A few weeks back Facebook opened its doors to third-party developers to make applications that would integrate with its new f8 platform. There are now almost 1100 applications floating around for users to add to their profiles. Most of these apps are complete garbage, but a few are worth adding to your profile. Since I spend a scary amount of time on that website it would be remiss of me if I didn’t tell you about the apps which I’ve grown especially fond of.

Before diving into the list let me explain it a little further. These apps aren’t necessarily the best Facebook applications available. I haven’t tried them all, but these are my favorites of the ones I’ve tried. They’re also not the most popular apps out there, but I figure that’s all the more reason to give them a little love. So here they are, in no particular order.

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It’s my policy not to blog about what goes on where I work since I know it has the potential to do more harm than good. But in this case I’ll make an exception. I’m still going to be vague though.

Over the past six business days two people I work with have left the department. One of them was my boss. Both of them were men, the only other men besides me in the SHINE program. I liked both of them and I’m sad to see them go. My program only has eleven people in it normally, and we were already down one person, so the loss of two more is a big deal.

I have to admit that I’m a little worried now. My boss was the main reason why I was able to stay on with the department in a part-time capacity starting this August. With him gone and someone else taking his place, presumably from the outside, that arrangement might not still be available. Please be praying that I’ll be able to keep my job at the Florida Department of Elder Affairs in spite of all these changes going on.

I need to tell this story from the beginning. It all started in Colorado (cue the harp and blurry flashback fade).

I was out at iNFO training listening to another presentation. This one was about newsletters. Molly, the presenter, made a brief comment about getting a CampusNavs email address to include in our letters. It would look professional and could be setup to forward all messages to our actual email accounts. Being the computer geek that I am I took note of this little factoid and made sure to get an account when I got home.

Now flash forward a couple of days. I was on Facebook wasting my time when it occurred to me that the Navigators just might have a Facebook network I could join with my new email address. So I browsed the list of work networks and, sure enough, there listed was a network for the Navigators. So I entered my email address and clicked Join Work Network. But instead of adding the network I get a message on my screen saying my email address does not correspond to any existing work network.

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The title of this post is a bit deceiving. I’ve been home from iNFO training — which is what they call staff training for Navigator newbies — since the night of June 4. I haven’t been reflecting for the past two weeks. I reflected for maybe one week and then I forgot to write about it.

The training was held in Colorado Springs where the Navigators have their headquarters. This was second trip out there, having been there two summers ago for the National Collegiate Program. I was very excited to get back to Colorado. Each time I’ve been there now I’ve felt a very real sense of peace. Maybe it’s the thin air affecting my brain. But in any case, a break from cubicle land was just what I needed, even if I was going to be working the entire time out there.

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