I've decided to steal an idea from Gideon and write a quick list of things I learned in the last decade:

• I learned to ignore people who say the decade/century/millenium has one more year to go because there was no year zero.
• I learned that terrorism in the United States is a more real threat than I thought it was.
• I learned that just because the people opposing the president are idiots doesn't make them completely wrong about him.
• I learned that occupying a country to change its form of government is a very long-term project.
• I learned how to start and run a one-man corporation.
• I learned that working from home makes me gain weight.
• I learned that some take my blogging seriously and appreciate what I'm saying.
• I learned how to take a pretty good photograph.
• I learned that taking road trips with cell phones, a mapping GPS system, and wireless internet is a whole different experience from when I was a kid.
• I learned that it pays to buy an insulated delivery bag so the pizza stays hot when you bring it home.
• I learned that a DVR and multiple sources of downloadable video make television in to a completely different experience.
• I learned to program with
• The .NET Framework
• Windows Forms
• Windows Communication Foundation
• PHP
• CSS
• JavaScript
• AJAX
• YUI
• Procedural SQL
• Movable Type
• Drupal
• TikiWiki
• NUnit
• I learned the incredible value of having medical and financial powers of attorney for my parents.

There's been an interesting discussion of manufactured apparent expertise over at SJ, which appears to have inspired Bennett to weigh in here. 

The spark for the discussion was one of the many blogs that not-quite-promises to generate huge wads of cash for lawyers by gaming social media and them what loves it:

The thought of becoming an "expert" in 6 months may seem impossible to you. But I did it and I'm going to show you how.
But first let me share my story with you a bit because I think it's instructive.

Well, yeah, it was instructive:  I learned that somebody can, with some study and careful choice, become acknowledged by Google as an expert in some subject he may or may not give a damn about in less time than it takes to make a baby.

I mean, seriously -- this guy spent only six months studying this stuff, and then he's an expert?  Sheesh.

So, there I was, last weekend, giving a speech, billed as "Second Amendment Expert Joel Rosenberg".  (The speech is here; you can watch it, if you don't mind downloading a quarter gig -- one of the many things I'm not an expert in is turning a long .MOV video into a shorter one in some other format.)  I think it was a decent speech, and was well-received, by and large, by the crowd.   (And it was actually a lot of good, clean fun quoting Hillary Clinton and Hubert Humphrey to a crowd of conservatives, and then telling them an Eleanor Roosevelt story.  When it comes to issues around rights, there are folks who get it -- and who, alas, don't -- all along the political spectra, which was one of the points that I was trying to make.  Successfully?  I'm the last person to be an expert on that.)

I don't fault the organizers of the event for billing me that way, and that's not just a reluctance to bite the hand that helped me up on to the stage.  I was invited there to talk about the Second Amendment, and it's a matter that I do have some knowledge of, and a fair amount of passion about. And when it comes to gun laws, Lorman thinks I know enough about them to do a CLE class for cops and lawyers on the subject, so maybe that's not unreasonable.

Until I put it into context.  I know real experts on the subject, and have read their writings voraciously, for, well, years.  Professor Joseph Olson, who founded Academics for the Second Amendment -- now, there's an expert.  Eugene Volokh?  Ditto.  Glenn Reynolds?  Yup.  Clayton Cramer, an amateur who has written the definitive study on the racist roots of gun control?  You betcha.  (It's called, perhaps unsurprisingly, "The Racist Roots of Gun Control," and it's worth a read.  In my expert/inexpert/whatever opinion.) 

Me?  In that context, well, not so much.  Yeah, I started studying the Heller opinion about three minutes after it was posted to the Internet -- but it wasn't me who picked up the implications of the problematic paragraph in it, but Scott (it's the last sentence on p. 54):

Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

I studied it; Joe Olson, having been one of the midwives of the modern 2A acadmic movement. helped write one of the amicus briefs, and helped Gura prep for oral argument.  That's an expert.  In that context, if I held myself out as a "Second Amendment Expert," I'm not sure I could do it with a straight face.

But . . . there is that other thing, and I think -- and hope -- it differentiates me in a useful way from the Six Months to Google Expert types:  I know a fair amount about my subject, and can -- at times -- explain stuff* about the issues around the Second Amendment to folks who want to have stuff* about the issues around it explained to them.

Does that make me an "expert"?  I dunno.

Does remind me of an old joke:

A very successful young bowling ball salesmen brings his parents to the marina, one bright Saturday morning, and takes them aboard his new yacht.  The only time he's been to sea was on a Carnival Cruise, but he's bought himself a boat:  it's fifty feet long, and tricked out with all the nautical gear necessary to sail across the Atlantic, and back.  He excuses himself for a moment, and ducks down the companionway, coming back with dressed out with a neat blue blazer, and ascot, and a nifty captain's cap, complete with gold braid and such, on his head.

"Look, Mom and Dad -- I'm a captain!"

The father shakes his head.  "By me, sure, you're a captain.  By your mother, okay, you're a captain, but by a real captain, you're no captain."

I don't mind if others want to call me an expert, not really.  But I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be getting business cards that say, "Joel Rosenberg, Second Amendment Expert."

Or, for that matter, a captain's cap.
 

_______________________
* Technical term.  

Let's go to the tape. Do watch the whole thing, from beginning to end, but after you do that, let's start watching it, again, starting at 3:40 into it.

3:50 MPD squad, lights and sirens on, screams to a stop, and two cops leap out and join the struggle. The one furthest from the camera brings his fist -- it's not clear if he's holding a small weapon in it -- up and down seven times, apparently striking Jenkins repeatedly.

4:05 a third and fourth squad car scream to a stop, and a cop in a wool cap runs over, and at 4:06 shoves one of the cops out of the way, and begins kicking Jenkins.  While Jenkins is being kicked and punched by several cops, one voice can be heard to shout, "Put your hands behind your fucking back."

4:25 One of the cops screams about "something sharp," and the cops take a break from the beating long enough for Jenkins to roll to a sitting position. He's then dragged out of view of the closest squad camera, and the beating continues, with one of the cops taking what appears to be a cigarette break, looking back from time to time to the camera, then for whatever reason, positioning himself so that he blocks the view of Jenkins.

Over on the forums at officer.com, Buck Eight and Squad51 sum it up thusly:

I watched the video and didn't really have a problem with it. Things always look worse on video. Now that Dolan has the FBI getting involved and the story is ALL over the news, the guy is in for a big payday. I hope nobody loses their job over this.

Tasing, spraying and joint locks/pain compliance all look a hell of a lot better to someone watching a video (ie: a jury) than punches and kicks raining down.

http://www.startribune.com/local/534...tml?page=3&c=y

...I doubt that any of the officers will be in serious trouble over this. Kicks our part of our use of force training when dealing with combative suspects. This will be ruled a policy failure and kicking will disappear. The reason that the other officers will not get into huge touble or worse is that they where responding to an officer need help call and when they arrived saw that one officer was fighting with one and they responded to that with force to take one that they had reason to believe had assaulted an officer and he was dealt with. we have a good relationship with the county prosecuters I doubt that they would get much milage out of this. Not only that but I bet you money that if he does sue it is settled out of court for basically lawyers fees....if you watch the video in its entireity..yeah this is a no brainer the cops are in the clear...

Happy to be here proud to serve.

Minneapolis is in Hennepin County; the County Attorney -- the guy whose office prosecutes felonies in HennCo -- is Mike Freeman.  squad51 and his friends have a "good relationship" with county prosecutors.

The quote?  That's from Officer Richard Walker, early on in the stop.  Tim Dolan, the Minneapolis Police Chief, has ordered all of his officers to watch the video. The kicking it seems, was too much even for him.  "Dolan said the actions of Officer Richard Walker, the initial officer involved, 'all appear to be very appropriate.'"  He just doesn't like the kicking. Walker not stopping the thumping?  Doesn't bother Dolan.  Nor does the thumping bother squad51 and his friends at officer.com.  After all, they have a "good relationship" with the county prosecutors.

What will they learn from this?  A skeptic might think that they'll learn to station cops in front of the cameras to block recordings of the kicking in the future.

Either that, or there'll be an in-service on the use of the erase button.

But I'm sure they'll all watch the tape. Hell, maybe they'll even use some CI money to buy doughnuts for Movie Night.  Been done before, after all.

Nah. Updating doesn't go quite far enough; I really should eat a little more crow. But just a little.

Let's try that again -- and I'm going to leave the original up, for historical purposes. Bloggers -- well, ones who care to do it right -- don't throw errors down the memory hole. Hence, Version 1.1.

Let's start off by reviewing the key paragraph in our last episode:

On April 16 of 2008, Sheriff Bob Fletcher and Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner filed a hundred-page petition (here's Part 1; here's Part 2) with District Judge Joanne Smith, requesting that the judge revoke what they called Wilson's "conceal and carry permit", and documenting, in great detail, each and every one of the incidents above. In detail. The petition had been written and researched by David Rossman -- then a deputy assigned to Sheriff Fletcher's gun permit unit.

Which, combined with all the other strangenesses, was more than strange enough.

This morning it got stranger. The following was posted in the comments -- go look for yourself.

I represent Ms. Wilson. You are wrong on many of your facts.

In addition, the incidents of 2004 and 2007, did not involve Michelle Rae Wilson. Those incidents involved another "Michelle Wilson". Ms. Wilson has no son named Terrance. She was not the perpetrator in those situations. I guess you should print at retraction.

All of this is wrong:

"In 2004, two neighbors accused Wilson and another son of pouring sugar in their car's gas tank; according to police records, one said that, "Michelle Wilson threatened to blow up her house and kill her. She taunted her to go outside." She owed Wilson $60, and couldn't pay. Vandalism is a crime; terroristic threats are a felony.

"But Wilson was never prosecuted -- SPPD Officer Kong just left a card at the house -- and it all went away.

"In 2007, Nakeshia Britton, a high school classmate of Wilson's son Terrence, got another restraining order, claiming that Wilson, her son and others had followed Britton's school bus home, after which Wilson and her son Terrence, "came up on the porch with broken beer bottles and a bat trying to hit me... and told Edna, my foster mom, to let me come out so they can kick my retarded ass." She said that they tried to force their way in."

Michelle has a clean record. Her friends and neighbors love her. You wrote a very unfair and factually false piece as it pertains to her.

Thanks,

Gary Wolf
Attorney for Michelle Rae Wilson

I'm always up for correcting any facts, of course, and I have good reason to credit Mr. Wolf's claims of this morning that the 2004 and 2007 incidents were another Michelle Wilson.

But, let's be clear: they're not my facts. The source for the story wasn't my imagination -- I'm just a fiction writer, by trade, and I couldn't have made this stuff up; it's far too weird for fiction.

The 1996 incidents, which Mr. Wolf doesn't dispute was his client, is from sections #6 and #7 in Sheriff Fletcher's and County Attorney Susan Gaertner's revocation petition, and their Exhibit K and and Exhibit L, both of which were submitted to the court in support of that petition.

Somebody accused of hounding an ex for four years (and that's what the accusation is in Exhibit K and L; I don't know if the accusers were lying) being issued a carry permit in Ramsey County? Let's not be silly. That wouldn't happen unless the applicant was connected -- say, by being the aunt of a Saint Paul cop.

But let's turn to the two incidents that Mr. Wolf does -- and with good reason -- dispute.

The 2004 incident, which Mr. Wolf does say was some other Michelle Wilson (and he appears to be right) is also from Sheriff Fletcher's revocation petition, in which he claims that Respondent -- that's Mr. Wolf's client -- was named as a criminal suspect, and which Sheriff Fletcher supports with his Exhibit J.

The 2007 incident, which Mr. Wolf also says was some other Michelle Wilson, is, yet again, from Sheriff Fletcher's revocation petition, in which Sheriff Fletcher claims that Respondent -- that's still Mr. Wolf's client -- was hit by a restraining order, and which he supports by his Exhibit I.

Let's assume -- he does seem credible to me; you decide for yourself -- that Mr. Wolf is right. Why -- when trying to revoke (instead of to suspend, with a one-page petition citing the pending charges) a carry permit of a woman who was sitting in jail, accused of murder -- did Sheriff Fletcher throw accusations about another Michelle (or Michele; and without the "Rae") Wilson into the mix?

The reason I credit what Mr. Wolf says is that it appears that "Michelle Rae Wilson" has lived at the Iglehart address since 1996, whereas the "Michelle (or Michele) Wilson" in the 2004 and 2007 incidents lived at a Dale Street or Magnolia Avenue address. It is highly improbable Michelle Rae Wilson maintained two or three separate residences simultaneously.

Also, Mr. Wolf's client apparently always uses her middle name in official matters. I suspect that the other Michelle (or Michele) Wilson doesn't have a middle name. This is expressly identified as a fact on the West side of the river with a "NMN," for "No Middle Name." It aids in correct identification.

I can easily imagine the conversation between client and attorney concerning the background: "That's not me; it's someone else with most of my name," Michelle Rae Wilson probably said.

I, and others with whom I researched this article, are humbled by the revelation from Mr. Wolf. We should have caught it in our fact-checking and it appears so obvious with 20-20 hindsight. No; we are chastened. Thank you, Mr. Wolf; no excuses; we will make sure that it doesn't happen again.

No excuses, but here's the explanation: we all were overwhelmed with the outrageousness of the overkill of Sheriff Fletcher's petition to revoke, when a petition to suspend would have sufficed.

"Methinks she [don't visualize Sheriff Fletcher in a dress; you'll burn your retinas. JR] doth protest too much." We, too, took the lengthy petition at face value and neglected to double-check the citations, simply because the Sheriff and the County claimed the asserted facts as true and adopted them. That's our explanation, such as it is. Why didn't County Attorney Susan Gaertner, Assistant County Attorney Karen A. Kugler, or the judge who signed off on Sheriff Fletcher's petition didn't check his homework?

I guess you'll have to ask them; I'll not draw any conclusions.  Yet.

And I'll refrain from drawing any conclusion as to the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office malice, at least at this point, when simple, bumbling incompetence provides an entirely sufficient answer, and yet another argument that somebody should always be checking out Sheriff Fletcher's allegations, and not believing them until they've been reliably confirmed.

There are other good questions which still remain. Why wasn't the 1996 restraining order enough reason for Sheriff Fletcher to deny Michelle Rae Wilson's permit application in the first place? He's certainly denied other applicants for less.

Why, when she was sitting in jail, did he apparently throw every accusation he could find up against the wall and see what would stick? Wasn't the murder charge enough?

And why, after years in the Ramsey County Sheriffs Office gun unit, was David Rossman transferred to patrol after researching and writing that petition -- apparently to the best of his demonstrably limited abilities?

Apparently, one of the possibilities I raised in the last episode has not panned out: the transfer was apparently not a reward for the accuracy and thoroughness of the research he did in the revocation petition. What did happen with the bumbling Deputy Rossman -- and why? Is it possible that, after deciding that Rossman was too incompetent to properly shuffle paper around, Fletcher put him in a squad car with a handgun and a shotgun to do things requiring far better and sharper immediate judgment than he'd already demonstrated was lacking in his leisurely, carefully-considered one during his time in the gun permit unit?

I'd love to know the answers to these questions.

And there's more. Me, I think it would also have been news to many of us, back in 2008, after the murder, that the accused murderer was a Saint Paul PD dog cop's aunt, using supposedly, the gun that that same cop had given her.

Doesn't that sound like news to you?

Ah, if only there were some enterprise locally, that hired people to look into interesting questions about public figures and public officials, then reviewed and edited their reports, and printed them daily upon some inexpensive medium for public distribution.

Instead, what we've got is the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune.

There's actually some lessons to be learned from this; I'm figuring that Kevin Ecker will be first to point them out . . . after all, he's got a head start.  He's heard the story.

Maybe you can, too, but I gotta tell you the story, first.

I was running over to meet a guy to buy a gun. Private sale. Since he's not an idiot, he wanted a copy of my DL and permit, just to adhere to the forms.

Perfectly reasonable.

So I had a xerox of both in my front shirt pocket, wrapped around $400 in cash. I got a call from my younger daughter's school about some... issues that are going on.  Some other time.

I was so distracted by that phone call that I didn't notice that I'd let my speed creep up to a tad over the legal limit, until I noticed the flashing lights.

Shit.

So I promptly found a safe place to pull over, and did just that. T

he cop -- never mind quite which agency; I've got my reasons -- comes up to the window, and asks for my D/L, proof of insurance and... "...do you have any firearms on you?"

I answered, as I read somewhere that a guy should, "My carry permit and drivers license are in my left hip pocket, Officer; and, yes, I'm carrying today." Oh.

"And where is the firearm?"

This is embarrassing, but I do have an excuse. Some other time. "Shoulder holster."

"Do me a favor, sir, and step out of the car." He didn't sound like it was really a favor, so I did, and pocketed the keys, closing and locking the door behind me quite appropriately.

He didn't ask about that.

Instead. "I need to see your license and carry permit." Which was just as well, for reasons I'm not going to go into, about where some people put their insurance cards. 

What I should have said: "Sure. It's in my left hip pocket. Would you like me to take it out?"

What I said. "Sure. I've got a copy of both in my shirt pocket. Would you like to see that?"

I think he liked the idea that I wasn't going to be reaching anywhere, so he said that that would do, and I took out the piece of paper, and started to hand to him.

You see where this is going?

Well, so did I.

I was just about to hand a cop a piece of paper wrapped around twenty twenty-dollar bills, and it was a bit too late to withdraw the offer.

So I explained, with a fair amount of stuttering, I think, that, yes, there was some money in there, but I wasn't offering him either a bribe or a tip, just so there wasn't going to be any misunderstanding.

"And where were you going with a copy of your permit wrapped around $400?"

The gun store, I said, more or less accurately.

Well, when he took the piece of paper either I let go too soon or he grabbed at it too late, and the money started flying all over the place . . .

So, with the money flying all around, he dashes for it, and after a couple of seconds, I figure that it's okay if I help -- if he was worried I was going to, like shoot him in the back or go all stabbity, he probably wouldn't have turned his back to me -- and since it's not all that windy, he and I (mainly him; he's younger and moves faster) quickly gather it up and hands what he's got to me, and no guns, knives, tasers, nor clubs come out.

"Better count it, and make sure we didn't miss any." He glances down at the piece of paper, and frowns. "...Mr. Rosenberg. I wouldn't want you, of all people, to think that some money's missing."

Just as I'm thinking this is about to get bad, he smiles, and it's a friendly smile.

So we both count out the money -- and it's all there, and we're in front of his cruiser, so if there's a camera running, it's all on the record, and we both announce the amount, and it's the same $400 that it should be-- and he hands it back to me and suggests that I tuck it away, which I do.

"Just wait here a minute, while I run this," he says, waving the paper. He sort of glances at me, as though he was going to ask me to produce the DL --  they can swipe them, rather than type stuff in -- but then he goes back to his car, and I just wait over to the side of the road, smoking a cigarette.

Very intently.

A couple of minutes (which didn't feel like minutes, but the cigarette timed them), he comes back, and we move around to the side of the car.

"You're fine, Mr. Rosenberg," he says, and then smiles. "Guess if you had any warrants on you, the Gang Strike Force would have kicked in your door yesterday, after all."

Oh, goodie.  I think that was a figure of speech.  Really.

"I'm just going to give you an 'advisory', Mr. Rosenberg. Watch the phone stuff when you're speeding."

Yes, he said, watch the phone stuff when you're speeding.

And he sort of cocked his head to one side, and was clearly making a decision, and then he made it, and he said, "you know, there's some of us jackbooted thugs," this is a phrase I use, but to describe a certain kind of bad cop, not as a generic, "who believe in all ten of the Amendments -- "

I did not correct him and point out that there's more; that's just the Bill of Rights. Didn't even think of it until later, and I'm not always a stickler for details.

" -- to the US Constitution. You seem to," he said, handing the paper back to me, "work the First and Second pretty hard, and that's just fine."  There are ways to say it that mean and there's nothing I can do about it, but I'd like to.  He said it the other way.

I didn't quite know what to say, but I think something like thank you came out of my mouth.

"You drive safe, Joel," he said. 

And he stuck out a hand, and I shook it, and he went his way, and I went mine. Afterthought:  I guess it's possible that he knew who I was when he pulled me over, but I was driving SWMBO's car; the War Wagon was getting its a/c worked on that day.

As a friend pointed out to me, a bit later, when we were discussing this, the reason that I didn't find it offensive for him to first-name me is that he was doing it as a human sort of thing -- he'd already been formal, and was saying that as one guy to another, not a cop talking down to a "civilian," as he wasn't.

Yeah, I like cops. Some cops. I like this guy.

Not vouching for him on other stuff, but, hey, yeah, I've got a soft spot in my heart and head for cops who cut a guy a break when they don't have to. 

He could have written me, and he didn't, and I'm not about to don tactical kneepads, and all, but, hey, I like the guy.  And if the story ends a bit anticlimactically, hey, I didn't write the script, and don't mind that at all.

What can we learn from this? 

A lot, I think.  Over to you.

Yes, You Do Have Staff, But You've Got to Be Staff, First Too Both First and Too

Twitter, the Favor Economy, and the Power of Crowds

You've seen the ad:  some bozo, trying to project competence and connections, tells a potential customer:  "I've got people to handle that."  By which he means he can look up folks in the Yellow Pages, hire some, and take his chances that they can deliver.  After all, they bought an ad in the Yellow Pages, and that takes, competence, commitment, and a checkbook.  Well, a checkbook. Credit card, maybe.

You can do better.  Hell, I do better, and I'm, well, just a guy.  Look it up.

Before I get to twitter, let me tell you about a friend of mine, who I'll call Bob.  (That's not his name; that is his face.) We met something like fifteen years ago, when he was dating another friend of mine, and we've hung out a fair amount, since. 

There are folks who call me a Renaissance Man, but well, Bob's downright Heinleinian:  he can (and does) pilot airplanes, maintain cars, fix stuff, build houses from the foundation up (he's done that, and can do any of the tasks required in all of that), sail a small boat (although it did tip over, that time I went with him, throwing us into the icy cold waters of Lake Minnetonka; then again, I was at the helm), load his own ammunition, and Ghu knows what else.

Some years ago (long past the statute of limitations; chill), he decided that the house he owned then was eighteen and a half inches too short -- he had a cool stove that wouldn't quite fit -- so late on a Friday evening, he and his brother, Al (also not his name) tore off one side of it, put in all the framing and other stuff, including the additional flooring, and put the side back up and had it all painted and sealed up, better than what code requires, by Monday morning.

I could tell you a lot of Bob stories, but let's leave it that he can do damn near anything that can be done with one's hands, and that, from time to time, I've asked a favor or two of him.  The one thing that he can't do is maintain his own computers, and -- very rarely -- I get a call asking just how one farbles a glimrod under Vista, or whatever, and for two reasons, I get to farbling his computer's glimrod.

Yes:  I'm making out a like a bandit, and if I told you more of the stories --

"Yes?"
"Hey, Bob?  It's Joel.  I know it's 2:30 in the morning, but there's water pouring out of the ceiling in my kitchen, and -- "
"I got it. Put on a pot of coffee."
"That'll stop it?"
"Nah.  But I'm on my way, and a cup of coffee would be nice.  Don't worry.  We'll get it done."

-- you'd get it, even more.  (Yes, we do have fun; there was the time that we tracked a stolen car through city streets... yes, "tracked," not "followed." )

I also do some other stuff that Bob thinks is a good thing to be doing -- some of the political stuff -- and while he always makes himself available to help out in that when he can, he's of the opinion that, say, the writing and blogging is something that I can do pretty well, and that he can't do it near as well, and would rather folks like me who enjoy it spend time on.  Works for me.

I don't want to overanalyze this -- well, more than I already did -- but it's a pretty common thing: friends do favors for friends, and it all makes the world a better place.  Other than the fact that we enjoy hanging out together, both Bob and I do pretty well -- not just by the favors that we do for each other, but by those we do for others. 

Not a big deal, but a friend of Bob's once needed a quick carry class; he called me and asked me, and yeah, she got a quick carry class.  I'm not asking for a medal, which is just as well -- nobody offered me one, after all.  I just want to make the point that this doing stuff for folks stuff won't go only in one direction.  For long; you know the kind of person who acts as though they think a favor is something that you do for them, because they're too busy with their own lives, and all.  How well does that work out for them? 

Which brings me to twitter.

A few months ago, I followed the lead of some friends-who-I've-never-met-in-the-flesh, and -- while I thought it was silly -- took out a twitter account.  Mainly, I use it as an ongoing party line, a way to play with other kids while I'm doing something else, and that's fun.

But . . .

You'll see it now and then.  A tweet something like, say:

Request: anybody got a link to a good javabuttons generator? I'm thinking something like http://twurl.nl/vcpzki , but Open Source.

Which was quickly followed by:

Check this site out. Tons of great java ideas if you have never been here: http://www.dynamicdrive.com/

Which is how I ended up with javabuttons and a neat nav bar over here, over the weekend. I like it. 

Here's another one of mine.  I'd been looking into a lawsuit in another state (never mind quite why) and tweeted:

Anybody got a shortcut to information about case C 05-04532 JW in US District Court Northern District of California, San Jose Division?

A few minutes later, an attorney (I'm grateful, but I'm not going to name him without permission, lest other folks think that they get to importune him for legal research -- and I'll get back to that in a minute, I promise), tweeted:

Ask, and ye shall receive. http://is.gd/B7NB

And, if you go to the link, you'll find -- as I did -- that it was just the document I wanted, and would have looked for myself, if I'd known where to.  (I don't know exactly where he got it, or how -- but it's public information, and if I had access to the sort of tools he has at his fingertips and the knowledge of where to find that sort of stuff that he's developed, I could have found it, too.  And if my zayda had breasts, he would have -- but I digress.)

But I don't, and I didn't. I just relied on whoever was a: listening on the party line that is twitter, b: had, in the past, found what I contributed interesting or valuable (in his individual opinion; nobody else gets a vote, and that particularly goes for me) enough to take some time out of his day to look something up for me, and c: -- and this is one of the keys -- wasn't being importuned by me for "yet another favor," without me doing anything for anybody else in return, because, at least among some of the folks I meta-hang-out-with, I've contributed enough (in their opinion; mine doesn't count) putting a few work credits into the favor economy is worth the trouble, to them, even though, smart folks they are, they're probably thinking the same thing that I am when a neat query comes across:

Cool.  I can find that.

So, yeah:  the world in general -- and twitter, in particular -- is full of folks who know stuff, many of whom  will be happy to lend a hand, from time to time, and all you have to do to tap in on it is, well, obvious: Go out and do stuff.  Have fun.  Talk to folks; solve interesting problems.  Get your own work credits in, but have fun with it. Help folks, and put a call out there for assistance.

It'll be fine.  Trust me.
 

 

Life does drift, and the discussion over at SJ that Mark links to led to a digression into tactical pens, tactical pants, tactical shirts, and tactical underwear.  (For those of you who have never tried to pronounce the phrase, "tactical pants," please do try it; it's almost impossible to say without giggling.)

Which reminds me of a story.

But I gotta back up for a moment.  Despite the impression that the opening of D'Shai has given some people, anybody who has met me will have quickly figured out that whatever I am, it's not a runner.

Being "vaguely pear-shaped" mixes poorly with marathons.

That said, during the summer, I do tend to spend a fair amount of time in a t-shirt and running shorts, just for the comfort.  Which does lead to a problem in how to carry the handgun.  Running shorts, after all, generally have an elastic waistband rather than loops for a good belt, and my usual pocket holster carry doesn't work well with those, even without worrying about the possibility of the shorts suddenly dropping to the ground with a loud thunk that might not go over real well.

Which is how I found myself at the party carrying in Thunderwear.  (I was also wearing conventional underwear, not wanting to give a whole new meaning to the term "going commando," honest.)  For those folks not willing to click on the link, please reconsider -- but the short form is that the gun is carried, remarkably discreetly, just in front of the, err, crotchal area...

There's lots of things that are useful about Thunderwear, honest, although it's not possible to holster the gun without doing violence to one of the basic safety rules:  never point the handgun at something that you're not willing to destroy.  (Short further digression:  Thunderwear is a great reminder that it's never, ever necessary to quickly holster the gun.) 

Well, it was all going very well until a woman friend of mine plunked down on my lap.  We're friendly sorts in my social circle.

Understandably, she gave me a look. 

"Well," I said, "I am happy to see you, but . . . "

"Yeah, I know:  you have a gun in your pocket."

She did have the courtesy to sound disappointed.

As I get older, I feel the need to pass on some of the accumulated wisdom of my years, so with this post I'm starting the Windypundit Life Lessons Department.

It's too late to help poor Scott, but the secret to getting people to remember to give back a pen you've loaned them is to hand them the pen but keep the cap.  When they absentmindedly put the pen away, the need to find the cap usually nudges them into conscious thought, and then they remember it's not their pen.

Of course, that might not help you if they recognize your $300 Montblanc Meisterstück Le Grand and decide to steal it.