2008: Part One

In November, as 2008 started to wind down to completion, and I started to reflect on anniversaries, I started to think about how I would remember the year that was 2008. Clearly already a big year in my life, the month of December obviously became one of the most transitional of my entire life.

But, throughout the drama and sadness, came a lot of good times and the opportunity to meet a lot of great people.  So, in the interest of recapping this year, join me in a look back at 2008 - in photos, videos, and blog posts, and I hope you’ll share some of your 2008 memories in the comments. This is the first in a two part series. With that, here we go.

January

• I started January in a new apartment, in a new job, and with a lot of questions. And, at this point, no blog, so nothing of interest to show you. Move along, nothing to see here.
• Well, except that Marissa was on her way to lifelong-friendy-ness.
• And by now, Caroline McCarthy has introduced me to Brett Petersel and the flood of awesome new faces has started

February

• This incarnation of tagsmith.org comes to life.
• … just in time for the Giants to pull off an upset win in the Super Bowl!
• We start to get acquainted with the new apartment
• First new job roadtrip to Santa Monica (I flew Delta and American and hated it)

March

• Bear Sterns fails, foreshadowing that the worst of the financial crisis is about to kick into high gear
• I meet Meg Fowler and Gradon Tripp and instantly my life is changed forever (theirs too).

April

• The longest single work day of my life (I got in at 5 to 9 am that morning)

May

• I finally meet Whitney Hess at the Web 2.0 Meetup
• The dba Tweetup - where I meet a lot of great friends for the first time - most notably Robert Murray, Tom Limongello, and Tony Bacigalupo.
• My first conversations with the incredible Shelley Greenberg start with this tweet (in response to a tweet where I asked what people were having for lunch).
• Marissa has a birthday, and I get an awesome photo.

June

• Internet Week
  • A legendary night at Mashable Exhibit Hall and TechKaraoke. (seriously, one of the most fun nights of my life)
  • I meet and see a whole bunch more people:
    • Courtney Skay (this tweet marks as one of my favorite tweets ever), who took a chance and showed up and by the end of the night was singing karaoke with 20 people she’d never met before.
    • Matt Zarzecki
    • Brett Petersel
    • Michelle DeForest
    • Vanessa Jupe
    • Steven Melfi
  • Another great night at the post-TechSet dinner
  • Meet a bunch more awesome people, including:
    • Laura Fitton
    • Maria Thurrell
  • Capped off by the Tumblr/Next New Networks Rock Band at MI-5
  • Highlights:
    • Epic Fail shreds
    • Famous by proxy?
    • Meeting the wonderful Gaia Borgias Brown
    • Ladies love cool Brett
    • The first picture with Caroline
• I throw my first Tweetup at Agozar which results in the first #techicecream
• We do lunch at MTV for the first time, which results in one of my favorite pictures of the year.
• Brett has a birthday, and of course, karaoke and pizza are involved.

Stay tuned for part two soon!

Finding something paws-itive in the mail

In the mail lately, I’ve gotten a strange combination of the usual credit card spam (Bank of America, trust me in saying, our relationship will be over as soon as humanly possible), bills, and other things (reminders to tip the building staff). With that also has come birthday cards (thank you), Christmas and holiday cards, and sympathy cards as well. It’s certainly a strange mix of emotions - frustration, anger, joy, sympathy, irrelevance, hope.

But in the last few days I’ve received, in a large stack mind you, a large number of sympathy cards from North Shore Animal League, denoting the donations made in memory of my mom. I’ve taken much solace in these cards - my mother was a huge animal lovers, and had donated, and adopted many animals from the people at North Shore, who always have done their best to be helpful, loving, respectful and understanding to pets and their owns. I just wanted to take a second and thank those who took the time out to donate a little something, and while I know your holiday dollar is a little tight this year, to encourage you to donate online now to keep North Shore’s efforts moving forward.

Lance, shown above, would surely approve

Many thanks go out to (in no particular order):

Melissa Thiessen
Courtney Skay
Tony Bacigalupo
Alexander Gordon
Kieran Hawe and Family
Brian Papa
Marissa and Geoff Lerer
Matt Zarzecki

(If you made a donation, and aren’t reflected here, please let me know and I’ll add you!)

Happy holidays, y’all.

Maybe 30 ain’t so bad after all.

My eventual move in to the ranks of 30 plus has been the topic of much conversation over the last 6 months or so - and for a while, I wondered if I’d feel any different. Over the last year, I’ve weighed the value of anniversaries, reflected on what social media has done for me, and suffered through the hardest days of my whole life. And after all this, being alive, no matter what I was started to feel more like a blessing than ever before. The number 30 lost all substantive meaning.

But, there was still cause for celebration, as with all things in life, sweetness follows (listen).

I was lucky and blessed enough to share a birthday celebration with 14 of my most favorite people in the world, and I’d like to take a minute and thank them all for coming out to share in dinner and some rock (both real and plastic) and helping to make the night a very special one, at at much needed time. And even though my actual birthday isn’t until Thursday, it just became time to ROCK.

Some of the highlights:

Marissa Lerer’s live rendition of “Livin’ On a Prayer”:

Dueling Banjos, courtesy of Michael Gruen and Mike Davis

Awesome gifts, including…

• an entire CASE of Kidrobot Simpsons Figures

  

• A Susana Schroeder original painting, which I’ve dubbed “The Sledgehammer” and proudly mounted on my wall:

  

And, finally, just a great night spent with some of my favorite people in the whole world. I’d like to give them all a quick shoutout:

Whitney Hess
Brett Petersel
Alexander Gordon
Marissa and Geoff Lerer
Susana Schroeder
Diana and John Liquori
Michael Gruen
Maureen (Mo) Puia
Rebecca Schlachter
Mike Davis
Matt Zarzecki

Thanks guys. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.

The greatest gift is love

So it’s been 6 days since I lost my mother, and calling them the hardest 6 days of my life is a gross understatement.   The emotional roller coaster of it all has been exhausting.  My shock is slowly starting to wear off, and is replaced with memories of good times, and great things that she has done for me.  And the sun has started to come out, literally and figuratively for the first time since she passed.  (I’m convinced she slipped the weather gods a fifty, and she’s been dictating for the last few days).

But, during this holiday season, a time for reflection and joy, and rememberance, I am so eternally blessed to have the greatest gift of all - and that’s unconditional, and undeniable love.  My family, who’s definitely a desperate clan sometimes, came together to remember my mom, and share in the good times, and the sillyness that we become when we’re together.  I never thought I’d laugh so much during the funeral process, as a clan of people, used to hard times, and not taking themselves too serious, helped me to understand that it’s ok to smile and laugh and be happy again - that the pain, while never to completely leave, can subside - that it’s actually ok to start to look forward to the rest of my life.   And while it saddens me that my mom has left us here in her more earthly form, she lives inside all of us forever, and she’ll never be far from my thoughts.   We remember her for what she did for us, and I as her legacy, will never forget.

But, I also received the most unexpected of gifts - and that was an absolute flood of love and support, manifesting itself in every form imaginable - cards, letters, flowers, text messages, blog comments, direct messages, Twitter replies, phone calls, voice mails, two different Twitter memes, thoughts, prayers and even a Facebook fan page (?! ) , and to say the least it was humbling and overwhelming.   I didn’t know I could matter so much - I always feel like I’m just being me, the me that my mom helped me to become, and that doing the right thing for people was just that - “the right thing to do”.   But, man, it helped me to build strength when I needed it most - I had this undeniable shield of love and support that would never let me fail, and never let me give up.   The mission was clear and strong - I am loved, and will always be, and that, when I was at my worst, helped me to never give up hope, and never change.

I just wanted to take a moment and thank you all again.  From the bottom of my heart.  From the deepest reaches of my soul.   On behalf of me.  My mom.  The rest of my family.   Your love and support at this darkest of times will never be forgotten, and I just hope I can continue to be there for all of you - whenever you need me, in good times and bad.  It has truly been the greatest gift at the greatest time. Because, for her, it was never about her - it was always about “us”.  And that’s the way I will try to live the rest of my life.   Because, in the end, in this craziness called life, we are all in this together.  We all win together.  We all lose together.   We all laugh, and cry, and share, and grow.   And, I am eternally grateful to know that I will never be alone.

Thank you.   Happy holidays.   Hug someone you love today.  God bless you.  I love you all, and hope to see you (and hug you all) very, very soon.

-mK

Goodbye. And thanks.

My mother died last night.   And the news has shaken us all very hard.  She was a fighter, and fought very hard until the end of her life - a life filled by always putting other people first.  I loved my mother, for many reasons, but most of all because she was always there for me, and would always make sure that her children had what they needed to be a success in life.   And we are.  My brother and I both have great careers, and have a wonderful future, live in wonderful homes, love wonderful women, have all the things we could ever want.

I think I’m still very much coming to grips with what this all means, because I’ve never had to deal with something quiet like this before, and I’m sure I’m still in shock.   It was amazingly poetic last night as we drove to the hospital for the last time, that the first snow of the season had started to fall.   She always loved snow - a transplanted SoCal girl, she always loved the fact the New York had four seasons, and she loved the leaves in the fall, and snow in the winter.  I like to think she choreographed it - this would be the night to go out on - the flakes were big and beautiful, and the night was quiet.

Goodbye, mom.   I miss you already.   Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, and all of us.

Sidebar: The only thing my mother loved more than snow was pets.  We always had an assortment of cats, and dogs and hamsters around, but we got 20+ years of love and affection, and support out of animals we gave to and got from the North Shore Animal League, based on Long Island.  It’s the world’s biggest no-kill adoption shelter.

If you feel the need to give, in lieu of any other flowers or donations, please donate to North Shore Animal League in memory of Debra Knell.   If anything has to come out of her loss, it should be that some wonderful animals find real love like our pets did with us.

Thank you for your thoughts, and prayers, and wish wishes and support at this time.  I can’t tell you all how much it means to me and my family.