From Paris With Love

There were so many incredible things that happened over the weekend, but none more devastating than the attack on our innocence. Terror took front stage on Friday and our innocence was the victim. But rest assured good prevails, as it always does because evil has no place amongst our existence. Yet we are changed as a world, and we now know that this cowardice act of terror will NOT, can NOT, become commonplace. The lives of the innocent that were lost will never be forgotten and this war we are fighting will somehow bring justice to a broken hearted world.

The words of the victims/survivors tell a story of courage, love and triumph for life; not at all what the hate that entered into the city of Paris on Friday night intended.
I came across this today when I was going to post something different entirely-and I am humbled by this young girl's resolve and by her courage.

This is the Facebook post of  Isobel Bowdery, a young college student who attended the rock and roll show at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris on Friday night:

"you never think it will happen to you. It was just a friday night at a rock show. the atmosphere was so happy and everyone was dancing and smiling. and then when the men came through the front entrance and began the shooting, we naiively believed it was all part of the show. It wasn’t just a terrorist attack, it was a massacre. Dozens of people were shot right infront of me. Pools of blood filled the floor. Cries of grown men who held their girlfriends dead bodies pierced the small music venue. Futures demolished, families heartbroken. in an instant. Shocked and alone, I pretended to be dead for over an hour, lying among people who could see their loved ones motionless.. Holding my breath, trying to not move, not cry – not giving those men the fear they longed to see. I was incredibly lucky to survive. But so many didn’t. The people who had been there for the exact same reasons as I – to have a fun friday night were innocent. This world is cruel. And acts like this are suppose to highlight the depravity of humans and the images of those men circuling us like vultures will haunt me for the rest of my life. The way they meticoulsy aimed at shot people around the standing area i was in the centre of without any consideration for human life. It didn’t feel real. i expected any moment for someone to say it was just a nightmare. But being a survivor of this horror lets me able to shed light on the heroes. To the man who reassured me and put his life on line to try and cover my brain whilst i whimpered, to the couple whose last words of love kept me believing the good in the world, to the police who succeded in rescuing hundreds of people, to the complete strangers who picked me up from the road and consoled me during the 45 minutes I truly believed the boy i loved was dead, to the injured man who i had mistaken for him and then on my recognition that he was not Amaury, held me and told me everything was going to be fine despite being all alone and scared himself, to the woman who opened her doors to the survivors, to the friend who offered me shelter and went out to buy new clothes so i wouldnt have to wear this blood stained top, to all of you who have sent caring messages of support – you make me believe this world has the potential to be better. to never let this happen again. but most of this is to the 80 people who were murdered inside that venue, who weren’t as lucky, who didnt get to wake up today and to all the pain that their friends and families are going through. I am so sorry. There’s nothing that will fix the pain. I feel priviledged to be there for their last breaths. And truly beliving that I would join them, I promise that their last thoughts were not on the animals who caused all this. It was thinking of the people they loved. As i lay down in the blood of strangers and waiting for my bullet to end my mere 22 years, I envisioned every face that I have ever loved and whispered I love you. over and over again. reflecting on the highlights of my life. Wishing that those i love knew just how much, wishing that they knew that no matter what happened to me, to keep belieivng in the good in people. to not let those men win. Last night, the lives of many were forever changed and it is up to us to be better people. to live lives that the innocent victims of this tragedy dreamt about but sadly will now never be able to fulfil. RIP angels. You will never be forgotten."

iJacked

One of the things that I really love about my iPhone 5 is the calender app. For someone like me, it helps me to keep my appointments on track and even alerts me a day, an hour or ten minutes before an important appointment.

So it's no surprise that I'm completely PISSED that somehow, someway, I have no idea how; this fricken "Weekend Event Guide", that came from Facebook, and I  DID NOT add to my calender, has popped up on EVERYDAY of my month. WTF???

Can someone please tell me how to delete this sh*t, because now I'm pissed.

I googled the crap out of the subject, and what I found was the consensus that when you are invited to an event and you respond, you get all the events in your calender, even if you decline. Sources report that this is a FB "bug" or virus and hopefully it will work itself out, but I'm not too happy about it invading my personal space, or in this case my personal calender.

HELP!

Team Of Me

So I just joined Facebook and Twitter, for business purposes, not personal. What's funny is once a friend found out my page was me, a tsunami of people I know caught on and now a lot of my high school friends are now my Facebook friends and other people I know. Which is great! The more the merrier, I always say.

The issue here is that these entities, being business related, pose for me an interesting challenge. I really can't post pics of my kids and dogs and talk about the beach wedding I went to or the fantastic backyard barbecue I attended at Heff's house. (I wish..that would be fun!) In order to effectively generate whatever "presence" it is that these sites give a business, my posts need to be business related and somewhat memorable.

I am beginning to realize that just about everyone wants to follow you or be friends with you, not because of your witty repartee, but because it looks better to have more friends and followers than not. After a week or so of using/monitoring the traffic on these sites, I realized that the object here is observing the constant stream of posts and tweets, in succession. And we scroll down to see what catches the eye. We notice the people we care about and what they are doing. We notice a funny quote or saying, and we notice who is commenting on our posts.

So I post. But in order to get noticed and remembered, I must be clever. I'd like to think it's about quality not quantity. But how many times can I pimp out my new self-tanning products or a great new lip gloss that's every woman's must have?

This is when it dawned on me.....In order to become a presence on these sites, I must become a Team of Me.

I need to become a Twitter-nality or a Facebook-ona and step into that mindset when dropping a ditty to the world. We all know, from doing this/blogging thing that there are some days that you just don't have it. The add gas light is on and you are plum out of witticisms, but we tredge on, and we do it for the love of the genre. This is completely different because my business image is riding on it. It may be my most important work yet.

So I do it for the good of the company. And I do it for the good of the cosmetic buying society. And I do it so that my customers will never have to wonder about the latest and greatest offerings in my store. That info is only a mouse click away, as it should be. But most of all I do it for you, the customer, because out there in Social Networking land it can be rough starting your day without a witty tidbit about the best shimmering glow for the body and a new revolutionary mascara.

The Great Facebook Debate

I got a text the other night from a friend of mine that I used to work in sports with-back in the day. We reacquainted a couple of summers ago at Fenway, he's a camera man for the local sports network and we picked up right where we'd left off. He's a great guy, funny as hell, married and has teens, so we have a lot in common. Sometimes, during crazy, exciting Sox games-we text back and forth about the games highlights. Sports and history being our common threads. My exchange with CameraMan, as I will call him, started out like this:

CAMERAMAN: you on face book?

ME: no, I'm too old. that would just be creepy. I do have a blog though.

CM: where?

ME: blogspot.com. I post daily.

CM: about what?

ME: *Whatever. today I blogged about Barstool Sports and how I want a job writing for them. Lots of bloggers tell me that are plenty of people my age on it.(facebook) I have a 14 year old on it. I don't think that would be cool.

CM: there are a ton of people our age!!

ME: isn't it a picture sharing site?

CM: nooo so much better than that

ME: What makes it better?

CM: networking. meeting old friends yadda

ME: That's what Ive heard. When did you join?

CM: couple of weeks ago.

At this point CameraMan calls me up. (us old geezers just decide to talk to each other rather than text the conversation any longer) CameraMan tells me that he has talked to a bunch of people he hasn't seen in years, people from high school, the town he grew up in and all kinds of friends of friends he hasn't seen or thought of in years. He said he's really enjoying the networking on Facebook. My immediate response is, "yeah but what about my daughter?" CameraMan tells me his teen step-son is on Facebook and he's cool with it and even checks out his page every now and again and inquires about people in the pictures. He invited me to go check his page out and join as one of his friends.

This now marks the second time in a few weeks that someone has approached me about Facebook. My best friend, who lives in NYC, and I had a discussion almost verbatim about Facebook a week ago. At the time I dismissed the notion, firm in the belief that Facebook was not for me. Hell-I spend/waste waaaaaaay too much of my day as it is on Blogger. Why add another log to the fire???

What's the deal with this Facebook thing?? I will admit I am intrigued at the prospect of seeing who is out there and possibly reaquainting with some ghosts from my past. The fact that my daughter has an account and I always considered it "her thing" prevents me from doing it.

Give me your Facebook wisdom.

EDIT: Scope and I also had the Facebook discussion a week ago-which makes THREE. Are the Facebook Gods trying to tell me something??

*there's that word again!