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March 3, 2009

why I'm a fan after 1 week trial of twitter

I avoided Twitter. Already updated status on Facebook, why bother. But last week I signed up; needed to know why it's "the fastest growing social network...." blahblah

Twitter is so NOT just about social networking. It's my new learning medium. Twitter is a microcosm of the wider virtual world, only everything's condensed, from message to URLs to writing style. Cleverness and word-creativity abounds with the 140 character limit.

I have learned a huge variety of things on my flights around the twitter world, starting with, of course, how to have fun and learn in the world of twitter. How huge it is. How it's being used and by whom, from high end business execs to higher education instructors as part of their communication in courses to marketing people (including twitterspam) to governments and politicians to artists and writers and....and on and on.

A large number of software applications surround Twitter. The best are my desktop applications (twhirl and tweetdeck). There are ways to join groups, have group discussions, post photos, audio, video. Adopt a seasoned user as a mentor to help your learning-about-twitter curve.

At first it's about the art of selecting people to "follow". (Mr. Tweet is a great help for this.) Then it's about actually "following": reading their tweets and going where they link you. If you follow where they lead, you discover a range of new things. Like:
OK, you have an idea now.

Join me on twitter @skyhome because tweets enrich my day & open up my home-based freelancing world to the water cooler part of the workplace.


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February 28, 2009

wow! the moon & venus

Feb 27/09, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Taken with my old Olympus Camedia. I wish I had a camera that would fit onto my telescope, because THAT view was absolutely amazing. Like twin moons.

       

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February 28, 2009

airplane rides thru the streets of E.Rutherford, NJ

Airbus 320 (formerly USAir Flight 1549: the Hudson River landing) en route
to NTSB lockup.

Got these images in a forwarded email, so THANKS! to whoever took them. (I
guess they're getting around a lot now.) Worth it!

Acknowledgement to Art La Flamme, who also posted the photos to his
Posterous page: http://artlaflamme.posterous.com/ (so maybe he took them?
dunno!)

                     

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February 27, 2009

"Do the day and let the day do you."

That quote in my title is from Stephen King's character, Wireman, in Duma Key. I keep the quote near me and have been riffing on the idea for months.

I'm wondering, do you define what you're doing according to what part of the day you're in? Do your activities define your day, or does the day's progression define your activities?

For me, generally the time of day defines what I'm doing. It's morning? Oh, then I'm drinking Earl Grey and checking in on my e-comms. It's 3pm? Oh, then I'm getting out that apple and soy cheese snack. It's 9 pm? Oh, then I'm offline & catching up on the lives of my favorite TV characters. It's a sunny Saturday afternoon? Oh, then I'm doing some kind of outdoors thing. It's Wednesday noon? Oh, then I'm at my Strength n Stretch class.

I thought I preferred to "do the day", not let the day do me. But I think the paragraph above says I'm actually letting the day do me?

I've recently realized I've become a creature of routines. Also that I like this. Routines are now comforting. Breaks in routines are becoming disturbing. I like predictability now. OMG! I never thought I'd get this way.

I wonder if this is another symptom of aging? If so, it's not a bad thing, not when you get here and are "in it".

I have another favorite quote: "Human being, not human doing." [Rumi] Maybe I'm getting to understand it. That quote defines my goal for how I live, and routines certainly help me just 'Be'. I guess a more advanced trick would be to learn to just Be when the routines are disturbed.... to be able to still stay in the moment, not Do anything about it, just "Do the day..."

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February 25, 2009

Preview and guide to the Whitsundays

While thousands of us are aching to get a job blogging from the Whitsundays for 6 months, did you know that Liz and Alf have been living right there and have been blogging and vlogging about it for quite a while?
 
Link to their main website Queensland Armchair Guide
and their blog http://queenslandarmchairguide.blogspot.com/
 
If you're thinking of doing a preview trip to Queensland (after you're shortlisted in the top 50, of course), or if you don't make it as one of the top applicants and want to visit anyway, Liz and Alf have a web site for you! Tons of information there!
 
 

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February 25, 2009

All The People That You Are

via neuronarrative.files.wordpress.com

I do like this illustration of right brain, left brain traits. Even more, I enjoyed reading this short interview entitled All The People That You Are. Rita Carter discusses "multiplicity" - "each one of us has several personalities".

Better yet, she explains "mirror neurons" -- I'd suggest it's one of the best reasons I've seen to date for f2f (face to face) contact being better than a social life that's mainly online (like mine). Here's the part I got that idea from: "This automatic mimicry (and empathy) helps to “clone” one person’s personality in the mind of another. Children, for example, inevitably “internalize” the opinions and attitudes of their parents or main caretakers and these form the seeds of a personality. In later life we use mirror neurons to emulate those we admire, or just passively absorb personality traits of those around us. Personalities learnt by mimicry and empathy may in time be pushed aside by new ones, but they are rarely forgotten entirely, and may remain in a person as a “minor” for life."

Click and read. Very interesting!

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February 25, 2009

28 million dollar chair ?

28 million dollar chair

Quoting the blog post this is from:"Who says there's a global economic crisis?"

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February 21, 2009

BoomerAng!

BOOMER-ang
 
 
Boomerang as analogy.
Whatever we throw out there comes back at us.
 
I'm a baby-Boomer. At this time in my life, mid-life (they tell me), I'm at the curve of my BoomerAng, rounding the bend toward the other half. I know the best part is yet to come. The unknown; looking forward to all of it.
 
It feels true that everything I've "thrown out there" in my life so far will come back to me in some form, will shape the other half of my life.
 
BOOM-er-ang! BOOMER-ang!

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February 20, 2009

are you shy? know what I mean?

I pretty much live at my computer and online. In "real life" (I dispute the meaning of that term BTW, so let's instead say, in the world of face-to-face), I continue to let my social shyness rule, thus my ongoing avoidance of calling up people from my past. What's up with that?
 
Anyway, now I'm hoping I'm taking a step in the right direction. I hardly ever make "new year's resolutions". So when I do, they usually work. One year it was to never procrastinate again. THAT was a success; it stuck; it has truly changed my life. This year's resolution was to get it touch with a few people from my past, people I truly liked, loved, enjoyed being with, but have drifted away from. But I still miss them a lot. People who, when I think about them and their place in my past, I get a flutter of excitement. And want to see them again.
 
I guess when we get "old" we get to realize better who really matters among those in our history. There's no good excuse for not doing something about this, so here I am, trying to stop leaning on my shyness crutch. Screwing up the courage; I know, that's truly weird, but hey, that's me.
 
(The image here is a collage I made one week when I was working on freeing my "self", letting the inner me become the outer me.....)

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February 18, 2009

How does Desolation Sound?

Location of Desolation Sound
I recently posted a gallery of photos from our west coast Inside Passage. As you clicked through the photos, were there a few that made you think, "I would love to be there right now"? Well I'd bet you anything that those photos were the ones from Desolation Sound.
 
If you look up the word "desolation" you'll find something like (from Answers.com):
- The state of being desolate.
- Devastation; ruin: a drought that brought desolation to the region.
- The state of being abandoned or forsaken; loneliness.
- Wretchedness; misery.
 
OMG! That is SO NOT about Desolation Sound! I wonder why they named it that?
 
In fact, in 1792 Captain Vancouver was the first non-native to visit the area, and he named it Desolation Sound, saying "there was not a single prospect that was pleasing to the eye."
Robson. (2007). "Hakluyt edition of Vancouver's journals". W. Kaye Lamb, editor, Vol. 2, p 609. Retrieved on 2007-07-27.
 
I have to wonder about that Cptn. Vancouver guy, if that's what he had to say about this precious heaven-on-earth. What pea was under his mattress that day?!
 
Desolation Sound is where the milky green waters are warmer than anywhere in BC, warmer than you'd find hundreds of miles south of here. Gloriously high waterfalls, pristine fjords surrounded by glorious mountain peaks, intense quiet broken only by the cries of eagles and chittering of small wildlife.... there's just no place like it. Even to this day, it remains an uncrowded retreat for boaters. 
 
If you want to know more, google it. And here's a page from my boating journals, a charter my partner and I ran for a family visiting from California: http://ibritt.com/desolation/
 
Enjoy!

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