Les's profileLes's spacePhotosBlogListsMore  |  Tools Help |
|
October 13 Why I use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TripIt, and HealthVaultYou would think – from that title – that I’m a social networking junkie. Well, truth be told, I’m not. I know people that are always on Facebook, tweet 10 or 20 times a day, frequently “network surf” on LinkedIn and so on. I don’t. But I am an avid user of all of the above. As I mentioned in my previous post on the downside of Social Networking, I do have boundaries and uses for each of these:
Again, I’m not a social networking junkie (honest!), but there is absolutely good uses for each of those. I guess the best way to put it is that I’m a networker, but not a particularly social networker. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but it is the best way to describe what I do. Here is why (call this post then, the “Joys of Social Networking”) Facebook allows me to reconnect with old friends and classmates (i.e. using it for what it was originally intended). Call it a virtual “class reunion” but one that is immediate and constant. I don’t play Facebook games (I block Mafia Wars for instance) but I do “friend surf”, looking in other friends networks for old friends to reconnect with. My friend list (almost 500 by this point) consists of old high school and college friends, along with friends from church and relatives (including extended family). I will (on occasion) update Facebook with work news (new blog posts, new articles, interviews that I’ve done, etc). I’ll also whine – again on occasion – about my travel travails or otherwise let people know where I am (great for meeting old friends). I update LinkedIn with professional relationships. I try not to enter every business card I get into LinkedIn (imagine entering the 300 or so I get after tradeshows), but only the ones I will actually do business with or have done business with. This list is surprisingly small – only a couple hundred – but are generally the pretty impactful contacts. I also use LinkedIn to communicate news about Microsoft, my job, and things that we want to communicate out to the world (articles, blog posts, seminars I’m giving, etc). Twitter is solely for status updates – things like “I updated my blog” or “I’m traveling in Europe this week and am right now in on a train from Paris to Zurich”. It does span business and personal – everything from “read this article” type tweets to “I’m listening to All things distorted on NPR, National Liberal Radio” :-) Finally, I have to say – as a road warrior – that I love TripIt. It’s great – as long as you are aware of guarding your privacy! I forward all my travel plans (itineraries, flight plans, etc) to TripIt and it automatically builds out my schedule. I can then share that schedule with my family and colleagues, which means that I’m not worrying about “did I forward them my schedule”? I have an Outlook rule that automatically takes those travel plans (from Amex Travel) and forwards them to tripit. I don’t have to DO anything – and it keeps everyone up to date. Very cool. Highly recommended. http://www.tripit.com Next up: keeping it all straight. There are some tools that I use to keep it all straight: like Ping.fm – which I’ll describe next week. October 05 The Joys and Perils of Social Networking for the Road WarriorMany of you know that I make pretty decent (although not heavy) use of social networking tools. You can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and TripIt in addition to my personal blog and work blog. I do manage (somehow) to keep them separate – although not always – and generally have the following “personal rules of social networking”:
I have found these tools – as many of you have – to be a great way to network professionally, stay in touch with (or find) old friends, and let people know what (and where) I’m up to and thinking. Those are some of the Joys of Social Networking (and I’ll expound on more in my next post). But there are perils to being so pervasively connected. And a simple anecdote explains many of those perils:
It was a stark reminder: there is a downside to being so hyper connected. Consider:
So – what have I done about it? I’ve certainly fixed the TripIt issue by limiting my connections on TripIt and not connecting it to LinkedIn. I’m also no longer “tweeting” about my travels (until I get back from trips). In addition, there are a few “Social Networking Rules” I’ve developed (outside of the ones above) for myself (and my family)… but you’ll have to visit again in a future post for those :-) July 04 Like Father, like Son - or Happy Birthday, Matt!Happy 4th of July, and Happy 21st Birthday to my son Matthew! In honor of his birthday, I thought I'd share a "like father, like son" story (sorry, Matt!)
About two years ago, on the way home from a long business trip, I decided to stop at Moose Hill park in Sharon, MA to stretch my legs a bit and clear my mind. A nice place, close to home, and relatively peaceful. I went for a walk along a "boardwalk" trail through a swampy part, and then into some nice, quiet, peaceful woods.
The only problem with trying to clear your mind is that you are often distracted to begin with... thus the need to clear the mind! Except in my distracted state I didn't notice the tree branch overhanging the boardwalk and walked into it. I walked face first into the branch. And when I did, the branch, hooked underneath my glasses, bent back, and as I quickly reacted and bent down away, the branch took my glasses and flung them into the swamp. Kinda like a catapault. I took off my shoes and socks and sunk knee deep into it, and after one step realized I would never "see" those glasses again.
It was an interesting call home as I told Gaby what happened.
Now - fast forward two years. Last night we got a call from Matt. He was driving home (with his girlfriend's family) from an outing to the beach. Gaby answered the phone. The conversation went similarly to when I called her a couple years earlier: "You did WHAT???"
It would appear the boy (dare I say boy for a 21 year old?) had put his glasses in the velcro protected pocket of his shorts when he went into the water. Obviously, the velcro doesn't cover the entirety of the pocket, as his glasses "disappeared" from the pocket. A relatively loose pocket is probably not the wisest place to put glasses if you're going swimming in the ocean waves.
Needless to say there was a bit of a ribbing when he got home. Not much different than the ribbing I took when I got home two years earlier.
Like father, like son! Happy Birthday, my boy!
Happy 4th of July everyone! May 19 The fun of flying USAirBeen flying USAir a lot lately - because they're the cheapest. But given the kind of service and the hassel of flying them, I'm not sure if it is worth it!
Yesterday I had the pleasure of flying on a 6:45am flight out of Boston into Phoenix, going eventually to San Jose, CA. My day started when I realized the flight left at 6:25am instead of 6:45am (my bad!) - fortunately I was at the airport in time, but seeing that earlier time on the monitor did make my heart skip a beat.
I got onto the plane - I had chosen to move up a few rows into a window seat with no-one beside me (when I checked in) and paid USAir the sum of $15 for the priviledge. A so-called "Choice Seat".
I sat down and discovered that the arm rest was missing! Completely missing - torn off. But, it doesn't really impact me as this is the arm rest between myself and the person in the middle seat which was empty (note the foreshadowing).
The last person on the plane was someone who made me (at 6'5" and 220lbs) feel small: he was easily 6'7" and 300lbs. As he walked down the aisle I had this sense of foreboding. That sense was confirmed when he took the seat beside me, and a good portion of my seat as well.
With no arm-rest between us to keep us - uh - in our OWN seats, let's just say that the next 4 1/2 hours were - cozy. I'm tall to begin with and don't fit into USAir seats without trouble, but a good portion of my leg room was taken by my seat-mate. I literally didn't move for the entire flight as the guy next to me slept. My legs were a bit sore when we de-planed.
I reported the arm-rest issue to the gate agent as we left the plane in Pheonix and (stiffly) hurried to make my connection to San Jose.
Now normally this event would not warrant a posting to my blog: things like this happen far too often (especially on USAir). But this is where it gets comical.
Everything was fine on the flight to San Jose - I had an aisle seat, in the back (the joys of not having premier status on USAir) but at least I could stretch my legs.
On take off though, things got interesting - there was a rattle and a bang coming from the overhead bin above us. People were looking around, quite concerned.
As the plane left the ground, part of the overhead bin itself fell onto our heads! Check out the picture.
Now, granted, it was a small covering for the overhead bin - but still. To have a piece of the plane fall on you during flight is a little disquieting.
The best part is that the price for the flight still keeps on coming: I got off the plane and noticed that my Khaki Dockers were all covered in grease stains from having my legs jammed against the metal portion of the seat in front of me for four hours. Now I have to add dry cleaning costs to the cost of the flight - which is neither reimburseable by my employer nor tax deductable!
The fun of flying USAir...
March 04 The "Open Mouth Head-bob"Picture this: a 5am flight. Went to bed at 10pm. Up at 3am. Needless to say I'm a bit sleepy.
I have an aisle seat. I recline the seat, but it doesn't go back near enough. The head-rest is too short for me and doesn't wrap around. Really no place to rest my head. Regardless, sleep comes easy and I doze off right after take-off. About an hour later I realize the following (to my horror): - Drool is runing down my chin and is in my beard. - My chin is bouncing off my chest like a basketball.
- I'm snoring (and snorting) rather loudly - loud enough to wake myself up! After we land, I turn to the lady next me and ask (sheepishly) if I was snoring. Her reply: "I think the whole plane knows the answer to that question"
Ugh. February 20 OUCH! or "Here fishy, fishy, fishy"A fun story for you in honor of a Friday afternoon. A few years ago we had the pleasure of taking a family vacation in Aruba, using a combination of Marriott points and Continental miles - perhaps the only perk of traveling as much as I do. We stayed at the Marriott Oranjestad, a great hotel in the downtown of the capital, with the added advantage of a "private island" just offshore, with a private beach with a crystal clear, protected lagoon. The kids loved snorkeling - and looking at the myriad of fish that swam all around you. Very cool. As the kids were snorkeling one afternoon, Gaby was relaxing on the beach with a book and I went out to swim with the kids. The water was just amazingly clear, so I decided to see how far out I could wade while still seeing my feet clearly on the bottom of the lagoon. I got out pretty deep - probably just shy of 6' of water (I am 6'5" after all). Even at that depth, and without a snorkel and mask, I could see my feet in the water and you could see the fish swimming all around. The breeze picked up, and it got chilly for a second, so I took a step further out and stood still just to soak up warm water and the sun's rays. All of a sudden I felt this sharp pain on my chest, like a bunch of pin-pricks all at once. A fish had bitten me - right on my nipple! I looked down to see a trickle of blood coming from my chest and a school of small fish circling around me and coming closer - smelling blood and looking for lunch. I yelped, splashed on the water to scare the fish away, and half swam, half ran for shore. As I got out of the water I could see four tiny puncture wounds / teeth marks surrounding one of my nipples and this tiny trickle of blood from each wound. (Amazing how long it took to stop bleeding!) Gaby came running over, concerned about all the yelping I was doing, but the concern turned to laughter pretty quickly (well, as soon as we determined that my nipple wasn't going to fall off - this took awhile for me anyway). In the end, my family (and a few others on the beach) enjoyed a good laugh at my expense. Hope you did too. I guess this gives new meaning to "swimming with the fishes"! Happy Friday! January 20 The Joys of the 6am flight, or Don't Forget the CoffeeI admit it: I did it to myself and to everyone around me. Until I've had coffee, I'm just not awake enough to function. Picture a 6am flight from Boston, with me heading to an afternoon full of meetings in San Francisco. When I got to Logan Airport at 4:45am even the Starbucks was closed. So I ended up getting my coffee at 5:20am and board the flight at 5:30 without having had time to drink the coffee. That was when the fun began. The plane is a small-ish regional jet, not much room to move around. At least there is a big enough overhead bin for my carryon suitcase. I'm juggling my carry-on, my laptop bag, and my coffee. I place the coffee on the aisle floor as I try to maneuver my suitcase into the overhead bin. Punch line: I kick over the coffee, whack a guy with my laptop bag as I try to pick up the spilling coffee while simultaneously keeping my rollerboard from falling on a lady's head as I'm trying to get it in the overhead bin. The coffee flows down the aisle, the guy who was whacked let's out an "ooooof", and I began apologizing to everyone around. If I had only gotten the coffee earlier! March 27 The Horror... the horror...
I've written about some pretty funny stuff that has happened to me while traveling, but this one is truly a horror story. Moreover, it is a horror story for those around me on the plane. Let me explain. I was traveling from DC to Seattle through Houston (good old Continental). When we arrived in Houston, I went to stand up to get my bag and get off the plane when I suddenly felt very dizzy. Now, some will comment that this is a normal state of affairs for yours truly, but it was so bad I had to sit down for a moment and compose myself. Once the world stopped spinning, I got off the plane and went to the next one. I figured it must be that I didn't have anything good to eat in coach (just a ham sandwich), so I should get something into my stomach. A Smoothie stand is across the hall from my next gate, so I purchased a large strawberry-banana smoothie and got onto the next flight. Fortunately, I was sitting in First Class - I was going to get something to eat (foreshadowing: or so I thought) and would feel fine after the smoothie. Just before the doors closed, the gate agent came and upgraded someone from the very back of the plane to the seat next to me. "It must be your lucky day", I tell him as he settles in. Or not, as it turned out. As we began to taxi to the runway, I began to feel increasingly ill. The world started spinning again, and waves of nausea flooded over me. What happened next can only be described as a horror story for the poor soul who was "fortunate enough" to be upgraded to the seat beside me. As we started our take-off, I lost it - and was just fast enough with the airsick bag to catch "it". This lasted for about 10 minutes - as we are climbing - until I had to ring the flight attendant call button and request ANOTHER airsick bag. She called another flight attendant and they both helped me up the aisle (we were still climbing) to the bathroom, where I spent the next 15 minutes - filling another airsick bag in the process (hey, the toilet was NASTY enough). When I returned to my seat, apologizing to the flight attendants and the poor guy sitting next to me, they brought me another airsick bag, along with a cold compress for the back of my neck and some ice chips to "drink". This seemed to help A LOT as the world stopped spinning quite so much, and about 20 minutes later I reclined my seat and fell asleep. We arrived in Seattle without further incident. But this is how bad it was: when we landed the flight attendants didn't wake me or make me put my seat up, they just left me alone until we were taxiing and one of them came over and asked me if I needed assistance in getting off the plane. Feeling somewhat better, I declined, thanked the flight attendants, and (woozily) got off the plane. By the next morning I felt fine - almost as if nothing had happened. Here's the funny part: the next night I'm getting on an overnight plane (redeye) from Seattle to New Jersey (through Cleveland). As I'm getting on the plane I hear the flight attendant say "It's YOU! - you're back!". It was the same flight crew as the day before. I can just imagine what they were thinking as I was walking through the door. I assured them I was OK enough to fly and continued the trip just fine. So - thank you to the wonderful flight attendants on Continental for helping me through. Most appreciated! And my apologies to the poor chap sitting next to me in First Class. Upgrade indeed! Horror story is more like it! January 08 I was on an airplane that had a crash!
Yes, you read that right: I was on an airplane that crashed. Well, OK, the *whole* plane didn't crash, just the Linux based seatback entertainment system. (But I had you going for an instant, didn't I??) Pretty funny too (see the picture below). When I sat down the system was stuck on the the "Press enter to..." line. My question: Where is the "Enter" key on an airplane seat?
The flight attendants restarted the system (turning it off and back on again) at least 5 times before they got most of the seats started. It took so long to start that it delayed the push back of our airplane from the gate. After all, the passenger instructions are shown via video feed to those seatbacks, and if the system doesn't run, the instructions don't play, and the plane doesn't leave (although they'd probably have gone to the manual demonstration). So - pretty funny - Linux suffering from the old "turn-it-off-turn-it-on restart" to get the system to run, and needing to "reboot Linux" to get the airplane to leave the gate! (Full Disclosure: Most of you know that I work for Microsoft, but even so, you gotta admit this is funny. If you're interested, you can see my work blog at http://msdn.microsoft.com/architecture/lifesciences) The ironic part: for all the bashing Windows has taken over the years, it's Linux I see crashing now, especially since the Vista computer I use at home hasn't crashed since I got it!
January 01 Bumping into old friends on the roadOne of the worst things about traveling is eating alone. It is truly the pits!
And so it was a couple months ago, I'm sitting in a TGI Friday's at the King of Prussia Mall near Valley Forge, PA, having dinner - alone.
I asked to be seated in the non-smoking section, but close enough to see the football game on TV (it was a Monday night, as I recall). As I'm walking in I notice a gentleman sitting at the table across from mine who looks vaguely familiar. But - seeing that I eat around here by myself fairly often, I figure it is someone I've seen at this restaurant before.
As I order my dinner, I notice the person at the table across from mine looking at me (out of the corner of my eye), and then looking away when I glance over at him. OK - so he thinks he knows me - I think I know him... so I take a moment and wait for him to turn again, and sure enough - we are old friends - it was Gil Reynders!
Very funny - bumping into someone you haven't seen in a year, at a restaurant 200 miles from you home - and the funniest part: Gil now lives only 10 miles from my house in MA! We ate dinner together, caught up on life, and dinner turned out to be a blessing! A divine appointment perhaps.
And yet this isn't the only time this has happened. In the last couple years, I've bumped into a bunch of people while on the road; most recently Jerry Schindler from Merck in the Newark airport, and even Larry Moretz (Commissioner, Salvation Army) in Chicago O'Hare. Pretty funny...
So - next time you're traveling, keep your eyes open, as you never know who you might meet!
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Send a private message
Subscribe to RSS feed
Tell a friend
Add to My MSN
Add to your network
Sign up for alerts
|
|
