The Crypto Show with Ryan and Harlan
June 7th, 2014 | View Post
CryptoShow_640
A direct link to the radio broadcast can be found here. I come on the air just after the 19:30 mark.
This evening I had the pleasure of being on air with Ryan Dixon and Harlan Deitrich, hosts of The Crypto Show on local Austin station 90.1 FM. Harlan, by the way, is the loveable owner of Brave New Books located at 1904 Guadalupe.

I had been originally invited to participate in a weekly Bitcoin meetup. A friend of mine started the group some time back and had asked me to speak about my campaign. The whole thing was a wonderful experience. It was fun to speak with so many people working on Bitcoin and other Alt-currencies; as a software engineer, I've spent a lot of time in that field myself.

As kind of a bonus to the evening, Ryan Dixon asked if I would be interested in doing a segment on the campaign on The Crypto Show.

Check out this archived episode page for the broadcast I was part of. My interview is the first part of the show and starts just after the 19:30 mark on the MP3 file.
Meeting with ZeroBlock, Blockchain, and LibraTax
May 18th, 2014 | View Post
IMG_6685_640x480
Kevin Ludlow (leftmost), Jake Benson (2nd from right), and Dan Held (rightmost)
Following the success of the /r/bitcoin/ AMA, I was contacted by Dan Held and Jake Benson. Both Dan and Jake are originally from Texas, but have been living in California for awhile now. They are both very active players in the Bitcoin market and moved to San Francisco to work on their respective startups.

Jake is the CEO of a new Bitcoin company called LibraTax and Dan is the co-founder of ZeroBlock and the Director of Product for Blockchain.

The both of them have some pretty cool thoughts on how Bitcoin is going to continue maturing. More specific to my campaign, they also have some good insight on the political future of Bitcoin and the Bitcoin community. LibraTax in particular is an amazingly useful application for keeping up with tax requirements from Bitcoin investments. Although I'm not sure it was designed for this, I am willing to wager it will have a significant application in campaign finance reporting too.
2nd Reddit AMA in /r/Bitcoin
May 11th, 2014 | View Post
bitcoin-gold_640
The Bitcoin logo, symbolic of the 16-hour long AMA I participated in on /r/Bitcoin
Following the unprecedented success of the AMA (ask me anything) I did in /r/Austin/, I decided I would try reaching out to a slightly larger audience.

I had a number of leaders in the Bitcoin community reach out to me after the Austin AMA and ask what I would do for Bitcoin as a state legislator. Naturally I am a huge proponent of Bitcoin and absolutely want to see it succeed. It very well may turn out to be that thing that finally requires the dollar to step in line and so I would be willing to take any steps necessary to ensure the government leaves it alone and lets it grow as the market dictates.

Following the success of the previous AMA, I followed the same general formula and posted the following title: I'm running for the Texas State Legislature. I support LGBT rights, pot, and net-neutrality and oppose the NSA and TSA. I also happen to be a long-time Bitcoin enthusiast. I'd love your support.

I did not think for a second that I would be able to top the previous AMA, but I was very wrong. I wound up answering campaign questions from Redditors for more than 16 straight hours. We drove a record 16,000 people to the campaign website in a single day and raised enough money to finally kickstart the campaign into full gear.

From here on out it's pretty clear to me that there is a strong demand for common sense politics in the State of Texas. I intend to remain passionately focused on bringing that message to the constituents of TX House District 46 and am genuinely looking forward to the remainder of the campaign.
Marlin Fishing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
April 30th, 2014 | View Post
It took me long enough to finally make this video, but this is a little tribute to the trip that we took with Javier back in January. He chartered a 71' fishing yacht and took a bunch of us fishing in the Pacific off the coast of Cabo.

In all of my deep-sea fishing adventures, I've never even seen a marlin. On this particular day we caught three!


Reddit AMA in /r/Austin
April 23rd, 2014 | View Post
reddit_austin_640
In an effort to begin getting the word of my campaign out on social media, I decided to reach out to the Reddit community today. Specifically I was only intending to reach the /r/Austin/ subreddit, but the conversation seems to have spread far beyond what I anticipated.

I posted a link to my website around 11:45am with the following Reddit title: I'm running for State Representative in District 46 (east Austin, north of 7th). I'm pro-pot, pro-gay, pro-open-internet, oppose the TSA, and oppose the NSA. Here's my website. Soon after posting the link I left my office for lunch.

A few messages trickled in while I was eating and I quickly answered them. Twenty or so minutes past that and something started happening that I would have never expected, a full-blown AMA organically developed.

I've always wanted to participate in an AMA and having now completed one can definitely say I enjoyed the process. I had the opportunity to personally converse with more than 600 people. Thankfully I am a pretty fast typist (10fastfingers puts me at 117 WPM) because it was the only way I could provide ongoing and thorough answers to all of the questions pouring in.

When it was all said and done I had answered more than 400 questions, had more than 20 people offer to volunteer themselves to the campaign, drove almost 5,000 people to the campaign website, and even raised several hundred dollars.

The AMA is currently the 29th highest post in /r/Austin/ of all time.
State Convention Followup
April 13th, 2014 | View Post
PatDixon_2014-04-14_640
Patrick Dixon addresses the body at the 2014 Libertarian State Convention in Temple, Texas
The recent Libertarian Party State convention in Temple, Texas was a great success. In addition to electing some very intelligent, well-spoken, and qualified people as statewide candidates, we had an opportunity to address the official party platform.

I'm very proud to say that after many hours of debate, the Libertarian Party of Texas has removed any language from its platform that would even hint at the idea of supporting closed borders. As a long-time supporter of open-borders, I was very pleased to see this change adopted and am proud to say I voted for the language.

So as of 2014, the official party language on border control reads as follows:

"The Libertarian Party believes in and encourages free and fair trade among nations which allows the easy exchange of currency, goods, labor, and services."

This was considerably shorter than the platform committee had come back with and I'd like to personally thank Art DiBianca for proposing this particular language.
Newly Created Albums


Recent Blog Posts
Hardwoods!
Moving Along with Inspections
The Potential of Acquiring a Church
Smoothie Recipe - The Don Julio
A Mobile kevinludlow.com?
9/11 Memorial
Dan Carlin - War Remains
My Dog Food Recipe
Corrected the Blog Dating
Updates and Changes


Blog Categories
Axel Lane ( 22 )
Blog Entry ( 276 )
Campaign 2014 ( 36 )
Facebook x-post ( 5 )
Movie Reviews ( 7 )
Music ( 26 )
New Zealand ( 28 )
No Small Parts ( 3 )
School Work ( 31 )
Site Pages ( 11 )
Software ( 17 )
Stories ( 35 )
World Travels ( 17 )


Blog Archives
Recent Posts
April 2023
February 2023
November 2022
September 2022 ( 3 )
August 2022 ( 3 )
July 2022 ( 2 )
June 2022 ( 5 )
May 2022 ( 2 )
April 2022 ( 3 )
March 2022
February 2022 ( 3 )
November 2021
August 2021
July 2021
April 2021 ( 2 )
August 2019
March 2019
September 2018
August 2018 ( 3 )
July 2018 ( 2 )
September 2017
August 2017 ( 10 )
July 2017 ( 5 )
December 2016
November 2016
July 2016 ( 3 )
November 2015
October 2015
March 2015 ( 3 )
January 2015
October 2014
September 2014 ( 4 )
August 2014 ( 5 )
July 2014 ( 8 )
June 2014 ( 8 )
May 2014 ( 2 )
April 2014 ( 3 )
February 2014
January 2014 ( 4 )
December 2013 ( 4 )
November 2013 ( 2 )
September 2013
August 2013 ( 3 )
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013 ( 2 )
March 2013 ( 2 )
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012 ( 4 )
October 2012 ( 2 )
September 2012 ( 4 )
August 2012
July 2012 ( 8 )
June 2012
May 2012 ( 6 )
April 2012 ( 7 )
March 2012 ( 4 )
February 2012 ( 5 )
January 2012 ( 4 )
December 2011 ( 5 )
November 2011 ( 2 )
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011 ( 5 )
July 2011 ( 6 )
June 2011 ( 2 )
May 2011 ( 3 )
April 2011 ( 3 )
March 2011 ( 2 )
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010 ( 2 )
November 2010 ( 2 )
September 2010
August 2010
June 2010
March 2010
February 2010 ( 3 )
November 2009
June 2009
May 2009 ( 3 )
April 2009
March 2009 ( 2 )
February 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
May 2008 ( 2 )
March 2008
January 2008
December 2007
July 2007 ( 2 )
June 2007
May 2007 ( 2 )
December 2006 ( 2 )
October 2006 ( 3 )
July 2006
May 2006 ( 2 )
April 2006
December 2005
October 2005
September 2005 ( 5 )
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005 ( 3 )
May 2005
April 2005
December 2004
November 2004 ( 6 )
May 2004
February 2004 ( 4 )
January 2004
December 2003 ( 10 )
November 2003 ( 5 )
August 2003
July 2003 ( 15 )
June 2003
September 2002
August 2002
May 2002
April 2002
December 2001 ( 2 )
July 2001
April 2001 ( 3 )
February 2001 ( 5 )
November 2000
September 2000
May 2000 ( 2 )
March 2000 ( 2 )
December 1999
November 1999 ( 3 )
October 1999 ( 5 )
September 1999
August 1999
July 1999 ( 8 )
June 1999 ( 2 )
May 1999 ( 3 )
April 1999
March 1999
December 1998 ( 2 )
November 1998 ( 2 )
October 1998 ( 3 )
September 1998
July 1998 ( 2 )
June 1998
April 1998
March 1998
November 1997
October 1997 ( 2 )
May 1997
March 1997
February 1997
January 1997
November 1995
September 1995 ( 2 )
July 1994
Complete Listing