So, I spent the past week at the beach with my in-laws, so that’s my excuse for why I haven’t been blogging lately. Yes, there was wifi at the beach and yes, I had my laptop. It just couldn’t compete with the ocean and the sand and the breeze …
We stayed at Camp Lejeune, and my father-in-law rented the general’s beach house. It’s oceanfront, and fairly private, so I spent most of my time going back and forth from the house to the water. Being that I’m the whitest person I’ve ever known, direct sunlight is not a good idea even with SPF 70. Luckily we have an awning that provided great shade for me, Colleen, Gray and Chloe (all the redheads).
One topic that came up lots during the week was Foursquare. Namely, why the hell Jeff and Colleen and I were like crack addicts on our phones, checking in everywhere we went (which for me was beach, house, one restaurant. Additionally, Jeff and Colleen made some store runs.)
For those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about, which is probably many of you, Foursquare is a game that runs through an application on your smartphone. You check in to places when you arrive at them, and your friends can keep up with where you are. And if you check into a place the most times, you become the “mayor” of the place. Many retail places and restaurants will offer specials to the mayor (such as free meals, free coffee, etc.)
So, the questions you have about Foursquare, I’m certain, are pretty similar to the questions the rest of the family had all week.
“Why would you want everyone to know where you are?”
I, for one, do not always want everyone to know where I am. Which is why I limit my friends on Foursquare to those I actually hang out with or wouldn’t mind saying hi to if they happened to be socializing near where I am socializing. You can set up Foursquare to broadcast to Twitter and Facebook where you are, but I don’t do that for safety reasons.
“But seriously, why would you want everyone to know where you are?”
I have about 10 friends on Foursquare. They are people who, if I found out later that they were at the bar next door to the bar I was visiting and we didn’t know it, I would be kicking myself. So I want them to know where I am and I want to know where they are. A few other friends are on there who I don’t hang out with frequently, but I know them well enough to know they won’t be annoying if I don’t want to hang out for whatever reason.
“What if you had a crazy ex-boyfriend who wanted to hack your account and find out where you are?”
First, none of my ex-boyfriends are that smart. But if they were, then they would be smart enough to hack my cell phone in general and find out where I am. I’m not worried about Big Brother watching; if they wanted to they would be.
“Jeff and Colleen checked in at Food Lion? Why would they do that?”
Well, we now know they’ve made it to the store safely. We know which store they have gone to in case we need to call them with a request. Why wouldn’t they do that?
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OK, I said all that to tell this story. The night before leaving the beach, I noticed that Scott was checked in at a place called The Front Porch. I’d never heard of that restaurant, and I’m always looking for new places to go in Charlotte, so it got my attention. Then I realized he was in Elizabethtown. I’ve heard of Elizabethtown but have no clue where it is (keep in mind I grew up in South Carolina, which means I don’t know a lick about NC geography. Sad, huh?) I realized he was probably at one of his weekend triathlons and dismissed it.
The next day, we were driving home from the beach and I looked up and saw a billboard advertising a restaurant called The Front Porch. Hmm, why does that restaurant sound familiar? Then I remembered Scott’s Foursquare check in. So odd, two restaurants with the same name … Unless … “Hey, are we near Elizabethtown by any chance?” I asked Jeff. He pointed to the map on the GPS, which showed us heading right into Elizabethtown. “Oh my gosh!” I said, “That was the restaurant where Scott checked in last night! He probably had his tri here today!”
So, I texted him to find out where he was. Turns out he’d gone back to The Front Porch for lunch and had forgotten to check in – and he was there at the moment! So we stopped in, had a beer with him and Michelle and Linda, and then continued back home.
Now, if it hadn’t been for Foursquare, I never would have known where he was and we never would have had this random meeting in a city none of us live in. Not the end of the world if I had driven by never knowing that he was sitting right there, but how cool was it that I did?