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On Thursday I met up with a wonderful group of people who are part of the LowCountry Bloggers group. We met at the Glass Onion on 1219 Savannah Hwy. I have only been associated with this group for about a year now with regards to attending the meetups. My blog at http://jcmoffitt.blogspot.com has been listed with LowCountry bloggers website for quite some time and I had not even known it.
I believe that my introduction to twitter by a dear friend of mine is what awakened me to this group of folks who use Twitter to communicate about every day happenings both personally and professionaly. I remember when my friend introduced me to twitter the first time. At first I was really resistant because I felt that it was just silly to micro blog. I was very content with my occasional spurts of blogging here and there when I had the time. Once I installed the Twitter client and started using it I was hooked. Micro blogging allows you to be spontaneous and to post thoughts about this and that with a limit of 140 characters. Making a statement and confining me to 140 characters was somewhat daunting since I can be long winded.
One of the nice things about being a part of the LowCountry Bloggers group is that I am part of a community that has something in common. We all love to write about whatever it is that we write about and most of us seem to be addicted to technology in one way or the other. Every month the group gets together to eat and talk and take pictures. I have only attended three or four of these meetings but I have enjoyed myself each time. I can not speak for anyone else other than myself but it is easier for me to communicate through the written word from the comfort of my recliner and laptop vs meeting complete strangers in a social setting. The thought of doing that can be scary at times.
Thanks to Twitter and blogging I have met folks like Heather Solos, Don Lewis , Jared Smith and others which means that my social network has slowly but surely been expanding. Just like the Star Trek intro says "Going boldly into strange new worlds", Just today I spent some time on Vox looking for other Lowcountry bloggers and added them to my neighborhood. One of them I actually know through the LowCountry Bloggers group and one of them I did not. The cool thing is that we all have something to contribute not only to the blogosphere but also to one another. Until just recently I had not realized how tunnel visioned that I had become by only focusing on my blogs and not really paying attention to others. I guess that I felt as if the "blogosphere" was so huge that it was like a forrest that was too scary to even wander into. There is no way that any of us can have the time to read all the blogs that are out there nor will we be interested in everything either.
The food at the Glass Onion on Savannah Hwy was very good. The business card describes their food as "soulfull food". I am not sure that I understands what that means however I will say that what I ate was very tastey. I ordered their Gumbo which was spicey but not over the top. I enjoyed their world famous banana bread pudding with a touch of whiskey as well. Both the gumbo and desert were delicious and I am looking forward to taking my family there one day soon. The restaurant is in an excellent location in West Ashley and it appears to seat between 50 + people. Our meetup started at 6 pm and sometime between 6 pm and about 7 pm the place started to fill up pretty quickly. Heather had already arranged to reserve 3 or 4 tables for us and those filled up quickly. The staff was very busy but they were very courteous and did an excellent job of filling all of our requests in a time manner. I would highly recommend this establishment to anyone.
If you are a lowcountry blogger I would highly recommend that you try to attend some of the LowCountry Blogger meetups. They happen monthly and Heather Solos does an excellent job in coordinating the effort and finding us a different place to meet each time. In the three or four times that I have attended the meetups everyone has been very cordial, friendly and helpful. I have not had a problem in finding something in common with folks at my table and jumping into the conversation. I am thankful that this group of folks are here and that I can be allowed to expand my horizons and learn more about other folks and the things that are of interest to them.
I have heard that too many changes all at once can be stressful. In the last couple of weeks we have experienced a lot of changes as a family. We recently moved from a trailer that we lived in for 7 years and in order to move from there into our new place we had to make some tough decisions and sacrifices. One of the hardest decisions was to downsize the pet farm. At that time we had two dogs, a cat, a bird, two puppies and a kitten. We are now down to Angel the lab and Peaches the bird. It was very difficult for us to say good bye to our beloved pets but the new residence only allows for us to have two pets and they also put a very steep pet deposit in place which made it necessary to severely reduce the number of pets we took with us.
The other thing that was stressful for the teens was to uproot from their schools at Sedgefield and Goose Creek High School and make the move away from their friends into new schools at Westview and Stratford High School. I am sure that Justin and Kristina will find new friends eventually but I am sure that they sorely miss their friends from the other schools. I know that Kristina keeps in contact with several of her friends in person as well as through MySpace and e-mail.
I drove in to work early this morning and it is a dreary rainy dark looking day. It was good to go to bed around 10:30 pm last night because it enabled me to wake up at 6 am and get an early start on my day. That includes driving from Goose Creek to Kiawah Island which usually takes about an hour depending on traffic. The earlier I start out the easier the traffic is which makes my morning commute much more bearable. Speaking of change my new job as an I.T. manager for a resort rental company has been quite stressful. I found myself walking into somewhat of a mess and I had to hit the ground running with little to no training from the previous I.T. person that was here before me. When I arrived that person had been gone for two weeks and I had to depend on feedback from the technology provider company that was being utilized until my arrival. When I arrived here there was a back log of workstation problems that took me about 4 weeks to resolve.
On my drive in this
morning I prayed for my family and my church, my nation and I am quite thankful
for many things. I am thankful for Katy
and the children. I am thankful that God
has blessed me with a family who loves me and friends like you who care about
me. I am thankful that I live in America
and that I can enjoy the freedom of speech and religion and the right to vote
for my leaders. I understand that our
system is probably messed up beyond all measure however I also know as a
naturalized citizen that if it were not for my adoption parents I would have
never made it here. I also realize that
no matter how screwed up the American form of government is or how many crooked
politicians may be in office it is a far cry better than living in some
socialist or communist country where we would not have any freedoms that we
take for granted.
I am thankful that each American can go out and vote tomorrow during the presidential election. If you are an American I would encourage you to do what a lot of other citizens in other countries can not do, go VOTE. If you feel hopeless, and that your vote does not count then please know that you are probably not alone. All you can do is educate yourself the best you can and make the best decision you can. There are websites that are dedicated to providing us with a comparison of each presidential candidate and where they stand on the issues.
Your decision to vote will enable the democratic system to work the way it is supposed to work. For the people and by the people means that we vote people into office that we think will best represent us in our government. If you do not vote then you have robbed yourself of a privilege that you have as a citizen and you will not be able to complain about who makes it in office. The bottom line is this, your vote counts.
I am thankful this morning that I can go to church on Sunday and that my family and I can take part in open praise and worship. I am also thankful that other folks like you have the right to go worship God or not worship God. That is what is great about our country. We do not have to worry about our government forcing us to worship one particular religion nor do we have to worry about them throwing us in jail just because we do chose to worship.
I am thankful that I am employed this morning. There are a lot of folks out there that are being laid off or are having a very difficult time finding gainful employment. Our economy is struggling at this time and businesses and people alike are learning how to live more frugally than before. I am hopeful that our government leaders will be able to make the right decisions and the tough decisions that will enable our economy and citizens to get back on the right track.
I am hopeful that our
government leaders will realize that downsizing and making budgetary cuts is
not just limited to the poor and middle class Americans. All of us need to make some sacrifices for
the greater good of all.
I am thankful for technology and that I can use it to write these words and share them with you. If it were not for the advantages of technology and the Internet or World Wide Web I would not be able to share my thoughts with you nor would I be able to know all of you, my friends and fellow cyber citizens.