Okay, so here’s the deal. Although this cat is out there and definitely has issues, I can’t help but wonder if culture’s ’surrender’ to technology could have an underbelly that might be worth examining.
Perhaps my curiosity might be better framed in this question, “how can we distill a best practice for technology that could help us optimize for the possibility of what could be, and at the same time make sure not to open a Pandora’s box that would lead to certain destruction?”
@Baratunde gives the RoadTwip gang a tour of the fabulous and mystical offices of The Onion, America’s favorite online spoofpaper. See how the magic is made. @JolieODell, @KurtyD, @Dingman, and @OzSultan presiding.
As @Dingman#mce_temp_url# wanders through the scenic parks of Brooklyn all by his lonesome, @JolieODell and @KurtyD join up with @Baratunde and @OzSultan for a tour of the world-famous Dylan’s Candy Bar in New York City. Once inside, the air was perfumed with the fragrance of cotton candy. Brightly colored sugary sweets sprung from every wall and light fixture. The snozberries tasted like snozberries! It was a magical RoadTwip adventure.
As a postscript, although I personally have never seen a chocolate-colored rabbit such as those sold at DCB, they apparenly do exist in nature (or Photoshop), particularly in the Havana breed. So it’s an unusual color for a rabbit, but not unheard-of.
Granted, I’m not the official photog of our little nomadic tribe, but I did snap a few pics along the way. And now that I’m home and well-rested for the first time in two weeks, I’ve uploaded a whole bunch of stills to Flickr – still working on getting all the videos up!
Here’s what we’ve got so far:
The RoadTwip Set: All the pics fit to print. This is the monster set with pics from every city AND the in-the-car, on-the-road shots. Feel free to browse and tag.
A flavorful visit – this city is where we met up with local food (STLBites.com) and beer (STLHops.com) bloggers at a farmer’s market that was an organic localvore’s heaven. Also, Reem Abeidoh took us out for Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, which completely ruined ice cream for us forever.
This is where the Brightkite magic really made it all happen! A quick lunchtime stop for burnt ends at Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue turned into video interviews and an afternoon of coworking at Scooter’s downtown.
This was a predetermined high point of the trip, which meant lots of work and not too many photos. The music just keeps playing on, however, in the ReadWriteWeb coverage of the show.
This was the city that touched my heart the most, and I can’t wait to go back. We’ll never forget all the awesomesauce that the Toledo crew poured all over us. Many thanks to Damian, Mark, Josh, Gene, and the rest. We had an amazing meetup with a whole crew of local folks, and Dingman and I got to have lunch at Tony Packo’s the next day. Plus, this was the town where the RoadTwip gang made the news:
This is where we met up with @Sloane and @OzSultan. At this juncture, I was behind on ReadWriteWeb work and didn’t have much time to play/screw around, there are no photos from me for this part of the ‘Twip. All I have are a couple highly suspect videos that just scream “shenanigans!”
The final stop on our long journey was a busy, sad, emotionally rollercoasterish time. It was my first time in NYC; believe it or not, I’m usually rather anxious about new people and places, and this visit was no exception. I spent a lot of time working from Oz Sultan’s apartment on the upper east side, but we all did venture out on the last day for a meetup with Baratunde Thurston. And the tour of Dylan’s Candy Bar was nothing short of magical.
The RoadTwip gang gets the Threadless HQ tour from Bob Nanna. Ya gotcher graffiti, ya gotcher half pipe, ya gotcher taxidermy, ya gotcher oil paintings…
Friday, May 15, from 1-3 p.m. Pacific time, the RoadTwip gang will be conducting a live video chat with friends and press to share stories they gathered during their 2-week social media-fueled road trip.
The trip started in Washington, D.C., and looped through 10 Midwestern and East Coast cities. From Toledo to Nashville to New York and everywhere between, the gang met up with longtime Internet friends and local thought leaders. They’ve accumulated huge masses of information and multimedia content, some of which they’ve posted at http://roadtwip.us/blog.
A Twitter search for the term “RoadTwip” will also yield some interesting results from both the gang and their friends new and old from along the route.
Some of the topics the gang has covered have been big things happening in small towns, change and optimism, using social media to streamline offline and online activities, the use of mobile technology to permit constant connection and learning, the importance of meeting in real life to strengthen the social web, the emerging future of the new America, and inside jokes involving Cleveland and primates.
