Saying Anything You Want - The Difference Between Radio & Twitter

There is an "alternative" radio station in Seattle called 107.7 The End that I have been listening to for years. They introduced me to Nirvana, The Flaming Lips, Kings of Leon and more. They unapologetically brought me Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky. And I am not going to lie, at the time, I loved them for it.

Over the years, this station has gotten away with more outrageous comments on the radio than anyone would have expected in such a PC city and this afternoon, someone at The End tried to take this attitude online.

Below is a picture of what was published publicly on The End's Twitter account this afternoon:


Before I move on I want to clarify that I am not writing this post out of anger. I believe that the online space should be a space for reflection and rationality, not blame and hate.

I think that whoever published this post failed to understand the nature of the online space.

Radio, for a long time, has been a one-way medium. The station controls what you listen to. From music to talk shows, you hear the main content but miss out on the content that is being generated in parallel to the programing. This means that the listener doesn't know what any other listener thinks of the content being played(besides screened commentators). I believe this creates a lack of accountability. Radio is not held responsible for any of its content by its users.

The Internet, however, is a multidimensional space. Something is said and it can be copied, pasted, forwarded, posted, Tweeted, tagged, bookmarked, ranked, etc. Responses can be made to any of these forms and the original commenter has no control over the information as it spreads through out the system. We call this Viral Marketing if it is positive but have started denoting the negative iteration of this with a #fail sign.

Whoever posted the comment above must not have understood this difference between the two mediums and thus could not have foreseen the potential repercussion (psst I am giving this person a bit more credit than I actually think he/she deserves):


Personal opinions are one thing online but as a Brand you have to be aware that in this space you represent more than just a set of attributes you and your team came up with around a table one afternoon. You represent the team that you work for and the customers that buy your products or services.

Tomorrow morning, The End might decide that they did nothing wrong. That they stuck to their brand. That said, I doubt that "alienate" is something that any senior management from a radio station wants associated with their brand.

UPDATE: This morning, The End posted as statement that claimed that their Twitter account had been hacked.
This seems very fishy since someone was responding to the backlash from The End alias (unfortunately, I failed to get a screen shot of this) for about two hours after the original post went up. If the account had been hacked, the hacker would have posted the comment and watched the storm hit. He/she wouldn't sit there and defend whatever was said. As @jonathanlawson put it this morning, The End's "twitter hacking" explanation is disingenuous. They erased original tweets to dodge accountability. At least now we know the person that posted the original comment isn't the only one over there that doesn't really understand how the online space works.

UPDATE #2: Tech Flash and The Stranger comment on the event and Paul Constant makes a better argument for why it was not a hacker (he also has a screen shot of The End posts!).

UPDATE #3: And The End's response to criticism that it wasn't a hacker.

My Favorite Videos 2009

Long. Short. Humorous. Touching. These are the videos that I would like to share with you as we head into the new year. Enjoy!

#5 Epic 2015 - Especially relevant with the development of Chrome, Chrome OS, Android, Google Goggles,etc




#4 I Feel In Love at the Apple Store - For every mac geek I know!




#3 Horny Turtle Humps Shoe - My wonderful friend Annie discovered this video and has since perfected the Turtle's cry of passion!




#2 Cory dancing to "Single Ladies" - Especially around 36 seconds into the video! Cracks me up EVERY SINGLE time I see this!



#1 Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams - Honestly, one of the most humbling and inspirational videos I have ever seen.

Announcing... Social Creature Media

My Dear Friends,

My business partner, Josh Dirks and I are very excited to announce our new social media marketing company, Social Creature Media.

Social Media is an emerging medium that has the power to engage consumers before, during and long after they enter the buying funnel. It gives marketers new opportunities to capture attention and build long-term relationships. The possibilities are endless and always changing, which makes this an incredibly fun and exciting space to be apart of.

We have been in sort of a "beta" mode for awhile and still have lots to work on but I am happy to say that the business is moving along. Still we are in desperate need of a website, a logo and an office (we are currently working out of Josh's basement). Any suggestions? :)

If you want to hear more about our business or about how it evolves, follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook!

Thank you for all your love and support!

Cheers,
Meg

It's alright. Just be you.

It is really easy to get caught up in what type of image you are presenting to the world. Based on X, will people think I am funny? smart? trendy? attractive? etc?

And now with all the public methods of communication online (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn), the feeling is only intensified. Now you have to have cute profile pictures, legions of friends, funny links, witty blog posts, etc. I think it stifles creativity. It makes people over-analyze how people will react to the ideas and information they put forward.

One of the most freeing things though is being able to let all of this go. Yes, it has taken a bit of time but I've realized that the best face for me to put forward is my own.

This might sound obvious but I have done a lot of censoring of myself over the years and it has never done me any good.

I am a goofball. I say things that are not particularly intelligent. I speculate. I am not quite at a point where I try to formulate opinions about content I feel is beyond me but I sure like passing it on if it struck a cord. I cannot spell for beans! I love silly videos of people singing about falling in love at the Apple store. I like my unflattering pictures (to a point) because that is the real me and it is way easier to be me then try to pretend to be something else.

In conclusion, as I would write in Elementary school, stop thinking so hard about what kind of content you put out on the web. Obviously, you might want to limit somethings, like that drunken rant you posted about your employer or the pictures of the rave you went to the night before a big presentation etc. But all-in-all, real-time web is moving so fast and producing so much content that your dumb post on Tuesday afternoon about frogs coming up SPDY will be ancient history by Wednesday evening, 14 texts, 23 emails, 450 RSS feed posts, and 3,421 tweets later.

San Diego

This past week I went down to San Diego to visit my best friend, Debra. It was kind of a last minute trip. My dad had purchased a non-refundable ticket and ended up not needing it. I asked if I could just use it instead and so I ended up with a free flight to San Diego. Not bad when it was going to be raining in Seattle the whole week. The only catch was that I had to fly into LAX. In my mind, that was alright.

All in all, the trip was a blast. I really enjoyed having my best girlfriend around for the four or five days. We watched the Charger game, went out for a late birthday dinner and sat on the couch at her house, watching movies and catching up. I miss that when I am in Seattle.


Anyway, I didn't want to write about what an amazing time I had on this trip. Debra and I can hold onto those memories ourselves. What I did want to write about though was the revelation that I had while down there. This will probably seem strange to many of you and maybe a bit obvious to most of you.

I have lived in Seattle for over 10 years. I have weathered through 10 long, gloomy winters here. I have come to accept that in fall, you start buckling down and preparing for the winter ahead. You take advantage of every last ounce of sunshine you get, even if it means that your fingers are going to freeze off or you will be blown away by the crisp fall winds. You start bring out the down blankets and the couch throws. You turn on the lights in the middle of the day and you try to accomplish everything you can before four when the sun sets. You also dread daylight savings. Falling back means that dark sets in at three, not four. You dread that you won't see the sun until April and you prepare yourself and your significant other for the inevitable seasonal depression that is going to set in. You start creating contingency plans, strategizing when to take your next vacation (only to sunny locations) so that it will get you through the winter. Have I gotten my point across yet? Either way, the point is that living in Seattle you get used to and anticipate the effects of a long, sunless winter.

Traveling down to San Diego this past week made me remember that the long, depressing winter was not always part of my life and I won't have to be part of my life if I didn't want it to be.

Don't get me wrong, I love living here. There is no place on earth like Seattle in the summer. And I will not be moving anytime soon but I just forgot that the weather/winter isn't like this everywhere (this is the statement that should just be obvious).

If you live in Seattle, I think you will understand my point and appreciate that, for me, this was a revelation. :) Maybe someday, I will relocate to a place that has a few more sunny days than Seattle. But for now, it is just nice remembering that I am choosing to live here and that if I want to I can choose not to live here.

The Jump

My last day at the restaurant I worked at this summer was Saturday and it is a tradition that on your last day you jump off the cafe balcony into the Puget Sound. I have included an image of the restaurant so you can get a better picture. The balcony in on the second story and if you move your eye along the deck all the way to the right you will see the point from which I jumped. I think the tide was a little bit lower that day but not by much.

It is October here in Seattle so it is not warm anymore and I jumped at 11pm so the water was dark and scary (I hate water I can't see in). Fortunately, the Puget Sound only changes a couple of degrees over the course of the year so it was actually not as cold as I thought it was going to be. That said, it was still cold.

There were about thirty staffers that watched my friend, Ivan and me jump. They waited for us at the bottom with warm blankets! Bless them!

All-in-all it was amazing. A lot higher than I had anticipated. I felt like I was falling for ages. But worth it. I never do anything really crazy or adventurous so I thought this was a good way to start easing into it. Plus I have to get prepared to go Skydiving with my brother when he turns 18. Hopefully, I don't pass out in the plane. :)

Twitter for Restaurants : Real-time Customer Service

"You need to make sure that you are aware when an experience becomes negative and take immediate steps to start correcting it." - CA

Over the past five months I have been working for a local restaurant here in Seattle. During this time period, I feel like I have learned an enormous amount about customer service, a value that is important to all businesses but crucial in the restaurant industry.

What has been really fun for me, though, is to think about customer service and how it can be improved through the integration of new technologies.

I ask people everyday, "How is everything tasting?" which normally garners the responses "Wonderful", "Delicious", or "Good" and on rare occasions, "over/undercooked" or "lacks flavor". That said, it is my job as a server to assess customer responses and really determine if my customers are satisfied with their experience or not.

Normally, I feel like I do a pretty good job of analyzing my tables. Verbal and physical queues help substantially, however, there are occasions when I simply cannot tell if a customer being upfront about how they feel about their experience.

Personally, I understand why people might hesitate. When I go out to restaurants, I hate complaining or sending things back. I might be intimidated by the server. I might not want to complain in front of the other guests at my table. Or in the worst scenarios, I might just hope that the situation blows over and my party and I can go back to enjoying our evening.

I know, these are all awful ways of dealing with a problem. But I see it everyday. And unfortunately, for the restaurant, if a person has a bad experience that is not address, be it the restaurants fault or the customers, the customer are most likely going to associate that bad experience with the restaurant and in turn make sure that friends, families, online communities, etc know that they have a negative view of the restaurant.

People who deal with issues at restaurant as I have described above don't understand that great restaurants want to hear about any issues their customers have. They don't want you to fester on them because they want the opportunity to resolve them. They want people to leave their restaurants satisfied.

In my opinion, for restaurants at least, communication (surprise, surprise) is where customer service gets tied up.

Enter the mobile web.

With services like Twitter, Facebook and other social feedback sites, customers are able in real-time to give their opinion about something. Although this can be negative at times, giving an opinion online is often less intimidating because there are less personal consequences in doing so. I think while that might change (soon people might expect businesses to be online and listening online), for now people don't expect anyone to be listening.

And that is exactly where the opportunity is. A restaurant that is a little more tech-savvy can follow real-time feedback on a mobile phone or desktop computer. If any of their customers have, mobile phones and twitter accounts and end up commenting on dinner, a manager will be able to see the comment whenever it is posted. If the comment is posted at any point during the dinner, it gives the manager an option to react to that comment.

Taking it a step further, if restaurants made their customers aware of their presence online, then maybe it would entice customers to comment even more. You could even offer up specific hashtags for people to use when commenting on their experience and thus limiting the noise that might not be as relevant to the manager.

I think this could help restaurants address some of the feedback and issues people encounter at their restaurant before that negative review is posted on yelp.com or before a comment is made to another potential customer about how bad their experience was at X restaurant.

Defining the expert

I read an article awhile ago that described how to tell if someone was a legit social media expert or not and I was disturbed to read that the first qualification the author listed as mandatory for a social media expert was a blog.

First of all, claiming that you can define a social media expert in 10 questions is a load of $%*&. The best part about the interweb is that there is so much information and so many different groups of people that "experts" take on many shapes and sizes. No one shoe fits all scenario here.

Second, a blog does not an expert make. It emphasizes a particular skill, writing. And while writing is incredibly important in the world of the interweb, it should not be the one, lone skill used to pick out "expert" individuals in a field.

Writing is a form of communication but it's very specific form. It is used to export/push information. I write now not taking in any new information. Think of it like this, if writing was my only skill, I would reach the end of my life with the same amount of information I started with and a lot of pen-on-paper.

On the other hand, reading is an import skill; I expand my base of knowledge by taking in new information. And by definition, an "expert" is someone with knowledge derived from training or experience. Therefore, if someone is a great writer but lacked listening/reading/observing skills, then how could they ever be an expert at anything.

Now (full disclosure) I might be getting a bit defensive because my writing skills are somewhat lacking, but that said, to say that someone might lack credibility because they have not been "writing" for over 2 years is a bit absurd. It would be similar if I said that if you don't have 5,000 friends on Facebook then you are not an expert. Yes, the social skills and writing skills are important but they don't create the whole picture when it comes to your knowledge about a particular subject.

Alright. I am done.

Gnomedex '09

Alright. After a couple days, I have had time to digest what I experienced at Gnomedex 9.

For those of you who don't know, last week I attended a conference here in Seattle called Gnomedex (pronounced like nom-a-decks). It is a tech conference where the latest tech innovations, trends and issues are discussed. There are multiple session over the three days. This year they ranged in topics from 3D printing, life extension, SPAM, crowd sourced protein-folding, social challenges on social media, etc. Overall, a fascinating lineup of speakers that, to be honest, were all over the place.

But for me, that was only half of the actual value of the conference. On the first day, I walked into the auditorium at Bell Harbor Conference Center, sat down and turned on my computer. As the little POS (guess what that means! :) ) loaded I looked around me at the other attendees. There were a bunch of programmers in the back that had taped a "PC's only" sign to their row. And the only reason I knew that they were programmers is because they had shirts with phrases like " Kiss my 0101000111000" and such. The marketing people sat in the middle of the auditorium, dressed in business-casual outfits, greeting one another like long lost friends. And then there were the geeks (yes, Sven, the socially accepted nerds). They were everywhere and since I consider myself one of them it would be biased of me to give you a description... The stunningly beautiful people that were so graceful it appeared as if they were floating in air.... oh wait, that is an excerpt from one of the Twilight books. Darn.

Anyway, what really struck me was how at home I felt amongst this peer group. For me, the atmosphere was intoxicating and it made me realize how passionate I was about the digitial information age, the technology it was producing and the social behavior it was affecting. The dichotomy between the constraints it has placed on us (140 characters of communication) and the freedom it allows (open source platforms) makes my blood boil every time I start to think about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had a chance to chat briefly with a handful of people and I was astonished to find that every single person in that room was not only incredibly intelligent but also had the same interest and passion about the space that was running throw me at that very moment. It was incredible.

There are a few people that I would like to give shout-outs to:

Kathy Gill - Someone who never fails to astonish me, the UW should thank their lucky stars to have someone so intelligent and dedicated to the MCDM program as she is because I assure you she could be doing many other things beside teach (although I am so glad she does teach)

Chris Pirillo - The mastermind behind the conference has more energy and enthusiasm in one little pinky than I do in my whole entire being

Amber Case - She had me at... Prosthetic Culture...... enough said.

Phil Plait - Critical thinking is a must in an age where Twitter disseminates false information at such rapid speeds so it is important to have people like Phil around saying, "Hey, slow down. Think about that for a sec."

Anyway, that was my experience in a nutshell. I cannot wait to go to the 10 year anniversary Gnomedex and hopefully, I will be able to write a little bit more about what was actually discussed at the event. :)

Seattle Eats & Drinks

One of my closest friends came up to Seattle this week and it got me thinking.

"What are my favorite things in Seattle?"

And so I have decided to make a couple lists of my current favorites!

Here are my favorite foods and beverages in no particular order:

1.) Sherry Mushroom Toast @ Ocho

2.) Gyro Plate @ Mr. Gyro

3.) Phad Thai @ the little blue house in Fremont

4.) The Immortal IPA @ The Elysian Brewery

5.) Tall Latte and blueberry scone @ Cafe Migliore

6.) St Jude Albacore Tuna @ Tilth Restaurant

7.) Penn Cove Mussels in Thai Curry Sauce @ Ray's

8.) Red Mill Deluxe Cheese Burger @ Red Mill Burgers

9.) A Croissant and Jam @ Cafe Besalu

10.) Negroni Superior @ Serafina

11.) Mezza Luna Di Nutella @ Via Tribunali

12.) First Ave Roll @ Umi Sake House

P.S. I will probably update this a couple times because I can't remember all the things I was going to list! :)

Strange, small, social world

Last night I attended a social media event. Since I didn't know many people there, I just introduced myself to anyone I stood next to. The fourth woman that I introduced myself to responded, "Yes, I know who you are. I follow you on Twitter. My friend told me when I joined that I had to follow you." I was so caught off guard that I am sure I gave her the most incredulous look.

It is funny that you can know someone without having really ever met them in person. Or at least, that is what the dating portals want you to believe. :)

Design Classes

Someone please sign me up for a design class because I am severely failing on a layout for my blog and Twitter page.

"Just stick with the templates, Meg. Just stick with the templates."

Ugh! But that is so boring!

Twitter

After a somewhat depressing topic last week, I would like to return to the lighter/everyone-is-talking-about-it-so-I-have-to-talk-about-it-as-well side of life...

Alright. Give me just a second to collect myself. Alright. I think I am ready now:

HI MY NAME IS MEG AND I AM A TWITTER ADDICT.

Yes, it is true. I have been on Twitter for about a year now (@nelson_meg) and I definitely am drinking the Twitter Kool-Aid.

With all the new media buzz about Twitter, I wanted to take the time to explain why I am so excited about it and then to explain why I think that Twitter is not for everyone.

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past two years, Twitter is, well, kind of a big deal. You can find tweets on major news channels like CNN and Fox. Even Oprah has a tweet account, as if that is supposed to mean anything to anyone.

Anyway, Twitter is a micro-blogging community, where users Tweet(post comments) in real-time on their thoughts, news or activities. I am not going to go into the details but the site was first started so that family members and friends could have real-life insight into the activities of the other members. Essentially the site was founded on the question, "What are you doing?".

Well, just for everyone's information, this is not what the site is used for anymore. Yeah, there is still the occasional "I am eating Cheerios for breakfast." but (and this depends on who you follow) more and more Tweets are providing information as opposed to simply taking up space. One of the biggest examples of this and the impact of Twitter is the Iranian election. If you are not sure about Twitter, go read the posts coming up for the hashtag (a kind of calling card) #IranElections. This event and the reaction to it on Twitter is proof that Twitter is a valuable tool for finding real-time information on current events.

So why do I love it? Well, I work in the Social Media industry and that means that most of my collegues are online, participating in these social mediums, i.e. facebook, pathables, twitter, linkedin, etc. These people tweet about events happening in our community, information that pertains to our industry and about the general outlook of social media. They invest a large amount of time in this medium and therefore, I am able to get value from it!

Secondly, the reason on love social media is because I love seeing what kind of connections can be built and maintained online (I think this has a large part to do with that fact that so many of my friends are far, far away). Be that friend to friend. Stranger to stranger. Company to customer. I think it is amazing how the online space allows us to find and form connections with people of similar interest. And even more amazing, is when those connection online become connections in real life! Great examples of this include BarCamp, Match.com, CouchSurfing, etc.

Alright so that is why I love it. But not everyone needs to drink the Twitter Kool-Aid and here is why:

TWITTER USES UP A LOT OF YOUR TIME!

If you find people to follow, have people following you, or feel a need to constantly reorganize your Tweetdeck like I do (I will leave for another discussion), then you will spend a lot of time on Twitter. You know how you vowed that you would never spend as much time on Facebook as you do now.... well multiply facebook by wikipedia hyperlinks and then you will understand the time drain that is Twitter. I get lost for hours going through the articles and information that my peer group is tweeting about, most of the times forgeting why I turned on the computer to begin with!

So that's my somewhat quick overview of Twitter, why I love it and why you might not want to even delve into it (all though there are more reasons than just time but that is all I want to write about for now... lazy). Let me know what you think! Why you choose to be on Twitter or why you would never touch the site in a million years!

A tragic situation talked about online

My friend from high school recently got married. Within a year or two his wife got pregnant.

He and his wife lost the baby. 26 weeks into the pregnancy. They dealt with their grief in two ways (that I have seen). First, my friend got a tattoo to commemorate his child. Second, and much more shocking to me, the wife blogged about her experiences delivering a stillborn.

Awful. Horrifying. Disturbing. Those were the only words that I had to describe the blog. An account of an event that in my mind should have been personal and private. It made me wonder, was this normal? Should this be online? What was private anymore?

It wasn't until tonight that I got my answer. A close friend of mine, who is currently studying medicine, told me that only 40% of pregnancies result in healthy deliveries. 40%. Even if that number is slightly off (given the place of birth and/or circumstance), the fact is that every healthy birth is a miracle and more woman will have miscarriages than I had originally thought.

This changed my whole entire perception of the blog and how I felt about keeping a situation like that "private". It made me realize that I was more likely to have a miscarriage than popular culture had prepared me to be. Does that make sense? I mean how many TV shows, movies or songs have dealt with miscarriages?

Even though at the time I cringed and cried reading about carrying and delivering a child who's heart no longer beat, I now feel incredibly grateful to the woman who was able to verbalize the event at all. She made me realize how precious pregnancy is and how prevalent miscarriages are. They happen and somehow or another we have to move on and continue living. This was the way she dealt with her pain and I must respect that. Given a similar circumstance, who knows what I would do. I can't even begin to speculate.

Thank you Chelsey for sharing with us. I am so very sorry for your loose and I cannot even begin to imagine the difficulties you are going through at the moment. But I know that there are other women out there who are going through or have gone through similar situations that have found comfort in your accounts of your situation. And as for me, I am just grateful that now I am more aware and able to appreciate the miracle that pregnancy and birth are. So thank you.

If any of you would like to see Chelsey's blog, it is here. Please be warned it is graphic and tragic but that said, I think it is good for us to be reminded of our own and others immortality, as well, as how we, as individuals or as groups, can over come such events and still believe in the beauty that life has to offer us.

And then there was job #2

I know, Kerri. I know. It has been awhile. But what's new with that one? :)

Alright... so... I have a new job. I know you all might be thinking, "Wait, didn't Meg just start a new job less than a year ago?". And yes, it is true! I had another job. However, fate smiled upon me and the company decided to cut half of my department (and that included me as well). Over the next two months.... oh alright Cole.... over the next three months, I sat around the house, contemplating life, setting up informational interviews (a.k.a coffee and lunch dates) and half-heartedly applying for positions that didn't really excite me.

Finally, I got a lead I was excited about! Ray's Boathouse is a well-known Seattle restaurant that sits on a pier in Shilshole overlooking the Puget Sound. They had openings for their summer staff and lucky for me, decided to hire me! So now I work at Ray's Boathouse in the evening as a server and I could not be happier.

The job is a perfect fit for me! The people at Ray's are warm and welcoming. The atmosphere is supportive and cozy and the guests couldn't be more excited to get a taste of Seattle and the PNW. I am truly blessed to have found such a great team to be apart of and look forward to watching all the beautiful sunsets this summer!

I gave you my 90 minutes!!!

Last week I went to the inaugural game of the Seattle Sounders F.C.. They played the New York Red Bulls (yeah, I know, damn Americans and their advertising!) and three goals later the Sounders had won their first official MLS match!

Now if you want a recap of the game, there are many other places that will provide more detail for you than I can.

What I want to address is the 32,523 people that came out to see the new MLS team play.

When the MLS initially decided to add a team in Seattle, many debated on the future of the MLS. Would the US ever embrace the sport they way the Europeans did? Could Seattle be the American capital for soccer? How could they create a team and an atmosphere around the Sounders that resembled the European leagues but still be genuine to Seattle with its own American flare?

Tough questions. But the Sounder management moved forward, holding a statewide vote on the team name, creating a Members Association called the Alliance (where the members can vote to fire the general manager), advertising in a typically American fashion (I have never seen commercials or billboards for European teams abroad), creating the Sound Wave (the team's marching band) and placing free scarves all over the city to get people excited about the first game.

Well, the effort worked and the entire lower bowl of Qwest field was packed. Here is a video of what it was like being down at the stadium. Check it out and I will be adding a few of my own pics and videos later on:

Birthdays! Birthdays! All around!

I celebrated my (gulp) 25th birthday last weekend. Along with Cole's 28th birthday and my dad's... well let's just keep you guessing on that number.... birthday.

On my actual birthday, Friday, February 6th, I was sick. I did go over to my parent's house for a joint birthday dinner with my dad. His birthday is on January 31st. It was really fun and I got to eat good food which always makes me feel better. Thanks mom!


But the best part of the evening ended up being opening the presents. Go figure. But it's not what you think at all! Let me explain....

My mom had a couple clothing size presents for myself and my dad. You know the clothing boxes that are oh so obvious. All of a sudden, my brother gets all worked up.

"No you didn't. Mom, that better not be what I think it is! Because you know that's what I want. I want it. Mom, you know that is what I have been wanting for ages."

I am obviously confused but continued to open the present and this is what I found.... along with my brother's reaction:

Now while I promised my brother I would not put this video on youtube, he never said anything about my blog. :) I heart you, bro!

And to give my bro a little more credit, he thought I was getting a Sounders FC jersey! I would have reacted the same way if I thought he was getting one!

The day after my sickness, Cole and I traveled up to Vancouver for a birthday getaway. We had a lovely time. Relaxing. Walking through Stanley Park. And eating till our hearts content!

If you want to hear more about my trip and the most intense experience I have had in awhile, call me and just ask me about E Hasting Street.

New Year's Resolution

Not to be so cynical.....

The earth is a beautiful place.

People are genuinely good.

Love and compassion are abundant.

And life is a blessing.

I often forget how lucky I am.