The tree went up today. There’s added excitement with OIiver and his two-year old outlook on life. And I’m a big kid anyway, so I’m all for it. Lea and I put it all together and O did his best to disrupt the process. Along the way, I got to hang my favorite ornaments, which is what this post is all about. My favorite 5.

I’m a sucker for Elvis. Especially any gospel music by Mr. Presley. BUT, when it comes to Christmas music, give me some Blue Christmas by Elvis. So good. This ornament is a new edition this year. Courtesy of Garden Ridge. Yep, I went there.

Elvis Presley, Blue Christmas

Did you know I like planes? Well I do. Especially vintage one’s that Pan Am might have used. I look at this ornament and think about taking a trip to Calcutta. Why not? This was a gift a couple of years ago from my friends Barry and Vic – Pottery Barn – classic, classic present.

Let me on this flight!

I only have one robot ornament. But it’s my #1 choice. You can’t go wrong with Star Wars over Christmas (in fact, Oliver and I watch the original trilogy every year during this time). But I know the tree is in good hands with R2 in it. I’m sure it’s why all the bulbs work. He can fix anything. Lea bought me this from Target this year.

R2-D2 Beep Beep Beep

If you didn’t know, I also like to take photographs. This ornament is a reminder of that, and another recent purchase from Target. I also like to pretend it’s a Leica Camera…because maybe a real one will end up under the tree?

Not a real Leica

Hard not to think about Sir Stirling Moss driving the wheels off this thing. Another wonderful gift from Barry and Vic – this has front and center status in our tree. Now if Sir Stirling would only stop by for Christmas Dinner. He could meet Oliver Sterling…and get to taste my trifle.

Come for dinner Sir Stirling Moss!

Those are my favorite ornaments. Here are a few I would like to add for 2012 -

- Fab 5 Freddy
- Ernest Hemingway
- Salvador Dali
- Something Lego related
- A RobotoWear ornament
- Old Gregg from The Mighty Boosh
- A Citroen D

What are some of your favorite ornaments?

Me and O

It’s been a busy past six weeks – a ton of work projects, a fair amount of traveling and very little personal time. Everyone faces the challenge of the balancing a professional and personal life. It’s become a lot harder now that I’m a father and that I’m still a newbie at work (2 months in), but I’m doing pretty well. The blurriness of work/home life got me thinking though. For a long time, I’ve operated online with the assumption that there is no distinction between me “personally” or “professionally” when it comes to an online persona. I always assume that whatever I place on the web will be seen by friends, family, colleagues and strangers. Not everyone does this, but it has helped me cope with how I want to be perceived, issues of privacy and so on. But for some reason, I’ve started thinking about my use of Twitter and similar issues. I originally used Twitter just so I would understand it. As I understood it, I realized it would be a good opportunity to provide personal updates and share professional projects. Twitter use for me really got going during the launch of ArtBabble. This combo approach for Twitter worked well for me and I noticed my followers increased and represented a healthy balance of friends, museum nerdz, and general tech peeps. Not bad.

I'm a museum nerd

And then I left the museum field. It’s been a couple of months. All of sudden I seemed a little lost. My followers (and we’re not talking that many) had come to expect tweets that were personal and museum themed. Now they were getting just personal updates. I wasn’t sure how to weave in my new professional focus of auto racing related, digital content. I wasn’t sure what their thoughts were on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway or the IndyCar Series? And I certainly didn’t want to ostracize anyone.

My approach was to take it slow. I enjoyed tweeting about my personal stuff – soccer, walks with O, The Mighty Boosh, cooking and so on. And then I started easing into some racing related content – nothing too specific, but tweets about traveling, new websites, P-Diddy, and so on.

The Mighty Boosh - Lester Corncrake and Tony Harrison.

And then I noticed new followers emerging. I had sustained my existing fan-base (and I say that with as little arrogance as possible) and started to attract followers with strong interests in auto racing, the IMS and IndyCar. Cool. I’ve been very selective about my racing tweets. I try to select content that will have mass appeal. Our work Twitter accounts, @IndyTalk – IMS & @IndyCarNation – IndyCar, get tremendous fan interaction on almost every tweet – they don’t need little ‘ol me retweeting everything.

My modest presence on Twitter now has a focus on a more personal distribution of content or storytelling. I guess, looking back on the museum community, we were all trying to reach a smaller, niche audience and we wanted to try and reach everyone, no matter what (and I say that with no disrespect…just fact). I’ve been blown away by the level of fan interaction, passion and opinions of our followers in the new job. It’s incredible. So I’m going to keep using Twitter, keep sharing stuff, and hope I find the right balance of appealing to a strangely diverse collection of followers. If you continue, thank you, If you don’t, I completely get it.

So that’s about it. All this talk of me, me, me! What about the people I’ve started following recently. I’ve added tons of people over the past few months. Here are a just a few -

@TheNaptown – we’re talking Chef James Bryant, new owner of The Naptown Restaurant and Wine Bar. He’s very new to Twitter but he’s given me lots of tips when it comes to BBQing. Follow him or better yet, go eat.

@diorabarid1 – actress Diora Baird. Her tweets are unexpected and surreal. I love surreal…even though she was in an episode of Two and a Half Men…oh well.

@LeilaniMunter - race car driver and passionate environmental advocate. Her recent documentation of the oil spill in Louisiana has been eye opening. Learn more about her, here.

@RoyHobbson – writer of The Silent Pagoda. Funny, witty, edgy and has got his finger firmly on the pulse of the local racing community. Even if you despise racing, you’ll enjoy his writing.

That’s it – there are plenty more people I love following. I’ll feature them in a future post. If you’ve made it this far, thanks so much for reading.

The Biltmore

My younger,  brother-in-law also surprised us with a visit. Aside from being hilarious – he also knows technology, I mean knows everything. So he asked what apps I had for my iPhone, and an education began. Here are some of new apps he mentioned to me and some of my favorite oldies but goodies.

CardStar: I’m man that believes in carrying a money clip. This app organizes all of your discount or reward cards for easy scanning at checkouts. CVS, grocery store, the playa ball, Toys r Us, yeah, it’s all stored. You’ll be organized and your money clip will shine.

BigOven: Need to know how to boil water, make lobster bisque, a sunday roast, Chicken marsala? This app will save the day while you’re walking through the grocery store looking for paprika. Unfortunately, it won’t turn you into Gordon Ramsey.

Knocking Live Video: Wow. Turn your iPhone into a streaming web cam. Wanna give someone a home tour? Wanna stream some street racing? Wanna give a live video demonstration of _______? Get to it. Send your video to a buddy, colleague or parent. What are you waiting for? Read their blog posts here or see the demo below - 

These were some of the best apps my b-i-l mentioned, and these don’t include what I already regulary use, such as TweetDeck, Facebook, Flickr, and more recently foursquare.  But, there are a couple of other apps I’m excited to use shortly – RedLaser and Remote – it’s all about scanning barcodes for deals and controling iTunes with my phone.

Some of the apps are incredible. I remember back in November, calling home from New Zealand, using Skype via free wifi – how amazing is that? But really, in closing, can anything top The Mighty Boosh app? I know my life is complete.

I’ve missed a million apps – but I have I overlooked a must have? Let me know.