I’ve had the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus for about 2 weeks now. I have to say that even though I was excited to use the phones and find out more regarding the operating system that runs both of them (WebOS by Palm) I very quickly started disliking the phones (mostly the system they run on).

WebOS

I’m no slouch when it comes to finding answers about things that I’m curious about. Because I’ve never been a Palm user (consciously) I figured that this new OS might be something at least worth trying.  It wasn’t.  I’m a techie guy. I like my settings and customizability to be very close to my fingertips. I did not find this with the system. I wasn’t even comfortable enough after 3 hours of browsing around, calling myself, texting myself, and the like to make either one of the phones my main phone for the time I had them.

I had to Google EVERYTHING. Although the mobile hotspot app is cool and very functional, I’d rather have it on my myTouch.

Form Factor

I have to say. I love love LOVE the Pixi. Texting is easy because of the keyboard. It was easy enough to type myself a long email and I could kick out 160 characters for a text in no time with very few mistakes. I don’t really like the way that palm has it’s keyboards setup, but that could be because I’m used to the touch screen phones now that have alt buttons to show me different keys instead of the single/double click methods for staying in the mode or just using one character.

The Pre to me is blah. The middle two keys in the qwerty keyboard are squished together. I don’t even want to imagine how that design meeting went, but I’ll try to throw my version of  it out there for you.

Designer: We have to make the phones a bit wider so that we can fit all the keys with equal spacing

Engineering Manager: No

Decision Maker: How about we just put the T/Y, G/H, and V/B buttons closer together?

Designer: But the usability on that is horrible

Decision Maker: usawhat? *signs off onweird spacing of keys*

Decision Maker: While you’re at it, can you make it so that the buttons are nearly flush with the shell of the phone so that they are hard to discern from the next key?

Engineer: Sure, just send me a requirements doc with what you want.

Designer: I need a beer

Final Thoughts

In all fairness, the phones aren’t really marketed towards my demographic. They do have good responsiveness and have a few gesture features that I would like on my own phone (throw an application away to close it would ROCK on the Android Platform).

Disclaimer: I was given a Palm Pixi Plus and a Palm Pre Plus by Verizon Wireless to use and review for two weeks. The phones came with an unlimited data and phone plan already on them. I am not a Verizon Wireless consumer.

This week’s Tuesday Blogversation is with Colleen McGuire. I had an inkling that I wanted to interview her for this week, but I received a few recommendations from people specifically mentioning her to do an interview with. She graciously allowed me this opportunity. Thanks Colleen!

Colleen McGuire (blog | twitter) is a communications professional working in the heath insurance industry for the past 11 years. She is a music junkie and relies on City Pages for concert information for the Twin Cities music scene. She has been posting to her blog since August 2009.

How important is it for you to blog?

Blogging is an educational experience for me. I value every element of it. I entitled my blog, “Social Media Journal” because it is just that – documentation of my journey – the good, bad and ugly. I learn from reading others stories, and I hope others get the same value from reading my blog entries.

How does being in the PR industry affect the topics that you write about?

Living and breathing PR means I approach each topic with a human relations story in mind. If the general public is going to not only understand what I’m writing about, but relate at the same time, I need to keep my blog simple and conversational. One of my most successful blog posts to date was “Social Media is Like the State Fair.” It’s just a lighthearted comparison of social media and the Great Minnesota Get Together, but it seemed to strike a cord.

I noticed you’ve had a few guest posts: How do you choose the guests?

In the spirit of my journal, I have asked individuals whom I’ve met on the local social media scene to share their personal social media journey. I find it remarkable how we all come to this same place. I always ask them, “what was your light bulb over the head moment?” The stories fascinate me. And sometimes they morph beyond the “light bulb” moment into “this is what I’ve learned.” Again, education to inspire others. That is truly my mission with online engagement.

How do you use your blog to complement your other online activities?

I am a certified Twitter addict, and sometimes 140 characters isn’t enough space to complete an idea. I think Twitter has actually sharpened my ability to condense thoughts, but the AP Stylebook trained writer in me still has a difficult time expressing thoughts in shortened abbreviations. I need to flesh out conversations from time to time, and my blog has allowed me to do that.

What do you hope to accomplish by writing more than 140 characters at a time?

I work in the health insurance industry, which is strictly regulated. I cannot do social media without being very creative with disclaimers and copy, and even getting to that point took time. I decided I needed to blog personally, for several reasons.

1. Stay ahead in my industry by practicing online what I was preaching in white papers to the CEOs and legal department;

2. Have documentation to use as example when I was ready to approach company executives about corporate blogging; and

3. Create a track record of trust that could demonstrate to the legal department that I was not a radical blogger that would be the demise of the corporation.

Your Twitter bio says “Music geek by night”: What do you enjoy about the local music scene?

I’m a music geek and the Twin Cities are the best kept secret on the national scene, I believe. I thrive off of opening the City Pages on any given night and finding almost 100+ shows to choose from. That is rare in most cities.

What free advice can you give here that you would give to your clients about their blog or other online social activities?

Be real. I have found that when a CEO blogs about what excites them, readership goes up and more comments flow in. People want to engage. Why do celebrities have so many followers on Twitter? It’s about engagement with individuals you might not have access to normally. Plus, blogging is a great way to interact with the community around you. It also keeps a person “in the know” about what is being said about them. In this day and age it can be damaging not to respond to praise or complaints. Be humble. Accept what people say and respond. Engage.

Who inspires you?

My social media inspiration comes from a group of people. Social Media Breakfast in the Twin Cities is an amazing gathering of people from all walks of life. Spend five minutes in a room with them and you’ll realize you among some of the smartest people you’ve ever met.

Which blogs do you suggest others in your field read?

I recommend the super-blogger standards:

Jason Falls at socialmediaexplorer.com

Jay Baer at convinceandconvert.com

For PR rants and raves I recommend Communications Conversations by Arik Hanson at arikhanson.com.

I also recommend people subscribe to SmartBrief on Social Media and Ragan Communications e-blasts.

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Tuesday Blogversation is a weekly series on iamdez.com featuring bloggers of all kinds from the Twin Cities (Minneapolis / Saint Paul) area. If you’d like to be considered for an interview please send mail to dez [at] iamdez [dot] com or get ahold of me on twitter.

We’re switching to Scrum. I’ve worked in Agile-like environments before, but nothing ‘pure’. It’s always been a mixture of some Agile, XP, and Waterfall which can create process issues if not done right.  However even if you have a process in place correctly it still depends on the people working through it and I’ve been a part of one successful custom built process implementation.

We’ve got our final day of training tomorrow on the process. I can honestly say I’ve never actually be ‘trained’ in how the software development process works. I’ve done my share of reading and teaching myself, but today was the first time that a consultant was sitting in front of a group that included me.

I think this will be a good thing for not only myself but also for the company I work for. There wasn’t much of a process when I started, but really when you only have one QA person (my boss) at a startup you tend to get a lot of push to production situations (aka Cowboy coding: yeehaw).  Lately there have been improvements being made to the process pre-development. The inclusion of any standardized process is an improvement.

The pure look at what all the Agile sub-sets are made of can be read at http://agilemanifesto.org/.

The biggest thing I’m taking from all this is that the consultant helping us out isn’t trying to fit our process into a predetermined mold, but rather the other way around. He’s also going to participate in the implementation of our process, which will be very helpful.

I hope to give updates periodically in how we’re moving into this direction.

Wow, this weekend got completely away from me. It started Friday with Megan and I putting a holding deposit down on the apartment that we want (End of April, YAY!). Then a birthday party yesterday along with laundry. And today I helped my older brother take apart a gym set that he was selling. I’ve hardly been home, but I definitely feel like it’s Sunday.

This week isn’t going to be much lighter either. We start training on Agile (SCRUM) tomorrow at work and that pretty much takes up my next two working days. The Twitter app that I’m developing should start rolling out it’s initial start on collecting data this week: Should being the key operative. Also needed to do is some pre-training reading.

Also, Undercover Boss is on tonight so I’m trying to get my task list zero’d out before starting my veg session this evening. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some reading done tonight both with my current book (The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown) and also try to get a good chunk of my RSS Subscriptions read (I haven’t even looked at them since Thursday night).

I don’t know how many Social apps I’ve tried. I’m not going to try to count, but there’s a reason for my stoppage of their use. Each application has it’s own positives as well as negatives, but the negatives always lead me to going back to the web to use Twitter or Facebook.

I used to use Tweetdeck and by far it is my favorite desktop application. However the problem is that the program very easily gets overwhelmed if you try to have too many columns setup. At the same time it is too difficult to peruse profiles of people that you’re interested in without killing your API.

That’s another problem I have with applications in general. The fact that I can’t browse as much as I want inside the application to view profiles of people I already follow and discovering new people to follow is a huge detractor for me. Maybe I’m a power user and need to gravitate towards the web version, but what about an installed application that includes a browser for viewing profiles so that I don’t need to depend on Alt-Tab to get back to the application after viewing the person’s profile within my regular browser. There are a bunch of installed and web-based applications that offer Twitpic integration so that I don’t have to go to my browser.

One thing that I mentioned today was the fact that Twitter doesn’t auto-combine the mentions area of the site with the retweets area of the site. I was retweeted a few times yesterday and I had no idea about it until I got my ‘iamdez’ Google Alert this morning.

My mobile application choice is purely for another reason. I used to use only the web (on my phone) to check for conversations and updates, however I found Seesmic’s mobile app that provides me with notifications of mentions and replies. However along with yesterday’s retweets I wasn’t notified of them with the app, thereby adding another problem onto the pile. I won’t stop using the app because I get notifications when people are talking to/about me.

What is your preferred way of updating your social sites?

Tonight marks the start of what I hope to be a decently successful (at the very least complete) foray into the Twitter Application world.

I’m not going to go into too much detail right now (hopefully updates soon once an alpha or beta is available).  However I’ve completed the market research and found that there is definitely a need for it and only one app that I can find that is even related.  A trusted person in the industry that this application will be targeted towards told me in no uncertain terms that “I’d pay for it and I’d get my clients to pay for it”.

Obviously there will be a free version because I’ll want anybody to try it out.

Am I lucky enough to have stumbled into an untapped need? Most likely not, but I’ll get the experience I need working with the Twitter API closely enough to develop an app based off it.  I’m going to be working with a close friend of mine that doesn’t mind teaching me some of the development ropes that I have been so far lacking.

Apartment hunting is a big deal. The rental industry knows this and tries to hire the people with the best skills to put them in front of people, but sometimes it falls apart.

Megan and I went apartment hunting this weekend and we encountered the full spectrum of customer service people.

• Happy we were there
• Annoyed we were there
• You’re early, go away until later*

On Friday I called into two apartment complexes that were run by the same management company. The experience with both of the people answering the phones was pleasant and efficient. I even ended up having a conversation with the second woman for another 10 minutes on the art of introducing cats together in a new place. I got one showing setup for Saturday and another for Sunday.

During my research into both places I looked up the location on Google Maps. However, for whatever reason the site showed me the wrong location for the first apartment and put me at another apartment building which looked really nice from the satellite view (I could see a pool).

Happy We Were There: Part I

Saturday we headed out and it looked like we were going to be about 30 minutes early to our showing so I decided we should drive to the location that Google Maps had shown me. It was literally on the other side of the highway so it wasn’t that long to get to.

We were impressed immediately with the look of the place. So we figured we should stop in and get some information on the apartments. The manager was very gracious to us. Also, even though we were walk-ins he took 5 minutes to describe to us the different floor-plans and amenities of the apartments they had to offer. He couldn’t give us a showing at that moment since “my noon is late and my 1pm wants to come early, otherwise I’d show you around”.  Fair enough.

Annoyed We Were There

Our first showing was scheduled for 1pm. We showed up at the complex around 12:50.  I’m fine with waiting until the ‘actual’ time, but really, it’s only 10 minutes. The manager continued to make the statement “You’re early” two times. Once when we first got there, and then again about 5 minutes later while she was filling out the information sheet.

I should also mention that the information sheet proved challenging to the manager since she simply failed to pay attention during things like “Spell your last name for me”.  Obviously it’s spelled Dessonville, but since I’m used to people asking, I don’t mind spelling it out. However, she came up with “Dessanviell” AFTER LISTENING TO ME SPELL IT. She also had a terrible time with the ‘@’ symbol in email addresses replacing it with “Justin”. She also messed up while she was taking Megan’s information.

The showing didn’t get better from there. What had been advertised as “Snappy, Retro Apartments” turned into 40 noticeable coats of paint, cracks in the concrete walls. Also, the newly renovated apartments were just old cabinets put up in a different configuration with new countertops. It was noticeable that they were the old cabinets because of the indent in the paint.  The manager huffed at us when we tried to see the party room, and wondered out loud why we wanted to see the laundry and fitness facilities (to which she didn’t have a key). Also, she gave us a hard time about wanting to see the parking garage (which isn’t free to use)

You’re Early, Go Away Until Later

*To her credit, we were an hour early. However, I screwed it up in my own head and honestly thought my appointment was at 1. She didn’t handle it very well basically saying “want to reschedule” and not offering us any pamphlets for us to look over while we were eating (we told her we’d go grab some food and come back for our actual scheduled time). She wasn’t very friendly at all during this time period. Yes, I understand that I made a mistake, and I’m really sorry about that, but that’s no excuse to be rude. We ended up going back after lunch and going through the showing. She was pleasant and friendly at this point and the apartments were very nice. We’ve actually put them second on our list of possible places.

Happy We Were There: Part II

After we had driven around Saint Louis Park for an hour or so looking at other apartment buildings and making lists (and finding an AWESOME furniture store: Sofas and Chairs) we decided to call the random place we had stopped at earlier. The manager answered the phone and we found out that he had time for a showing. We got there about 30 minutes later and had a good time. I was never under the impression that getting shown apartments could be ‘fun’ or a ‘good time’. This showing was. The manager was obviously knowledgeable about the property, listened to what we needed in an apartment, and gave us the options we needed to fulfill those needs. We didn’t blink an eye filling out an application and would have given a deposit that day if he could have taken it (June 1 move in date, and he doesn’t have any units listed for that day yet.

I guess the most important part for us finding an apartment was how the manager represented their property. It’s a very big deal to me that maintenance is available to fix something and the easiest way to figure out if that is possible is to gauge it off the manager’s attitude towards possible new tenants. So for that, thank you Nathan of Cityscape in Saint Louis Park. I hope it works out that Megan and I rent an apartment from you.

I’m looking forward to living in a place that includes a car-wash spot in the garage (just hoses, but still more than others).

–dez

I just wanted to jot down some quick thoughts that I had today.

Regarding my tweet from Borders about losing humor, here’s what I said:

to the guy who couldn’t laugh along with his wife and daughter at a book…. find humor in everything and you’ll never lose it.

I was looking through the literature section tonight and heard this mother/daughter laughing at what was obviously a book containing pictures of funny cats. I overheard them saying “let’s see what daddy thinks about it”. And then a guy cuts in and says “Let’s NOT see what daddy says about it”.  The guy went on to say that the only funny thing about the situation was how the girls were reacting to it.

This is what got me. I find humor everywhere, and when I don’t understand what other people are laughing about, I try. So why wasn’t he? This is different than what I go through. I don’t normally have two very important pieces of my life trying to get me to laugh, it’s usually just me. But I laugh at myself. My tweet from earlier today about the backwards pirate. I laughed my ass off for a good 20 minutes… AT MYSELF.

I’ve asked Megan to make sure that I don’t lose my sense of humor. However, I doubt that she’ll ever let me.

So I’m going to go with: Find humor in everything and you’ll never lose sense of it.

I can’t resist posting this here. Mostly because the guy who posted it (@cougarclaws) also said on twitter:

2 interview reqs, front page of reddit consumerist, 40 new followers, 100+ emails, if I fail to find a roommate I’m quitting the internet.

I hope he finds a roommate. (Click the pic to see it full size)

If you want to see the original: here’s the original Craigslist Post.

Good luck, Chris!

As this is the first in what I hope to be a weekly series I thought; Why not find a new blogger?

Cindy Elizabeth Janovitz (blog | twitter) is an HR professional working for Ecolab for the past three years. She’s active in the community through corporate sponsored charity events as well as personal charitable activities. Also, she’s bilingual (Spanish). She loves talking about her profession and hopes to be able to give tips from her experience for job seekers and other HR professionals.

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What was going through your mind the day you setup your blog?

I have been working in the HR industry for almost three years now and I felt it was time to take it to the next level and share my knowledge and learn from those around me. I wanted to create a blog to talk about Human Resources along with my other passions – organizational culture.

Did you post the first day?

I wanted my first post to be very strategic. At the time, I had just finished up three days of intense inclusion training at work and in my first post I talk about this and how a great way to gain trust from an audience or anyone around us is to help them understand who we are. I tried to convey a little bit about who I am in my first post.

What topics and events inspire you to write?

My number one topic that inspires me is recruiting – and more than that, the candidate experience. I also love writing about my involvement in the organizational culture shift going on across many organizations, including my own and lastly, my involvement in the community.

What types of community involvement activities do you participate in?

Since college, I have been involved in the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk each year. I raise money that goes right to the AHA. I also participated in the Big Brother’s Big Sister’s of the Twin Cities “Bowling for Kids’ Sake” for the first time last year. I am really looking forward to it again! I am currently an e-Mentor to a wonderful 8th grader in St. Paul. In March I am going to Volunteer Orientation for the Red Cross. I am hoping to get involved with their multicultural program and use my Spanish skills to give back to the community.

Are those involvements outside of your employer?

The Heart Walk, Bowling for Kids’ Sake and e-Mentor are all through work. So, I am hoping to get involved with the Red Cross in order to expand myself outside of work as it relates to volunteering and giving back.

What won’t you write about and why?

I will never write about myself in a personal manner. This will be hard because I am an open book, but I want this blog to be seen as an addendum to my resume and if I am not going to write about what I do on the weekends on my resume, then I won’t do so in my blog, either.

Your blog is fairly new, what are your plans?

I hope to keep this going! I want to each post to have a take-away. Whether it is resume writing tips (my latest post), making those who read aware of what goes on in the HR industry or what I am doing beyond my work each day to develop myself and those around me. Being young in my career, I am excited to see my blog grow with me.

You wrote about “Wear Red Day” and being a co-chair. How did you find out about E3 and what benefits does the organization bring to the workplace?

E3 is a large affinity group at Ecolab.  The main focus is helping women develop in the workplace. The mission is to provide a resource for female Ecolab associates that encourages personal and career fulfillment through individual mentoring, focused skill set training, community involvement and group camaraderie.

I found out about this organization through my boss when I started, but the cool thing about it is that it is everywhere! It is a very successful organization and it is proof that women are absolutely capable to bringing change to an organization. I am the Co-Chair of the Community Outreach Committee. We planned the Wear Red Day on February 5 to raise awareness around women’s heart health. We also do a mentoring program with Humboldt High School in St. Paul, we do clothing drives and many other activities! It has been a very amazing way to give back to the community.

As far as benefits to the workplace; it is proof that if you give women the opportunity to move a mountain, they WILL. It has helped me realize how rewarding being a Gen Y woman in the workplace is right now. For a long time, women did not have a true place in the workplace and now we do, and it’s great to see executive level support for an organization that encourages development of women in such a large and successful organization.

One of your posts is about candidate experience. How did the later posts by a local recruiter about “Undercover Job Seeker” fit into what you were trying to convey?

Paul DeBettignies hit it on the nose. Recruiting departments are not realizing what the candidate experience is OR, if there roadblocks outside of their control, they are not communicating it back. There are a lot of things out of our control – positions are canceled, put on hold, etc. but we don’t take the time to protect the brands of our companies and consider the perspective of the candidate. So many times, when I meet new hires, they always say, “The recruiting process took so long.” If we are honest and true with our candidates, they would be more understanding.

What ways do you use your interactions online for post ideas?

A lot of times I’ll read a tweet that sparks something, or an article someone posts might have a piece that ignites something in me. That’s why I love social media. Everyone is building on each other and creating a hyperspace of opinions, feelings, and truths around what is going on in the world. It’s really cool to be a part of this movement.

On Twitter, what gets you interested in following and more importantly having a conversation with someone?

A large percentage of those I follow are in the HR field. I am always trying to expand my knowledge base and learn. I am a sponge that way, so I love reading the articles and blogs people post as it relates to HR. I would say just about anything entices me to have a conversation with someone. If they have something to say and I am interested in, I will more than likely respond if I have something to say. There are a lot of amazing people on Twitter who have so many wonderful things to contribute to the Twitterverse: whether it is HR, music, art, healthy eating, information about technology and the list goes on. It’s been a great place so far for me to learn about so many things in one place. But to truly answer your question: If someone says something that triggers an interest in me, I’ll probably reply back or DM them.

What are some other blogs that you read?

Girl Meets Geek
MN Headhunter
HR Minion
Obviously I love your blog, but is it considered brown nosing to list yours?

Dez: No, it’s not

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Thank you for reading this week’s Blogversation on IamDez.com and thank you to Cindy for humoring me.

–dez

Tuesday Blogversation is a weekly series on iamdez.com featuring bloggers of all kinds from the Twin Cities (Minneapolis / Saint Paul) area. If you’d like to be considered for an interview please send mail to dez [at] iamdez [dot] com or get ahold of me on twitter.

The two phones are mine for testing for the next two weeks. It’s going to take me a lot of playing and reading to figure out the web OS, but I’ll do it. Hopefully I’ll get some great videos and helpful reviews.

First impressions:

Palm Pixi Plus

The phone is tiny and responsive. The keyboard keys are well spaced and raised enough that even though their size is small, they don’t feel that way. The screen is gorgeous and the speakers are very nice. The multi touch is also nice to have.

Palm Pre Plus

I don’t like the keyboard at all. The keys are too inset and the t/y g/h and v/b buttons are spaced closer together than the other keys. Also the slider is awkward and since there isn’t a soft keyboard to use when the slider is closed it makes it necessary to deal with it.

Side by Side

The browsers on both are decently quick. The weird part was that twitter.com loaded faster on the Pre, but when it came to crunching the javascript and css of Twitter’s logged in homepage, the Pixi was exceptionally faster with the pre getting stuck on something (repeatedly) and taking 10+ seconds to finish crunching the exras.

WebOS

I’m sure this has been covered before, but I want a settings area. This is a strange exclusion of something that is default in both the iPhone OS, Android OS, and any non-smart phone.  Like I said, I’m still going to play with it and see if I can used to it (I’m used to iPhone OS and Android).

Should be an interesting few weeks. Of course I’ll connect one of them at a time to my Google Voice account so I can use it as my primary phone.

*Disclaimer* I do not get to keep these phones, they are purely for testing purposes as allowed to me by Verizon Wireless. I do not receive any monetary gain by testing these for them. Both phones have active voice and data plans that I do not pay for (but I also have unlimited minutes/data on my own phone line so there’s no real gain from where I talk from).

Starting tomorrow I will be publishing interviews with Twin Cities bloggers on a weekly basis. Each week will feature one local blogger. The questions will be custom and tailored for that blogger with only a few repeaters that are more for general knowledge.

This is my quest to find more content to read and to hopefully meet new people who are interested in at least one thing that I’m interested in (blogging). I have chosen these bloggers that I interview based on the content they produce in an attempt to highlight them for either helping other bloggers see how someone else does it or to find out for myself.

The bloggers that I’ll be contacting write about a wide variety of topics. I’m not going to limit the topics. The key here is that they are local. The only constraint I have is that they are an active blogger. Active to me is at least bi-weekly posts and something within the last month. This is not limited to word blogs. I am subscribed to a few photoblogs as well (some people have one of each).

There are three ways to see the blogs I’m currently subscribed to (which are the candidates for interviews).

• Google Reader “Blogversation” folder
• The Twin Cities Bloggers Posts in the sidebar widget
• There is also the Twitter List I have started: @iamdez/twin-cities-bloggers
• Also I’ll start an archive page tomorrow that will have each interview done linked.

If you would like to be included on or removed from the  list please email me at dez [at] iamdez [dot] com.

Tuesday Blogversation is a weekly series on iamdez.com featuring bloggers of all kinds from the Twin Cities (Minneapolis / Saint Paul) area. If you’d like to be considered for an interview please send mail to dez [at] iamdez [dot] com or get ahold of me on twitter.

I was asked on formspring:

What are your thoughts around regrets? Do you have any?

I think everyone has regrets at some point in their lives. I haven’t had a regret in a long time. I do question myself with decisions that I make whether I’m going to regret the decision or not. However, I end up making the decision that I feel is right at that time. If it happens to lead me to something less than desirable it has still given me new experiences.

A long time ago I was told that regrets are for people who can’t move on. I’ve held this thought close to me through my almost 12 years as an independent adult. I’ve made mistakes along the way, yes. Some parts of my life would have been better had those mistakes not been made, however I truly believe that where I am right now would not have happened without those choices being made.

I’m generally happy with my life. I’d like to lose some weight, handle money better, and own a house in the cities; but those are all goals and accomplishments that I need to work towards to make a reality.  Nothing outside of my decisions caused me to not realize those things. It was me. I made the decision to eat more than exercise, not go through the tediousness of keep a check registry (my memory sucks for that), and I have to work towards saving enough money after the wedding/reception to buy a house that makes me (and Megan) happy, not just one that can be afforded before the rest.

So to answer the question: No, I don’t believe in regrets. They are a waste of brain energy that is sorely needed for other things. Example: walking and chewing gum at the same time.

You can ask me anything: Formspring