Did I at least get an honorable mention?

I was on David Pogue's page today and noticed he had a new book for sale:
The World According to Twitter
By David Pogue and His 500,000 Followers
The wit and wisdom of the Twittersphere captured in a collection of hand-picked tweets.



Now,  I am tempted to buy this book just to see if he gave me credit for sucking him into the twittersphere.  Let me explain...
A few years ago, when I was "into" twitter, I noticed that my favorite tech guru was listed, but had no tweets.  He had many followers, but no tweets.  I emailed him, despite his page-long explanation of why he doesn't normally respond to emails, and asked him why he had not tweeted. Here is my email to him, which I have lovingly saved for 2 years:

On 12/5/08 6:58 AM, "michelle -----" wrote:

By now you know that twitter is like crack for some people, you have  a decent following and you haven't tweeted in a year.  I am just wondering why you stopped using it.  Was a fun toy that couldn't sustain itself, did you not find anyone interesting to follow? Just curious.  There are tons of people who throw up twitpics and the applications are  multiplying day by day.  I think there are a lot of annoying marketing people on there, but there are also some very funny people, i just dump the ones I don't like. I'm a bit of a twitch that way. throw your followers a bone, too lazy to correct this i am drying my hair at the same time.

His response:
I’m glad you wrote... I was just thinking about this last night...

I DON’T GET IT!

I need a Twitter teacher.

I’ve sent out tweets several times, and they just... disappear into the void. How do I know if anyone’s listening? Sometimes I pose a question ... nobody answers.

I once saw a guy with a Twitter program that runs in the corner of his Mac screen, so he doesn’t have to be logged into the Web site to do Twittering. What was that?

Can you help me?

Hope your hair dried OK!


dp

My response:

I think that application is called twitterific, it is for the macs.  I have a

gadget on my blog so when I am workign there I can tweet from my blog and see

what is being posed by the people I am following.  You have a bunch of

followers already so THEY will see what you are tweeting every time you tweet,

you will see the people you are following.  A lot of twitterers talk to each

other, they put an @sign in front of the username they are addressing. then

when you are in your home page you can look to the right and check your @

messages first to see if anyone had something to say directly to you.

you can also DM each other if you are following each other.

Tweets can be general or specific, it depends on your style.  I will email

more later, go to get back to the class.

Michelle -----------

A short relationship followed with questions asked through twitter on DMs, but they were BORING, so I won't share them here. Since he dived back in, Dave has tweeted 3,500 times has 1,327,540 followers, has written at least five columns about the application, and has now written a book.  I think I deserve an honorable mention.

My most successful student...

Convention 2010

Another year passes and we crashed as many hospitality events as we could.  In an effort to not lose my mind over being charged twenty bucks a day for valet parking at the Sheraton at the Convention Center, I made sure they could not charge me for anything else if I could help it.  I will not reveal my secrets, because I plan on using them in the coming years.  I love getting together with my friends once a year and staying over, even though we all live close enough to drive home each night.  The chance to catch up and share our lives is worth the few hundred bucks we spend for our outing. Shopping was out this year as I did not feel like braving the rain to get to the outlets. Consequently, my son STILL does not have his new winter coat.  I will have to go out this week and get one. I also have to return a sweater. I was busy in class HOTEL WIMBA and ordered in some delicious room service from the Tun Tavern on my first night in AC.  Never did get around to returning that sweater but I was relieved that my class went well.  I was worried that my connection wouldn't be good enough to participate in the online session. As soon as I was done, I met my friends for the dirtiest martini ever and we spent the rest of the night laughing our butts off and sharing our latest news. My friends may live far away, but it only took a hug to get back into the swing of things and it was like we never parted.

Hazardous Waste Drop-off for Atlantic County

It is that time again!  Bring all your hazardous waste to the drop-off this Saturday instead of dumping it down the sewers.  I know some people in my neighborhood do this , because there is a scour hole in MY backyard.  I see the paint and the oil and the pesticides and the everything else as it trickles out of the sewer pipe, and into our beautiful town lake.    For all my readers who do not live in my county, please look for your own Hazardous waste disposal day in YOUR county. 


Here is the Official Announcement:

Atlantic County residents will be able to drop-off household hazardous waste from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 6^th, 2010 at the  Atlantic County Utilities Authority Environmental Park located at 6700 Delilah Road in Egg Harbor Township.

The next household hazardous waste drop-off date is scheduled for 9 – 2 pm on Saturday, January 8th, 2011 at the Atlantic County Utilities Authority Environmental Park located at 6700 Delilah Road in Egg Harbor Township.

The household hazardous waste program is open to Atlantic County residents only. Those wishing to participate must bring proof of residency. The maximum amount of household hazardous material allowed for disposal is 30 gallons and/or 200 pounds (dry weight) per household. Participants may bring materials from more than one household, which can save you and a friend or neighbor time and gas money.

Materials cannot be brought in containers that exceed five gallons and no containers will be returned, no exceptions. Most importantly, before bringing a material please be sure that it is an acceptable product. For more information, please call (609) 272-6950 or visit the ACUA’s website at www.acua.com/hhw .

Robert J. Chitren, C.E.P

Associate Director

Know your Demographic!

UDL & Audience

After last week's class I knew that demographics plays an important part
 of every advertising campaign.  I always knew it,  but until I personally had to develop a product it didn't impact me as much.  In writing class we always teach our students to be aware of their audience.  This week as I assisted a school librarian build her own website, we had some incredible conversations about the choices she was making for including images on her pages.  She looked for African-American student photos because she thought her students would not connect with pictures of  children that were
 from a different demographic.  She was unhappy at the lack of images associated with African American students reading magazines.  There were more caucasian students reading than the diverse images she was looking for. Looking at her process from a UDL perspective, she builds images into her lessons that she knows the students will identify with.

The Help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a read! You would never know this was a first novel. Tell- all book of the secrets of southern maids and the women who employed them during the civil rights movement era. Maids/ mothers who don't get to raise their own children, instead they take care of a procession of white babies who turn on the when they are "educated" about color distinctions. Jim Crow laws and their implementation in everyday life. Power-mad Junior League ladies don't stand a chance against their maids once they get to "writing" about what really goes on in the households they work in. The stories remind me of Flannery O'Connor's way of expressing things that are too ugly to speak about, but it's uplifting nature allows for hope.
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Exposed

Exposed by Alex Kava
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Excellent, learned more about Ebola Zaire and others I didn't know about.  Maggie O'Dell under the "gun" once again. Kava is the master!   The scenario Kava builds is so completely plausible, it is scary. You never know what is going on the minds of the people around you. Everyone has their demons, but some choose to act.
I cleaned out the whole Kava section in my town. Sorry everybody!  The'll be back in a week, can't put them down!  I will have to check the county before we lose the inter-library loan service due to budget cuts.
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Whitewash

Whitewash by Alex Kava
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book had me running back to the library to get all the other books by KAVA.  Glad I found her, I love murder-mysteries, CSI-type and criminal-profiling books!  Quincy M.E. was my favorite TV show as a kid; I just thought that Dr. Quincy was fascinating and I seem to gravitate towards those kinds of books as an adult.  There are a few surprises in the end of Whitewash that I never would have guessed.
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