It Could Happen To You . . .

Date: October 15th, 2009
Time: 5:55 PM to 8:15 PM
Location: Northwest Washington D.C.

5:55 PM - Typically on Thursday nights Nicole volunteers in Northwest D.C. and I come with her and linger at a bookstore nearby. On this night I walked Nicole to the door of the non-profit organization then walked a quarter mile back to the bookstore.

6:00 PM - Arrived at bookstore (which has a cafe).

6:02 PM - Picked up an in-store copy of "Horse Soldiers" (Nicole had the excellent idea of instead of bringing my own book, to just remember the page I am on and use the book at the store).

6:04 PM - Ordered a mocha.

6:05 PM - Barista asks if I want whipped cream. I respond with yes.

6:05:10 PM - Barista asks if I want chocolate drizzled on top. I respond with yes.

6:06 PM - I have mocha in hand (the whipped cream and chocolate rise above the rim at least an inch or two).

6:07 PM - I sit in the public area with chairs and couches. I make a mental note that it's a full house (only one chair is available...front and center of the cafe).

6:09 PM - I open up the book to the last pages of the last chapter--I'm excited to finish.

6:10 PM - I drink (and almost guzzle) my delicious mocha.

6:12 PM - Mocha is finished...so good!

6:13 PM - Return to reading my book.

6:20 PM - People filter in and out of the coffee shop. I look up and make eye contact with a man in his 70's. He looks at me like he knows me. I smile and return to my book.

6:30 PM - Get an alert on my phone that some kid who was thought to be in a balloon over Colorado has been found safe.

6:31 PM - Continue reading.

6:44 PM - A teenager sits to my immediate right at a table facing me.

6:47 PM - Same teenager starts texting on her phone. I look over and she looks down to her phone suddenly.

6:48 PM - Continue reading.

6:55 PM - A woman walks by and looks at me as if I'm familiar to her. I smile politely...she does not return the smile.

7:05 PM - I read through the epilogue of the book.

7:07 PM - Teenager next to me is STILL texting and looking at me. I think to myself, do I look like someone famous?

7:08 PM - I look across the room and the woman who walked by is looking at me but then quickly looks down at her work.

7:18 PM - I finish Horse Soldiers.

7:19 PM - I log onto Twitter to write a very brief review of the book.

7:22 PM - My friend from UC Irvine starts chatting with me on my iphone (instant messaging).

7:33 PM - An awkward man sits at the table across from me. He wears his pants really high and is wearing white socks with black loafers. He looks at me, smiles, then sits down.

7:45 PM - Still chatting with friend online. Look up to see that awkward man is staring at me.

7:55 PM - A college study group shows up. Many of them look in my general direction. I feel like I am sitting in a seat reserved for someone else as they look at me and talk amongst themselves.

7:56 PM - Teenager still texting next to me...avoiding eye contact when I look that direction.

8:01 PM - Nicole sends me a text to let me know that she is done volunteering.

8:01:01 PM - I send her a text that I am on my way to her location.

8:04 PM - I walk down the stairs of the bookstore and a very official man is going up the escalator. He looks at me for a very long time. I smile nervously and continue down the stairs.

8:08 PM - I can see Nicole in the darkness two blocks ahead of me walking in my direction.

8:09 PM - I meet up with her and prepare to give her a kiss.

8:10 PM - Nicole stops me and says "WHAT IS ALL OVER YOUR NOSE? IS THAT CHOCOLATE AND WHIP CREAM?" (See 6:10 PM entry)

8:10:01 PM - A wave of embarrassment sweeps over my body. I touch my nose to feel the softness of cream and the stickiness of dark chocolate all over the tip of my nose. My mind flashes back (much like the ending of "The Usual Suspects"). All of those people staring at me for the last two hours said NOTHING. Here I felt like maybe I looked like someone they knew, or that I had taken a "regular's" seat. How hard would it have been for someone to politely come up to me and say "Sir, there is chocolate and whip cream on your nose." Someone could have gestured towards their nose and I probably would have taken the hint.

8:10:30 PM - I say to Nicole "That's why everyone was staring at me!"

8:10:31 PM - Nicole collapses in laughter.

8:10:45 PM - I explain to her the sequence of events. Nicole laughs even harder!

8:11 PM - I wipe my nose again to make sure that I got every ounce of it off.

8:12 PM - We make our way to the Metro.

8:14 PM - I do a search on Twitter to see if anyone posted anything about a "Bald Guy sitting in bookstore with whip cream and chocolate on his nose--oblivious.")

8:15 PM - The search reveals that no one posted it so in good humor I post it about myself.

Welcome Twitter Users

So I'm still working on my Twitter/Facebook Manifesto (hopefully I am able to finish it!)

In the meantime, take this poll and I will add it to the story (if enough people respond.)

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

My various Twitter accounts:

http://twitter.com/annieisadog Life through the eyes of our dog

http://twitter.com/thetweetlab My primary Twitter account...I do a lot of testing using this account

http://twitter.com/nicoleandjeff More of our joint Twitter account...good for status updates regarding us in a general sense

http://twitter.com/breakinginfo This is a strictly news account. I mostly monitor the news here, but will occasionally retweet (or even break my own news)

http://twitter.com/idwhatiam This one is just for fun...I have a camera on my cell phone so I take pictures of things (bugs, birds, strange objects) and try to get people to guess what they are.

Twitter: Am I "Interesting" Enough For It To Be Useful?

My wife didn't want me to write about Twitter. In her mind she thinks it's pointless and a little "scary" how people want to use these applications in hopes of connecting and communicating. I'm not sure if I disagree with her, but I want to get this out just because Twitter seems to be growing.

You say Twitter to someone and one of two things happen. Either they get really excited and want to talk about it or their eyes glaze over and the force-field of "new technology fear" is raised. Like most things new on the web, there is this overwhelming feeling of concern and excitement as the latest "gadget" comes out vowing to make our (Internet) life more fun.

I won't try to explain Twitter. I've learned over the years that explaining new technologies that have never had application before are very challenging to understand. My parents swore up and down that Tivo was completely unnecessary when they had two VCRs and they never missed anything they wanted to watch. My brother and I bought them a Tivo anyway. They kicked and screamed for about the length of time it took to download the program schedule to the Tivo. Today you couldn't convince them to ever get rid of it. Other examples of these "hard-to-explain-to-your-parents" technologies are the iPhone, RSS, Blogs, etc. Once you find a use for them, you wonder how you could have ever lived without them.

If you want the best "explainer" I have found for Twitter watch this very short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o (youtube version)


Does anyone care what I do from email to email or from post to post? I have never had anyone email me and say "What are you doing RIGHT NOW?" or "Why haven't you blogged lately?" My friends and family understand that I contact them when something is going on...not when I've just switched brands of toothpaste or found the cleanest public bathroom in Portland or mowed the lawn in circle patterns. What I'm getting at is that the details between email or phone calls are important to store and talk about later.

I would argue that by not keeping a little information about yourself stored up and told later, you are destroying the romantic aspect of your life. When we store up a bunch of mildly important events and later tell them to someone else, we have the opportunity to embellish the story to make it more interesting...even if we stretch the facts a bit. This is what life is about. If you knew every aspect of my life before I had the opportunity to tell you personally, I would be an incredibly boring person.

Believe it or not, I do think Twitter is EXTREMELY useful...but probably not for me. If I were a teacher, I could use Twitter to inform my students that the geography assignment will be due in 2 weeks instead of on Friday. If I were a sales manager I could let sales people know that the new sales presentations have a typo on them and not to use them. And so on. If you have information that "impacts" others I think you should seriously consider Twitter. 

As for me, I wish I could find uses for Twitter in my life...but alas I can't. My Twitter page at the time of this post says it all:

• My first cell Tweet - about 7 hours ago from txt
  
• Actively experimenting with twitter - 10:11 AM Apr 22nd from web
  
• Learning about twitter - 8:47 PM Dec 18th, 2008 from web
  

Hopefully when you read this (maybe years from the actual post date) our page http://twitter.com/nicoleandjeff doesn't contradict everything I said . . .