Yes, that’s right, I’ve written it… Social networking is so not!

Here is a definition of networking that I just looked up through google: via – http://reference.yourdictionary.com/word-definitions/definition-of-networking.html

And a definition of social, looked up right after networking: found here – http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social

social (ˈsəʊʃəl)
— adj
1.	living or preferring to live in a community rather than alone
2.	denoting or relating to human society or any of its subdivisions
3.	of, relating to, or characteristic of the experience, behaviour,and interaction of persons forming groups
4.	relating to or having the purpose of promoting companionship,communal activities, etc: a social club

When you have no physical presence with the people you are socializing with, you are missing a key and important point. To socialize it takes presence, it takes contact. Without it, you might as well be locked up inside a box.

So, to my point, to have a healthy social life, you must go out and interface directly with those in your network. Computers are great, they can open doors, help those who have problems initiating relationships. But once you get the door open, go through and be present for the experience!

Just don’t hide, or think just because you trade what is really an anonymous series of messages with people you never see you are being social… Get out, experience life, and share those experiences.

I decided to take up a hobby, well, not really take it up now – I’ve been doing this for many years, now I just want to make it official of sorts.

It’s Photography. A number of years ago I had purchased a nice SLR digital camera from Nikon. When I purchased it I intended to use it in my web design business, and I did. It worked great.

Now I’m not doing as much web design on the side that I had in the past so I’m not using it as much. Being that we moved to a very pretty part of San Diego County around a year ago, I thought that I could start taking some pictures of the area I live in. It’s a rather beautiful place… if you are familiar with La Jolla (no, it’s not like La Jolla, not at the beach by a long shot!) San Diego Country Estates could be considered the La Jolla of East San Diego County. All the homes here are custom built, and most all have 1/2 acre of land that they occupy.

So, the other great thing about this area is it is surrounded by the Cleveland National Forest, so what’s here is what’s here… not likely to be building more homes. Although about 5 miles from the house they are planning to build another 100 homes. That’s the most they have planned, and I doubt that without some major infrastructure improvements will we see more than that built.

I’ve been going through some of the pictures that I had taken in the past and I found some pictures of plants and flowers that I took while on my wife and my honeymoon in San Francisco/Napa/Santa Rosa. I have set up a gallery, and you are invited to review them… The official opening of my Gallery Showing starts when you click the link to the site! Most of the pictures are from two places. The home of a famous botanist Luther Burbank, which had been turned into a museum, and the botanical gardens at the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

Enter the Gallery here. 

You will need to provide your own snacks and drinks. I expect to continue to populate the Gallery and maybe play with my images in Photoshop to get some amazing pieces of art.

Thanks for your participation!

Really, it was a pretty good trip aside from my ‘test’ to see what traveling would be like just having a tablet computer. Actually not just any tablet computer, but THE tablet computer.  My iPad2.

Certainly the design of the device is just amazing, and I think that I am certainly not alone in packing up one of these tablets and hitting the travel track – I saw a number of iPads (both the first one and the 2) out at the airport and there was quite a few being used on the airplane.

I found it to be just as usable as my laptop, but with one caveat…. I needed to use the blue tooth keyboard, I don’t mind using the built in software keyboard, but it’s just flat… flat flat flat!  And with a flat keyboard on glass it’s so much easier to not be able to get the right letters some times, so it is a little frustrating to say the least. But I was able to write the last post completely on my iPad and it generally worked out ok.

I was able to do pretty much all of what I needed/wanted to do.  In fact the most epic thing about the iPad2 is the ability to use Skype. I really missed my wife and through using Skype, we got to talk for free and we got to see each other. Brilliant technology!

I have all the productivity software that I would need, if I were required to do work that involved presentations, or spreadsheets, or documents. But since this was a pleasure trip and not a working trip, there was no need for that. Plus with being able to bring my music and movies and games all in one thin and amazing device (oh yeah I forgot, books!), I was able to watch a movie on the plane, write on the plane, and catch up on my reading.  Reading on the iPad isn’t as bad as most people think or what the advertisers of other tablet devices say. Yes it’s a complete piece of crap when trying to read it in the sunshine, but I don’t often read in the sun with my electronic device!  It would just be my luck that I take the thing out to the pool to watch, read or listen to and then it winds up at the bottom of the deep end. With my luck it’s a given!

I purchased a cover/carrier for the thing, it allows me to not only protect the device, I can carry other things in it such as the charging cord…. Embarrasingly enough, it looks kind of like a murse. (A murse is my wife’s attempt at humour… a ‘man purse’).

I think that unless there is some definite requirement for me to have a laptop on a trip that just having the iPad2 (+ the blue tooth keyboard) is more than sufficient!

It is mid January of 2012. And I am on a flight to go attend a very important event in my eldest son’s life. You see he joined the army last year and started boot camp in mid October 2011. Although I didn’t quite understand why it was he joined, I am glad that he made a choice and is sticking to it. I am proud of him!

I am making a departure from my normal MO which is to take a laptop with me when I do travel. Mostly I have it to entertain myself and to be able to do work if I find the need to. This time I have left my laptop at home and I am trying to use my iPad2 for all my computing needs. I do have to say that typing on this thing isn’t as good as it could be. The built in keyboard I feel is the weakest point on the iPad. But much better than no keyboard at all.

As far as the flight from San Diego, CA to Charlotte, NC… It is full, kind of stuffy, and I wound up with a middle seat. Oh how I dislike the middle seat. I usually go for the window seat, because I try so very hard to check out and sleep. I am a poor traveler. I don’t like turbulence, and I guess I am bit of a chicken. This flight is the first of two legs, the second leg of the trip is from charlotte to Columbia, where Fort Jackson is, where Josh, my eldest son is at. Why did they have to send him all the way across the US? Why couldn’t the army have taken my needs into consideration? Oh well, these things happen.

Really the most amazing thing is that I have 11 full length and high definition movies, around 40 books, 500 plus songs, text adventure games and other things to entertain this middle aged nerd!
If I think about it, really what I have is a device that I can not only consume digital cogent, but as you are reading I am also creating content. I can’t publish it right now, but if I wanted to pay some small fee I can now get wifi on this areoplane as well.

The iPad is so well equipped that if I really wanted to, and I was a professional reporter, I could film, edit, and publish news stories right here from the slab of electronic amazement. I am quite sure that there are people in the business that use this device for just that purpose. Well, we have now been in the air for a little over an hour. Flight has definitely been smooth, with an occasional bump here and there. Kay chicken self had taken a couple of sleeping pills before I boarded, and no matte how I tried, I just can not get to sleep. It looks like my idea of saving money and taking the red eye is not going to work well for me. My flight gets to my destination at 8:30 am eastern time, and family day on base starts at 10am. I cannot check into my hotel until 3pm, and I am going to have to take a cab to the hotel. My mother an sister are going to my son’s graduation as well, but they left at 1pm on Tuesday, and are already in Columbia, SC… With a rental car. Hopefully they are sleeping well… Better than I am for sure.

Back to replacing my laptop with my iPad2 when traveling. It is different, but is working quite ,well. I am going to watch a movie now, so maybe I can sleep, I will come back to this later, and through the magic of writing, this break will seem no more than just a ‘blip’ to you dear reader.

I am now nearing the end of the first leg of this long ass flight, so I will be powering the iPad down as we approach Charlotte, NC…. Then there is a little two hour layover. I did kind of get some drifting sleep, but nothing solid.

And now I am navigating the airport at Charlotte, NC. With that thought, I have Internet access again, so I will be publishing this. More to come later once I get my Bluetooth keyboard!

Sitting at the gate. Time to get a drink!