I just had a boys night out with my son. We went to a hotel, had dinner (including a chocolate milkshake), swam in the pool forever, then stayed up late hanging out, woke up and had breakfast in the hotel and swam again.

I’ve been on an information diet lately, figuring that stuff I need to know will make its way to me through social channels. I am reading far less in my news reader than last year, and it feels pretty good. But this morning while my son needed a cartoon break while eating his Cheetos after a good swim, I decided to catch up on some of the feeds I do still read.

This is how I came to read this post from my friend Andrew Hyde talking about how he should have listened to my mom. Now, I don’t think my mom has actually ever met Andrew (if so, it would have been very briefly). But that didn’t stop her from direct messaging him in Twitter and giving him some advice on taking it easy.

Until just a few years ago, my mom had not really used computers much. She would do email once in a while, and that was about it. Then she started surfing more, and at some point she became internet-aware. It’s been really cool to watch. She discovered Andrew as one of my friends through my Twitter feed, or through the original Startup Weekend that I participated in. She’s using the social tools of the web, friending people on Facebook, following them on Twitter, and finding their photos. She’s learned about my friends, and (obviously) even reaches out to some of them once in a while. She knows exactly what’s going on with Brad Feld, Andrew Hyde, Micah Baldwin, Jil, Gwen, and my other online friends. In fact, since she’s mostly retired, she has lots of time to find out about the latest Startup Weekend, or follow the Feld toilet story, or whatever, and now often tips me off to a tidbit that I didn’t even know about! Even my mom is sustaining my information diet now!

A while back I wasn’t sure if I should be wierded out by this or think it’s cool.

Now, I absolutely know it’s cool. I mean, that’s why we put ourselves out there on the web. For our friends to hear from us and connect with us with minimal effort. And my mom is certainly a friend.

Mom used to complain to me regularly that she didn’t know enough about what I was up to, and that I should email her more and tell her about stuff going on in my life. When I started blogging this got better… until she started telling me that I wasn’t blogging enough! Now my mom is in the loop, and I suspect she’s pretty aware of where I am and what I’m doing and what my friends are up to, and what projects I’m working on all the time.

And I think that’s neat. Unexpected, but really neat.

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