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I'm beginning to get worried about our reliance on Facebook as our only method of communication with those close in our lives. Anybody that knows me knows that I'm a fan of the ways Social Networks, especially Facebook, allow us to revive and keep alive connections that would of atrophied away under classic circumstances, where friends afar can fade away. However, I believe that Facebook should only be an extra layer of communication added onto the ones we already have: phone conversations, texts, emails, letters, and most importantly: face to face conversation.

Facebook's wonderful for giving those broad announcements of general activity in one's life to a semi-closed circle of friends and family. It allows everyone to kinda keep up with other's lives, and this should be used as a stepping stone for the next time you communicate with someone: the phone call where you get to ask your buddy about how the rock climbing trip was that you saw pictures of on Facebook, the text where you ask your friend if they're still planning on going to that show tonight, the conversation over coffee that can skip the question: "What have you been up to for the past year?", and can get right into how they are now and can listen to some of their more personal thoughts about the last year.

I clocked myself using my iPhone's GPS & a 99 cent app going down Paradise at Montana Snowbowl outside Missoula. Check out the screenshot's Max Speed. So interesting to put an objective figure to a subjective feeling. I'd like to hit 55, but I don't really feel the need to go much faster than that. Something about going highway speed...

So often when I go up to Snowbowl, the ski mountain just outside Missoula I see the valley floor socked in. It seems that one would only have to hike the M to get above the fog, and into what usually is blue sky and a sunny day. Most of the people in town (including me when I'm there) think that it's a cloudy, foggy day, but we don't realize that a sunny day awaits us 100 feet above our heads. Curious what makes an inversion happen? Learn why here. I've gathered a few of my favorite photos of the Missoula Inversion here, I hope you enjoy them:

My buddy and I had an email back and forth that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the newly released iPad.

On Jan 27, 2010, at 1:04 PM, Flavio Loetscher wrote:

Apple once again shows the well elaborated line between user and hardware. A beauty of an iPad, I gotta say. It must be super awesome to read books on that device, share videos & pics, or even read the NewYorkTimes and use the apps. Starting with 499$ this is a great deal but in my opinion a bit unnecessary for iPhone users... having an iPhone is awesome, linking to your mac is even better - iPad truly is a new category of devices... it's pretty much luxury to watch videos on iPad when you could watch them on your macbook. And to type longer messages, I am not really optimistic with the iPad. Furthermore the apps will need to be updated in order to make them look good on the iPad.
I am really really looking forward to holding one of those babies in my hands. I kinda see a easy-going sunday in front of me - purchasing a book from the ibookstore, checking out newspapers and watching videos with it, nothing more. Or a great tool for conferences or in the kitchen for recipes... I am still very very happy with my Macbook pro and iphone which perfectly fit together. I see iPad as an additional tool for luxury. No money right now but if I bought one it would just be for fun :)

Recently, I noticed that Glacier National Park had started putting out updates on Twitter. I love that park, live a few hours south of it in Missoula, and have been planning on going up there to snowshoe. So, naturally I became excited that there was a point of contact there that I could ask advice. I shot out a couple tweets asking where we could go and received no answer, much to my dissapointment. So I posted out this tweet:

Am disappointed that the updates coming from Glacier Park (@glaciernps) don't seem to have a human listening on the other end :(

About an hour after that, this message came in through my site's contact form:

David Restivo sent a message using the contact form at http://evanlovely.com/contact.

Hi, Evan.

I saw your Tweet regarding our participation in communication on Twitter. I didn't want you to think that nobody was listening in on the other end. I had seen your posts and questions regarding snowshoe and ski recommendations, so we tweeted where people could find that informaiton on our Web site. At this point, the park has decided to use Twitter as a one-way communicaiton tool only. Our social networking media page on our Web site better explains how we use each tool. http://www.nps.gov/glac/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm