December 1, 2008

This day will never recur.

That will be a comfort to some, I am certain.  For me, so far it is not a bad sort of a day, coming off a four-day weekend that did not require that I work until Sunday afternoon, and  even then I could do whatever was needed sitting in my recliner in the living room with the office laptop on my lap, using a nice fast fiber connection to a VPN.  

I had thought I would get a motorcycle day in, but it was not to be.  Maybe this week or the coming weekend.

Christmas is 23 days away - I wonder if everyone is as ill-prepared as I am this year. Seems almost as if I decide in July to go shopping in October - and no sooner do I decide that than we're at Thanksgiving and I have no ideas whatever. 

Now, my wife and I have only been together for almost 41 years - you'd think by now I'd have some ideas.  It's easier to just hand out checks - but it's more fun to get something that surprises and delights.  Unfortunately that requires a lot of work and research - something I no longer have the patience for (if indeed I ever had the patience for it.)  What she needs is a week away without even me, but she won't take it.  I'm not quite so noble;  I'll take away time if I can get it.

I got my little tablet PC working last week and by the weekend it was hosed again.  Dunno what I did, but it surely does tick me off!  Maybe it is trying to tell me my fingers are too fat for a thin tablet PC.  This week, I'll reload it as I get the time, and see how long it lasts this time - if it goes to crap again in a week or two, I'll get rid of it.

Thanksgiving was lightly attended - my youngest brother was out of town and his son has a 12-hour shift (he's a cop); my kids were there except for Jamie, who called us on Thanksgiving day to tell us he had arrived in New Zealand safely, and promptly found a 200-meter tall building off of which to jump.  His mother really didn't need to hear that but he's OK, so there must have been parachutes, ziplines or cables involved that he neglected to mention. He just loves to light up his mom - and some days she's so easy to light up.  At any rate, he was not with us, but the rest of our kids (and their kids) were with us.  Usually there's someone from outside the family there, but this year we did not have anyone, at least until Sunday when middle daughter brought around her new boyfriend.  He seems to be nice enough.

The happenings in India made me angry and disappointed.  It was only made worse when I learned Sunday morning that one of the other tenors that sings with me in the choir that my wife leads had family in that hotel over there who were now newly dead. The world is a small place - about the farthest you can get from home is a 12 hour trip by large jet aircraft - and apparently that might not be far enough to escape some of the foolishness that there is around us in the world today.  It is a scarier place than the world in which I lived as a child.  I wasn't more than 9 or 10 and rode all over parts of Pittsburgh by myself on streetcars, and nobody thought it odd or unsafe.  We had no cell phones, and kids would leave home in the morning and not show up again until dinner, and nobody called out the searchers.  It seems that each new technological change that allows us more timely communication is accompanied by a social change that makes use of these abilities necessary for continuance of life - and somehow I don't think that that's what the folks who bring us these magical things have in mind when they first create them.   Vehicles do everything at least ten times better than they did in the 50's - yet we have lower speed limits.   Families no longer routinely have guns around to use for shooting targets or for fathers to use to impress safety on kids while they're instructed in appropriate and proper use - and yet we seem to be killing folks a whole lot faster.

Something has changed.  Now I do not mean to suggest that we go back to the good old days because i would be loathe to part with some of what those days have produced for us to make our lives better, easier, or more interesting - technology has done lots to improve my work experience and general life experience.  But it has also given the means to do without personal contact - and apparently because of that (at least in part) folks are not learning politeness and compassion as they once did - it is far too easy to remain isolated from human contact, to fail to learn politenesses and social rituals that make it possible for a bunch of disparate creatures such as we to exist side by side and to learn from our own otherness to tolerate and learn from those who are not the same as we are.  I do live my on-line banking - but I've never seen a branch of my bank, know nobody on the staff and haven't a clue who the branch manager is (if, indeed we still have such persons) and this may well not be  an improvement overall, as it narrows my circle of people that I know, and diminishes my opportunity for interpersonal contact and the learning that goes along with it. 

Of course, I may have it all wrong - but today I have less of a chance to encounter someone who'll disagree and guide me - unless someone who reads this is moved to leave me a note.  

Anyhow, the state of my world today is pretty good - the Prozac works, the office queen isn't making life hard (yet) and I'm looking forward to getting home this evening and getting some sleep.  Last night I stayed up too late watching a movie, and working on the Tablet PC trying to convince it to behave.  My reward was going to bed after 3 AM saying something like "I gotta quit doing this!" 

I'm listening to a GotRadio shoutcast of piano music - very nice.  Maybe tonight I'll remember to get the Skype toys out and set up our household for videophone to Australasia, for the next time our son calls.

Happy Monday.