Connected or Disconnected?

Technology has invaded every part of our lives. Computer chips are in almost everything. Sitting at home today it is possible for me to check on the house in Illinois. I can watch a live video feed, check sensors and determine which doors were open and closed, including the time those events occurred. When I'm in Illinois I can do the same thing for the house in Georgia. I can also check the thermostat and change it if I want. Face Time chat with the granddaughters. Facebook to keep up with old friends. Text, email, GPS tracks my car and now my walks every day with Lily Lu. My cell phone is my constant companion. My iPad is almost always within arms reach. TV is on. Cable channels out the ying yang. Video on demand. ROKU. Amazon Prime video. Virtually any movie or TV show I could ever want to watch any time I want to watch it. What the FUCK happened to us?

We seem to be more connected to our technology and less connected with each other. We hide behind screen names and make comments we would never make in real life. All the hate and discontent that is spewed forth in the comments on news sites makes me sick. Are there really that many trolls among us? Do so many of the folks that seem so normal when you see them out in public turn into complete assholes when they get on the internet? So much of what floats around out in cyber space isn't true. We have all the information we could ever want available to us with a few key strokes. We don't do that. We see something on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr or some other social media and rather than check it out we assume it is true. Stupid things like a picture of Mars and the moon in which they nearly the same size. Lots of dumbasses go out looking for something that can never happen. The truth is available but we are too lazy or stupid to look. So, what is the answer?

It's time to experiment with disconnection. Sunday will be a no computer, no iPad, no iPhone day. No internet. Not going to answer the phone if it rings. Spending the day with my Sweetheart. Don't care about Facebook or any of that other social media that seems to have turned us into antisocial jerks. Enjoy your weekend. Turn off all the devices. Cut out the constant background noise and talk to someone. Be a human being again.

Happy 2015

Last night Carol and I were invited to a New Year's Eve party at our neighbor's Patrick and Terri's home. It was a gathering of our neighbors on Anderson Court and very likely one of the few times I will stay up until midnight. During the party one of the neighbors invited us to go to the Tybee Polar Plunge today at noon. My response was a quick and hardy: "Hell NO!" The current water temperature and air temperature on Tybee are similar at 59 degrees. The other issue for me was not paying $20.00 each for the privilege of freezing my man bits off in the ocean. The charity is worthwhile being the Tybee Post Theater. We have paid to participate in both of their wine festivals so the next time alcohol is involved I will donate to the restoration effort. I did toy with the idea of going down and taking some pictures but assumed (correctly) that I could steal them from the internet. So without comment here is this year's polar plunge. Tybee will use any excuse to get folks out here to spend money.

A Year in Review

The year began with the intention of writing one blog post for every day of the year. Well, that just didn't happen. Today's blog post will be the 323rd of the year. Not bad all things considered. I get to say not bad because it is my blog. I took a look back and this adventure began on December 7, 2011. The total number of blog posts for the three years prior to 2014 was 192. So more posts this year than in the past 2+. What does 2015 hold for this blog? Well it won't be one post every day. I'm going to take a page out of my buddy Mike's blog and shoot for every weekday. So a new post Monday through Friday. I'll give you weekends off and it will give me a chance to explore the news and determine if anything warrants your attention and a bit of ranting from me. Enough of the house cleaning or updating or whatever that was.

I grew up a Chicago Bears football fan. It was a combination of factors. First, that was the game that was on TV back in the days when you only got three in Western Illinois. It was 4 (WHBF), 6 (WOC) and 8 (WQAD) or you went outside to play or read a book. The 1963 Bears won the NFL championship. The "Super Bowl" wouldn't roll around for a few more years and back then no one took the AFL seriously. Dad was a Bears fan and so every Sunday we watched the game while he smoked Pall Mall cigarettes and cursed at the TV. Oh, those were the days. My youth couldn't have been better. 1963 I'm 9 years old and the Bears are champions. 1964 I'm 10 years old and the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series. Flash forward to this year. Everyone thinks they have a pretty good team during preseason. The Bears had made some trades which seemed to upgrade the defense. The offense had performed very well the year before and having learned the new coach's system better things seemed to lay ahead. The hopeful among Bears fans were predicting a trip to the playoffs and perhaps the Super Bowl. The harsh reality of the season left the Bears with a losing record and overall an embarrassing performance on the field. When you look back there are so many points where you think they may have reached bottom. The point where I knew the season was a complete disaster and a coaching change had to be made was the game against New England. Your team is losing by around 40 points and one of your defensive linemen sacks the opposing quarterback. He celebrates this accomplishment and tears his ACL. I don't care what you do when you are losing by 40 points, there is NOTHING to celebrate. NOTHING. Everyone on that defense. EVERYONE on that team needed to hang their head in shame. Dedicate the rest of the season to not being embarrassed on the field again. They didn't do that. They continued to be beaten easily. I have watched Bears teams that went 1-13 for the season. They were easier to watch than this group. Sure they lost 13 out of 14, but they weren't quitters. They had players with little talent but they played hard. They did their best. This group didn't do that. No leadership. No effort. No pride. It was and will be remembered as a team of no. The coach and general manager have been sent packing. I suspect when it is all done some players and all the assistant coaches will be looking for alternate employment. What will 2015 bring for the Bears? Anything will be better than this year.

Undefeated

Early this morning our dear friend Joyce, wife of Danny, mother of Tom, Jane, Phyllis and Joe died after a brief and courageous battle with cancer. It is reasonable to wonder why the title is undefeated. Because it is true. Cancer may have ravaged Joyce's body but her spirit was never broken. She could look ahead at what was coming and fight with all she had. Things got tough and she never gave in. There was never a "why me" uttered. No looking for someone to complain to or blame. No time for that there was a battle to wage against the disease that would eventually take her life. Complaining doesn't win the fight. Determination does. Joyce fought on her terms. She lived her life her way. She was a wonderful mother who, with Danny, raised four great children. Yesterday was about growing old. One of the unfortunate realities about getting older is learning of the death of old friends. They simply cannot be replaced. We have known Joyce and Danny since the early 1970's. There is no way to count the number of times we have sat around kitchen tables and drank pot after pot of coffee. We talked about everything under the sun. We watched our kids play together. We saw each other grow old. Today, we said goodbye to Joyce. Those who know me understand that I am not a religious man. I don't know what happens to us after we die. If there is a life after this one then I will see Joyce again. If there isn't I still appreciate everything she showed me about how to live. Life can be tough and it was hard at times for Joyce, Dan and their kids. It never has and never will defeat them. Joyce was as strong as they come. It was a privilege to know Joyce, to call her a friend. The best times in life are often spent over a cup of coffee talking about everything or nothing. Just talking. No judgment. No anger. Just conversation and coffee. I'm going to miss that. Thanks Joyce for the memories. Dan, you walk the path alone now but know that in so many ways Joyce will always be with you. In every day you will see things that remind you of her. I hope they bring you comfort. She loved you in every moment of every day.

Aging Gracefully

You spend your life growing old. The changes are most notable when you are young. The move from baby, to toddler, child, teen and then adult are the most rapid. Then it seems like a long period when nothing much happens. You hit your 20's, 30's and 40's and not much changes. Sure if you are a professional athlete things go quicker and you lose a step or two. In that world a step or two is a big deal. Really, for the rest of us, not so much. We can lose lots of steps and no one really notices. Then the 50's roll around and we begin to sag and wrinkle. We notice things like gravity. We used to appreciate the fact it held us to the ground so we didn't float away into outer space. Now, from time to time, it grabs us and pulls us to the ground. We don't pop back up like we did a decade or two ago. Sometimes we stay down there. We try to pretend it is because we are checking things out. Truth is we are trying to determine if everything still functions. Now 60 has reared its ugly head. You listen to folks on TV and they talk about 60 being the new 40. They are lying bastards. Sixty is the new forty? What a complete line of bullshit. Really total bullshit. The sagging and wrinkles of the 50's are taking control now. Hair? Well if you have any left it probably has turned gray or white. You still have hair on your head but now it grows out of your nose and ears. When you go to the barber he has to trim your eyebrows. Since mom reads this there will be no discussion about what happens south of the belt line. Just keep in mind everything down there ages too. Aging isn't something that takes place gracefully. No one sits down to afternoon tea and all of a sudden gracefully morphs into a 60 something. Growing old is more like a slow motion car wreck. You know it is going to hit you. You know it will hurt. The results will be painful and cannot be repaired. No matter what you do it's going to happen. So, what do you do?

Youth is wasted on the young. Spend less time worrying about tomorrow and more time enjoying today. Do you care about what other people think of you? If you do, stop. Rest assured they spend less time thinking about you than you spend worrying about what they think. Take a walk, smell the flowers. Call a friend. See the sights. Love your spouse. Spoil your kids. Do a good deed every chance you get. Make a difference. Some day you will be old, if you are lucky. When you sit down at the end of the day and look back make sure you have done something (anything) that makes you happy. That gives you a feeling of accomplishment.

John said it had been 10 days without a blog post. Today's big accomplishment was getting the computer hooked back up and making it work with the internet connection here on Tybee Island. Once that was done and all the scanners and printer worked it was on to the thermostat. The new system allows it to be controlled from the internet when we are in Illinois. It is now connected to the network here as well. Old men and modern electronics are not a good combination but sometimes old men can figure this new fangled shit out just fine. Was it a big thing? No. However, at this point in life even small victories are extremely satisfying.

Johnnie and Audrey's Beauty Shop

On Wednesday we went down to John and Mandie's house to watch our granddaughters while Mandie had surgery on her arm. Johnnie and Audrey wanted to make a fashion statement with my beard. I let them brush, braid and put in all manner of hair clips for the better part of an hour. Here are the ladies posing with me at times and at times just pictures of their work.

 Audrey and her braid work.

 Johnnie Lynn can't braid so she adds clips and hair ties.

 Nothing quite says manly like having a pink heart hair clip in your beard.

 This one was the result of Audrey making three small braids and then braiding them together.

More of Johnnie's hair clip work. Hope they are both around some day when I get ready for a ride on the motorcycle. They can get me fixed up so my beard isn't blowing up in my eyes.

Why? Just Why?

This morning Pakistani Taliban militants attacked the Army Public School and College in Peshawar, Pakistan killing 132 children and 9 adults. They also wounded 121 students and 3 adults. A spokesperson for the Taliban, Mohammed Khurasani claimed responsibility for the attack saying it was retribution for the military's operations in North Waziristan where the group's fighters are based. He stated: "We targeted their kids so that they could know how it feels when they hit our kids." The response from Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Peace Prize winner was: "Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this. I condemn these atrocious and cowardly acts."

It is hatred and evil beyond my ability to comprehend. I barely understand adults who are willing to kill each other over religion or any other belief system. Is being a Christian, Jew, Muslim, atheist, Republican, Democrat, Socialist, or any other religious or political belief system worth the slaughter of children? What purpose can this possibly serve? In what universe does this means justify any end? Some may wonder why I want to have as little to do with the world as possible. It is things like this. Days like today when I look to the sky above and hope for that giant asteroid. Maybe, once again, the earth needs to be virtually scrubbed free of life. Perhaps the next dominant species will have more sense. Maybe it will not be a plague upon the land like mankind is proving to be. Using up resources, polluting the oceans, seas, rivers and lakes. Destroying other species daily for no real reason.

What will be the end result of today's horror? The Taliban alleged they killed because they were being killed. That drone strikes were killing them and their children. The Prime Minister of Pakistan has promised retribution. The killing today will result in more killing. What will be the response from the other side? Retaliation and more killing. It is, and perhaps always will be, a never ending cycle. It will end when the last two face off in a death match. One will kill the other and then have no idea what to do next. Everyone is dead and there is no one left to hate. The winner can stand among the dead bodies. Maybe then true sorrow will be felt. It will be too late. The damage will be complete. The winner will find no satisfaction only hollow loneliness.

So why? Explain to me why. Why do religions that teach love your neighbor, treat others as you would hope to be treated are so often an excuse for death and cruelty? It isn't just one religion. Don't think this is limited to the Taliban. Read what Christians write in comments on Facebook and news sites that post stories about Muslims. How they should all be killed. That they somehow don't deserve to live. Hate and killing are not the answer.

Why? Just Why?