Tag: technology

Ghost in the Machine

This past Monday was the first time I’ve cried over technology.

stone woman's face KC Plaza
stone woman’s face, Kansas City Plaza

Don’t know exactly what happened, but for a short time my blog site went down, refusing to show anything but post titles. If it hadn’t been for Bluehost, it might still be down.

Nick the Bluehost tech guy and I ruled out the GoDaddy hacking debacle. We suspect it had to do with a WordPress update. But who really knows what technology is capable of these days? The more we worked on it, the worse it got.

Alas, I’m a ghost in the machine.

If you’re of a certain generation, you’ll remember The Police album Ghost in the Machine. If you’re younger, I’m sorry you missed it. Just kidding. The Police were Sting’s former band.

My new best friend Nick restored my blog from a copy saved the day before. All I lost was what I’d written Monday and, for a few tense moments, my sanity.

What does that mean, ghost in the machine?

Are we merely spirits outfitted in flesh and wandering haphazardly through the mechanics of this world? In my heart I know despite what Madonna says, the material world doesn’t matter. It’s going, going, and someday will be gone.

But I live in the here and now. I breathe the physical. As much as my soul is me, so is my body me. And so is my work, my family, my home, and country, all part of the material world I inhabit. The time and space. The machine.

When the machine’s broken, it’s desperately hard to remember the machine isn’t all there is.

Times Square blur
Times Square blur

What poor creatures we are, living with one foot in the decaying world of trolls, cancer, and terrorism, while the other stretches for a world yet to be made new.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2 Corinthians 4:16-17 NIV

You knew this was coming: Spirits in the Material World by The Police.

Ever feel like a ghost in the machine?

 

Posted on by Aimee 8

Linky Dos

evening on the farm, September 4, 2011

Good evening, night owls.

It’s late and tomorrow’s post is all queued up for the morning. Simply had to take a moment to share how much I’m enjoying these Linky Party things on blogs.

Linked up for the first time a couple weeks ago with Somewhere in Pennsylvania for Wordless Wednesday on friend Katie Pinke’s Pinke Post.

Then tonight I linked up with Sweet Slice to Family Friday on Zweber Family Farm News, a blog run by a super cool organic dairywoman, and I linked up with The Tale of Two Heifers to Farm Friend Friday on Verde Farm, one of the absolute sweetest farm blogs I’ve seen.

Two requests:

  1. If you are having one of these parties on your blog and I know about it, I am so there. This is a terrific way to read material from far and wide and share your stuff too.
  2. Once I figure out how to do this on WordPress, I’m throwing a party and you’re invited. So get your blog on and get ready to get down. (If you already happen to know how to do this on WordPress or if you have any Linky Party advice, the floor is yours in the comments.)

Tonight I also left a comment on an editorial post I liked on World Magazine. How cool is that? And to think, you can do it too. Anyone can. It’s like free-range media—a dream come true—and I’m lovin’ it!

Wise men and women are always learning,
always listening for fresh insights. Proverbs 18:15 The Message

Get Down with Audio Adrenaline because my Linky Party’s on the way and because I like this song. Buona notte!

Posted on by Aimee 4

Dream Sequence

Remember earlier this month we got a new Mac to replace our dying Dell?

Over the weekend, took the Mac back to the techies at the store for the data transfer. The wait was five days when we bought it. Now it’s only 48 hours. Gulp.

True, it’s been a bit of a circus hopping between two machines. Will be nice to have everything on one computer again. But I was becoming proficient.

Felt like I was commanding the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. “Uhara, pull up the photos on the Dell. Spock, hit Publish on the Mac. Beam me up, Scotty!”

Maybe it’s the anxiety of being laptop-less for a couple days that got to me. Whatever it was, last night I had the strangest dream.

I dreamed I traveled to a writing seminar where there were no computers. It was old school, the way we used to do things. Back in the 80s.

In the course of my stay, I ran out of paper. So I wrote poetry on the bed sheets in my room, folded them, and turned them in as my project. My thesis. My magnum opus. And I passed with highest honors.

Read into it what you will. It was sweet and it was mine.

Now give me back my laptop, Mac guys, before I start writing on your sheets too.

And they replied, “We both had dreams last night, but no one can tell us what they mean.”

“Interpreting dreams is God’s business,” Joseph replied. “Go ahead and tell me your dreams.” Genesis 40:8 NLT

Last night I had the strangest dream… Oh, I already said that. Enjoy Blue Lagoon’s fun 2004 cover of Matthew Wilder’s Break My Stride.

as seen at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Dreams by Langston Hughes (1926)

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is
a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Posted on by Aimee 2

Welcome to the Wild West

image used with permission from Dan Dreyfus, dreyfusphoto.com

Life on the blog is life on the wild frontier. Bring your bravado. There’s no established etiquette, no paved roads, and often no rules.

How many posts per week? One, two, seven? How long should they be? There are no rules.

Should every post be announced on Facebook or is that annoying to your friends? What about your friends who only know about a post if you announce it? Should you ask them to subscribe? There are no rules.

What about RSS feeds? You can’t see them. How do you know you can trust them?

What about a Facebook page for your blog? Rihanna’s page has more than 42 million likes. What’s the harm in suggesting your kemosabes like yours? What good is it if you never reach 42 million? There are no rules.

Should you tweet? What qualifies me, a lone ranger, to have a Twitter account? What qualifies me to have a blog? There are no rules.

Speaking of lone ranger, should you join a blogging network? Seems helpful to form alliances with fellow cowpokes, but this desperado is right fond of her freedom. Will a network support or hinder it? There are no rules.

image used with permission from Winsdown Farms, winsdown.com

What if someone knowingly borrows your ideas or words without a link back, credit or notification? Should you challenge the outlaw to a shootout at sundown? Hope they ride off into the sunset never to copycat again? There are no rules.

What about photos? WordPress suggests using your own pictures or grabbing photos off the net and crediting sources. Copyright, anyone?

What about excerpts or ideas from other writers like Hope Edelman, Hara Estroff Marano, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, or Erica Jong? Is it okay if you credit and notify them? These authors didn’t seem to mind when I did it. They sent me kind emails, not cease and desist orders.

What about YouTube, that roving band of gunslingers wearing 36 black hats at least? Should you wait for the lawyers to draw lines in the sand?

And what comes of all this? Is blogging really a job if you don’t get paid? Is the next step to write a book? A screenplay? Secure a sponsor? Wrangle a doggie? Settle down in some quiet little town and forget about everything?

We drive on into the unknown for love of the great wide open. For breathtaking sunsets on the edge of civilization. There’s a lot to learn. Some of it we make up as we go. Have to because the landscape itself is in a state of flux.

image used with permission from Dan Dreyfus, dreyfusphoto.com

So sidle up to the saloon and raise a toast. To the west, young woman, as far as this horse will take you.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. Hebrews 11:8 NIV

Happy trails, pardners. Before you go, check out Don’t Fence Me In by David Byrne of Talking Heads. You may find yourself humming it all weekend long.

Special thanks to my friend Kari for use of the photos of her beautiful horses.

Posted on by Aimee 2

The Lost Art of Tying Shoes

strap-on-and-go velcro

Visiting with one of my professor friends last week when she asked if my six-year-old could tie his shoes yet.

“No,” I said. “And it’s because of that blasted velcro.”

She heartily agreed. Her child, the same age as my son, can’t tie his shoes either. They haven’t had to learn. All their shoes are strap-on-and-go velcro or pull-on-without-socks Crocs.

We reminisced like a couple of centenarians.

“We didn’t have the luxury of velcro.

“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know how to tie my shoes.”

“These kids nowadays have it so easy.”

We laughed at ourselves and decided the boys will learn before adulthood to tie their shoes. Probably before year’s end. Pulling the bunny ear through the hole seemed to come so naturally to us. It won’t mystify our children forever.

Four days later, I entered the Apple store with my husband and our helpless child who can’t tie his shoes.

It was time for a system update. Our PC was gasping its final cyber breaths. You PC people are cringing as you read this. Don’t blame me. It was the intuitive, irresistible brilliance of the iPhone that lured me back to Mac.

Our state was having a tax-free weekend so the store was packed. When our turn came, I proceeded to ask elementary questions of the young, hip salesperson like, “Well, how do I make my email come up when I click the button that looks like the postage stamp?” and “Can’t you download all that stuff for me?”

angry bird

Then I remembered my child. He was no longer standing with us. Momma Bear panic kicked in. My head turned frantically in search of him. Where was my cub?

Within two seconds I had a visual. My cub had hooked himself up at an iPhone display where he was doing major damage on Angry Birds.

Happy as a clam. Oblivious to things like time and space and parents. Adeptly navigating the technology alone.

So he can’t tie his shoes. He’ll learn. Today there are bigger fish to fry.

“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18 NIV

Ever feel like the technology’s taking over? So did I. Back in 1983. Hang on to your time machine. We’re going old school. Very old school. Presenting the rock opera (my son loved watching this by the way) Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.

Posted on by Aimee 16