I found a picture of Bailey while cleaning out some old files the other day and was blown away by how much he has changed in color since he was a puppy. I remember when I picked him up at the breeder and he fit in both hands. Here are a couple pics showing his changes. The face is most noticeable now as he is going white very fast, and he is only 7 years old!  I wish I had photos of him when he had a full mouth of teeth

Bailey at about 8 weeks old:
(the banana toy was about 6″ long)

Bailey around 4 years old:

Bailey about 4 or 5 years old:

Bailey tonight:

Picture “Video Killed the Radio Star” playing in the background…  I am hardly a star but it is what I thought of yesterday while hearing people discuss Twitter at the AIMWest Social Media Confab yesterday at the Grand Rapids JW Marriott.

In my case, it seems increased usage of Twitter has led to decreased blogging and the trend seems to have spread to others in my office.  Maybe I’ve had less to blog about, less time to blog in general, or perhaps less interest…but in any case it usually comes down to the redundancy between what I might blog about and what I am talking about on Twitter.  The “What I’m Doing” widget on the right captures just about everything I am up to via a Twitter feed so is it at all helpful or interesting to summarize or rephrase it here?

The other issue of late has been my desire/need to separate work and personal life.  I equate this to taking two distinctly different groups of friends out to the bar and then watching the awkwardness that ensues.  You know some old friend is going to tell the most embarrassing story or pick the most inappropriate youthful indiscretion to relive…

As my professional contacts grow on my previous largely personal social media outlets I find myself censoring or at least very carefully considering what I post for general consumption.  For instance, my trip to Key West, FL during Fantasy Fest was an amazingly fun time with a group of friends that I’ve known since college, but most of the photos I took “documenting the madness” are hardly safe for work. As I’ve told people, the most popular Halloween costume was just plain nude with a little body paint.  (Don’t worry, me and my group of friends remained clothed at all times) I tweeted about it, but I resisted all temptation to “twitpic” the events. Maybe a year ago I would have posted pics on flickr, blogged about the craziness and shared more realtime with Twitter.  It’s not like I have a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde dichotomy going on between my work and personal/social life…its just easier not starting meetings with Deans or the President with a conversation about something crazy I see/say/retweet outside of work.

I’d be interested to hear others’ thoughts on this, any solutions, insight, best practices would be appreciated! I know from conversation yesterday others are in this boat as well!

Its been a while since I’ve had something of any merit to post here, but after a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan I found some amusing things to share.  My trip started yesterday morning at 5am – I was making the trip north to deliver my friend’s car for storage over the winter.  He has a barn there and had driven up the day before…  In total, I spent just over 24 hours in the U.P…here are some of the things I saw while there:

I was able to help with a couple projects around the farm – the first of which was to move the “hunting camp” from a spot by the river to higher ground.  The original camp was also built on tree stumps which had moved so much over the years that the structure was no longer stable.  A river also runs about 50 yards from the camp and the water often rises so much that someday the building could float away.  For those wondering what a hunting camp is, it is basically a shack with a wood stove and cots where people go and don’t emerge until they run out of food, beer, or until they shoot a deer.  Here is a picture from ‘05 showing the camp in its original glory.

The process of moving the camp took many hours and its a sheer miracle that we were able to complete the process.  Essentially we had to back a trailer under the building, secure the building to the trailer then cut the building from the tree stumps and supports that were securing it about 6 ft in the air.  Its also a miracle that we all walked away with life and limb considering we were using a 3 ton automotive floor jack and logs to support the place while cutting the supports with a chain saw.  I wish I had more pics documenting the madness.  Well into the project, once the camp was on the trailer, the trailer sank into the thick U.P. clay/mud and the tractor couldn’t pull it out.  So, we hooked one, then two, trucks up the tractor, which was in turn connected to the trailer and pulled.  Finally after jerking the tractor and camp loose with the truck and tow straps we moved it 1000 yards to its new location.  Here is a picture of the tractor and camp on the move, not in the picture are the trucks connected to the front…it was something to behold

While in town for breakfast we stopped at the local thrift shop we jokingly call the “shit shack” they have everything you never knew you wanted until someone else was ready to throw it away.  While looking around I came across this unique display holding all varieties of condoms.  Upon close inspection I found that they had all expired last year…  They seemed to be a good deal, but the population of Pickford may accidentally increase by a couple more this year!

Later that day I snapped this pic of someone who came to the farm to pick up an old bed off a pickup truck.  You can’t see it very well in the picture but he brought his old truck out hooked up to a boat trailer which now has another old bed on it…  Again, only in the U.P.

Finally, this morning after breakfast this morning we noticed a unique shed in someone’s backyard.  It was an ingenious design and so well put together that you could barely tell that it was nothing more than a couple walls made out of 6 foot fence segments with an aluminum truck topper on top as a roof.  Amazing!

So, that was my last 24 hours…can you top that?

Wow…I’ve really slowed down posting actual blog entries since using twitter more heavily.  If you really need to follow my life more closely you can get regular updates here: http://twitter.com/benrapin (or just read the updates to the right)

A lot has happened in the last month.  Holly and I found and bought a 4 acre parcel of land between Ada and Lowell, Michigan.  We actually looked at this a little over a year ago and it was just outside our price range, well since then the owners got motivated and dropped the price by $20,000!  It is very similar to the place I grew up, minus the 150 year old farm house…  It is a rectangular lot backing up to a farmer’s field and horses on the land next door.  I’m trying to convince Holly that raising chickens and having a big garden would be the best use of the land but she isn’t fully on board yet.  I’m not sure where the desire to have a small farm is coming from given the fact that I didn’t always (if ever) enjoy “working the land” as a kid.  I guess it is like going to church…I never liked that when I was forced to go, but now that I get to choose to go I get more out of it, when I go (of course, I don’t do that very often either).  Not sure exactly when we’ll build a house on the land but it certainly won’t be until we can sell our house without losing our pants.  The next challenge will be finding a house that Holly and I both want to build…as we’re discussing it we’re finding that we have a lot of different ideas on what to build, but no surprise there.

Speaking of gardens, I decided to forgo the small garden across the creek this year and opted to plant a couple pumpkin plants over there while downsizing the tomatoes to a big pot on the deck.  Hopefully flooding and animals won’t take all the tomatoes this year.  The pumpkin “vines” are growing pretty rapidly so I’m optimistic that we’ll have a couple pumpkins come fall.

This past 4th of July marked the 12th annual canoe trip with our friends from college.  We’re all getting older but you wouldn’t know it by how we all act when we get into the woods and onto the river.  We drank (some more than others), played washers, sat by the fire, smoked a lot of pork in the smoker, and spent a long day in the sun on the river.  This is also the first year we’ve gotten a keg – and boy was that a lot of Oberon.  We came so close to emptying a 1/2 barrel but had to dump the final gallon or so.

The highlight of this week was finally hanging a photo in my office that Holly and I bought in Key West a couple years ago.  Holly spent a lot of time at Hobby Lobby, and a small fortune, getting frames for many photos/painting/pictures we’ve bought over the years and we’ve spent the days since hanging things all over the house.  Maybe I’ll snap a couple photos and post those next if I get ambitious.

So, now you’re caught up…we’ll see if I can post something more regularly from here on out.