I've been waiting over a year to get an Android phone and today was such a fun day that it made it worth the wait.  I kinda wanted the G1 since it came out, but didn't want to consider going to T-Mobile to get it.  Then at MWC 2009 the Hero was announced and I thought it was going to go to at least Sprint if not Verizon and I thought I would get it as soon as it came out.  Then as it got closer and closer I'd see something else that I wanted, but wasn't quite ready to pull the trigger for one reason or another.  The Sprint Hero was a little ugly in my opinion and I read about something else.  Then it was the Droid, then the Eris, but during that time there was the "Passion". I decided that was the perfect phone, it was fast, big, looked nice and was rumored to be on Verizon.  The months went by, yes months and we heard about the Nexus One that all the Google employees were showing off, then it came to light and mentioned Verizon as a future carrier.  I thought well that's nice, but still months away.  What was weird was the Passion rumors continued, they started to change to a Bravo, then an Incredible was mentioned, then a Desire was annouced at this years' MWC.  It is getting hard to tell them all apart.  I have finally decided now, that i believe the Incredible is coming to Verizon, hopefully in the end of March, otherwise early April.  That is going to be my phone, for sure this time.  I've dealt with Windows Mobile for far to long.  My first smart phone was a Moto Q, the day it released in June-ish 2006, then the Verizon vx6800 (HTC Titan) and just recently a HTC Touch Pro to get me by until this Incredible release.

So now to the fun part you've been waiting to hear.  Everyone gets that "rush" when they do something exciting.  I used to always get them in sports, but didn't notice it anywhere else until I got my PS3 before the first Christmas before they came out.  Then it was getting my Wii, when they first came out as well as picking up another 3 over time for friends.  Something about getting/finding things before other people seems to give me that exhilarating feeling.  So today I was reading one of the forums I've been keeping up on for a few months waiting to find out more info about the Incredible.  it's kinda fun hearing other people's opinions on what is going to happen and every once in a while find a gem.  Things seem to come up there, before I read about them anywhere else.  Well today it was my turn.  I was looking through some picture found on Flickr that were taken with a weird model of HTC phone.  I took the dimensions of the picture and multiplied them to find that the camera was about an 8MP camera.  Way bigger than any other HTC phone so far.  People were already assuming it was either the Bravo, Desire, Supersonic, or Incredible.  I first starting trying to figure out their location from the pictures, then looked a little closer at the user names.  I put them after Twitter accounts until I found a match.  That Twitter account linked to a couple twitgoo pictures and a couple YouTube videos.  I put 2+2 together and found a video they had posted of this rumored "Incredible".  I couldn't believe that I was the first viewer of the video.  It caught me off guard.  The video had been posted 8 hours earlier, so I figured I must've been the first person to stumble upon it.  I posted the link to the forum and things just took off from there.  So far I've seen 3 pretty popular blogs it's been posted on and many other small ones have reblogged it.  The person that tipped my post, was gracious enough to comment on the blog to make sure that I received credit.  I couldn't believe it, my name mentioned for credit to a post.  The post was also pretty nice, acting like I did some research project to find the info.  There were a ton of tweets and retweets, mentioning the story.  Here's the first 3 blog posts.

http://phandroid.com/2010/02/25/htc-incredible-on-video/

http://www.androidcentral.com/video-shows-htc-somethings-camera-action-may-be-supersonic-or-incredible

http://androidandme.com/2010/02/news/verizon-htc-incredible-nearing-release/

It got me wanting to blog more and tweet more often, to try to help out the community.  I loved that feeling and it really made me realize why so many people enjoy following technology.  So I guess I had my 15 minutes and I'll turn it back over to everyone else for now, but I can't wait to find something else out someday and hopefully next time, I'll be doing it from my HTC Incredible.

UPDATE:

Before I could even post my first edit, I saw that Engadget ran the story.  I tried to send them a tip as soon as I posted the video and 6 hours later they reposted the Phandroid blog post.  Oh well, atleast that one mentoins my name.  Don't get me wrong, it's still really awesome.  I can still say I was mentioned on Engadget.  By the way, the original video and pictures were pulled, I really hope that no one got in trouble, that wasn't the purpose.  I did make my own copy of the video just in case.  Also Engadget, it's the Incredible, you should read the forum where we proved it.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/25/htc-supersonic-spotted-on-video/

I love you, Amy!  I can't wait to spend our first Valentines together.

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Gage and I celebrating the Hawkeyes' undefeated season.  He wanted to wear the black since the gold contrasted the color of his coat, but I'm bigger than him.  Go Hawks!

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I'm just starting to play with Posterous and getting it setup for my blog.  I love the idea and can't wait to get started.  They have an iPhone app, work with about every social network and they guys there are smart and easy to work with.  So it's time I get more into "micro-blogging" and back into updating my regular blog again.

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RAGBRAI officially gets started on Sunday.  Everybody is starting to get into town and get prepped, I can't wait.  Saturday night there is a big concert with the Bare Naked Ladies in Council Bluffs, that I heard could have 30,000 people.  That would be the only way to get RAGBRAI kicked off.  A couple of my friends aren't going to join us until a couple days in, but I'm excited to meet Team Fast As Hell and see everyone else that comes out.  I always find people I know at RAGBRAI.  Since this is my first year, I will have to do all the Virgin stuff.  I know I atleast have to get my legs marked up, we'll see if there's anything else.  I'm just hoping my legs can make it through the week.  I've pretty much decided, that they have to, no matter how long it takes me to get through the days.  I also don't know exactly what to pack yet.  I've read the checklists, and I tend to overpack, but I don't want to be the guy that brings way too much stuff or forgets something obvious.

As I always do, I'm going to try to incorporate tech into the ride.  I'm planning on tweeting during the week as long as I can keep a charge on my phone or ipod.  I found a way to constantly show my location with Google Lattitude.  So you can check the map below anytime during the week and be able to tell where I'm at (again, if I can keep my phone charged).  You can also stay updated by following the twitter feed to the right, by visiting http:\\twitter.com\oneniner or checking my facebook page .  I'm hoping to upload a few pictures to there and track how I'm doing.  So feel free to text me if you're in the area, but I may not get back right away.

Just went on a run with a co-worker today, I thought I was getting into shape, but he really kicked my butt.  It reminded me why I only ran with him once last year and gave up until I fell for it again this year.  I've been training for a 5 mile run at Boys Town on Memorial Day.  Last year Amy, her dad, and I ran the hilly, 5 mile course in a little over 47 minutes.  We were pretty happy with that, but when I did't run for another 8 months after that I decided I should get in shape for it this year.  Especially since I'm planning on riding the full week of RAGBRAI this summer too.  So I found a 10K training program and then adjusted it a little for 5 miles instead of 6.2, Amy and I have gotten up to running 10 mile weeks with our longest run being 4.5 miles so far.  This Saturday we reach the peak of our training at 5 miles.   I thought it was going to be a tough week, but I didn't realize a co-worker was going to take me out for a 4 mile run at an 8 minute pace on my 2 mile day.  I was hoping for a relaxing 2 mile run to get me ready for the long run on Saturday.  Now that it's 2 hours later and I'm just starting to recover I realize my 10 mile week just turned into 12.  I guess I should be a little more ready than I was last year after running about 4 miles a week on a treadmill.

I've been tracking most of my runs on my iPod with Nike+ and felt like trying to display them here.  So here's what it says so far.  That has helped to motivate me, I enjoy knowing my pace and having a record of my runs without have to write them down or get a fancy gps watch. 

The P90X workouts have been struggling a little for me since I started running more.  I've had trouble getting 2 in a week.  Which I guess is a ton better than I was doing a couple months ago, but I may not look like Tony now.  But who knows maybe I'll drop about 40 pounds in the next 3-4 weeks and get pretty cut.  Then I would have to get new biking shorts that are smaller and resize my tux for the wedding, I don't know if it's worth all that extra work.  Amy did want to marry me for who I am, so I should be happy with it too.  :)

RAGBRAI is quickly approaching, I'm getting so excited for it.  I've hung out at a couple overnights every year, but never actually rode in it.  Last year we met some friends and went about 10 miles, but I wouldn't really consider that riding RAGBRAI.  This year I'll find out what it's really like.  I had kinda talked myself into it, then found out the overnight towns and got really excited.  One of them is Indianola, the home of the Simpson College Storm.  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in that town.  I was also happy to see it's going through Ottumwa.  My sister lives in Ottumwa now, so that should be fun.  Plus I know people for college through most of the towns, so I'm sure I'll come across some old friends.  It'll be interesting since I don't know how to pack or what to expect for the rides, but I think I'm ready for it.  Is anybody else planning on riding?  I'd really enjoy meeting up with you and hanging out a little.

I got a chance to make it to the girls opener last Thursday. It was fun to watch them beat Marshalltown. I don't think we ever beat Marshalltown like that when I was coaching. They played well together and had some fun at the same time. I also can't remember starting off the season undefeated. I know we played Ames first for 3 years and I'm thinking we played at a Valley tournament and got beat by a Council Bluffs team my first year. My second year we won at Valley's tournament, but I can't remember if it was the first game or not. Either way to start the season with a win against a 2A team from the CIML is pretty good. It's a great confidence builder, especially after losing a key player during the week before the game. They are playing well for the new coach and I think he made a good debut also. He is very positive in the paper and I can tell he has a lot of faith in this team and program. I'm glad to see that. We made it to the game, just barely after it started and I spent most of the game talking to the Athletic Director and Marshalltown's previous coach, then some of the parents, but I was glad to be back. Afterwards some of the girls said hi and were excited to see us. They asked about the wedding and thanked us for coming, it was fun.

They also mentioned the Pella game coming up. Pella is the only team from the Little Hawkeye conference that we haven't beat yet. It seems like we outplay them every year, but just can't finish. They usually have a few really good players and control the ball well. They also have a big field, and just like that other team from Pella, it seemed like we always played at their place. They hire local officials and you can never get a break there. My last year coaching there, the college coach from town was the official, so you know he was trying to help out the local girls and get them to his school, it was so frustrating. I did like Pella's coach though. I didn't talk to him much, but he was a good guy at the all-conference meeting. So Newton played at Pella again on Tuesday and from everything that I heard, they outplayed them and were in it the whole time, jut had 1 minor let down and Pella squeeked a goal in during the last couple minutes of the first half. I'm proud of the way they played, that's a tough game to have this early in the year. They are just getting used to a new system and Pella is ranked, and they were able to hold them to 1 goal. Pella only beat us by 1, but we allowed 3 goals. So they are going to have an uphill climb on winning conference and need some help from other teams, but it's definately possible. I think they can win the rest of their games, they just need someone to beat Pella. Last year I wasn't as confident, don't get me wrong, I still think they can beat anyone on a given day, but I drove down on a Tuesday to watch it last year and left with a bad taste in my mouth. It just didn't feel like they were playing together or were that confident in themselves and the program. This year it's totally different, they have great senior leadership and those seniors think that's going to be their last loss. I wouldn't want to be one of the next couple teams to play them. I'm hoping I can make it back to a few games, but it's going to be a busy spring/summer leading up to our wedding.

Best of luck to the Cardinals, I'll be following from 175 miles away. Here's a couple links to stories about the team and the first couple games. If they links are broken, I can get you a pdf copy of the story. If I missed an article somewhere, be sure to let me know.

There's so much buzz going on about Twitter right now, especially with Ashton Kutcher beating CNN to 1,000,000 followers. I think I joined about a year ago, but hadn't really heard much about it being applicable to me until RAGBRAI posted any tweets with the hashtag #RAGBRAI in them to the Des Moines Register's website.  I thought this was a creative way to share with everyone, basically from your phone while on RAGBRAI.  Then like everybody else, I made a couple "tweets" that said, "Just trying to figure this out". I didn't really understand it, but liked to follow a local band and see what they were up to and where they were performing. Once I had followed them for a while, I started to learn how it works and some of the lingo. I felt pretty dumb trying to Google "RT" and what the "@" or "#" meant. For those friends of mine that aren't on twitter, which you must not be, I only know about 10 people on there compared to the hundreds on facebook or myspace, "RT" stands for retweet. Which means, when someone in your network says something you like, then you retweet it to your network, trying to spread the word or show gratitude to the person that originally posted it. And it's abbreviated to obviously save characters since you can only use 140. So back to the showing graditude and giving credit, when retweeting be sure to put a "@" before the person that orginally posted the tweet. You also use the "@" to reply to someone. So if you're answering their question, or just saying something to them publicly then use the @. Next the "#" which is to note a subject or event that you want to point out. With search.twitter.com parsing every tweet this isn't as important anymore until you are trying to point out something with a common name as something else less unique. I can't think of a good example right now, so that's not much help. Also if you're going to use a hashtag, be sure to use the same one that everyone else is using so the tweets can be grouped. Often an event will have an abrieviated tag so that it's shorter, those can be found on hashtags.org.  Which brings me to one of the cooler features of Twitter. Twitter Search, which was acquired by Twitter from Summize, will show the most popular words mentioned in all tweets. Then it shows the top 10 "trends", this will usually tell you what's going on at the time, like earthquakes in California, who got kicked off of American Idol, or bombings in Mumbai. If your timing is right you will find out about stuff before it's in the news. Here's a twitpic from the plane that landed in the Hudson twitpic.com/135xa, it was a first hand picture taken among the many that made it to twitter before the news was on TV. Twitpic is an easy way to send pictures from your phone or computer and have them resize the pic, then automatically post a link to your twitter account with a note about it. The one from this link is probably the most popular twitpic ever, although I perfer this one from Ashton twitpic.com/2bj58. There are tons of other applications built by people outside of twitter that aggregate similar tweets, or messages from the same geographical area.

It's a fun service, that has been popular in the tech area, but just went crazy when celebrities starting using opening up a whole new level of communication between celebs and their fans. There are a few things that bug me about twitter. For 1, I hate that some people make it out to be a big popularity contest. To be honest, who cares if Ashton has more followers than CNN or me as far as that goes. I think you get more out of it if you actually interact and read your feed instead of just trying to get the most people to follow you. I guess it's kind of a cool feeling to be listed as a top for some catagory (http://wefollow.com/tag/omaha), but that's not really my goal. This also leads me to how people try to use it to market themselves. Once again, it has been amazing the traffic that it has brought to my site, but I'm not out there saying how cool I am, and how good I am at stuff and how I can make you money. I just don't get that, I guess maybe it's cause I don't have to rely on it for an income, but I just want to use it as a socializing tool, and yes find out about some new cool blogs and people along the way. The marketing part is real annoying people will follow you to get you to follow them back, then they will remove you from their list and just spam you with "how to make millions" messages. I'm pretty generous, I'll follow anybody that looks like they are following me, because they are interested. I also go back and check to make sure that the people I'm following are following me back (http://friendorfollow.com/). There are quite a few people I will still follow if they're not following me, but mostly it's the people that added me first then removed me. There are a few tools that make it easy to follow as many people as you want and sort through them. I use Tweetdeck the most, but Seesmic or Twirl are other good ones. They allow you to create groups and follow a small number of people more closely. I like to follow people from the Omaha & Des Moines areas just to see what's going on in the area. I've found out about some pretty cool startups and interesting entrepenuers. They also annouce local Tweetups, to get a chance to meet people in the area and network in person.  I also have groups for celebrities, musicians, and "tech celebs", I think they are the ones that really have brought twitter to where it is and have the most interesting ideas on how to use it.

Everyone has their own methods to get their tweets out. The most popular is the web, but Twitter was originally intended for using your cell phone to send and receive text messages. I use both of those, then also Tweetie on my iPod touch, PockeTwit on my Windows Mobile phone, then Tweetdeck on my computer and Friendfeed from the web. I'm still playing with using other clients from my desktop at home. I'm also still customizing Friendfeed. It's actually a way to agregate many web services, but I use to to read my friends tweets, you can check out my web activities there at friendfeed.com/oneniner . I like to follow a lot of people and sort through their messages, but I don't get why not everybody will follow back. I have the hardest time getting half as many followers as the people I'd like to follow. For some reason most of the local people I follow don't follow back, I don't really care since it's not a contest, I just don't think it'd be that hard especially with some of the ways I mentioned to group your friends. Pretty soon, I'll reach the 2,000 cap and not have enough people following me to follow more people, but oh well, I guess we'll wait till I get there. I was pretty excited that I finally got to 500 followers and I did it in a fair way, I wasn't tricking people into adding me. It's especially good since I don't post as much as some people do. So if you like the status updates in Facebook, there's a ton more cool interesting things going on around twitter, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but try it out, follow me, I'll follow you back and just take your time getting comfortable, you'll catch on pretty fast. Then it'll be too late and you'll be addicted.