technological etiquette

this has puzzled me for a while. and i browsed through amy vanderbilt's bible. no answer. i don't think amy is up to date with modern computin technology.

what i'm wondering is . . . when do you quit? when do you quit e-mailing on a given topic. when do you quit texting? i'm not a big texting fan, but do it on occasion, and i don't know when to stop. and when do you quit facebook posting? i'm really perplexed about all this.

here's what prompted this today: my buddy gerv and i started commenting on each others' status on facebook. he'd post something clever. and i'd try to post something cleverer. or more clever. and then he'd make an attempt at posting something clevererer. and so forth. and pretty soon one or both of us will (this is on-going at this point in time) run out of anything clever to write. so what i need to know is, what is my obligation at that time?

do i continue to post something mindless? something that has absolutely no socially redeeming value? or just exactly when do we let the conversation just go away. since i posted first, is it suitable that he post last? (sorry for the delay here, had to go back to facebook and respond to his last response.)

are there rules regarding how you might go about ending something like this?

the same could be true for e-mailing. consider something like this: person a writes, "can you send me the link for that brain surgery website you mentioned the other day?" and person b writes back: "sure, it's www.howtoremoveahumanbrain.com". and person a is obliged to write back, "great. thank you." and person b, again, "you''re welcome."

and there's where it gets confusing. if you're person a do you respond? or is that the end. cause person b did you a great favor, so you may feel compelled to say, "i sure appreciate your help." and now person b has to write back with, "i'm always glad to help." person a, "i know. you always have been, and i genuinely appreciate that." and person b, "nice of you to say that." and this could keep going on ad nauseoum.

so i'd like to know if there are any established protocols for this type of communication. rules? regulations? do's? don'ts? if anyone knows anything about this, please let me know.

and then i'll write back with a "thank you." and you can write back with "you're welcome". and then . . . . .

where have you gone, walter cronkite? a nation turns its loney eyes to you

walter cronkite died. did anyone notice? yeah, i guess we mostly all did. they spent a fair amount of time reporting it. about 5 percent of the tv airtime devoted to michael jackson. and here was an icon. probably the best, most respected television journalist ever. and i don't just mean "up until now". no one will be better. from kennedy's nomination in 1960, to the assassination. from man on the moon, to vietnam, to the gulf war, and all things in-between, chronkite reported it all in an unbiased fashion, but still managed to do his reporting with emotion. he seemed real to us. and someone we could depend on for honest news reporting.

i know i'm not alone when i say that i don't think there are any honest news reporters anymore. no matter which network i watch, i always feel that the prominent news folks are giving us the news from their slant. or perhaps the slant of the network. too many anti-bush stories. too many pro-obama stories. way too many michael jackson stories. and all the while they seem to be stretching the truth. exaggerating. lying by omission. cronkite never did that.

it's interesting now to see the news slant on . . . hmmm, forget his name, the professorial "scholar" in cambridge. started out with the media reporting the story in such a way that left no doubt that it was a pure case of racial profiling. and i recall the first time i heard the story i'm thinking . . . wait, a fella is seen breaking into a house - no matter his race, creed or color, he's breaking into a house. would not that cause suspicion? then when confronted by police the scholar refuses to produce identification? if i'm a cop, that's also gonna give me cause for concern.

now i wasn't there, so whatever else happened is merely conjecture. the media reported that the cops involved harrassed professor scholar. the cops report that professor scholar became belligerent, called them names, cast about disparaging remarks regarding their mothers. all the while, the media stops just short of stating the police were racially driven. totally out of line. and the morning show on cbs, the today show on nbc, and good morning america on abc, as well as larry king, jon stewart, and kermit the frog invite professor scholar on their programs so that this travesty of justice is forever on the forefront or everyone's minds.

then two things happened on the same day. one, someone determined that the sergeant in charge was really a pretty good guy. very good record. even taught classes to other law enforcement folks on how not to be a party to racial profiling. and then our president, mister barry obama, when asked about the incident (i gotta mention here . . . the members of the media asking obama about this issue at this press conference was just asking for trouble. the question was an extreme case of racial profiling that goes unnoticed. had we had a white president in the white house, this question would not have been asked.) admitted, first of all, that he didn't know the details. then went on to state that the police acted "stupidly".

well, barry, i have to think that you acted "stupidly" in making that statement. i may not agree with you on every issue, but i certainly respect the way you conduct yourself, and i've been very impressed about the way you field and respond to questions. you've always said the right things.

but to accuse the cambridge police of acting "stupidly" was wrong on several levels. and when proceeded by the disclaimer about not knowing the details? well, that can only be termed "racial profiling". one has to wonder if, were the police officer involved a minority, what would have happened. lots of speculation could go on there.

but these two events served to alter the direction of media reporting. basically, abc, nbc, cbs, larry king, phil donahue - oh, he's not around any more - have just stopped talking about it. there was some mention of barry o recognizing he could have "chosen his words better". that's a phrase we're using a lot lately. it's intended to be almost an apology, but when saying that you're not admitting any wrong-doing. then, with barry having said that, the issue's moved away from page one news. and that's a very good thing.

and that's where i think it would have been initially had walter chronkite been reporting.

when all is said and done . . .

. . . a lot more gets said than gets done. lou holtz

procrastination

(sung to the tune of carly simon's "anticipation")

(well, not really, cause i doubt that what i'm writing will be poetic enough to set to music. but i was struck by the fact that procrastination and anticipation rhymed pretty well, . . . )

it was quite dark at 5:23 this morning when hon woke me up. "come here, quick! i smell smoke!"

well, few things are scarier than waking up to the smell of smoke. first things you think about are your kids . . . they're fine. they don't live here anymore; your dogs . . . better find them quick in case the fire's in the house. no problem there. they're under foot as soon as we get out of bed; your valuables . . . well, for what they're worth. i quickly grabbed my red sox hat; and ultimately you gather your wits about you and figure out the fire's not in your house.

we stepped out into the back yard, looked east through the outback, and through the dense fog created by the smoke, we can see flashing lights. lots of flashing lights. and a flame shooting up through the smoke now and again. and the fire trucks aren't far away. maybe a couple hundred yards.

first thing i think of is hog wild barbecue. (thanks to spell check, i recently learned how to spell barbecue. i'd always struggled with it. barbaque didn't look right. barbeque looked ok, but not perfect. so did a spell check on a blog post and finally got it right. barbecue.) hog wild barbecue is a relatively new place opened just across the outback from us. we could walk there in a minute and a half. but since the streets aren't quite as direct, we could drive there in, oh, ten minutes or so.

just about every time i drive by there i think to myself, "self, one day you should stop there and try their barbecue." but i always seem to have somewhere to go. or i'm coming back from someplace. as a result, i've never been there. and i've learned since i've been in oklahoma that some of the best barbecue ever is to be found in little, out of the way, locations. and this seems to be the ideal setting for some surprisingly succulent pulled pork. or smoked brisket.

and now we have a fire. and the entire neighborhood is thick with smoke. and the weird thing is, the smoke smells a whole like like barbecue. so, of course i'm thinking that the fire is the hog wild joint burning down. makes sense, doesn't it? here's a place that has some sort of real wood smoker, probably burning all night to cook up the meat to serve today. would seem plausible that a fire could start from that.

since the smoke smells so laden with barbecue, what else can i assume besides the hog wild joint is aflame? now it's gonna be gone before i've had the opportunity to try it out. procrastination may have cost me some really great food. rats.

but wait. hon's turned the tv on. news. and the fire isn't at hog wild, it's in the apartment complex behind it. what great news!

now i'm wondering what else i might have missed because of procrastination. for example: yesterday afternoon it was hot out. one hundred and three, or so. it was wednesday. powerball night. and normally on wednesday i run over to barnes, a throw-back little market that no doubt inspired the idea of today's convenience stores. owned by barnes. i'm thinking that's his last name, but that's all he's called. the others who work there just call him barnes. he appears to be eighty something and still works twelve hours a day or so. anyhow, i felt i should drive down to barnes and get my wednesday night powerball ticket. but it was hot out. and i decided i'd wait til saturday to get my lottery ticket. means i missed wednesday night's drawing. procrastination could have cost me 45 million bucks.

who knows what else i might have missed because of procrastination? maybe if i'd done this then instead of when, if i'd done that now instead of then, or maybe if i'd just gone somewhere a little bit sooner . . . hmmmmmmm. but i can tell you one thing: as soon as the fire department takes down the blockades to the area, i'm gonna go to hog wild for lunch. or maybe i'll just wait until tomorrow.

the game

it all started in january, 2003. a saturday. we'd been to phoenix for some reason or other, then, on the way back to flagstaff the blizzard hit. driving snow, driving rain, driving nightmare. oh, we made it home just find and dandy. a slow, cautious trip. but a safe trip.

and it just happened to be the night of scooter's winter formal. he was just 15. not driving yet. and he'd planned on going to the dance with cat, a girl who, while not a "girlfriend", had been a good friend for quite a while. and she'd already bought a dress for this affair. and he'd bought a new shirt and tie.

we lived in kachina village, a quaint wooded development just off i-17, eight miles south of flagstaff. cat lived in mountainaire, a similar development on the opposite side of i-17. i didn't mind so much driving over to pick up cat, but really dreaded the thought of setting out for flagstaff in the still roaring blizzard. for now it was much colder, much darker than it had been on our way up from phoenix, and the snow had been falling for a much longer time frame and accumulation measured near a foot.

but, snowplows were out, and armed with front wheel drive and a strong constitution, hon and i decided we'd drive the kids into town for the dance, then hang out in town until the dance was over. thereby eliminating one potentially treacherous trip. we dropped the kids off at the du bois center on the nau campus and crept over to a shopping center nearby.

we knew we couldn't kill two hours at the shopping center at that time of night. and we were right. but barnes and noble had just recently opened a new store a short distance from there, so we decided to brave driving in the storm just a bit further. and we got lucky, too, as the snow had started to quit. as had the wind. and the skies cleared, illuminating those bright silver stars you only see from places like flagstaff. wow! a beautiful winter night.

i didn't find barnes and noble thrilling. lots of books. and that new book smell. i grabbed a latte and cruised around the clearance tables. stuff they'd no doubt brought in for christmas that didn't sell. and i found this game. i didn't take particular note of the name on the box. but it was originally priced at $19.95 and was clearance priced at one dollar. i figured it would be a worthwhile investment. our crazy family loved playing games - cards, board games, even croquet in nice weather. and we all tend to be fairly competitive. even if the game was a bust, how far wrong could i go by buying it for a dollar. and then we picked up the kids, delivered cat to her house, and drove on home.

the game sat in the closet for a couple of months. then lynda and pz, my sister and her husband, stopped to visit a while on their way from colorado to goodyear for their daughter, kelli's wedding. and we decided to break out the game and see what it's all about.

when you spend a dollar on a game you don't expect much. but as the four of us commenced play we were all pretty taken with it. the basic concept is this: there's a deck of cards with names of famous people. some real. some fictional. some actors. some historical characters. and playing as partners, you try to get your partner to guess the name on the card by giving clues to either his achievements or his name. well, we started having fun with this right away, as it was amusing to hear the clues as they related to the names on the cards. and some of the names no one knew. some of the names a few knew. some were easy - mickey mantle, john f kennedy, elizabeth taylor types. some were tough. chaucer, or however he's spelled. and that guy who is renowned as the "father of geometry". a very wide cross section of present, past and fictional folks. (and this was pretty entertaining when lynda had to guess guys like joe montana, magic johnson, tiger woods, as she'd spent most of thirty years living in england, and never cared for nor paid any attention to sports.)

well, the real shining moment of that first game came with lynda and hon teaming up, and lynda trying to identify a contemporary individual to hon. the clues and responses went something like this:

lynda: a pastor

hon: oral roberts

lynda: the first name you might give to a male goat

hon: billy?

lynda: yes. a pastor named billy

hon: billy roberts

lynda: no, a type of cracker

hon: oh yeah! i know it! billy SALTINE!

well, that tipped off about half hour of giggling. billy saltine? for chrissakes. who the hell is billy saltine. or course, hon realized immediately that the real name she was after was billy graham. but thanks to the uproarious laughter that had ensued, she was unable to get the name out before her time ran out.

well, that story spawned a family tradition. at virtually every large family gathering since then, the game has been brought out. we took it with us to kelli's wedding, and after the reception the clan all came to the house we'd borrowed for the occasion and we played en masse. then at trent's wedding we all convened at lynda and pz's house and introduced the piazzoni side of the family to the game. and crazy janet liked it so well that she returned home to san diego and bought the game herself, so she could introduce her family to it. and several other family members have gone on-line, as that's the only place you can find it, and bought the game and paid retail price!

playing the game over the course of these past six years has made lots of great family memories. and the competitive nature of the game and the participants has caused some hard feelings, fortunately temporary, but some got riled up when scooter screamed "you're killing me, man!", or pz would start his clues with "ah, oh, ahhhhh, ummmmmm, well . . . ok, ah, this is, ahhh, hmmmmm, ahhhh . . . " and having his time run out before he even gave a clue.

so anyone reading this that has a group of family or friends that enjoy raucous trivia games, search for "time's up". you won't regret it. even if you pay more than a buck for it.

colorado mountain high (and a low or two as well)

we really like going to visit my sister in colorado. in the summertime. it's a long trip from oklahoma city, so we have to have some sort of compelling reason to go. and last week we did.

my nephew, who lives in colorado springs, and my new niece-in-law, who lives in denver, set their wedding date for saturday, july 11. there's the excuse we needed.

a great group of folks assembled at my sister's house, and for the better part of five days we enjoyed great food, great company, a few great beers, and a really neat wedding which was set in a park with green, green grass, a pond replete with lily pads and canadian geese. plus a rousing reception (in spite of the texas sized mosquitoes which showed up about mid-party).

oh yeah, and some really neat rain storms, too.

and then came sunday morning. and the trip back home.

somehow the drive to colorado seems easy. the ten hours go quickly by and you're there. maybe that's because you're a bit anxious to get there. anticipation offsets the dreariness of the travel. but the trip home? well, that ten hour drive just ain't nearly so enjoyable.

and the drive reaches the peak of misery as you're leaving dumas, texas.

we'd stopped for lunch in dalhart, and i asked hon to drive for a bit so i could rest. i napped, and awoke just as we were entering dumas - maybe half an hour. and hon was ready to give up the captain's seat. a quick stop for a driver change. then an ill-advised stop at the dairy queen, and we're back on the road again. (ill-advised because i kept spilling ice cream on myself. i couldn't figure out how i'd become so sloppy when eating. we later figured out that my cup was leaking. i felt exhonerated.)

as we were leaving town, where you'd generally expect to increase your speed and hit the open highway, we were driving along side a charcoal gray pontiac g-6. which is quite a coincidence, since we're driving jo's charcoal gray honda. the two cars were identical in color, and looked pretty much the same at first glance.

i saw the two patrol cars parked in the median, facing the other direction, just on the outskirts of town. i didn't give them much thought. i wasn't really watching my speed, but felt i was safely within normal tolerances. and as we passed by the officers, the charcoal gray pontiac beside me sped up and pulled well ahead of me.

i saw in my mirror as one of the squad cars crossed the median and headed our way. and within view of the 60 mph speed limit sign i began accelerating. and that's about when the lights came on behind me. i looked at the speedometer at that precise point - it read 55.

so, as any law-abiding citizen would, i pulled over. the officer approached the car on the passengers side and asked to see license, insurance, registration. then explained he'd stopped me because he clocked me at 58 in a 45 mile per hour speed zone. i was a little shocked. and i asked if he was certain he'd clocked me, or possibly the other charcoal gray car that had been beside me, then sped off. i got the distinct feeling that he didn't appreciate having his judgement questioned, and tersely repeated his exact words.

he told me to wait, returned to his patrol car, and i knew i was gonna receive a citation. and not one for meritorious efforts. and sure enough, five minutes later he returned with our documents, plus one speeding ticket. i was a little upset, and told him so.

but he had no sympathy. i explained again that i felt he'd clocked the other gray car. and no doubt the other car was traveling faster than i, as he pulled away before the stoppage. and why, if i was speeding, and the other car was speeding even more, stop only me? his explanation: one enforcement officer can stop only one offender. and i had to wonder why the second patrol car didn't go after the other guy, if that was the case.

so now i've got this ticket. the second consecutive return trip from colorado springs where i've gotten one. and i plan on pleading not guilty. i'm pretty adamant that he had the wrong guy, and i'm gonna protest it all i can. anyone with any ideas that may help?

and, if i don't land in jail, tune in next time when i'll discuss the fun part of the trip.

alone again, naturally (with apologies to gilbert o sullivan)

hon's been gone something like 38 hours now. and i'm surprised at how lonely i feel. especially considering she's been gone before. branson in march. salt lake last april. in the solar splash days she was gone three days here, a week there. but during all those periods i don't think i ever felt quite this lonely.

through all those i had scooter bob around. i think. and this time, even though he's not around, he's close by. and he and i went with my sister and brother-in-law to dinner last nite. after dinner i thought for sure that scooter would hang out with me a bit. but no, he needed to get home. he was tired. his injured knee was hurting - physical therapy, you know.

and suddenly i realize that i have no friends. at least not in oklahoma city. i have some acquaintences. but no friends. i have some relatives. but no friends. i might have to post a "friends wanted" ad on craigslist. nah, people would take that all wrong. i've seen those ads.

the dogs can be a whole lot of company. but they aren't very good conversationalists. oh, trixie will talk to you. but it's always the same thing. cookie, cookie, cookie. or outside, outside, outside. or, bed time, bed time, bedtime. with trixie, it's always a one sided conversation.

turbo talks a little. when he's outside and wants in he sure lets you know. and if he's in a playful mood and you haven't noticed, he'll sure let you know. but he's not much interested in baseball or nascar, so there's really no common topic for discussion.

and petunia? well, she starts talking at the weirdest times. and talks an awful lot. but damned if i've ever been able to figure out what the heck she's saying.

hon's cat, buster, the weird one, started talking last nite. he was in the dining room and just started yacking away. for no particular reason. then he came into the living room and started yacking right in my face. i know how to talk to him. i just say "shut up, buster" and shove him outta my face.

so lonely leads to boredom. wanna hear some boredom?

garage door broke last nite.

after a dozen coats of paint, i'm still sanding and re-painting the cabinets.

it's 6:22 a.m. i started writing this at 6:15. the dogs got me up to go outside at 5:49 and i'm still up. blogging. is that not the epitome of boredom?

mowed the back yard and it sure looks nice.

wish i had some bacon, eggs, biscuits. i could use a great breakfast. hmmm, maybe i should go somewhere and have breakfast. great idea. need to fill up the mower gas can and mow the front yard before it gets hot. have to go out. why not eat while i'm at it?

nope. i'm going back to bed. cause writing this has made me as sleepy as you've gotten reading it.