I've been having fun with Facebook in recent months. A friend out in Utah finally got me started with this one and I must admit it's been a nice way to interact with far-away friends, reconnect with some others and even meet a few new ones.

I just added the "Wheel of Friends" application and found something pretty interesting.

While I have a lot of friends, I don't have a whole lot of connections between them. This seems quite a bit different from the wheels I've seen on many of my friends' pages.

I wonder what this says about me, as well as about the application itself?

• For starters, I suspect there would be a lot more connections if more of my friends were on the system. For better or worse, among my age group, use of Facebook is somewhat limited.
• I'd probably have even more linked people if I were in a more stable work situation. As an independent consultant I tend to have a lot more one-off business relationships than somebody in a regular workplace with lots of colleagues who know each other.
• That said, I've got to think that this is at least somewhat reflective of my reality. I have lots of friends and acquaintances, but I seems to accumulate them in the oddest of places. I don't have lots of "groups" of friends. In fact, I'm one of those people who finds hanging out in groups to be at least a bit uncomfortable. Sometimes, very uncomfortable. (This tendency has definitely cost me a relationship or two recently.)

I think this is part of the unstated power of social networks. They can help you notice and figure out things about yourself that you may not have been inclined to even consider had you not had it displayed for you in such a concise and well-presented manner.

-btc

A few weeks ago I noted that I had encountered the term "Voluntary Simplicity" during an Anderson School-sponsored career options exercise.

The MBA Indicator

That's 12 people, in the most image-conscious city on the planet, all of whom have had significant business success, who in fact went to school to get ahead in business and who are used to 60-70 hour workweeks, all of whom are looking at their lives and thinking that maybe wanting less and having less could be a better way of living.

There's been more and more evidence that this idea could be a force in the economy in the coming years

Yeah, it's that time of year and it's been the best season in years. I've also had a girlfriend up in Utah, who has made getting up there a lot easier than in past years.

So I've been offline a lot.

Got one more long trip to Snowbird in a couple of weeks, and probably a bunch of shorter ones through April, but also slowly getting back into the swing of things here and should be commenting more often.

Hard to beat days like this one at Alta though:

-btc

Isn't it funny
How a bear likes hunny.
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
I wonder why he does?

Hard not to have Bear on the brain today, with the weekend's events just past. While Winnie may have been the "Bear of Little Brain," it seems that the collective brains of Bear Stearns were even less capable in the end. Winnie, at the very least, was trying to get at some sweet honey when he fell out of the tree and got prickles in his nose.

What will the guys at Bear use as an excuse? They were looking for innovative ways to avoid reserve requirements on lending tons of money to people who couldn't afford to pay it back?

I'd rather have had the honey.

Thanks to DealBreaker for posting this one.

-btc