My kids are Growing

It's weird. They are turning into cool, sophisticated little people.

I have nothing else to say today except, look at how cool they look.

Also, the last pic is one with me and the kids in our continuing series called: "Max's Back." (For some reason many of our best photo's are take from the backside of Max's perspective. Dunno why, it just seems to happen. It may be that he sees the excellent things before the rest of us...)

--tomb

Apologies for Technical Ineptitude…

So apparently I am a Twidiot. A gigantic Twidiot, in fact.

Basically, I found out that Twitter was enabling UK Vodaphone (finally) for SMS and Text updates (like the rest of the proper world.) So in my excitement, I went into the “admin” functions of my Twitter account. Upon delving these depths, I found a little function that lets me see EVERYONE who has been sending me direct messages.

Didn’t even know I could do this.
Didn’t even know that people were talking to me/mentioning me directly.
Didn’t even know that I could’ve nay—should’ve been responding in some manner.
Didn’t even know how to respond (until this morning, actually.)

How Rude of me!

HEY—folks @Twitter.com? How about an Effing-Tutorial for us Dumb-asses in the world? Dammit.

In any case, I am using my blog to apologize for my Twidiocy. (Yes, MY BLOG…Many of you know how I like to keep the “temple of my mind” as sacred ground, so I MUST be serious about this.) I will also attempt to respond to all my friends and RadioTiki Listeners (btw: not mutually exclusive descriptors--since all my RadioTiki peeps at are siblings of my soul.)

I only did the mentions from 2009. So, if anyone “said” something to me on Twitter in 2008, I am sorry—I had to cut it off somewhere.
Additionally, I will “stem the tide” of my rudeness by being a bit better on the tweet-response time. I am not a celebrity in any way at all. However, quite a few Listeners to the show have honoured me by following my inanity. The least I can do is provide some inane content.

From Twitter, the evidence for your perusal:
Mentions of @_tomb

1.)wdonohue@_tomb Could be Twitter, could be BT network lag. At least you're not on Deutsche Telekom
tomb: Actually I am on Deutsche Telecom everytime I use my 3G card on the laptop. All the adds are in German--and they are Naughty!

2.)dltabor@_tomb Do you mean @thewholeworld? It has been on here for a while. ;-)about 16 hours ago
tomb: I was too busy following @life_the_universe_and_everything. It's a much better read. :)

3.)wdonohueyou should follow @EMSL, @_tomb, and @hjarche.
tomb: Very kind of you to recommend me, but as I have demonstrated, I am an idiot.

4.)javinchi@_tomb TMI?7:31 PM Mar 6th
tomb: Yes. But, then this has always been part of my problem and my charm. :)

5.)DLGroover@_tomb Ok, so I've heard awesome things about london style curry, but where can I pick some up in the states? Also, WTF is a kebab.5:28 PM Feb 27th
tomb: UK Kebab = Fully Loaded Gyro in the USA. I am NOT the person to ask about Curries over here. I do not understand the national obsession with what essentially amounts to "spicey stew" that you must have over rice or its a mess.

6.)SirBob@_tomb on behalf of Nottingham, we would like to welcome Tiki!12:28 PM Feb 5th
tomb: I LOVE Nottingham. I stay at the Hilton by the big shopping mall and I can walk to "ye olde Trippe" for dinner and many pints! Woo! (I have been temped by the "Robin Hood Experience." Should I?)

7.)DLGroover@_tomb Be sure to link to your morphine-fueled bloggings on your twitter! Also, glad the surgery went well.5:11 AM Jan 28th
tomb: Last round of surgery, the Morphine was a disappointing muse. I wasn't nearly as insipred as I was back in September. However, I was quite annoyed that it stops "other functions", temporarily.

8.)jesscapps@_tomb Glad it sounds like it went well. Freezing over here-literally. :)1:54 AM Jan 28th
tomb: Total success on the surgery. It's April 2nd and I can run, climb, hike, ride a bike. It's awesome. Only weird thing--I can't bend the one leg enough yet to put a sock on like normal person. Gotta stretch that tendon some more.

9.) wdonohue@_tomb Oh, you mean the *joint* resurfacing. Should still get a guarantee, though. They may say it's Teflon, but you can't see it, can you?10:05 PM Jan 26th
wdonohue@_tomb Hope you got a guarantee on that resurfacing - if they just threw some hot patch on there, it's gonna start peeling before spring.10:03 PM Jan 26th
tomb: Just like Chicago in the Winter--first warm day and a truck goes over my noew hip and it pops out, creating the mother-of-all-potholes!

10.)brandonmhorn@_tomb I think there's apps out there that allow you to update everything at once...just saying (I'll look into it for you :)
tomb: please do, but--send me a private email--I will give a a preview copy of my blog about social networks that I am co-writing with UK-Friend who lives in the states.

11.)mostlybob@_tomb Tom, Tommy, Tom! good to see you. :-)7:50 PM Jan 19th
tomb: Bawb, Bawbby, Bawb (phonetic spelling of the Boston Twang.) Brill to be back. Sorry it took 3 months to get back to ya.

12.)DLGroover@_tomb Holy shit, the first new RadioTiki since October! Tom, you need to get on top of these things, shamelessly plug it on twitter! YGFR!5:44 PM Jan 18th
tomb: We really are trying to do it more often, but...it seems that Saturdays work best for the International version. You'd be suprised how hard it is to schedule a Saturday. As it is, we can almost never count on Brad as he is sporting event-junkie.

13.)jesscapps@_tomb - Boo! You poor, poor soul. What ever shall you do. I shant bare(bear?) to think!3:44 PM Jan 16th
tomb: It gives me a warm-fuzzy feeling inside just to know that you were thinking about me. It goes miles toward changing my glum dispositon. :)

14.)brandonmhorn@_tomb are you sure its not your settings? Seems you should be able to get the feed at least.
tomb: Definitely was Vodaphone. Because--now I "should" be getting it.

15.)jeffedsell@_tomb Good to see you on Twitter! (R. Daneel here.)3:11 PM Jan 12th

16.)DLGroover@_tomb Looking forward to the new show, also twitter updates!6:28 AM Jan 12th

17.)brandonmhorn@_tomb nice! thanks for the update.11:03 PM Jan 11th
tomb: Answering 15-17--well, you can see how well I've screwed up this little experiement. :)

brandonmhorn@_tomb Listener bhorn appreciates the inane. That's why he tunes in to Radio Tiki every 1...well 2...no, actually 3(???) months. J/K.
tomb: 'Nuff said. Said well, too, I think! Cheers.


--tomb

A few of my favourite things...

Doing one of my favourite “Tommy-Things”, right now. These are things that are just for me, sort of special, certainly peaceful and provide me moments of introspection. I’ve hinted and/or explained a couple of these things in the past, such as in my blog-piece about happiness and riding trains through the English countryside.

This particular “Tommy-Thing” sounds a bit bourgeois, but I promise you it is not. It only happens when I have to travel for business. Biz-travel occurs more frequently than I’d like, but as it’s necessary I try to enjoy the bits that I can. While it is true that I have shouted the virtues of the English-pub in this very blog, and my love of Real Ales has been clear for years, I do have an…affinity for the perfectly-made-Vodka-Martini, a couple of olives, served frosty cold in a pleasant hotel-bar.

That’s what I am doing right now, writing my little blog, Kettle-One Martini inches from my laptop.

I will edit the piece I wrote last week on Social Network Sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and perhaps post all these together. For now…Martini, and a little bowl of bar-peanuts, mixed with really spicy-cheeto-esque things.

UK "Snow Proud"

Recently I had some time off work for surgery and recovery. I wisely used this time to compose some sort of new entry for the ol’ blog. Got some good ones too. However, Monday February Second, 2009 came along and brought with it the biggest snowfall in the UK for 20 years.

6 inches in some places.

In any case, it shut the country down for the day, so…I have abandoned my original piece entitled “Tom’s Unified Field Theory of Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging—or Social Networking Site Commonality Needed, or I will Die Trying.” Look for this later in the week.

Instead I offer to you my report of the Great London Snowfall of 2009 and why I am proud of my adopted country.

First of all, many of you may know that I am from Chicago, born and raised. So, 6 inches of snow is not a problem for Mid-westerners. (Unless it happens in September or October.) We look at it, the kids play it in, I complain about all the idiot drivers and we get on with life. However, Chicago and other similar cities in America, are equipped to handle the snow. Chicago’s snow removal budget last year was $18.5 millon (£12.8 million, 14.2 million Euros.) Here in the UK, the snow stops everything. Admittedly, this snow came at the morning Rush-Hour. Even in the states, 6 inches would cause a big problem during the commute. But our problem here was based on the lack of tooling to deal with it. But—bless their hearts, they tried. Gritters (Salt-trucks) were sent out, councils reacted slowly (as they would in the states.) The media went crazy. They even sent reporters to the Motorway overpass for the gratuitous video shot. You know the one—a reporter, bundled up in the biggest NorthFace Parka possible, fur-lined around the head (it was perhaps 30 degrees F. but no matter) standing on the bridge/overpass showing the traffic down below, one lane jammed, one lane eerily empty. The coverage begins with “As you can see I am standing on the M 25 Motorway where traffic is backed-up for over 15 miles…”

They learned this from Chicago and New York. It’s good TV, it works.

The most impressive thing to me was the overall reaction of the English People. It started with those who tired to get into work. If you left early enough, you succeeded. However, upon arrival you found that nobody else really made it. One then became stranded in London or wherever else, as it were, because one certainly wasn’t going to go back on the train or motorway--that would be madness. So instead, one begins to wander about in the snow, in the city, in the very quiet peaceful city. The buses stopped running for they found that they could not go up even the smallest of hills. The trains also stopped because—who knew that the tracks would have to be plowed? Taxi’s were also a no-go. All 5 London Airports simply shut down. This type of silent awe that swept across the country would NOT have occurred in the states. This much is certain. We could learn from this part. Of course, we don’t get “quiet” cities with our snow. We get GIGANTOR Snowplows!

As mentioned above the media was in its glory—but in a good way. Still cliché, but good. The BBC was putting people on the air to read their on-the-spot-composed poetry about the glory of snow and “snowdays”! I supposed this is understandable, because it just doesn’t happen here. At my children’s school, they had never seen a “snow day” in their entire lives. Many of the teachers could not remember having one either—even as kids themselves. SkyNews provided instructions for building a snow man! At the houses of Parliament, there was a verified snowball fight. (caught on film.) There was sledging (sledding) in Hyde Park. A few intrepid souls even took out their cross-country skis and tooled around.

All in all, the Brits handled the disastrous snowfall like they do with most other disasters: A shrug, a sigh, and they get on with it. These are the same people that, when their subway was regularly bombed in the 70’s and 80’s—they simply climbed up the stairs and walked to the next station, and then got back on.

The USA has Snow Plows. The UK is doing just fine, thank you very much.

--tomb