In October, I mentioned that I had changed jobs and at the time I was more than a little apprehensive about this change. I'm not one to welcome change, especially when it involves leaving a stable and steady job that I had enjoyed for a little over four years.

As with all change, it was the unknown which brought about the apprehension. That unknown has been slowly replaced by things which both challenge and excite me. I make it a point to tell my former co-workers that they really should follow me to my new employer as it is by far the best place that I've worked.

I'm not one to toot my own horn so to speak. I don't go around claiming to know it all. I usually try to stay out of the spotlight.

I'm a behind the scenes, under the radar kind of guy. I know what I'm capable of and I do, on rare occasions, challenge myself to do more than that. This is one of those occasions.

In recent months I've been working with a really smart group of people on a project called NOWCastSA (http://www.nowcastsa.com/). In the beginning I was more of an indirect observer but I've recently become a co-conspirator or technical mentor if you will.

Public Schools are an interesting institution. They provide an education for every child.

But they have become legislative nightmares. Education professionals, both teachers and administrators, are continuously required to implement ever-increasing standards which provide little to no value to the customer who is in this case, both the child and the community at large.

I personally have had a variety of educational opportunies in both public and private schools.

As a follow up to Crisis Level Epsilon...

I went to court today with my wife to attempt to get some of the charges dismissed as a result of my own mistakes.  The judge listened intently as I explained how the last couple of months had gone between the gallstones and the kidney stones and everything else.  I made sure to emphasize that this was my responsibility, period.

I like to think that I work in a progressive industry.  I like to think that we try to reach out to our clients in ways that will reach them.

It turns out that I'm right.  I have a normal set of websites that I scan on a regular basis which belong to our counterparts throughout the industry.  Each of them have a link to Twitter.  Each of them use Twitter on a regular basis.  Some of them use it frequently enough that I might consider it a little overboard for my taste but I'm not in their target audience.

Just a quick follow-up to my previous post.  It would appear that my plea went unheard.  This could be for any number of reasons but it appears that one of my primary social communication tools had a melt-down (aka, The Great Twitter NoReply) at around the same time.

I managed to secure funding, albeit in a less than desirable way.  I had to pay my fines in the form of a bond so that I could get a new court date.  My wife didn't have to pay and got a personal recognizance bond and a new court day as well.

Justice is neither blind nor equal.

As I began cleaning up the stack of papers and other assorted junk that has accumulated over the last few months as a result of my mounting health problems I came across a ticket that I had received two days prior to my emergency gallbladder removal.  FML.

In my attempt to be a nice citizen and try to make arrangements to get it taken care of I was told "$1538.00 or go to jail."  FML.

As I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown I was told "$1538.00 by Thursday or go to jail."

So here's why I'm posting this...

All of my children have done it...

All of my kids, my sister, myself .. we all talk in our sleep.  It can be interesting at times, and downright frightening at others.  The youngest is now talking about paw paw, puppy dogs, and the cat.

It's quite amusing to hear her little voice knowing full well she is very much asleep.

I've asked myself this very question many times in the last couple of years. Social Media is really just a buzz word being used to categorize a multitude of new tools and technologies that allow people to communicate in a nearly infinite number of ways.