Kinder Surprise – a set on Flickr: “”

So we’re coming back across the border from British Columbia to the US. My wife has never been in a duty free shop before, so we figured we’d stop. Talk about making the trip to Canada extra special. We found out the sell Kinder Eggs.

The picture is the still closed Kinder Egg Surprise. I won’t tell you here what’s inside, but I’d love you to see inside the Kinder egg.

These are apparently unable to be purchased inside the US, so I consider this an extremely lucky find. Do enjoy the photos, and be sure to share your Kinder stories.

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Around the Valley in 60 Days: Hello to St.Peters, Missouri: “”

My brother-in-law gives us a shout out from his blog. He shares a picture of our twin granddaughters from our visit out there. Jerry also wrote us a nice note.

Thanks Jerry!

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Readers of this blog will already know how I spent part of my Canada visit engaged in social networking. But it didn’t stop there.

My wife and I had the chance to meet Glenda Watson-Hyatt in person as well. Glenda and her husband Darrell hosted us for lunch in Surrey, BC. We met at the City Center Brewery.

Glenda is both an author and professional blogger. I came to know her first though through Twitter. Yep, Twitter. She’s a social media maven like me.

Glenda welcomed us with open arms and a smile. I immediately felt like a real friend. As she led my wife and I into the restaurant though, I had to race to keep up. She’s no slow poke.

This lunch proved to be one that Sharon and I were loath to end. The time was one of good food, good stories, and good friends. But it also brought home some lessons for life and social networking about meeting in person.

People are so much more than a few characters in a Twitter message. Sure, people tell you their favorite color or drink, or where they like to eat, or mention their struggles. But until you sit across the table from them at their favorite restaurant, you don’t know the why’s and real what’s of those things. And you begin to understand why sometimes you didn’t get the jokes before.

Hugs and handshakes cement a relationship like few things in life. Yes, you can share your profile, and pictures of your kids and dogs, but that’s all superficial stuff. Stuff your neighbors know and maybe your kids’ friends even. But how many times have you hugged those folks? Hugs, even among gents, are considered a hallmark sign of friendship. Hugs welcome someone closer than any stranger has a right to be.

Appreciation happens. Yes, we say we appreciate each other. But when was the last time you didn’t gripe about picking up your kids, and they’re only ten minutes away. How good does it feel then to have someone travel hundreds of miles to meet in person. Or how much more do you appreciate someone and time with them when you’ve traveled far to share a few minutes with them.

Glenda has cerebral palsy. You’d never know it from her online presence if you didn’t read her blog. She’s feisty and full of more energy than most of us. Her blog is constantly updated, she’s authoring another book, and she’s extremely active on Twitter, other folks’ blogs and more.

She’s the same in person, but wheelchair bound and each syllable a struggle to get out. Meeting her made me feel really humble. I thought I understood the effort she was putting into having such an active life online and off, and now I’m struggling to express myself without feeling to shameful. She wouldn’t want that for me I know.

Glenda hugged me like she meant it. Wow. We’d only ever chatted online with no video sessions and no audio. She’d only heard I was a nice guy, and hopefully thought so from my online presence. But she made me feel welcomed with that hug. Like we were long separated friends. And she had so much energy, it’s hard to tell you that.

Each word was a struggle, yet she shared how happy she was to meet in person. I realized how much our relationship meant to her as well. Not only did she put up with me catching on to her lingo, but Darrell and her had to trek across town in their wheelchairs just to dine with us. Talk about feeling appreciated. To top it off, she gave us a personal copy of her book, I’ll Do It Myself.

Sharing lunch with Glenda was a highlight of my week and vacation. Yeah, we’d exchanged dozens of messages, and postcards even, but wow did I so not know her. Nor did I realize how enjoyable her company would be. Darrell was an added bonus. He not only played translator but was a great lunch companion. Not afraid to make recommendations, nor to put back a cold one with us. You know what I say, the best way to share with friends is over a good meal.

So yeah, chat yourself up, have a thousand friends on Facebook or whatever, but don’t count yourself lucky until you’ve taken that relationship offline as well. This year has been a fantastic series of meeting online contacts in the flesh. There was the MidWest Media Conference, the St. Louis Blogger meet ups, and the Social Media Club St. Louis meet. Then how about the trip to Austin with tweetups, lunches, and breakfast tacos. Oh yeah, and how about the Lo-Fi St. Louis Restart party at the Mad Art Gallery!

To think, the year is just now about half over. I can’t wait to take social networking to the pub, diner, or dance floor next. Where are you meeting your contacts?Similar Posts:

• Ask and deliver

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My vacation plans started off ordinarily enough, time away from work and visiting with family. In this case, the family is my daughter-in-law and granddaughters up in Washington State. The plan was one week up there, visiting and perhaps drifting up to Seattle for a day or two. Well, things changed!

In my searching around for things to do, I came across some folks that sent me to a link on Jeff Pulver’s next breakfasts. Guess where? Seattle and Vancouver on back to back days! Yeah. We’d thought already about heading into Seattle, Vancouver, or both, so I was excited about this.

As it turned out, Seattle was too hard to make, so we changed plans to make a week day trip to British Columbia and have breakfast the next day. That travel adventure is fodder for another post.

The breakfast was held in down town Vancouver at the Subeez Cafe. Sharon and I arrived about 8:30, and the meet-up portion was already in full swing. There was Jeff, live and in person, elbow deep in schmoozing with the locals. It seems folks from all over the area were interested in this get together.

Minutes after getting there, we were handed our personal social networking tool kits. If you’ve never seen one, then please check out this Facebook video. Jeff explains it all.

Kit in hand, we quickly put on our name tags and gave ourselves tag lines. I labeled myself as a social media gadabout. Sharon chose the oh so true social media widow. This made a great intro for discussions folks had with her. Moments later, someone handed us each some other tags to label ourselves with. Tagging is a big part of these breakfasts.

We spent some moments looking around this rather unique restaurant, but most of the time after our tagging was spent in deep conversations, and there was plenty to talk about. Conversations obviously included social media and networking as topics, but also strayed into all kinds of areas. Sharon ended up talking about our travels, where we’re from and learned plenty about Canada from Ian Hood and Roland Tangloa. These gents made us feel the more like friends than strangers. Of course my wife is like that with folks anyway. Ha.

Everyone was talking and there was a wealth of interesting folks to engage there. Jeff Pulver was going to be my primary target but once I got settled, I found there were others just as interesting. And just so much I couldn’t take it all in. If you get a chance to go, do talk with Jeff, but don’t ignore all the wonderful people like yourself that showed up as well.

Conversation didn’t come to an end even when breakfast arrived. The breakfast was a treat and a nice surprise. Originally this was going to be a continental breakfast. In most places that means bagels, fruit, cereal etc. Not so here.

The Subeez Cafe apparently doesn’t serve breakfast regularly. So for us they whipped special up. Check out this picture.

The first thing to catch my eye was the fresh fruit. Strawberries and apples fresh cut and colorful sat nicely on each plate. This was the first time though I’d had fresh fruit and toast though. Turkey sausage and baked beans nestled nicely with fluffy scrambled eggs between the fruit and toast. To top off the toast, there was a side of peanut butter on each plate. Needless to say, the breakfast drew much of the immediate conversation.

Interesting things besides breakfast included that I’ve been a much busier Twitter user than most in attendance. Most folks there used other social networking tools, though no one had heard of Plurk yet. Facebook seemed popular though, and several folks had full blown websites and blogs. Photography seemed popular as well, with several folks having cameras and video going.

What did I take away from this? What value added did it have in my life? The biggest thing for me was getting face time with folks I’d normally only meet online. In a world where many of us will communicate but never shake hands, this is even more important. Being there in person also allows for more intimate communication, including other forms of personal communication, such as body language and expressions. There’s nothing quite like a real life wink to cement meaning in a message.

Documenting this with words isn’t doing this event justice, so I took some pictures as well. Please check out my pictures of the Vancouver Jeff Pulver breakfast. If you’re on Facebook, be sure to check out the event page. Please feel free to tag the pictures, and leave comments if you know anyone in them.

Now what? Now I start planning on joining Jeff Pulver for breakfast in St. Louis. How about you?
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• Ask and deliver

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     Nanna J and I are taking the big bird out to Seattle on June 10th.  We’ll be flying out of Lambert Int’l Airport in St. Louis in the evening.  We are headed there to see our son’s family, at Ft. Lewis, Wa.  Mostly we are going because of the three granddaughters.

     While we’re there, our plan is not just to visit with the girls but get out and see a few things.  We’d really enjoy hooking up with folks in the area and seeing something we’ve not seen before.  During out last visit a few years ago, we saw the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project, and the Sci-fi museum.  We also visited the Pike St. Market and took the underground tour.

     Looking for ideas in or around Seattle of course but considering the drive to Portland, Or or up to British Columbia. (Would be my wife’s first out of country visit if so.)  We are also open to meeting up with folks one of the days a photowalk, to hang out for drinks, or something in between.

     Drop a comment here, send me a tweet, an email, or call and leave me something here 636-486-4723.  Oh yes, please include links if you’ve got them.

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     This was taken in the BigTop Candy Store on S. Congress in Austin. Just wanted to share the goodness with you.  Click on the picture to find more shots from the candy store and from our vacation in Austin.

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Austin made me feel welcome in more ways than one.  Heck, they even named a store after my son, Randall’s.  Throughout the week folks were courteous and welcoming.

That and they kept apologizing for the weather.  Yes, when it’s below 70 something or the least bit clowdy, they think the weather is bad.  Heck, it was flooding in our neck of the woods when we left and cold too boot.

Austin brought Nanna J and I opportunities for dining experiences, cultural discoveries, and making new friends.  Simis, a photographer friend,  hosted us for the entire week. My favorite shot of her.

During our visit were were able to not just meet with Simis, but with several other contacts of mine from Twitter. We had lunch out with @Orchid8.

We had breakfast with @mikeneumann:

Dinner with Simis:

And then a whole dang tweetup hosted by Kim Haynes.

Several folks turned out for the meetup and made us feel quite welcome. We didn’t just talk about Twitter either. No, we talked about blogging, social media, photography, and social networking. But beyond that, we had opportunity to talk about each other, Austin, and food. You know that last one is dear to my heart. Ha.

As you can see, just meeting folks was a busy week. I’ll have to do another post about the cultural stuff I guess. Expect a post just about the food as well.

For a visual recap of our week in Austin be sure to check out Flickr. I’ll be adding more pics to that set over the next several days.

In summary, the trip to Austin brought me closer to folks in my network than just being virtual friends.  We talked, we laughed, and we broke bread together.  Those are the makings of a lasting friendship.  Heck, in all the excitement, I made some new friends too and so did our friend Simis.

What are you doing with your next vacation? Seeing the Grand Canyon, or closing the loop with friends? Can you manage both like in our Austin trip?Similar Posts:

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Man, do they ever!

Actually what you are seeing is a giant iron wrought butterfly.  This is one of three at the Zilker Botanical Garden in Austin, Tx.

My wife and I had a great time taking pictures at the garden.  The butterflies are just a bit of the unique things to see there.

Of course there were flowers as well.

And of course fairies…

All in all, a magical place to visit. Cheers.

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supermodel SharonOriginally uploaded by .simis.

Portrait of my Sharon, aka Nanna J, by Simis.  Simis is one of my favorite photographers on Flickr and this week she is hosting us in Austin, Tx.

This was taken at the Loop 360 bridge on the outskirts of Austin. We did a whole photo session at the bridge. You’ll see some shots of that later. Look forward to more pictures of hers and ours to be posted here.

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20080323 .Sharon and me. day147 Originally uploaded by .simis.

Two sweet ladies meet for the first time. Simis is hosting Nanna J and me in Austin this week. It’s hard to tell who is more excited.  Ha.

Look forward to more pictures of us all over this week. Please click through and show Simis’s pictures some comment love.

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