No Problem

I grabbed Luca and jumped in our Honda Odyssey. She needed a break from her brother and sister. I needed a break from the computer.

But it was Christmas day. Well, it was Christmas night by the time we slid our way off snow covered Lea Hill and into town looking for something to eat besides corn flakes and nachos.

lucasnow

We weren’t picky. Pretty much anything with a drive thru would suffice because the only thing covering my feet were a pair of Land’s End slippers.

We drove by McDonalds. Closed.

Taco Bell? Closed.

Dairy Queen? Closed.

Arby’s and Taco Time? Closed and closed.

Only Jack-in-the-Box was open. As I pulled around the parking lot all I noticed was a line of cars snaked around the building. We got in line and waited our turn to order. About 20 minutes later we pulled up to the window.

Finally, a young man opened the window and said, “I’m so sorry. I just gave your order to the car in front of you. It will be a few minutes longer”

In years past I probably would have let out a loud *sigh* to express my displeasure. At the very least, I would have directed a frown his way.

But I didn’t do either.

I smiled and said, “No problem. It happens”.

He said, “Well, it’s happened a few times today, and I’m sorry it happened to you”.

I could see he was working hard to remake our order. But it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t upset. It was Christmas and here I am out driving around snowy roads in a minivan with my daughter wearing slippers.

And it gave me more time to chat with Luca who told me all about the sewing kit Santa brought her. I glanced at her cute smiley face in the rearview mirror as she explained how Santa knew exactly what she wanted. Her words sprang with joy, and she paused only to catch her breath between details.

Our food arrived hot and stuffed into two bags. I handed Luca the vanilla milkshake she received by promising not to tell her brother or sister. One lick of the whipped cream on top told me I should have ordered myself one.

As we slowly made our way up the hill to our home, I told myself that I’m going to give people the benefit of the doubt this year like I did tonight at the drive-thru. I’m not going to jump to conclusions and assume I know all the details. I’m going to listen more and talk less.

Even in those situations where a response or reaction is warranted, I’m going to do the unexpected and say, “No problem”.

We turned off the main road and slid around our neighborhood before making our way down to the end of our cul-de-sac. As we pulled into the driveway of our little yellow house, Luca said, “Dad, I’m glad that guy didn’t give my milkshake away”.

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My Favorite Musician of 2008

One feature I like about iTunes is that I can see which songs I listen to most often. This year my top 20 is dominated by Chris Botti songs. I’d never heard of him until Slacker radio played Indian Summer on afternoon and I was hooked. botti

When I’ve returned from a stressful day at work or I need a break from the kids I turn to my Chris Botti playlist, kick back with my headphones and tune out the world.

His music has the ability to relax me without putting me to sleep. It’s complex enough that it takes a few listens to ease into while some tracks  are immediately approachable. One of my favorite songs is called “Like I Do Now” and it’s one of the few with vocals. Most of his music is instrumental.

[audio:https://blog.nordquist.org/audio/likeidonow.mp3]

Have you listened to Chris Botti before? If so can you suggest similar musicians I might enjoy?

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My Top 5 Twitter Tools

I can’t believe I’ve been using Twitter for two years. Over that time I’ve tried a number programs and services that promise to enhance, make it easier to use or just make Twitter more fun. I used to manage everything from the Twitter website, but that’s become time consuming as the number of people I follow has increased. 

Just for reference, I’m currently following about 1800 people. You can add me from my profile page if you’re interested.

I wrote a similar post about a year ago, but a lot has changed in 12 months. I’ve settled on a few services that I regularly use. Here’s a list of my favorites.

Favorite Client – TweetDeck

If I could only use one of these tool or services, TweetDeck would be it. This is a must have application for those who follow more than a few hundred people. My favorite feature is how TweetDeck allows me to organize those follow by creating groups. It might be too much for those new to Twitter, but it’s changed the way and frequency I connect with others more than anything else here. For example, I’ve created a group called Friends. When any of these people tweet it shows up in its own window making. You can even create groups based on keyword searches.

The only downside for some is that TweetDeck takes a lot of screen real estate. It’s made for those running dual monitors. Try Twhirl if you are short on screens. But the best compliment I can give TweetDeck is that it makes Twitter more fun.

Here’s how my configured TweetDeck looks. I’ve created groups for All Tweets, Replies, Friends, Sent, and Direct Messages.

tweetdeck

Favorite Follower Manager – Twitter Karma

This service has grown on me over the months to the point where I use at least one a week. Twitter Karma, like TweetDeck, is probably more useful to those who follow or are followed by more than a few hundred people.

Basically, Twitter Karma makes it easy to see the following:

  1. People I follow who follow me
  2. People who follow me but I don’t follow them
  3. People I follow who don’t follow me

I care most about #2 above because it lets me catch someone worth following that I missed merely looking at my list of followers at Twitter home.  It also allows you to bulk follow or unfollow. Some people use this service to prune people they follow who haven’t reciprocated, and it makes quick work of that. But I’ve enjoyed Twitter more the less I worry about who or how many are following me. I try to focus on following interesting people who make me laugh and whom I can learn from.

twitterkarma

Favorite Stats Service – TweetStats

This falls into the fun category of Twitter tools. TweetStats was created by Damon Cortesi and is a lot of fun to use. Wonder when you send the most tweets or whom you tweet most often? This will tell you.

tweetstats

Favorite General Service – Twitter Grader

This polished tool takes a number of helpful services and combines them into one. At first you might be most interested in what your “grade” is, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find a number of neat features that enhance Twitter.

 grader1        grader2

My favorite feature is how it looks at my profile suggest people in my vicinity to follow. For example, I’m presented here with a number of people around Seattle that might be interesting to follow which I can do right from the page if you’re logged into the service. Twitter Local provides a similar, if not more detailed service but I don’t use it as frequently as Twitter Grader.

Favorite URL Shortener/Link Sharer – Tweetburner

This is an interesting service, and it may not be apparent why you’d want to use a service like this at first glance. This service is for people who want to shorten a URL to send over Twitter and find out how many people clicked on the link. It’s sort of like a TinyURL with stats if that makes sense. It’s simple to use, and I enjoy seeing which links get the most traffic.

tweetburner

There are many other fun Twitter services out there for the using, but these are the five I’ve come to rely on and use regularly. I would have added Summize to the list,  but they were recently purchased by Twitter and have become the standard Twitter search.

What Twitter tools and services have you come to rely on?

Update: One of my readers pointed out that I didn’t include a single mobile application and he’s right. I own a crappy Windows Mobile phone for now so I don’t access Twitter much with it. When I do, I use m.twitter.com. If I eventually get an iPhone I’m sure that will change, but I do 99% of my twittering from a laptop or desktop computer running Windows Vista.