Friday
Jul162010
3 Years and 20,000 Tweets Later
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 23:59
Three years ago this past July 5th, I joined Twitter after hearing @leolaporte repeatedly talk about it on his TWiT podcast, er, netcast during the first half of 2007. Back then I didn't get it. Now I do. So much so that I have a second "professional" account with @1337wine and also my work account @tgifridays0353. Plus a couple others I either never or rarely use.
I typed a long history of my Twitter use and then realized it was pretty effing boring. And I really didn't want this to become a Twitter blog post. I really want this to be more of an update since I've been ignoring this site. So here it goes....
The past year has had it's ups and downs. A year ago I was jobless. I quit my job as it was increasingly apparent that I could no longer work at a franchise that was bleeding money and having payroll issues. These facts were finally detailed several months later in various news outlets which left me with a bit of "I told you so" to all of the people that gave me funny looks when I would tell them why I and 3 other managers left the same month.
During this time I also started my 1337 Wine brand. Having loads of time to really concentrate on the website, twitter, facebook, reviews, etc. was great during those four jobless months. But since I had not intended to earn a living so soon from it and didn't have the finances to really invest in building it so that I could earn a living, I needed to get a "real job." So after 4 months I got a great job at TGIFridays. I was also been promoted to Bar Manager in the past 30 days.
With having this job I've also had to struggle with time. Time to devote to the website. For anyone that has visited THIS website, you've already seen that marz.me was the first victim. 1337 Wine has also slowly contracted to repeats of older reviews and long intervals between Sommelier School lessons. I do see this changing eventually once I take my Introductory Sommelier Exam in a few weeks. I'll resume the Lessons first. Eventually I'll resume reviews, but that may be quite a ways off.
This test I'm taking is going to be pretty difficult. I took and passed the Certified Specialist of Wine exam back in June. That exam wasn't too hard, but I didn't get a 100 on it either. This Sommelier Exam covers more than just wine and wine service, but it's still a 100 question test. That and there is a 1.5 day review. But it's something that you need to have a command of the material prior to the review. Don't expect to walk in cold and learn everything from the review.
There is a good chance I won't pass this test, but I really think I will. And I'll probably do better than I think I will. If I didn't that would really suck as I've been working towards this test on and off for about 4 years. It's really only been the past year that I've really tried to hunker down and re-learn all that I had learned and more. But life does get in the way and sometimes the professional life (you know, the one that pays the bills) and the rest of the personal life (doing things other than wine) want some attention too. Back to the sucking part. Not only have I worked for years at this, but it's expensive. $495 for the test alone. Plus my travel and lodging expenses. But no matter what, it'll be worth it.
What else? Well, over the past year I've met a lot of really cool people here in San Antonio. My circle of twitter friends has expanded. And while I'm not always joining them at all the Twitterati hot spots around the city, when I do get together with them (mostly at #BMPR meetings) it's always a good time. That and the Pity Parties of old.
I've also gone through some more private ups and downs. And they'll mostly stay private. People I know IRL know the events. This is the ironic part about me for the past few years. As much of a Privacy advocate as I am, I'm fairly public about my life with the advent of Social Media. First with MySpace (though I was brought into it kicking and screaming), then Twitter and Facebook. Plus Viddler and YouTube and all the other video sites I've got my 1337 Wine TV videos on.
However, I don't put EVERYTHING on Twitter. I used to tweet about almost everything, but over time as my follower count has increased, I filtered more of "What Are You Doing?" Granted my followers will get those times when I'm giving the play-by-play of a sporting event on Twitter, but hey, it's not like I do that 24/7 :) Same with Facebook and MySpace. I've made those profiles private. Though with 500+ Facebook friends, even there I have to filter some things. Especially since there are people I work with as friends. Some things are better left unsaid to avoid those awkward moments around the water cooler, or Expo in my case. Forget MySpace. It's been MONTHS since I've signed on to that.
And then with 1337 Wine I have a different set of people that follow me. I've posted the occasional somewhat "blue" comment on the 1337 Wine account that was meant for Marz8. Or just mistakenly posting something meant for the other. Call it Twitter Personality Disorder. But in any case, I've developed a specialized group of people that focus on wine. And my postings in general also focus on wine. However, I may post about other things and have conversations about other subjects. Especially if they lean towards the "leet" side of things. But this side is definitely a public side to me.
So back to the privacy stuff. Well, we live in a world that is so connected that it's difficult to maintain a private presence. While not everyone shows up on a Google search, those of us that use Social Media and the Internet in general are there. So with that, I try to decide how much I put out there. While I'm no Gary Vaynerchuk or Leo Laporte, I'm not difficult to find on the 'Net. If my name was Mark Smith, I could enjoy more anonymity, but then with an uncommon name I'm able to have some uniqueness when it comes to the online world. Sometimes I show up on the front page of Google, sometimes it's the top of Page 2. Tonight, I have the last two entries of Page 1. Of course if you put my middle initial, V, in the search, I'm the entire first 4 pages ;) Put 1337 Wine? Yeah, you get the idea. I'm public. Privacy exists for me, but only in my mind until the "thought police" become a reality.
What's next? More Wine and Work. I've got a large task at the "day job" to do. And it will take up most of my free time. When I'm not at work, I'll be thinking about how to improve there. I'll take the Sommelier Exam and then resume the lessons in the "Fall Semester" of Sommelier School. I hope to have free time to play more video games (currently really digging the Risk Factions game on XBox (Marz8 gamertag BTW)). And that album I was supposed to complete? Yeah, it was supposed to be called "42." Well, I've got less than 2 months to actually complete that. Probably not going to happen. Guess I won't call it 42 if I ever complete it. Oh and somewhere along the line I want to create an iPad/iPhone app for 1337 Wine.
I think I've rambled enough for now. It's been a great run on Twitter. I hope to have 20k more tweets and more blog posts. Yeah, when am I gonna fit in time to blog? It's not like I haven't created a billion blog posts in my head that never make it to here. Until then......follow me on Twitter! And visit 1337 Wine and generate some revenue for me!
l8r,
Marz
I typed a long history of my Twitter use and then realized it was pretty effing boring. And I really didn't want this to become a Twitter blog post. I really want this to be more of an update since I've been ignoring this site. So here it goes....
The past year has had it's ups and downs. A year ago I was jobless. I quit my job as it was increasingly apparent that I could no longer work at a franchise that was bleeding money and having payroll issues. These facts were finally detailed several months later in various news outlets which left me with a bit of "I told you so" to all of the people that gave me funny looks when I would tell them why I and 3 other managers left the same month.
During this time I also started my 1337 Wine brand. Having loads of time to really concentrate on the website, twitter, facebook, reviews, etc. was great during those four jobless months. But since I had not intended to earn a living so soon from it and didn't have the finances to really invest in building it so that I could earn a living, I needed to get a "real job." So after 4 months I got a great job at TGIFridays. I was also been promoted to Bar Manager in the past 30 days.
With having this job I've also had to struggle with time. Time to devote to the website. For anyone that has visited THIS website, you've already seen that marz.me was the first victim. 1337 Wine has also slowly contracted to repeats of older reviews and long intervals between Sommelier School lessons. I do see this changing eventually once I take my Introductory Sommelier Exam in a few weeks. I'll resume the Lessons first. Eventually I'll resume reviews, but that may be quite a ways off.
This test I'm taking is going to be pretty difficult. I took and passed the Certified Specialist of Wine exam back in June. That exam wasn't too hard, but I didn't get a 100 on it either. This Sommelier Exam covers more than just wine and wine service, but it's still a 100 question test. That and there is a 1.5 day review. But it's something that you need to have a command of the material prior to the review. Don't expect to walk in cold and learn everything from the review.
There is a good chance I won't pass this test, but I really think I will. And I'll probably do better than I think I will. If I didn't that would really suck as I've been working towards this test on and off for about 4 years. It's really only been the past year that I've really tried to hunker down and re-learn all that I had learned and more. But life does get in the way and sometimes the professional life (you know, the one that pays the bills) and the rest of the personal life (doing things other than wine) want some attention too. Back to the sucking part. Not only have I worked for years at this, but it's expensive. $495 for the test alone. Plus my travel and lodging expenses. But no matter what, it'll be worth it.
What else? Well, over the past year I've met a lot of really cool people here in San Antonio. My circle of twitter friends has expanded. And while I'm not always joining them at all the Twitterati hot spots around the city, when I do get together with them (mostly at #BMPR meetings) it's always a good time. That and the Pity Parties of old.
I've also gone through some more private ups and downs. And they'll mostly stay private. People I know IRL know the events. This is the ironic part about me for the past few years. As much of a Privacy advocate as I am, I'm fairly public about my life with the advent of Social Media. First with MySpace (though I was brought into it kicking and screaming), then Twitter and Facebook. Plus Viddler and YouTube and all the other video sites I've got my 1337 Wine TV videos on.
However, I don't put EVERYTHING on Twitter. I used to tweet about almost everything, but over time as my follower count has increased, I filtered more of "What Are You Doing?" Granted my followers will get those times when I'm giving the play-by-play of a sporting event on Twitter, but hey, it's not like I do that 24/7 :) Same with Facebook and MySpace. I've made those profiles private. Though with 500+ Facebook friends, even there I have to filter some things. Especially since there are people I work with as friends. Some things are better left unsaid to avoid those awkward moments around the water cooler, or Expo in my case. Forget MySpace. It's been MONTHS since I've signed on to that.
And then with 1337 Wine I have a different set of people that follow me. I've posted the occasional somewhat "blue" comment on the 1337 Wine account that was meant for Marz8. Or just mistakenly posting something meant for the other. Call it Twitter Personality Disorder. But in any case, I've developed a specialized group of people that focus on wine. And my postings in general also focus on wine. However, I may post about other things and have conversations about other subjects. Especially if they lean towards the "leet" side of things. But this side is definitely a public side to me.
So back to the privacy stuff. Well, we live in a world that is so connected that it's difficult to maintain a private presence. While not everyone shows up on a Google search, those of us that use Social Media and the Internet in general are there. So with that, I try to decide how much I put out there. While I'm no Gary Vaynerchuk or Leo Laporte, I'm not difficult to find on the 'Net. If my name was Mark Smith, I could enjoy more anonymity, but then with an uncommon name I'm able to have some uniqueness when it comes to the online world. Sometimes I show up on the front page of Google, sometimes it's the top of Page 2. Tonight, I have the last two entries of Page 1. Of course if you put my middle initial, V, in the search, I'm the entire first 4 pages ;) Put 1337 Wine? Yeah, you get the idea. I'm public. Privacy exists for me, but only in my mind until the "thought police" become a reality.
What's next? More Wine and Work. I've got a large task at the "day job" to do. And it will take up most of my free time. When I'm not at work, I'll be thinking about how to improve there. I'll take the Sommelier Exam and then resume the lessons in the "Fall Semester" of Sommelier School. I hope to have free time to play more video games (currently really digging the Risk Factions game on XBox (Marz8 gamertag BTW)). And that album I was supposed to complete? Yeah, it was supposed to be called "42." Well, I've got less than 2 months to actually complete that. Probably not going to happen. Guess I won't call it 42 if I ever complete it. Oh and somewhere along the line I want to create an iPad/iPhone app for 1337 Wine.
I think I've rambled enough for now. It's been a great run on Twitter. I hope to have 20k more tweets and more blog posts. Yeah, when am I gonna fit in time to blog? It's not like I haven't created a billion blog posts in my head that never make it to here. Until then......follow me on Twitter! And visit 1337 Wine and generate some revenue for me!
l8r,
Marz
Reader Comments (1)
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