess.

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

~B

Congressman Gary Miller
42nd Congressional District (CA-R Mission Viejo/Brea)
200 Civic Center
Mission Viejo, CA 92691

 

Dear Congressman Miller:

The “Stop Online Piracy Act,” or SOPA, gives corporations the power to blacklist websites at-will and it violates the due process rights of the thousands of Internet users who could see their sites disappear.

This bill (HR 3261) was intended to discourage illegal copyright violations, but it addresses this problem by giving corporations far too much authority over free speech on the Internet. It deputizes the private sector with broad powers to disconnect the URLs of any website corporations contend are behaving improperly. We can’t let corporations become the Internet’s judge, jury and executioner.

SOPA not only lets companies silence websites but also allows banks to freeze financial deposits to the accounts of website owners, potentially forcing falsely accused Internet enterprises out of business. The bill was intended to discourage illegal copyright violations, but it addresses this problem by giving corporations way too much authority over the way the Internet works. It deputizes the private sector with the power to disconnect the URLs of any websites corporations contend are behaving improperly.

These are the sorts of heavy-handed Web controls you’d expect to see in China, not in the United States.

It gives private entities unprecedented power to rewrite the Internet’s domain name system (DNS), which translates your website request into an IP address to connect you to the correct location. After receiving a complaint from a company like Viacom or Sony Music, the government can force Internet providers and search engines to redirect users’ attempts to reach the websites that they choose. As such the consequences for free speech would be grave. The bill not only gives record labels the authority to “disappear” content from the Web but could also land someone in jail, where they would face severe penalties and a long prison term.

The idea that SOPA would protect against online piracy and other Web crimes is a Hollywood pipe dream. As a technical solution, redirecting DNS would be virtually useless in stopping sophisticated online piracy — but it would have a strong deterrent effect on casual producers and consumers of Internet content. I work for an entertainment company that provides digital mediums for major celebrities, such as Justin Bieber (who has publicly rejected this bill), Mike Tyson, 50 Cent, and Pauly D (MTV). Pioneers of the modern Internet, including Tim Berners Lee, the creator of the first website, and Dr Paul Mockapetris, inventor of the modern domain name system (DNS), have publicly rejected this as well.

Opponents of the bill include Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, LinkedIn, eBay, Mozilla Corporation, the Wikimedia Foundation, and human rights organizations such as Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU, and Human Rights Watch. On December 22, Go Daddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, stated that it supports SOPA. This prompted users from Reddit to organize a boycott. In addition, Jimmy Wales announced he would transfer all Wikimedia domains from Go Daddy. The same day, Go Daddy rescinded their support, with its CEO saying, “Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation – but we can clearly do better… Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.”

House cybersecurity subcommittee chairman Dan Lungren (CA-R, Folsom) told Politico’s Morning Tech that he had “very serious concerns” about SOPA’s impact on DNSSEC, adding “we don’t have enough information, and if this is a serious problem as was suggested by some of the technical experts that got in touch with me, we have to address it. I can’t afford to let that go by without dealing with it.”

Congressman Miller, if you are confused by any technicalities that are being introduced to you in congress, I personally would like to clear this up with you at your Mission Viejo office. Our representatives in the House who are dealing with this bill don’t get it. Concerns about SOPA have been raised by the Tea Party, progressives, computer scientists, human rights advocates, venture capitalists, law professors, independent musicians, and many more. Unfortunately, these voices are not being heard. We can’t let corporations become the Internet’s judge, jury and executioner. If SOPA is allowed to stand, we could see the private sector’s police powers expand to a point that undermines the fundamental openness of the Internet. SOPA violates our right to free speech. Please vote “no” on SOPA. It puts the open Internet at risk.

 

Sincerely,

 

Brandin J. Grams
iOS Web Application & Server Engineer
Mission Viejo, CA

Merry Christmas to everyone. It’s the time of year again where I can sit down and think about myself for a change, though it’s not as long as it used to be. Maybe I should write the next addition to “The Things That Mattered.”

~B