Routine

One of the downfalls of technology is that one sees just how boring one is. Just before and over winter break, my foursquare account was busy with check-ins and it actually seemed like I had a life. Since the new semester began my check-ins have been work and home and work and home and work and gas station and work and home. As busy as work has been, I cannot say that I mind the routine. The routine provides stability in my busyness. I know when I am going to cook, when I am going to pack my lunch, when I leave from work, when I am doing my regular household chores. Other than the occasional excitement while cooking, the rest of the routine is boring. Right now, as busy as everything else is. That's ok!

Baths in the Time of Drought

Since damaging the connective tissues between two ribs a month ago, I have found the healing process goes much more slowly as a mature man than it did when I was much younger. I followed the doctor’s directions and most of them worked well except for the high doses of ibuprofen.  The best thing I have done consistently, though is taking hot baths with Epsom salts.

Each time I take one of the hot baths, I feel guilty about it. We are currently experiencing one of the worst droughts in recorded history and a bath is not the most efficient use of water.

If this was Little House on the Prairie, a couple people could bathe in the tub after me, but alas I live alone and none of my friends have expressed any interest in using my Epsom salt lukewarm leftovers.

Maybe I should place an ad on Craigslist – Free in Austin: “Low guilt cleaning. Lukewarm bathwater. Only used once. Pre-soaped. Email for directions.”

Despite my best ecological intentions, I am afraid this may draw the wrong crowd, but it certainly sounds fun just to see what responses I get.

In the meantime, I am trying to carefully conserve water in everything else that I do while I do everything I can to recover and not need the baths anymore.

Reduced Risk

A few months ago I purchased a rice cooker and it substantially changed the way I prepare my foods for the week. I read the basic directions to the device and have used it weekly since the purchase. This morning, though, I noticed a label I had not previously paid any attention to.

Reduce the risk? You mean I may still get shocked by using it correctly? I want a rice cooker that is giving me no risk of electrical shock.  As an almost daily rice eater, I know that cooking rice involves a great deal of water!

We get such labels because of someone’s demonstrated stupidity followed by a lawsuit. Without the removable container, there is no way for the cooker to hold the water and rice. Or even function for that matter as it is pressure triggered.

After becoming a label reader in recent years, I continue to be amazed at the various warnings that come with seemingly innocuous products and what it says about our society. As an educator, I have a hard time believing we are truly that stupid, I think we are that greedy that we will do stupid things for money. We get such labels because of someone’s demonstrated stupidity followed by a lawsuit.

So the next time you make rice in a rice cooker, be sure to use the appropriate removable container. You have been warned so that lawsuit will not work again.

Bed and Breakfast Land

Earlier this week the remarkable happened: I (briefly) had more followers on Twitter than accounts I was following. Unfortunately most of them were spam accounts, but (briefly) I felt like a celebrity. After reviewing the list, I blocked and reported many of them for spam – I am consistent in that I block spam-tweets as fast as possible.

Most of the newfound popularity has come since I started using foursquare for check-ins and many of the businesses into which I have checked and nearby businesses have started following me since I began using the service. I guess that is good for the businesses to make a direct connection with their customers.

But now that winter break is over, they are going to find that “homebody” marks my most common status.

Which still gets me lots of hits.

I named my home “Roy’s Bed and Breakfast” for the many friends from out-of-town who stay with me. So every night when I check in at my house, it appears that I am frequenting a bed and breakfast, so I have become popular with B&B’s across the land on Twitter. I have never actually stayed at a B&B as I prefer room service when I travel.

Just as I was disturbed recently when my doctor’s office replied via Twitter to one of my tweets about being there, I am enjoying tracking how my online activity tracks across media and seeing the trends in both spam email and spam Twitter.

Does that make me a nerd? Geek? I never can keep them separate.

I think I may start giving places I frequently visit my own personal name to see just what kind of interactions I can stir up. It will also give me more mayorships on foursquare – but that would be cheating, wouldn’t it?

Black Like...Really?

Recently a friend mentioned that he named his car Michelle “because it looks like Michelle Obama.” While it is not uncommon for people to name possessions after well-known people, I have never heard someone name a car after a person because they look alike. I did not quite understand the reasoning and pressed the matter.  It turns out that the looking alike was limited to color – both are black.

The admission astonished me.

This person claims to be a progressive Christian.

No wonder the so many people do not see the difference between progressive Christianity and the more traditional Christianity. Ephesians chapter 4 provides many useful guidelines for conducting our life, but very important among them and what should be a defining verse for all Christians is verse 29: “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” I freely admit that I have limited use for political correctness and frequently write about extremes in the use of language. Nevertheless, I have no use for statements or actions that are inherently destructive or damaging, whether they were made in all seriousness or for the sake of humor.  

My friend may have intended the naming of his car as a joke, but I think he actually meant it in some misguided attempt at acceptance. Unfortunately, though such comments may be made with a true lack of malice, they carry the full weight of inconsideration and do as much damage as those that are made with harmful intent.  The same Ephesians passage cautions us about being responsive to guidance from the Holy Spirit in all that we do. While no person is perfect, thoughtful consideration will lead to understanding of what is and what is not acceptable speech or behavior.

Such can be the challenge with attempts at being clever, but we have no excuse to damage the witness we have to the world as people called apart.  The last few years have brought too many headlines of the church behaving badly with sex abuse scandals, social stances that represent antiquated (unchristian) thinking, and numerous financial scandals. Such headlines give legitimacy to questions about the relevance of the Church in society. The Church as an instrument of anger and pain in no way reflects the calling of the Church in the world.

Ephesians chapter four defends the purpose of the church and those in it. We must examine how well we uphold the principles behind the purpose of the church and live that our consistently. Unless the church begins to function and garner headlines as an instrument of peace and healing, entire generations will miss the blessing that comes from being in relationship with God.

As much as my friend’s comment personally offended me, it led to the time of reflection about my own comments and my role in the church and the Church’s role in society. I have made many changes regarding the information I take into my mind and the media to which I expose myself in the last months. The more selective I have become in those areas, the more deeply I have been able to reflect on my personal status. At some point the reflection should translate into action or it serves only to be an egotistical exercise in self-aggrandizement – much like the behavior of the Church in the last few decades. For every thing there is a season; now that the season of gestation is complete and the season of growth has begun.

Unlisted

I genuinely appreciate Twitter for bringing me daily news digested into 140 characters or fewer, but I swear, if the “top” lists continue I am going to blow a few characters myself. I think the news people come up with the lists just because it is an otherwise slow news week. Do I really need them to tell me what are the 10 cutest animal pictures of the last year? Or the 10 best tweets? Or the 10 biggest celebrity scandals? Or 10 worst fashion disasters? And the lists go on.

I do not read those new stories when they are singular, much less pluralized into tens. I have sufficient grasp of the trivial without the assistance of such year-end lists.

Some sites are begging for my resolutions for the new year.

They do not really care that I, like every other American, want to be fitter, healthier, etc.

What I really want is to make fewer typos on my iPhone. Big fingers, old eyes, and a tiny screen were never meant to go together. Editing is not glamorous, but its importance on twitter and IM exceeds that even of longer compositions. One unfortunate autocorrect (easier to blame the machine than personal carelessness) stands out even more in the brevity of such communication. If everyone proofread before sending, websites would go out of business. Somehow I doubt that everyone will start proofreading tweets and texts, so we will continue to have the entertainment (real or fake).

So I have decided to be anti-list as the year comes to an end. I have my list of unaccomplished tasks on my winter break; I do not need any more lists in my life right now. I move into 2012 unencumbered with the weight of expectation.  No years have passed without personal accomplishments regardless of my resolutions. I will go forward and make the most out of the year and opportunities as they arise.

Unlisted, unresolved, but motivated. Come on 2012.

Clever New Uses

The barrage of emails with holiday tips did not stop with the arrival of the holidays. They have continued offering sage bits of advice, or things I could buy at a discount with sage bits of advice. One in particular caught my attention with the subject line: Clever New Uses for The Holidays.

While I, for the most part, shrewdly resisted the appeal of the various pitches, I could not turn down investigating what new uses someone had found for the holidays. Considering it came from a popular magazine that regularly presents new uses for common items, I figured that if anyone could do it, they would.

Opening the email proved disappointing because the headline had nothing to do with the content. There were numerous ways of using holiday packing and wrapping. There were recipes for combining common leftovers into more appealing dishes. There were tips for what to do with those partially used holiday-scented candles.

But not one new use for any holiday.

Despite the disappointment, I realized that Boxing Day has me pretty much holidayed out. I do not know how many more clever uses for holidays I could handle at this point; I am satisfied with the uses they already have. I just have to recover in time for New Year’s Eve.

And I have an entire year to come up with clever new uses for the holidays and give that magazine an article that lives up to its headline.

Christmas 2011

I did not believe the Christmas forecasts when they started coming in. No, the forecast did not call for snow in south Texas. That only happens once every few lifetimes and we had that once a few years ago. The weather forecast actually called for what equals winter weather in south Texas – chilly with chances of rain. The chilly part is most certainly correct, but the end of the day will tell us whether the rain held true.

Work, in several forms, got in the way of the holiday cards the way I normally do them. Instead of 96, this year there were exactly zero that went through the mail. I did not even create a fancy electronic card. If the motto for my Christmas this year was on a t-shirt, it wouldn’t even make the t-shirt. I would be, “I attended Christmas 2011 and all I got was this lousy blog post.”

Behind the appearance of griping, the “lousy blog post” means I am busy enough and loving what I  am doing that I did not take the time to send out the many Christmas cards I normally do.  The blog posts also came in the way of Advent devotionals – one written for each day of the season – that is continuing into Christmas and in some form through the church year calendar on my other blog.

Doing the daily Bible study and actually meditating on the passages and then writing a reflection has done more to prepare me for Christmas this year than in a long time.

I am not at all giddy about Christmas; I am ready for the holiday to kick of a new season of work and opportunity.

Beyond preparing for the holiday in a different way, I made some major changes in my life this year that fundamentally shifted how I spend my time. The changes led to positive, measurable output in writing and reading and health, so I do not look back on any of the changes with regret. I write from time to time about technology – especially when it fails.

Some of my changes have involved changing the technology I have in my life – namely getting rid of cable television and actually spending more time working on my iPad than on one of my computers because, while possible, it is harder to multi-task on the tablet than on a computer or laptop. All that is for naught when I have the MacBook Pro, Dell Laptop, and iPad all going at the same time – which I sometimes still do - though I am working at only using one device at a time.

2011 truly has been a transformational year for me and it culminated in the preparations for Christmas.

Twhat?

While running last minute errands yesterday, and doing the requisite Foursquare check-in at every location, I found myself getting a spam tweet after almost every check in as I have Foursquare set to share the check-ins on Twitter (which shares them with Facebook – so my technology programs are interconnected). After one check in, my phone did its typical ding to let me know I had a text message.

There was yet another text message from Twitter notifying me that someone had mentioned me in a tweet or has sent me a direct message via Twitter. By this point in the day, annoyance ran pretty high and I almost deleted the text without reading it, but as I had been in conversation with a friend in direct messages that day, I decided I better check it.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this tweet:

@rwlarson Sorry about your back pain. Hope all goes well. Please let us know if you hav a ny [sic] feedbackbit.ly/ARCfdbk Happy Holidays!

It was from the clinic where my doctor practices!

How did they get my Twitter identity?

And why are they tweeting out something that identifies a health condition in a way that anyone who follows my Twitter account can see? I had gone to the doctor two days earlier because of lingering back pain. I think there is a HIPAA violation somewhere in that tweet.

I am glad it was not an STD. I can only imagine that tweet:

@rwlarson Sorry about your gonorrhea. Hope the shot didn’t hurt too much. Please let us know if you need another. Happy Hoiidays!

What are they going to do next? Send my prescriptions through Facebook?

I joke about the circumstances of the tweet, but below it lays a serious concern about who has our information – not only our confidential information, but our socially accessible information as well. I work to connect all parts of my social media experience so that together they paint a more complete picture than any one alone would. I diligently monitor everything I post for appropriateness while ceding that I cannot control every line printed about me by others.

It is one thing for a friend or acquaintance to say something inappropriate, but quite another for a medical facility to post something about your health. Is the bank soon going to start tweeting my account balance to my timeline?

Our ability to now connect disparate bits of data through technology contributes to the exponential growth in our knowledge base and makes great strides in scientific and social progress, but where are the lines to be drawn? I know I do not want my personal details available on social media and will be extra careful about what and how various agencies learn of my social connections.

Simple Fixes

While I generally think myself pretty handy, sometimes it costs me more than if I had just hired a handyman in the first place. Such was the instance with my attempt at installing the iPod connection to the stereo in my truck. I not only did not install the connection, I injured my back which kept me from enjoy Christmas with my cousins in Kansas as I had originally planned. I finally went by an audio shop and for just $35, they made the connection in just ten minutes and now my truck stereo sounds better than ever.

After leaving the shop, I went to a home improvement store because my food disposal had stopped working and despite my best efforts, I could not get it to operate again. I resolved that I would have to pay for a new food disposal. While there, I saw a wrench designed to manually break disposal jams. I doubted that I was stronger than a ¾ horsepower motor, but decided a $7 fix was better than a $130 replacement.

As soon as I got home, I pulled out the wrench and decided to see if my disposal even had the appropriate slot for the wrench. It did and with just a little back and forth motion, my disposal worked better than it had in a very long time.

Sometimes the simple fix works best in the situation. This was one time that I actually saved money by doing-it-myself.