Thursday Randomness: What have I been up to?

Is it the middle of October already? My goodness. Time really flies when you're having fun.

And, gentle readers, I am having so much fun these days!

Sure, money is way tight, and I am still struggling with what to do about my lack of insurance. But if you zapped those two stressors from my life (anyone? anyone?), I'd be fool happy.

I'm totally crazy about my new freelancing life. I have the best readers (that's YOU!). My friends never cease to amaze me. And The Guy and I just passed the one year of dating mark, and I couldn't be more in love.

So, what else have I been up to? 

• Tomorrow marks the end of my second week of employment at Insider Louisville. Depending on who you talk to, I'm either the "Deputy Director of Content" or the "Associate Managing Editor." I'm not really hung up on titles; whatever you want to call me, I'm having a hell of a good time. I've been helping out around the joint, writing 2-5 articles a day, working on vetting freelancers and much more. We're still moving into our new office in NuLu, and every morning when I drive to work I have to pinch myself. Ever since my job hunt began, I've had a superficial goal of either working downtown or in NuLu, and here I am with my own desk, an endless supply of good coffee, and a job that I can't wait to go to when I wake up. My bosses respect me. I feel like I add a lot to the organization. And I'm getting paid to do cool stuff and write about it. My fingers and toes are crossed that this turns into a full-time gig with benefits someday soon. (And my fingers and toes are crossed that I continue to be this happy with this job).
• For the past six weeks or so, I've been working part time as a "Twitter Specialist" for 520 East Brands. Shane is a dream to work for, and I'm thrilled to be the "twitter voice" for many beloved local and national brands. I knew one day my Twitter addiction would pay off!
• Chipman Creative was hired two months ago to "ghost blog" for local real estate agent, WordCamp maestro, and fellow Start-Up Weekend attendee, Scott Hack. We did the true "ghost" thing for a little while, but over the past few weeks, we've started to put my name on the posts. So if you're looking for more of my posts, follow Scott's blog. And obviously, if you have any real estate needs, you should contact Finish Line Realty. Scott is awesome.
• Last Saturday, my Louisville, Not Kentucky co-host Linda and I worked a booth at the Flea off Market. We signed people up for our mailing list and interviewed people for Episode 7 and beyond. We met lots of listeners and even got to interview the Mayor. It was a beautiful day, and we're looking forward to doing it again in November.
• Tuesday, a group of Loueyville readers and friends volunteered to answer phones at the NPOTM, Louisville Public Media fund drive. Thanks to Kara, Dawn, Bethany, Stephanie, Stephen, Ashlee, and Linda for coming along. We ate lots of pizza and talked to some great LPM supporters on the phone.

So now, besides this blog, my twitter, my facebook, and my pinterest, you can now catch me on Insider Louisville, the Finish Line Realty blog, Louisville Not Kentucky, and as the voice of brands you know and love on Twitter. 

Hope you all have had an excellent fall so far! Thank you for your support!

600th Post: Social Media is SOCIAL

So, I've been trying to figure out something special to do for my 600th post.  But I realized that just about everything I'd want to say in my 600th post, I already said in my Technology Boot Camp speech at the Louisville Public Library earlier this month. Why reinvent the wheel, right?  So here in its almost-entirety is the speech that I gave: (WARNING: Personal stuff lies ahead...)

If the job of Official Spokesperson for Social Media ever opens up, I think I’d have a pretty good crack at the job. It’s not that I do social media particularly well; it’s that I couldn’t be a bigger fan. This may sound like hyperbole, but it’s 100% true: social media is responsible for 90% of what’s really good in my life right now. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

On Twitter we use hashtags to add nuance to the 140 character messages we type. Like #fail, means that you acknowledge that what you just said paints you in a bad light. Or #tmi, means that you know that what you tweeted constitutes Too Much Information.

Another hashtag is #humblebrag.  That means you know that the accomplishment that you just tweeted about sounds like bragging, but that you understand how lucky you are.

So I’m going to hashtag this next little bit: #humblebrag

Over the past two months or so, I’ve been able to do the following things courtesy of my blogging and tweeting habits:

1. I attended all three days of IdeaFestival with an all-access media pass.
2. I’ve had two contests on my blog: one to give away a family four-pack of tickets to Max & Ruby Live and one to give away two all-access passes for the Louisville International Film Festival.
3. I’ve seen Sense & Sensibility, Tom Sawyer, and Dracula at Actors.
4. I was invited by the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau to be one of two local bloggers at a dinner for national media at the Chef’s table at the English Grill at the Brown.
5. I’ve put together a group of readers of my blog to volunteer at the Louisville Public Media fund drive next week.
6. I’ve been asked to be a staff writer for a new local print newspaper and am working on my third article for them.
7. I’ve had a couple really nice dates with a really nice guy.
8. And perhaps my favorite... after reading my blog post about Rosanne Cash’s upcoming appearance at the KY Authors Forum, the director of the forum contacted me and said she liked the post so much she wanted me to be her guest at the $100 per person VIP dinner for Rosanne Cash, one of my heroes.

Granted this has been an unusual month. But a remarkable one too.

But when it boils down to it, both my blogging habit and my Twitter habit were born out of adversity.

I started blogging on September 2, 2005.  I’d been living in New Orleans for eight years, and on September 2, 2005, I was stranded in Florida with no idea if my home was destroyed, no idea if all of my friends had gotten out of the city before Katrina. I was sick of fielding phone calls and emails from concerned friends and family from all over the country-- and of repeating the same sorry story of fear and sadness and uncertainty. So I started a blog called “Displaced,” and I told everyone I knew that they could check up on me by going to the blog. That way I only had to tell each story once. It was a blog of necessity, but it became a chronicle of my life first as a Katrina evacuee, then as one of the first wave of people to return to the city after the storm, then as someone who lost her footing a bit, and finally as one of the many people who were forced to move elsewhere-- in my case Louisville-- ten months after Katrina.

Displaced consists of a little over 100 blog posts. And no joke, every time I have ever gone back to try to re-read all of those posts, I break down and stop after maybe 20. There are posts I haven’t read since I posted them six years ago. But I am so grateful that they exist.

But, as I said, I moved to Louisville under duress. I didn’t know anything about the city, and I didn’t know a single person here. And I was miserable. So my second blog, My Loueyville, the blog that got me invited to speak to you today, was likewise started as a response to adversity. One day, I decided that I was tired of being miserable, and that I had to make a concerted effort to find things I loved about this city. I started a blog that would celebrate the culture and character of Louisville.

My first blog post was about how much I love going to Bats games.

I’ve since written close to 600 posts, but for a good 200 of those I was blogging just for myself. It was only maybe three years ago that people started reading My Loueyville in earnest. My first indication of this was when Actors Theatre contacted me and asked if I wanted media passes for a show. I’ve been a theatre geek since high school, so I’d been blogging about a lot of theatre productions. Someone in the PR office of Actors took notice and looked me up. Since then I’ve racked up media passes.  Broadway Across America, Churchill Downs Entertainment, Walden, Actors. For more than a year, my blog was one of three featured blogs on the Possibility City website.

All of this was an unintended consequence of a lonely, sad woman starting a blog that she hoped would help change her mind about where she was living. And of course, it worked. I’m madly in love with Louisville. I consider myself one of the biggest cheerleaders for this city. And because of this blog, not only did I come to see the city through new eyes, but I’ve been given the opportunity to see more and do more than I would have been able to afford on a teacher’s budget.

But blogging isn’t the only social media that’s changed my life.

The blog helped change the “sad” part of this “lonely, sad woman’s” situation. It was Twitter that changed the “lonely” part. And again, my twitter habit was also born of adversity.

2008 was not a good year for me. In May, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. On September 14, while I was napping on my couch, recovering from a particularly brutal round of chemo, Hurricane Ike ripped through the city and toppled a 30’ tree onto my house, crushing it. I was fine, but I was faced with 8 months of living in a hotel while I waited for my house to be rebuilt.

If I wasn’t lonely before-- and I was-- I became desperately lonely while living in the Residence Inn downtown. There’s no loneliness like hotel loneliness. And one day, I got an email from another local blogger whom I’d never met-- Michelle from Consuming Louisville. She was writing as a response to a fan letter I'd written her, and at the end of the email, she asked if I was on Twitter. I wasn’t. I was a frequent Facebook user, and I saw Twitter as a frivolous waste of time. But because of her, I signed up and basically copied the list of people she followed.

And I started making friends.

The difference between Twitter and Facebook is this: on Facebook, you follow people you already know. High school friends, college friends, work friends. These people are or have been your friends at some point-- that’s why you follow them. On Twitter, there’s no obligation. When you follow someone, they don’t have to confirm you or follow you back. So you tend to follow people who say interesting things. And people who say interesting things on Twitter tend to be interesting people in real life. You’re most likely never going to make a new friend on Facebook-- I never have. But making new friends is kind of what Twitter is all about.

Six months after I joined Twitter, maybe less, I had a group of friends here in Louisville. That group has grown and continues to grow. And today I can say that my friends are the best, most diverse, interesting group of people I’ve known in my life. If you had told little nerdy high school me that in her thirties her social life would be as remarkable and important as it is now, she would have said you were crazy. And out of all the wonderful friends I have in Louisville, I only knew two of them before Twitter and the blog.

I’m not a computer geek. But blogger and twitter are so easy, and when things were tough for me, they my life easier. When I had cancer, I started a private blog for my family and friends called Girls Gone Bad where I posted about my surgeries and treatments. When my best friend moved to Australia while I was recovering from chemo, I started a private blog just for him called Watch My Hair Grow where I posted a picture of myself every week, so he could see how quickly I was going from bald to not-bald.

Social Media is called Social Media for a reason. It’s not about hiding behind a computer screen and interacting with the world. It’s about reaching out into the world, making connections, and finding people and places where you belong.

Louisville Film Fest Giveaway! Party on, Dudes!

I'm super excited to announce that thanks to the fine folks at the Louisville Film Festival, I have two passes to the October event to give away to my faithful readers and Twitter followers.

Here's how to win:

Hop on the Tweetybox and tweet me AND @LouFilmFest the name of a film that was integral to your youth that you're worried the youth of 2011 will not be exposed to.

I'll choose a winner at random on September 28. Only one entry per Tweety person.

As a high school teacher, I know that kids these days are still watching the good ol' John Hughes staples. And no self-respecting parent is letting their children hit puberty without sitting them down and making them watch the Star Wars trilogy (the good one).

But I do worry that Keanu Reeves' entire oeuvre has made parents forget just how terrific he was back in 1989.

So my answer would read: @loueyville, I worry that kids these days aren't getting enough Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventures. @LouFilmFest

Because my students think I've lost it when I pronounce the philosopher's name "So-Crates."

Update: So far we've had nominations of:

• @loueyville, I worry that kids are missing "Meatballs." Shouldn't they learn early that "it just doesn't matter!" if they win? @LouFilmFest -- from @eekshecried
• @loueyville I worry that kids won't know about Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Such a flawless expression of the simple joys of youth @LouFilmFest-- from @lesil
• @loueyville, I worry that kids these days aren't getting enough of "the sound of music." @LouFilmFest-- from @freeyourheart
• @loueyville @LouFilmFest The movie from my youth that I think todays youth will not be exposed to is "This Is Spinal Tap"-- from kycubsfan
• Today's youth need to know about Rain Man (R). @LouFilmFest @Loueyville j.mp/lfilm11-- from @zepfanman
• @loueyville @LouFilmFest No laughing: I'm afraid today's youth won't be properly exposed to Star Wars. The new stuff just isn't the same. :/ -- from @erin_mcmahon
• @loueyville I wonder if anyone under 40 has or will ever see "Out of Africa." Not funny, but neither is life sometimes. :) @LouFilmFest from @MsPaulaBurba
• @loueyville I worry that kids are missing "Major Payne". Tough love, is the best love. No tears, no excuses. @LouFilmFest from @KdeLost
• I'm worried kids today won't know what a Truffle Shuffle is or where "Hey you guyyyyyys" is from #Goonies @loueyville @LouFilmFest from @EvanWinkle
• @loueyville , I worry that kids won't see Blade Runner. So many great things about that movie. @LouFilmFest

Rally to Restore Sanity: A Loueyville Twitter Special Edition

For the first time ever, I am handing over the reins of my Twitter account to a guest tweeter.  This Saturday, Roommate will be attending the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity/Keep Fear Alive event in Washington, DC, and he will be tweeting live from the event.

Follow me (him) at @loueyville.  He'll be signing his tweets as /rm.  If I have anything to interject, I'll sign my tweets as /lou.

Roommate says, "Don't forget, my motto is 'We MUST keep fear ALIVE."

I have to say, I'm really looking forward to this.  Obviously, I think Roommate is a funny funny guy-- otherwise he wouldn't be my best friend of almost nine years-- and he's kind of a loose cannon.  I wish I could be there, but the live broadcast plus Roommate's commentary could make for a really excellent Saturday afternoon!

Are you going to be tweeting from the Rally to Restore Sanity/Keep Fear Alive?  Comment below.

We Will Not Let Our Fame Go to Our Heads.

… although there’s plenty o’ room in this noggin.

My Twitterfeed (go figure) was listed in Louisville.com’s “22 Online Resources to Keep Tabs on Louisville’s Cultural Events.” I guess I’m going to have to tone down the bs-y chit-chat about Susan Boyle and long nights drinking at the Back Door and step it up a bit.

Nah. Probably not going to happen.

By the way, follow me on twitter to be regaled with stories, some snark (although I try to keep that down), my love of Mythbusters and all things dorky and NPR-y, and yes, cultural events.

My twitter handle is : Loueyville

Louisville Tweets

The new Facebook format has done much in the way of curing Lou of her Facebook addiction. Not the best layout for a woman who has weird manifestations of pseudo-OCD. Less is more, FB. Less is more. More is not more. More is not brushing the mountain of powdered sugar off the top of your Kentucky State Fair Fried Dough. It may not kill you, but you'll feel like crap for hours.

So my second favorite social networking tool is quickly moving up in my list o' loves. Twitter is oodles of fun. Where else can you hear about NPR's Scott Simon's pizza breakfast with his daughters and Adam Savage of Mythbusters' love of Battlestar Galactica* and still get local skinnies straight from the horses' mouths?

Today on Consuming Louisville, Michelle (our "Most Influential Loueyville Woman: Geek Edition") posted her "Louisville Guide to Twitter" listing Louisville businesses that are Tweeting. It's awesome. Check it out.

Michelle, along with Tweeties** @beccaheiser @mizhellion and @ashleycecil, convinced me that I really needed to "do the tweet" a few months ago at the Louisville Geek Dinner at the BBC on Shelbyville.

Can of worms, meet the Tweeties who opened you. Tweeties, meet my can of worms.

Don't forget, you can do the tweet with me at @loueyville .

* If you're wondering, I'm saving the final installment (blub) of BSG for tomorrow morning. Kind of like ye olde Saturday morning cartoons, only much fraking sadder. I can't wait. Was not a planned engagement though; turns out that after 5.5 months of seperation, my TiVo and I are like college sweethearts seperated by a semester abroad. We're so happy to see each other, but we're both still a little cynical and skeptical. What really happened while we were apart? Do we even remember how to be a couple anymore?

** The accepted term is tweeple. I know.

Social Media Overload

Yesterday, I attended the fantastic Let them Tweet Cake event at Sweet Surrender (gosh, I wish I liked sweets) sponsored by Michelle at Consuming Louisville. And I listened to the streaming audio of Michelle's appearance on State of Affairs (listen to it here) with two other Louisville bloggers from the excellent Backseat Sandbar and Broken Sidewalk. And I came to the following conclusions:

1. I am nowhere near the geek that I thought I was, or would like to be!
2. My social media chops need serious work.
3. Everyone who's anyone Twitters.
4. I really need to do a better job of surrounding myself with fantastic, smart women because even us thirty-mumble-somethings need role models.
5. And my big take-away from the State of Affairs show was that the best blogs are focused, and Loueyville ain't focused. Then again, Mama ain't focused... so there you have it.

I can't say that Loueyville (or Lou) will get more focused in the coming days, but at least that little birdie is now tweeting in the back of my brain.

Speaking of tweeting, Loueyville IS on Twitter. (I checked into my account last night and the most recent tweet was: "Watching the Derby Post Selection. Go Denis of Cork!")