So I have stayed away from Twitter, until now.

For those of you that just went “What the hell is Twitter?”, here is your answer - Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

I had never really seen the benefit of using Twitter, but a friend of mine told me about using it on the Iphone & then I saw how he had his Twitter connected to his blog & I thought “cool, maybe now I will actually post stuff on the blog at a normal rate”…….. notice I said maybe.

It is pretty interesting, you essentially post a couple sentences about what you are currently doing or thinking. Also you can do the same with pictures you just took.

I have it setup so my “real time” tweets (yes, I used the term tweets) will show up in the sidebar of this blog & then every night an actual blog post will be made from the summary of all the days “tweets”.

I figured with us going to Vegas next week, Twitter may be a neat way for me to send updates of what we are doing while we are there.

Hmmm??? I wonder what posting “tweets” when you are drunk will look like the next morning?

I figured I would like the iPhone but never thought I would be one of those annoying people that constantly talked about how cool their new “toy” was. But holy crap this thing is cool.

If for no other reason you HAVE TO buy an iphone just to use the amazon.com application.

You take a picture of something (watch, book, video game, etc) and it sends it to amazon and they send back a listing of that item for sale on their website.

The funky thing about it, amazon Doesn’t use a computer recognition program to do this. An actual person looks at the picture and searches for the item and then responds with the info they found.

I have used it a couple times, even purposely sending pictures that didn’t show all the info. Each time I have received a response in under a minute and it has always been the correct item.

Did I just tell you to go spend a couple hundred dollars on a phone just so you could send pictures to amazon.com?

Yes. Yes I did.

Edit -
After I published this blog I watched Modern Marvels. They had a piece on Amazon.com. They ship 24 items every second. They have 27 individual warehouses and all items are “picked” by people. Someone actually pulls the items off shelves and puts them on an assembly style setup for packaging and shopping.

I think that is pretty impressive when you consider the fact that a couple weeks ago I ordered 3 comletely different items and with in a couple hours I had received an email that my items were shipping out.

Damn, now I am an iphone fan boy and an amazon.com fanboy

That’s it. I’m going to bed.

Even though I am an electronics junky, there are a few things I never bought for one reason or another.

One of those was an ipod. I refused to buy one since they forced you to use their iTunes store. I eventually got an mp3 player, but not an iPod.

Everyone one knows my major weakness when it comes to electronics is cell phones. I think in one year (when I was with nextel) I went through 5 different models. Just because I liked having the newest, coolest “toy”.

When the iPhone came out I almost went into a coma overload with al the “I have to have it thoughts” racing through my head. But then I remembered apple and their dreaded you have to use iTunes store. Between that and me being only 1 month into a new 2 year contract with verizon, I came to terms with not owning the iPhone.

Even though the iphone is no longer as special as it once was, I finally broke down and got one.

Let me tell you something, it is not special or neat, it is f*cling awesome.

But I will admit typing on it takes some practice.I guess the more I use it the easier it will get.

By the way, any typos you have seen…. Well just deal with it. I typed this entire blog from my new shiny, well ok fingerprinted, iPhone.

Since I have been in North Carolina I have learned a couple things.

1st - people here can not drive if there is the smallest amount of rain falling. They will be in trouble if we ever get a Florida style rain storm around here.

2nd - the meteorologist can not predict anything. Rain, wind, heat, snow…. Nothing.

So when they were calling for snow today, I figured it would not actually happen. And I guess in some areas around here it did not. Charlotte (an hour south west of where I live) either received very little snow (up to 1 inch) or received no snow at all.

It was a weird storm as far as what areas received snow. My sister in Myrtle Beach got almost 2 inches or so.

We received around 5 inches. It was an interesting sight. They did not clear our roads until around 9am. The main road I take to get to work in Charlotte was not de-iced until around 8:30 or 9.

And guess what? I still made it to work on time. Even if you lived in an area that received a good amount of snow, it was cleared up by the time I had to be to work (12:30pm).

But guess what again? I had 5 employees call out saying the couldnt come in to work because of the weather. Most of them lived in the areas where they received very little snow. Yes, this morning there were some accidents fron people not knowing how to drive on ice. But once again, that was this morning. They didnt have to be at work until 12:30. If anything, come in late. Fine, if you have sick time & you want to use it, go ahead. But a couple of these people are new hires & do not have sick time yet. That means they are now 1 step closer to losing their jobs.

Oh well.

Here is a link to the pics if you want to see - LINK

Here is an cut & paste from our local weather -

“Areas of rain this evening will change over to snow later tonight
and continue into Tuesday. The snow will taper off Tuesday
afternoon in the west… and by early evening in the east. Snowfall
amounts between 3 and 5 inches are expected across most of the
Piedmont… the sandhills and the coastal plain. There is the
potential for few spots to receive up to 6 inches”

On Saturday we woke up to 9 degree weather. Luckily we were fine. Michelle’s mom called us (she is living about 45 mins south of us). Their pipes were frozen.

When we went out to the store a little later in the day, one of our neighbors was out messing with their water meter out next to the street. I guess their water supply pipe froze at the water meter & at the same time they had some issues with their heater/furnace going out. Talk about a bad day for them.

When I posted the elevator story the other day, I told myself that I needed to do more posts like that. No more sad or deep posts. Well I guess I was wrong.

I am not posting this to get sympathy or anything like that, so if you think that F*CK YOU.

I just need to get some thoughts out of my brain.

My older brother (mid 50’s) just found out he has severe lung cancer. He is trying to get scheduled for a full body scan ASAP to see if it is anywhere else.

I know others have gone through this with family members & I know there is numerous "stages" to your feelings, so I know the different emotions I have running through me are normal. But still they suck.

I keep going from the "he will be ok" stage, to the "sad & crying stage" because I feel for him & the rest of my family, to the "pissed off & angry" stage. It has only been a few hours since I have known for sure that he has cancer, but I have went back & forth between all of these stages a lot since then. As the day goes on I have found myself getting stuck in the pissed off stage. Even though I don’t know who I am pissed at. I guess I am pissed at whatever all mighty being you personally believe in that is responsible for controlling the spinning rock we all live on.

It is not fair. My brother has never purposely hurt anyone (aside from the normally family issues, or some things during his relationships). But as far as I know, he has never purposely got into a fight with someone. If anything he has went out of his way to be nice. He has spent most of his adult life worried that he wasn’t doing stuff right according to others. He has always been "nice to nature". He loves nature. Goes out of his way to make sure he cleans up where others have not.

Some people may not like the fact that he is essentially as 60’s hippie born to late to really be a 60’s hippie. But it worked for him. He would do anything for anyone & not expect anything in return. Why does he have to have a greater chance of his life being cut short when all these assholes, sex offenders, criminals, thugs & murders don’t?

I also am feeling guilty. I have not spent a lot of time with my brother. A lot of it was caused by geography. I lived in South Florida most of my life & earlier in my life he was traveling the county (aka - hitch hiking around). Then the last 10+ years he has been in New York. Well I call it upstate New York so that others dont think he is a city dweller.

Anyway. I am done writing about that for now.

Unfortunately today I also learned some other information, that at first doesnt sound bad, but it makes me very sad. Actually I am getting very emotional right now just thinking about it………………………..

While my father was staying with Michell & I, I would take him on wheel chair rides around the neighborhood. These neighborhood "walks" would really cheer him up. He loved being outside & expressed his love & hapiness that we were actually spending time together.

Side story - Growing up me & dad never really saw eye to eye. He seemed like a heartless man that didn’t really have any feelings. So we did not really interact. He was just always "the man in the recliner".

Well during his recovery period this all changed. He showed feelings, we both bonded a lot. He said a lot of very nice things, which I know he always felt & still feels.

Anyway, I knew that his memory has been a lot worse since his heart attack, but today I learned he does not remember anything about all the time we spent together. None of the wheel chair rides. None of the driving around we did. None of the discussions we had & none of the feelings we shared.

Now I understand that I am very lucky to still have him in my life & that I need to make the most of the time I still have with him. That this time is time that we almost did not have, but I am very sad that he knows nothing about everything we shared. Over the last month or so I have actually caught myself remembering these times & smiling, but now I know he has no idea what all we shared.

And he still has problems remembering anything that happened last week. So even if we continue to share time together, those memories will just continue to fade in his mind.

Ok… sorry for the abrupt stop, but I am done.

Ok just a real quick post (not that I think anyone is reading my blog anymore). Guess that is what happens when you dont do an update for MANY months.

Ok, so anyway -

ELEVATORS…….

Am I the only one left on this planet that still believes that when the elevator doors open, the correct thing is that the people that are currently on the elevator get off first, then the ones that were waiting for the elevator get on?

Makes sense to me. How are you going to get on an elevator when people are needing to get off of it? They will have to push past you.

It never fails, whenever I am on an elevator (at work or somewhere else) when the doors open, the people waiting outside look at me & start walking into the elevator even though I am trying to get out.

Now I could understand if I was talking about a big high rise structure & this was one of the middle floors or something, but I mean at ground level.

If I am on the elevator that JUST came down & upon the doors opening you see me inside, guess what? I want out. I have no desire to ride back up stairs with you. So I am going to get out of the elevator before you come in. If you try to come in first, I will push my big ass passed you. Deal with it.

Not a hard concept.