Don't look so shocked. I like talking to strangers about social media.

For as far as I can remember, my friends have given me a hard time for talking to strangers.

“There’s nothing wrong with making friends,” I would say.

Some things never change.
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While at the Albany airport, I sat down at a table in the air-conditioned area near my gate (#temp control fail) and a man with a bow tie asks me if I will be boarding the flight to DC.

After finding out that I work with computers (and that I’m in my 20′s), he immediately asks me a few things about “my generation,” (which reminds me of the millennials 60 minutes feature) namely, why we (a) don’t read books anymore (b) what is twitter and (c) why we don’t respect the right to privacy.

I took a deep breath and did my best to not only respond to the concerns of this southern attorney over the age of 60, but also to represent “my generation,” well (I saw it as my duty to be an ambassador).

While explaining the history of the interwebs as well as the rise of social media, he seemed to be quite concerned over the “sharing” aspect on the internet.

“Why would anyone do that?” he asked me. I explained the collaborative nature of social media, and he was stunned that anyone would give up their right to “privacy” and post information on the internet (note: oops. I’m sharing now.)

I explained privacy settings and the ability to “hide” information, as well as how he would be able to interact and keep in touch with his kids. Fail.

Not willing to give up, I tried to steer this discussion in a new direction – and somehow, in a completely organic way, we ended up at everyone’s favorite online dating hotspot: match.com.

He proceeded to tell me that he met his girlfriend on Match and now they’re living together, but that it wasn’t easy- he explained that a high percentage of people he met posted very outdated pictures.. and he said (which was funny) “When I meet you in person, I’m going to remember the photo you showed me. What are they thinking, anyway?”

In summary, he made it clear to me that he doesn’t understand the “point” of social media/web 2.0, but yet experienced it in a very real way – by using match.com to meet his current girlfriend.

Best closing line: “You’re too young to know this, but the difference between 45 and 50 can be quite dramatic. A lot can happen in 5 years.”

Online dating words of wisdom from a cautious random attorney.

Yep. That's Windows 98 keepin' this kiosk alive.

This past Thursday evening, I visited my local Albany, NY movie theater to go see State of Play with a friend. What I was expecting was to be entertained, what I was not expecting was to have my evening nearly ruined by a klunky user interface (UI).

If you just thought to yourself, “this girl is totally exaggerating,” you are 50% correct. I am, but I’m not, really.

It was at this point when I realized that not all movie ticket kiosks (kindof like men) are not made equal. Post-Google research showed that there are many companies who design and distribute these handy machines, but it just so happened that I happened upon a sub-standard one.

Sure, this situation vaguely reminds me of a Kurt Vonnegut novel, but there is some truth to it- there are some things that movie ticket theater kiosks should keep in mind.

1. Touch Screen Monitors are a Must: This local albany kiosk had some sort of old-school “the buttons on the sides do not line up with the items on the screen” issue. Not cool.
2. Don’t Time Out after 15 Seconds: The kiosk timed out while I was looking for my credit card. By the time my hand emerged from my (huge) purse with my visa ready to go, I was back to looking at the home screen. really? really?
3. Maintain ‘Em: After a flikr search on the subject, I found a hilarious picture of one kiosk running Windows 98 (see above- embarassing…shouldn’t it be showing the app dashboard) and a friend sent me an iPhone photo that depicts another with the blue screen of death.

Bottom line: Sometimes, it’s OK to embrace when something has reach it’s EOL (end of life)… and it’s ok to move on (like in the case of windows 98). We all did.

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Blogging Tunes: Kate Nash – Nicest Thing
via FoxyTunes

Saying goodbye for a few days...

One major aspect of my current role is relocating – different places, roles, projects, managers, teams and… climates.

Last Monday, both the moving company and car relocation specialist came to Atlanta to  pack up and move everything across the country for me, as I had finished my first rotation.

It was a day filled with bittersweet moments– watching my room transition from full to empty, handing over the keys of my car to the man with the flatbed truck, turning in my keys and signed paperwork to the apartment community…

And I thought to myself, how could this day be more techy? Well, for starters, I probably should have attached some sort of tracker to my car so I knew where it was at all times…

But anyway, my new place of residence is in the “heart of Albany,” and I’m hoping to bring together area bloggers for a few events this summer…