okay so the skinny jeans didn't work out for me so well …

This eighties kid got stuck in the nineties of his college experience

The article before last I pontificated about my profound arguments against niche social-networking arguing that you are better off on a large anonymous platform like MySpace, YouTube or Facebook so you can actually meet new people for a change. I hinted that I might return to my universities social-network but digressed, well I pretty much ate my words. But it was really cool though; the entire network is people you have known from years back and I think that is the differentiator of social networks on Ning from other sites.

I didn’t really know what to do, or what to say. Brought back some good memories to be sure so I just sort of tried to start where I would if I were actually there. Really cool, glad I did it. and part of me needed it a lot more than I was willing to let onto; without the technology and without being in the town near to the university, as a lot of people are still living not far from it, I wouldn’t have had that opportunity to reconnect. It also got me to thinking though, a lot of people were still the same but some others were like totally different people. Still others, I look at their page, and I probably should say something, but I don’t for whatever reason.

When I was there though I had met up with someone who wasn’t entirely a friend during my college years, but we lived next to each other and sort of ended up developing some sort of odd friendship. I never knew if it was because we were familiar faces or if it would have inevitably happened there on the campus. At the end of the day I don’t think it matters much, I never told him when I moved from the town, not sure if he was around at the moment, but I just sort of left things at that. I had actually ran into a few other people in the town but few I had as much interaction as I did there. Weird thing was that town was a place I was trying to leave and others from a lot bigger cities than what I had known had no problem staying, in fact a lot of them are still there.

That just says home is where you make it. I’m still a junkie for getting lost in the city; either in huge crowds, on the highway, in some ghetto I have no business being in or on a floor in a high rise somewhere. Quite honestly any city will do; yeah I grew up romanticizing New York and Chicago but I’ve grown to have a deeper appreciation for variety. As you know I ended up falling in love with this place, given the love/hate relationship I had for it’s aesthetic you have to spend some time in it and take it in slowly, with all of it’s quirks and weirdness. It isn’t your typical grid like, deeply trenched road systems and atypical highway development or even urban development for that reason. So far I haven’t found much else like it; though people say it resembles L.A. but I tend to think overpopulated Southern New Jersey for some reason.

Like for instance they’re building a light-rail system but so far it will only go across one city, which is sort of small in it’s physicality and I think a length of less than 20 miles. The city that really needs it, Virginia Beach, for the longest wanted to have no parts of it but it seems to be easing up a bit. What is really, desperately needed, is prohibitively expensive; 70 miles traversing the metro area with 10 lines, that would equal the highway development that is already in place (take into consideration I-64,264,464,564,664 and the bridge tunnels I think it would only be fair). I still want a solid highway going straight from here to Washington DC without having to go to Richmond but one can hope and dream.

Perhaps relationships and friendships aren’t any different. I had a lot of variety back then, and even more so now. But those true friends I had a lot of time with that got to see me when I wasn’t in my right mind and not put together came through. God, am I 20 years old with this thing I see how kids can get lost in it. I guess I still have a life as I try to sneak this one in quickly so I can get back to doing some work that may open up a whole lot more work than I ever could have asked for. Yeah I knocked on the door for a while and it was answered while I wasn’t looking doing other things. I’m like cramming for an exam it feels like I’m trying to get back into the groove of things, surely felt that way this morning.

Detours are good; you know I read an article yesterday talking about the importance of taking a vacation and that you aren’t any good to your employer or fellow constituents and peers at work trying to be a workaholic and not taking any vacations. Even if you have no where to go, and nothing to do take a vacation and spend some quality time with yourself. But in case if you’re wondering, no there’s no Twitter in sight for me. I’ve got my new network, and the one I sort of inadvertently created with my readers, and that’s more than enough for the little bit of time I have …