The Way Back Machine

Today we are going to jump in the DeLorean, hit 88mph and go back in time!

A few months I ran across a couple of boxes of OLD pictures that my Mom and Dad had taken.  I got pretty excited about it, not going to lie.  I think of all the pictures that Heather and I take of Alexis, different events and just random things and I figured that I would find all kinds of neat things.

I learned a lot looking through the pictures and truth of the mater is that was a different time!   Now a days we have a camera and/or camera phone every where we go.  We don't have to get pictures developed if we don't want to either! 

Back then, the only way to see the pictures you took was to head to the store and pay money to get them developed.  Then and only then do you realize taking a picture from 30 yards away with a point and shoot camera wasn't a good idea!

It seemed that pictures were only taken at events like birthdays or holidays.  Not many random pictures taken.  The other thing that kind of surprised me was that my parents were at just about all of our sporting events growing up...and there were a lot of them.  But I ran across very few pictures of either of us playing sports. 

But I digress and will give you all what you came here to see!

First up is a baby picture of me at about 5 months old.  Funny looking back at Lex’s pictures, she has my nose.  And just like today, I don’t have any hair!  Lol. 

I am throwing this one in mainly because Lex just wrapped up TBall.  I am about 5, so 1980ish, in this pictures I think.  Boy could I rock the knee high socks!!  

Look, I have hair!  Probably the last time I ever had that much hair.  And no, I have no idea why my name is on my shirt.  Need to check with Mom and Dad about that one.  Was “Mike” not easy enough for people to remember?  Were they just helping me get something right on a test?  Who knows...

The last one is probably one of my favorites.  It is Sam and I with our Grandfather...my Dad’s Dad.  My Grandfather, like my Father, was not very photogenic and I ran across very few pictures of him, much less pictures of him with either one of us.  So this one stood out.

I found a lot of other pictures, some were great and brought back a lot of memories and others I had no idea why the film was even wasted on!  Hope you enjoyed the pictures!  I will try to post more later!!!

My dog ate my homework!

“My dog ate my homework!”  Whatever age this phrase was uttered, this is when we started blaming other people instead of looking in the mirror and accepting responsibility for not completing our “homework”.

I got to thinking about this today because I read that Tiger Woods fired his caddie. Stevie, his best friend, best man at his wedding, the man that has been on his bag for 13 years helping Tiger win over $100 million in winnings during that time.  When Tiger hit the fire hydrant and we all discovered what really happened, it was Stevie who kept his mouth shut and stayed loyal to Tiger.

But the more I looked at it; I realized Tiger has “fired” everyone around him since then.  Fired his caddie, two swing coaches, “fired” his wife and his putter.  That’s right…he even switched putters!  Tiger fired everyone except the person actually responsible for hitting the shots and putting himself in those situations…TIGER!

At what point do people quit blaming others and look in the mirror? 

I personally love the people that blame their parents for their lot in life.  Really?  Your parents caused you to spend all your money on frivolous things and now you are broke?  Mad at your Mom and/or Dad because of where you are today?  Really?

Looking back at the past 5 years for Heather and I, it would be really easy to blame others for things that have happened to us and around us, but why? 

Could we blame Wells Fargo for the issues with our house?  Sure.   

Could we blame others for Heather losing her job?  I mean, the company did go out of business so it really wasn’t her fault, right?   

But what good does it do?  Blaming Wells Fargo or Heather’s old bosses get us nowhere.  We still have to get up in the morning and deal with it.

Any time Heather and I are faced with a tough situation and we think it cant get it worse, we are very quickly reminded that it could be much worse!  Be thankful for what you have and where you are and work to make it better!  Sitting around blaming others will only make things worse…for you and for those around you!

I will end with a phrase I will borrower from a co-worker:  It’s not the nuts and bolts in life that matter.  What matters is how you show up in the face of those nuts and bolts.

Are you quick to blame others and sulk or do you accept it and try to make the best out of it?

Life is short!  Let's make the best of it!!

My Review of Google+

Unless you were living under a rock, most of you know that I searched high and low for a Google+ invite!  I was finally able to get one and since I have been using it for about a week now, I figured I would let you know my thoughts.

The first feature I really like is call Circles.  This is just what it sounds like.   You can add your friends to circles you create.  What’s the point you ask?  Well when you post something to your wall, you can choose what Circles will see your post. 

You want to post something that you know all your friends in your Work Circle will love but your Family Circle would care less about, this is the answer!  I love this feature.  I know my work peeps, for the most part, could care less about pics I post of Lex that are really meant for my family and close friends.  You can also add multiple people to multiple circles.

You can share your content with specific Circles, all your Circles or you can make your content public and anyone on the Internet can see it.  Very simple concept.

Now finding friends is still pretty difficult since Google+ is still in Beta.  Not nearly as many people are on here as on Facebook, but give it time.  For the most part, most people have anywhere between 5 and 30 friends in their circles.  Obviously people like Mark Cuban have a few more.  This will get better with time.

The next feature is the Stream.  Think your Facebook wall.  Ciricles are integrated here too, so if you only want to see posts from your Work Circle, you can.  Easy to use and very simplistic.  You can +1 something to “like” it and comment just like you would on FB. 

Adding video and pictures is extremely easy.  You can drag and drop your pictures and adding your YouTube videos is probably the easiest thing I have ever done.  Now I know you are thinking that adding videos on FB with YouTube “share” button is easy…but what if you didn’t have to go to YouTube to find your video?  That is what Google+ does!  You can search YouTube videos from within Google+!

Two features with good potential that I think will go under used until there are more people on Google+ are Sparks and Hangouts.

Sparks are like keyword searches about your interests.  So if you are interested in Social Media, you can “Spark It” and you get a news feed with Social Media articles.  Interesting concept to incorporate into your social media.  I could see this morphing into an actual news/sports/entertainment feed. 

Hangouts are group video chats.  The main issue that there is right now with this is that there are not many people on here yet and some of those people don’t have webcams to take advantage of it.  But when it works, you and 9 of your friends can “Hangout” and chat.  Cool idea, will take some time to get some traction.

A few other quick thoughts…I really like the integrated “tool bar” within Gmail.  You can see if you have any Google+ notifications and even post to Google+ from Gmail!  Very handy to use without even having to go into Google+.

Currently the only mobile app is the Android app, naturally.   The iPhone app is in development, so hopefully I can get my hands on it soon.  However, I have heard good things about the Android app and the ease of use.  I hear the picture feature is especially cool!  Cant wait. 

Probably the biggest plus for me (not sure if this is plus or minus for you) is there are no apps in Google+, which means no stupid Farmville or Mafia Wars or anything of the like.  Personally I hope this stays this way.  It makes things much cleaner.  Plus I don’t have people asking me for a pig farm.

Overall I am very pleased with Google+.  I still have no idea where this fits in with my Facebook and Twitter usage.  I don’t see myself leaving Facebook or Twitter and I don’t see myself using 3 mediums for Social Media.  And will people really care if I post the same thing in 3 different places?

I think it has some cool features and I really appreciate the easy of use, but more than anything I hope Facebook is paying attention and incorporates some of the bigger features (like Circles) into their application.

So tell me what you think.  Will Google+ replace Facebook?  Will you use it along with Facebook?  Any features you would like to see?

If you read this and want to know what all the fuss is about, let me know and I will send you an invitation to join the madness! 

I want to be @mike!

I know I wasn’t the first one on Twitter so I didn’t get a cool username or anything, but now I want one. 

The one I really want is @mike, but that is taken.  Being somewhat in the loop, I know that @mike either has worked at Twitter or knows the guys that do since most all of them have those “cool” usernames, while the rest of us get @mike123x or something of the like.  I could be wrong though.

Now I am not mad at @mike, just jealous.  He actually is actively using his account, has followers, follows people and even has a picture.  He is account is “protected” so I am fairly confident this is a legit account.

In full disclosure, I will say my username of @mike_peery isn’t bad.  It could be a lot worse.  When I first signed up, I even had @mnpeery, which I use for a lot of other things and was happy with it.  But I quickly realized people were using their names, hence why I changed.

But the “underscore” in my username is really starting to bug me!  I started digging around last night to see what is available and what isn’t.  What I found I think frustrated me even more.  So here are three of the usernames I looked at and what I found:

@mike – Already mentioned.  Account is being actively used.  No complaints here. 

@peery – Being used by someone name Peer Desilva.  Not even named “Peery”!  To top it off, they have NO tweets, NO profile picture, NO followers and they are only following ONE person!  Big time squatter. 

@mikepeery – This account is interesting.  Looks to be a real person.  He is a “Husband & Dad, Catholic, CFD and Scientific Viz.”  He is following several dozen people, has people following him, but he has ONE tweet…back in March! 

I started digging around to see what I could do to maybe acquire either @peery or @mikepeery since it seemed pretty obvious that these two accounts were not being used.  It appears that unless I trademark “peery” or “mikepeery” I really don’t have a claim to either of them.

But it got me to thinking…should I try and trademark and/or copyright “mike peery”?  I have a website (www.mikepeery.com) that I post pics and blogs to and it is my brand.  I have a very active Facebook page, Twitter account and a YouTube account I post a lot of videos to…I would say that I have an Internet presence.  It might not be as big as others, but I am out there.

So those of you with blogs and an “internet presence”, have you ever thought about doing this?  Let me know your thoughts!  Oh, and if you know how I can get @mikepeery or @peery, let me know that too!!!