Returning to the office after the fog of Christmas week is always a challenge. All those organizing things I hoped to complete are still sitting there hoping for me to complete them. But I had some wonderful time with family and friends, near and extended. I'm back in the office and all of the ways I can be contacted should work well. I'll keep this space updated with my whereabouts.

Last night's post-primary coverage reminded me of something. Actually, it reminded me of many things. But, the first thing that came to mind was November 8, 1994. It was the mid-term election and for an association client of Hammock Inc., a group of us helped coordinate an online election-night forum on CompuServe -- a quaint little online service that used to make buggy whips. A hundred or so participants from around the country -- all watching TVs at home -- were chatting away about the coverage they were viewing and their response to it.

That experience led me to appreciate the enjoyment individuals have in experiencing live events in a shared-way -- even if it's from the cheap seats way up in some dial-up text-only bleachers. That night, I realized that a news event -- or any type of event, say a sporting contest -- is no longer merely the topic of water-cooler talk the next morning, it's a potential real-time community gathering. A giant couch filled with friends and foes who are witty or idiotic, but who all together give an additional dimension to the event.

Since 1994, I've participated -- and hosted -- many such online gatherings, primarily among a small group of friends or colleagues. Often the gathering is done via Instant Messaging or Internet Relay (IRC) if the group is comprised of tech-savvy participants. In the past, I've discussed on Rexblog.com, how live events can be experienced in a completely new way when such "back channels" are available so that friends -- or even strangers -- can interact with one another about what they are both observing or participating in.

Last night, I had an I-see-the-light moment on Twitter when I realized that it has become -- for a small segment of the world, at least -- a giant real-time peanut gallery for experiencing events. I'll admit, my additions to the conversation were mostly goofy or rude comments about what was taking place -- sorta like watching the State of the Union Address on Comedy Central, but not funny. Others, however, were providing insightful and informative data (@patrickrufinni, for example).

While I've occasionally used Twitter for comments about sporting events, this is the first time I've jumped into the deep end of posting tweets on Twitter at a blistering pace. (Which is something I often un-follow people for doing.) My tweets were not worth reposting here as they -- this can be said about Twitter in general -- lose their meaning out of context.

However, I do know this. Using Twitter sure beats screaming at the TV.

Sidenotes: Twitter sure could benefit from having a feature that allows the creation of "groups" for topic-specific tweets. Also, the folks at Politweets.com are using the Twitter API to isolate and display tweets that include the names of candidates. A little bit glitchy but a very creative example of how Twitter can be used for something other than a confusing stream of unrelated chatter.

One great thing about our seventh-floor offices are the big windows and the views we have of changing weather. I took this photo a few minutes ago -- it was around 2:00 P.M. in the afternoon, but it looks like night due to the severe weather moving through Nashville. For those familiar with Nashville, this is (looking west) the junction of I-440 and West End Avenue:

View my weather window photos as a flickr slideshow.

Thanks to the many business news-related projects we work on at Hammock Inc., we have some fairly big Internet pipes delivering to us a constant river of flowing business information. In our case, this flow tends to be more "macro" news -- we're not tracking markets or individual companies -- but I'm still amazed with the ying and yang of business and economic news: and how reporters and analysts even feel the need to pair positive with negative. Perhaps this isn't surprising: business is a marketplace of buyers and sellers. Perhaps there is no such thing as good or bad when every transaction needs a buyer and seller. And while I don't always view business as a zero-sum-game, perhaps there is something necessary about always seeing the world as collisions of bears and bulls, optimism and pessimism, greed and fear.

As I write this post, for example, I can see news flowing by that consumer confidence fell sharply in January, but the next item reports that just-released numbers related to factory orders in December indicate they soared.

Data points. A river of data points. You can short it, long it. Believe it, deny it. Bottomline: Everyday brings opportunities. Everyday brings set-backs. It's up to you to choose how to use that information.

How do I choose to handle the data? I do all I can to stay informed. I lean into news both good and bad. I look for opportunities. I prepare for the worse. In the long run, I believe in -- or, at least hope for -- the best. In the longer run, my goal is to leave more than I've used.