Anyhow, with this new tool at my disposal, I’ve decided that as a way to force myself into posting more often here on my site, I will be doing a weekly (possible bi-weekly) post of my week told via photos from my iPhone.  So that being said, here we go. (I haven’t decided yet whether to offer captions/explanations for these photos…we’ll see how it goes)

UPDATE: In order to avoid confusion, I ill say right now that the last photo is NOT any kind of smoking apparatus.

I saw the above maintenance page for StumbleUpon which says "We’ll be right back! In the mean time why don’t you go outside and play for awhile" just a moment ago and thought "Ha, that is kind of funny…playing outside rather than on the internet!" And then I realized that earlier today I had posted a short list of the sites I am addicted to on the internet…and it occurred to me that StumbleUpon is talking to me: the guy who lives in front of the computer.

Well Stumble, thank you for your concern, perhaps I will go get some exercise now. In the meantime, get your site back up so I can go find some more awesome stuff on the internet.

1. Gmail - Seriously, who doesn’t have Gmail open in a tab all day long?
2. Facebook - Friend stalking made easy.
3. Twitter - When it is working, it is either always popping up from a desktop app or I am constantly hitting F5
4. Tumblr - Not only to I love quickly posting stuff I come across, but being able to follow other people’s tumblrs with one click is amazing.
5. Google Reader - This addiction is getting harder and harder to manage with 200+ feeds on my primary account, a separate account for design blogs and another for client monitoring.
6. StumbleUpon - Install the StumbleUpon toolbar, click the ‘Stumble!’ button…a few dozen times. Try doing it just once. I dare you. It is a feat that has yet to be done by a human being.
7. del.icio.us - The stream of popular sites on the homepage is just nerdy enough to suite me perfectly.
8. Hulu - I was first very critical of this site, but then I discovered Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Arrested Development… and now I watch at least an hour of Hulu video content every night before bed.
9. Google Maps - This does not seem like a site that is very addicting but according to my firefox monitors, it is my 6th most visited site…I find myself using it at least a half dozen times a day.
10. I don’t want to add a non-addicted site just to round out the list because changing data to fit nicely into a pre-packaged envelope never works out well for anyone.

A couple weeks ago, I came across this logo created as a protest logo for the suppression of Tibet and posted it on my Tumblr . But I think the precipitating events lead its importance to the day so I am reposting it here.

This is the original message from the co-artist M.Parisi :

I f you feel as I do, art can be a powerful tool for raising social awareness. My friend Rebecca and myself collaborated to make this graphic to be used to remind people of the struggle in Tibet. Please distribute it freely, and hopefully we will see many other like it as we approach the dishonorable 2008 Olympics.

from Protest Beijing 2008

Events in the course of human history require the unabashed support of a global community. Oppression in Tibet , genocide in Darfur , the Dalits in India and even the homeless here in the US . All things with global implications, undeniable moral positions and a voiceless caste subjected to tyrannical, murderous and unforgiving oppression. What are you doing right now? Spread the word.

So I’m going to attempt a list of sorts of great people that should be followed, subscribed to and connected with. Of course I think my family is pretty great and I would say that they are unlikely to read this, but it seems that my relatives have just recently discovered my blog. So thanks to them for leaving cozy comments like these over the last few weeks.

These are the Good People across the internet I think you should follow closely because they are really pretty great!:

• Nick Trusty is a long-time friend of mine who is now out in NYC. If you ever need a contact in the talent agency business, touch base with him and he’ll know who to talk to.
• Michelle Compton happens to be Nick’s significant other and also a good friend of mine who focuses on international women’s and children’s non-profit organizations. (and she is incidentally looking for a job, so if you know of anything, be sure to give her a shout). She also reminded me that today is more than just GPD08.
• Lisa Young is my manager at Outrider and she has a great blog geared towards moms and has been tapped into social media since the beginning so she is a great source of knowledge if you ever need anything.
• I also work with Reem Abeidoh and Tanner Hobin , both of whom know just about everything you could know about social media and online communities.
• Sam Harrelson might be one of the smartest guys out there on the internet. I’ve tuned into his podcast more than a few times and his twitter feed is really insightful to the world of the internet and marketing. Not only that, but the guy is getting a PhD in Assyriology. Impressed? Of course you are.
• Jeremiah Owyang is an analyst with Forrester and he also runs a popular web strategy blog. It just so happens that I once left a comment on this blog and ended up getting my current job from it. Jeremiah is always available for questions and guidance and he frequently offers great insights to the industry as a whole so be sure to check him out.
• Matt Dickman is a great blogger out of Cleavland who has awesome videos breaking down new sites and web concepts as well as regular posts that offer a great look at how brands should be interacting with their customers.
• Another blogger/new media evangelist is Jonathan Coffman who specializes in the new media evangelism and convergence journalism. He has some interesting projects in the pipeline built on Adobe Air that harness social media for traditional media outlets.
• Nick O’Neill runs the Social Times and AllFacebook.com and he does a great job with both. I don’t think I could ever blog quite as much as Nick does, but he offers great quick insights to developments in the social networking space.
• Connie Bensen is a community manager at ACDSee and does great work as well on the Web Strategy facebook group which is really a great knowledge base. As well, her blog is a great resource for both newcomers and veterans of the social space. And as a side note, she is from my native land of Minnesota, so she has to be awesome, right?
• David Gillespie is a marketing specialist and blogger over in Australia who also happens to play a little bit of music on the side that I happen to think is awesome. So check out his blog and pick up his album while you’re at it!
• Garret Pendergraft is a Philosophy PhD student out in California who once upon a time was my TA in both Ethics and Logic. Honest to God, because of those classes I think I understand the world in a very different context than I did before. Or at least I am able to more effectively articulate it. So in my opinion, Pen is for sure worth tuning into. He is also new to twitter so go follow him .
• Of course I have to say Gary Vaynerchuk is pretty awesome because this entire movement was his brainchild! Gary has an awesoem blog that really puts things into perspective sometimes. If you aren’t watching him, you better start.

I’m sure I’ve left as few people off on this first pass so I will come up with my second list later tonight! But these are all great people and I appreciate all that I’ve learned from each of them and I’m sure you will too, so go check them out!

Also, to see the entire internet coming together in this meme, check out the blog I built last night at GoodPeopleDay2008.com .

#GPD08

The truth is that people connecting over the internet has completely changed the way we interact, get basic information and spread news about our own lives. To think about it really just boggles the mind… a seemingly random spattering of people who are not individually influential can come together without ever seeing one another and unite as a driving force with one voice and astounding effectiveness. That is what amazes me about the world we live in today and I want to be a part of it, which is why I work and live in the realm of social media.

I love the world of social media beyond marketing and promotions; when people rally around a cause and strive for change in something. Usually it is something negative that people rally against but today it gets to be something positive for people to support and propagate. Because in case you haven’t heard yet, today has been declared Good People Day 2008 : a day to thank people just for being themselves and a day to tell the world why those people are great. There are some negative people out there, but I’d say that the vast majority of people have something good about them! So lets celebrate those attributes and spread the word about why these people are great.

So blog it, twitter it, tumblr it, digg it, do it. I’m building my lists of those people who I think are just great for one reason or another to post in a couple parts later today. In the meantime, I’m working hard and fast on GoodPeopleDay2008.com to aggregate and blog all the content out there that gets tagged with GPD08…so spread the word!

Also, as my friend Michelle pointed out on my last post, today is not just Good People Day but it is also the Day of Action: A Day to End Sexual Violence ; a part of Sexual Violence Awareness month so be sure to spread that message as well!

Old School IM , originally uploaded by cafourek .

This morning AIM was not working in the office, so I had to actually write down and pass a note on a Post-It to Tanner. You might say it is an Old School IM…I’m just happy that it didn’t happen to be a ridiculously long URL!

In other news, check out BricaBox.com its pretty cool.

Photo via @tannerhobin

Blue Line: My car and I

Red Line: My Car, The Tow Truck and I

Green Line: Reem and I

View Larger Map

But for those of you who don’t want the full interactive experience, I’ve added all the walkthrough text here:

7:25 a.m.

At 7:25, my day began as I rolled out of bed to face my Friday. I knew it was going to be rather inconvenient, but only because I had plans to drive to Columbia to meet up with Farouk for our weekend trip down to Oklahoma (for a presentation). Other than that, I thought it was going to shape into a rather decent day: it was a tad warmer than the last few days, the sun was out, and it was payday!

So with these thoughts, I got up to begin what I thought would be a rather slow Friday…

8:13 a.m.

At 8:13 a.m. I went and got in my car which was parked out front…I had my traveling mug of coffee and the day was looking good. There was a wee bit of frost, but my $15 ice scraper with built-in grip and brush took of that in short order.

As a note, my car is not actually a taxi…but this is the only car icon Google Maps has.

8:13-8:45 a.m.

My trip to work. (Blue Line)

8:45 a.m.

Right around 8:45 or so I got to work…all full of coffee and ready for the day!

8:50 a.m.

So after parking my car, I head into work to begin a normal day.

I don’t have internet at home yet (I just moved in) so I spent some time catching up on twitter, RSS feeds and the like.

Well, before too long I got an email telling me that I could pick up my paycheck! In New York City. Now, since you are reading this, you are looking at a map which denotes my current location. Please take a moment to observe the area and notice that my little icon is very far away from New York. (I have placed a $ icon to show you the location of my paycheck in relation to me)

Apparently, the computer thinks I work in the NYC office so my check is across the country…but no worries, our HR folks said they could overnight it to me! This of course made me very happy since I’m still living on a college income while I am starting to pay grown-up expenses. And since I was going to be in Columbia for the weekend, I figured I might as well get it mailed there…so with that, all is well in the world.

The rest of the day at work was rather uneventful aside from my dismal failure at Rock Band, but that is neither here-nor-there. So I was here until around 3:05 p.m.

3:05 p.m. : From Work to Ruin

I left work at 3:00 to go to Columbia…this is the route I took: 270 N to I-70 East…apparently there were accidents because it took me almost an hour to go 35 miles, so it was pretty miserable. (2nd Blue Line)

4:00 p.m.

Well, there I was, minding my own business, listening to David Gillespie on my stereo, when I saw a cop coming down the on-ramp with his lights on.

I thought, ah, how do I get over when he is coming from the right-hand side?

4:00 p.m.: The 5-0, the Police, the Fuzz, Johnny Law, the Boys in Blue

This is where the cop was the first time I saw him…coming down the on ramp with his lights on.

4:01 p.m.

So as I throw on my blinker to get in the right lane, the cop is immediately behind me to the right side, so I was a bit concerned…trying to figure out how to get out of the way.

Then, suddenly, I felt my car loose power! My RPMs dropped to 0 and I couldn’t accelerate. My first thought was that I had somehow hit my gear-shift into neutral, but that wasn’t the case. So I was slowing down rather swiftly at this point because I couldn’t go anywhere, the cop was blocking me to my right and I was going to get rear-ended if I coasted in the left lane!

4:02-4:30 p.m.

There I stood at the hood of my car, trying to figure out what the heck was going on, when the cop walked around the driver’s side of the car with his hand on his holster!

Naturally, I stood up a wee bit shocked, as he said, “What are you doing?” So I responded, well my car just died, I have no idea why…I was trying to get out of your way and it stopped.”

Then my day went even further down hill. The cop said, “Well, I was pulling you over anyway for expired tags.” At this point, I would have been content to just plop down on the side of the interstate and shed a few tears.

So I explained to him that I was int he process of moving and changing my permanent address to St. Louis and I was waiting until I had switched everything to my new address before I went to get a new drivers license since that is set to expire in a few months, I figured I would renew my tags at that time as well.

4:30 p.m.

Seems he didnt care at all about my conundrum and just asked for my license and proof of insurance, so I gave it to him as he went back to his car and I tried to figure out what was wrong with my car. Well, actually I called my Dad first…then I poked around some more.

When I couldn’t figure out what was wrong I realized I was going to have to get some roadside assistance…and around that time, the cop came back to my car with a ticket. I thought “Are you serious?! My car is broken and I just explained to you why my tags are expired by 2 weeks and that I was getting ready to take care of them!” But I just signed it like a good citizen.

So then, the cop asked me if I was going to call a tow truck, which I thought was odd because I’m not from here! Anyway after explaining that to the cop he said I could leave my car there but he would give me a ticket if I did because it is illegal to park in the median as it slows down traffic. (He says this as my car is well out of traffic, but his patrol car is parked squarely in the left lane, impeding traffic for miles.)

4:30-4:45 p.m.

Eventually I got him to call me a tow truck…so while I waited and wandered the median as I twittered my experience. Only later did I realize that I had said I was on I-44 when in fact I was on I-70. That kind of makes me feel dumb.

So I waited for about 15 minutes until the tow truck got there…with a friendly driver named Bob from Budget Towing. If you ever need a tow truck in the Wentzville area, I recommend Bob.

4:45 p.m.- 5:00 p.m.

Well I rode in the tow truck with Bob and he recommended a guy in Wentzville who he would trust to fix his car. If there is one thing I know it is this: trust the locals…and never go with a nation-wide chain.

So my car ended up at Dan’s Foreign Auto…

5:00 p.m.

So I road with Bob all the way to Dan’s Foreign Automotive in Wentzville. Where my car still sits, awaiting inspection.

The best part is that the mechanics there told me that apparently all the Foristell police (they are the town cops who ‘pulled me over’) ever do is run up and down the interstate, pulling people over and writing tickets for everything you can imagine. So that is great…I’m glad they have nothing better to do than stalk the interstate.

5:00 p.m.-6:05 p.m.

Well after the Tow truck dropped me off…I sat here and waited for Reem to come pick me up…she came out from the office and picked me up to take me home…thank God!

The best part? She got the word that I was broken down via twitter! Because I had twittered my crisis, I got rescued! Thank god they were not having outage issues at the time!

Anyway, apparently my distributer is out and I’m waiting for them to get a part in from St. Louis…so in the mean time I am renting a car from enterprise and bumming rides from Reem!

6:00 p.m.

Well Reem came to pick me and then kindly returned my to my home…where I spent the 3 day weekend indoors. As in: I did not open my doors until going to work Tuesday morning. Lame? Absolutely…but I needed to recover from such an odd day.

So I had to bum rides for a couple days, but now I’m sporting a Hyundai Elantra from Enterprise until I hear from Dan out in Wentzville.

So…last Friday was officially the most ridiculous day of my entire life.

Oh yeah, but the good news is that my paycheck got overnighted to Columbia and Adam deposited it…so life is good. Well, until I have to pay for getting my car fixed, that is.

UPDATE: Just heard that apparently my distributor was just full of oil so they cleaned it out and replaced a seal of some kind so it only cost me $40! But I’m not supposed to take it long distances…which is an issue since I need to make another trip to Columbia next week. But we will see about that…

Anyhow, in the morning I am hopping in my overladed Honda Accord and driving to St. Louis to start my new job ! I have gotten a lot of support and well-wishes from quite a few people and I want to say thanks to everyone! It seems that the story of how I got my job got a decent amount of attention in the social media industry (primarily due to Jeremiah’s post …seems he has had quite the hand in my recent successes!), something I never really expected, but it is great to hear that some people are now inspired to delve into some life changes of their own!

So I am off to St. Louis where I will be sleeping on my friend Steve’s couch for a couple days until I can get into the great apartment I am subleasing for the spring until I get a better idea of the area and where I might want to live more permanently. I’m really excited for everything and I’ll be sure to update as to how it goes, but for now, I’m exhausted from packing and I have quite the day ahead of me tomorrow, so I’m off…

This is a picture that Maria took of me in front of the St. Louis Art Museum the last time I spent any significant amount of time in the city…it is one of my personal favorites:

And now, it looks like I’m finally getting ready to wrap it up! After getting a degree in political science last month, I started down the path of actually doing something with my life and looking for a job, when I happened to stumble into a couple really great opportunities. I’ve spent the last month doing special projects for the Department of Student Life here at MU (though in reality, it seems that I am the designated : “I-find-cool-stuff-on-the-internet-to-distract-everyone-else-from-work guy” for the student Design Center) and it has been a great interim job. However, I’ve just confirmed my first post-college job and I am really excited about relocating and jumping into work!

As of next Monday, I will be starting work for Outrider, a strategic marketing company based out of St. Louis. I will be coming on board as a Social Media Specialist and working with a small team of other people in the social media area to develop integrated online media strategies and marketing plans for clients. Anyone can see the world is shifting to a more online-centric, social place and the best evidence I can find of this is in the way I came into my new position.

A few weeks ago, I was reading Jeremiah Owyang’s blog and saw a post on people who were “on the move” in the social media industry. I thought, well what is wrong with a little bit of self-promotion? So I left a comment, which you are free to go check out for yourself, basically saying “Hey, I haven’t been on the move…but I would like to be!” And as a result of this, Lisa Young from Outrider reached out to me with some information about the company and the industry as a whole..then I spent a day and a half pouring through Google and every other internet tool I could think of to absorb as much information as I could about the company. Well over the past few weeks, about 97.4 emails, and dozens of hours spent researching different aspects of the company and industry I decided that I really wanted to come on board with the firm and so…here I go!

So now I am looking for a sublease in St. Louis for a few months since my lease in Columbia isn’t up until July and double rent is never fun. So as I pour through craigslist (does that count as another variable in this giant social media equation? I think so…) looking for a new home, I’m pretty excited about joining the Outrider team next week! And if anyone knows of anyone needing a roommate in St. Louis, let me know!