Frames

People don't come and go, they step down and are replaced.
I was thinking about this concept the other day, and I couldn't help but realize how consistently it happens.
I see it like this:

There is a long hallway, and on either side of this hallway, there are framed pictures. The floor is worn, and well traveled. The pictures are neat and not dusty. As I walk down this hallway, men in blue suits are walking around with clipboards. Occasionally they gather at one photo, and a heated debate begins. They wave papers and quote statistics, and every once in a while, this debate ends with someone fetching the ladder.
Teddy carries the ladder all the time. He is the official ladder boy. He can't be much older than eleven, but he's been doing this job since he was born. Child labor violation or not, teddy is the only person small enough to climb the precarious ladder without toppling it.
When they fetch Teddy, the ladder goes up with Teddy, and momentarily he comes back down with a photo. The frame remains, sitting empty like so many of the frames in this hallway do. These frames represent the roles in my life.
Although I do not direct the people in this room, they have been busily managing these frames for as long as I can remember. I have visited them only three times in my lifetime, and these visits happened in dreams. However, this hallway is as real to me as the room where I sit right now.

I remember the first time I realized that only people leave, not their frames. Each frame in that hallway has housed several people at one time or another. I suppose psychologists would hypothesize that I have invented this hallway to distance myself from loss, and perhaps they're right. But loss is a reality which every person has to face, and my method of dealing with loss was, and continues to be my hallway of frames.

Sometimes I pass a frame which has held some of the most precious people in my life, but even these frames were eventually emptied. It is the way of life. The person comes, I tend their photo with care, smile fondly at the sight of it, but eventually Teddy comes along and takes them away. It's not Teddy's fault. I don't blame him. In a way, he and I have become good friends, he is the only person who will never leave me. He is trapped in my hallway to execute my most painful and necessary tasks. He is consistent. He never grows, he never changes, he simply exists.

Some of the frames have never been filled. Some frames will probably never hold a picture. But each frame exists and is tended with the same care as the frames which hold pictures all the time. Some frames change their faces very often, some frames switch faces daily. But these frames are not the ones which mean the most to me. The frames which matter the most to me are often the ones which hang empty for months or years. It's easier to fill the frames which don't hold so much value in my eyes. The valuable ones hurt more when Teddy fetches his ladder.

Either way, important or unimportant, the frames never change. The role exists in my life, the only thing which is not certain is whether someone will fill that role or not.

My hallway of frames is growing as I grow. There are covered pictures gathering dust in the corner. Sometimes I go over and look at them, but not very often. They no longer exist in my life, so why should I waste time with them? Occasionally, when I look at an old photo, I find that I no longer care about it at all. These are the photos which I throw away, and they never return.

Overall, my hallway of frames makes sense in context with my personality. I strive for order, thrive in compartments and boxes. Every part of my life must be analyzed and labeled. The parts which are the hardest to categorize are often the parts which I avoid.

I tread through my hallway of frames with reverent steps. I smile at new additions, and mourn over recent losses. This is my reality, and within my reality I create imaginary havens like my hallway of frames. They are the unspoken places which provide me with delegation. No, I did not erase you from my life, Teddy did.

Driven...

Someday I'm going to die.....
There will be a moment, when the neurons in my head will pulse for the last time. The muscles in my heart will pound one last time, and the blood in my veins will carry their last load of life to my cells. The mitochondria in my cells will zip through their very last citric acid cycle. The cycle will arrive back at its origin, only to find no more nutrients waiting for it. No more water arriving, no more oxygen....no more life. The mitochondria will use up the ATP in about 10 seconds, and production will grind to a halt. My body of old, tired organs will kneel to the earth. My eyes, although rapidly drying, will no longer blink. It will be as if some cruel wizard has turned me into wax. Strangely still, my body, once humming with life will live no more.


Dying is such a strange though to me. It's so simple...yet so strangely complex at the same time.
We all have this tiny little battery, this life-spark which fights entropy every day. Naturally, the universal laws of life are constantly trying to tear us apart. Life in itself is an opposition of science. It really is a miraculous existence that we have been presented with. Every organ simultaneously keeps its neighbors alive and functioning. Sensing even the smallest molecular change, our bodies adapt every second, providing us with an equilibrium that we rarely even think about.
Anyone who has studied science and felt its addictive fingers grasp the thriving mind of the scholar can attest to the sense of awe which surrounds the whole field. Unlike most things in our world, life goes on effortlessly. Our bodies and the whole world around us forms a thriving engine, the complexity of which we could never even pretend to duplicate.


Even so, life is fragile. The entropy of the universe expands like a tsunami, and by all logic, life should not be able to withstand it. Every day we fight for our lives, endlessly feeding our unquenchable needs. We battle the pieces of us which constantly slow, needing fuel. We nourish our cells with water, and recharge our souls with sleep.
Every day we defy entropy, and every day entropy hisses
"Just wait, child, just wait. I always win in the end."

Science is beautiful and heartless at the same time. But why should we be surprised? Science has no heart. That's why it's so comforting to people who have been heartbroken, beaten, and abused by the hearts of this world.
The compulsive need for order which haunts my soul thrives in the comforting arms of science. There is mystery in science, but there is also consistency and order. Everything exists for a purpose, we exist only as spectators.

When we die, we do not disappear, atoms are not wasted in nature. We feed prokaryotes and are decomposed by beetles. We become part of the earth. In a way, everything we see is composed of our ancestors. The trees harbor their spark, the soil crawls with their remnants, the earth is one gigantic memorial for the people who lived before us.

It's almost as if the knowledge of the universe already exists, we only exist as its fingers, it's instruments.

Whatever the purpose of the universe really is, I am in it, and I do not intend to waste the opportunity to shake the world and seal it with my fingerprint. Whether divinely created, or naturally molded, the earth is chugging along like a well-oiled machine.

Science is the passion which pushes me towards my dreams. It fuels me like an atomic bomb, and lights the corners of my future like a laser. I am driven, I am determined, and I am in love.

JohnTV

Well this is a little strange for me to blog about, but in reality I'm just writing about things that I find interesting, so I guess this applies.
I found this channel on youtube today called JohnTV. They have a website as well, named JohnTV.com for obvious reasons. Anyway, the entire channel is devoted to chasing prostitutes out of Oklahoma City. This guy follows prostitutes that are picked up by "customers", waits until they are in a very compromising situation, then rushes up and videos them getting busted. He gets license plate numbers, video evidence, sends his tapes to the police, and posts them on youtube.

The whole point is to kill the myth that prostitution happens discretely. Instead, he presents evidence showing that streetside prostitution is a big problem, and not just in sketchy areas. Instead, he films prostitutes hanging around on corners where kids are playing, he watches them as they are taken to public parks and stores, he sees them dishing out services in cars in public places.

All of these things he sends, not only to law enforcement, but he posts online for the world to see. Often, when he scares the heebie-jeebies out of some prostitutes and her customer, he tells them they're going to jail, that they're going to be on the internet for people to see, that license plates have been recorded, and faces captured for eternity. He interviews prostitutes that he catches, customers who he can corner, and shames them to no end.

In some ways, his freestyle vigilante videos could be seen as harassment, but after watching just a video or two (which have all indecencies blurred out, by the way) one immediately begins to see the shameless way this public prostitution has sullied this otherwise pleasant city.
I have become a fan of this guy who shames these lewd horndogs, and I'm clearly not the only person who has taken a liking to his humorous and shocking version of justice. The videos on his site have acquired millions of views, and thousands of subscribers.

If you ever want a little humorous, yet eye-opening videos to watch, look up JohnTV on Youtube, you will not be disappointed.

Global Warming....and I Don't Care

I guess it's not so much that I don't care about global warming, but I'm not concerned.
Isn't it logical to say that necessity is the mother of invention? When someone makes an invention which won't sell we say that there's no market for it. No one wants it, or more accurately, no one needs it. If there is no necessity, the effort for creation is just not justified. The exact opposite of this phenomenon is the united movement of a race driven by necessity.

Sadly, this united effort to resolve a problem usually only happens once that problem has reach its maximum strength. Once an issue becomes an emergency, the whole community springs into action. We have seen this happen over and over again throughout history. Man is driven by crisis, and crisis itself is what unites an otherwise fractured community.

There has been much debate back and forth about whether or not global warming is an actual problem. Although there is much evidence both for and against this environmental change, only time will tell us who is right. Both sides are equally passionate about their respective opinions, and as with every other major debate, the supporters and those who are opposed continue to butt heads about who is right and who is wrong.

For me, global warming comes down to simple addition. In order for our planet to thrive, the same amount that we take away, we must also return. This is not the case. Although I am far from knowing all of the facts and statistics, I know that as a race, humans are wasteful and arrogant. We assume domination over our environment, and if our daily commute can be greatly decreased by paving a forested area, we will do so without considering whether it is our right to do so. We consume resources and create waste which does not decompose. It is not surprising that we would someday look around and realize that we are literally consuming our planet.

Now, I am by no means a tree hugger. I too live the same wasteful lifestyle which my neighbors and co-workers embrace. Changing the way that we live has to be a  united effort. We have the technology to cut down on our consumption of natural resources. We have the technology to improve our manufacturing and recycling methods. The only thing which we do not yet have is a sense of urgency. As it is, there is very little market for biodegradable products and electric cars. Because of the limited market, these products are often more expensive than their harmful counterparts. Most people, if given the choice between a cheap gas guzzling car and an expensive electric vehicle, will choose the gas-guzzling car simply because it is more convenient. The only way green technology and biodegradable products will become cheap enough to make them a viable option is if the revenue received from these products goes up. Think about it, if you are only selling one TV every month, you are going to have to sell that TV for a lot of money, but if more people start buying your TVs, you will be able to lower your prices without causing personal loss.
It is the same concept. The amount of people who care enough to go out of their way to buy a more environmentally-friendly product is fairly small right now. The market is limited, which makes the product itself more expensive. The only point when environmentally-friendly products will become more affordable for the general public is when the general public starts to care more about environmentally-friendly products. And let's face it, the only point when that will happen is when things get scary. Once things hit emergency status environmentally-friendly products will become a requirement. Laws will pass, large companies which are making wasteful products will be forced to change their policies.

The only way to make a difference for our environment is for us to step up as one force, united towards one goal. And the only way we will all become unified is for everything to hit the fan and scare us into action.

So there it is. I am too small and too insignificant to fix the environment all by myself. Sure, I try to do my part. Given the choice, I'm going to choose the better of two products. But overall, I'm not worried. Because everything will fall apart eventually, and once it does, everybody will wake up. We will become a sea of united Nations, and when we all stand up together I pity the source of our fury. Born in fear, our unity will make us an army.
I only hope that we wake up in time.

Gloating

I apologize blog-sphere, but I am going to fill this blog post with shameless bragging.

Recently I joined an online community of poets in order to find a social group where being a poet doesn't equal being lame. Since most people, including immediate family, do not know or have never read any of my poetry, I felt that my poetry has been sadly neglected for many years. I decided to pursue finding a more public outlet for my pieces, and very soon after making this decisions I created a profile on allpoetry.com. Along with being able to publish my poetry, allpoetry.com also offers many contests every month. Since I had recently joined the community, I got an invitation to join December's new member poetry contest, and I decided to enter.
I had originally intended to simply enter one of the poems that I have already written, but after reading the rules for the contest I found that none of the poems I already have would qualify. I began writing a new poem, one which would fit the guidelines for the contest, and several days later, I published this poem in the new member's poetry contest.

Immediately, I began getting messages praising the poem I had written, and although I found this to be very flattering, I didn't think much of the contest after that. Much to my surprise, the next time I logged in, there was a message in my inbox telling me that I had placed third in the contest! There were over 100 poems entered into the contest, and I had won the bronze medal! Along with the prize, I found out that an anonymous site member had purchased for me a six-month gold membership to the site, a subscription which was worth over $80! The only thing he or she asked in return for the membership was the request that I enter at least one contest every month. I was ecstatic! This contest has been the only poetry competition I have ever entered, and I was very well received!

Overall, allpoetry.com has provided me with a new outlet for my poetry, and a new source of inspiration. I am extremely happy that I decided to join this poetry community, and I'm sure that it will continue to feed my creativity for months to come.

If you would like to check out my winning piece, follow this link: (December Bride)

515.6 Gb

I was recently inspired by a friend of mine who lost a lot of precious computer data to take a good hard look at how I am currently backing up the stuff on my computer.

And what I found was that I really don't have a very good system right now. As it stands, I have a 2 terabyte hard drive on which all of my photos, documents, videos and everything else is stored. If anything happens to that hard drive....it's just all gone. Because of this realization, I opted to invest in a good cloud backup option.

Now there are scores of services which allow for a subscriber to back up their personal data online, but the service I was looking for needed to have a few essential things. For one, it needed to be a long-term option. I will always have computer data to store, and as a photographer, I have enormous amounts of computer data. All computers will eventually die, and if the computer's death comes without warning, it could drag all of your personal data down with it. This is a risk I can't take. I want a service which is provided by a strong, stable company. I wanted a company with a good track record and a consistent standard for good services.

Another factor which is a necessity for me is consistency. I don't want a service which increases the price as the amount of data grows. I wanted to find a service which offers a standard, consistent rate.

The third factor which is very important to me is compatibility with external storage. If the cloud service will only back up my computer, but will not back up external drives which are plugged and un-plugged as needed, then the cloud is useless to me.

After days of comparisons and price checks I went with Crashplan. (here's a link to their website if you want to check them out) The reason I went with them is because I could buy a 4 year subscription for a flat rate which doesn't increase as the amount of data added increases. The plan I bought literally has no data ceiling at all. This means that for the same price I could back up any amount of data. 4 gigabytes, or 88 terabytes, it's all the same. Also, it does not put a limit on the file sizes either. Some services will not allow you to back up files which are over a certain size, Crashplan makes no limitations. Crashplan data, when uploaded to the cloud, is stored in three locations. On my hard drives, in the Crashplan cloud, and at Crashplan's off-site locations. Except for an all-out apocalypse where all computer data is destroyed, it is impossible to loose data stored in this way.

Unfortunately, the sum total of the data on my computer's hard drive plus the data on my external hard drive is upwards of 500 gigabytes. This means that the initial upload will take a LONG TIME. Now, I can, for some extra money, have Crashplan send me an external hard drive which I would then use to back up all my data. I would then send the hard drive back to them, and they would put my data directly into the system, thus eliminating the need for a long draw-out upload process. However, it would take about two weeks for the hard drive to reach me and then get back to them. At that point, there is an added 3-7 days for "data processing". The whole process would take between 2-3 weeks. And this is about the amount of time needed to just simply upload it. So far, the plan is to just upload the data directly, but we'll see how that goes.

Overall I'm pretty happy with my choice and I will be thrilled for 4 worry-free years of data security. If all goes well I can renew the subscription at the end of the 4 years and continue onward. The price was extremely affordable, and the company is very stable and friendly.
Anyway, I guess I'll just be thrilled when the whole uploading process is over...I'll keep you posted.

Tech Madness

Want to know how to drive an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist technology nerd crazy?

 Release a new version of software, and then create a dumbed-down tutorial which doesn't explain all the new features.

Sometimes iTunes can be so infuriating! Today I spent several hours trying to figure out how to drag and drop a playlist from my iTunes library into my iPod. Yea, I know this makes me sound like an idiot, but Apple's newest version of iTunes, 11.0.1.12, is significantly different from their older versions. iTunes is extremely simple if you just choose to let iTunes auto-fill your device, but if you like to do things manually, things get a little more complicated. I like to do things manually because I would prefer if all the music from my iPod wasn't deleted by accident. Auto-fill runs this risk. I would rather watch and control the process so that I know everything is going where it is supposed to go.

Technical know-how is something which comes easily for me. In many ways, technology is a lot like science. All the pieces are complex, and everything fits together to form a complete, well-functioning whole. It is interesting, engaging, limitless, and I love everything about it. This is why this problem with iTunes bothered me so much. I think the reason I was so obsessed with it for the most part was because iTunes is so simple. 

If you encounter a problem involving theoretical physics which you don't understand, you will likely just walk away. But if you encounter a problem involving simple elementary concepts which is baffling you, it is going to drive you crazy! This is the same thing I was experiencing. 

I have the utmost respect and confidence in the technical developers at Apple. After all, they have consistently created hardware and software which is useful, cutting-edge, and functional. Because of this, when I found a popular feature missing from the newest version of iTunes, I assumed that it was still present, and I just needed to find it. 

Finally, after hours of tinkering and surfing through forums I stumbled onto the answer. That moment when you have conquered a problem which has been plaguing you is one of the most rewarding moments known to man. I smiled, and everything was better. Poof! The problem was gone! (Just as a side note, here is a link to the forum post where I described the problem and then later posted the solution: link)

I then went back to posts of other people who had the same problem and told them the solution. I could imagine others finding the solution which I labored over for hours and feeling that same joy. What a wonderful way to spread joy! 

I suppose maybe my obsessive need to find solutions could be considered unhealthy to some. After all, I shunned everything else I had planned to do today in order to find an answer to my problem. But the way I see it, doesn't every advancement in society, every improvement in human culture require someone with an unhealthy obsession to find the answer? Ingenuity comes out of necessity, and every great success has beneath it a mountain of backbreaking work, and a circle of people who were just obsessively determined enough to keep working where no one else would. 

I propose that obsession is not a problem that should be cured, but instead, it is a tool which must be controlled and shaped.