10 years. A milestone for myriad occasions. High school graduations, marriages, employment. A nice round number: long enough to have seen many changes, not so long as to make you forget where it all began, so you can still recognize change. 10 years since two planes flew into NYC skyscrapers, one into the Pentagon, and one into Terra Firma, PA. Truly a turning point for our nation, but in retrospect, it seems like we may have made a wrong turn.

Historically, tragedy has been a force of growth and definition for our country. Pearl Harbor, for example, galvanized a nation to war, proving beyond doubt our military and economic prowess, which netted us global dominance in many arenas. Granted, we already held international respect for many of our accomplishments, specifically our burgeoning trade and industry. WWII, though, showed the world that we meant business, and while the attach in Hawaii was tragic, it slingshot us to greatness. At least for a time.

Countless regional disasters have also served to gird the loins of American prosperity. The Chicago fires, the major earthquakes in California, etc. Each of these led to a reanalysis of laws, policies, and they were expanded–sometimes created–to create a better place, safer and more conducive to our lifestyle. And after these, we succeeded. We became wealthy, successful, and respected. Not by everyone, of course, but what country is? Then came 2001. We were coming off of a largely economically successful presidency (and there are always arguments on either side of that issue), and hopes were high that it would continue. Then came September 11.

The events of that day plunged our country into a panicked frenzy. Mobs were attacking any brown person around. Merchants were gouging consumers, who were equally scared. Our people were hurting our own out of fear, and maybe even a little greed, but even with that, we eventually learned to quell the violence. But many never learned to quell the hatred. Our news media, the purported voices of reason, spread fear and hate for ratings, and what’s worse, there are people who take the pundits at face value. They spew hatred and intolerance, and people just eat it up. Internalize it. Realize it. As a result, our reputations has become that we are the pulse of intolerance and ignorance. And, simply, it’s repulsive.

It’s now 10 years later, and a lot has happened. We entered two unending theaters of war, we found and captured one dictatorial leader, who was hung amidst celebration by his mistreated people. Then, we actually found and killed the man believed to be behind the very attacks that happened 10 years ago. We killed him, too. Amidst these military victories, we have also given up a number of civil rights, and pieces of our sense of decency. We’ve allowed our disabled and elderly to be humiliated at the hands of under-trained and overzealous airport security guards. We are as confused and scared and flummoxed as ever, and this is after 10 (T-E-N) years.

The media will be talking all day about how we should be honoring the memories of the people who died. But we’ve done a pretty poor job of that in the last decade haven’t we, then? Our grand memorial at ground zero has barely been started, largely due to money grubbing and squabbling amongst contractors. We have let fear take over our media. There is still wide-spread and unilateral hatred of anyone with brown skin. What have we become, really?

We have not honored these peoples’ lives. And we won’t ever, not until we step back and reprioritize. We are losing money hand over fist to two wars, despite our crippling debt, which is made worse by inactive political leaders, too powerful corporate lobbies, and corporations grabbing for every last dollar without giving back to the communities which fostered their grown from their infancies. It’s made worse by desperation and frustration of the millions looking for jobs. It’s made worse by helplessness and hopelessness in change. We really need to just step back and look at what it means to be American. To be us, not to police the world, not to tell any other country what government is good and what is bad.

We need to just “do us,” for a while, at least until we’re back on our feet and not still reeling from poor decision making and a sucker punch that happened 10 years ago. We need to regroup, refocus, and look at what we lost. Then, we need to move forward. Build from that loss, and do what we’ve always done: come back better and stronger than ever before. But how?

I don’t know. How do you get out of the wars we’ve started? How do you step back and regroup? I have no idea, but something’s got to give, and it cannot be the already flagging American vigor and livelihood. The successful plan is the plan which brings us back to our roots. The plan that reignites the ingenuity and sheer force of will that brought us through so many tragedies in the past. That’s the plan I’ll be looking for.

**NOTE: I understand that not everyone who will read this is an American. I am, though, so please excuse me when I say “our country.” I do not mean to imply that you are included in the collective, just me and the rest of the Americans.

As I left work, I decided to stop in at Walmart to pick up a few intra-grocery trip items that we tend to run out of. Cereal, soda, milk, etc. In the soda aisle, I found myself soundly affirmed that my cynicism and jaded perspective was justified, and the wanton disregard for self as well as others I witnessed left me gobsmacked.

As a man, in his late twenties or early thirties, slim with nary a gray hair upon his head, reached for some chips, the young woman behind him objected. “You won’t buy her juice,” she said, pointing to the little girl in the shopping cart, “But chips are okay?.” He responded, “Look, if you’re going to do shit like this, I’ll have the divorce papers drawn up tomorrow.” “Do that, then,” she replied.

Then a silence, as they looked into each others eyes, devoid of passion, devoid of compassion, devoid of, well, everything, which buffeted me. I caught my breath. I stared at these two for what seemed like hours, but it was only a few seconds when they began to move again, as if reanimated. Eyes still lifeless, faces stoic as the Easter Island statues, the mother picked up her little girl out of the basket and walked away. The man turned towards me, and walked in the opposite direction of her, leaving behind the disarray in their basket.

Neither was mad. Neither looked as if they were suddenly carrying the weight of the world. Just a small sigh, and he strode past as if he had just been given new life. The mother, too, for that matter looked refreshed and relieved. Their relief was distressing. Relief without passion.

I know marriages end, and I don’t mean to say that this is always a bad thing, or that it is always the wrong decision. It was just this situation was so surreal, it got me thinking about more than just any old divorce. I also know that these two were not flippantly deciding their future over a bag of chips, and I also know that the may stay together. But to see the wave of relief at the mere thought was distressing enough. I’m not nearly so conservative as I used to be, but I still believe that people should stand behind their commitments. That if they promise to each other they’ll be there, well, dammit, they should be. Especially when they have a child.

Perhaps its naïvité speaking, but it just boggles my mind how such an insignificant event can be the final straw. How, even, they could have ever gotten married, had a child, and yet be so obviously happy for the thing to be over. I know that for me, should I ever find myself amidst divorce proceedings, I would be in another one of those surreal existential quandaries, wondering if this was actually happening. I imagine I would be a lot of things, none of them relieved.

Is this where we are? A throw-away culture, obsessed with today, ignorant and disillusioned by our parents, with throw-away values, throw-away promises, throw-away sincerity? Well, it’s all rubbish and it should be, well, thrown away. If this is us–our culture–I’m not so sure I want any part of it. Call me prudish or old fashioned if you will, but I’m going to stand by the idea that people mean something. That promises mean something. That life means something, and it’s about more than today. More than now. More than what I’m going to have for dinner.

Life’s about making a difference, no matter how big. About bettering yourself and others because in the end, that’s your legacy. What did you DO? What did you just toss away like so much garbage? Who did you leave in your wake, and who will remember you fondly? Who will pay it forward, and who will just toss you away like so much garbage?

In a land of toss-away philosophy, I suppose none of that matters. Well, it does to me. And it should to you, too.

Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.

I think this is how I have lost every friendship I have ever had. Who wants to let friends go? Who ever wants to have to start that over, find new people, build those relationships? It’s hard, and it’s always better to just keep the ones you have. But that almost never happens. At least not early in life.

Nearly everyone I knew in high school is now scattered across the state and the country, and we are each of us too busy with our jobs or school or whatever to really keep in touch. Travel is expensive, and it’s hard to find the time or money to get together. So you just drift. Sure, these days, we don’t have to write letters or whatever. We’ve got AIM. We’ve got Facebook. But all that ever happens is some witty comment on a picture here, a happy birthday prompted by the side bar there.

It’s not that we’re ambivalent about staying friends, it’s just that we never get to see each other any more, and as the years pass, so too does the friendship. Of course, there are some friends with whom you can not speak for months or years but pick back up as if there was never a day lost, but these are few and far between. I have a couple such friends, but even conversations with them are getting more and more rare.

It’s difficult, finding yourself in a place where you have almost no friends. And no real way to meet anyone new. When you spend all your time at work, finding new people is difficult at best, impossible in most cases. But you do your best, try and find someone you can connect with. This becomes even harder as a couple: you then have to find two other people who really mesh with you and your significant other.

But I see the friendships that my parents have, and I know that I’ll some day have friends like that. Who are always around, and have been for 20 years or more. I look forward to those kinds of friends. And I know I already have them, we’re just separated by states at the moment. But it may not always be so.

Maybe that’s another goal for 2011: Find friends.
 
 

I mean, in some ways, it’s just another day. Nothing changed. Still headed off to work. Still trying to figure out what to do for dinner. Still the same old crap, But at the same time, now you’ve got a whole year to reinvent yourself. To change the same old crap. To take new risks. Have new adventures.

But sometimes, it’s just good enough to survive. Just good enough to keep your head down and get through it. In some ways, I feel like that’s what happened in 2010. We had some opportunity for growth and exploration (I mean, we DID go to Disney), but for the most part, it felt like just recovering from the period of unemployment I had in 2009. And you know what? That’s okay, because we needed to recover. We needed to regroup, and just get through it.

So what does 2011 have in store for the wife and me? I have no idea. New job? New opportunities? Who knows! And that’s exciting. Hopefully we’ll be able to pursue some of the things we have been hoping for, but if not, that’s okay too. We’ll at least be a step closer to those dreams.

In this mixed-up crazy world, sometimes progress is all you can ask for. Achievement can be delayed, and it may never even happen, but constant progress is galvanizing. It keeps you going, keeps you making that next step. And that’s what I intend to do. Just keep moving forward.

That’s my New Year’s Resolution for 2011. Just keep moving forward, not worrying about setbacks in the past, just onward and upward. And I’d encourage you to do the same.

First and foremost, it makes web browsing a dream. I can do it from the comfort of my recliner,
and every page is plenty big, and I have found few pages that do not render correctly in Safari.

Secondly, apps like Flipboard make reading blogs super I easy. Google reader, twitter, facebook, and others are all conveniently restructured into a newspaper format, making tons of information available at a glance. But that’s just one app. CNN has a fantastic app, as do The Weather Channel, Reuters, and many others.

Third, it makes me feel like I’m finally living in the future. Capacitive touch–the same technology in the ipod and iPhone–is just incredibly responsive. It’s accurate and fast, and that makes the idevices feel so much better than the touch screens of the past. No more tapping around a button hoping to hit the sweet spot. No more tapping and waiting for it to register. I have been extremely impressed by the touch in the iPhones, and after playing with the iPad more, I’m just even more impressed. All that, and I know this is a year-old device.

Fourth, the screen is just beautiful. It’s plenty large enough for watching video, and the video if gives is clear and bright. It doesn’t have much trouble with blacks, either, which is nice. Even with the brightness set at its lowest setting, the colors aren’t muted, and they don’t succumb to the grey blurring that many screens do when the brightness is lowered.

Not to sound like too much of a fanboy, the device definite has its issues. The onscreen keyboard is pretty unwieldy. If you are doing any significant typing, it gets cumbersome very quickly. The touch keyboard that works so well on the iPhone sort of falls apart on the iPad. I’m currently writing this post on the iPad, but I have a bluetooth keyboard attached, which really makes the experience quite enjoyable, but I would never try to write this much on the iPad itself. So, here’s how I have my stuff setup for heavy typing:

Also, the lack of flash is definitely a downer, but I must say that many sites out there are starting to adopt html5 and non-flashed based video playback. So, as that trend continues to roll forward, the lack of flash will ultimately be moot, but I have found on a couple of occasions, I would like to have it so I could watch that neat video of kittens wrestling or something.

The battery life is impressive, but by no means earth-shattering. Under normal use, I can get about 8 hours from it, which is pretty standard fare for netbooks, so I shouldn’t be too surprised But a quick charge while I’m sleeping, and it’s ready to go for another couple of days. So no real complaints about that, yet.

All in all, if you are at all considering the purchase, I don’t think you will be disappointed. Bear in mind, a new one will likely be coming out in the next 4-5 months, so you may want to wait for that, but even if you buy now, it will be a device you will be able to get your money’s worth from. I know I will.

Sit back and let your mind get blown by the genius of this man.

December 27 – Ordinary Joy

Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?

I am the kind of person who is pretty quick to to take the everyday for granted. I get caught up in the monotony and the banal, and I tend to miss the real grace and joy that’s hidden beneath all that repetition.

But sometimes the best things in life are really the stuff we do every day. I get up early. I shower, eat some breakfast, and catch up on blogs and news while I watch something on Netflix. I’ll do this until it’s time to get ready and go to work.

It may not sound like a lot of fun, but I find that it really gets my day started off right. I feel awake an d refreshed, and not so groggy when I leave for work. It gives me food for thought, and it generally just makes me happy.

Maybe it’s lame and maybe it’s the same every morning, but it makes me happy, and it makes the long day at work a little more bearable.

Searching the web requires that either you know the name of what you’re looking for, or someone looked for it the same way you created your narrative, it using the same words. This is problematic for a number of different use cases. Say you saw a movie, but you have no idea what it was called. Or who was in it. This often happens with old movies, at least for me. So I want to find out more about it, but, uh oh. I’d have to go to Reddit or Yahoo Answers or something similar and give my narrative of the film, hoping someone else has seen it.

Crowdsourcing answers is kind of a fad these days, but it seems to me like with the vast analysis Google has done on the web, and with the massive databases it has amassed with its keyword searches over the years, I have to imagine that they should be able to cross-reference this information to allow for narrative search.

I expect it would work something like this: the user types their narrative. Using keywords in the narrative, a script categorizes the narrative based on hundreds of thousands of tags generated by users. With some noise reduction and some false positive refinement, this could create an extremely accurate categorization with relatively little resources. The categorization tags could then be hashed. That hash could then search the current “keyword” web, and as the results come back, they could be indexed like the original narrative was. The results are then ordered by how close the result hashes are to the hash of the original narrative.

People use natural language to find information. It’s easier, and it makes more sense. If we want to open up the web more than ever, we need to let people find information the same way they think it. And that’s in narrative format.

I’m not a programmer. I’m not a database expert. And I’m certainly not a web search expert. But given how willing people are to freely tag and give information, the database could be easily built, and constantly optimized as people report on the accuracy of their searches and add more tags, resulting in more accurate hashes.

Please post any questions, or if you have any suggestions on how to make this a reality, please hit up the comments. I’d love to see it happen.

December 21 – Future Self. Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead?

Past self, don’t sweat the small stuff. These are minor inconveniences, and you won’t even remember them next week, much less in the next year. Don’t fool yourself, into thinking that you aren’t talented or smart. You are. Just remember that not everyone makes good choices, and while you might work hard, they probably won’t work hard for you, too. Hold out for something good.

Don’t forget that sometimes things don’t work out. I know it sounds silly, but you have a lot of plans for 2011. And you will not fulfill the all. But you will at least try, and that’s a good deal better than just giving up before you start. Remember not to worry so much about how it would be to fail that you don’t ever start. Failure is better than a failure to act.

This is a year of growth, of maturation, of experience. Cherish it, and live it with relish. You won’t get another chance at it, so make the best of it you possibly can.

Oh, and most importantly: don’t take yourself, your job, your life too seriously. Sometimes, you’ve just got to step back and have a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

In general, even when something turns out for the worst, I usually reflect on it as a learning experience, rather than a piece of wasted time. Generally, I regret more things I either gave up on or never even tried to do. Probably more than anything else, I regret that I didn’t stick with learning to play the piano. Or the guitar. Or the drums.

Yes, I played all three of those, some more briefly than others. I played piano for about a month, guitar for about 3, and drums for a few years. Of course, I never really got any good at them because I gave up so fast, but in hindsight, I really wish I had. Or that my parents had made me stick with it, either way. I would love to be able to create and share music with people. I would love to be able to sit down at a piano and tap out a song.

I’d love to be that guy who always has a guitar and a song handy, just whenever it’s most needed. But I can’t be. I suppose it’s never too late to learn, but it would’ve been a lot easier if I’d have learned young. So much free time. Such a soft, squishy, absorbent brain. I really wish I’d have stuck with it. If only for the ability to entertain myself.

So, maybe I’ll add that to the list of things to do in 2011. I own a guitar. Maybe I’ll should try to learn to play it, and put this regret behind me. We’ll see how it goes.

(This post was inspired by Lovely Anomaly. She linked me to the most amazing alto clarinet piece, Libertango. It’s really quite good!)