I am an IDIOT

So, as you know I have changed jobs, a change that has taken me from our home in Jacksonville Florida to Portland Oregon.  We lived in Jacksonville for over 24 years and it was not an easy decision to make the change.  What you may not know is that I am here in Portland and Bride is still back in Jacksonville. When this opportunity first presented itself we talked about it and how we would transition from life in Jacksonville to life in Portland.  We were thinking about it at that time from a very practical perspective.  In hind sight, this is where my idiocy really started to shine right through.   I suppose in life hind sight is always very clear 20/20.  But we can always change plans to overcome our idiocy. 

When the offer was made and accepted Bride and I quickly made a few decisions that I would not make over again, if given the choice.  The primary one being that she would stay behind while the house sold and that I would go ahead to Portland to a furnished apartment.  I believe that was one of the first decisions we made.  That set into motion a number of things that were not easily undone.  Rent on my place, movers and on and on.  Now I find myself here in Portland missing my Honey and my Honey back in Jacksonville missing me.  We already had a ticket for her trip out in February before I left, she will be here in a couple a weeks.

So we have not really been apart much since I got out of the Navy.  We have completed 189 days apart before, and that was before the internet and Skype and before it was reasonable for normal folks to have a cell phone.  I can tell ya this, the being apart part is the primary reason I got out.  We have always had great relationship but after a long cruise it becomes very difficult.  I think since 1993 the longest we have been apart is 2 and half weeks, when she was in Texas without me. 

I will tell you a funny story from the last cruise I went on, one in which we still laugh about from time to time when we are apart.   This was towards the end of the cruise and we pulled into someplace in Sicily, I can’t remember the port.  Normally I would find a hotel to call home from, nice surroundings, inside, generally quiet.  Well as you know most hotel lobbies had phones that were off to side generally in the vicinity of the restrooms.   I believe I had had the mid watch that morning and was super tired and just wanted to talk to my Honey and then go back to the ship and hit the rack. 

So I find a nice hotel and a phone and call her up.  I forget the time difference but she was at work when she should have been home.  She was working her ass off at that time, tons of hours.  Anyway, we talk for a 10-15 minutes and I tell her I love her, hang up and head back to the ship.  Normal call, normal check in and I got to hear her voice, all was good – at least I thought it was.  We pulled out the next day and about 6 or 7 days later we got a mail call from the carrier.  I get a letter, yippee.  We wrote hundreds of letters to each other on that cruise.  I wrote at least one per day, all long hand as this was before email. 

So it starts out crazy talking.  She is selling the house, going back to Texas and we can have an amicable divorce.  WTFO, is what I thought!  I have no idea what is going on.  I remember getting the MARS sparked off to get a call to her.  MARS was a network of HAM radio operators who would patch calls from ships onto the phone system back home.  You had to conduct the conversations as you would on the radio so the operator knew when to key up.  It was not a full duplex operation as we have with a normal phone.  It could be compared to talking on a walkie talkie.  Anyway, come to find out she had heard some women laughing and giggling on our call and they were dubbed my 40 laughing Italian sluts and I could go live my life with them.  Now I did not even notice people, let alone girls, coming and going to the restrooms.  I also did not think this was a good time to remind her they would have been Sicilian sluts had they been actual people.  We got it worked out J

Back to the present, I am here, she is there and neither one of us like it much.  I am staying in a small place that is more like a berthing on the ship than our home.  We also packed up the majority of our house before I left, we have 4 rooms that are basically empty and the others have been stripped to only essential items.  Even silverware for her is limited to 4 sets.  We both realize that this was a mistake.  We also realize that it is within our control to change.  Our primary reason for this hair brained idea of being apart was that we did not want to leave our house empty while it sold.  Now that we have weighed that out a bit more we have decided while that is important it is not as important as being together. 

I had lost track of how well we operate as a team.  I suppose it was due to the fact it works so well I may have taken it for granted a bit.  I miss her right now so much it hurts.  I have left her out there to deal with that end of things all by herself.  Again, back to the team thing – we each have our strengths and weaknesses.  I hate that this ended up like this!  When she comes in February we are going to make that a house hunting trip.  We are looking to rent a house for a year or so to better get the lay of the land before we buy.  Then we are coordinating with the movers to get on the schedule with a mid-march move out here for her and all our stuff.  We both have a lot of things to get done, and again we are doing them by ourselves.  We are drilling down on it now but we are still looking at better than a month before we are living under the same roof again.

In my younger days I  have used the words *^%@*# whipped before for guys who were this in love with their wives.  That was before I understood what it was like to be so in love with someone that all you wanted to do was be with them, regardless the situation.   Sandy Smith is the single best thing that has come into my life and I just could not imagine where I would be without her.  She is my inspiration, she is the reason I do most of the things I do.  I say most because I still do some dumb shit she still does not approve of, but she tolerates it and that is part of the reason I love her.  She has never tried to change me, she just accepts me in all my weirdness.  I have on occasion attempted to change her, and she tolerated that as well.  She loves me and I love her! 

It feels a little hollow for me here, I really love my job but the reason I have it is not here to share these first experiences with me and that makes me sad.  I know we will be sharing our lives here but the many firsts for me are not able to be shared.  Not in a meaningful way anyway.  I mean we skype a few times a day but nothing replaces sitting across or beside each other recapping our days.  I miss her touch, we always hold hands when walking around.   I miss everything that is Sandy Smith and I cannot wait for her to get here!  I love her and I miss her and miss all the silly little idiosyncratic behaviors we share.

I LOVE YOU SANDY SMITH!!  

A few days off from the Facebook - what an experience

So last Monday night Bride and I were sitting around playing on our gadgets, we both have iPads.  I realized as I watched her, she was playing a game, that we spend an inordinate amount of time on our gadgets.  We play games, surf the old interwebs, catch up on the news and play on the Facebook and that is the short list of things we do on our gadgets.  It dawned on me how much time we spend with our faces in the gadgets and not on each other.  My favorite thing in the world to stare at is her face, not my electronic gadget.  I realized I was addicted to Facebook.  There have been studies that indicated each like or reaction to one of our posts trigger a lot of the same centers in our brains that heroin addicts trigger when they get a fix.  That is kind of scary when ya think about it. 

So, within about 2 minutes I decided that I would take a week off from Facebook.  I also decided a couple of other things, I would have Bride change my password so I would not be tempted.  I could always send in the request for a password change but I am hopeful that I am strong enough to not actively try to break in.  At the end of one week I will have Bride log me back in and we will see.  The other thing I decided to do was the write a blog about my experience.   Since many of the same areas of the brain are impacted I wondered if I would go through the withdrawals like an addict might.  I don’t know but I figure I might just learn a bit about myself through the process.

Evening one off the Face Book

So usually I am checking my FB quite often, I could not even count the times I glance at it or roam around in it.  It has become so much a part of my routine that I don’t even notice.  Almost like olfactory fatigue, where once exposed to a smell long enough your system just sort of tunes it out and you can’t smell the offensive odor anymore.  After Bride changed my password I felt a bit of anxiety, how weird that was.  I don’t recall what time that was but within an hour I had reached for my pad at least 5 times.  I realized how dependent I was almost immediately.  Usually the last thing I do before going to sleep is take one last run through to see what is going on with my friends.  It seems stupid even typing this, the last thing I do before going to sleep is FB’ing?  WTF?  I instead spent some additional time researching some work things and then spend a bit reading a book called the Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols, it is a book about the impact or water on us from a scientific perspective.  Lots of research has been done going back to the stone age and with the new fMRI technology we are able to gather a great deal about ourselves, yet to be determined in my opinion if and what we can learn from any of it.  Some things should remain a mystery in my opinion.    

Day one off the Facebook

I can’t believe how silly this sounds but apparently the first thing I do in the morning is spend a few minutes on the Facebook, even before I get out of bed.  I slipped into such a routine I did not even realize how pervasive my addiction was.  So this morning there was none of that.  I played with the dog, made Bride coffee and off to work I went, no Facebook fix at all.  As I was driving in and waiting at a red light I snapped a couple of pictures of the sunrise and magnificent cloud formations, I clicked share on FB and realized – no joy!  That is as programmed a response as can be.  I was doing that almost on a subconscious level.  I know folks appreciate my pictures of the world around me, or maybe they don’t.  I base that one someone who see them clicking “like” or making a comment.  How easy is that and does even that become a conditioned response?   It sure is weird all the things that are popping into my head as a work my way through the first day without my FB fix.

I do not normally get on FB much at work.  Sometimes at lunch and sometimes when I just take a break I may jump on to take a look.  It really had become an unconscious thing for me, I would do it and not even notice I had done it.  I clicked on the FB shortcut on computer a number of times today, weird.  How can something like this have crept into my psyche without me realizing it had happened.  All data from day one is pointing to the fact it is an addiction issue, or at a minimum it presents like an addiction problem.                 

Day two off the Facebook

Wow, it is hard for me to describe the feelings I have had today.  I am stunned how much like what I think detoxing must be like.  My anxiety has been high all day.  Again, it is amazing how unconscientious my use of the Facebook was.   I highly encourage you to try this, the experience is enlightening.   As I sit here I wonder, had I weaned myself down would this experience be different?   They say cold turkey is the hardest way, I am not sure I agree.  When I quit drinking, I just quit.  I had no plan, I had not forethought.  A situation arose, what they call in the military an alcohol related incident, and I decided I was done – voila.  Same came when it came to quitting the last time, a little over 8 years ago.  I had no plan, I had not forethought.  I just woke up one morning and said I am done, bought some patches and - voila. 

I don’t suspect I will remove myself forever from the Facebook but I think I will most assuredly reevaluate my use and probably have scheduled pauses from it as we move forward.  It would be hard to lose the relationships I rekindled with so many folks from all over my past.   I actually found myself talking at work today about being off the Facebook.  It is almost as if I am somehow seeking justification to go back from sympathetic coworkers.  I asked Bride to change my password, I am glad I did that.  To sneak back in I will have either ask her for it, failing or having FB send me a reset link, again failing and deception – argh! 

Day Three off the Facebook

MAN THIS IS HARD!  I had no idea stopping playing on the Facebook would manifest all these feelings.  As I know a bit about addiction and have read a lot, this is as close as I can imagine to detoxing, from something as simple as a app on an electronic gadget.  It is scary to think about if something were to happen that caused a wide spread outage of not just facebook but connection to the world.  For example, a couple of satiltiee going out, a few major interweb hubs, fiber cross points or a coordinated cyber attack that takes it all down. 

Think about  if your electronic gadgets stopped working, would you even know the phone numbers of all your loved ones?  What would your emergency communication plan be.  How would we know what surrounds us if the GPS on our gadgets is not working.  How would we find out way when traveling?  Who still has a paper map in the glove box, or the big Rand McNally road map book in your house?  What would happen if all of the sudden you were not able to text?  No emoticons – OH NO!!

 

I am not saying any of that will happen, I am only describing my reaction to Facebook withdrawals.  These are the things that are popping into my head.  My mind is racing, to make it worse I get email from FB telling me about birthdays, the activity on my “Damn it is good to be a Smith” page as well as when someone tags me in something or places little things on my timeline.  That is like dangling a speedball in front of an addict who is three days into recovery – holy hell this is hard.  Today is the first time I have wondered if I will make it the whole seven days I told myself I would make.  Even that seems funny, I cannot even reach out to my friends on FB to talk about it.  My friends in real life seem to just look at me and laugh, the way one might at a stupid drunk brother in law at a wedding.               

I thought by now it would be getting easier, I suppose I should be grateful that at least it is not getting any worse.

Day four, the pressure is letting up a bit, Bride mentioned that I might be turning into a bitch so I guess I am not quite out of the woods yet.  I focused on work both Friday and Saturday, proposal is due Tuesday afternoon and it requires a lot of research and work.  At least it kept my mind occupied. 

Sunday morning, day 5 I have decided to finish this blog and then ask Bride for my password.  Some of the things I have learned through this I am somewhat addicted to Facebook.  This morning while watching the sunrise from my chair in the water at Atlantic beach I really started evaluating what Facebook is to me.   Do I want to abandon it?  Do I want to go back to the way I was, unconscientiously checking in to see what was going on?  Do I want to monitor a bit and get back to where I am aware the impact it is having on me.         

Just as information is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom I think there are some analogs that be found in facebook and other social media.  I have limited myself to just facebook and do not tweet, pin or otherwise engage in other forms of social media.  For sure that will remain the same, I will only use facebook for now.  When I say use, that is what I mean.  I use facebook to stay in touch with people I would otherwise not have the opportunity to do.  That spans all the way back to Sharon, who was my pre kindergarten babysitter all the way through current best friends.  What I am going to do is cull the herd, not so much of friends but of other nonsense that I have liked over the years.

I want to use FB as a communication tool for effective communication, not just the passive scrolling of peoples lives.  I have always been one who private messages folks to check in on how things are going for that person.  I suspect I do that much more than most, I do not often get many PM’s that are not in response to mine and that is OK.  FB, as traditionally used, is not communication, just as not knowledge is not wisdom.  I am going to strive to not be so absent mindedly absorbed by the Facebook and strive to use it in a way that enriches my relationships with my friends.  Those who are more just acquaintances or the folks who do not bring something meaningful to my life are will gone from my FB world by the end of today.

That means that if you see me tomorrow, you contribute to my well being and I want to thank ya for being my friend.  I urge you each to try getting off for a week, overall it was an interesting exercise.  One I plan to repeat once every few months to evaluate my absorption.              

Mr. Oatmeal's thoughts on Stand your Ground Law in Florida.

This is a perfect example of a law that has unintended consequences that FAR outweigh the intent!  That is my opinion and I stand by it!   I will say right up front that I think it is bullshit when a person is told by the 911 operator to stop following, who we would later find out was, Trayvon Martin and continue to follow and eventually kill him.  I think it is also bullshit that a man who doesn't like someone's loud ass music can fire 10 bullets into a car full of kids, killing Jordan Davis and not get convicted of murder.

I am a strong proponent of the second amendment and gun owner rights BUT something has gone horribly wrong here!  Have the lobbyists some how convinced our lawmakers that our basic rights as human beings are less important than our rights to have guns and kill people seemingly at will without consequences?  I am not busting on the jurors, they have specific instructions and my beef is not with them but he ones who created this crazy assed law.  

I remember when I served in the military there was a very clearly defined definition of deadly force.  That force which a person applies with the purpose of causing or which he knows or should know creates a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily harm, to be used as a last resort, when lesser means have failed or can not be reasonably employed.  I did not have to even look that up, we had to be able to recite that, I learned it 30 years ago.  Lesser means have failed, or cannot be reasonably employed, hummmmmm.  Drive the fuck away Michael Dunn, lesser means!  

Title XLVI, Chapter 776 Justifiable use of force is a similar but very different than our military rules. 

776.032 Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force.—

(1) A person who uses force as permitted in s. 776.012, s. 776.013, or s. 776.031 is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force, unless the person against whom force was used is a law enforcement officer, as defined in s. 943.10(14), who was acting in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person was a law enforcement officer. As used in this subsection, the term “criminal prosecution” includes arresting, detaining in custody, and charging or prosecuting the defendant.

I don't want to get mired in he details of the  stand your ground laws but did want to just put a bit there for reference.  

What I want to talk about a bit is the unintended consequences of the two cases and the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis.  I will say that my perspective is from that of a middle aged white man, good bad or indifferent that is who and what I am.  I do want to say that when I was a teenager I wandered around in hoodies and played music WAY to loud and did not get gunned down.  It might not have been thumping bass but it was screaming AC/DC and Judas Priest and I was told on more than one occasion to turn that shit down, which I defiantly did not do!  

I want you to think for a minute about the loud music.  How many times have you heard  the loud music thumping away when you were at a gas station?  How many times have you confronted the offender in order to get it turned down?  How many times have you just grumbled and wished they would turn that shit down?  How many times have you thought, I will go back to my car, get my gun, fire 10 shots at the offending kids to get it turned down, and then just drive away and have pizza and wine with my girlfriend.  There is a lot of music I don't like but NEVER once have I even contemplated getting gun to make it stop. That is fucking insanity, I don't give a damn how you slice it!  Even if the kids did have a gun, why escalate the situation to include gun play because you are offended by some music?   Why not just grumble and bitch about it to yourself and your spouse or girlfriend when you get back in the car? There may be a law allowing folks to kill others just because they feel threatened, even if they created the situation that caused them to feel threatened but that does not make it right!  In my heart of hearts I know that is WRONG!  

So, what have we really done?  Do middle aged white men feel safer!  Do young black men feel safer!  Does anyone really feel safer?  I say Hell No!  Why, because if I were to even attempt to put myself in the shoes of a young black man and I was being confronted by a middle aged white man, I would consider shooting first and asking questions later - since two recent situations have shown that middle aged white men can get away with murder young black boys (they were both freaking teenagers)?  I remember another saying from back in my military days, better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6.  So as the white guy, I am even more scared of the young black man, it ain't right but I can't know what it is like for them and I can sure understand why they may want to arm themselves.  No one is safer, we are creating situations that perpetuate hate and distrust.  How are we to move forward as a society when our laws are fostering the hate and distrust we are trying to get past? 

I don't know what the answers are, I do know that what has been allowed to happen in these two cases is nothing short of craziness!  I just can't understand how we have allowed laws that are nothing more than thinly veiled cloaks to invalidate the basic moral and ethic foundations (at least the spirit of the constitution) our country was built on.   

I don't feel justice has been served, a young member of my community was gunned down by what I can only consider a crazy, angry, scared bigot and I am pissed that we were unable to convict him on that charge!  I am also offended that the national news was calling this the loud music murder trial, this was the Jordan Davis murder trial, loud music was involved but a young man is dead.   We are not talking about music being murdered, I think of Don McLean's America Pie and the day the music died when I hear that it minimizes the murder of Jordan Davis and that pisses me off!  

Join me in raising prayers for wisdom and tolerance for everyone regardless which side you happen to be on.  

The Duck Man, Phil Robertson - wasn't it really only a matter of time?

I will preface this – I have never watched the show and I know nothing about this dude other than what I see on Facebook or in some of the periodicals I peruse.  So, with that said I do not want to bash Phil and his beliefs but society as a whole.   WHAT??  You heard me!  Why is it that we can’t accept people for who they are, for whatever THEY believe in?  Does no one see the hypocrisy here?

Anyway, it is not really about Phil in my mind anyway.  I am mildly amused by the reaction to his comments.   There were many, as most of you have probably seen.   There were many who were raising hell, everything short of calling for his beheading  and then on the other side of the isle, we have the likes of Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal and Sean Hannity bringing support for his cause.  Not sure any of them are really qualified to weigh in, maybe Sarah has seen a Gay person from her porch.  I did find it mildly amusing that Cracker Barrel took the Duck products out of their restaurants and then after, imagine this, their client base raised Hell, they put them back – they really did not see that coming?  That in and of itself is amusing as hell to me, a restaurant that caters to the folks they cater to – REALLY Cracker Barrel, you did not see that coming?   I suppose the one thing this is going to cause – they are going to sell a shitload of all things Duck Man!  A whole bunch of companies are going to exploit the hell out of this opportunity. 

I think where the conversation needs to go is about evaluating ourselves – yep ourselves!  I would start by asking, why is it that a group of folks (in this case Gay folks), who have struggled so hard for equality and understanding in our society has so little tolerance of some Duck Man and his beliefs?  I mean think about it, how can the community, as a whole, who have struggled for lots of rights, marriage, equal benefits, openly serving in the Military and they (as a group) have no tolerance of someone else beliefs.  I suppose I will get my ass handed to me for the comparison but my bigger point is what happened to our tolerance of anyone or anything that is not exactly like we are?

As many of you have probably seen I have on numerous occasions raised up some prayers for someone who is suffering with any one of many life’s adversities.   What many may not know is that I am not a Christian and that I do not believe in God.  King of hypocrisy many will no doubt say.  WELL, before you smite me and condemn me to everlasting damnation let me explain.  I say those words not for myself, if I have a friend who is suffering and they happen to be a Christian, I will raise up a prayer to their God.  Why, because that is what they believe and because I am tolerant and empathic of another human being – I raise up a prayer to their God.

Why has our society turned into such a divisive group, a group who has no tolerance or even a wiliness to have tolerance of others and their beliefs?  In this Case Mr. Phil Robertson.  I hear that he is supposed to be a decent guy, I don’t know though - and really neither does anyone else.  Folks watch a reality show and they think they know the characters playing on the stage. What folks really know is exactly that, the characters they play on TV.  It is a scientific fact that just by watching something, the watched will change, just from being watched – the watching is a variable that needs to be accounted for. 

I keep hearing Sargent Hulka saying lighten up Francis!  That was from Stripes.  If a dude who makes a duck whistle wants to be a hater (their perception not mine) who are we to stop him?  By the same token, if another group wants to be haters of the original hater (their perception not mine) – what does that really mean, what does it tell us about ourselves?  How is that different from any one else who wants the right to be vocal about what they believe, regardless of what the topic of hate is?   At the end of the day, it is not – it is just hate!    

This is really about the haters, haters of all colors not like their own, haters of different creeds than their own, haters of any religions that might have someone praying to a different God than their own; haters of anyone who may have a different sexual orientation than their own; or a hater of anything that pigeon holes folks into some perceived bullshit reason that might make that person different in any microscopically tiny fucking way than them.  Why is there such an inability to allow others to have their own beliefs and opinions?  Why do we feel that we must conform everyone to our personal belief system?  The hate and the haters are the biggest problem in our country today.  Give em hell Duck man, and give em hell Sean Hannity and most assuredly – give em hell Sarah, from the rocker on your front porch! 

Besides all that, don’t we always tear down people who scratch their way into the public spotlight – I guess that is a topic for some other blog!! 

Oh well, let’s see what kind of attention this one gets.  Bring it on you haters!

Time, it is the fire in which we all burn

 I want you to, if only for just a moment, try to imagine what the world would be like if we did not have the concept of the river of time carrying us along.  I am sure it can be done, to imagine life without time.  We understand the month, year and day of the week. There is a clock on your wall, on your wrist, on your phone, in your car and rarely do you not know, within an hour or so what time it is. We have schedules, a calendar to keep and that dinner date to make.

 

But when you look around at the rest of the biological world, it makes you wonder how mixed up time makes everything.  A dog has no watch, a deer does not fret over passing burfdays and cats could give a shit about time, they sleep most it away anyway.  Man alone measures time, man alone chimes the hours as they pass. It is the single most feared thing in our lives, time.  We have and always will have a fear of time running out! 

 

Time is the most familiar thing in the world, and yet philosophically one of the most puzzling.  Is the present what's left when you subtract what has already happened, and what is yet to happen?  Then it seems to vanish into a mere instant.  Are future events completely unreal?  Or are they just the things we can't know yet?  Is time unreal, as many of us simpletons have speculated?  I have never been able to get the math to work. 

 

I have often used the comparison of life to a train ride, starting on day one, ending at that hopefully distant station.  Folks get on, folks get off and sometimes she just goes off the rails.  I have never understood those who fear time, it is not the ceaseless reaper, stalking us on our ride.  I may not know or understand time fully but I tend to look for the positive in everything.  I  refuse to believe in anything that would conclude with the end overcoming the means to get to that end!  We need to enjoy the ride because the end is unknown.

 

I hope I never get to hung up on the end, of whatever it may be.  If our lives run down the river of time, I want an inner tube and I am going to enjoy the ride.  I watch a lot of people rushing around, for God only knows what. Got get to work, gotta get home, gotta get to the store.  We focus on the end, almost always - think about it!  There is a philosophy called presentism, which is compatible with Galilean relativity, in which time is independent of space.  But when you start thinking about my favorite Brother from a different mother Albert, it is incompatible with Einsteinian relativity.

 

I find it funny that presentism can also be used more loosely to refer to a narrow focus on the conditions of the moment - HELLO!  The 28th Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautamano, was preaching that 2500 years ago!  We have to live in the moment.  But damn it, there we are again back to time.  Why is it that nothing else cares about time like we do, why have we figured out all these elaborate methods of keeping track of it.  Almost all ancient cultures were tracking it, with stars and celestial body's roaming around the heavens.  

 

Time, it is a hard thing to understand!  Time, I hate to admit,is the MOST IMPORTANT thing for our hearts.  It is so important to tell those that you love, that you love them.  It is so important to not to put things off till tomorrow, tomorrow may never come.  It is so important that we are present in our lives, smelling roses, enjoying a sunrise, staring at the clouds while floating in a pool. 

 

Don't let it get away, if you want to do something or see someone - do those things.  We always have choices, don't let the fact you may find yourself in a place you don't want to be!  Change it!  We may not see the change happening quickly, but with time and a series of different choices a better ride will come, a bigger inner tube and a cold beer.  Be part of your own solution, do it now! 

 

Time, it just hurts my head!  Maybe it is simple, maybe we created it to remind us how important the journey is and to remind us to cherish every moment we are given.  Maybe time is the coal that is powering my train of life, driving us into some distant destination that is just unknowable.  Oh well, I am glad each of you has joined me on my ride through life, just reading this means you are on my train - thank you for joining me.

 

 

 

 

Things are trending – This is a VERY bad trend if you ask me.

This stems from my own observations of the world around me and some of the things I read. So a little background first. If something is trending on twitter, it means a lot of people are using that hashtag (#) and talking about it. That could mean people are talking about your account and what you are hash tagging. By definition, an internet trend is a topic, event, picture, video, catch-phrase, app, etc. that is being widely used or discussed and mentioned over social media. NOW most news and social media sites now have ‘trending’ sections where viewers can see the most popular articles and tweets available to read. The hashtag has also become a widely recognized tool on Twitter and now facebook that is used to briefly identify the central topic of a message.

So, what could be wrong with that – what is Smitty going on about now you might be asking? Well let’s take a moment to ponder about social media in general, Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in for the main stream and maybe Pintrest, My Life and meet-up for some of the smaller ones, or Tumblr and the myriad others that are available. It has been my experience that most folks LIE their asses off on social media. I know, and am FB friends with people who are obnoxious asses who are nowhere close to religious but when you spend a few minutes on their page one would think they were literally the second coming of Christ. Most people on social media, with Linked-in leading the way, are image crafting. Folks are attempting to put their best foot forward to make folks believe something that is an exaggeration.

That is all well and good but being able to put ones best foot forward on the interwebs is NOT the same as actually putting ones best foot forward. Social media seems to create a reality where folks could say what they are doing, for all intents and purpose their life is apparently very out in the open. It is a reality where most folks present a greatly exaggerated and near perfect version of their own existence. They kiss babies, believe in Jesus Christ as their savoir and they never swear, are good parents and are always nice to those less fortunate. They are compassionate and empathetic to those who are or have suffered. When folks chime in, their careers and relationships are at their best, folks who are struggling tend not to be as vocal or broadcast their circumstances.

So the perceived reality becomes magnificently skewed from reality. Folks tend to think, wow Mr. Oatmeal has his shit together, sunrises and sunsets and loving on the Bride. In my case I post and share my life as it is, the good the bad and the ugly – you have read me when I was at high points and you read me when I was at very low places. Most folks are not Mr. Oatmeal though, hence the need for me to attempt to demonstrate an absurdity that I have noticed. People who are engaged users of social media could easily fall into the trap that everyone is doing really well. This is a dangerous slope to be on for many reasons but one important one revolves around a person’s self-worth.

Imagine if you will for a moment, someone who grew up with social media, when they see all the lies and mistruths posted on their friends and celebrities feeds, it would be easy to feel a bit of misery. Why isn’t my life going as well as all my friends? Why do they seem to get all the breaks? What a great relationship they have, why can’t I have that? We are in a sense creating a false reality that is self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating. Folks, probably mostly younger folks rather than older, are sucked into bizarro world. An alternative reality is really what it ends up being. I am unsure what this is doing to the psyche of folks, especially the younger folks. I could easily see where a person could be unhappy. At least, they could be feeling a bit frustrated and inadequate.

It seems mostly straightforward to me, if the reality of someone's life is better than they had expected, they're happy. When reality turns out to be worse than the expectations, by comparison to someone else’s posts, they're not as happy. So what does that mean in the context of this blog. My point is that social media is an alternative reality that we created, not unlike Nero created in the First of the new Star Trek Movies. “Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party." An entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party huh? Hummmmm. That seems to me what social media does, only in a false or at a minimum very deceiving way. We do not place our hurts and our pain on facebook or twitter, we just don’t.

So how then can we trust something that is “trending” when that trend is formulated by data mining the shit out of the information we share – especially since that is an incomplete and flawed data set from the beginning. What does it mean that “Is it possible to build a snowboard underwater?” In just this moment I Googled what was trending on twitter, and that was at the top of the list. What possible relation to my life can that information have? Trending, I think we are sucked into areas we don’t belong and I would not be surprised if those are skewed on purpose to divert our attention from more important news bits that would have some relevance in my life. So, I say to you my friends, be wary of news groups or others offering you “what is trending” it could be bullshit, like most of what we read in social media!

September 11th, 2013 - 12 years later - my short view of history

I have sat and pondered 9-11 over of the last few days – I realized that there sure has been a LOT of water under a lot of bridges.  The sting of the shock is gone now, but on the heels of another potential war I just have to think about what the last 12 years have meant, for me, for our country and for those folks in the Middle East. 

So on that fateful day 12 years ago two thousand, nine hundred and ninety six souls were lost; nineteen of those were the terrorists.  I have even thought long and hard about the word terrorist -- what does that really mean?  Terrorism is defined as “the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons”.  That does not say Muslim, it does not say middle easterner, and as a matter of fact it does not say anything about the religion of Islam.  But what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear someone say terrorist?  We tend to immediately think in our minds eye, someone who is brown and wears a turban and loose fitting layered clothing.  I am almost ashamed to admit it, but I too am guilty of that picture popping into my head.  

I watched a video on the interwebs yesterday from a show that puts people in odd situations and then records how they react.  I generally don’t like that kind of thing but it mentioned a soldier so I thought I would take a look.  The setup was a man behind the counter of an order-at-the-counter restaurant, decked out as a Muslim and some kid playing this jackass who did not want to be served by him.  The scene played out a number of times and most folks did the right thing and told him to stop or to leave.  Then we come to this Army Sargent who said it best:  he is allowed to be anything he wants to be.  That is why I wear the uniform -  to give him that right.  I suppose we all racially profile in some ways, even if we don’t want to admit it – we do it all the time. 

But when I think back before 9-11, what did terrorist mean then - was it what we feel today?  I don’t think it was.  I think it was Ted Kaczynski, it was Eric Robert Rudolph, it was Tim McVey – terrorists for sure, Rudolph was the Olympic bomber in case you forgot.  Why did these men hate America so much?  Have folks in the middle east always hated us?  Maybe, maybe not.  When we think about the two sovereign nations that we invaded, Iraq and Afghanistan, what was the goal, the governments of those countries were horrible hateful ass wagons and probably deserved to be deposed.  BUT, and I say BUT both of those regimes were regimes we created in sovereign countries.  We funneled billions into Afghanistan when they were engaging the USSR.  We funneled billions more into Iraq when they were engaging Iran.  Then what, they go from ally to foe, overnight.  How many times would it take you getting stabbed in the back and tossed under the bus before you start to think, hey wait minute here…….. there seems to be a trend here – the United States could start to look like a terrorist to the common folks of those countries. 

Sorry, I diverted a bit.  I wanted to say that since 9-11 of 2001 one million seven hundred and forty two thousand five hundred and twenty three souls have perished as a result of the attacks of that date.  1,742,523 dead as a result of the attacks.  That is the equivalent of every man, woman and child in the states of Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming combined.  Or the cities of Austin TX, or Charlotte NC or the City of Mickey Mouse in Orlando.  This is our legacy folks, we lost 2,977 and we caused the extinguishment of 1.7 million souls in retribution.  That does not include ours or our allies military losses, so the number is probably closer to 1.8 million.  Playing with my calculator that comes out to 604 souls dead for every one of the ones we lost on 9-11.  Talk about kicking some fucking ass - holy shit!  What other analogy could we use where the odds are 604 to 1?  There are no analogies to that because here in the real world NOTHING is that lopsided – 604 to 1 WTF?   

I don’t care who they were, what their nationality was, what their religion was or what color eyes they had.  I, for one, will NEVER be convinced that all of them were combatants of the group Al-Qaeda.  Hell the best estimate are less than 20,000 members total over the 25 year life of the organization.  Even if you added in the Muslim Brotherhood, who have been around since 1928 and Hezbollah and Hamas, we still don’t even get close to the 1.8 million number.  I am in no way advocating that we should have done nothing.  I am only thinking maybe we did not take the correct course of action.  Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq did anything to the United States.  Terrorists called Al-Qaeda did, and I am saying maybe, just maybe, we should have just tracked down offending bad guys, regardless of location and feelings of whatever government that ruled the country they were hiding in and terminated them with extreme prejudice.  Then maybe, just maybe, we would not be in the position we are now, having most of the world hating us and us contemplating yet another crazy fucking boondoggle war. 

We just cannot afford to be engaged in another war.  We cannot afford it financially, we cannot afford it militarily, we cannot afford it politically and we cannot afford to have our reputation tarnished any further internationally.  What is happening in Syria is HORRIBLE, it is freaking HORRIBLE!  There is no doubt about it!  BUT what is our interest there?  I have heard the words humanitarian relief bandied about, due to the women and children, to which I say BULLSHIT!  If we as a country cared about providing humanitarian relief we would have stopped the genocide in Rwanda.  I am sure you remember that, a million men, women and children were slaughtered!  Or maybe Dafur, but there were only 400 thousand who died there.  In both cases, the United States did nothing…… WHY?  I think the why is that there was no oil under those places.  They are located outside the region where our primary oil supply originates.  That has to why we give a shit about the countries of the middle east -- what other reason could there be?     

I was also thinking about a couple interviews I watched with Russian President Vladimir Putin.  It scared the shit out of me when I realized that he was making more sense than my own President.  I am sure you have seen them, but he asked a lot of questions that I don’t think we have answers to yet – hell we are not even asking the questions!  I feel we need those answers before we can make informed decisions.  Our ability to rush to judgement and make important military based decisions has a bad track record since 9-11.  I think we have been so focused on retribution that we may be missing a larger point – we are the United States.  We do not invade foreign nations.  We are, or used to be, the ones who had a moral and ethical base to our national decisionmaking.  I don’t feel that anymore, although some fanatics flew some planes and killed three thousand people, we have turned that around and are responsible for causing the deaths of 1.8 million more – retribution at a whole new level!

I had a string on FB about our potential role in Syria.  It was an interesting string for sure.  I have a couple of old Navy buddies who are now firefighters, so an analogy popped up about putting out fires.  While I agree the fire needs put out in Syria, I argued that I would not expect one of them to drive down from Maine or Massachusetts to put out a fire at my neighbor’s house.  What is happening in Syria is HORRIBLE!  It is, and shouldn’t it be just as horrible to their neighbors.  Why not let those who are better suited and better positioned to lend assistance on that fire? 

This eye for an eye path we have been on has proven to be BULLSHIT!!  What about turning the other cheek, what happened to that.  I think we have more than settled the score.  So, the day after  President Assad of Syria’s birthday I ask – haven’t we done enough, enough killing, enough alienating, enough damage to our reputation, enough harm to our young men and women serving on the Military, enough money wasted abroad that could have been used here, enough erosion of our souls – haven’t we done enough?