Life it the Fast Lane

It used to be that joining clubs and organizations kept a lot of people pretty busy trying to keep up. The good thing, in most cases, is that you didn't have to remember a secret handshake or password. In most cases. In our techno-savy world, things have changed. I just spent over an hour rooting out and changing passwords for way too many sites. Did everyone get a computer and promptly sign up for everything on the Internet, or was it just me?

First off, it was time to change all my passwords. I'm sure there are tens, if not thousands, of crackers out there just waiting to hack through my firewall, sandbox, security defenses and whatever else I've got running on my computer to keep the bad guys out and my codes safe and secure. NOT! I don't even pay my bills on-line, let alone bank from the comfort of my four-wheel office chair. I've never trusted cyberspace enough to go digital in all things. But I'd sure hate to have my family and friends receive some slutty e-mail from someone who's managed to hack into one of my on-line e-mail accounts and wreak havoc in my name. A good friend of mine had that happen once. Shocked more than the socks off of several people.

Change your passwords at least once a month is what the pros say. Okay, so I manage to get around to it about once a year—or not. But Internet protection has come a long way since the days of my first computer. My current Virus Protection Plan has a tool bar that sits snugly on my browser bar. It logs all my passwords for whatever sites I have joined, subscribed to, signed up for. A simple two-click process of hitting that menu and clicking on the site I want to log into and there I am. Pretty cool. I no longer have to remember my passwords or do all that logging in and out by keystroke—which keeps me somewhat safe from keystroke hacks. After copying down—pen and paper—all the sites and their passwords, I decided to also change the password that protects my password protection plan. A not-happening event. Seems that though I did remember to write down that particular password—guess you'd call it the Master Password?—the program does not recognize it as valid. I'm looking at the paper, making sure I am reading it right, trying over and over again to get it to take. And sweating bullets that the program will lock me out, do an unarmed takeover of my computer, start a full-scale attack or something, all to keep me safe from my own information—because I've passed the limit of attempts to break into my own system. Thankfully, that did not happen. I just clicked the cancel option and continued on my merry way. Though not quite as merry. However, I had already stripped all the log-in information from the program. Not a problem.

I revisited twelve of the multitudinous sites that I have joined over the years (writers join a lot of sites—it's how we procrastinate) and changed all passwords—while my security system pleasantly asked me if I would like it to record the sign-in information. Well, duh. Isn't that what you're here for? Or do you just take up real estate on my hard drive? That was not the appropriate response. I clicked on "yes" and moved along to the next site. And the next. And the...you get the picture. And that's not even counting the sites that did not make the list! I mean, seriously.

So, as I'm making my way through cyberland, I decided that I don't have to actually sign in to every place I've ever joined—and some places make you sign up just to have a look around. Did I really want to keep my membership? Did I want to keep up with a site that I didn't even remember? Especially the ones who demand that cookies be enabled on my browser?

I don't much like cookies and I sure don't like enabling cookies. As a rule of thumb, I try not to be an enabler. Unless the cookies come well appointed with chocolate chips and tall, cold glasses of milk. Computer cookies are a whole other ballgame. I have recently set my browsing security option to medium—which effectively shuts me down from visiting most sites that require cookies. They, whoever "they" are, want to drop little tracking bots into my computer so they can keep track of where I've been and what I've done while I've been there. The way I see it, calling them cookies is a rather tongue-in-cheek way of telling me that they want to know what I want to know. None of their business. Yeah, I know the so-called business aspects of cookies. If they can track what I'm doing while I'm at "their" site, they can better serve me later. Demographics. Who I am, what I look at, what other sites I might click-through to from their site. And my ISP info. And whatever else they can get out of my surfing. I'm not buying it. If it's a business site, then obviously I'm there to do some sort of business. And they will know what I buy from them when I finish my transaction with them. Unless they are truly stupid and forget to do inventory, charge my credit card, what have you. They don't need to put cookies on my computer to keep track of what I'm doing on their site. Cookies leave crumbs and crumbs muck up my system. Just ask my Virus Protection Plan. It's always telling me I have "potentially" malicious tracking cookies gumming up the works.

As for sites that don't offer anything other than information, it would be obvious, one would think, that I visited their site because I was looking for the information they have on it. Duh. Don't tell me that your cute little cookies are to better serve me later. It is an invasion of my privacy. Besides, as I said, I don't buy on-line very often at all. I may do some comparison shopping, but I rarely will do a transaction. Call me paranoid.

So, after changing all the passwords I felt inclined to change and refusing to sign in again to those places that wanted to drop cookies into my system, the world—my world—is a safer place again. Now, if these earthquakes would just stop...

Life and Learning

I have sent an e-mail to a few people about this lecture I watched yesterday--I want to share it with a lot of people. So, I decided the best way to go about it is to mention it here for anybody who might read this blog. Here's the scoop:

My daughter told me about this professor, Randy Pausch, who gave his last lecture--something that profs do at Carnegie Mellon University. The twist on this is that the man, Randy Pausch, is actually dying--and he was only 47 when he was told he had only a few months left to live. It's a very good lecture--has little to do with death and more to do with realizing your dreams and your life potential. Also, he's involved in a program that takes a special interest in young girls and women going into the computer field--specifically virutual reality and computer animation. So, the team at Carnegie Mellon developed a program called Alice, that is more a game and interactive environment that makes learning fun. It's also free. I thought you might like to take a look at it and maybe your children might be interested in the Alice program. I downloaded it and played with it a bit yesterday and it really is fun! I made an ice skater do a spin. lol But, if your kids are at all interested in computer animation and want to "play" while they learn, take a look at it. Even if they aren't interested, they might find it fun and end up becoming interested. Who knows?

Here's the site where I watched The Last Lecture:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5700431505846055184

Here is the site for the Alice programs:

http://www.alice.org/

The Last Lecture is about life, not death. It's about dreams and getting to them. It's about success and failure and how we can learn more from our failures than our successes. It's a great and humorous look at how we live our lives. Take a look and have fun. And if you think it is something your children or anyone else might be interested in, talk to the schools and tell them about it.

Crux

I sit staring at the screen, locked in frozen admiration for the words not yet planted firmly in their place. Where are those words? What has become of them? My hands rest above the keyboard, ready to let fly with even the vaguest of notions. Where are the notions? Is this the dreaded writers' block that so many talk about? Isn't talking about it writing? Well, isn't it? Should I talk about the block? Talk around the block? Over or under?

Take a walk, instead. My mind is drained of, empty of, without thought of words. Words. Build with them, destroy with them. Tear down and recreate with them. Words have power to do either thing—build or destroy. Which will it be today? I am empty of meaning and without concern for the outcome. Just plug the words in any which way and see where they go. Nowhere. They go nowhere. It makes me angry that they go nowhere. Why angry? What is the point? Get a grip and just let them fly. Freedom of restraint and freedom to choose. My mind has hit a brick wall of indifference. Thoughts do not come readily to the equation. And why should I care? What does it mean that I seem unable to form a coherent story in my mind or out of it?

Lying in bed—or is it laying in bed? Either way, in those cool dark hours of twilight when the mind rambles between dream and reality, thoughts come unbidden and flow out unstopped into—nothing. There is no page to catch those thoughts. Those bursts of stories that seep out in the dark. Where is my pen? Beside the notepad on the table next to my pillow. Just there. If I reach for it, that little nudge of conscious effort shoves the words out of mind, out of sight, off the page. They spill onto the floor and skitter under the bed, playthings to the dust bunnies living there. New friends and old gather together as the dust bunnies laugh at my plight. What will she do? What will she do? She will turn over and go back to full sleep and let the words spill where they may.

Dreams are better, anyway. Dreams and more dreams shuffle around in my half-awake state, taunting me with their insanity and pulling me deeper into the crux of the matter. Crux. What a strange word. The crux of…life. The cross I bear. Weariness clamps its slimy fingers around my last coherent thought and I drift closer to the rocks and cliffs, waiting to be pounded down and out. I can't climb high enough for freedom, there is no purchase for my fingers to grab onto. I slip and slide back down into the darkness of cool shadows and lapping water. Whose dream is this, anyway? Why are there so many questions? and so few answers? Write the damned letter. Get it done. Unblock the flow of words and let them falter around in the dark where what? What happens in the darksome night of despair where angels fear to tread? And why do angels fear the treading? Ha! They don't.

Anger rises inside my gut, making me queasy. Anger that words no longer come to me unbidden. Pulling them out of my brain is painful. Let it go! Leave it alone. They will come when they want. But that is not good enough. I want them NOW! Not in their own good time. Now, when I am awake. Not at night when the slightest movement puts them to flight. I want the sweet flow of words in the daylight hours when I can see them and measure them and taste them with my mind and feel them with my fingers as they leap onto the page, fingers flying to keep up. I want them beating down the doors and storming the castle. Not all stopped up. Not under the bed hiding with the dust bunnies in the carpet. Not sliding under my pillow and away from my attempts to capture them and put them onto a page in the midnight hours where all the good ideas hide. Midnight madness, that's it. Only when drifting and letting go do the words come—unbidden—carrying a narrow horizon, a thin line between the writer and the dream.

I don't know much...

except that learning is a process. And a slow one, at times. I think I have forgotten most of what I learned. Maybe that's not right. It's not that I have forgotten, just that things have changed so much since I finished college in 2002. That's it. The changes. My wonderful little degree did not come with a warning or a disclaimer. Something that said: "Hey! Be aware that all this technology that you studied will not be the same from one year to the next. From one month to the next. It will change faster than you can keep up with it--unless that's *all* you do is keep up with it." Forwarned is money in the bank. Or not. I probably would still have taken the same degree because part of what I loved about the whole world of computers and graphics was that very idea of change. That nothing stayed the same. I'm a restless person. I need change and movement. But yesterday showed me how far behind I have gotten over the years of raising children and having a life other than that of a true geek.

I used to think I was a real geek. The geekiest of them all in geek world. HA! I think I'm just a geek wannabe at heart. Or just maybe the biggest geek in my family. I did not keep up. I did other things that, retrospectively, were more important than keeping up with the world of computer tech. And I don't regret it. What I regret is that things changed so fast. Too fast for me to keep up and still do everything else that needed doing. Choices are made. I don't regret the choices. But have you ever gotten whiplash of the brain? Well, I did that yesterday. I'm trying to think things through, learn what I need to know to do what I need to do. All the new words and new concepts and new new new. That's okay. I can do it. Indeed I can. It will just take some time. A bit more than I had thought. But it is doable and I can learn what I need to know. And I have to thank my friend, Steve for all the pointers in the right direction. Yes, the reading and comparing and picking through all that information was tough, but it did not make me lose heart. It was encouraging to know how much, in all this, I actually remembered after all. So, while things change there will be room to grow. It's when things don't change we stagnate. Have a great day!