Category: Personal

How To Not Abuse Your Twitter Followers

Anytime someone expresses an opinion about how others ought to do something, they risk coming off as an insensitive, egotistical jerk. I hope I can diffuse that problem in this post while allowing us to discuss the issues at hand. Your patience is gold to me, friends. I hope this whole thing doesn’t come off as cranky. I’m shooting for helpful, mostly, and angry only where it really needs the teeth.

I’m pretty opinionated when it comes to Twitter. I use Twitter a lot. I’m coming up quickly on my 7000th tweet on my personal Twitter account, and I’m often annoyed by Twitter almost as much as I’m delighted by it. Because of that, I’ve built my own little list of personal rules over time, and I’d like to share those rules with you now.

My four rules: Favorite Freely, Don’t Retweet, Go Private Quickly, and Don’t Use Me.

  • Favorite Freely. When you see a tweet you like, take the time to thank the author by marking it as a favorite. You don’t have to be too reserved with what you mark. Think of a favorite like a laugh or a pat on the back. Freely given, but never forced. That will dictate how many you should give. Thanks to Twitter’s built-in individual favorites pages (here’s mine), and 3rd-party services like Tweeteorites, favorites are meaningful, first-class citizens of the Twitter world and not a silent afterthought.
  • Don’t Retweet. Controversy! I hold this rule for three reasons:
    1. I’m following you for your tweets, not the tweets of your friends. If I wanted to read theirs, I’d follow them. It’s not offensive, it’s how the system works. Please don’t break the system.
    2. If it’s a “social justice / I have to spread the word” kind of thing, you can always take what they say, put it in your own words, and post that to Twitter with “via” attribution. Easy, and much nicer. Doing less than that feels lazy and abusive of your followers’ attention.
    3. If I want to see the tweets you really like, I’ll just subscribe to your favorites. No need to force me to see them by broadcasting them.
  • Go Private Quickly. If you’re publicly conversing with someone, tweeting back and forth repeatedly, consider taking the conversation private if it adds little or no value to those who follow both of you. It gets spammy really quick if you’re exchanging details about something that isn’t likely to be helpful or interesting to other people. That’s lazy and inconsiderate. So, one reply? No problem. Five? Way too many.
  • Don’t Use Me. This is the Golden Rule of Twitter. Don’t consider me and your other followers to be part of a force that you can bend and manipulate to increase your respect, fame, and fortune. I follow you because I’m interested in what you have to say, not because I want to make you rich or fulfill some ego-centric dream you have. If you’re going to sell me something, it had better be a rarity and it had better be a sincere endorsement of something you personally and deeply love. The more you push your money-making, notoriety-making schemes on me, the closer you get to becoming a… well, I won’t use the word here. It’s distasteful, and this is a family show. In short: be a person. If you have something to sell, open another account for that. If people don’t follow that account, take a hint.

If you have additional rules that don’t seem to be addressed here, add them in the comments, or feel free to agree or disagree with me there.

Happy tweeting!

Lewis Baby #2 is Due in December! Woo!

We’re pregnant! Yes, really! Steph is 15 weeks along now, and the baby is due in mid-December. Steph has written her own entry with her thoughts on her blog, if you’d like to read it. I recommend you do.

So far, what we know is that the baby appears to be very healthy and normal. In fact, the doctors tell us this kid’s activity level is unusually high. They’ve already wished us luck when we have to take care of this one and Caleb at the same time. We could definitely use your prayers in advance. Thanks.

We don’t know the gender of the baby yet, but if the kid cooperates, we’ll know in a month or so. We’ll tell you as soon as we know.

I wasn’t sure if this world could handle even one of my spawn. Prepare yourself for two, World.

In God We Trust

A couple weeks ago, I told this story to a close friend of mine. I made it clear I didn’t have plans to share it publicly. He exhorted me to share it with all of you. I don’t share this in order to puff myself up or put myself on any kind of pedestal. It may do the opposite, I don’t know. I share it in the hopes that it will help or encourage somebody, even a little. Most of all, I hope it glorifies God and spreads the truth.

The two weeks following the loss of my job in mid-January 2009 were the darkest of my life. I did a fairly good job of keeping up a confident face for the world to see, but internally I was mentally and spiritually in shreds from constant worry. My thoughts were a stream of this type: What happens when the little money we have runs out? How will we feed ourselves? Will Caleb suffer due to decisions I’ve made? Will Stephanie suffer due to decisions I’ve made? What happens if we lose our house? If we sell this house now, won’t we lose money due to the state of the economy? If so, we won’t be able to afford to get another one, will we? Will I live with my parents for years to come? Shouldn’t I turn the heat down and just endure constant cold to save money? Shouldn’t we go hungry a little to save money? Is this the beginning of the end? Have I made some mistake that I’m being judged for, and there’s nothing I can do to save myself and my family now?

Everything everywhere was covered in a thick layer of doom.

I went out and purchased thermal pants (i.e. long johns). I wore them every day under my jeans. That’s the state of mind I was in. It was almost as though I was afraid I would freeze to death somehow. (In my defense, it really was extremely cold outside for those two weeks, but I agree the fear was entirely irrational.) At the time, I was desperate for anything that would reduce my worrying to any degree. If I had to find a dozen little anti-worry solutions that were highly effective when taken together, I would do that. Having interviews for new jobs helped. Talking with loved ones helped. Watching anything (especially funny stuff) that pulled my focus off our dire situation helped.

When Steph would ask me what would make me happiest, my answer was something like, “a big, fat, consistent paycheck.” Whichever job offered me the most money and seemed reasonably enjoyable, that’s the one I would take. Emotionally, that’s where my trust was. Money would make everything better. If only I had money, I would be happy and I wouldn’t have anything to worry about.

I’m writing this entry to convey one thing: those thoughts about money are horrible, devastating lies. I believed them, and I placed my trust and my security in money. Losing my job hurt me so deeply because it cut off my bi-weekly flow of security. That’s why the worry started, and that was the root of my problem.

I have a feeling I’m not the only one who has struggled with this issue. Think of it this way: pull some American money out of your pocket if you have any. Bills or coins, it doesn’t matter. You’ll notice every single piece has one phrase in common: “In God We Trust.” Why do you think, of all the places that phrase could be written, they chose to put it on money? I don’t know why they did, but I think it’s both amazingly wise, and incredibly ironic. Wise because that is the one place in which that reminder is most desperately needed, and ironic because it is true of so few people. For most, including myself at times, it is a total lie. (I honestly don’t care whether they keep the phrase written on American money or not. I care most whether or not we keep it written in our hearts.)

For me, the moment of testing came down to my job acceptance process. I had two job offers: one from a large, well-established, for-profit company, and one from a small, new, non-profit. The for-profit company was offering me more security than the non-profit, but the non-profit’s work was extremely exciting to me, I loved the people, and it seemed to be the closest to ministry I would likely get while still using my Computer Science degree every day. Something about that lit a fire in me, and I took the job with less security.

Listen, I am not saying this to toot my own horn. Please, if you’re getting stuck on that, you’re missing my point. My point is that I’m still here. I survived the decision, and God is taking care of me and my family. God is our security in a more real way than ever before. Does that mean I’ll be perfectly wonderful forever? No, especially not by American cultural standards (which, take note, are not the same thing as Christianity). What it means is that I’ll always have everything God wants me to have. When I’m in the midst of difficulty, it’s brought by God. A lack of money or health or anything is brought by God.

I think I can live with that. Worry-free.

My Driveway & My Job

At the risk of being overly-metaphorical and seeing symbols where none exist, I’d like to show you my aforementioned driveway. During my job search, I’d occasionally go out with a shovel and an ice pick and work on it a little. There were a few days, like today, where the weather warmed up and made a bigger difference than anything I was able to do with my puny ice pick.

I wish I had a “Before” shot from even two days ago, but this is what it looks like today:

My Driveway, February 9th, 2009

During my job search, I came upon an early-stage startup called The Table Project that really excited me. I found myself wishing it already existed so I could use it immediately. I interviewed with them, they felt like a fantastic fit, they offered me the Lead Web Developer position, and that’s what I’m starting this Wednesday, February 11th.

I cannot believe how blessed I am to be spending my days at the intersection of the Church and social networking. I’ve always loved writing code, but who’s ever heard of sanctified code? God never forgot me in the midst of the deep darkness of the last few weeks. In fact, I think this job is why I lost my last job. Does that mean it’s a guaranteed success? No. That just means it’s what I’m supposed to be doing right now. It’s more than I deserve, and I am so thankful.

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him, all creatures here below,
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Green Grass and a Clear Driveway

Last night I had a dream. In my dream, when I woke up the next morning, it was as though May had come in the middle of January. The snow had all melted overnight, the grass was green and growing, birds were singing, the sun was shining. I remember noticing my driveway in particular–there was not a scrap of ice or snow on it. It was perfectly clear and drivable. I knew I wouldn’t have to gun it while backing out of the garage anymore just to be sure I’d make it through the thick patch of snow and ice that had been there the day before.

And yet, there we all were on January 17th, only a few days after the coldest day in five years. The green grass was somehow wrong. It shouldn’t have been like that. It was supposed to be cold. People started worrying, saying, “It got 50 degrees warmer in one day. What if it happens again tomorrow, and the day after that?” and, “See? I told you global warming was going to kill us all!”

But I just enjoyed the weather. I wished everyone else would calm down and accept the blessing of not having to deal with the literally-deadly wind and cold we had endured only days earlier.

I’m pretty sure the dream has something to do with the mental state I’ve been in lately. My brain is crafting some pretty clever metaphors on its off time. Last Wednesday, on the 14th, I was laid off from Enclarity. My position was eliminated. The Vice President of my division called me into his office and told me that they were scaling back significantly in their web-related efforts, and that I and many others were being let go that day. I don’t want to risk revealing anything I shouldn’t about Enclarity, so that’s all the detail I’ll give about what happened, but I’m very happy that I left on good terms, and they made it quite clear they’d take me back if they could.

In the 24 hours after I was let go, Minnesota experienced the coldest weather it has seen in five years, Stephanie’s car got stuck in a ditch, Caleb got sick and vomited seven times from 1am to 4:30am while Steph and I tried groggily to nurse him back to health and back to sleep, and I struggled (and twice failed) to move all my personal data off the MacBook Pro I had used while at Enclarity and into a smaller hard drive in an older, non-portable Mac mini.

It seemed everything I touched was covered in thick ice and snow, making each decision riskier and more likely to fail, making simple tasks more difficult, sucking the joy and heat from life. But then, the dream. It reminded me of this passage from Zechariah 13:7-9:

“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
against the man who stands next to me,”
declares the Lord of hosts.

“Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered;
I will turn my hand against the little ones.
In the whole land, declares the Lord,
two thirds shall be cut off and perish,
and one third shall be left alive.
And I will put this third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.'”

Refining Fire, You are welcome here. Come, test, consume and purify.

Mike Rowe on Discovery, Realization and Lamb Castration

I saw this video tonight (via @siracusa) and was absolutely blown away. The video is a bit over 20 minutes long, but it blew my mind and I want to share it with you.

I want to be absolutely clear about this: I pay a lot of lip service to respecting farmers. (My father’s father, who lived in Forest City, Iowa, was a farmer his entire life.) I talk about how important factory workers and construction workers and mechanics are.

But when it really comes down to it, I am one of those elitist jerks who thinks that he’s better than a blue collar job. In my mind (and in more subtle behaviors) I degrade manual labor. I just want to confess that and point out that if we, as a society, keep making more and more people like me without making more people like the folks mentioned in this video, we’re in big trouble. I don’t know exactly what or how to change, but I’m very personally interested in the topic.