This Saturday before Mother’s Day I wasn’t planning to chase but I took my gear with me anyway. After a family visit in northern sections of Virginia I headed south on Rte 15 with an eye on the radar. I noticed a robust discrete storm approaching Danvi…

I headed off to Culpeper, VA this morning to get a small bit of shooting fun. The Cedar Mountain Youths group was hosting its monthly practical pistol practice match. The forecast called for the possibility of rain, so all stages were set up to be shot…

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I have roughly a 1.5:1 ratio on Twitter, that being 1.5 followers for every person I follow. I gain new followers every week that unfollow me within 7 to 10 days. I’m sure some of them decide I’m not that interesting. They are probably right. However, I’m more sure that most of them unfollow me because I didn’t follow them back. How do I know this? Those people almost always have over 10,000 followers, and are following a similar number themselves. Nobody can pay attention to a Twitter stream with 10,000 people in it. You just can’t. So I know that person didn’t follow me because they thought I might be interesting. They followed me so that I would follow them back. I don’t play that game. Other reasons why I didn’t follow you back include

You didn’t catch my interest. – If I don’t know you personally or by reputation, I devote about 30 seconds to deciding if I’m going to follow you back. A Twitter profile that provides no interesting information about yourself is almost certain to result in my moving on quickly.

Your latest tweets weren’t interesting. – If you aren’t going to provide useful info in your profile, then it would be helpful if you at least had a few interesting tweets recently to give me an idea of what to expect. I err on on the side of opting out. You have to give me (and everybody else) a reason to care about what you have to say.

Your Twitter stream is mostly about self-promotion. – I don’t really need to explain this one, do I?

Your Twitter stream is a late night rerun – If I’ve already seen 75% of the stuff in your Twitter stream, there isn’t really much of a reason to follow you. This can be a particular problem with career related folks I’ve followed. We’ve all seen the that article about that thing by now. You don’t need to retweet it. If most of your tweets are retweets that have hundreds of other retweets you might want to work harder at Twitter. Or just quit.

You appear to be a dick. – Don’t be a dick.

Contrary to what the “personal branding” consultants tell you, nobody needs a Twitter account. It can be a great way to keep up on the news or an industry, but it’s not a magic button. It won’t automagically bring you sales, or fame, or influence. If you have fun with it, or gain something by using it even if you mostly consume content and don’t produce any, that is fine. But don’t feel compelled to participate. It’s ok if you don’t tweet. Odds are nobody is going to notice anyway.

We stopped by a local beverage store this weekend, specifically to pick up more Easy IPA. Just in time too, since I grabbed the last six-pack in the store. Good thing there’s more on the way! While we were in the store, a representative for Evolution B…

After getting the work day obligations out of the way, there was time for this:It was just me and some noisy geese on the pond.And now it’s time for this:That’s Flying Dog Easy IPA, which was reviewed here.Don’t hate me.   🙂
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I’ve been displaying the American flag, along with the Pledge of Allegiance on this blog, since at least July 2012. I do so proudly, and have no intent on ceasing. Imagine my surprise when the left in this country this week deemed the display of the fl…

I realized late last night that I hadn’t looked at the video I’d recorded at the Blue Ridge airport location during yesterday’s storm chase in Henry county VA. I was live streaming at the time and was paying more attention to that equipment plus watchi…