Late last night, the snow flurries started to come down. Now on the 27th floor of the Sheraton, I could see them outside the window being pushed to and fro by the wind, seemingly going upward as much as toward the ground. Unsurprisingly, very little has stuck. You can see a dusting of snow on the roofs of buildings below, but that's about it. All that's guaranteed is that today is supposed to be cold.

One of the most-recent fads to sweep the Web is that of Twitter, a service where you leave simple, short messages telling people just what it is you are doing right now, whether that's eating breakfast, walking the dog, cramming for an exam or watching television. The idea behind it is instant insight and status sharing, taking blogging up a notch beyond a daily journal, to instead, a minute by minute chronicle of your day. And I'm not in the least bit interested.

When Instant Messaging (IM) first debuted, it was a great way for people to chat one to one between computers, without the slowness of e-mail exchanges or cost of using the phone. When I first saw an instant message from one computer to another, I was floored, and I can tell you exactly where I was, just like I can tell you exactly where I was the first time I heard a computer speak with a human voice, and the first time I saw webcams used. Each time, I recognized just how cool these technologies could be. But with each, they found a niche, not a revolution.

Like everyone else, I first used instant messaging to talk with friends and family, but then it started to spread to casual contacts and colleagues. The intimacy was gone, as people would add buddies to their buddy list to increase their feelings of self-worth. Entire web sites were built with a goal of comparing one person's buddy list length to another. And as in the real world, sometimes you just didn't want to let some of those people on the buddy list know you were available, leading to annoying conversations started by people who knew just when you logged on and off, and if you were idle or busy. Then came the need to hide yourself from individuals who kept you on their buddy list, even as you had deleted them from yours.

The actual benefits of instant messaging quickly went away for me. Conversations that should have taken place in 3-5 minutes on the phone would now take 15-20 minutes, 5 of which would be awkwardly used trying to get the conversation to a close, waiting for direct responses to questions, and making sure you weren't both typing at once. And the idea that instant messages would aid you in collaboration at work were a bunch of hooey. Anybody I know at the office using IM is using it to talk to a spouse or friend, or, if with another colleague, to complain about the boss or another co-worker. The actual productivity of IM is a significant negative.

I uninstalled my AOL and Yahoo! instant messenger clients from my work computer and laptop a long time ago. At home, I still have iChat, built into the Apple operating system, and have Proteus tucked away for that rare time I think of a reason to use it - but I intentionally told my Mac not to turn on instant messaging services on login, so nobody could bug me.

It's real simple. What is said over IM is very rarely business, and prevents people from getting work done. It's a significant time-waster, and a technology whose time has come and gone. The idea that I would take it up a notch and tell Twitter my every step is yet another task that would get in the way of my actually working, so we're not interested.

At times, we can get lost in the numbers and strategy over the US conflict in Iraq, and forget that regardless of our political leanings, or whether we think we are on the right path, thousands and thousands of some of the bravest men and women are serving our country, helping others, protecting others and risking themselves. My cousin, Lieutenant Kenneth Curtis, is one of those heroes on the front, who has put his life on the line.

My mother's younger sister, Kathy, started having a family before I was born, introducing three boys into the world in the mid 1970s. Ken, the oldest, has always held a strong sense of duty and was excited about the military from a very young age. While some of us set off on paths that led us to a career behind a desk, Ken kept himself in excellent shape and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. This past November, Ken was asked to join with his fellow enlisted men to serve in Iraq, having completed other missions around the world. Though he told us not to worry about him, of course, we always do. Every day when we see the death toll mount, and wonder if there will be an end to the conflict, his is the face that comes in my mind.

The Curtis family has already suffered through tragedy. Of the three boys I told you about, two are already gone, leaving this world prematurely. Both succumbed to the lure and power of drugs, with Lyman passing away in 1996, and the second, Michael, in 2003. I served as a pallbearer for both, and gave the eulogy for Michael, feeling wholly undeserving to wrap up his life in a few short minutes. That Ken, the only son left in addition to the family's youngest, a daughter, is knowingly at risk in what has been an incredibly difficult war tears at us all.

This weekend, we received an update from the front, as they are called, posted to my mother's blog, Web Robin. Ken is doing well, my aunt Kathy reports. A picture shows him in excellent shape, yet alone, as he tries to catch a nap between missions consisting of 12 and 14-hour shifts.


Ken, in Iraq, during some rare down time

Doing what I do, where I do it, in the safety of Northern California, with the occasional trip around the country, makes me feel disconnected from what our men and women are doing thousands of miles away. If I were asked to serve, I don't know that I would be ready. I don't know if I could separate my anger over how we got into this mess, and the politics, to do what the country asked of me. But, despite the challenges, Ken has said yes.

Another man I know and respect, whom I met at church, has also taken up the challenge. He is enlisting, knowing the country needs more help, in Iraq, and he eagerly awaits a call to serve. The images and stories that strike sadness, fury and frustration to most of us are filling him with a need to do his part and help, and no matter of pleading and counsel from me would get him to change his mind.

It is people like this who bring the war home and make it a reality. That my cousin is on the front line, risking everything, makes it ever more important that the reasons behind him being there be just, and that he be treated with the utmost manner of truth and respect that he has earned. As a family, we will absolutely worry about him, and keep fervent hope for him until we know he has come home in safety. It is our hope that those who perpetuate the wars and govern over the lives of these men do so justly. For the Curtis family, they cannot afford yet another time of sorrow.

More in an occasional series...

Saturdays in the blogosphere can sometimes be the most interesting of all. In the absence of hard news and press releases, it is a time for introspection, and sometimes, what they find isn't all that pretty. PodTech's Robert Scoble set off a little firestorm yesterday in saying that many of the top blogs don't link, particularly due to a lack of traction he found from a story he filed around Intel's new microprocessor fabrication processes.

After he lashed out against some of the top blogs, they responded and much of his angst was redacted. While he may have gone a little too far, or more likely, just chosen the wrong targets, he is discovering some of the tenets of PR away from representing a big corporation - not every target you think should cover you does. Jason Calicanis and Ryan Block chime in below.

Jason Calicanis: Scoble loses it... and gets it back.
Ryan Block: On linking, editorial
Robert Scoble: Pissing off the blogosphere…

In other news, baseball's opening day is approaching, and we can't wait. Unfortunately, as I'm in New York, I had to give away my 2007 A's fanfest tickets, but lucky for me, others from Athletics Nation went and took pictures.

Athletics Nation: gotgreen's day at FANFEST (with pictures, of course!)

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