This amazing video caught lightening striking three of Chicago’s tallest buildings at the same time.

@bnpositive suggested that we all be Indiana blogging titan Douglas Karr‘s friend. I wouldn’t mind, but he’s so tall… it kind of freaks me out.

He also needs to stop patting me on the head like that.

Edit: Doug has posted all of his friends: Thank Goodness for Friends!

I bought a Flip Video Ultra 60-minute handheld camera after seeing a bunch of reviews for it. Turns out, my son had been looking at them in January but opted for a digital camera instead. I picked mine up at a local big-box retailer just before the BlogIN conference. I wanted to try my hand at video blogging. With the Flip, it’s fun and easy!

Here’s the video I shot:

Built into the side of the Flip is a pop-out USB hub (hence the name “Flip”). Copying files is as easy as using Windows Explorer. My only problem with the camera is that the digital zoom isn’t very good. It just makes the images fuzzy. This camera is rugged, too. I dropped it in a parking lot: the face got scuffed, but it didn’t scratch the lens and it still works great!

Here are the product links on Amazon:

I had the opportunity to spend my evening with a group of Twitter fans here in Indianapolis at the second Indianapolis Tweetup. The event was held at a coffee shop on Pennsylvania Avenue in Indianapolis (across from the Indianapolis Library) called The Abbey. Nearly 20 Twitterers were in attendance. Other than @stevillama, who I met at the BlogMob, I hadn’t met anyone else prior to this event. It was great getting introduced to new people. At the same time, though, through The Amazing Power of Twitter™  it felt like I had known some of them for a while.

With most folks we talked about twitter, of course, but here are some highlights of conversations I had:

I grabbed some dinner with @axlconn and @ellen5e, and we had a conversation about Macs, Photoshop and GIMP.

@stevillama and I talked about the origins of @y0mbo, using usernames and pseudonyms online. We decided there wasn’t much point in using a pseudonym anymore unless you have a really common name. I still will keep mine, just because its always unique and I’ve been using it for years.

I took some serious ribbing from @axlconn and @douglas_vann for being a .NET developer. I decided it was time to learn an OSS programming language just so I can mock it properly in a public setting.

I met @neutralangel who told me he’s getting a degree in computer science (or something like that), but that his true passion is photography. 

I talked with a bunch of people about the practicality of following a lot of people on Twitter. I talked about my rule of 50 followers (which I abandoned after meeting a few fellow Indy Twitterers that I wanted to add).  I’ll probably keep a nice balance of following 1 person for every 2 people following me. I just don’t understand the concept of following 12,000 people. You can’t possibly get to know that many people.

@axlconn and I talked about screencasting. I had tried out Camtasia and wanted to find out what he used. Camtasia, it turns out. I mentioned I was doing a screencast of how to sign up for Flickr so they could see my private photos. He pointed out I could generate a unique URL to a photoset and send that to friends and family without the hassle of having them sign up. These are the great reasons to have Twitter friends and getting together with geeks!

@drthomasho and I discussed Comcast, Hamilton Telecom, laptops, desktops, iPhones and tablet PCs.  Sounds like he’s pretty happy with the tablet he got (and at a good price).

@stevillama, @ellen5e and @axlconn discussed the merits of backing up video to DVD or hard disk. I was in the middle of this conversation but didn’t really have a much to offer. I didn’t realize hard drive space is still cheaper than other media.  It made me reconsider backing up to DVD ROM.

I met @edsai and we noted the missing presence of @douglaskarr, the guy who is into everything. @douglaskarr was one of the first Indy bloggers I started following, and I haven’t had a chance to meet him in person yet.

@edsai, @gregorlove, @neutralangel and I talked about a number of different things, such as vine, @garyvee and @twittermethis.  @twittermethis is a Twitter-based trivia contest that actually pays the winner of a round $5 via Paypal. It sounds pretty cool, and I followed the game to see how it goes.

Apparently there was an after-party at @gregorlove’s house, where the remaining Tweetup folks played WII late into the night, but I took off around 9:30. All in all I enjoyed the tweetup and look forward to the next one.

At noon today, 30-or-so bloggers congregated on the steps of Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis for a flash-mob style blogging publicity stunt. The idea was to raise awareness for the blogIN conference. The weather was great for an spring day in Indy, and I thought turnout was pretty good.  I think most people spent more time talking to other bloggers than actual blogging, but that’s how these things go. It was great to meet several people I know online so I can say I know them in real life as well.

Erik Deckers posted a play-by-play on his blog: BlogMOB on Indianapolis’ Monument Circle.

You can see photos of the event on Flickr: Scott Abel, NoahWesley, PaulAndrea, and mine.

Calling all Indiana Bloggers

blogIN is an "unconference" being held on April 26th, 2008. Hosted by Smaller Indiana, a social networking site, and sponsored by Compendium Blogware, the event will be held at the IUPUI School of Informatics from 1 to 5pm on Saturday the 26th. We’re hoping to get Indiana bloggers together to talk shop, share tricks and tips, and generally encourage one another. While there are a few presentation scheduled by "rock star" bloggers here in Indiana, most of the event will be unscripted and without an agenda, allowing bloggers to get together and decide on what they want to discuss on the spot.

You can register for the event here on the BlogIN 2008 sign-up page.

(Cross posted from Red Bit Blue Bit).

Today marks the first review of Groundhog Day Resolutions for 2008.  You can review my resolutions at 2008 Groundhog Day Resolutions.

I’m going to list my goals and their statuses in a nice table format.  I’ll add comments below.  I’ve graded myself on a 90/80/70/60 scale or pass/fail.

Devotions

For personal devotions, I did not have a lot of success this month. Chief to my errors was leaving my devotions for the end of the day. This usually means I either fall asleep before taking the time, or end up just quickly skimming over a passage without really digging into what it says. I think I’ll try to improve this in March by moving devotion time to the beginning of the day.

Family devotions haven’t turned out the way I had hoped either, but were better in some ways. I found time in the mornings before taking the boys to school to read a passage of scripture and have a quick discussion about it. The bad news is The Wife hasn’t been part of these, especially when we read in the driveway and discuss on the way. I think the ultimate goal – to teach our sons about God – is being served. This month I’m going to bump the goal to a daily devotion on weekdays.

Personal Time

Spending time with the others in my family is much harder than I thought it would be. With the kids, it’s difficult to find the time to spend with them individually. When we do things together, it’s usually as a family. Trying to carve out individual time is tricky. The boys tend to hang together and do things at the same time. Finding an hour to focus on one without the other getting in on it just doesn’t happen. Finding an hour twice a week has also been a challenge. For March, I’m going to be less concerned about individual time and more intent on just spending the time with them.

Saturday night date nights with The Wife were certainly interesting. I was out of town one weekend, which cost me 25% of my score. One other weekend she went to bed early on Saturday even though I was ready to hang out together.  We did get a chance to get out one weekend to a dinner theater thanks to a Christmas present from my sister that included free babysitting. In March, The Wife has a work trip to attend and I will be going with her. I’ll count this as our date night out of the house since its several days together without the kids.

The third area of spending time is connecting and keeping in contact with old friends. I wish I could say I did better on this – it doesn’t take long to send an email. Still, I only sent one and didn’t even get a response, so that set a challenging tone for my motivation on this task. I’ll have to ramp up my efforts again this month.

As for joining a small group, we made a little bit of progress. We decided to make a commitment to the church we started attending in January by making it our home church. Yesterday we went to a new attendee session after service and found more information about the church and where it stands doctrinally.  The good news is a focus of the church is on small group fellowship. This is what we’ve been looking for so our next step is to attend the small group connect meeting to find others in our area.

Health

I’m happy with the progress I made in the health and fitness department. I started exercising regularly again, either on the treadmill or the stationary bike. I found the bike to be more beneficial. I feel like I get a better workout and, at the same time, I’m able to do a little reading since my hands are free. Some would suggest that means I’m not riding hard enough but based on how winded I get I’m sure I’m doing fine. My diet could improve dramatically, however, as I haven’t really cut down on anything I’m eating. The Wife has started to watch her diet again; that usually means I’ll start doing pretty well there again. 

As for dental hygiene, I’ve been doing the floss and mouthwash routine every night. I’m going to close this as a tracked goal. I think it has become an ingrained habit now.

Creative and Household Goals

My other miscellaneous goals involve reading, writing and music. I haven’t focused too hard on reading fiction, but did read one non-fiction book this month (see below).

I wrote 5 nearly-1000-word blog posts between this site and my business blog. Writing one decent length post per week has been the right amount of time, I think.  I can confirm a quote I read by Jeff Atwood that it takes about 3 hours writing an average blog post.

My goal for practicing guitar 10 minutes a day trong> was primarily to build finger strength and speed. This month need to find some scales to practice or songs to learn to keep me interested while continuing to get my fingers into shape.