Transitions

I know I don't post much these days. I'd like to post more... I really would! There's been a lot of changes in the last five years or so. Here's a quick rundown— 

• 2018 (April): Kathy retired after working 27 years for the Kentucky Department of Education.
• 2018 (August) After the same number of years in Kentucky (where we originally moved so I could go to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville), we moved back to Louisiana to be closer to family. 
• 2019 (September): Kathy was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery (partial mastectomy) and radiation. She is cancer-free, while still undergoing treatment, and we are thankful. 
• 2019 (December): We were received into the Eastern Orthodox Church through baptism and chrismation. 
• 2020: COVID hit. No more needs to be said.
• 2021: We built a house in Benton, Louisiana, next to Kathy's mother, Dottie, so that Kathy could help take care of her as Dottie's health continued to decline.
• 2022 (February): Kathy's mother, Dottie, passed away.
• 2022 (November): After working as Technology Evangelist for Accordance Bible Software since 2014 (with part-time training seminars and conferences for a number of years on the side before that), I quit. 
• 2023 (August): I went back to school, working toward a Master of Theological Studies (General Track) degree at the Antiochian House of Studies.
• 2023 (October): I began a new job as Product Operations Specialist for Logos Bible Software. 

Whew! That's a lot in a short time. And for what it's worth, between school and work (plus 9 acres and two houses), I feel busier than ever. Nevertheless, I'd like to write in this space again, so I will try to update things here more often. 

Hold me to it. 

60 Pounds Down

Yesterday, I officially passed the 60 lb. mark in regard to my weight loss. Most people are sensitive regarding how much they weigh, but these days, I'm happy to tell you my weight. But you need to know the previous weight first: on January 5, 2016, I weighed 265.5 lbs.(which is actually not my highest weight ever) according to my WiThings scale. Yesterday morning, I weighed 205.3 (I weighed myself twice to make certain).

Two and a half years may seem at first like a long time to lose "only" 60 pounds, and it's understandable that I've pursued this goal harder in some weeks than others. It's also true that in 2015, I gained back about half the weight I had lost to that point and really had to put the brakes on and get serious. Having said that, though, everyone who seems to know what they're talking about says that losing weight slowly is healthier for one's body and the best way to increase the odds against gaining weight back. 

I did all this following the health principles in the Daniel Plan. I've not written anything about the Daniel Plan here on This Lamp, primarily because I've only blogged in short spurts over the last few years. But maybe it's time to talk about the Daniel Plan, losing weight, and getting healthy. I've had a lot of time to think on the subject, so I'll break that down into shorter reads in the upcoming posts

Garage Sale Memories

We're having a yard sale today. I'm even set up with our Square Reader in case someone says, "Well, I'd love to buy that quesadilla maker with a busted latch, but I only have my debit card." Heck, I can even take ApplePay!

I keep referring incorrectly to this activity we're engaged in today as a garage sale, even though we don't actually have a garage. Kathy reminds me that it's a yard sale. Of course, technically, we're not out in the yard either because (1) we live in a garden home/condo, and there's not much yard to speak of; and (2) it's raining, so we're under the awning.

In fact, it's downright cold. The rain and fairly strong breeze brought with it 57° temperatures. If yard sales are a Spring event, no one sent an invitation to the Spring weather. I'm sitting outside under our awning typing this on my MacBook and my fingers are starting to get numb. I should really stop, but I had two distinct memories of garage sales from when I was younger that I thought I'd share. 

When I was a kid growing up in Louisiana, we regularly had garage sales. Although, we didn't have a garage back then either. We had a carport. Everyone had carports instead of actual garages. If you don't know what a carport is, think of a garage with at least one side completely open and no door. Our garage sales were in the carport, straying out into the driveway a bit. All that to say, I'm going to use the term "garage sale" throughout this post, even if it's not technically correct then or now. 

Back then, we often had combined garage sales with the Jarrell family next door. When we did that, there wa a rule that they couldn't buy any of our stuff, and we couldn't buy any of theirs. If we were trying to get rid of stuff from our house (and make a little money on the side), buying anything from them--or vice versa--was supposedly counter-productive. However, as with all house rules in life, they're not always hard and fast in the moment. 

My first significant garage sale memory had to do with what got sold that wasn't supposed to be for sale. We kept stuff in the carport like lawn mowers and a cabinet for my dad's tools. We also kept my chalkboard set in the carport. Evidently, I had been a bit too messy with the chalk at some point and from then on, all my chalk work had to be done outdoors. As I think back to that garage sale when my chalkboard was sold without my consent, I have to admit that I can't remember whether I was right there when it happened or not. I have to think that I would have said, "Hey, that's not for sale!" However, I also have this complete memory of what transpired. Here's how I remember it whether or not the exact details are merely fictions of my imagination. 

Here's how it plays out when I think back to the events: There was this well-to-do looking woman looking at my mother's clothes hanging on a rack. Not seeing anything she wanted, she glances around our carport. Spotting my chalkboard set, she says, "Oh my! How much for that?!" My mother starts to say, "It's not..." but then catches herself. Always the shrewd businesswoman, she says, "It's $2." And then the woman calls her son over who is absolutely delighted to see his new chalkboard set. The woman pays my mother (out of a coin purse, the way I remember it), and her son proudly carries my chalkboard set with both arms wrapped tightly around it, beaming with joy.

Again, I don't know if the above is how the event actually transpired. However, I have this exact image of the woman who absconded with my chalkboard set clearly in my mind. I also remember what her son looked like. If I ever see either of them, I'm going to explain it was all a mix up and ask for my chalkboard set back. Who knows? Maybe this was a turning point in my life. Had it not been for my chalkboard set being sold without my consent, perhaps I would have kept drawing with chalk. Maybe I would have practiced every day and be a famous chalk artist now. People would spend great amounts of money to fly to the places where my newest masterpiece was displayed--before it could be washed away by the next rainstorm!

Truthfully, I'm not really resentful (anymore) over the chalkboard set. But it is something I occasionally use to tease my mother. And it's a good lesson to me to make certain I look through any items that we put out for garage sales these days. Who knows when Kathy will think that old desk lamp with the chipped shade would be better off out of our house? Then, how would I see anything on my desk?

I remember something else from my childhood about garage sales. I was in 9th grade at the time. At home, we had spent a good bit of the week getting things ready for the upcoming garage sale on Saturday. I had gone through my closet and the rest of the room debating whether I really needed various things like the sneakers that were my favorite but now no longer fit my growing feet. Garage sales could be pretty big productions. We didn't just throw it all together on Friday night like I tend to do now. And so, the garage sale was the most prominent event in my mind that week. On Friday morning at school, when we were in home room, our teacher asked if anyone else had any announcements that should be mentioned before the weekend. I raised my hand and said, "We're having a garage sale this weekend. Everyone come on out."

One of my classmates--who shall remain nameless--very quickly put me in my place: "Mansfield, nobody wants any of your old crap." I'm sure he was right, but it took me by surprise. It might be old crap, but I thought it was special because it was my old crap. 

We had a steady stream of shoppers this morning at our yard sale, but ever since it began raining, they have been few and far between. Surely, we would be sold out of everything by now if it hadn't rained. Or maybe it's simply still true that nobody wants my old crap. 

Skeletons in the Family Closet, Part Two: A Shooting in Phillips County

William Mansfield's simple grave marker in Maple Hill Cemetery, Phillips County, ArkansasSupposedly, my great grandfather shot first. 

However, we only have the testimony of his killer for this fact. There were no other witnesses, so ultimately we’ll never know what really happened. All we know for certain is that on April 8, 1920, William P. Mansfield died of four gunshot wounds he received the previous day in Lexa, Arkansas. 

Believe it or not, learning that my great grandfather died in a gunfight is not what shocked me most. The more startling revelation relates to what my great grandmother did afterwards. 

William P. Mansfield was born in Kentucky in 1880, the son of a Scottish immigrant who married an American girl from the bluegrass state. I don’t know a lot about William, and I know even less about his parents, but I’ve learned enough to piece together his movements for the last fifteen years of his life. [2023 update: Elijah Mansfield was born in 1851 in Barren County, Kentucky. Yes, birth certificates for his sons, William and Thomas, both claim Scottish ancestry, but there's a mountain of proof otherwise. Evidently, my ancestors had habits of telling tall tales.]

In 1905, William married Daisy Julian, a young woman whose families had settled a couple of generations earlier in the northwest corner of Tennessee in Obion County. Daisy had grown up in Union City, right on the border with Kentucky, where she no doubt had met William. They married on Saturday, April 22, in Alexander County, Illinois. I’m not certain why they went to Illinois to get married, but it’s actually only 70 miles north of Daisy’s hometown.

By 1909, they were a family of four living in Helena, Arkansas: William, Daisy, Mary Elizabeth (age 2) and John my grandfather (age 1). William worked for the Solomon-Moore Land Company, and they all lived in company housing on the south end of town. 

William moved the family wherever he could find the best work to provide for them. The very next year, the family crossed back over to the other side of Mississippi River and settled in Boyle, Mississippi, roughly seventy miles south down river. 

The details surrounding the next few years are sketchy, but by 1920, the Mansfield family had moved back to Helena, Arkansas, where they show up in the 1920 U.S. Census, taken in January of that year. They were no longer living in company housing, and William seems to be working as a freelance carpenter.

Daisy (my great grandmother) and her son, John (my grandfather), 1957 in Memphis, TennesseeIn my previous post, I wrote about John Mansfield (William’s son), my grandfather who died a few months before I was born. John was intelligent and charismatic, but ultimately, his life brought with it much tragedy. In the course of less than two decades, he abandoned two separate families--two wives and seven children combined. In the end, as an alcoholic and diabetic, he died alone in a flophouse of gangrene poisoning because he would not go to the doctor regarding his infected leg. 

I also noted that my grandmother (John’s second wife) felt like her husband could have accomplished more in life had he not had to drop out of school with only a grade school education in order to support the family. 

Why, though, did John have to drop out of school? When I started researching my grandfather and his family, I initially got stuck in 1920 because there were a number of unanswered questions. 

Although I found the family intact in Phillips County, Arkansas, living in the town of Helena in January, 1920, I stumbled upon a marriage record for December of the same year in which a Daisy Mansfield married a man named L. E. A. Yeager. Assuming that there weren’t multiple Daisy Mansfields in Helena, Arkansas, in 1920, I had to wonder what had happened to William Mansfield? Did they divorce? Did something happen to him?

So I dug a little deeper and came across a listing in the Arkansas Death Index for a William Mansfield, who died on April 8, 1920, in Phillips County, Arkansas. Was this my great grandfather? Could he have died at less than 40 years old? To know for certain, I sent off for his death certificate. After I received it, I discovered that it was indeed the William Mansfield of my family tree. 

If not some kind of terminal illness, I halfway expected to discover that William died in some kind of accident--perhaps a misstep in his line of work as a carpenter. I did not expect to see “gunshot wounds” as his cause of death. I was a bit shocked. Part of me, which has no real emotional attachment to this man, thought it sounded a bit exotic to have an ancestor die in a gunfight. 

Nevertheless, I knew there had to be more to this story. How did my great grandfather get into a position in which he died of gunshot wounds?

Assuming that such an event would be big news in a small town in 1920, I contacted the Phillips County Library, which I had learned housed the archives of the local newspaper. After I described the event to one of the local librarians, she told me she would look in the newspaper around the days surrounding William’s death to see if there were any accounts of what happened. 

When I talked to her later that afternoon, the librarian told me that she had found two articles regarding William Mansfield’s death. One was written soon after he had been shot, but while he was still alive. The second one was written after he had already died. She told me she would send the articles to me in the mail.

After I thanked her and was about to hang up, she said, “Oh, and I now know the name of your great grandfather’s killer, if you are interested.” I was certainly interested but had not really thought about it. I assumed that the killer would just be a name to me. Out of curiosity, though, I said, “Yes, please, tell me the killer’s name.”

From The Helena Daily World, April 8, 1920You hear of people’s jaws dropping when hearing shocking news, but it seems like more of a cliche than an actual physical reaction. Yet, I can promise you that my jaw literally dropped when she said that the shooter’s name was L. E. A. Yeager. 

Yes, this was the same man my great grandmother, sweet Daisy, married later that year!

There were no eyewitnesses to what actually happened. The events reported in the paper on April 8, 1920, were based solely on the story of Lester Elgin Archer Yeager, a Phillips County sheriff’s deputy, and the shooter of my great grandfather. On the evening of Wednesday, April 7, 1920, my great grandfather, William P. Mansfield, traveled from his home in Helena fifteen miles to nearby Lexa, Arkansas. 

According to Yeager, the quarrel between the two was over lumber contracts. Yeager also claims that William fired a gun twice before he could even open the door (a little detail that still sounds odd to me--was he trying to shoot through the door?). Then, Yeager returned fire shooting William four times. He died the next day. 

Of course it’s tragedy enough that Daisy lost her husband in such a violent manner. Yet it absolutely blows me away that eight months later, she married her husband’s killer!

There is obviously much more to this story, and it will require an eventual trip to Helena, Arkansas, to look for more answers. In the meantime, though, I have lots of questions. For instance, I don’t blame Daisy for marrying so quickly. That was common in those days for means of support, especially when there were children involved. But why would she marry her husband’s shooter? Was William Mansfield a really bad man and Yeager seen as a savior? Were Daisy and Yeager involved in an illicit relationship? Did Yeager have some kind of power over Daisy and the rest of the family?

From The Helena Daily World, April 9, 1920And what about my grandfather, John? Even if his father was a bad man, such events had to have taken a terrible toll on a 12-year-old boy. To lose a father at such a formative time in a young boy’s life would have long-term consequences. And what did John think about his mother marrying his father’s killer? 

I will always want to be clear that I don’t want to excuse my grandfather’s bad decisions in life. He made poor choices and they were his direct responsibility. And yet, with the knowledge I have now--even if still incomplete--I have to admit that I judge him less harshly than I did before. 

Is it any surprise that someone who had experienced such tragic loss at such a young age might have trouble maintaining long-term relationships later in life? Again, even if William was not a nice guy, young boys often want to look up to their fathers, often overlooking their flaws. What kind of feelings were inside 12-year-old John when his mother married his father's killer? When she brought him into their home? Is it surprising at all that as an adult, he might try to futiley escape these memories in a bottle? 

In my next and final installment, I’ll offer some closing reflections on these events and my grandfather’s life. And I may even throw in a little bit of philosophical speculation in regard to this very enthralling section of my family tree. Check back in a few days.

Part 1: The Grandfather I Never Knew

Part 3: Grief Upon Grief

Part 4: Confronting the Abhorrent Truth

Part 5: Prison Before Dishonor

As always, your thoughts, questions, comments, and rebuttals are welcome below.

Skeletons in the Family Closet, Part One: The Grandfather I Never Knew

John at 49 in 1957, ten years before he died. I never knew my paternal grandfather. He died five months before I was born.

John William Richard Mansfield (one of many variations of his name) died during the first week of July (we don’t know the exact day) in 1967. Estranged from the family, he died alone in Memphis, Tennessee, as a result--according to his death certificate--of septicemia. 

If you’re not familiar with septicemia, I’ll save you the bother of looking it up: it’s blood poisoning. My grandfather, John, had two conflicting maladies; he was both diabetic and alcoholic. The two do not go well together because consumed alcohol converts to sugar in the digestive system. Moreover, John was not one to faithfully take his insulin injections. 

About a week before he died, my father’s older half-brother, Johnnie, paid his father a visit. John had a wound on one of his legs that looked badly infected. Actually, it was gangrenous. Johnnie told his father that he need to go to the doctor, but John wouldn’t go. He knew they would remove his leg, and he felt that he just couldn’t live as an amputee. Very true, but I'm sure not as he meant it. 

I’ve heard hushed stories about my grandfather, John Mansfield, all my life. As I said, I never knew him. I also heard that I had aunts and uncles I’d never met--as well as cousins--all from a marriage my grandfather had to a woman who was not my grandmother.  

My grandfather was born on March 17, 1908, somewhere in Kentucky (we’re not certain exactly where). His parents were William P. Mansfield (born Nov 4, 1880) and Daisy Dean Julian (born sometime in August, 1882). There was also a sister, Mary Elizabeth, about a year older than John, whom the surviving family knew as “Aunt Beth.” I’d never heard of any of them except for John until a few months ago.

Frankly, John Mansfield was not an overly responsible individual (and that’s being very kind). In 1931, he married Ena Prier, and they had four children--two boys and two girls. But sometime around 1938, John started seeing Maurene (yes, that spelling is correct) Fowler, my grandmother, in Little Rock, Arkansas. When Maurene found out John was married, she broke things off with him. She told him she was not the kind of woman who would date a married man.

Maurene was nearly 30 years old when she had started seeing John. I have very distinct memories of my grandmother, but they all come about three decades after these events and beyond. When I remember her, she’s at near saint-level in my mind. She was a pillar of her church when I knew her. I’m sure she could have told you her sins, but I couldn’t tell you what they were. I never saw them.

Therefore it’s hard to imagine a man like John being willing to leave a wife and four children for my grandmother. And even after he came calling again in 1939, with the ink still fresh on the papers of his divorce from Ena, it boggles my mind that Maurene would have anything to do with him. Perhaps it was her age. I have no idea how many suitors had come calling in her younger days, but I’m sure that by the age of 31, the number had drastically dwindled.  

And yet history has a funny way of repeating itself. In late 1939, John and Maurene got married. After they had three children, one of whom is my father, John simply disappeared one day. I believe it was around 1947, but I could be off a year or two. By the time he came back about half a decade later, begging Maurene to take him back, she simply wouldn’t hear of it. She’d worked three jobs at times to support herself and three children. Maurene was college educated (a rarity for women in those days) which allowed her to teach elementary school, but an Arkansas teacher’s salary in the 1940s and 50s was not enough to make ends meet. 

The charismatic John Mansfield at 20 (1928). On the left, a family friend, Aubrey; and on the right, John's sister, Beth.I don’t blame my grandmother for not taking my grandfather back. I have no doubt she probably loved him even years later. From everything I can tell, he was an extremely charismatic individual. But his increased drinking had brought chaos into her life years before, and now she had to think of what would bring the greatest stability for her three children. John and Maurene never divorced, but they would never live in the same house again either. John moved to Memphis where much of his family from his first marriage lived. 

In spite of John’s faults, there were some positives. My father tells me how smart his father was. And this information comes not from his own memory, but from the testimony of his mother, Maurene. She said there wasn’t anything mechanical that he couldn’t figure out. He could take any device apart, fix it, and put it back together again. My grandmother told my father that she really believes he could have been something more if it weren’t for the fact that he had to drop out of school after about the fifth grade to help support the family.

Also, I’ve recently met some of my “half” first cousins--that is, grandchildren of John and his first wife, Ena--who are a bit older than me and remember him. Although John’s wives and children had great reason to be wary of him, his grandchildren who knew him seem to have fond memories of their brief experiences with him. They describe John as kind and funny, even if he did tend to always smell a bit like tobacco and whiskey. One of my cousins told me that she really liked her grandfather, but her father didn't let him come around much.

It’s easy to judge my grandfather harshly. Certainly no one can excuse the abandonment of not one, but two separate families. But where did John’s life first take a turn for the worse? 

No one living now seemed to know the exact circumstances that led to my grandfather’s disadvantaged childhood, vaguely described years ago by my grandmother. As I began digging into the past, I discovered a family scandal that is not only shocking to me--even weeks after I first discovered it--but still sounds like something more the stuff of fiction than real life. Nevertheless, I have the historical records and newspaper reports that prove what happened on the night of April 7, 1920. 

I’ll provide the jaw-dropping account of those events in my next installment. 

Part 2: A Shooting in Phillips County

Part 3: Grief Upon Grief

Part 4: Confronting the Abhorrent Truth

Part 5: Prison Before Dishonor

As always, your questions, thoughts, comments or rebuttals are always welcome below. 

What I Want: A Rear Window OS X Dock Sticker

I've never been one to put an abundance of stickers on my vehicles. Years ago, I had an ἰχθύς sticker on my truck, but I decided I wasn't a good enough driver to broadcast to the vehicles behind me that I was a Christian, so I removed it. Better to be no witness than a bad witness...

Currently, the back of my Ford F150 sports a parking decal and a white Apple sticker on the rear window and an "I Love Tabasco" sticker on the bumper. That would be more than enough, but now I've seen one more that I really want to add. In fact, I'd trade in all the others for this one (even if it meant tickets due to the loss of the parking sticker).

For Christmas my mother-in-law gave Leander Kahney's 2006 book Cult of Mac (highly recommended!) based upon his once-upon-a-time Wired column that is now its own website. On p. 9 of the book, I saw this picture:

Along with the picture is this text:

A designer from Chicago who used a Windows PC, Paul McAleer, decorated his car with an Apple sticker before he even bought a Mac. "The big thing for me, though, was putting an Apple sticker on my car even though I still owned a PC," he wrote in his Weblog. "I'm a geek; I thought that was the coolest thing. It still kinda is."

That sticker in the picture above looks like an OS X dock from version 10.1 or 10.2. Regardless, it's still pretty cool looking, and I've never seen anything like it elsewhere. 

I traced the original article to the Wired website, and it was written in 2002. I even found Paul McAleer, who writes the blog Phonezilla (I could not find the blog post referenced in the Wired article). I've sent him a message on Twitter asking if he knows a good source for getting a sticker like his because this is evidently a custom job, but I haven't heard back from him yet. And I've been unable to find anything like his dock sticker out there. No one is reproducing them for sale from what I can (or cannot) find. I can't even find a company that does wide custom stickers like the kind that promote universities on the back of car windows.

Sure I could print something up on my own, but I have a feeling that it would look homemade. I'd have to get it laminated to keep the ink from my printer from running as soon as it got wet. Plus, I'd want something really wide—even wider than McAleer's if possible. I'd like to see a dock sticker that would span the entire length of the back window of my Ford F150.

So, in the meantime, I started playing around with screenshots of my dock. I actually keep my dock vertically on the left side of my screen, but I do believe that a horizontal dock would look best on a windshield. Plus, the OS X dock is more easily recognized for what it is in horzontal mode than in the vertical.

McAleer's dock has 12 icons on it from the Finder on the left to the Trash on the right. Maybe that was all he had on his dock in 2002, or maybe that was the best that could be done with smaller screen sizes back in the day. What I've found is that when trying to achieve the magnification wave in the dock, if there are too many icons, the edges of the dock will move off the screen. After temporarily moving my dock to the bottom of my screen, I started removing one icon at a time—like throwing excess cargo from a ship—to achieve a dock that would remain on the screen when magnifying one section of it. 

On my 11" MacBook Air, running in a screen resolution of 1366 x 768, I found that 19 icons was the maximum if both ends of the dock were to remain in view. On this screenshot below, I have magnified the left side of the dock:

However, I really believe that McAleer's middle-rightward wave captures the essence of the OS X dock with magnification turned on.

If anyone has an idea of where to get something like this made, let me know. I'd want the final product to have enough quality to last for a while in all kinds of weather, and preferably span most of the length of my back window. I even believe that if there are any aspiring entrepreneurs out there, people would actually pay for rear window decals of the OS X dock—whether custom screen shots like mine or even the dock from a standard new setup in OS X.

As always, your questions, thoughts, comments and rebuttals are welcome below. 

Update on Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 1:35AM by R. Mansfield

I did hear from Paul McAleer, but he told me that the dock sticker wasn't his. He merely put a regular Apple sticker on his car. That makes sense when rereading the text I quoted above, and upon closer look in Kahney's book, I now realize I should have paid more attention to the photo caption, which was to the left of the image, and somehow I missed it.

The caption reads...

"Bob" from Germany (he declined to give his last name) wanted an original sticker for his new car, so he created a copy of the dock in Mac OS X and stuck it in his rear window. "The simple white apple is nice, but everybody has that. So I thought, Why not go a little step further?" He said. "Originally I wanted to recreate a complete desktop, but I'm pretty lazy." His last car had a sticker showing the old finder icon and another that read "I won't brake for Windows users." His new dock sticker has drawn lots of praise from Apple fans since he posted pictures on the web, but no one knows what it is where he lives. "I live right in the middle of nowhere and nobody knows what the dock is," he said.

So, my apologies for attributing the dock sticker to McAleer, but hopefully, since over six thousand (!) people saw this post over the holiday weekend, I drove some of that extra traffic to his blog.

Territorial Spirits

Tomorrow night, I'm going to hear Kenneth Slawenski, owner of the dead caulfields website, discuss his recent book, J. D. Salinger: A Life. I won't be able to finish the book in time (my Kindle tells me I'm at 27%), but when I do, I'll post a review here. In truth, I've never been a huge fan of Salinger, who is most known for his one published novel, Catcher in the Rye. No, I'm not opposed to Catcher for the reasons some have wanted to censor it over the past six decades. I actually find the book to be well-written and very creative.

My problem with Catcher results from the reality that I simply read the book too late in life. I feel that if a person is really going to connect with the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield, it needs to be read around high school or college age. I was around 40 or 41 when I first read Catcher in the Rye, and I think it was simply too late for me to make a spiritual or emotional bond with the character. By the time I got around to reading the book, I'd already had a good bit of adult experience in life. Yes, I don't have much patience with phonies, either; but having been at an age where I'd already spent one part of my life teaching high school students, I simply wanted to wring Holden's neck at times while I read the book. Having already lost much of my own youthful ideals and having given in to life at times through compromises of my own, perhaps Holden would have called me a phoney!

And yet, I don't feel that same disconnect when I've re-read Huckleberry Finn a couple of times in recent years. Why? Perhaps because I first read Huck when I was around 14, and I very much connected with him then.

Moreover, Salinger's somewhat abrupt disengagement from public life had always struck me as a bit of a narcissistic act. I suppose I've always thought of him as a bit of a literary prima donna.

However, I was curious enough about Salinger, the man, to request tickets to hear Slawenski. And in reading the first quarter of his book, I have to admit that I'm beginning to have new appreciation for both Salinger and his writing. The portrayal of Salinger presented in what I've read from Slawenski, so far, gives me reason to think that perhaps I judged Salinger too quickly and too harshly.

So, I went back to the Amazon page for J. D. Salinger: A Life to look at some of the reviews of the book. I tend to often take reviews of books or movies with a grain of salt—perhaps because I occasionally write some of them myself. But I was surprised to read some of the harsh words that some reviewers, specifically those who only gave one or two stars to the biography, had for this book.

As I read through the negative reviews, I feel like I perceived a few themes, such as Slawenski offers nothing new and Slawenski defends Salinger too much. One review even mentioned that NPR called the book "sludge." Now, I wouldn't say that the book is perfect. What biography is? Yet some of these reviews are more harsh than necessary—and this evaluation is coming from me, someone who's never really appreciated Salinger or The Catcher in the Rye all that much. And then it struck me why I believe the writer was receiving such a tough time: Slawenski is an outsider. He's perceived as someone who's "merely" a fan (with a fan website to boot!). It doesn't matter that he worked on his book for years and it was published by a major publisher (Random House) with their own team of editors and fact checkers. How dare someone like him try to interpret Salinger's life and works for us!

Of course, whether Slawenski's critics like it or not, considering his work is the first book on Salinger published after the writer's death—at least for the moment—J. D. Salinger: A Life is pretty much the definitive biography of the writer's life.

Reflecting on this drew me back twenty something years ago to when I was in college at Louisiana Tech University. I had decided to major in English after enjoying my first two classes in the subject that everyone in most liberal arts programs was required to take. My first English class specifically in my major was a course in American literature. We had to write a paper for the class that was based around a book by a major American author. In the first few days, I learned that my instructor (I'm tempted to state his name out of spite, but I'll refrain) was a published "expert"on three subjects: Twain, Faulkner, and the King James Bible (referring to the literary aspects of the KJV, as I never detected any spiritual devotion to the Bible in the man).

In my eager (and naive) attempt to impress this man, I decided to write my paper on William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, which I had never read before this class. The image you see to the right is the exact same cover as that of the paperback copy I bought for the class (which I still have). I wanted my own copy instead of checking one out at the library, so I could make notes in the margins for my paper. I worked very hard on the paper—much harder than my "Bartleby the Scrivener" paper which had been assigned to me by my teacher in my previous English class after I waited so long to pick a topic.

On the day we were to begin presenting our papers, I let a couple of other students read theirs first, so I could get a feel for my instructor's reaction. After two successful papers, one on a Steinbeck novel and another on a Hemingway title, I volunteered to read my paper. I was certain that my professor would be pleased that I had picked a book by one of his favored American authors. I couldn't wait to get the paper back with "A" and "Excellent insights!" written across the top in red ink. How was I to know that the grade would actually fall two letters lower?

As I reached the mid-point of the third page of my paper, the professor completely stopped me. This was a bit of a shock to both my classmates and me. I thought everything had been going quite well. Over two decades later, I still remember his expression of frustration and his exact words that continue to bounce around in my cranium from time to time. "Did you even read the book?" he asked. I think I may have stammered a "Yes," but if I did or if he heard me, it didn't really matter.

I was humiliated. He then spent the rest of the class taking apart the points I'd already made and explaining the book to me. At some point in this, when I realized he wasn't going to let me finish my paper, I simply walked back to my desk, sat down, and listened to him continue his rant. When we met for the next class, no one would volunteer to read their paper, so the professor began calling readers randomly.

As I said, I was naive. I had no idea that some profs were egomaniacs. While I thought I was gaining favor by writing on a topic he was interested in, I had no idea that to him, since he was the expert on the subject and I was the neophyte, there was simply nothing I could possibly contribute to the the discussion—at least not in his view. Fortunately, I stuck with my major, and I also still enjoy reading Faulkner, but it's a wonder I didn't give up on both after that experience.

I've often said that much of how I relate to my students today comes as a reaction against some of the jerks I had in college. Yes, I read papers from students with which I disagree. I even read papers occasionally, where beyond mere disagreement of opinion, I believe the student is simply wrong in his or her assertion of the facts. But I don't belittle the student. I don't present myself as the expert and the student as the imbecile. I tell my students that I often learn new things from their papers; I often see insights to familiar subjects that I'd never thought of before.

It's too bad so many of us go through life putting up walls of superiority between ourselves and others. It's too bad that we become so territorial in our own little worlds of ideas that we have no patience for outside voices.

John said to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn't in our group."

"Don't stop him!" Jesus said. "No one who performs a miracle in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us." (Mark 9:38-40, NLT)

Ratted Out! How Do I Convince My Wife That I Really Wasn't in Vegas Last Summer When My iPhone Says I Was?

There's been a lot of news this past week about iOS devices keeping a log of our locations, which is available for easy viewing with the right software, such as iPhoneTracker. While I do understand the privacy concerns, at the same time, I thought it was pretty fascinating to see a visual map of where I've been in the last few months:

My travels over the last nine or so months. Click on the image for a larger view.

Some have called this "feature" a bug, but really, I was surprised at the furor over this. I mean, I just assumed that with a GPS in my phone, I was being tracked everywhere. Plus, it seems like every other episode of any Law & Order series feature a person's cell phone as part of evidence: "Well, according to the data on Mr. Smith's cell phone, he was across the river in New Jersey on the night of the murder."

However, one has to ask if any of the data on a map such as the one above can be incorrect? I look at the locations on the map, and I can't quite remember when I went to some places—such as Cincinnati—in the past nine months, although I'm sure I probably did.

The biggest surprise, though, came when the map displayed another location. Look at this expanded view map below:

Notice the location points in the southeast corner of Nevada. Click on the image for a larger view.
Close-up of my supposed visit to Las Vegas. Click on the Image for a closer view.

Here's kinda how our conversation went yesterday:

Me: "Hey, my iPhone's reporting I was recently in Las Vegas."

Kathy: "What? When were you in Las Vegas? I wasn't with you in Las Vegas!"

Me: "I don't know! I promise I wasn't there! Really!"

Kathy: "That's not what your iPhone says. Why would it lie? What is it you need to tell me?"

So there I was—somewhere between "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" and my own personalized version of the movie The Hangover (which I actually haven't seen, but I think I understand the gist of the plot)—trying to defend myself against the data reported from this cold, unfeeling machine that had seemingly now turned on me.

Then I happened to notice the date which my iPhone was reporting that I was in Las Vegas: June 23, 2010. That was a relief because I had the perfect alibi! That was the very date of our 20th wedding anniversary, and we were both together at Dinosaur World in Cave City, Kentucky (don't ask).

On that day, I didn't even own my current iPhone 4. I still had the older, MUCH slower, iPhone 3G. Kathy had a newer iPhone 3GS, but for reasons I cannot remember now, she asked to borrow my phone. When she gave it back, she proclaimed, "Ugh. Your phone is so slow! You really need a new one" to which I said, "Well, it just so happens the iPhone 4 is being released this week..."

So, on June 23, 2010, I didn't even have this phone, which is claiming it (not me!) was in Las Vegas. I can only guess that perhaps the phone was turned on somewhere in Vegas before being shipped to the Louisville Apple Store where I bought it. I really have no idea. But at least I'm in the clear with Kathy—at least on this particular matter.

The New Rules of Flying

I still remember my first airplane flight. I was about ten years old. It was with Delta. A window seat. A 737, I think. The pilot gave me a pin in the shape of golden wings.

As I grew older and realized I was never going to get a Jetsons-esque flying car of my own, no matter how far I traveled in the future by growing older, I understood that our flying cars were instead more like flying buses. I might not get my own flying car, but the flying bus was still a convenient and quick means of getting wherever I need to go in a very expedient manner. And because I don't travel for a living, until recently, flying was still an enjoyable experience.

But those days are now gone. Not only will I never get my flying car, now I don't even want to ride the flying bus anymore.

Those of you who've been reading this blog since 2003 know that I'm neither an alarmist nor an extremist. I play it pretty middle of the road. I've never called for a boycott of anything, and my convictions about extremely divisive issues I've mostly kept to myself. But in light of recent events, I feel compelled to agree with a growing national sentiment that the Transportation Security Administration of the US Department of Homeland Security is out of control.

By now the following is old news:

• The TSA has installed over 380 full body imaging scanners in over 68 airports in the United States. Many more are to come. There are two problems with this. The majority of these scanners use an x-ray technology known as "backscatter." Some studies show that backscatter scanning is safe. Other studies indicate very different results. Look, there's a reason why the dentist gives you a lead shield to cover yourself before getting your teeth x-rayed: overexposure to x-rays can lead to cancer, including a higher risk of leukemia in unborn children. The second issue, fortunately, is not a risk to one's health, but it is a risk to one's privacy. These full body imaging scanners virtually unclothe the individual going through the machine. We are told that the person viewing the passenger is in another room and does not actually see the person. But obviously, the images are associated with your ID, and there's no set indication as to how long these images are being kept, where they're being kept, and who has access to them.


• Last week, airline pilot unions began recommending that pilots "politely decline" the use of full body scanners. Of course this begs the question—if the pilots are advised not to subject themselves to what could be dangerous radiation, why should the rest of us?


• If one "politely declines" the full body scanner, the individual is forced to undergo a full "enhanced" pat-down by a TSA representative. This involves a total stranger touching you with the front of his or her hands in places that previously should be known only to a physician or a spouse. The TSA representative will likely place his or her hands inside your clothing and no part of your person is off limits.

If you've been living in a cave and are unaware of all this, there are thousands of recent articles and reports of this on the internet. Here is one from a reputable source: "Screening Protests Grow As Holiday Crunch Looms." The entire article is worthy of your time, but pay special attention to these parts before you fly during the holidays:

On Nov. 1, screeners began using a far more invasive form of procedure for all pat-downs — in which women’s breasts and all passengers’ genital areas are patted firmly. Since that change happened to coincide with the accelerated introduction of the body scanning machines, many fliers began expressing their dismay on blogs, fanning anti-T.S.A. reactions.

A traveler named John Tyner, for example, posted a detailed account of being detained at the San Diego airport when he tried to leave after declining a body scan. Mr. Tyner recorded the encounter, in which person who appeared to be a T.S.A. screener insisted that he undergo a “groin check.” That account, and that indelicate term, quickly went viral.

I’m getting a lot of questions about the new security regime, including some pointed ones from women. Do the imagers, for example, detect sanitary napkins? Yes. Does that then necessitate a pat-down? The T.S.A. couldn’t say. Screeners, the T.S.A. has said, are expected to exercise some discretion.

This issue became personal for us on November 6, when I saw Kathy off to the airport for a conference she was attending. I had already expressed my concerns to her in regard to the scanners, so she opted for the "enhanced" pat-down, not realizing how invasive it would actually be. There was no curtained room, but in the middle of the security area at the Louisville airport, the TSA employee touched her in ways that in any other context would be considered wholly inappropriate, tantamount to sexual harassment. The TSA employee ran her hand inside my wife's sweatshirt and repeatedly in the cleavage of her breasts. Yes, the employee conducting the pat down was female, but does that actually matter anymore? [Note: I've offered a correction and clarification of this incident below in the comments. Please read that, too, for the full story of what took place.]

This is an extreme and outrageous invasion of privacy. If you travel by air, you have the choice of subjecting yourself to potentially dangerous radiation or the humiliation of being searched in ways that have previously been reserved for criminals and victims of inappropriate sexual contact. There's no "good" choice here.

Many will argue that such extreme measures will save lives. Terrorism will be prevented. Really? No one seems to be certain that any of these stricter measures would have prevented Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the now-infamous "underwear bomber" from boarding an airplane. These measures certainly wouldn't have prevented the bombs hidden in toner cartridges a few weeks ago.

Where do we draw the line? In an essay written in the spirit of Jonathan Swift last week, one of my students suggested that the only logical next step for the TSA to take is to simply require all airline passengers to fly completely in the nude. I guess that would work, right? It would certainly save lives.

Look, barriers in the middle of interstates are designed to prevent vehicles from crossing into opposing traffic. Yet, accidents of this kind still happen. So why not construct twenty-foot walls in the median? That would certainly save lives, and perhaps no one would ever cross the median again! Studies have proven that a speed limit of 55 mph saves fuel and reduces fatalities, so why do we insist on having limits at greater speeds? We do this because there's an invisible line of risk that we're willing to cross for the sake of convenience. But we know when to stop. We don't build 20 foot high safety partitions on the highway. We don't allow cars to drive at 120 mph. We understand that's crossing too far over the line.

And that's exactly what the TSA has done. They've crossed the line in potentially dangerous and decidedly invasive ways.

There's already a call for November 24, 2010, to be "National Opt-Out Day" [warning: graphic "backscatter" images can be seen at linked website] in which travelers on the busiest travel day of the year respectfully decline the invasive procedures being called for by the TSA since November 1. The organizer has stated the reasons for this protest on his website (emphasis added):

It's the day ordinary citizens stand up for their rights, stand up for liberty, and protest the federal government's desire to virtually strip us naked or submit to an "enhanced pat down" that touches people's breasts and genitals in an aggressive manner.  You should never have to explain to your children, "Remember that no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it's a government employee, then it's OK."

The goal of National Opt Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change.  We have a right to privacy and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we're guilty until proven innocent.  This day is needed because many people do not understand what they consent to when choosing to fly.

Honestly, I don't know if any of this is going to help. These body imaging scanners have been paid for and there are another 700 or so on order. This is a juggernaut that will be very difficult to slow down, let alone stop. But that doesn't mean we have to sit still for it. Therefore, I'd like to propose...

THE NEW RULES OF FLYING

1. If possible, opt out completely. That is, don't fly if you don't have to. Air travel has been a wonderful convenience, but it's no longer worth the effort, the risk, or invasion of privacy. Trains, cars, and busses—there are other alternatives. Plus, alternatives will hit the airline industry—which has stayed pretty mum on the new security rules so far—right where it hurts.


2. Arrive at the airport even earlier. Before 9/11, we were told to arrive at the airport an hour before our flights. After 9/11, we were told to arrive two hours before our flights. Now, thanks to "enhanced" pat-downs (regardless of whether you opt out or not), it's going to take even longer to get through security.


3. Always opt out of the body scanners. Do it especially on November 24, but really you should opt out every time you fly. Opt out for safety reasons. Opt out on principle.


4. Understand that opting out of body imaging requires you to undergo the humiliation of "enhanced" pat-downs. According to the TSA, especially in light of the recent incident with John Tyner, once you begin the screening process, you must complete it or potentially face legal consequences.


5. Be polite, but don't stand for inappropriate contact. You're not a criminal for wanting to fly, and you shouldn't be treated like one. If you are touched in any manner that is inappropriate, be certain to write down the TSA employee's name and file the appropriate harassment report. Of course, because the TSA holds ultimate power over you while you are in security, you might find it more opportune to file any harassment report after you've arrived at your destination.

I realize that terrorism is a very real problem in the world. But in response, do we risk our health? Do we risk our privacy? Do we risk civility? When and where do we draw the line, and say, "Enough is enough"?

Comments are now working again. If you tried to post a comment in the last 24 hours, please repost.

The Times, They Are A-Changin' (Are You Paying Attention?)

Do you have a friend or relative who forwards you a dozen emails a day? Who sometimes even forwards you the same thing six weeks later? If so, you may have seen this one, but what's new here is that I've added a few of my own responses.

My parents are very judicious in what they forward to me. They only send what they think I'll recently be interested in, and such is the subject of this post. Below you will find one of the various memes traveling around the internet interspersed with my comment. The meme's content is in the quotation box, and my response follows.

I tried to find the original writer of this, but it's been repeated so many times on the internet, I'm not certain as to its origin. If you know who wrote this, send me an email at RMansfield@mac.com and I'll give proper credit to the writer.

The original title on the email reads "This is very interesting...and a little sad!" I do believe that it's interesting, but not all of it is all that sad to me.

Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them.  But, ready or not, here they come!

1.  The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office.  They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term.  Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive.  Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

I doubt the post office is going completely away, but we may see five-day or even four-day service instead of the six-day delivery we are used to. The last sentence above is very true. Most of my mail is made up of bills, advertising circulars, and magazines (to add one item). With my iPad, I've already converted a couple of my subscriptions to electronic formats. The magazines that Kathy and I both read—Time, Christianity Today, Entertainment Weekly—will remain in physical form until a way is developed for us to share electronic versions between devices.

But back to the Post Office... More than Fed Ex and UPS, which is limited in what they're allowed to deliver to your door, the real threat to the future of the Post Office has been email. They say that the written letter is dead. But it doesn't have to be. Want to really impress someone? Write a handwritten letter or thank you note, and send it in the mail.

2.  The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018.  It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks.  Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check.  This plays right into the death of the post office.  If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

I pay as many of my bills electronically as I can. Saves postage costs (there goes the Post Office) and time. But we can't get rid of the check until all my bills take electronic payment. I can't pay my local water bill over the internet because their payment system is based on a 25-year-old DOS-based billing system! (West Shelby Water, are you reading this?)

Checks are still handy for other things, too, like when I owe my buddy $20 for some expense he covered for me. But that's only because it's more convenient to write him a check and make him go to the bank instead of going to the ATM myself. Speaking of which, we'll probably see physical cash disappear in our lifetime, too. I'm not so concerned really.

And speaking of checks, I realized not long ago that the only time I still use cursive handwriting was to sign my name and write the payment line on checks. So, I decided to quit cursive handwriting all together. I mean, what's the point? My handwriting is bad regardless, but I promise you that my print is easier to read than my cursive. I guess I'll keep cursive for my signature. But that's it.

3.  The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper.  They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition.  That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man.  As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it.  The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

Let's be honest, the newspaper is on life support because the traditional press has not kept up with the times. People don't sell their stuff in the classifieds anymore; they use craigslist and eBay. Further, the internet delivers the news almost immediately (and with services like Twitter, it's often literally in the immediate). By the time a newspaper story is written, printed, and delivered, it's not longer news.

And I've questioned why I still subscribe to certain magazines when they often deliver the same content for free on the web before it arrives to my door. And I'm not talking about breaking news stories, I'm referring to feature articles. In this regard, they're shooting themselves in the foot.

I do believe a free press is important. It's part of who we are as a democracy. But newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals need to rethink delivery. Printing on dead trees, paying for people to drive trucks, and paying for the trucks themselves is not an efficient use of the press' income anymore. I don't subscribe to the local Shelby County newspaper, The Sentinel News, anymore, but I'd be willing to subscribe again if it came "magically" to my iPad every morning at a price less than what they charge for a print subscription. It's basically their choice of getting some money from me or no money from me. It might be less money, but they could make that up by not having to pay for printing, vehicles and delivery.

4.  The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages.  I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes.  I wanted my hard copy CD.  But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music.  The same thing will happen with books.  You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy.  And the price is less than half that of a real book.  And think of the convenience!  Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.

I completely agree with the writer. My first electronic book came in the way of the Online Bible for DOS which an acquaintance gave me on multiple 5.25" floppy disks back in 1988. Over the last couple of decades, thanks to programs like Accordance, Logos, and Wordsearch, I've accumulated electronic books in the thousands. But I still held on to my physical books, also numbering in the thousands, with many titles duplicated in both physical and electronic form.

It took Apple's iPad to convince of what I can now say with no reservation: I absolutely don't care if I never buy another book in physical form. And since Logos has an iPad app and there's one in the works for Accordance, I've been pulling the physical duplicates from my shelves and have them stacked in my front room waiting to be catalogued and sold. Some books I'll never get rid of for sentimental and in some cases, practical reasons, but I'm definitely reducing all the "stuff" in my house.

I'm not knocking physical books, and I have no agenda to change your mind. It's strictly a personal decision. But carrying thousands of books on a device as small as the iPad as opposed to using up the entire guest bedroom to hoard my own personal library is a much better choice for me.

5.  The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore.  Most people keep it simply because they're always had it.  But you are paying double charges for that extra service.  All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.

Absolutely agreed. I haven't had a landline since 2002. Why would I need it? Why do you need it?

6.  Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story.  The music industry is dying a slow death.  Not just because of illegal downloading.  It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it.  Greed and corruption is the problem.  The record labels and the radio conglomerates simply self-destruction.  Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with.  The older established artists.  This is also true on the live concert circuit.  To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."

I guess I stopped listening to new music sometime after I graduated from college in 1990. Occasionally, I'll hear a musician I like and pick up something new, but for the most part, music is simply not part of my day. And when it is, I'm listening to something from decades past. My tastes definitely aren't mainstream, so I can't judge the quality of current pop music. Everyone believes the next generation's tastes and talent are not as good as their own.

Like the press, the music industry is also an example of an industry not keeping up with the times. I don't encourage breaking the law, but I do believe the laws concerning music sharing should be changed to accommodate the reality of how easy it is to share music electronically. Look, I want everyone to get paid their due, but we need a different paradigm for musicians to accomplish that.

I haven't read the books mentioned above, but I did read Michael Lewis' book Next: The Future Just Happened way back in 2001. In that book, Lewis discussed the idea of bands who simply give their music away and support themselves from fan support either through donations (We'll make our next album when we've raised enough money to cover costs), concerts, and selling of merchandise. Patron funding is actually how musicians supported themselves for millennia. Of course, it eliminates the need for middlemen, i. e. the record labels.

Well... good riddance.

7.  Television.  Revenues to the networks are down dramatically.  Not just because of the economy.  People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers.  And they're playing games and doing all lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV.  Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator.  Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds.  I say good riddance to most of it It's time for  the cable companies to be put out of our misery.  Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

Well, I'm not in disagreement, but I feel that I still watch too much television. And when I do watch, I've recorded it on my TiVo, and I fast forward through the commercials. That's not good for the networks that depend upon advertisers' dollars, but it saves me 15 minutes of every hour-long television show.

Further, I've become mistrustful of new television shows. With the immediate ratings expectations that networks have (Fox seems to be the worst), a show will get pulled for low numbers just as it gets interesting without resolving the conflict that was the basis of the show. These days, I'd rather wait and see if a new show is successful in the long run before investing my time end emotions into it. This is the kind of approach that Netflix was made for.

I don't know what the exact solution to this is for those who make television shows, but I do know that this is clearly yet another medium that hasn't kept up with changes in technology and lifestyle.

Plus, if television were to actually go away tomorrow (which it won't), we wouldn't get bored for lack of something to do. We're entertaining ourselves to death as it is.

8.  The "Things" That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future.  They may simply reside in "the cloud."  Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents.  Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be.  But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services."  That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system.  So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet.  If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud.  If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud.  And you may pay a monthly subscripti on fee to the cloud provider.

In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device.  That's the good news.  But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?"  Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical?  It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.

Well, yes and no. First, the idea of a simple dumb terminal, connected to a larger network, has been around since the nineties, and technically even earlier. It's yet to be a complete reality for the majority of computer users. To me "the cloud" is great for backup and transfer, but I still prefer to keep actual copies of my files handy and easily accessible, regardless of whether or not I have a wireless connection or not.

Even at the most practical level, while WiFi access has become fairly commonplace, it's not completely ubiquitous yet. How many times have I gone to a coffee shop to do some work for a couple of hours, only to discover the wireless router is on the fritz, only after I've already ordered my coffee, pastry and had a seat? Too often. If I completely depended upon a cloud service like GoogleDocs and wanted to finish a half-written document, I'd either have to relocate or start over. No thanks. I'd rather have my files local, thank you. Oh, I know WiMAX, cellular internet service and similar technologies are supposed to be the answer. But all of them are either too expensive or not quite ready.

I moved ThisLamp to WordPress almost a year ago, a completely cloud-based website service. Yesterday, accidentally, I completely overwrote my previous post after I used a different device to attempt to compose a new post. Although I am partly to blame, this could not have happened with my previous method of blogging. Had it not been for an internet cache of the original post, it would have simply been lost. Therefore, I am seriously tempted to begin using a program like MarsEdit to compose local files that will then upload to WordPress on the internet.

One more example: a couple of weeks ago, in trying to test out the personal notes feature in Logos Bible software, a function that is primarily cloud-based, a number of the notes I created were corrupted during the synchronizing process to and from their servers to my computer That left me with the choice of either deleting them and forgetting about it or re-creating them. Now, granted, the Mac version of Logos is in beta, so I knew my risks, but beta or not, this shows the danger of not having complete control over local files as well as having good backups.

Of course, lack of backups is the real danger to the current "things" we own on our computers. The average computer user simply never backs up his or her files. How many friends have called me wanting to know what they can do to retrieve the years' worth of digital photos sitting on a dead hard drive. I even have one of those hard drives myself, although with just a few weeks' worth of un-backuped pictures, waiting for the day when I have an extra couple thousand dollars to pay a professional data retrieval company to get my pictures back.

I've learned the hard way. I backup my my main laptop, my iPhone, and my iPad multiple times a week and my primary backup is not kept in my home.

9.  Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy.  That's gone.  It's been gone for a long time anyway.  There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone.  But you can be sure that 24/7 "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View.  If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits.  And "They" will try to get you to buy something else.  Again and again!

Well, this is a double-edged sword, isn't it? While we might feel those cameras in public places are an invasion of our privacy, we certainly are glad for their presence if we've been robbed, assaulted, or wronged in any way. Cameras in public places come as a cost of our safety. If I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, they will never be used against me.

And while it might make me feel a bit squishy to know that Kroger is tracking my purchases when I use their discount card, I certainly like the discounts and the coupons they send me now and then based upon my shopping habits.

The real invasion of our privacy often comes at our own doing in this technological age. I finally embraced FaceBook, but I don't share my information with just anyone (including strangers, teenagers and children of friends who try to friend me). I don't post anything that a current or future employer might frown upon. I don't post anything that would shock my mother. I'm careful when installing new software to at least scan through the user agreement and not allow something to be added to the toolbar of my web browser (these little apps are often being used to track a user's movements). I don't add people to my Foursquare friends list whom I don't know because I don't want strangers tracking my movements. Yes, I sometimes rebroadcast these updates on Twitter (which is public), but I purposefully don't post all of them.

All we will have that can't be changed are Memories.

Well, yes and no, here, too, right? How often do I look at photographs from way back and wonder why I can no longer remember the names of some of those people or even wonder who they were and what I was doing in the picture? We're concerned about serious conditions such as Alzheimer's, but we continue to eat food cooked in aluminum and reheat the leftovers in plastic—neither of which are probably a good idea.

Look, things change. And it's not always clear cut as to whether it's for the good or bad. We think of our past as being a simpler time, but often we do that to the neglect of remembering how many conveniences we have now.

A service like Facebook, for instance, allows me to stay in at least minimal touch with a significant larger number of my graduating high school class than my parents could have at my age. Are those "friendships" as relevant as the relationships I have right now in my immediate community of work, neighborhood, and church? Probably not, but I'm glad I have them anyway.

When I can play Words with Friends with an old classmate I've known since the second grade, but haven't seen in two decades in person, I still prefer that connection over playing with a stranger. And I'd rather have that than no contact at all.

Yes, I run the risk of legacy file formats twenty years from now for eBooks I buy today, but I also know of people who have lost hundreds of books from fire and flood. I'm willing to take the risk on the technology and hope that with millions of us making the same choice, there will be enough momentum to ensure we can still access them years down the road.

Here's a new question for all of us to face: Can I leave my virtual properties to a family member or friend when I pass on? This will be the next question (among many) to answer in our changing and increasingly technological world.