While You're Making Other Plans

I'm not sure I ever had a plan for my life. I can't tell you what, as a child, I wanted to be when I grew up as it changed from week to week, sometimes day to day. Heck, I still don't know. No, there was no plan, but there were expectations.

Whether my expectations were set by observing my parents and their friends or by society and the media I really can't say. But I'm almost 50 years old now and I'm not where I expected to be.

I expected I would be married and have a deep, deep passion for my "soul mate." I love my wife, whom I've been married to more than half my life now (27 years this year), and will love her deeply until I draw my dying breath but there seems to be a piece of that puzzle that either doesn't quite fit or is from a different picture.

I expected I would have children. This is something that has contributed to many existential crises as I get older. I see my friends doting on their children and now their grandchildren. My heart aches and regret swells.

I expected I would know more. This is more one of perception. I am aware that I have knowledge that many are ignorant of and that I am ignorant of many things that others have knowledge of. I do not aspire to be the smartest person in the room - several others took up that mantle long ago - but  I hunger to understand more of the things I do know and wonder what I am missing.

I expected I would be better compensated. Many reading this probably had this same expectation. I saw people in TV shows and real-life who seemed to constantly move forward in their careers. All I ever seem to do is move sideways and when I do move forward it's either so big a leap that I can't handle it or it's into something far, far worse than where I am.

With so many expectations, whether realistic or fantastic, having outcomes that I would consider not toward the positive, is it any wonder I suffer from depression? Or is it the depression that makes me feel that my expectations haven't been met?

I've read enough business success and self-help books to know that I really need to shape my own destiny. The problem is that my destiny is a giant lump of drab, gray modeling clay sitting on the table before me that I have no earthly idea how to shape. It's not that I don't understand the mechanics of shaping it or that I don't feel I have the skill. The skill really doesn't matter as it can be refined over time. What I don't have is a vision. Will it be a human figure(ine)? What about something utilitarian like a cell phone stand? Maybe something grander like a model building or even a statue? Should it be something serious? Or something fun and outlandish? I just don't know. I stare and I stare but it just won't tell me what it wants to be. And for all my wishing (and judicious use of "The Force") it just won't shape itself.

So what to do about it? I need to discover what that lump of clay needs to become. Should I ask it questions? Should I simply push on it here and there and see what it starts to look like? Actually, that last one won't work. I tried that. I also tried starting to shape it into something - anything - to see what it looked like but usually ended up squishing it back into a lump.

I'm rambling. It's time to stop since I'm obviously not going to figure it all out in one blog post. I have no idea how to close out of this so I just say TTFN.

Early Morning Ramblings On Economics And The Existence Of God

I once watched a Joel Osteen sermon on television. My takeaway from the sermon was that God wanted for me the blessing of abundance but that the abundance would be delivered on God's schedule, not mine. It was inspiring, to be sure, but its message fades against the fabric of reality.

I look at the United States, one of if not the most abundant countries in the world, and wonder if God might not be hoarding his abundance. I speak from a personal perspective but also from the macro perspective. To be fair, God has always provided me and my family enough but when I look at the imbalance - the distribution of wealth, the wage gap, racism, sexism - I can't reconcile it.

I have heard that somewhere between six and eight families control 80-90% of the wealth in the United States and that the number of families living below the poverty line increases at an alarming rate every year. How can we sustain that? How have we sustained that for so long? I look at modern politics and modern economics and think that some day it all has to reach a critical mass and that day will come sooner than later. I fear that day. I fear that day because the preshocks have already occurred - The Great Depression, the dot com bubble, the housing bubble. Those were bad enough but I fear the tear that is occurring today will swallow us when the big one hits. It's not just the United States that will suffer. The global economy is so intertwined that the collapse of such a major power would destroy so much more than itself.

I am not a biblical scholar by any sense of the word. What I know of scripture is merely bits and pieces and stories. Religion is the source of my morality. My view of the Bible and scripture is more about that sense of right and wrong than of specific words. I thought I might include some bit of scripture here to play off of but I don't know the text well enough to locate anything that might closely express my sentiment.

Here's my point: If God so wants abundance for us all, why does it not seem that His abundance is being dispersed?

Is it because of the love of money in the hearts of those six to eight families? Are they, and not God, hoarding the abundance? How shall they be judged?

Is it because of a lack of faith? I want to believe in God but humanity makes faithfulness difficult. Between terrorist activities, greed, political corruption, broad-spectrum hate speech from religious groups (I'm thinking specifically of Westboro Baptist but there are other groups and other forms), abuse by and morally abhorrent behavior of "men of God," and universal (meaning enacted by the universe, not necessarily widespread) bullshit, there are times I consider atheism as much as agnosticism.

Is it because we have all deviated so far from the word of God? We lend and borrow and spend and acquire so much that we're forced to operate within a system that is inherently corrupt.

Is it because there is no God? The words in the Bible are written by the hands of men. Modern society is so far removed from that time and we have enough inaccuracy and controversy in the recording of our own history, how can we trust a book written so long ago and translated at least twice to present it in a living language? How many "versions" of the Bible are there, anyway? If the words are so divine, shouldn't there only be one? I mean, it's not like there's King James, New International, and modern paraphrased versions of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Where is the modern savior who will take it upon himself to drive the merchants and money exchangers from the temple? I'm not talking about the second coming or anything but of the person of power and influence who screams, "Enough!" I mean, look what happened in the mortgage collapse. Banks, actually those that run banks, knowingly sold services based on false pretenses and incorrect assumptions. They fleeced the public into believing they could get so much more for so much less. It was only a matter of time before those lies, and the economic repercussions of them, caused the shitstorm that they did. And what were the consequences? Money from the federal government (you and I) to bail them out of the situation they put themselves in and the reward to their leaders of bonuses so large that the average person does not even have a frame of reference for that level of disbursement.

If one person is not enough to effect such change, why are groups of people not rising up? We certainly should but we can't seem to even care enough to overturn our own congress. I think the reason that the last five presidents have served two terms is that it's easier for people to handle. It's not because they are great men but that they are the devil we know.

Where am I going with this? I don't really know. I woke up at 4 am with it rattling around in my head and had to get it out into the universe so I could go back to sleep (maybe).

Bernie Goes Bust

If you follow me on Facebook it should be no secret to you that I support Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential election. I guess I should say that I supported Bernie Sanders. Until last night, I held out a minor modicum of hope that he might still seek the Democratic nomination or might run as an independent, despite what he's said over the last few weeks.

Last night, I watched a few minutes of Sanders' speech at the DNC in Philadelphia. I was hit with a sense of finality when he said, "Hillary Clinton must become the next president of the United States. The choice is not even close." Many in attendance were hit with this as well. From the crowd came a mixture of cheers and sounds of dissent. I'm not sure what I will do in November but let's rewind a little.

I supported Bernie Sanders not because he was anti-establishment but because he was true. First, he eschewed corporate money and mounted an incredibly successful supporter-funded campaign. If real people just like me hadn't wanted him to run, his campaign would have fizzled before it really got started. He made it all the way to the convention. If he wanted, he could seriously contend for the nomination.

The second reason is his integrity. I'm not using integrity in the sense that he's scandal-free. Everyone has skeletons in their closet. What I'm saying is that, throughout his political career, his messages and goals have been consistent. He has always been for a fair wage. He has always been for human rights. He has always been in favor of education. He has always been for more equitable distribution of wealth. Okay, maybe you can point to some instance where one or more of these statements do not hold true but, overall, he's been fighting for the same things since he started.

My third reason for supporting him is his message. Do I agree with every goal he wants to attain? No, I don't. Do I agree with every method he wants to use to attain those goals? No, I don't. Do I believe all of his goals are attainable within a four-year term? No, I don't. The thing is, though, that he is the only one really talking about some of these issues. While many of the candidates have been hitting hot buttons of "christian" values, the sanctity of marriage, who should use which bathroom, and discussing hand size in relation to manhood, Sanders has continued to talk about raising the standard of living, bringing back the middle class, improving access to higher education, reforming the student loan system that's structured in heavy favor of the lenders, and no longer considering a business a person.

As Sanders gained momentum and there was a good chance he could win the nomination, Clinton started parroting some of Sanders' rhetoric, presumably to sway some of his supporters to her side: "See, I can do that too." Her inconsistency of message alone caused me to be leery of her but the email scandal is what really made me distrust her. Her use of an external server really doesn't bother me that much. There have been others that have done the same. Was it a wise thing to do? Certainly not! Utilizing a server outside the government network poses a technological security risk at the very least. If even one work-related email passed through that system then it poses a national security risk. That can all be handled internally and might be the catalyst for a formal rule change but that wasn't my primary focus. What caused my distrust was the deletion of a large number of emails from that system after the contents were requested by the congressional committee or the FBI or whomever requested them.

For a long time after Clinton started to gain her lead, Sanders would not entertain the idea that he would not be the nominee. He was asked if he lost the nomination would he support Clinton and his response was that he did not intend to lose the nomination. He was asked if he would run as an independent and he saw no need to. At some point after Clinton "locked up" to nomination, as a result of shenanigans or not, she and Sanders must have had a meeting. I say this because almost overnight he put his support behind her and told the media that he would not run as an independent no matter the outcome. Then, in his speech at the convention, he spoke about student loan debt saying, "During the primary campaign, Secretary Clinton and I both focused on this issue but with different approaches. Recently, however, we have come together on a proposal that will revolutionize higher education in America."

I know why he did it. The Republicans are not putting forth a united front and he wants to ensure that the Democrats do. I applaud him for that and I applaud Hillary Clinton for working with Bernie Sanders to put forth a united platform. I am disappointed that Clinton's choice of running mate was not Sanders nor Elizabeth Warren but I see a high probability that Sanders will be appointed to a position in the Clinton presidency where the two collaborate. At least, that's what I hope. Either that or I see Sanders ending up in a powerful congressional position to the same effect.

So, in all likelihood, come November, I will have a megalomaniacal [insert additional negative adjectives here] oligarch on one side, an entrenched politician who even the FBI thinks is shady on the other, and candidates from whatever tangential parties may show up on the ballot. I certainly don't want Trump to be my president. Without getting too opinionated, I do not feel he represents me or my interests in any way, shape, or form and I distrust Clinton to follow through on her promises. I would like to think I would vote for one of the non-major-party candidates but I honestly fear that doing so would tilt the election in Trump's favor - and that scares the hell out of me.

I don't know who, at this point, will get my vote for president in November. The only thing I can say for certain is that I will cast my vote then hope and pray that everything turns out okay.

I Used To Have A Blog

I have a bachelor's degree in radio and television production. One of the jobs I actually held in this field was doing video production for the advertising department of the local cable company. We were a small market so there was one sales person and two production... eh... specialists. Not only were we responsible for shooting and editing the commercials, we were often called upon to conceptualize, write and even narrate the spots. After two years I became quite adept at cramming a lot of information into thirty seconds.

It took me a long time to break that habit. It's one of the reasons I started a blog. I didn't really want to continue writing in a style that embraced direct information without detail and sometimes without context. If I were to continue, my prose would be very succinct. I give you an example:

Two families hated each other. A boy from one family and a girl from the other took a shine to each other. Because of the feud between the families they had to keep their love secret. The boy decided to fake his death so they could escape together. He tried to let her know it was fake but the message didn't get to her. When she saw him, thinking he was dead, she decided to take her own life to be with the boy she loved. He woke up from his fake death only to find her dead. In a moment of agony over what she'd done, he took his own life, for real this time, to be with her.

That's not a story. That's a plot summary. The point is, I worked hard to move away from that and got pretty good at documenting the mundane aspects of my life and commenting on things nobody really cared about. In other words, I became a blogger.

Then I joined facebook. I was a little weary of writing out long, explanatory posts and had been doing some drive-by blogging anyway. Facebook was a perfect venue in which to do that. I could post something brief and to the point and get, hopefully, some simple and quick feed back about it.

Then there's Twitter. 140 characters to say whatever you have to say and that's it! It and texting have formed an entirely new language of shorthand. But, even more than facebook, it forces you to concentrate and compress your thoughts. You never really say anything, you just provide sound bytes without the sound.

Then came Vine. Six seconds. That's all you get. If you can speak fast or convey your thoughts through motion, you can cram in a little more than a tweet... but only a little.

Let's not even discuss snapchat.

Have you noticed that my paragraphs have been getting shorter?

It's been nine months since I posted anything here. I've been hanging out at facebook quipping about life, keeping up with friends, and "liking" pictures of cats. Nothing too deep. No stories, for sure. It's a drive-by blog fest. It seems that each new technology we're obsessed with maintaining the attention of the severely-afflicted ADD sufferer. We want to get our words in before they have a chance to notice that squirrel. (go ahead, I wait while you watch him scamper up the tree).

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Is he gone? Okay, let's continue. ... ... what was I saying? Oh, yes, writing with substance.

I don't think, even after nearly eleven years of blogging, that I've ever completely eschewed the postcard prose I so easily adapted to. I mean, break down this post. I have short paragraphs, I have visual and thematic breaks, my sentences become terse, and even now my brain is trying to figure out how to say what I'm actually thinking and get this one in the can.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that social media, in its call for, and even restriction to, brevity is destroying our - or mine, at the very least - ability to tell stories. Sure, we can get our point across in six seconds, 140 characters, or a post designed to be read in its entirety as the screen is scrolling by, but we don't tell the stories. We don't give the details. We don't provide depth.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
Oh, that she knew she were!

That boy's in love! No doubt.

State Of The To Do List

Back in late December, rather than setting resolutions for the new year I created a To Do List. A list of goals for the year 2012, if you will. Some have fared well while others have been completely ignored. Here's a status update.

• Get the new design/CMS for my celebrity photo site online
• Haven't touched it
• Complete one "Book of Me" entry per month
• This started out okay and I intended to keep up with it. On March 2, 2012 my friend Kevin and I recorded the first weekly episode of the Two Rambling Idiots Podcast. The Book of Me posts went to the back burner but I think the podcast counts toward a check mark on this one.
• Watch 3 classic movies I've never seen
• The three movies I chose were The Usual Suspects, Network, and The Trouble With Harry
• I got The Usual Suspects and Network out of the way pretty quickly but I wasn't sure where or if I could find The Trouble With Harry
• I caught The Third Man on AMC the other night. It was one of the possibilities before I settled on The Trouble With Harry so I settled in and watched it
• Check this one off, too
• Finish transferring my dad's Beatles albums to MP3
• I honestly can't recall if I've made progress on this or not but it's not done
• Sort out at least 25% of my "2 Sort" music folder
• I haven't even opened my 2 Sort music folder
• Unsubscribe from email lists I don't read
• I've marked this one done and have seriously reduced the amount of "noise" in my inbox
• New ones I don't recall subscribing to keep popping up now and then but I'm taking care of those as they come along
• Leave myself notes to find/look for/open in 1 year, 5 years and 10 years
• I started writing one of these and abandoned the project
• I had started recording a video diary and was interested to look back on the ones I'd recorded just a week or so before so I think my focus shifted on this one but I still scribbled it out on the list
• Make a short movie, just to say I did it
• I got the bug to do this one Saturday morning and even had a basic concept in mind. What I didn't have were actors. What I didn't have was access to actors willing to "wing it" with me (I didn't ask anyone). Then it came to me - action figures!
• I went to the local store to grab a few and proceed to produce my... what's the opposite of masterpiece? What I didn't realize was that action figures are A) all either robots or aliens and wouldn't fit my production and B) WHEN DID ACTION FIGURES JUMP TO $9 EACH!!??
• I came across a bunch of figures later at a garage sale for 10¢ each that would work great. They're now sitting in a drawer waiting for production to start. Good thing I don't have to pay them.
• Learn how to photograph people
• Any volunteers who would like to help me out with this by either being a tutor or subject?
• Earn an engineering-level technical certification
• This has been a start/stop/change subjects process but I think I finally have the right resources to accomplish this. Progress is stalled at the moment so I just have to follow through, study and get this out of the way.

And there you have the status report. One abandoned, three marked done, four unstarted and two in progress.

The Changing Face Of Photography

My very first digital camera was a Sony Mavica FD-88. It was 1.3 megapixels and recorded the images onto floppy disk. In its day it was a fancy damn camera and cost me a pretty penny.

When using my Mavica, if I wanted someone to take a picture of me the first thing they would do would be to put it up to their face to look through the viewfinder. The camera never quite made it to their eye because they would get a look of confusion then push it away from them again so they could pinpoint the precise location of the viewfinder. This was followed by a look of increased bewilderment because they couldn't find it. Because there wasn't one.

The Mavica used the LCD screen as its viewfinder. You held it away from your face, lined everything up using the LCD (you actually viewed through the lens), and snapped the picture. This may sound familiar because it is the way most pocket digital cameras today work.

I eventually upgraded my Mavica to a Nikon D70 DSLR and went back to having a viewfinder on my camera. I still find it mildly humorous when I hand someone my camera. Because of the increasing popularity of those pocket digital cameras, people are used to using the LCD as their viewfinder. They will stare in confusion at the LCD trying to figure out how to activate it (some even check the lens cap) only to realize moments later that this one has a viewfinder.

Random Word

I read something about a random word generator on another blog and decided to Google it. I found one and the word it gave me was "Biscuit."

Alright... let's go with that.

The first thing that came to mind was biscuit head. I don't know what that means to you but in my experience it's a softer and familial way to call someone a fu*king idiot. A way to point out the stupidity the already know they are burdened with. "You decided it would be a good idea to throw the turkey into the fryer from the second-floor balcony? You're such a biscuit head."

There's also the biscuit used in woodworking. A small tab used to join two pieces of wood together.

Dictionary.com shows more than 10 definitions for Biscuit.

There's biscuit mix, biscuit bread, cookies are called biscuits in some parts of the world, there's biscuit-colored, and "a piece of plastic or the like, prepared for pressing into a phonograph record." (didn't know that one), You can "take the biscuit," bake biscuits, eat a biscuit, float an air biscuit, - I wouldn't recommend eating an air biscuit - and I'm sure many other things that Google is not revealing to me.

Ever notice how when you say a word over and over and over and over it starts to sound weird?