DanRochman.com

I had managed, without much effort - alright, without any effort - to avoid facebook until just yesterday. I’m not actually much for socializing, even less for networking, and so am almost *against* social networking. Besides, I assumed that the online high school crowd had as much interest in my doings as I’ve got in theirs, which is roughly none at all. But then Arnon signed up, and all that changed. Someone over 20, on facebook?? Really?? Who knew?? Apparently, everyone but me, since I was so studiously ignoring it. The world record holder may be my brother Rammy, who just turned **50** (Happy Birthday, Ram!!), and who has a facebook profile. Anyhow, since it turns out that any number of my friends, enemies, relatives, acquaintances, past and present co-workers, and other folks I’ve somehow met are all on there, I’ve given in and signed up for an account. I’m a little queasy at the thought of having yet *another* online presence that I can update close-to-never, but hey, it’s free, so why not? If you use facebook, feel free to add me as a friend, or write on my wall, or whatever it is people do on facebook when they’re supposed to be working/studying/sleeping.

While I was on an extremely atypical (for me) social networking binge, I figured I’d also jump on the Twitter bandwagon, and got an account there (from the browser on my PDA/phone, no less) this morning. For those who don’t already know, Twitter is basically a stripped-down, hosted micro-blog, which generally consist of short (140 characters or less, to stay within text messaging limits) updates on your current status, or else short messages to friends. Since I don’t do much (any?) text messaging, I’m not sure I’ll get much out of it, but it’s definitely an interesting concept - the heavy-into-texting crowd (those high school kids, again) must *love* it. So, assuming I ever actually update my Twitter status (never mind updating my facebook status - oof) you can see what I’m up to by glancing at http://twitter.com/danrochman.

It’s closing in on 9:00 PM (PDT), and I’m stuck at a client site in Novato, CA, waiting for some database routines to finish running so that I can validate the results. Sucks to be me. At least I got to break for dinner - and it’s billable time. Well, time spent blogging (while I wait on the database server) is “off the clock”, but the rest of it is definitely billable.

On the home front, all’s fairly quiet. Warmer weather has (mostly) arrived, which is a welcome change, and if nothing else the days are longer. We’re starting to think about our next vacations - when to take them, and where and how to spend them. Nothing firm yet, but it’s nice to read travel guides and reflect upon the possibilities…

Speaking of possibilities, I’m actually considering entering San Francisco’s first-ever Great Gorilla Run. I’m a sucker for anything involving gorilla suits (I was raised on M*A*S*H, you see), and it’s a good cause besides. Just to test the waters, would anyone out there consider sponsoring me (any amount!) if I were to run? And promised to get videos posted after the event??

Ah, the database just chimed. Time to wrap up, and (finally!) get home - Em’s going to have to fill me in on the final American Idol showdown. She’s rooting for Blake, so, um, Go Blake. That is all.