‘Social Media’ Posts(2)
The quick brown fox jumped over the good, but lazy Parker family.
well, other than you know having a toddler, having a new born, having a wife, probably having to work a little, but other than that i’m glued to the tube. and the computer. and the ipad. and the iphone.
15 Sep 11 | … dilemma. on the train. window seat. nice lady sitting next to me. she’s asleep, so i can’t get up. i want beer. do i wake her up? |
1 Sep 11 | … i <3 @brodeurpartners dc. |
31 Aug 11 | … just got my first full 9 hrs of sleep last night since my 2 year-old was born. also explains why my wife likes business travel so much. |
31 Aug 11 | … @?!*#ng yankees. |
28 Aug 11 | … quite possibly the only part of my family with power for the forseable future. feeling pretty blessed right now. |
26 Aug 11 | … lots of ppl last minute shopping for #Irene. srsly, if you don’t have a 3day supply of alcohol on hand already, it’s not my problem. |
22 Aug 11 | … standing under the “how to be safe” loop at the train station. pretty sure this is what Orwell was writing about. |
6 Aug 11 | … sitting on the couch, alone, drinking a bloody mary. is this sign of a healthy world view, or am i just an alcoholic? discuss. |
6 Aug 11 | … finished Not Everyone Gets A Trophy by Bruce Tulgan. http://amzn.to/oBwu1v #Kindle |
5 Aug 11 | … Use Your Ouside Voice! — http://t.co/uUyZn9G @nature_org #OutsideVoice |
4 Aug 11 | … finished Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain http://amzn.to/dG8p9B #Kindle |
17 Jul 11 | … cursing at the television, which means i must be watching one of the u.s. national teams play soccer. |
17 Jul 11 | … finished “At Home: A Short History of Private Life” by Bill Bryson http://amzn.to/g0qkqk #Kindle |
16 Jul 11 | … last day at the Conservancy. got a new job doing PR. do i have to start watching “Mad Men” now? |
12 Jul 11 | … mentally assembling a bucket list for my time remaining in Ballston, Virginia. it has one item on it. help? |
11 Jul 11 | … after struggling to get a Google+ invite for a week, it turns out i had already been invited eight times. #needtopaymoreattention |
10 Jul 11 | … disinfecting our children’s thermometer with vodka. wondering if our “parent of the year” nomination might be affected. |
8 Jul 11 | … i’ll miss you, space shuttle. thanks 🙂 |
20 Jun 11 | … sparklet just walked in the room, saw the Red Sox had runners in scoring position, and started clapping/squealing. |
20 Jun 11 | … do you think i’m the only person on the planet with a Tracey Ullman song stuck in their head right now? |
19 Jun 11 | … “no, no, no. this one goes there, and that one goes there. right?” |
19 Jun 11 | … “what good is a reward if you aren’t around to use it?” |
19 Jun 11 | … “you came in that thing?!? you’re braver than I thought.” |
14 Jun 11 | … sparklet and I were sitting on the back porch when she ran inside and brought me the remote. think she’s trying to tell me something. |
13 Jun 11 | … wow, it’s beautiful out. God must be happy that the Miami Heat pee’d themselves last night. |
13 Jun 11 | … finished Rising Tide by John M. Barry http://amzn.to/kXG5pq #Kindle |
11 Jun 11 | … pretty sure I haven’t cooked meat on a grill since 2002. hope it’s like riding a bike. |
9 Jun 11 | … sparklet is entranced by U2 documentary Rattle and Hum. the awesomest thing ever or another sign i’m a horrible parent? discuss. |
25 May 11 | … holy crap, we own a house. like a real house, with our own roof and stuff. happy birthday, tasha 🙂 |
24 May 11 | … large, sweaty tourist just got off the 4th floor elevator of my secure-passcard-access-only building and asked me where the metro was. |
24 May 11 | … so tired of off-shored customer care centers. and, for the record, no your name isn’t “Bob”. |
21 May 11 | … just realized i haven’t mowed a lawn since fall of 2002. i’m glad that the new place has nothing but mulch as far as the eye can see. |
19 May 11 | … I was heckled from a passing pickup yesterday with “I want to party with Woody Allen!” I’m still confused, and on so many levels. |
5 May 11 | … “what kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.†|
3 May 11 | … just got my first real “dada” and it was pretty awesome. |
29 Apr 11 | … in such a good mood. beautiful women should marry ugly, awkward men more often. #RoyalWedding |
29 Apr 11 | … we need more national holidays. are either of the obama girls old enough to get married yet? #RoyalWedding |
29 Apr 11 | … up, and live blogging the #RoyalWedding http://goo.gl/KwIt3 |
27 Apr 11 | … Kate just handed me my shoes, and led me out the front door. I have no clue where we’re going. |
21 Apr 11 | … what the heck is “hoarding: buried alive”?!? jeez, TLC is trying to kill me. |
20 Apr 11 | … watched “extreme couponing” before a show on quintuplets. need instructions on how to block TLC before i put a brick thru the screen. |
19 Apr 11 | … “you can either teach the turkey to climb a tree, or hire a squirrel.” |
17 Apr 11 | … it’s all about 18. #celtics |
16 Apr 11 | … me: “40 days til we move is such a long time.” tasha: “i feel like i want to do something, or i want you to be doing something.” |
15 Apr 11 | … “congressman are like labradors. individually, they’re well behaved. put them in the same room, and they’re a pack of wild dogs.” |
14 Apr 11 | … third consecutive morning of chocolate cake for breakfast. birthday week has officially become birthday month. |
9 Apr 11 | … sparklet has started licking my parents’ dog in retaliation for when the dog licks her. not sure it’s working. |
9 Apr 11 | … i keep finding myself in front of the house we’re buying, i think to make sure that the “under contract” sign is still out front. |
2 Apr 11 | … me: “do you ever feel like we use sesame street to raise our child?” tasha: “yes, but only before 7:30am.” |
29 Mar 11 | … spent 4 hours restaging our place for the buyers’ inspection. HGTV has ruined America. |
27 Mar 11 | … omg, we just bought a house. in dc. in mount pleasant. that goes in the top 10 list of things i didn’t think would happen this week. |
26 Mar 11 | … from my wife, this morning: “is it too early for a beer?” thank goodness for the bloody mary. |
25 Mar 11 | … sparklet keeps moving the mousepad from one side of the keyboard to the other. ambidextrous? ocd? inquiring minds want to know. |
24 Mar 11 | … turns out the best way to get an offer on your place is to take it off the market. |
19 Mar 11 | … it turns out people actually read my blog. who knew? |
9 Mar 11 | … time to make the donuts. |
6 Mar 11 | … monsoon + I95 = no fun. |
2 Mar 11 | … sparklet eats salsa now. wha?!? |
2 Mar 11 | … it’s a bad sign when you can name that episode of “house hunters” from just the opening shot. |
26 Feb 11 | … gaddafi: “people who don’t love me don’t deserve to live.” |
25 Feb 11 | … my life is trying to kill me. |
17 Feb 11 | … I’d love to know which 50 percent of sparklet’s personality is mine. |
16 Feb 11 | … sitting next to a guy with an iPad, iPhone, Droid X, laptop, and an Android tablet. feeling better about my own life choices, now. |
6 Feb 11 | … sitting with my wife and her maid of honor watching “steel magnolias” and they’re talking along with ALL their favorite parts. |
13 Jan 11 | … Chinese proverb: “the first bird is the one that gets shot.” |
1 Dec 10 | … the streak continues: two straight years of us celebrating our October wedding anniversary during the first week of December. |
1 Dec 10 | … the most powerful argument against american exceptionalism? the new u.s. version of @BBC_TopGear. ohmygoditshorrible. #TopGear |
10 Nov 10 | … la la la-la. la la la-la. elmo’s world. |
7 Nov 10 | … just saw a DC police officer skateboarding down 18th street. awesome. |
7 Nov 10 | … it took 20 years, but i had forgotten how bad kevin costner was in “robin hood: prince of thieves.” |
25 Oct 10 | … I just saw Erik Kuselias. that counts as a celebrity sighting, right? |
25 Oct 10 | … iPads irritate the heck out of me. am I petty? yeah, I’m petty. |
23 Oct 10 | … children seem to inhibit the consumption of both large amounts of alcohol and food on a stick. |
16 Oct 10 | … not unless you can alter time, speed up the harvest or teleport me off this rock. |
11 Oct 10 | … Kate keeps getting referred to as a boy. Wonder if it has anything to do with the blue Star Wars AT-AT t-shirt I put her in. |
8 Oct 10 | … never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. |
2 Oct 10 | … our child is serving as tonight’s reminder to all the couples in the room to use birth control. |
27 Sep 10 | … if you don’t weep like a little girl while watching extreme makeover home edition, I hereby declare you a bad, bad person. #emhe |
22 Sep 10 | … funyuns are decidedly not fun. |
21 Sep 10 | … I love the fall, but a little bummed that I’ll have to put away the flip-flops in another 2 or 3 months. |
14 Sep 10 | … i just spent 45 minutes watching TV on mute so i don’t wake the baby. i’m 300 miles away at a conference for work. |
8 Sep 10 | … i just watched … two minutes! … of Aftermath with William Shatner … before his speach pattern … forced me … to turn it off. |
1 Sep 10 | … froyo!!! |
26 Aug 10 | … oh, and the zoo becomes much more interesting when your daughter wants to climb into the pens. |
26 Aug 10 | … there is something about the use of a toddler “leash” that creeps me out. |
25 Aug 10 | … awww. little kids with backpacks, shuffling off to school. it’s the only time of year when i’m happy to be old. |
16 Aug 10 | … not much can top watching kids from an inner-city school seeing a panda for the first time. |
14 Aug 10 | … are you ready for some futbol? |
14 Aug 10 | … fifteen minutes late to the Nats game, and they’re already losing. |
13 Aug 10 | … last night i saw a 60-year old drunk woman jump onto her table and start dancing. we shall never speak of this again. |
12 Aug 10 | … i have somehow pulled a hamstring, which would be more tolerable if i had actually exercised at some point in the last 18 months. |
11 Aug 10 | … my current book of stamps are for 39 cents. i’ve missed 3 rate increases, and apparently haven’t mailed anything since 2006. |
7 Aug 10 | … dude, I can’t take you seriously as an angry-tailgating-hipster when you’re driving a PT Cruiser. not gonna happen. |
7 Aug 10 | … just tried to engage the turn signal on our stroller. might be time for a nap. |
29 Jul 10 | … weekend, in no particular order: reunion, cousins, boating, bowling, remembering, seafood, family birthday and a trip to Fenway. nice. |
26 Jul 10 | … this “I’m tired so I’m going to sit up” phase is getting pretty old. |
22 Jul 10 | … in my tivo queue, “b-girl: a young woman overcomes obstacles to complete in underground break-dancing.” uuuhhhm, Tasha?? |
20 Jul 10 | … hey, Jeff Smith (@SpeakUpW1). thx for waking my sleeping baby to canvass me about your campaign. let’s not do that again, maybe? |
15 Jul 10 | … I feel like I need some kind of large sporting event to monopolize my time. |
9 Jul 10 | … no way LaBron wins a championship in the next three years, which makes him throwing Cleveland under the bus that much sadder. |
7 Jul 10 | … date night! |
3 Jul 10 | … #$%&@ Germany. I’m running out of teams to root for. |
27 Jun 10 | … if I’m in the running to be the youngest person seeing a concert at your venue, it’s time to rethink your business model. |
27 Jun 10 | … pretty sure I just set a record for most times getting cut-off in a single trip to home depot. I [heart] suburbia. |
26 Jun 10 | … this is why I’m proud to be Canadian. |
23 Jun 10 | … watching tape of France v So Africa. feel like I owe it to watch the hosts win. feel like Im owed watching the French vomit on themslvs. |
22 Jun 10 | … watching CNN raise money for the Conservancy’s work in the Gulf. I love watching someone else do my job for me. |
18 Jun 10 | … “i’mmm rocket powwwered, slooow motion through the sky.” http://youtu.be/ELZ0k4xoMwk |
18 Jun 10 | … I honesty have no clue where I street parked my car last night. you suburban people with your fancy “driveways” suck. |
16 Jun 10 | … at the Tift Merritt concert. There’s like 12 people here, and the guy at the front asked to check my purse. Not a good night so far. |
16 Jun 10 | … going to a rock n’ roll show tomorrow (well, Tift Merritt) and it’s making me feel so young and hip (except that it’s Tift Merritt). |
11 Jun 10 | … i’m watching the world cup, and you can too — a primer: http://shar.es/mAyN5 |
7 Jun 10 | … beat L.A.! beat L.A.! |
29 May 10 | … pitcher of shiner bock, watching the Celtics. Houston is *exactly* like the western part of Massachusetts. |
25 May 10 | … sparklet just grabbed me by both ears and started gnawing on my nose. think she might be hungry. |
20 May 10 | … girl just posed for a picture in front of the logo on our building at work. ahhh, it must be intern season. |
16 May 10 | … there’s a lot of crazy looking things at the zoo today, and they all seem to be on the wrong side of the glass. |
9 May 10 | … my 21 lbs, 30 inch, 6 month-old baby is going through another growth spurt. <shudder> |
6 May 10 | … champions league for tottenham hotspur! I know nobody knows what that means, but trust me its a really big deal. |
2 May 10 | … God, this baby is cute. |
26 Apr 10 | … it’s five years with @nature_org for me, almost two years longer than i’ve held any other job. oh, where has the time gone? |
24 Apr 10 | … sadly, @koonsauto doesn’t seem to be taking the toyota recall very seriously | http://bit.ly/ay4ntX |
24 Apr 10 | … yay! @koonsauto agreed to fix the issue with the prius recall, and in record time | http://bit.ly/ay4ntX |
24 Apr 10 | … you lose the right to criticize my driving if (a) you’re actively jaywalking, or (b) wearing green short pants w/ embroidered puppies. |
23 Apr 10 | … the only thing worse than a dentist appointment is arriving to find the office closed, and knowing you’ll have to do it all over again. |
23 Apr 10 | … waiting for the bus with a woman in a full burkha, with a closed face and gloves. that’s pretty hardcore for this part of DC. |
20 Apr 10 | … and i, for one, welcome our new #prius overlord. |
18 Apr 10 | … thinking of getting a 2008 Toyota Prius (VI). anything we should be concerned about? |
12 Apr 10 | … my email inbox has no apparent function beyond collecting Facebook notifications. |
10 Apr 10 | … wow, t-shirt just set new bar for jingoism: “If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.” |
7 Apr 10 | … I was just pick-pocketed by a five month-old. life as i knew it is pretty much over. |
5 Apr 10 | … thanks for all the birthday wishes! I love you guys 🙂 |
28 Mar 10 | … neighbor just asked for two ethernet cables and a networking hub. is this the new cup of sugar? |
26 Mar 10 | … what happens in middle america that makes tourists think it’s okay to walk 7 abreast on DC sidewalks? |
22 Mar 10 | … feeling silly because i stayed up last night to watch, not basketball, but the health care vote on CSPAN. |
16 Mar 10 | … we’re talking about you, Jon Colman. are your ears burning? |
13 Mar 10 | … way to go, terps. nothing says “we’re best in the conference” quite like losing your first game in the tournament. |
10 Mar 10 | … as certain as any law of physics, a baby’s likelihood of waking up early is directly related to your need/ability to sleep in. |
9 Mar 10 | … trying to figure out who to blame for the forest of white hairs that has sprouted from my noggin’. |
3 Mar 10 | … “facebook and omniture are huge advocates for privacy.” #omtrsummit |
3 Mar 10 | … either i’m really bad at picking breakout sessions, or my expectations are just way too high. #omtrsummit |
3 Mar 10 | … it’s 9:00 am and i’m at Club Dork? #omtrsummit — http://tweetphoto.com/13123004 |
3 Mar 10 | … The Killers are playing tonight at #omtrsummit!?! our subscription fees are obviously way too high if they can afford that. |
2 Mar 10 | … why I don’t watch CNN: “Is US Quake Next? 75 million Americans at Risk” |
27 Feb 10 | … phrase I was not expecting to hear tonight: “is that Susan Boyle singing ‘Wild Horses’?” |
21 Feb 10 | … who has a phone they use as an mp3 player, that’s on verizon, that doesn’t suck? need an excuse to toss my AT&T/iPhone in the toilet. |
15 Feb 10 | … there is a nun ice-skating on the National Mall. I wish I was making this up. |
25 Jan 10 | … does it count as an “outing” if you’re just pushing around a sleeping baby? |
7 Jan 10 | … how #att has made me swear off my #iphone — http://theparkerfamily.org/musings/posts/3625 |
27 Dec 09 | … first date with wife in three months. no clue what to talk about that doesn’t involve diapers. wish me luck. |
9 Dec 09 | … you forget how diverse DC is until you are standing in line at the courthouse for jury duty. |
2 Dec 09 | … snickering because my Chinese-made computer is stuck in a customs review by the Dept of Agriculture. Wrong type of “Apple” boys. |
18 Nov 09 | … mourning the death of Ken Ober, host of MTV’s classic game show “Remote Control” – http://tinyurl.com/ygj2qnl |
6 Nov 09 | … if people made babies before Peapod delivered groceries, I don’t want to even think about it. |
5 Nov 09 | … left iPhone in car last night, and dreamt that it was stolen so I could switch to a network that didn’t suck hairy butt. |
13 Oct 09 | … “either the baby is sitting on my bladder or my water just broke. not sure which.” |
13 Oct 09 | … “where are we going again? no seriously, grab my iPhone. I have no clue where the hospital is.” |
13 Oct 09 | … mommy is doing great, and dr says we’re about half way there. looks like baby sparklet wants to parrr-tay tonight. |
11 Oct 09 | … well, the good news about the Red Sox is that I now have pleanty of free time for the rest of October. |
10 Oct 09 | … new low. left TiVo remote in other room, and just downloaded a TiVo Remote app for the iPhone to avoid having to get up and get it. |
9 Oct 09 | … it’s 11:03 pm, and just closed the 4th inning. way to make the MLB playoffs accessable to the masses there Commish. |
6 Oct 09 | … we’re deciding between BBQ and Ben’s Chili Bowl for anniversary dinner tonight. did I mention that I love my wife?!? |
4 Oct 09 | … you know you are married and pregnant when saturday night excitement is walking to the target to look at baby crap. |
3 Oct 09 | … watching William & Mary football in HD, which confirms that there are waaaay too many channels looking for programming these days. |
28 Sep 09 | … u2 concert tmrw, with 8 month preggers wife. thinking about pillows and duct tape for makeshift belly “ear muffs.” |
27 Sep 09 | … glad I’m not a Redskins fan. |
After 20 long months of AT&T suckage, i have finally taken my iPhone back to that great Daisy Hill Puppy Farm in the sky.
While the death-throws of our relationship have been well documented, baby sparklet was the two-ton brick that finally broke the camel’s back.
One afternoon in March, baby momma thought she was playing phone tag with me about some scheduling — she left me two voicemails and three text messages — but AT&T didn’t deliver any of them until it was too late to do any good.
Turned out it was nothing important, but neither of us particularly wanted to discover what it felt like if it *had* been something more life-or-death.
i got the HTC incredible — is one of the new-fangled google android phones. it has all the applications i used on the iphone, and has got some crazy social media integration (my address book entries link directly to their corresponding facebook and twitter accounts).
but the think i love most about my new phone is that it rings when called, and voicemails don’t get lost for days on end. i know it’s crazy, but it’s kind of nice having a phone again.
goodbye, foursquare
speaking of saying goodbye, when the iphone died we kicked foursquare to the curb as well (foursquare was the location-based social media application that made her “mayor” of her favorite playground).
in the end, it was just too darn competitive.
while we thought it was fun to keep track of where we had been, foursquare is setup to be a game, and the person who checks in the most wins. this was cute and all, but we apparently live within blocks of the #1 foursquare user in D.C. — with an average of 20 check-ins per day — and so our mayorships were under constant threat.
eventually, when I found myself making decisions on where to go based on where our mayorships were threatened, it struck me as the time to call it quits.
instead, we’ve swapped over to Gowalla which is waaaaay more low key. there are no mayorships, just rewards for going places and trying new things.
i’m saving up sparklet’s competitive streak for team sports.
well, i’m pleased to announce that sparklet is now the mayor of walter pierce park.
i wasn’t paying much attention to foursquare until i saw Wired co-founder John Battelle speak on the future of social media while i was in Salt Lake City. he said that once you became mayor of your grocery store (for instance), you’d be darned if you’d let anyone else be there more than you.
he was right.
and so, we’ll be back to the park early next week. sparklet’s a benevolent leader, but isn’t going to stand by and let the rest of the tots in the lot move in on her fiefdom.
(p.s. i you are on foursquare, you can friend sparklet on her profile, here.)