Alright everyone, it’s time to fess up on something. Do you often cringe when your child has the opportunity to pick something from a prize box? It may be a prize after having a shot at the doctor, doing something well at school, or trading tickets in at an arcade. Let’s be real here – none of the prizes are usually meant to last forever and can often be annoying to those around them after they come home.
Case in point: This is a prize that my son picked our after an appointment the other day.
No, I am not kidding you. This came home with us and I cringed. I did not want to be THAT parent that said no, so I allowed it. Soon after we arrived at home, the fart jokes, loud blasts, and laughing began. It was cute at first, but then it got old quickly. This lead to me sending out a Tweet. The Tweet was replied to by Janice Person. As I was Tweeting, the boys were trying to figure out how to make a bigger, louder, and more impressive fart noise from said Whoopee Cushion.
Almost immediately after I sent that last Tweet out, I heard a giant BOOM from where the two boys were playing. I knew it was not a good sign, well not for the Whoopee Cushion at least. Tears, screams, and more Tweets followed.
After the kids calmed down, and I gathered my composure back up I eventually took this photographic proof:
So my question to you this week:
What is the most annoying prize that that your child has ever won or received and why?
Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.
Weather – not exactly the topic of choice for a blog post, yet it is one that is on my mind. You see, in my part of NY, we expect weather issues in the winter. Ice and snow often keep us home, make driving treacherous, and cause damage to our home. This is not usually true in the spring, summer, and fall. These seasons are relatively quiet most years.
Mother Nature apparently decided that she was going to get our attention this summer. Over the last two and a half weeks, it has been wild, wacky, and down right deadly in certain locations.
Tuesday, August 23 – The boys and I just got into our car that had been serviced. As I turned the key, the car started to buck violently. The boys did not seem to notice. I got out of the car. This is when I felt dizzy and like my knees were going to go out from underneath me. This should have been my clue, but I was tired and getting ready for a romantic 10th Anniversary getaway with TechyDad. Thanks to Twitter, I quickly learned that what I had felt was not my car – it was an earthquake. Yes, in NY we were experiencing the quake that started in Virginia. Linda Carmical wrote about the social media connection and how word spread.
Sunday, August 28 – Hurricane Irene, came up the east coast and left a major impression on regions that were a lot further inland than ever expected. Thanks to this monster storm, we had to cancel said trip to Disney World. Roads were flooded throughout NY, bridges closed, and rivers running into homes that are gone. We were so lucky, but so many others were not.
For a few days, the weather was quiet. The sun came out. People started to clean up, repair homes, and move back into areas that had been evacuated by the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers. Then it changed.
Sunday, September 4 – While at a birthday party, my father called us. He wanted to let us know that there were tornado warnings throughout the area. Sure enough, when we looked outside the wind was wild and the sky rather black. The party was over and we knew that closer to our house was getting better. As we left Chuck E Cheese, a clap of thunder shook the entire parking lot. A car alarm went off, and the sky was lit up with bolts of lightning. As we drove you could see the ominous sky fading behind us. By the time we reached our home the news of a tornado in Amsterdam had been confirmed. Here is a video that was filmed of the Tornado crossing the NY State Thruway (at about 5:48 in the video):
This seemed to open the rain up to the area again.
Monday to Thursday, September 5-8 – Yes, Mother Nature decided to dump more water on the area already inundated with flooding after Hurricane Irene. Welcome the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee. Pieces were not picked up and inches of water were back all this week. Back to school has been gray, rain filled, and nasty. The Mohawk and Hudson Rivers, along with countless other creeks and waterways are over their banks. Watching the reports out of Binghamton, NY and other areas just breaks my heart. At midnight on Wednesday, areas in Schenectady County that had been evacuated during Irene were once again in chaos. People were told to leave immediately as water started to spill into the streets.
My heart goes out to all of those who have been dealing with this horrible weather and damage. We will be working on a project to help locals with items that are needed. Of course, I so wish we could bring some of the water to those in Texas. Thanks to the drought that area could really use it to help stop the raging wildfires.
So my question to you this week:
Do you recall many natural disasters from your childhood? If you do what were they and how did they change your life? Dare I ask . . . how is the weather by you?
I hardly recall any other hurricanes in our area. I remember them going to Long Island and places south of us, but no flooding in our region like this. This week, we are expecting the sun to return, which is much needed. Of course, this flooding will be an on going issue with any additional rain for months.
Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.
Klout stormed onto the social media radar not too long ago. Since that time, it has been watched, analyzed, and picked apart by countless people. I am not here to do that. Instead, I want to admit that I am intrigued by Klout and often wonder how and why it works. I have a Klout plugin on my Seesmic Desktop so I can be nosey.
At first Klout was just a number. According to Klout:
Klout measures influence based on the ability to drive action, not potentially misleading metrics like follower or friend count. Klout has analyzed over 85 million people on major social networks, and is used by over 3000 brands and applications.
Then, they started Klout Perks. This was a way for businesses to work with individuals via Klout to learn about new products from their brands. Some companies that have used Perks are Disney, Spotify, Subway, and P&G. Sometimes, Perks are sent to you via a Tweet from Klout Perks, other times they show up in your dashboard.
Thanks to Klout Perks, I have been able to try Spotify, test Secret Clinical Strength deodorant, and, most recently, help with PACE through a Klout Perk with Dick’s Sporting Goods. PACE helps to protest athletes through concussion education.
Klout also allows you to recognize people that influence you. By going to Klout, you can look at the topics that people are influential in and give them a +K. When you give someone a +K, you are able to Tweet it. There is some controversy about tossing this into the Twitter streams. Some people consider it Spam. I tend to agree, so I add a message to the tweet to personalize it. Here’s an example:
It’s like my view of Follow Friday. Rather than a long stream of Twitter people, I personalize it with something that makes them special to me. People have noticed this and several that I know have started this fun new touch to giving +K to people.
So this week’s Aloha Friday question is inspired by Klout:
Have you signed up for Klout yet? If you have, what do you like and/or dislike about it? I would love to know what topics it says you are influential about. Do you have any thoughts on the +K Tweets?
Disclosure: I was given Dick’s Sporting Goods gift cards because I’m a Klout influencer. I was under no obligation to receive the sample or talk about this company. I get no additional benefits for talking about the product or company. This perk simply worked into my post about Klout in general.
Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.
As I was sitting in bed trying to make the best of being sick, Twitter crashed. It went out of service for quite time time. Of course, most people immediately went to other Social Media areas. While in one of those locations Kelby, TypaAMom, mentioned that she wished the Fail Whale was a little more festive. I immediately went to Picnik and had some holiday fun. I wanted to at least make her smile.
This is the Festive Fail Whale that I made with Kelby’s inspiration:
Of course, TechyDad added that it would be fun to change some of the Twitter birds to dreidels, so here is what I came up with just for him.
Now we can just hope that the Fail Whale behaves as we head into the New Year. As fun as holiday inspired themes are, I would prefer not to make another.
Over the last few months, I have mentioned projects, deadlines, articles to write and blog posts for another project in my Tweets. Up until this post, I have been pretty quiet about it here on my own blog. I have been working on a new adventure. To say that this never would have been possible without social media, specifically Twitter, would be an understatement.
Quite a while ago, I "met" @AnaRC on Twitter. We started chatting about crazy New York winters and Disney. Ana moved to Northeast NY from her previous home of Western NY. Fast forward to present day and I am working on her latest pet project called KidsFunPlaza. This project is a dream that she had and is living out. Not only is there a blog, but a new magazine for the Northeast region of New York. Check out our first baby (with my second baby modeling it):
I am writing the toddler and kiddo articles on the KidsFunPlaza Blog as well as in the magazine. In addition to this, I am doing interviews in the magazine for the Parent and Educator of the month. Our second magazine is going to print next week and I can not wait to see it. The blog is not region specific and has articles that are written by an amazing group of women that I will introduce you to soon in another post. For now, please say hello to those of us on Twitter –> @CutestKidEver, @TheCraningGap, @SandraFoyt and @AlbanyMommy (if I missed someone please let me know). The magazine is a local resource for parents, grandparents, and others that will be available in locations for FREE. Eventually, KidsFunPlaza will be expanding to other regions and will be a fantastic resource for people throughout the country.
So my question to you this week is:
Do you have a free local parent magazine/paper near you? If you do what do you like/dislike about it? If you do not, what would you like to see in one some day?
Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.
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