For the newbies to the plus side - Hangouts are cool. They are an excellent means to share info, screens, techniques etc. This isn't faceboo or chat roulette - it's one of the good things that make G+ different and better (IMHO)

For the newbies to the plus side - Hangouts are cool. They are an excellent means to share info, screens, techniques etc. This isn't faceboo or chat roulette - it's one of the good things that make G+ different and better (IMHO)
HIRL's are even cooler. When ever you travel, you should try to meet others in your circles. My personal favorite was meeting Rocky the Rock Star and his two legged peeps Ila East and "R". You can also do HIRL's with people who live near you. The last time I went to Chicago I did not get to meet Lauri Novak but several other people in the area who have circled me up got to meet each other via the conversation I had about a possible meet up with Lauri.
I've even seen people who have interacted closely for years finally get to meet just because they were in the same airport at the same time.
So - that was a long intro into a short story. 
This weekend I got to meet Anita W. She's an amazing photographer and lives near the route I was taking to get home from one of my doggie rescue runs. We can't really call it a HIRL because we were both kind of antsy to get back home. I'd been on the road about 20 hours and she had a very (VERY) interesting project that she wanted to get back to. So instead of calling it a HIRL (hangout in real life) I'm going to coin the phrase SHIRL.
(shake and howdy in real life)
Thanks for the SHIRL Anita. Next time make sure to bring a camera. This is the interwebz after all - you know ? Pix or it didn't happen, right...