My photo of the line at Urban Outfitters that made it onto Mashable.

I’ve always hated shopping. Absolutely loathe it. I still have nightmares about being dragged through the JCPenney as a small child all Saturday at Regency Square. The few times I’ve been out doing it for more than a couple hours (which has usually been as the mercy of a bargain-hungry female companion), I’ve practically been able to feel my soul slowly departing my increasingly lifeless body. Jokes aside though, the one day I set this all aside has always been Black Friday. Something about that day has always made me set those feelings aside.

Whether it’s the adrenaline of fighting the crowds for merchandise or just being in the midst of chaos and enjoying some five-star people watching, I can’t be sure. But I’ve always been all about it, albeit just a day out of the year.

For years, the concept has been simple: Get to bed early and wake up around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. and drive around Short Pump, snap some photos for my website and buy some stuff that I probably would have anyway and get a deep discount on it. Perfect.

But, alas, this year all of the big box retailers apparently had a secret roundtable meeting in which they decided that they were going to opening at midnight (and of course Walmart, in its typical “let’s one-up them all” style, decided to open at 10:00 p.m. Thanksgiving night). Workers required to leave family celebrations early in some cases (over 200,000 Target employees signed a petition against the early opening), which I can’t say I agree with.

Still, I decided to take my sister out for our annual tradition, at midnight. You know, because I love fighting crowds before the tryptophan has had time to wear off my sister asked me to take her.

So we rolled out of the house at 10:30 p.m. for what my sister claimed was an 11:00 p.m. opening of Urban Outfitters, the slightly out-of-place hipster retailer that happens to be in the heart of Prepville USA, beautiful Downtown Short Pump.

We were some of the first in line because, well, the store opened at midnight, not 11:00. So once I swallowed this wonderful news, we enjoyed the picturesque scene of two 12-year-olds smoking in front of us in line and another kid that wasn’t much older brown bagging it. Classy.

Line at Short Pump Town Center from second floor.

Anyway, so once the doors opened, these kids practically trampled one another, so they only let a few people in at a time and cut all the lights off in the store so no one could see anything. The logic of anything going on at this store was fleeting.

So having lost my sister at this point in the sea of insane teens practically killing one another over cheap clothes, I opted to hang out outside the store by the fire pit and think warm thoughts until she came out an hour later… literally.

Next it was on to Target, where the line of people had wrapped around the building an hour earlier, and adjacent Best Buy, which almost circled the building a time and a half. What these people were lined up for is beyond me, considering there was no hot item or toy this year to speak of. Most people coming out had TVs if I could find any one theme or pattern.

Once we actually got into Target (the outrageous line was gone at this point), it was worthless to even buy anything that was on sale, considering the checkout line weaved through about 15-20 aisles in the front of the store. Nothing was worth waiting in that.

So I guess to conclude, and to put all sarcasm aside, I was skeptical as to whether people would actually come out in droves at midnight as opposed to 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. like usual, but boy did they. In much bigger numbers, too. I guess will be the new normal. Heck in a couple years stores will be open 10:00 a.m. Thanksgiving Day, right?

The upside was that the following day, while the mall itself was pretty packed, Short Pump as a whole didn’t look much more busy than a typical Saturday around the holidays. Midnight shopping took care of the daytime crowds and effectively killed the typical gridlock of Black Friday morning.

Fortunately, I didn’t see anything like the crazy people at a Walmart that rioted over $2 waffle makers, but hey, my photo of the line at Urban Outfitters made it onto Mashable, which was pretty cool. Only thing I saw was a fight over a parking spot at the Short Pump Target. Three police cars showed up. It amazes me how people turn into animals over something so silly.

About two and a half years ago, when I first signed up for this new thing I had heard about called Twitter, and long before I had ever uttered the word “social media,” I was introduced to what was probably the first location-based social network. It was called Brightkite, and only a handful of people I knew were using it, probably 90% of whom I knew through Twitter.

Needless to say, Brightkite has gone the way of Bebo and Friendster, joining a growing list of startups that ended up in a “failure to launch” kind of situation.

Flash forward to late 2009, and along comes Foursquare. I got an invitation to join when the Richmond network was in some stage of beta, and next thing I know, 50 people I knew were on board. About 10 months later, my list of Foursquare friends sits at around 350, a much smaller number than my Twitter or Facebook lists, but for several reasons.

One of those reasons is privacy. I asked myself, did I really want everyone knowing where I am at all times? Through built-in connection options on the Foursquare iPhone app, I’m able to selectively choose which check-ins I share with my broader social media family and which I keep to the smaller group I’m okay with knowing on Foursquare.

Just this week, Facebook announced what I see to be a complete game-changer for location-based social networking. Facebook Places, as it was dubbed, is the social media giant’s entrance into the market. With such a small number of the total population using services like Foursquare and its smaller competitor Gowalla, it would seem a safe bet that Facebook would take the concept mainstream with their base of over 500 million (and counting) users worldwide.

In my opinion, Facebook is off to a great start with Places. It’s simple and intuitive, and seems to pull places from a database such as Google Maps, much like Brightkite did, as opposed to relying on users to create venues. But, if a place isn’t listed or has incorrect information, you can still add or edit the venue. What’s more is creating a venue makes a Facebook Page for that place.

I’ve noticed that most of the places I’ve checked into so far that have an existing Facebook Page don’t have the venue linked to it, rather Facebook creates a new, bare bones page for the venue, if that makes sense. This is kind of annoying and I would think could become frustrating for end users and business owners alike, but I’m sure it’s something that will be tweaked in the near future.

Another issue is privacy. Facebook allows you to tag friends at the venue you’re at, without their consent. With Foursquare, another person had to check themselves into a venue before they’d show up in anything you posted from Foursquare to Twitter or Facebook. While that information will only be visible to your friends by default, you can choose to share it publicly.

In summary, I’m excited about the possibilities of Facebook Places. As more of my friends have signed up for Foursquare, it’s been cool to walk around The Fan or similar places and see a friend check in and meet up for a drink or other spur of the moment activities. Facebook is no doubt going to make location-based social media a household concept, unfortunately at the expense of the smaller startups. While there are privacy and technical issues to work out, I think this is about to spread like wildfire, and just like the advent and evolution of other social networks, I’m ready for the ride.

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.

This is an absolutely disgusting example of how much of a “throw-away” society America has become. It’s one thing to tear down an old, non-historic house that’s beyond repair, but this is just a blatant waste. According to the video description, the house you’re about to see being demolished was torn down because the new owners didn’t like the house itself, only the lot. It can’t be more than 10-15 years old and it’s a gorgeous house that must be close to, if not more than, a million dollars. Once again, it’s one thing if you’re talking about a multi-million dollar oceanfront lot, but this one just appears to be in the middle of a typical neighborhood.

I hope the owners are ashamed of the wastefulness of their demolition project. It just further solidifies my opinion that we don’t value anything anymore. Just throw it away and get another one. Maybe that’s why we’re in such a mess ecomonically speaking right now, or why we’re in the midst of climate change. We always seem to think there’s endless resources out there. But I digress. It’s ridiculous nothing in this entire house was saved or reused. I’ve seen much older houses that were being demolished have almost everything stripped out of them first to be reused or recycled. Nothing in this house appears to have been salvaged. Shameful. Watch the video below. I’m sure you’ll agree in some way or another.

I was incredibly inspired by the sermon this morning at Redemption Hill Church. There were so many things packed into one half-hour message it was amazing. The first question posed was a very thought-provoking one: Is following Jesus a duty that you perform or a delight that you have? It’s a very, very good question, and one that I never really gave much thought to.

How many of us have gone to church all our lives and never really stopped to think about why? It sounds strange, but chew on that for a second. I think we can become complacent over time and even start going for the wrong reasons, whether we think it’s just because we’re supposed to or to gain the acceptance of others, or a plethora of other reasons.

I feel that I’ve been this way throughout my walk with Christ for far too long. It’s only been recently, through the sermons and small groups of Redemption Hill, that I’ve really examined myself to see my true motives for why I do what I do. What I’ve found is that for at least the past 3-5 years, I’ve made going to church more of a dutiful thing than a delight. The thing I’ve come to realize is that once you really take a look at how God is working in your life and helping you to become the person you’re supposed to be, you’re filled with a sense of joy unlike anything else in this world. As that’s happened to me over the past month or so, I’ve begun to take great delight in both attending church and striving to live my life in a way that honors God. I have an understanding of myself and of God that I’ve never quite had before, and it’s a beautiful thing.

The next question that was posed was also a good one: Do you follow Jesus hoping that he’ll love you? What difference would it make for you to follow Jesus because He loves you? How is the source of motivation different? This is a powerful question. As human beings, we tend think that if we do more things that please God, He will love and accept us more, when in fact this is totally backwards. Jesus loves each and every person unconditionally, no matter their situation or how much (or little) they honor Him with their lives. The basic message of Christianity is Christ’s love, and this is the foundation of that principle.

Once we fully understand these two questions fully, I think we’re more inclined to delight in following Christ. I know it’s completely changed my outlook. We’re also more inclined to spread the love and joy of Jesus once we realize our glory is secured by the fact that Christ has died for us, and not based on how we follow Him. That’s not to say we shouldn’t live God-honoring lives. That’s paramount, but all too often this is the only message that is conveyed about Christianity. The message posed in these two questions is the one I think needs to be shared more often with non-Christians. Unconditional acceptance and love is the quintessential meaning of Jesus.