Quick Praise for Facebook

The more I talk to a greater variety of internet users, the more I hear varying takes on Facebook. Some just don’t see a use for it, others think it’s for “young people”, some think that they won’t find anyone on Facebook to connect with, most are concerned with privacy, a few are so paranoid they won’t use it for much of anything (but have an account), some use it for business (but through personal pages), a mix use it for games/apps, a large group of peers love it, love connecting, and won’t go a day without checking in. I’m sure there are many other categories and situations I can’t think of or am bothering not to list, but that’s the general idea I get from conversations. Personally, I love Facebook. I used to have it completely open to the public and once privacy controls got more specific I close portions of it off to my friends. I find it hard to discuss privacy controls with paranoid users because they seem to be repeating mass media horror stories, and not actually checking out the privacy settings for themselves. In some cases they don’t even use Facebook, but seem to be sure of what is and isn’t possible for settings. I think I’ve reached a happy medium with my Facebook account. I limit exactly what I want to limit and open up exactly what I want to open up to the public. Is a large portion of my information out there “somewhere”? Yeah, I’m sure it is, but I’m also sure that it was there before Facebook ever came about – I’ve used MySpace, set up my own sites, and used countless other social sites for years. Is Facebook using my information and sending it to advertisers? Definitely. I’m guessing that a good majority of sites, apps, and store loyalty accounts are doing the same.

I would like to praise Facebook for connecting people, and connecting them better than other sites currently can. In the past few months I have been in touch with a half-brother I never knew, had my first conversation with an autistic mute whom I’ve known for years, felt connected to a group of people I just met, and stayed connected with family and friends that I’m currently over 3,000 miles away from. Facebook isn’t the only way that I could connect with these different people, but it’s a common site through which everyone is a part of and everyone is familiar enough to reach out to each other. I know there are many stories of family/friends connecting over great time and distance, and that’s great. Did it happen before? Of course. Did it happen as easily? I doubt it. My half-brother, Brad, initially was able to reach my Mom through more traditional mediums, but Facebook allowed my sister and I to get in on the conversation, see photos, etc. The contact, although across wires and timezones, felt like connecting through Facebook with any other friend I’ve known for years.

Could an autistic mute connect without Facebook? Sure. But did she? No. She discovered Facebook, and through Facebook, she discovered her voice – and I think it’s incredible. Imagine being excited about connecting with 17 people. I think I currently have over 500 friends on Facebook, and yes, I actually know all of them and have met all of them face-to-face. I don’t hold conversations with all of them all of the time, but I think it’s safe to say I connect with at least 17 people a day. These 17 people this woman was excited to connect with were the first 17 people she’s connected with in years. I think that’s exciting.

Through Facebook I can share photos of Seattle with family and friends in Vermont. I can keep in touch with everyone and get teased for my geeky posts. I can see what everyone is up to and stay up to date with businesses back home through Facebook Pages. I can connect with new colleagues and coworkers and stay on top of workshops and networking events. I can even keep on top of Playstation and Amazon updates without having to login or go through every one of my RSS feeds. So to that, I say, thank you, Facebook, and bravo!

Happy New Year! :)

I had Thursday and Friday off both weeks. We went exploring a little yesterday – had to make it down to the very southern boundaries of Seattle by bus yesterday. It wasn’t that bad, but I’m glad we have an apartment closer to the UDistrict – the buses only run down that way once every hour (and I thought once every half-hour was bad). Seattle is really broken up into clearly defined neighborhoods, or districts. It’s really weird that you can have one city with so many different areas. The one we went to yesterday is called Georgetown. We had a great conversation with the bus driver and she was saying that the city is really trying to turn Georgetown around because it was a major industrial area. She said just recently shops have been popping up and new people are moving into the area. It seems like it could be a great area, but at the same time, there’s graffiti everywhere, crumbling structures, and tent colonies hidden in the trees on the hills. I hope it’s something they can revive. There are so many buildings like that – even where we are – abandoned. Meanwhile there are around 7,000 homeless people in the city. It seems like they could at least set up the buildings as temporary access during the winter.

It was nice to get out and explore a new area at least. We talked with the bus driver the whole way there. She said she’s been living in the city for 30 years, but before that she lived in Minnesota. She and her husband have visited every state in the US and much of Canada by motorcycle. Soon they’re headed to Cameroon to visit their son’s fiance’s village. I guess he met his fiance while he was stationed in Africa during a tour with the Peace Corp. The bus driver then went on to say how her coworkers tease her about how much she travels – like she’s already in retirement. She said she wants to experience traveling everywhere while she knows she can – and while she can still enjoy it. Sounds like a good plan to me.

John’s going to try to meet up with a friend from back home that lives on an island here. Hopefully they both get some work to keep them busy. At least John is appreciating the PS3. He didn’t want me to bring it, but right now it’s at least giving him something to do. Right now he’s working his way up through Call of Duty: Black Ops online. Alison and I thought maybe he’d like to get involved with the local Mountaineering group, but he’s not sure it’s his thing. I’m going to go to a few networking events at the end of the month and one of them is hosted by the Professional Builders Association, so maybe he can meet some new people there. We’ll see. He also has a tree job to do at the Indian reservation in Neah Bay, at the very tip of the Olympic Peninsula (for a co-worker’s brother). That should be a great trip.

At least we have lots of company coming to visit this Spring. The boys and Georgette are going to be coming at the end of February. I’m pretty sure Nancy’s coming in March. Then in April I think Zeb, Jenett, Winn, and Linda are all coming to visit. Good thing we got some furniture. We moved the good monitor and PS3 downstairs and got a few chairs and then ordered two cheap futons (one for the living room and one for the spare bedroom). Then we moved our junk TV upstairs with the Roku I won attached. It’s actually starting to look like an apartment now – we even have a toaster.

Q1 Finished & Merry Christmas!

Alright, so I just added a blog reminder schedule to my Remember the Milk to-do list. I’m going to at least get myself to write once a week in this blog and my tech blog. Seriously.

So, Merry Christmas everyone! We’re not up to much today – video games and sending out invoices. We took a walk through Magnuson Park. It’s weird being somewhere that has 50-degree weather on Christmas. We finally got some more furniture. Donna sent a Target gift certificate so I bought a few comfy chairs – and a toaster to finally make the apartment official.

The first quarter of school wrapped up quickly. I’m definitely appreciating my choice in graduate programs – this one is perfect. I’m really liking that I can work full-time (and get paid finally). I’m also really feeling connected to a lot of people in my class which is nice. Everyone is really into networking and learning from one another. After much struggle with myself, I finally decided to go to a happy hour. Even though my choice of drink was soda, it was still a blast. Ever since, I’ve gone to every happy hour that I can. Between work happy hours and school happy hours, I had a pretty busy last week of school. It seems like everyone wants to set up a happy hour for just about any occasion. I went and had my Shirley Temples and got some web work and projects lined up.  In the meantime I’m also getting a good survey of bars and restaurants for when people come and visit this Spring and Summer.

Mom got me PlayStation Move for Christmas. I’m pretty excited about it. It doesn’t really support too many games at the moment but there’s a shooter that’s coming out this Spring that should really show what the Move can do. Oh, and I also got wireless headphones – which is one of the best tech inventions ever (now we can each use the PlayStation without bothering each other)!

What else? Oh yeah! Our half-brother tracked down Mom on Facebook (and then of course found Ayla and I). I actually just got off the phone with him. His name is Brad, he’s 3 1/2 years older than me, and he lives in Southern New Hampshire. It’s very exciting and he seems pretty cool. It will be exciting to connect with him from here on out.

That’s all I can think of at the moment – and why I need to write a weekly update instead of a monthly one (so I don’t forget everything that happened in the last month)! Merry Christmas!

#snOMG & Turkey Day

On Monday night Seattle got hit with a “horrible” snow storm – the equivalent of 2.75″ and a city full of crazy drivers. I am told that Seattle doesn’t usually get snow until February (if at all). On Monday the Pacific Northwest got hit by an Arctic front which brought a few inches of snow and plummeting temperatures. The road crews spread deicer everywhere which would have been fine with normal Seattle temperatures, but as soon as it started to get dark the roads turned to sheets of ice. I left early, as I do every Monday, to make it to campus a few hours before class. I left at 2:30 and didn’t get home until 5:30 (over 2 hours longer than it normally takes me to get home by bus). Luckily my professor decided to hold the class via web conference so no one had to risk the drive to campus.

When I checked the news in the morning they were saying that some people were just barely getting home after leaving work the night before. I guess one bus was stuck – unmoving – for 7 hours on the highway with 50 passengers on board. A lot of people just gave up trying to drive through ice and traffic and ended up parking their cars wherever they could and walking. The weather was expected to stay that way until Thursday afternoon. I decided to make Tuesday and Wednesday “work-from-home” days because the last thing I wanted was to get stuck Downtown. John and I went out for a walk on Tuesday morning so I could capture the snow covered landscape on camera before it melted. We walked down to the 7/11 and then back through Magnuson Park. Hardly anyone was out and we managed to see a Bald Eagle soar over us and see a few different flocks of ducks swimming in one of the ponds.

By Wednesday afternoon we took a ride to the store to get ingredients for our Thanksgiving contributions. The roads we usually take were closed off halfway up the hill and totally covered with ice and snow. We were able to cut across to one of the main streets in the area which was actually pretty clear. By Thursday afternoon we decided we’d risk the roads to make it to Thanksgiving at Dan’s house (VP of the company I’m working for). Surprisingly, the roads were pretty good – the main ones.

I made a white chocolate key lime pie and spinach artichoke dip. The dip was a big hit. When we walked in Dan’s nephews were playing on a PS3 – turns out a had a bunch of games that they would’ve liked to play. Dan’s family is all really nice. Unfortunately, Dan and his partner lost a friend the night before. They left to go comfort the friend of their’s who had lost his partner – I wouldn’t have expected anything different. We were just happy to be invited to dinner with Dan & Steve’s family. Dan’s brothers are really easy going and we had met his brother Greg at a previous dinner. His brother Dave and his family live on Neah Bay (an Indian reservation/town on the tip of the Olympic Peninsula). We might actually go up there sometime so that John can cut down a few trees that Dave has looming over his yard. I hope we do because I heard about Neah Bay from a random woman I ran into at a bus stop and she was telling me all this cool stuff about it.

Yesterday, we took a bus Downtown to watch the Macy’s Holiday Parade. That was pretty cool. It wasn’t full of big floats like the New York one, but there were a bunch of small floats, marching bands, local dog clubs, gymnastic groups, and the like. The holiday tree lighting and fireworks were last night, but John didn’t want to stick around the city at night. We did go and visit Victor and his wife so that was nice.

Now for a weekend of catching up on school and freelance work. Next week I think I start getting paid at my internship. Just in time.

Grad School Q1-Halfway

If you haven’t already seen it, I have a blog at mcdm.mepriestley.com for my course work in the Master of Communication in Digital Media program at the University of Washington. It’s only the first quarter and the program has already exceeded my expectations. This quarter I am taking Strategic Research & Business Practice and Mobile Media & Communication for my two classes. Next quarter I’ve registered for Digital Media Marketing & Branding and Evolution & Trends in Digital Media.

For starters, it’s great to be back at school. I’ve expressed this before, but there’s something about school that just strikes me the right way. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to wrap up my career teaching. There are lots of great talks, workshops, and panels to attend – I just have to find the time to attend all of them!

My classes are really interesting – and right up my alley. My whole cohort is enrolled in the core class, Strategic Research & Business Practice. The class is great, but the most interesting parts for me aside from the lectures are the guest speakers and class discussions. There’s enough to learn just from how everyone reacts to different content. The guest speakers have been awesome – it’s great to learn new tools and hear how different companies are using various digital technologies. The mobile class took a little time to get into a rhythm but that class has me hooked because of my fascination with mobile anyways. The guest speakers in the mobile class are great. I think the best part about the mobile class is actually how it heightened my awareness to mobile content in general – news articles, design techniques, and advertisements. Every week we have to post a blog entry highlighting our experience testing out an ad geared towards mobile devices – it’s been an interesting set of trials – who thought so many large corporations would have no idea what they are doing.

My favorite part of the mobile class so far has probably been trying to track down a person to interview for our midterm paper. After some persistence I was able to land an interview with the Starbucks VP of Digital Ventures, Adam Brotman. Brotman presented to my other class (which was great) and I interviewed him after he was finished. Luckily, Brotman is really down-to-earth and you can tell he is super excited about where his company is headed – which of course brushes off. It was great to hear about Starbucks’s efforts “straight from the horse’s mouth.” I was most excited to hear that as much as blogs put Starbucks on a pedestal, they’re pretty unsure of their stance. I mean, they’re leading the way, but they have second thoughts and improvements to make, just like any company would. Personally, I can’t wait to dive into mobile more. I think I’ve taken the last mobile class I’ll take during the program (only because there are so many awesome classes and I want to get a taste of all of them), but I’m definitely going to work it into my personal projects and reading. I have to be ready for 2014.

Aside from the usual coursework, I’ve had group projects in both classes. The mobile group work went pretty well. We did a good job on our presentation, and the research was on augmented reality – something that I am very interested in. The group work in the other class is going okay, but so far not everyone is pulling his/her own weight. That’s alright though – we have peer grading at the end. We’ve had a lot of get-togethers and meetings with the client (Pacific Science Center) so that has been fun. It’s another situation where the material is interesting, but it’s even more interesting to hear what direction everyone wants to take. I think that’s one of the best things about grad school – everyone is coming from totally different backgrounds with varied experience and everyone wants to be here, wants to learn, and wants to share.

I had been thinking about squeezing in a third class next quarter to get the program over with by August, but there are too many great events that I wanted to help with and go to. Plus, the longer I’m here, the more connections I’ll make and things I’ll learn, right? I can’t wait for all of the other classes I plan to take. So much to learn! I’m going to make the most of it while I’m here… then enjoy the ride home – we’ve decided to go south through California and across to fit in Yosemite and the Grand Canyon.

What’s Up With That? ->

Hmmm, so I haven’t written in awhile. I should explain that photo…

Don’t worry, John’s fine. At the beginning of the month he spent about a week at Harborview Medical Center here in Seattle. The weekend before we went to the ER at UW Medical Center because one of his teeth was flaring up. They gave him some meds, took a CT scan, and told him to make an appointment at the UW Dental Clinic. We went to the dental clinic on Tuesday morning – they took one look at him and sent him upstairs to the UW Oral Surgery Clinic. By noon the oral surgery clinic transferred him to the Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic at Harborview Medical Center in Downtown Seattle. By the end of the afternoon the clinic admitted him and got things together so that he could go in for surgery the next morning. On Wednesday morning he went in for surgery – they pulled 5 teeth and stuck drain tubes into his cheek and jaw so that the blood and pus could drain into bandages. By Friday night they allowed him to go home and by Monday morning we were back there so they could pull out the drain tubes.

It was quite a close call – the infection was so bad that the doctors said his air ways would have been cut off from swelling after too long and the infection also spread dangerously close to his eyes as well (which I’ve since heard horror stories of people that heard of people going blind from tooth infections – eck). He’s all better now. He’s been complaining about tooth aches for years now, but the doctors removed all of the teeth that were infected (or getting close). Poor guy had to spend his birthday in extreme pain and had to wait a week to eat his birthday cake, but he made a good friend (his hospital roommate), and before we even applied, a financial counselor came and announced that his whole visit was covered by charity (which was an incredible godsend). We still can’t believe that last part – I hadn’t even bothered to worry because I figured there was no way that we’d ever be able to pay the bill. Just one more example of items that will go on my own “charities to give to” list once that’s an option.

The hospital itself was kind of an interesting place to experience (being someone who was not actually in pain at the time). That was definitely the longest I had been in a hospital before. The doctors said I wouldn’t be able to stay with John, but as I was leaving the first night one of the nurses said it was perfectly fine so I got a chair/bed combo rolled in to sleep on during John’s stay. I missed a class, but was lucky enough to catch some of it via live stream. The good thing about my digital media classes is everyone is pretty tech savvy so I was able to follow along with the Twitter discussion as well. I think I’ve eaten enough hospital food for life.