2011 was a great year. I met so many new people, had a lot of great new experiences and continued to grow my business. I took on some major new clients under RVA MediaWorks and had a record year on Downtown Short Pump. These are all great things, because all healthy things grow. And as we flip the calendar to 2012, it’s time to take the next step in that growth.

I started Downtown Short Pump back in high school after visiting the website on the Downtown Short Pump sign in front of Regal Cinemas and Barnes and Noble. The name of the shopping complex was not new, but perhaps ironic. Borrowed from the old Henley Store, a two story general store at the corner of Broad and Three Chopt, the Downtown Short Pump sign adorning the front of the building was the butt of all jokes back when Short Pump was a rural outpost.

Today, the name is pretty fitting of the bustling suburban “edge city” that Short Pump has become. The Downtown Short Pump shopping complex had the domain name “www.downtownshortpump.com” etched into the stone of their sign, to promote the new center. By chance, I visited it one day in 2004 and noticed it had expired. I grabbed it for $8.

I then started posting happenings in the community, news I had heard or things I saw. Little did I know that this little one-pager would turn into a full-fledged website that welcomed just under 325,000 visitors in 2011– a fact of which I am very proud, but also very humbled by.

I can’t even begin to list all of the opportunities I’ve had and the people I’ve met all around Richmond through the growth of Downtown Short Pump. It’s been an amazing journey. And as of today, I announce my plan to take everything to the next level.

I’ve sold Downtown Short Pump to James Loving of Loving Consulting (who I’ve worked with very extensively in the past through the company’s highly successful Far West End networking group The Loving Collective), with whom I’ve taken a job as Director of New Media and Image Consultant. I’ll remain Editor & Publisher of Downtown Short Pump under the company’s new online media division, Break Point Media Group. Working for the company that acquired DTSP will allow me to continue to do what I love and hopefully expand this vision around Richmond, beginning with our sister site, Midlothian RVA, which will be launching soon.

I’ll also be helping with web design, copywriting, social media, and graphic design campaigns, plus contributing to other branding strategies for Loving Consulting’s clients.

I’m incredibly excited about what 2012 will bring, and I thank everyone who’s supported me and my business as a whole over the years. I’m not going anywhere, just changing roles, and I look forward to working with you and your businesses as I expand upon what I’ve built with Downtown Short Pump into other areas– both role-wise and geographically!

Waiting in line to be matched up with a homeless/at risk client with the other volunteers at Operation Homeless Connect 2011 at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.

I had the opportunity to take part in a great event put on by Homeward on Thursday. Project Homeless connect is an annual event put on by the organization where those who are homeless or at risk of being so are invited to the Greater Richmond Convention Center to get assistance, support and services.

I arrived early in the morning with several hundred other volunteers and received training on the process. Here’s how it worked: We all lined up inside the exhibition hall as the recipients we were about to meet lined up in the hallway. They were then let in and we were matched with a client at the entranceway.

We then sat down with them at a table, got to know a little about them and their background, and went through a checklist-style worksheet that allowed us to identify the services they most needed during their visit.

Clients could visit a doctor, optometrist, dentist (not to mention get on-site dental work), learn more about housing opportunities, apply for Social Security benefits, get information on employment and educational programs, receive clothing, enjoy a hot meal and much more at different stations set up around the exhibition hall.

We were told that some clients would come in briefly and do as little as just eat lunch, while others would make a day of it taking advantage of all services offered. I got a variety of both over the course of the day as I worked with three different clients.

This was more than just a run-of-the-mill volunteer opportunity where we were there to perform a task. We spent as little or as long as was necessary with each person, guiding them through the stations they wished to visit and staying with them the entire time.

I enjoyed getting to know all three people and learning more about what life was like from their perspectives. But my second client was the one that left the biggest impact on me that day. We’ll call her Jane.

Jane was a woman who was small in stature but big in personality. She made a several mile trek from the Church Hill area to the Convention Center on that cold November day to get help with several things. Jane had a kind smile and gentle demeanor, but was at the same time feisty and no-nonsense. In one word, she was strong. You see, Jane has five kids and is undergoing chemo for breast cancer. And living on under just $200 a month.

We spent a considerable amount of time together as she got the help she needed. And as we chatted over the course of three hours, I got a true sense of just what it was like to live in her day-to-day world. I’m often running short on money for this or that, when an unexpected bill comes in or what have you. But to hear how she stretches a couple hundred bucks and food stamps to make ends meet, endures the cancer treatments and tries to be the best mom she can to her five kids, I felt I could never say I was broke again. I counted my blessings.

We continued talking and she told me a story about how her youngest son, about 10 years old, got upset last year when he found out he wouldn’t be having Christmas, at least in the sense that we think of it with presents and other things we often take for granted. He was too young to understand why. As tears began to stream down her face, she told me how she wouldn’t be able to afford to give them a Christmas again this year, and how deeply it upset her. The tears welled up in my own eyes as she described the little things she’s doing to save a dollar here and there to be able to hopefully get her kids something this Christmas.

Now granted, the issues surrounding homelessness aren’t all black and white. Rather, they’re multiple shades of gray and are  comprised of both preventable and non-preventable factors, depending on the situation. I don’t fully know how Jane (or the other two people I worked with that day) wound up in her current situation. Whether it was her own fault or out of her hands completely, I’ll never know. Nor is it any of my business.

What I do know is however she got to where she is, she’s doing all she can to make a better life for her kids and she’s not looking for a handout (she was employed part-time until her cancer became too debilitating). She gave me the reminder that I think we all need from time to time, that even if we’re short on money or facing tough times, we have it pretty good and need to count and recount our blessings daily.

As we go into the Thanksgiving week, I’m thankful not only for what I have, but to have met Jane and the two others that gave me a glimpse into seemingly another world, right here in the same city as me.

As you get together with your family and friends to share a bountiful meal this Thursday, give thanks for what you have and take a little time to not only think about those less fortunate, but to offer an outstretched hand and do something actionable to make an impact, no matter how small, in the life of someone else.

This weekend was just total insanity. Went to Alisa’s lake house in Hollywood, Maryland with Chad and Deanna and met up with others. Let me just start by saying you have not been on a road trip until you go with Chad Brown. Nor have you ever been out of town and wished you had your car more. But I digress.

Between the lake house, a sporadic trip to Arlington & DC for the night, and an overdose of hilarity from the things I witnessed that could only be described as scenes from an upcoming Hangover 3 (for example, Scott’s phone ended up in New Jersey without him… so yeah, there’s that).

But out of all that happened, perhaps the highlight of the weekend was Saturday evening. A bunch of us were sitting outside on the screened porch watching a really bad thunderstorm roll through. Suddenly, Scott pokes his head outside and informs us, very nonchalantly, that “a very large live animal” is in the house.

What happened next could only be compared to the scene in Christmas Vacation where the squirrel pops out of the Christmas tree– complete with all of us running up and down the stairs trying to figure out what to do.

What was in the house? A huge, smelly snapping turtle decided to pop in when the storm blew in the French doors downstairs. What happened next can be seen in the below video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When I was a little kid, in first or second grade, I remember thinking how enormous middle schoolers were. I thought they were practically adults at that age. Then a funny thing happened. I got to eigth grade and everyone in my grade made comments about just how little the incoming sixth graders were that year. The thing was, though, they weren’t getting smaller, we were getting bigger. By my senior year of high school, the incoming freshmen looked like a bunch of little shrimp.

Isn’t it funny how our perception of things changes over time? We always think we’re done growing, but don’t realize until later just how much farther we had to go until later on and we see the just how small we were, both figuratively and literally. Today, July 1, 2009, is one of those days. I turned 21. I’m just gonna sit for a second and let that sink in.

I think this day far surpasses both my eighth grade and senior year experiences, because this time, I’m not looking back on grade school. I’m measuring a turning point in my life.

If I thought middle schoolers were big when I was eight or nine, you better believe someone who was 21 seemed like they had been on the earth forever. The older I get though, the more I realize just how quickly time passes. I know I’m still very young, but with this birthday, even though I’ve been 20 for a year, I feel more like a “twenty-something” a less of a teenager. I think my transition from being a teen to being an adult took place over this past year, and I have mixed feelings about that.

I know I spend too much time doing business-related things and doing things like networking that adults much older than myself typically participate in, but the fact is I’m passionate about the business I’ve started and making it succeed. I just don’t know sometimes if I should just focus more on being a college student and having fun and less on the type of business stuff that I’ll no doubt have the rest of my life to do. It’s a delicate balance and I’m still trying to find it.

Working for yourself from home does have its advantages, though. One day a friend called me up when I was in the middle of a website and asked if I wanted to go to the river. Not having any boss to ask but myself, I jumped in my car and headed down to Belle Isle. I guess I just wish I was more spontaneous like this more often. When you’ve already got the snowball effect of several elements of a growing business, though, it’s tough to stop it or even slow it down.

I had an interesting thought the other day while talking with Edna, an 83-year-old that I’ve become good friends with up at Daily Grind. She comes in every day. She’s as spry and sharp as can be and still enjoys life to the fullest. She’s also willing to learn new things. I’m showing her how to use her laptop and check her email in the picture (credit: Bill Bangham).

I thought she would feel as if her life had been a long journey, but was surprised to find out just how quickly she thought it had passed. I think her perspective is what gave me my new outlook on the value of time. In what she thought was a short life of 83 years of her life so far (which still feels like lightyears away to me, being that I’m in my early twenties) she’s done a lot and I can tell she feels like she’s lived a good life thus far.

I only hope that I can be the same way and have a life I can look back on at her age and smile at all I’ve done. I’m still young and have more dreams and plans than I can shake a stick it. It’s time to achieve them while still remembering to live up my youth while I’m still young. This year’s gonna be a year of finding the balance. Right now, though, it’s time to celebrate!

I went to the first RVA Social Media Club (SMCRVA) last night at Morton’s Steakhouse downtown. I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but as soon as I walked in the door, I knew I had just entered the best business networking event in Richmond. I had the opportunity to put a lot of names with faces from people I follow on Twitter (maybe a more appropriate name for the organization would be “Richmond Twitter Club!”), as well as catch up with some old friends. It was an all-around great night, albeit a bit overwhelming with around 150 people in the room to meet. I think the first night was a great success and is just the beginning of big things to come from this organization. The networking opportunities are awesome. It really makes Richmond feel like one big family of friends.

I’m really amazed at what’s happened to Twitter over the past year or so. Back when I first got my account, well over a year ago, it was a novelty service. No one I knew was really on it, but that was the coolest thing about it. I got to know so many interesting people in Richmond and around the world, and even had “tweetups” (Twitter terminology for “meetups”) with some of the nice folks I met on the service. Now, though, everyone is on Twitter. Businesses are beginning to realize what great benefits social media has and they’re all jumping on the bandwagon. Twitter is just one big social experiment if you ask me, opening the doors to a new way to exchange news, ideas, support and business information in under 140 characters. Richmond is becoming a lot more close-knit because of it, and that’s a really cool thing in this day in age where everyone’s always on the go.