Category Archives: friends + family

Stuff about friends and family. This might be stuff that happened, things I did with them or …

Happy Mother’s Day to all!!! Especially my Mom!

Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom! My Mom still worries about me and does all that other Mom stuff that she’s supposed to do and I love her for it!

mom-costa-rica-IMG-8107.jpgAs you can see, I did get my Mom to Costa Rica this year! She’s at the top of a overlook in Montezuma. We must have drove and parked nearby because I know I didn’t make her walk up that steep hill to get there (we had walked enough as it was!).

We had problems with flights at both ends of the trip (and a piece of my luggage was lost, I’m so thankful it wasn’t one of hers!).

And to all you other Mom’s out there, just do your best and don’t worry too (so) much. As kids we’re pretty durable and can weather much more than you think we can; and I’m talking both physically, mentally and emotionally. So just be a Mom and love us, model appropriate behavior and odds are that we’ll (mostly) turn out okay!

I’ve got to go! It’s time to get over to Mom’s and make our yearly Bahama Breeze pilgrimage!

Family Christmas 2010

It was the extended family Christmas celebration today, there were 20 people or so there. Most of my aunts, uncles, cousins and cousins kids were there. Just a lot of food, hanging out, playing Apples to Apples, hide and seek and all sorts of other stuff. It was great seeing everyone and it was at my Mom’s house (she hasn’t had the extended Christmas for years!) so that made it even better.

As I was unloading the chairs and stuff from my car, my iPhone reminded me of something else Christmas-ish.

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So I hopped back into my car and drove over to Greenfield Village to catch the Christmas Fireworks! It’s only 3 miles from my house, so it was just a quick trip.

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They do a big old fashioned Christmas evening, if you’ve never been you need to go, and they end it with fireworks so I just drove nearby to a place where I could see them. They do it about six or seven times per season, they’re still doing it through the 27th of this month (but they sell out, so don’t wait).

Take 90 seconds to plan a great night…

Why don’t we connect with our friends enough? I had a close friend who lived in Europe for three years, when did I finally go visit him? One week before he moved (duh!). Why wait?

I’ve got friends that live close that I haven’t talked to in ages. Why not?!?

Tron Legacy [Blu-ray] Joseph KosinskiWe’ve all got friends close and far that we haven’t seen. Take a minute and make plans. A few months ago I got a message on Facebook.

Hey, what are you doing around Dec 17? 
I'm hoping to be in town. Want to see Tron 2?
I think we saw Tron 1 at the theater.

That’s all it took, a couple of messages back and forth and I saw a friend I haven’t talked to in years and haven’t seen for over a decade who lives a 1,000 miles away. How easy was that?!?

Mark, David and I met up, had drinks and food, saw Tron Legacy at the IMAX in 3D (which was awesome!) and then went and had pizza afterwards. It was a great night. We talked a lot (lots of glory days kinda stuff) and caught up on life.

So take a minute, when you talk to someone over the holidays make a point to make plans with them and see them sometime soon…

Thanks for checking in David!

Pet Peeves: When people don’t answer the phone, but call right back and complain you weren’t there.

Throughout life, even before cell phones and even before call waiting, I’ve called people on the phone sometimes initiating (but sometimes returning a call) and they don’t answer so I leave (or not leave) a message. I then move on with my day: I hop in the shower, go to work, I start some laundry, go for a bike ride or I might have even placed the call before walking into a meeting of some sort (it’s not like I’m calling people at 4:59 on a business day).

Cell Phone Etiquette: Observations from a Mom Michelle CiminoI can’t tell you the number of times I get a call back within moments and, because I’m not there any more, I can’t take the call so I end up with a message that says “why aren’t you there?”. In most of these cases I have no reason to believe they’ll be calling me back in a few minutes, I have no idea why they didn’t take my call. In a few cases, I’ve even gotten a “I don’t like that you aren’t then when I call you right back!”. I’m not on a tether, I’ve committed no crime…

Isn’t the real question,
“Where were they when I called?”?

If I don’t know you’re calling me back soon, why would I be sitting by the phone? They weren’t sitting by the phone, right? I could be there for hours and still be unavailable when you finally call. Especially these days, many people have call waiting, if they needed to click over just to say “I’ll call you back in 5, unless it’s important”, or they could text back with out even interrupting their call (although I’d prefer “I’ll be done in an hour” compared to “what do you want?”). The other problem is when someone does answer when already on a call, they say they’ll call you back in 5 minutes (or an hour) and triple the time has past. How long do you wait before leaving or calling back? If you leave, are you in trouble because they said they would call?

I’m not a big fan of people clicking over for every incoming call, so if I’m expecting a call I’ll tell a person I’m talking to (at the start of the conversation), “I do need to take a very quick call from so-and-so” or “I’m on my way to meet someone, so if they call I need to take it for a minute”. Otherwise I generally ignore call waiting. Although, when doing a job search, I’m apt to take unknown callers when from area codes of where I’m applying.

Related sidebar: I’ve noticed times that when I don’t leave a message, I think I’m more likely to get a call back when I don’t leave one! But then it doesn’t mean they played the actual message (if I left one) that might have some useful info like “I’m running late, I’m hopping into the shower and I’ll be on my way”.

Just because I’m your friend in real life doesn’t mean I want you as an on-line friend.

I have friends in real life and they all get treated differently. Some are people I see weekly, some I see once a year, some I talk to once in a great while. Some I exchange pleasantries with and some I’ll complain/talk about work or my love life. Some friends I’ll travel with and and some I really only keep in touch with on the phone. Every relationship is completely different, not better or worse, just different. And I might turn down invitations with certain people for certain things, you don’t say yes to every single event/trip/movie you get invited to, do you? I don’t really like sports, a friend isn’t going to think I don’t like them just because I won’t join their group of friends in getting season passes to some team, right?

My on-line life has similar parallels. I might chat with someone often or occasionally. Some of my on-line friends are people who might have traveled to the same place I did so I friended them, but it’s so long ago I don’t even remember how we ended friends in the same place. Some are my friends in real life but I do no actual communications with them on-line. Just like real life the on-line people are treated differently treated different. So just like in real life, requests to be friends can be denied; I’m not looking for season passes that portion of your life, I’m happy with the way things are.

Facebook For Dummies Leah Pearlman, Carolyn AbramPlus you get on-line friends who ask you to join farmville, mob wars or what ever other junk they might play I automatically decline, I don’t play those things (I do play Scrabble though). And keep in mind when people invite you to those things, they are actually sharing some of your (possibly) private information with those games/programs, that’s how you get the invites.

In addition, I treat my real life differently than my on-line life. I occasionally talk about things to strangers on-line that I would never mention to friends or family; they might stumble across it, but it’s not like I had directly shared it with them.

I’ve actually got more friends and family on some social networks than I’d actually like. Who knows who might read something and share it with someone, like my Mom, because they assume I already have. And on the opposite side, in my real life my Mom probably shares more with friends and family than I’d prefer.

Here’s an on-line example, I’m friends with some of my cousins kids and one day talking to my mom and aunt I ask how my cousin’s son (the aunt’s grandson) enjoyed the high school dance the other night. When asked how I remembered, I mentioned that I saw some photos on-line (I did know my aunt knew there was a dance). So of course they asked to see them and I said, you know he’s shared those photos with people he knows who is going to see them and I didn’t feel right showing them; I was actually surprised how well they understood. I told them if I shared stuff he didn’t want shared, he might block me or limit my access or (even worse) he might limit himself…

It’s not like there was anything inappropriate in the photos, but it just wasn’t my info to share. And now that I think about it, I don’t even think they were his photos, I think they were just tagged with him in them.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Have a nice Christmas everyone!!

  • Be nice
  • Be thankful
  • Be good

And drive safe if you’re heading out anywhere!

Have a Safe and Merry Christmas!

tree2008.JPGEveryone, please travel safe during the holiday festivities! In Michigan the roads are awful but be careful no matter how the roads are (especially if you’re drinking while celebrating).

Be thankful that you get to spend time with your family and friends. It’s a time to be nice (so don’t fight with your family about stupid things)!

And if you’re in a place that has snow, don’t forget to go for a ride and look at the Christmas lights!

 

 

 

Sweets and Alcohol

I swear that I eat more candy and desserts more the last two weeks of December than I do the rest of the year. Plus it’s usually mixed with a few drinks. Not a good mix for my stomach any time of the year let alone the holidays.

On the other hand it’s really nice to see friends and family!!!