A Mild Voice of Reason

Past, Present, Future

Posted on 20 November 2011 | No responses

Feels like I’ve been living my own little version of A Christmas Carol lately. To wit:

Past. Last weekend I took the scenic route home. Drove through eastern Ottawa County, and passed by the haunts of my childhood — the beautiful river views from Lamont, the rolling farmland in Marne, the dirt roads on the periphery of northwest Grand Rapids. Cruised by the three houses in which I lived in as a child (the two on Lincoln, and one at Leonard and 14th). Interesting to see what’s changed, and what has stayed the same. Prompted fond memories of my youth, but also a reflection on what “home” means; I’ve lived in five different places in the last five years, and eight places in the last 15. That’s a lot of impermanence. Although I’m delighted with my current abode, it’s hard to find a place that feels like “home” when you move around a lot, even when you move around the same metro area.

Present. In the process of moving some task-oriented stuff from OneNote to Outlook (hooray for the new Office365 subscription, and the tight integration across desktop/laptop/WP7 devices), I noticed that I’ve made substantially more progress on some of my goals than I expected. This makes me happy. The major “hard work” part remaining is the challenge from Tony, to be prepared to appear in public in a swimsuit for the water park experience during his birthday celebration in June. Last time I was shirtless in public was, oh, September 2008, when Andrew and I decided to spend the day lazing around at Oval Beach. I have the lead time to get into the kind of physical shape I’d prefer for such an excursion. Fun part will be thinking through the upper-body program. I’ve always had a slender chest/shoulder/arm profile (when not covered in blubber) so I’m thinking that a weightlifting program may be in my future. On the bright side, the June trip provides ample opportunity to prepare.

Future. As I continue to work through my novel, it occurred to me that although it’s hard work, chunking out the aspects of novel-writing into into a series of discrete steps, with deadlines, helps to sort through the work. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to “win” NaNoWriMo this year, but I’ve learned a heck of a lot already about how to write a novel, and if I can get this MS done by the end of the year, I think I could be in good shape … to write more novels. If I could find an agent — yay. If not, I’m enjoying the craft of writing, and I think that Duane’s model of putting them up on Amazon will work, too. He gets monthly royalty checks that somtimes cross into the triple digits for some of his old, early novels.

Assorted Ruminations

Posted on 12 November 2011 | 1 response

Well. What an interesting couple of weeks it’s been. Summary commentary follows, on subjects as diverse as writing, politics, socializing and privacy. Read on, dear friends, and be enlightened.

“Society” Isn’t Responsible For Your Bad Choices

Big Al and I have engaged in several recent conversations about Occupy Wall Street, and in particular, about the nature of the main claims emanating like a vile penumbra from the protestors’ wish lists. The crux of the debate: To what extent is society responsible for the condition of people saddled with huge student loan debt and no strong employment opportunity?

Although Alaric refuses to state categorically that he thinks the protestors are totally free of moral culpability for the current condition, he does seem to argue that they aren’t solely culpable and therefore deserve a personal bailout. He asserts that the overwhelming social message that “college is the key to success” means that people really had no other choice if they wanted to be successful, and that colleges have misled many students about the value of their chosen courses of study. As best as I can tell, his position is that the social pressure to attend college mixed with bad or misleading counsel about the options available for majors means that many unemployed students were effectively sold a bill of goods. Therefore, in the interests of the macro economy, it makes sense to lighten their load and to implement reforms to prevent such from happening again.

Our debates have been lively. Although I appreciate his perspective — and do, in fact, concede that social pressure is a not-insignificant contributor to the higher ed bubble — I cannot agree that debt-laden students get a pass. For one thing, imprudence isn’t a virtue. Yes, I’m sure some people really did think that a degree in puppetry would be fulfilling — but did they bother to check the expected labor market for such a focus? Research is abundant and free, beginning with the Department of Labor public databases. As an ethics major, I realize that the only job I’m qualified for is one that requires “a degree, any degree” — no one is actively looking for someone with a B.A. in moral philosophy. I knew that going into it. I made my choices, and I have to accept my consequences. Choosing to go in willfully blind doesn’t provide a layer of insulation for when times get tough.

I get that for many people, life is challenging. I don’t think it’s society’s problem.

Evening of Cocktails and Fine Dining

Last Saturday I welcomed the opportunity to have dinner with Jon and Emilie, Tony and Jen, and Joe. We started with cocktails at Tony’s office in Lansing, then went to Copper for dinner. The meal was delightful and the company was heavenly. We had a great time and settled on the dates for the “All Things Tony” trek to The Happiest Place on Earth in early June.

Scotch Is Good for the Soul

Good Scotch whisky is proof of the existence of a benevolent God. In recent weeks, I’ve enjoyed Ardbeg 10-year (a staple of Jim Murray’s list of top whiskys) and now I’ve laid hands upon another rare bottle of Ballentine’s 17-year. Add to that a good deal on Lagavulin 16-year, and life is good.

But added to the mix: Gentleman Jack. I saw a fascinating Discovery Channel documentary on how Jack Daniel’s is made, and it impelled me to pick up a bottle. Glad I did. GJ may become my default sipping whiskey.

NaNoWriMo Is Harder Than It Looks

So I’m writing a novel. It’s harder than it looks. The goal of National Novel Writing Month is to produce a minimum of 50,000 words in the month of November. Some people have already met their goal, and bully for them. I remain stuck in the low four figures, mostly because I started late and have been planning as I go. The prose I’ve generated so far, I’m mostly happy with. And I purchased Scrivener for Windows — an all-in-one writing application for professional writers — and sync its data files with SkyDrive so I can pick up on any of my computers. So far, so good.

The “discipline thing” presents something of a self-improvement opportunity. My goal is to generate 80,000 words and shop it for sale. As a published writer of non-fiction work, I hope I have at least a tiny bit of credibility to get an agent to look twice at my submission. But if not — it doesn’t matter much. I’m enjoying the craft of writing for writing’s sake.

The fun thing about NaNoWriMo? The social aspect. There are active forums and chatrooms for local areas. The “Ottawa County – Grand Rapids” group has been a blast. I’ve done two write-ins with fellow novelists already, and will do more in the coming weeks. It’s been motivating, and fun to connect with fellow local writers. Even if Elizabeth insists on circulating a paper chat room while I try to write and even if Jennifer won’t bring me Scotch. At least Adrianne gave me chocolate because she’s a nice person.

I’m Not a Commodity: Or, Facebook+Spotify Sucks Huge Donkey Dick

Having read of the hype around Spotify, the streaming music service recently made available in the U.S., I was eager to install the app on my phone and enjoy a wide library of musical bliss. The downside? The only way you can actually register for Spotify is to log in with your Facebook account and agree to share an astonishing amount of personal information (including your name, age, location, friends, and profile details) with Spotify. There is no other way to gain access to the music service. Spotify, seemingly caught off-guard, insists that people can create dummy, empty Facebook accounts if they wish — which seems to defeat the purpose.

Long story short: I refuse. I uninstalled Spotify. And for good measure, I logged into Facebook and stripped all of my data from the service. I deleted all my photos (except a really crappy one for the profile), untagged myself from everyone else’s photos, removed all my personal profile details, and set all privacy settings to the most restrictive level. I even “unliked” almost everything I’ve liked in the history of Facebook — only a few dozen things, but still. My profile is now mostly an empty shell devoid of useful marketing data. Fuck you, Mark Zuckerberg.

Note to Big New Media: I’m a human being, not a data profile. I own my information. You don’t. I grow weary of being offered “free” apps or services only to discover later that the fine print says that you get to commodify me into a package of information that you can sell to others and that I have no say in the matter (not even to opt out or to at least curate what gets shared). I’m also out of the game of “logging in with Facebook” (or Google, or Twitter, or …) — give me the chance to log in using de-identified information, or forego me as a customer. Next up for scubbing: Google. I’m watching you, Mountain View.

State of the GOP Presidential Race

Here’s what I know. Most significantly, Rick Perry managed to disappoint me; I can forgive a bad debate performance, but not a 100 percent failure rate in debate performances. Mitt Romney really does look like the default nominee, and despite Erick Erickson’s bloviations, I think he’d be a strong contender and a solid POTUS. Notwithstanding my lack of enthusiasm for his early debate performances (where he came off arrogant and picking fights on social issues he didn’t need to wage) I think Jon Huntsman might be the best man for the job — he’s sufficiently conservative, smart, polished and experienced. Paul, Gingrich, Bachmann and Johnson should probably exit, stage right. And Herman Cain? He just needs to implode and retire from the race before too much damage is done to the GOP brand. Between the sex scandals and the implausibility of 9-9-9, the risk to Republican seriousness is high.

What a Difference A Gigabyte Makes …

Last week, I acquired for the low, low price of $44 a 2 GB memory chip for my netbook (the package also included an 8 GB micro-SD card). I installed it, booted up the machine — and it purrs like a kitten. Still not quite as fast as my full-sized laptop at home (what, with its dual-core Athlon processor and 4 GB of RAM) but the netbook is keeping up admirably with a dual-boot Win7+Fedora16 setup.

Truth be told, I think I’ve finally settled on an all-Microsoft approach to data management. My laptop, netbook and smart phone all run Microsoft OSes, and I use Windows Live SkyDrive for all my personal cloud storage. I’m increasingly centralizing information with OneNote, conveniently synchronized across all my screens. Although it’s not a perfect setup, I’m satisfied with it and am more productive than I was in the days of miscellaneous FTP syncing and random OS mixes.

… Also, a Single Settings Tweak

The only non-MS device left in my portfolio is my HP TouchPad. Granted that I acquired it at firesale prices, I find WebOS to be snappy and elegant. I was tempted to install the CyanogenMod tweak to push it to Android, but why screw around when WebOS works? The only problem I had — and it frustrated me to no end — was TouchFeeds, an RSS reader that’s simple and robust. However, it would hang the tablet on occasion and sometimes be mind-numbingly slow. Slow, to the point I wanted to chuck it at the window and grind my boots on the shards just to show it who’s boss. Funny thing, though: Simply changing the TouchFeeds setting to stop auto-mark-read-as-you-scroll completely fixed the problem. Now, I just push the “mark all read” button and it flies like a dream. Sometimes, just screwing around with settings solves problems.

Pictures on the Wall

Last weekend, I finally got around to printing 21 4-by-6 photos for the huge wall-mounted photo display I got for a steal a while back. Picking which 21 I wanted to print prompted a delightful trek down memory lane. It also reminded me of how bad of a job I do at taking pictures, despite having a 5 MP camera in my HD7. Now the display is prominenly affixed to the wall of my living room.

NaNoWriMo: Taking the Plunge

Posted on 1 November 2011 | 1 response

Aided by the counsel of my good friend Duane, I’ve decided to take the leap into actually writing a novel instead of merely intending to write one. The National Novel Writing Month — conveniently contemporaneous with “November” on the calendar — provides aspiring novelists a loosely structured environment for pulling together a work of fiction of 50,000 or more words.

So far, so good. I’ve registered an account and posted my introductory message in the Ottawa County/Grand Rapids local forum. Yay. I’ve done a bit of initial planning, but still have some work to go before I’m ready to actually put prose to e-paper.

It helps to have a firm plot concept in mind. The narrative, the major characters, the setting — it’s all in my mind’s eye, which marks a point of departure from my previous tinkering with fiction work.

Next steps include finishing my plot grid and character studies. I figure I’ll be ready to actually write on Thursday. I’m excited. Even if I’m not successful, I’m glad for the opportunity to hone my craft of writing.

Liberate Wall Street! Or, Thoughts re: #Occupy Shenanigans

Posted on 23 October 2011 | 2 responses

The phenomenon that is “Occupy Wall Street” boggles the mind. The inchoate protests across the country that have no rhyme, reason or focus — other than to “just protest” — marks either the canary in social discontent’s coal mine, or Thermidor for the progressive Left. Regardless, watching people protest with no coherent message, animated only by their desire to benefit from taxpayer largesse, proves instructive.

Two points.

First, the Occupy movement, despite its small size and dazzling parade of clowns, represents the same type of discontent from the Left as the Tea Party marked for the Right. The Tea Party said: “I don’t want to pay for other people’s bailouts.” The Occupy movement says: “You paid for everyone else’s bailout, now where’s mine?”

It’s easy — too easy, for some conservative pundits — to let ridicule substitute for engagement in their approach to the Occupy phenomenon. The “where’s mine?” attitude on full flower in New York is easy to dismiss as naive or to caricature as the whinings of people too stupid to realize that a master’s degree in Medieval French Feminist Literature has relatively little market power. The dismissals are on-point, to be sure, but they miss the point at the same time. The protesters are demanding personal bailouts. It’s not caricature if it’s fact, and the fact is, student loan debt (most significantly) has fanned this particular flame of discontent, and those left with more debt than they can pay back really do feel like they’ve been sold a bill of goods. Deriding it without acknowledging that people genuinely believe they deserve a personal bailout risks missing the forest for the face-pierced trees, and acting like personal bailouts are unreasonable despite our history with all sorts of public bailouts (not to mention welfare policy) constitutes willful blindness of a point that many consider to be valid in principle if not always in practice.

Second, the emergence of the Occupy movement and its sycophantic support among mainstream Democrats from Obama on down, unmasks in a creative new way the far Left agenda.  The general public so far seems less than amused. Conservatives and even some moderates snicker at some of the demands that have leaked from the “General Assembly” in New York — including immediate debt forgiveness for everyone, everywhere — but in truth, they are doing everyone a form of service. They are showing the country where the real Left pole lies. Elected Democrats shy away from this pole even though they’re beholden to it, much as elected Republicans have their own love-hate relationship with the far Right. Yet the challenge from the Left is that the old divisions (centrist, liberal, progressive, socialist, communist, anarchist) are eroding just as the internal divisions eroded within the Right in the last generation. People point to today’s monolithic Republican Party with much less internal ideological diversity as being a bad thing, yet this outcome is the end result of a process beginning with Watergate and continuing through the GWB years — and it’s only now beginning in earnest within the Left. Just as moderate Republicans are an endangered species, so also are the moderate Democrats: Just look at how the Blue Dogs were wiped off the map in 2010.

This means that in the coming years, the folks to the left side of the center almost surely will undergo the wrenching sea-change in ideology that will pull Democrats further to the fringe and impose a more rigid political and ideological template on rank-and-file politicians. The Republicans moved further Right in the 1990s and 2000s; the Democrats will move further Left in the 2010s and 2020s.

A NoLabelist third-party conglomeration of moderates is unlikely to prevail; the system revolves around a two-party duopoly, and in any case, not many beyond the ranks of self-appointed public intellectuals feel the call to rally to the cause of moderation. Instead, the independents will trend Right or tune out altogether.

It’s not hard to envision this moment — the Occupy movement, the weakness of the Obama administration, the ongoing failures of Keynesian stimulus, “leading from behind,” the backlash against Obamacare — as the point where another generational change begins. A change where the aspirations of the progressives decisively lose favor with the broad Middle America, and Democrats seem poised to devolve into decades of bitter internecine wars of ideology. Whatever the outcome for the Democrats, the progressive movement looks like its on the verge of collapse, at least as a serious contender for mindshare among educated citizens.

The progressives want to Occupy Wall Street. Fine. Yet it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the net result is that we’re now witnessing the first wave of the liberation of Wall Street from the powers of regulation and redistribution that are only now shedding the pretext of moderation and allowing their full ideology to flower.

America is a center-right nation. Always has been. When the progressives could cloak their ambitions under the veneer of moderation, Democrats have been successful. Just look at Bill Clinton. It takes a real crisis of public confidence mixed with effective blame assignment toward the Right to elect a true left-wing president — FDR, LBJ, BHO. Under ordinary circumstances (think McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, William Jennings Bryan, or even TR’s Bull Mooses) the further to the left they drift, the less likely the odds they’ll be elected.

Market economies work. That so many graduates with useless degrees are unemployed sort of proves the point. As long as the Right presents a solid pro-market strategy that leaves reasonable room for helping out the less fortunate, conservatives will win election after election. A pro-growth agenda that holds people responsible for the choices they make while providing a safety net to help those whose choices were constrained by circumstance will lift more boats than a soak-the-rich, give-to-the-poor Robin Hood fantasy that seems to animate the Left lately.

And as far as the freak shows in Zucotti Park — laugh, if you must. But beneath the unwashed hippie facade lies a discontent that could fizzle. Or explode. Conservatives would be well-advised to keep eyes wide open while they chuckle at the spectacle, lest they find themselves being tomorrow’s lion fodder.

Six Strategies

Posted on 16 October 2011 | No responses

As part of my normal life planning work, I try to keep a few concepts top of mind. Over the years I’ve honed the list, tweaking ideas and words, but a few enduring maxims represent the principles by which I try to make the long-term decisions that will govern my personal growth. My current six strategies include:

1. Reduce consumption.  The drive to possess material things exposes a hollow core that too often people try to fill with objects – it’s better to spend your energy and resources acquiring experiences and ideas that will endure for a lifetime, than on trinkets or status symbols that will soon be discarded. Eat less, purchase less, indulge less — and thereby develop the asset base to leverage better and more lasting things in the future.
2. Cultivate serenity. Don’t get trapped in the drama of today. Keep a calm center, remain dispassionate about the things that don’t matter, and never let the bastards create turmoil within.
3. Nurture relationships.  Our social networks not only define us, but they give us access to resources of different types that we would not otherwise possess on our own. Keep a tight inner circle and a wide net of acquaintances — but curate them carefully. Cut off relationships that are negative, and maintain the ones that are good. Be a friend when a friend is needed, and accept help when you’re the one in need.
4. Exhibit insatiable curiosity. Always ask why. Seek out new ideas, new people, new experiences. Try new things and be bold about pushing your limits.
5. Do few things, but do them well.  Jacks of all trades are masters of none. Find one or two things in which you can excel, and focus on those; don’t be such a polymath that you achieve mediocrity in a wide range of things but demonstrate mastery over nothing.
6. Favor action over study.  Active and conscious life planning makes a person the master of his fate instead of a victim of it, but too much planning opens the door to analysis paralysis. It’s easy to keep kicking big things down the road, telling yourself you need to keep thinking about it, but the key to a truly self-directed life is to do and not merely think. Develop a bias for doing.

Jason’s Current Playlist …

Posted on 10 October 2011 | 1 response

Interesting tidbit: I’ve been paying attention to the songs I’ve been listening to, over and over and over. The same 19 keep getting repeat listens. The list tends to change frequently. Currently (alpha by artist/first name):

• Bonnie Tyler, “Total Eclipse of the Heart (Extended Version)”
• Britney Spears, “Everytime”
• Chevelle, “Closure”
• Chevelle, “The Red”
• D12, “How Come”
• Eagles, “Hotel California”
• Eminem, “Just Lose It”
• Hanson, “I Will Come to You (a capella)”
• Hinder, “Better Than Me”
• Hoobastank, “The Reason”
• Limp Bizkit, “Behind Blue Eyes”
• Linkin Park, “Numb”
• Matchbox 20, “Unwell (Album Version)”
• Nick Lachey, “What’s Left of Me”
• Roberta Flack, “Killing Me Softly”
• Shinedown, “Second Chance”
• Shinedown, “If You Only Knew”
• Stone Sour, “Bother”
• Weezer, “Buddy Holly”

Doors, Open or Bolted: A Reflection on Past Choices

Posted on 9 October 2011 | 2 responses

I finally built the second bookshelf for my office yesterday. I had the materials for a while, but I didn’t do anything with them; I needed to saw some boards and drill holes and stain everything, which seemed like a bother every time I thought about it. At long last, my disappointment over seeing a pile of books on the floor outweighed my tendency to tell myself I’d take care of it “later.” So, now all of my books are sorted and shelved, and I feel a sense of great relief. Almost like I accomplished something meaningful.

As I was basking in the glow of a proper home library, my eye caught the youngsters across the street at play. A group of three guys and one girl — they looked to be in their late teens, with the air of skateboarders about them – were doing handstands and hackey sack in the grassy half-lot across the road. Ordinarily I’d not give them a passing thought, but one of the kids looked like I did when I was in junior high — short, pencil-thin and a bit uncoordinated. Daydreaming being what it is, the sight prompted some reflection about the choices I’ve made that have put me where I am today from a starting point not radically different from the view from across the street. A few decisions stand out, for good and for ill.

The first major shock occurred in seventh and eighth grades. Up to that point, I was scrawny — the kind of kid who would would totally rock today’s super-skinny jean trend. In fact, I was so underweight that my pediatrician suggested steroids to prompt growth. But when my mom took over as the maintenance supervisor for our church, I started the “early teen munching” and soon started to flesh out. Fat, by no means, but I can remember looking in the mirror and noticing the weight gain, even when I was probably still on the low end of the “normal” range. I looked — and although I wasn’t exactly thrilled, I didn’t change course, even though at that age I considered exercising. Yes, I was a kid, but still. A door to good health and social acceptance began to close, and it remained bolted for more than a decade.

After that came high-school socialization. In those days my social confidence wasn’t all that high. The social environment at West Catholic High School was more cut-throat than at St. Anthony’s. Cliques formed. I tried to stay above the fray; St. Anthony really didn’t have cliques, so I didn’t know how to adapt. But although I had plenty of friends — and was even elected senior class treasurer — I never really felt like I fit in. Nor did I try to. I deliberately chose  to endure high school instead of diving into it, and in the process there were certain rites of passage that most people experienced that passed my by entirely. I prided myself on being too mature and too dispassionate for the antics of high school, but in the end the only person I ended up fooling was myself.

From West Catholic, I enrolled at Western Michigan University — largely by default; I “chose” WMU because my friends Jeni and Aaron were going there  – and three separate situations transpired my freshman year that reverberated for a lifetime. First, although I went to WMU in the Honors College and under an Army ROTC three-year advanced designee full-ride scholarship, I failed out after my first year. Not because I wasn’t capable (when I returned after a one-year “sabbatical,” I was full dean’s list), but because I never went to class. I sat in my room for the most part, and spent all my money on food. My “freshman 15″ was more like “freshman 45.” Second, I joined the student government. The Western Student Association led to the Western Herald, and my entire WMU experience was colored by the influence of the twin basement wings of the Faunce Student Services Building. Third, I surrendered the ROTC scholarship. I told myself that I couldn’t meet the program requirement of graduating in four years because I wanted to major in practically everything, but in truth, part of it was fear of being successful. If I applied myself, I could have been wildly successful — and who knows? Today, I may well be a field-grade officer somewhere, serving a career as an Army officer.

In those early days, my bad choices stemmed from one, pervasive root: Fear of success. I thought I was smart. Hell, I thought I was well-nigh omnipotent. So what better way to preserve the fantasy that you could be larger than life at something than to never really strive at anything? To avoid doing your best so that your failures are either someone else’s fault (usually the “system”) or because you told yourself that if you had really wanted it, you could have done it, but you know you didn’t really try so the inner fantasy remains intact?

And to top it off, I acted as if the rules didn’t apply to me, with legal and financial consequences that were not exactly insignificant.

The first kick in the pants came from my grandfather. Just knowing he was Disappointed — capital D — was the one thing that ever got through to me. Not my own lack of self esteem, not my mother’s lectures, not being trapped in low-paying jobs with no real future. Just him. And eventually I got to experience the full brunt of it.

From there, I went back to WMU and did well enough to graduate with a not-terrible GPA despite the damage from my first year. I continued to balloon physically, and I remained socially insular (to this day I regret never doing the Wednesday night Roadhouse thing), but my focus moved toward getting out of college to go into the seminary. The goal was laudable enough, but I got caught in Catholic politics — it’s a risky proposition to be more theologically conservative than your vocations director, and in Grand Rapids it would have been hard to be to the left of him. A few years of effort came to naught but a bachelor’s degree.

Seminary having been taken off the table, I went to grad school because, well, it’s what comes after undergrad school. Right? Bad choice. I wasn’t ready for it in the sense that I didn’t have a purpose. Today, I’d like to go back — I have a research angle in mind and already know what my thesis would be. Then, though, I tried to delay the inevitable by means of more schooling, with the usual less-than-impressive outcome attached.

I’ve said before, and I’ll reiterate — 2005 was a watershed year. Until then, I went with the flow and had no sense of structure. No teleology. I floated along with whatever current was strongest. Overweight, reclusive, angry — I simply existed with no goals and no real ambitions other than to win the petty battles of the day.

The biggest choice of all, then, closed the door on my life from age 18 to age 28. I left the grad program, left the Herald, went on a diet (and lost 110 pounds), took up running and karate, updated my appearance, and first started thinking about what direction I’d like for my life to take. The changes were dramatic, and the decisions were all rendered in the first week of January.

The intervening years have been something of an exercise in maintenance. I lost some traction with my series of annual moves and the whole Vitamin D issue, but I didn’t appreciably lose ground. Then again, I didn’t move forward, either. October 2008 through December 2010 marked off an odd side-journey wherein I finally gained social confidence and a well-balanced sense of self-worth by seeing how really disappointing the dating life was like. So far, 2011 has been a good year — recovery and renewal.

But I cannot help but ponder what would have been different had my choices fallen in a different direction:

• If I integrated in high school instead of remaining an outsider, would things have changed?
• If I had gone to Michigan State to study veterinary medicine as I had originally planned, instead of political science and philosophy at WMU, what would have happened? What different set of friends and what other experiences would have opened doors for me?
• If I had aggressively pursued a priestly vocation instead of letting the vocations director send yet another potential seminarian away, would I be at a parish now?
• If I stuck with ROTC, would I have seen combat? What career specialization would I have entered?
• If, instead of leaving grad school, I forged ahead with the M.A., what would I have done with it? Would I have been tempted to pursue a Ph.D?

Life is like a maze of cubicles, stretching from birth to death. Every choice leads to another corridor, like the branches shooting off from another branch, from another branch, from the main trunk. The choices we make — deliberate, or accidental (my journalism experience began over a simple too-long letter to the editor, for example) — open some doors while closing others. Sometimes, those closures are temporary; sometimes they’re permanent.

It’s easy to lament the roads not taken. It’s harder to recognize the choices that had long-term salutary outcomes. I think that the failures I’ve experienced over the years proved to be necessary correctives — they cured me of my arrogance, my dogmatism, my inflexibility, my disdain for social interaction. In most of the ways that matter, I’m a better man now than I was one or five or 10 years ago, a proposition worth celebrating.

And I’ve seen through the mental charade that clouds the eyes of so many — namely, that a fear of confronting one’s own limits stops us from achieving greatness. There is no “aspire,” there is only “do.” Or “do not.” As they say, “shit or get off the pot.” I’ve identified a life strategy, I’m actively working toward it, and my self-awareness is less clouded than it used to be. These are all good things. I grieve for those who are still stuck in “aspire” mode, and may well be for life. Despite the ups and downs I’ve experienced, I’m currently happy and stable and focused. That’s a good thing, even if I couldn’t have predicted even a few years ago where I’d be today.

Yet I look out the window, and wonder — what if I never became addicted to trans fat as an adolescent?

Miscellaneous Updates from Late September

Posted on 2 October 2011 | No responses

A few items of note from the recent past:

• Rick and Sondra stopped by last night to watch the sixth series finale of Doctor Who. They also dropped by a few weeks ago for the wrap-up of Torchwood. It’s always fun having them visit.
• A few days after getting my HTC HD7 phone, I was part of the first wave to get the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango update. I love this phone — the live tiles are fabulous, the OS is snappy and fluid, data (like status updates) aggregate in one place, and the battery life is a major improvement over my Samsung Epic. Three cheers for Microsoft.
• Spent most of last week doing a boatload of editing for Demand Media. The Tech Beta content channel (a partnership with Salon) was unusually full of stuff to review, and most of it was of uniformly high quality, so editing was a breeze.
• ArtPrize hums along. Or, rather, ho-hums along; the major criticism this year is that the artists seem to be playing to the lowest common denominator among the voting public, so the art has been either too cautious, too insipid, or too juvenile.
• The office gang is planning another Chicago trip, this time for Oct. 24. Should be nicer than last year’s frigid December get-away. We will do the Amtrak thing and spend the day eating, shopping and telling jokes. Should be fun.
• I’ve started keeping a diary, in OneNote. More like a chron log, but still.
• Visited my mom yesterday — retrieved some of my last boxes from her shed, as well as a “family heirloom” table that’s now in my living room. Plus, Gunner (her German Shepherd) was thrilled to see me.
• This weekend has been unusually productive, which is nice. Although I still hate doing laundry. I did get caught up on reading — RSS feeds, magazines, Twitter, etc. The WP7 helps but so does sitting on the back porch with my TouchPad with a cigar or pipe and a glass of Scotch.
• Now that it’s October, I’m getting mildly irritated that the Michigan Secretary of State *still* hasn’t sent my renewal tabs. I ordered them weeks ago, but … nada. Looks like an in-person visit at the local branch office from now on.

All for now. Enjoy the day.

Autumn Returns

Posted on 1 October 2011 | No responses

The air chilled yesterday, enough to encourage me to build the first fire of the season. The dried ash logs burned slowly and cleanly; the flames danced across the living room as the popping wood randomly punctuated my nocturnal musings. The glass of Bunnahabbain — neat, double – helped.

I awoke to a bedroom cold enough to numb my fingers as I checked messages on my phone. I live in a century-old house in the South Hill neighborhood — and my bedroom probably used to be a solarium:  Large windows along the front and back, French doors leading into the living room and another set to the three-season porch, a huge brick fireplace along the outer wall, and burnt orange terra-cotta floor tiles with no basement beneath. It gets cold in there. Delightfully, wickedly cold.

The leaves are just beginning to turn. I’ve pulled out the sweaters and fetched the blankets from the closet and washed my house coat.

I love autumn. The season prompts fond memories of my childhood — of harvesting grapes and apples and corn with my grandfather, of trick-or-treating with Steven and the gang, of burning leaves in the back yard, of closing the pool and making sure we had enough sawdust and hay for the horses for the winter, of getting ready for the massive Thanksgiving feast prepared by my grandmother that served as the official kick-off to the extended holiday season.

Autumn tugs at the corners of your soul, nagging you to recollect yourself and prepare for the summer to come. The die-off of foliage and insects directs one’s thoughts to Last Things, a seasonal counterpoint to the new spring of hope that arrives in Michigan every April. Marks a perfect opportunity to sit in the waning sun with Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life. Preferably with a glass of port and the time to practice lectio divina.

Humans need seasonality. One benefit of being Catholic and residing in Michigan is that both physically and spiritually, the annual calendar divides into defined periods of rebirth (spring/Easter), living (summer/ordinary time), reflecting (autumn/Advent) and preparing to do it all again (winter/Christmas/Lent). The liturgical calendar and the weather collaborate to interrupt the monotony of daily life.

October has, by happy coincidence, turned into my Deciding Month these last few years. It’s my time to think about what I want the new year to bring, and to lay the framework for how I’m going to make it happen. Some years, the planning is more effective than others — 2011 was a happy year, thanks to more prudent planning in 2010 – but the thought of using the winter months to put your head down and do the heavy lifting to be ready to flower the following spring makes a lot of sense to me.  Magical thinking though it may be, the prospect of emerging from a cocoon in the spring as a new, improved person exerts a powerful tug on my imagination. But the metamorphosis occurs during the hard, quiet work of winter — time to improve yourself on the sly while focusing outwardly on the relentless progression of Things to Celebrate that punctuate the frigid months like the tolling of a bell.

Autumn has returned. Hallelujah.

Moving from Android to Windows Phone 7

Posted on 25 September 2011 | No responses

When I got my Samsung Epic last fall, I thought Android was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Having updated from Blackberry (two years on the Curve 8330, then two years before that on the “brick” of a 7100i), Android seemed like a dream come true: A touch display with a large, crystal-clear screen, assorted multimedia capabilities, Wi-Fi hotspot, etc. And for a while, my Android device was my new vade mecum, replacing my erstwhile MP3 player and dedicated digital camera.

But the luster soon faded. Android is still something of a Wild West platform. Too much doesn’t work quite right. Too many apps are too buggy to run, leaving an inconsistent look-and-feel to the operating environment and leading to endless frustration and battery yanking. Google pervades the OS; without selling your soul to Mountain View, you cannot take full advantage of the device. Given the challenges from Google on privacy and data aggregation, the less that company knows about me, the better.

The worst part, though, was battery life. The Epic would work five or six hours on a full charge. If I unplugged it at 8 a.m., I’d need to plug it in by 2 p.m. or it would die. And that’s with not-exactly-intensive use. As it happens, the problem isn’t solely Samsung’s fault; apparently, there’s a glitch in the Epic’s programming that forces it to look for cell signals when it loses one. And Sprint’s network, which had been great for me for nine years, took a noticeable dive in quality in the West Michigan market this past January. So, most of the battery drain is the result of an unpatched bug on a now-spotty network. Not fun.

On Friday, I took delivery of a replacement device — an HTC HD7 from T-Mobile. The phone runs Windows Phone 7 (with a WP 7.5 Mango update due in the next few weeks). So far, I get a solid 12 to 14 hours of battery life under the same usability conditions as I would subject the Epic. I went a full day yesterday — unplugged at 8:15 a.m. and when I plugged it in at 10:30 p.m., I still had juice remaining. And that was after several phone calls, text messages, emails, Web browsing, an hour of listening to music via Bluetooth and 45 minutes of continuous screen use while I was reading some RSS feeds.

The thing about the HD7 (and more to the point, WP7) that delights me is the responsiveness of the OS. Microsoft appears to have taken a page from Apple’s play book in setting very tight OEM requirements on the device manufacturers. No bloatware, no special device branding. Just pure WP7. And the minimum tech specs to run WP7 are solid: So far, no matter what I do, I haven’t seen a single stutter or system slowdown. No crashes, no hangs, no trouble.

In addition, I can sync real-time and with no challenges to my OneNote notebooks — long since stored on my Windows Live SkyDrive — and interact seamlessly with Facebook and several different email accounts.

Much of the usual customization that users expect from Microsoft products seem hidden. Unlike the Android, and more like WebOS and iOS, the user has fewer options to tweak the OS or apps. Whether this is a good thing is an open question. I’m a “tweaker” — but if the OS runs smoothly and I can do what I need to do, I may accept a certain loss of control in favor of a consistently high quality of experience. 

There are a few minor disappointments — the Marketplace is still on the anemic side, and I wish the Zune media player had more capability — but for the core features I’ve always needed from a smart phone, WP7 delivers far better than Android 2.2 or Blackberry OS ever did. And with Windows 8 on the horizon, I am confident that Windows Phone apps will come into their own.

Count me as a satisfied customer of Microsoft and T-Mobile. Here’s looking to the Mango update.

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