@caseyhansen I'll second the follow hashtags to start with so you can find people to follow.
US based emergency response, weather, and alerts: @ai6yr
Sports: @emarktaylor , @CityHoosier and the hockey crowd uses hnom@a.gup.pe as a repeater (though there isn't much chatter in the off season) so you can follow #HNOM, people use the same hashtags the teams use on twitter for the most part
Follow lots to start with, you can always unfollow later.