Think about it now. How many times in the last year has someone asked you “Hey, have you talked to Whatshername lately?” and you answer, “No, but I posted on her Facebook wall. She updated her status about a day ago, but didn’t reply.”

With Google, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare etc. it’s almost impossible to be involved with technology and be completely off the grid. You can’t take your phone off the hook any more and pretend someone didn’t reach out to you. We have missed calls, voicemails, tweets, pokes, checkins to let others know where we are.

Just about the only thing we can do now is tell people that we’ll be out of the country, away from Facebook/email and not checking our phones. And even then we’re not hiding, we’re just out of contact.

Have you ever thought about going off the digital grid by closing your facebook/social media accounts and not carrying your phone with you at all times?

The year since then has been so amazing to think back on. You can’t fathom what it’s like to be married until you’ve done. Moreover, her two best friends, my two best friends, my brother and her cousin all got married  in the six months preceding our wedding. So here we are a crop of newlyweds all figuring it out together. The sharing of stories and firsts has made the last year that much better.

Professionally I think I grew as well. My career track was quite erratic after leaving Oxford. I made pit stops in Dallas and Birmingham before coming to Chicago. In the last year I’ve taken on new challenges and feel that I’ve taken ownership of my role at NorthShore. I’ve spoken at conferences in Chicago and Las Vegas all while learning more and more about marketing both online and off.

Personally I stayed level with my fitness, something that I aim to improve this year. Bouts of fitness were derailed by illness, injury and general laziness.

It all comes back to the wedding though. That was and will always be the best day of my life.

In 2011 I stare 30 straight in the face. If the 20s were all about becoming an adult, then my 30s will be all about living like one. I look forward to taking on new challenges and defining my role in this world. In the new few weeks I’m going to come up with my take on ESPN’s recent 30 for 30 series. It will be a list of 30 things I want to accomplish in 2011. Stay tuned for that.

1- The Comcast internet service at our apartment has been a little sluggish lately. I’ve gone back and forth with Comcast via Twitter over the last few days. This morning I reached out again when our Internet service was nearly unusable  from Wednesday night into Thursday morning. A DM to Bill on the Comcast team netted a phone call from customer service and a followup call from the tech who says he located and fixed the problem. No long hold times and no days waiting for a tech to show up. The problem appears to be fixed. Thanks Comcast.

2- I prepaid my baggage fee for an Airtran flight I was supposed to take last Friday. Had to cancel the flight last minute (another maddening story) but the baggage fee wasn’t refunded. I just called Airtran Customer Relations. A nice woman picked up on the first ring, I explained my problem, she asked my name, confirmed the non-refund, apologized and issued the $15 refund. Total time on the phone? Maybe two minutes.

These are two companies that get a very bad rap when it comes to customer service who seem to really be trying to fix things.

So kudos to them!

Absolutely nothing is wrong. It’s bulletproof. Pure perfection.

Are you sure?

Think about it. You can’t campaign in the immediate vicinity of a polling place. But what if the moment right before somebody voted, as they checked in to a polling place on Foursquare they got a tip that said “Vote John Smith for County Office X!”

If I’m a campaign manager in a race where a handful of votes can make a huge difference in a race people are not familiar with I am making sure I (or volunteers) visit every poll in the days leading up to the election and checking in with a tip to vote for my candidate.

Surely there is no law on the books against this right now.

I did the upper body section of that  tonight and managed okay. The weight section of the Galter is nice, albeit a little cramped.

I had set out to work out 14 times during February…I made it to the gym 3 times. Meh…win some lose some.

Today’s work out:

W/U 200 swim/200 pull

5×100 on the 1:50

100 pull, 100 IM

5X100 on the 1:50

C/D 50 backstroke pull

Workout:

200 swim/200 pull

10X100 with 10 sec rest

Since leaving Dallas I slowly fell back into some bad habits. I was still generally healthy, not as active, but I kept in shape. But six months ago, my fitness became a total after thought. Wedding, travel, moving, life, other were my main focus. Along the way I gained a considerable amount of weight.  The wedding (both mine and that of friends) occupied so much of me and Millie’s time that we chose to spend what little free time we had doing anything but working out. I had so little time during the week and rarely had a weekend where we weren’t traveling, I made the choice to rest and recuperate rather than work out….and eat pizza.

That changed today with my first swim in nearly seven months. It was hard and equal parts frustrating and exhilarating. Frustrating because I once could knock 1000 yards as a warm up but exhilarating as I was reminded what it’s like to be in the water. I love it. I love the pool so much more than the treadmill. I’ve promised myself I’ll get back in shape.