Pinterest - my first impressions

Recently I decided to check out Pinterest because I'd been hearing so much buzz and wondered what it was about.  Normally I'm reluctant to try out new trends like this because I don't want to be "one of those people."  But when I was trying to find a cool cake idea for my 30th birthday, I came across one woman's cake pinboard, and something clicked.  Here's a place to store all of those random images of stuff you want to remember but don't want to have to store all the links or pictures somewhere.

So here's what I've observed so far, and why I kinda like it for more than just cool cakes:

• It makes you feel popular/stylish/important when strangers "follow" your pin boards or re-pin your pins.
• WAAAY more women use it than men, but it is really interesting to see what kinds of things men post versus women (hmm...dissertation topic?).
• Most people post about things they like.  So I decided to be a rebel and make a "what were they thinking?" board where I post things that are ugly or bad ideas.
• My most popular pin is from my ugly board, an upholstered chair with a horrible cat print fabric.  Almost 50 people have re-pinned it!
• Speaking of re-pinning, you can see who re-pinned your pins, but you can't see who pins it from those new people.  So if your friend re-pins your pin, her friends might re-pin it too, but you won't be notified (got that?).
• You can learn about weird things your friends think are cool.  Like me, I have a board for "Cute red mushroom things" and 40 people follow it.
• I still can't figure out how they plan to make money on it.  Sponsored pins?
• Some people put up spam posts, where the picture doesn't match the caption and there are some keywords in there, like "cute puppy" but it has some link to some weight loss product.  Lame.
• I could see this being a great way to promote a business that has a visible product, like photographers, bakeries, bloggers, artists, etc.

You can check out my "pins" here https://pinterest.com/binzerella/

Computer Snags

Well, yesterday both of our laptop computers died. My 6 year old laptop because of a faulty wireless driver, Paul's 1.5 year old laptop possibly due to a blown graphics card. Luckily I was able to get my computer working again, but Paul's is going to need an expensive repair (if we repair it at all). On top of this, I'm writing at the apartment complex management office because the internet cord to our building was severed by a gardener yesterday morning, so we have no home internet access until at least tomorrow morning. Fun stuff when you're trying to get set up in a new town and do things like look up the local bus schedule or look for jobs.

Otherwise we're enjoying a massive midwestern thunderstorm that should last through tomorrow. It reminds me of summer camp in Minnesota where the thunder rolled on and on. It's certainly helping us to stay inside and finish unpacking!