Link of the day: Baby boomer dating guide!

I'm a little older today so maybe it's time for me to start dating like a baby boomer... only kidding!

I read this article on a whim and realized it offered good advice to anyone, not just a baby boomer trying to date again. Take me for example. I love meeting new people and getting to know them; however I'm a natural introvert and am horrible at doing being friendly and out going with strangers. I become nervous and timid and assume I'm bothering or intruding on the other person. Over time I'm incrementally improving in my ability to meet new people and not freak out. It is a far from natural act though.

I think this article offers a couple of practical ideas on the hardest part of meeting someone new, how to start a conversation. My typical strategy was to stare at the person nervously like I was on a dusty street in an old western waiting for them to reach for their gun first. If I was feeling especially extroverted I might throw out a safe, close-ended question which nets a one word answer and a nice meeting you handshake as we both forget each other's names. You know the kind I'm talking about, in college it was what dorm do you live in and what's your major. Now it is where did you go to school and where do you work.

I believe most people are as nervous as I was and are waiting for someone to break the ice. Some people are true misanthropes but in general everyone likes meeting a friendly person. I have to continually remind myself of that though.

Open ended questions are a great way start a relaxed conversation and allow both of you to get a read on each other. You both get to talk about things that interest you and share a little bit without it feeling too forced. I especially liked #2, 4 & 5. One that wasn't listed that I've had success with is "what do you do for fun".

How do you approach meeting new people? Do you think about it all or just allow what happens to naturally develop? Do you have a strategy or are you a natural people person? How do you handle different environments? Do you have any great open ended questions?

Too Funny

My friend Janice, who is in South Korea, sent me this link of New York hilariousness. I appreciate the world crossing connection of South Korea sending out a reference to humor originating in New York. Either way check it out and vote for your favorites.

Link of the Day: Be mindful of pretend verbosity

This article regarding businesses' tendency to create new words amused me. Then I realized for the past year my friend group had been doing the exact same thing described in this article. Except we'd been tacking on -ish to the end of words. Personally I feel adding -ish is much more fun and I highly recommend it over -ful.

Link of the day: Honest sarcasm

Colbert for President! Forget platforms on terror, socialized medicine or immigration. I think a direct and honest platform of sarcasm and mockery is exactly what our country needs. Go Stephen go!

Link of the Day: Did I miss something?

This video is about Bush, education and the war in Iraq. My thoughts are indifferent to those things.

As one of my high school teachers used to open class, I want to cuss and discuss, how popular it is to pick on Bush. I support credit where credit is due and President Bush deserves all the "credit" for Iraq. However, I'm more inclined to applaud him for opening military recruitment to individuals who lost their financial aid than criticize him.

I'd challenge the creators of this video to review the circumstances. This law was passed in 1998. Mr. Bush took office in 2000. How was he in any way related to congress passing the Aid Elimination Penalty. It appears to me that he at worst is taking advantage of an opportunity created by pre-existing conditions and at best is offering an alternative to someone who has lost their school funding. Granted he could fight to eliminate the Aid Elimination Policy, but as a hard line conservative how does what could be considered supporting marijuana use fit into his agenda?

I then ask myself, do I support the Aid Elimination Policy? Is it a reasonable response to a crime? I believe I do. I don't want my tax dollars supporting criminal activity. This drives me to ask a second question, do I consider marijuana worthy of definition of criminal activity. That is an entirely different consideration and one I don't want to mix into this post. Defining punishment for a crime and defining what is a crime are different thoughts and I refer to my earlier post referencing C.S. Lewis and doing time for crime versus treating a criminal or preventing future crime.

Link of the day: Education <> wisdom

This is one of those stories that pops up every so often. People thinking the internet is a private place... I really don't get it. You want to post pictures of yourself drinking underage, write stories about vandalism etc and are surprised when it bites you in the ass? I mean seriously, if I started posting flyer's around town with my address and pictures of me committing crimes I'd expect action to be taken. The real surprise to me is more isn't being done by law enforcement to search these giant public databases.

Really, what you see here is a business opportunity. Write a software program that reviews social networking sites looking for illegal activities. Then sell the reports to various law enforcement agencies. Sure the FBI and CIA could do this for themselves and probably do, but your local law enforcement agency doesn't have that kind of capital nor access to the FBI and CIA for searching out the local graffiti artist.

PS. Don't forget that recruiters are looking at your facebook and myspace pages too. It might be time to purge those old frat and sorority party pictures.