If Claire Can Twitter So Can The Aldermen

I’m fortunate to have, as my representative on the Board of Aldermen, the youngest (and tallest) member: Kacie Starr Triplett.  She twitters.  That is she sends out posts on the micro blogging site, Twitter.  She also has an infrequently updated blog.  Of all 28 Aldermen she does a far better job them most.  She was just starting grade school when some of her collegues were first elected to the Board of Aldermen.  Micro blogging is so named because the maximum length of a post is 140 characters.

But it is not just the kids doing the Twitter thing.  Missouri’s junior Senator Claire McCaskill also posts regularly to Twitter.  McCaskill is 55.

Here are a few samples of Senator McCaskill’s tweets:

New Chief of Staff on board March 1. We will miss Sean(went to WH), but Julie Dwyer is gonna be terrific.Change is good.

Things look good on compromise. Officially got sub committee on contracting. Going to basement to grab lunch while walking.

So Senator McCaskill gives little tidbits here and there.  Ald Triplett does the same.  Here are a few of her recent entries:

Just left a meeting with the owners of Union Station. Discussing upcoming renovations and new Marriott hotel

I really liked this one:

My eyes are burning from cigarette smoke in Loop restaurant. Ingrain in Brain: SmokeFree. SmokeFree

During a recent meeting of the Board of Aldermen she posted:

Friday board meeting. Nothing too interesting or out of the ordinary today.

Less than a half hour later she posted:

I spoke too soon. Troupe vs. Bosley on advance warning signage for red light cameras. Several point of orders throughout debate

McCaskill now has over 6,000 followers on Twitter.  Triplett has 93.  I have 118.  Bill Streeter is a mad man on Twitter and has 1,081 followers.The Post-Dispatches’ Jake Wagman has 286 followers. For the most part my blog posts are my only tweets — posted automatically using my feed so the follower gets headline and link.  I sometimes post commentary. Facebook gets more updates than Twitter.

But the beauty of Twitter is that you can follow the tweets of others without them needing to approve or reciprocate.   I like seeing tweets from both my U.S. Senator and Alderman.

One is middle fifties and one is late 20s.  Both realize they are in public office and they have an obligation to communicate with the public.  While each likely has constituents lacking internet access, I’m glad they do not limit their communications to the least technological.

In our current times using only one avenue for communications just doesn’t cut it.  Neighborhood meetings are great for those able to attend.  Newsletters are costly to produce and are not timely.  Pols can’t call everyone to give verbal updates.

Twitter is free.  For elected officials good communications need not mandate a large staff or a big budget, just a smart phone.

Here are links to the Twitter posts of the folks mentioned above:

• Claire McCaskill
• Kacie Starr Triplett
• Steve Patterson
  
• Bill Streeter
  
• Jake Wagman

Lost?  Confused?  If so read more about Twitter on Wikipedia here.

Early Poll Results Shows Trend Away From Land Phones

Used a phone booth lately?  Even seen a pay phone in the last decade?  Wireless technology has changed the urban landscape.  No more pay phones.  No more phone booths.

This weeks poll, still active in the upper right corner of the main page, shows the continued transformation away from land-based phone lines to wireless phones.

The question asked is, Do you have a land-based phone line at home?

As of last night, half of the 58 responses indicated no they did not.  Of the half with a land line, 55% of those are considering dropping the line and going cell only.  Combine the people without a land phone with those who are considering dropping the land line and you get 72.4%.

I like having only a single number.  I also like saving money. Having messages in only one location rather than at the office, at home and on my wireless device is also convenient.

In a decade we probably won’t have new places wired for land phones at all.  I think I was a teenager before I could have a phone in my room — not my own line but just a phone on our single line.  Now young kids have their own wireless phones.

Wireless phones enable people to meet up in public places — calling when close to pinpoint their exact location.  Waiting for a call no longer means staying at home.  Hopefully the end result will put more folks outdoors in great public places.  Phones with cameras and email allow people to share where they are.  I’m guessing the Wal-Mart parking lot will not be shared.  Vibrant pedestrian-filled streets, however, will be emailed on posted on sites like Facebook.

The technology of the automobile has physically seperated our society.  Handy wireless devices may be just the item to help reduce our distances.

Introducing a Weekly Poll

Today I added a poll in the upper right section of the main page of this site.  For the moment this is not visible in individual post pages but I hope to reorganize & cleanup the sidebar on the main & post pages.

The first poll is about voter registration.  My question for you, the reader, is what sorts of questions would you like posed?  With 52 weeks in a year I’ll need lots of ideas.  Use the comments below to suggest ideas.

A One-Year Stroke Survivor

One year ago today my friend Marcia Behrendt was worried about me, entered my loft and found me on the floor where I had been for approximately 15 hours. I’d had a hemorrhagic stroke – a blood vessel in the right side of my brain burst the afternoon of Friday, February 1, 2008.  At first I thought it was just a headache but within 10 minutes I was on the floor unable to move.  I was certain my meter was about to expire!

That Saturday morning (Feb 2nd) I was taken by ambulance to Saint Louis University Hospital.  My friends tell me the emergency room on the day of the big Mardi Grad parade is a rather unpleasant place.  Sorry for my bad timing guys.

Here is a time line of major events:

• 2/1/2008 – stroke in late afternoon
• 2/2/2008 – found in the morning and rushed to Hospital
• 2/17/2008 – off the ventilator and no longer being sedated
• 2/18/2008 – friends post about my status, the first post for the month.
• 2/19/2008 – moved out of ICU to a regular room.
• 2/25/2008 – left SLUH for St Mary’s Hospital/SSM Rehab.  My first memory is from this date.
• 2/28/2008 – 41st Birthday
• 3/7/2008 – I dictate a post to Margie Newman who brought her wireless card for me to use on my laptop.
• 3/17/2008 – Feeding tube removed.
• 3/21/2008 – Left St. Mary’s for Missouri Rehabilitation Center in Mt. Vernon Missouri – West of Springfield.  One of my brothers drove up from Oklahoma to pick me up and take me to hospital #3.
• 3/24/2008 – Guest on KDHX via phone.
• 4/4/2008 – My first visitor in Mt. Vernon.  We get permission to leave the hospital and go into town for real food.  We use a folding wheelchair at this point because I still cannot walk far and not without a therapist present.
• 4/24/2008 – Physical therapist authorizes me to be “independent in my room.”  I’m now cleared to transfer to a wheelchair or walk within my hospital room without a tech, nurse or therapist present.  But to walk 50ft to meals someone else must be with me.
• 4/25/2008 – My longest walk since the stroke — 500ft.
• 4/30/2008 – Returned home.  Met friends for Ethiopian dinner at Meskerem.
• 6/24/2008 – Purchased used Toyota Corolla after selling my beloved Honda Metropolitan scooter.
• 6/27/2008 – Driving evaluation.
• 7/2/2008 – Drove my car home by myself.  My first time driving alone.
• 8/7/2008 – Drove to Oklahoma City to visit family.
• 9/11/2008 – I took a shower standing up!
• October 2008 – 10 visits of occupational & physical outpatient therapy at St. Louis Rehabilitation.  The first therapy since April ’08..
• 11/4/2008 – walked 30ft without using a cane, still wearing leg brace.
• 1/25/2009 – Exited shower using straight cane rather than quad cane.

The above list is by no means complete.  I’ve had, and continue to have, lots of firsts.  I put together a short video which goes back to February of 2008:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKulXmp54g8[/youtube]

It has been an interesting ride.  I’m glad I stuck around.  It is quite the weird experience to think you are going to die.  Waking up from sedation a few weeks later and realize you lived is amazing.  I guess it was the joy of still being alive that gave me the strength to make it through the last 11 months.

Thank you to Marcia, Rich, Andrew, Dustin, Patty, Shelley, Sam, Lois, Dionna, Margie, Antonio, Randy  and so many others.   Thank you to my friend & neighbor Diane for help these last 9 months I’ve been home. Thank you to the many therapists along the journey.  I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone — thank you too.

An Early Look at Site Stats

A couple of days ago my programmer got the Google Analytics code installed on this site which will enable me to obtain excellent statistics on not just the number of page views but how many “absolute unique visitors” I have.

As an example, over these first 2+ days the site has had 1,404 visits generating 2,221 page views.  Of the 1,404 visits, 952 were unique visitors so the remaining visits were return visitors.

Firefox is the top browser of choice overall and among Windows users.  For those of you using IE.  Stop.  It is a horrible browser.  This site and others looks & functions better from Firefox, Safari, Chrome or any other browser.

Sixty-percent of the traffic came direct with twenty-two percent from search engines and the balance as referrals from other sites.  I’ve been noticing from my old stats tracking system that nearly every day someone searches for my site by typing in ‘urban review stl.’  I guess I fail to understand why you’d do a search engine search when you know the name?

Speaking of search engines, 80% of the search traffic is from Google, 15% from Yahoo and the remaining 5% divided up among others like AOL and MSN.

Again, this is only after a couple of days.  After a few weeks, months and years I’ll have a much better set of data on the readership.  After the March primary election I’ll do a new post on this topic.