Killer Bunnies, Chapter 1: Delay of Game

Kim, Evan and I were the last to arrive at Ft. Rob, rolling into the park around midnight (local time) July 28.

Much to the shagrin of Dryden, who had managed to hold off the big Killer Bunnies match in my absence, according to the Twitter feed.

DrydenTheMeints: "Dryden is making it so that gina gets to be in on the first killer bunnies game. Mental note: make sure she thanks me. Hehe" (10:02 PM July 28, 2008)

As it turned out, thanks weren't entirely necessary as I staved off later games until Dryden could return from consecutive nights spent attending the Fort's musical productions of "Guys & Dolls" and "South Pacific."

designerGina: "Eric [Reed] wants a practice round before dryden gets here.... i smell fear." (09:22 PM July 30, 2008)

And this was only the beginning.

—

NEXT UP:
Killer Bunnies, Chapter 2: Enter the Spatula

OLÉ!

No two words get this family's taste buds kicked into overdrive like...
TACO TOWN!

The Powell family generously imported Taco Town enchiladas to go with our tacos for the first night's supper. YUM. The leftovers helped Jeff truly appreciate the power of Twitter when he received immediate responses to his txt:

JeffWils: "Leftover enchiladas still good. What do they put in these things?" (01:04 PM July 30, 2008)

That powerful message got Dryden out of bed —
DrydenTheMeints: "Omg! I'm awake!" (01:09 PM July 30, 2008)
— and I heard Paula reported immediately to the main house.

I put Jeff's Twitter name in wrong, so I didn't receive that message in a timely fashion. Boo. But there were lots left over so I did get one of the leftover enchiladas. Yay!

An hour or so later, I was across the way sitting in the "Barista Kitchen" with Kelli, waiting for my latte to brew (thanks, Michelle!), when Ben Harless came in, a paper-towel-wrapped enchilada in each hand.

"Where's the microwave?" he asked. (Yeeeah... it's OK. Kelli and I both laughed, too.) He resigned himself to just eating them cold until I told him he could have a hot one (OK... well... fairly warm, anyway) in about seven minutes. Patience is a virtue, but leftover Taco Town enchiladas are a gift.

—

MUCH GRAS
While I'm thinking about it, a big thanks to Generation Three for providing the evening meals. That's a mighty big task, preparing a meal for 70ish people, so thanks for all your hard work.

All a-Twitter

Despite a few snags, I have to say that I was pretty pleased with the overall Twitter experience at Ft. Rob. I myself didn't get the mobile Twitter nuances quite right and so ended up out of the loop during the last leg of my journey, sending in a message or two here and there along the way that led some to believe I was receiving every one of their messages.

(A special thanks to Dryden for postponing the official Killer Bunnies rematch until Gina's arrival.)

Anyway, I'm sure some of you found the Twittering slightly annoying, but hopefully more of you found it to be a boatload of fun. (I know I did.)

I'm guessing so since I think some must have gone into Twitter shock... My notice about some new blog postings stirred up more than a couple of responses — followed by two notifications indicating Glenn Harless was no longer into it. Heh... teen-agers...

So the Twitters continued sporadically days after we'd all parted ways as a few participants checked in along their journeys home... with the rest of us jumping in. Fantastico!

I'll be pulling some Twitter gems out in future postings for those of you who might have missed out...

Aaaaaand... WE'RE OFF!!!

The FtRob Twitter feed is abuzz today with everyone shoving off on the last legs of their respective Ft. Rob journeys, ending about 36 hours of monumental technological advancements.

Let's recap:

*Lots of new txt-ers out there, diving into Twitter just today (welcome to the year 2008, Melissa, Tara, Judy and Ruth), thanks to Paula and Dryden at WWCC (West Wilson Command Center) getting their cells all signed up. A giant leap for the Brewers and Jeff's clan. Maybe Scott, too, later.

*Ben Harless tested the Twitter waters a bit last night. I'm thinking he'll be game later on, which means Glenn will be, too.

*Gina has barraged the Petersens with pleas to get them to join in on Twitter. Might have to get them online on site as well, by force if necessary. Same goes for the Powell troops.

*And yes, we've let Dryden loose on the blog. Well... mostly. ;-)

—

Seems like a few folks have just arrived. Kim, Evan and I will be falling in last, I think, due to arrive sometime around midnight.

Drive safe. See you all there.

(Save me a bed!)

-G

2WC Squared OR Battleship remastered

2WC squared: aka West Wilson Command Center. The product of four hours of nigh fruitless toil and little light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

Objective: Twitter mobilization.

Location: Top secret

I'll explain. Paula and I have been slaving over hot laptops and overworked, underpaid cellphones for FOUR HOURS, sitting across from each other in Butch and Judy's living room. It's comparable to battleship. Except much, much more technological, and much, much more dangerous. Its been a brutal brawl of bandwidth, an intricate engagement of internet, a foul fracas of phones.

The outcome: Twitters have been obtained for all of (count 'em) TWO people. Myself, and my mother. Many questions have arisen, including "What is Twitter?" sent by my mother, uncannily late in the game. They have been forwarded to headquarters, at EWCC, and been turned over to the resident Twitter overseer.

The most eminent danger: All of the previous users are going to have to figure out how to "follow" the new ones, otherwise all our labors are truly for naught. We, being the brunt of the WCC, have legitimately considered using our overpowering numbers (again, 2) and password informant (Gina) to hack into every one of your accounts and force you to follow us.

More later, but as for now... our convoluted web of technology shall continue expanding... enveloping websites and phone lines and eventually... the world.

Twitterpated

(OK, I finally caved and used the obvious headline.)



Got a handful of folks signed up on Twitter "remotely" on Saturday, namely Ben, Glenn, Kelli, Mom and Michelle, with reserved interest from Dryden. Happy to extend the same service to anyone else...

But only on

SUNDAY!
SUNDAY!!
SUNDAY!!!


After that, I'm on the road myself.
Txt @ ya l8tr.

-G

Preparations and other fun stuff

Scrabble? Check!
Trivial Pursuit? CHECK! CHECK!
Clue? GOT ONE... no wait... we've got two of those, too!
Sorry? Don't be! I mean CHECK!
Twitter? Yes, please!

Mom and Kelli are finalizing their lists of to-dos and groceries. I've raided Mom's AND Janma's game closets, in person and remotely. And Dad pulled the camper around, so you know things are getting serious.

I've also cornered the Harlesses to get them set up on Twitter and made arrangements to set up the Petersen kids when they get on the road later today. Extending the same offer to the Powells via txt msg... and anyone else who wants to give me a call. (We can POSSIBLY set you up when we get there, but it will depend on what kind of signal we've got.)

T-minus 2 days, and counting...

Doll heads and Twitter madness

You know that scene in "The Wrath of Khan" — the scene it's famous for, if only for its sheer spoofability?

"KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!"

This is how I'm starting to feel about Twitter.

If you're to believe my Twitter feed, I'm sitting on a runway in Ontario, but managed to be in proximity to my family in Omaha two hours ago. I know I'm awesome and all, but I left my cape at home... next to my TIME MACHINE.

*sigh*

ANYWAY... the Twitter site reports it's been having technical difficulties. Understatement. (Paula, that's why your txts weren't posting the other day.) But hopefully the Twitter feed will start living up to the level of awesomeness I once witnessed. Yar.

In the meantime, enjoy this photo from ONT. As promised... doll heads. Creepy.

Good news, everyone...

When I promised everyone could play, I meant it. Finally, I can really deliver...

That's right: I HAVE TRIUMPHED OVER TECHNOLOGY.

I've figured out the Twitter feed, and now, if you can send a txt (that dork-speak for "text message"), then you can post to the Ft. Rob blog's Twitter feed, anytime, anywhere.

Here's how it works:

Sign up for a Twitter account, preferably using the invite I sent out (so you're automatically on the ftrob list), or go here. After that, all you do is send a txt to the phone number 40404, starting with "ftrob" or "@ftrob"... then txt away! Well, up to 140 characters... away...! Your txt will post to the "WILSONS TWITTER" feed on the blog instantaneously.

Pretty cool, huh?

P.S. - Need another invite? Drop me an e-mail or put up a comment on this post, and I'll get ya covered.

—

UPDATE: OK, there's another bug here. Looks like you have to LOG IN to the Twitter feed to see it (for now... I'll keep working on it). Just enter username "ftrob," password "wilsons" and you're in. ... And go, Paula!

Ask and you shall receive

Paula Twitters!!! I was going into the Twitter site to grab the logo for my post just now and poof! There's Paula! WOO HOO!

Now, the bad news: Her tweet to ftrob didn't pull through to this blog; only to ftrob's replies page. Boo. But don't give up on me yet. I'm still working on getting those messages to post up here, too. Stay tuned.

Tweet tweet!!!

OK... back to Twitter.

This is a little application I got turned on to while attending a Society of News Design (international) conference in Boston last fall. Basically, you sent a text message to the SND Boston blog's Twitter name and it was immediately posted to the conference blog. They also projected the Twitter page onto the big video screen during the awards banquet which made waiting for your food almost the highlight of the whole evening.

There's still a few finer points I'm trying to work out. For example, I'm not sure that you actually have to have an account to play along or if you can simply send a text to the right address (I think you need an account, though). I also haven't been able to test whether someone else who tweets (that's Twitter talk for sending a txt) to my account will also post there because I only have one cell phone (THANK GOD!). But I'm curious to do a couple of test runs, if anyone is interested...

Any volunteers? Go to Twitter.com and set up your account. After that, send a tweet to ftrob, the Twitter account I set up for this blog. Oh, and if you IM, there's also a way to tweet through there (still testing that one out, too).

Hopefully, I can get all the technology down so that everyone can join in. It's much more fun when everyone can play.