Detangling

I have taken for granted the way that this "digital age" makes it so easy for people to stay connected. Keeping up with friends through Facebook, Twitter, their blogs (via a feed reader, of course), Flickr and the like makes information about anyone available through a variety of sources. And then add the corresponding iPhone or Blackberry apps - the ever-present devices where one can text, check e-mail, or even call to keep in touch - and you can find out anything about anyone, anytime. That's great when you want to keep in touch with where people are and what they're doing, but when you don't necessarily want to, it becomes really hard to disentangle yourself from the constant stream of information about them (seriously, G, I don't need to know the minutiae of every single second of your day through Facebook, your Gmail chat status, and Twitter). It's sensory overload; it almost necessitates total radio silence so that you don't have to think about which feeds into what, or that this syncs with that... It's enough to make one long for pre-smartphone days, when you weren't linked to everything, and where you didn't have access to everything all of the time. So I think I'm going to go back to an earlier time. No more Tweeting. No more Facebook. No more Google Chat. No more following blogs on the sly. I'm going to go back to the tried and true phone call (and e-mail) to keep in touch with people.

Realization

Despite the difficulty of the last week or so, I'm sure that I've made the right decisions. I'm more confident that I did the right thing for all involved. There's still a sadness that I don't think will ever go away, but it's a deep, dull ache, rather than the sharp debilitating pain that I felt before.

Photo of the Day, 10/25/09

What can I say... I like the sky.

Photo of the Day, 10/23/09

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Yet another reason why I love Michelle Obama

Laura Bush would have never done this!

Fall is here, thus apple picking is required

Since it might be too cold for apple picking this weekend, how's this as an alternative?

Secrets

Most of the time, when someone has a secret that they know they're not supposed to share, they let it out to at least one other person, just so that they don't have to carry the burden of that knowledge themselves. Also, usually the secret-teller in truth wants that information to get out, but they're just not ready or willing to let it out publicly. And then there are the secrets that have to be left unspoken, because the implications of that information getting out are just too dire.

I have one of those secrets, and I am being crushed under the weight of it. It's making me miserable, but there would be disastrous consequences if I let it out. So I am stuck with this one option. I have to just hold it in.

Photo of the Day, 10/10/09

Taken today (10/10/09) at the church after Dave and Danika's wedding. An example of some of my favorite things: geometric shapes, mosaics, windows, and natural light.

Photo of the Day, 10/9/09

Edited: These were fun to take. S has this set of chess pieces that he got in Russia years ago. He finally dug them out of storage, and they're getting some major action. As I was photographing them, I was imagining these scenarios and conversations that the pieces were having with each other.


Redacted:
I.O.U. I took a couple of awesome shots on S's camera. I just need him to send them to me...

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

The nonstop discussion everywhere I've gone today has been about the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to President Barack Obama. As everyone well knows, there are some rather sharp divisions among people about whether or not he is deserving of the award. A lot of people - Obama supporters and detractors alike - think that he hasn't yet fulfilled any of the promises that he made during his campaign to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons, to improve Israeli-Palestinian relations, and to overall improve the US' international image. He talked a big game, but he hasn't delivered yet. That, and it's only about 8 months into his term.

All of these things are true. But I think that he deserves the Peace Prize not for what he has accomplished in terms of getting closer to the goals that he set during his campaign, rather that he has inspired and mobilized the US population and people around the world to make a renewed effort to carry out these tasks. This is akin to his "Yes We Can" and "Hope" philosophies; I think President Obama has inspired people in a way that they have not been inspired in years - if not at all.

I understand fully that there are years ahead of us before we are no longer at war, and before there is no longer a fear of attacks by nuclear weapons, and before we can say that any or all of these goals have been met. But I think that universally, there's a renews sense of optimism that these things will happen. Before Obama was inaugurated - as soon as he was elected President, in fact - I felt this complete shift. The second he started working on his transition, I knew that US foreign policy would become a completely different beast, that I would no longer fear the words and actions that came out of the Oval Office.

Anyway, I could go on and on and on about how I feel about this, but I'm suddenly exhausted. BUT - as President Obama said, this is a call to action. This is his chance to 'put his money where his mouth is.'

"...I know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

"And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century." -President Barack Obama, 10/9/2009