theSmudge.com

A few months ago I started using Foursquare for two reasons: I wanted to see what it was about, and I wanted to become the mayor of the jail. I met those goals within two days, since my job at the time had me at the police station every day. When I’m not annoyed at Foursquare’s GPS failures, I’m still using it for two other reasons: It’s a handy way to remember where I went, and I can get FREE STUFF!

Seriously, FREE STUFF! As in, chips and salsa from Chili’s restaurant! I grew up learning to pinch pennies. We had one winter where we lived on potatoes and oatmeal, and I still distinctly remember being 10 years old and it was a huge splurge to buy me two sundresses that were on sale for $5 each. Now, I balance cost-cutting measures with the fact that you only live once. If I want to go out to eat, I will. If my coffeemaker dies, as it did last week, I’ll spend a few more bucks to get one that I know will make me happy.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I heard through Twitter that the Lodi Winegrape Commission was looking for Foursquare users to promote their First Sip wine event. So I got in touch with them, and it turned out that if I took fliers and posters to a bunch of businesses in Stockton, I could score two free tickets that would have cost $35 each. I was game, so I spent two hours and about two gallons of gas delivering the brochures. The marketing director could track me on Foursquare as I checked in at each business, which I think is a pretty cool use of Foursqure.

This weekend was the wine event. I took my friend Deanne, and we sweet-talked her fiance into being our designated driver. Drivers got free food at each stop, so we didn’t have to beg him too hard. About 30 wineries were participating and we couldn’t get to all of them, so I Photoshopped the event map, drawing a route that included wineries that had the most promising food options. Saturday we headed out, and we met the goal of wine before noon:

Five hours later, we’d tasted our way through Lodi. They were pouring quite generously, Lodi wine has about 14 percent alcohol, and I didn’t have enough to eat that day. So the evening became a blur… But here is the other way that Foursquare comes in handy. I did check in every place I went, so later I went back and looked: In five hours, we stopped at nine places, two of which were pouring from multiple wineries. Not bad for one day! Our last stop was at a sushi place where we got happy hour prices.

Conclusion: Foursquare has its uses, and hey, it’s free. Also, Lodi sure has a lot of wine.

Here are a few more pictures of the day: