From Here to Eternity

Technology can be a lot of fun.  Being a new owner of a smart phone, and of course, being me, just using the technology is not enough.  If technology can be fun, messin' with technology, to use the vernacular, is funner!

Now, my particular smart phone has GPS, and even better, turn-by-turn navigation, complete with vocal (female) instructions.  This is a boon to me for finding job sites.  Anyone who has had to traverse the subdivisions around here to find an address, will invariably end up at the end of an unfinished street within a stone's throw of their intended destination  So close, yet so far.  Well, no more.  The voice on my phone navigates me right to the doorstep now.  Wonderful!

So why would I want to mess with that?  (see above: something about me being me)  'Cause I can.  And I do.

Ok, today I need to go to the local grocery store.  Really don't need directions for that, but what the heck, let's make my destination.......hmmm...... Nome, Alaska...... and see what happens.  Well, I imagine you have a pretty good idea that my little companion tries her best to keep me on course, but despite her valiant attempts at routing and rerouting me, I persist in ignoring her every suggestion.  With unflappable determination, her only goal is to get me to Nome even though the store is only a matter of a few blocks from my house.

This is entertaining for a while, but I get bored, and maybe even feeling a little bad for this stoic device. Is that weird, feeling empathy for an electronic device?   Oh heck no, we do it all the time with any manner of inanimate objects.....and this one has a voice!  So we kiss and make up..............just kidding.  One caveat:  guys, don't try this with a real navigator on board (your wife).  Your smart phone may end up trying to finds its way out of  where the sun don't shine.  You've been warned.

Well, the Alaska experiment was semi-fun, but I just know this thing is capable of so much more.  Time to really put it through it's paces.  Anyone can find Nome, Alaska eventually, but how about some less concrete destinations:  Oh yeah, we're going to get directions to Heaven and Hell!

Nervously, I type in Heaven.  I feel like I'm dabbling in the occult or something.  Should I really be doing this?  Can this phone actually tell me how to get to Heaven, and as a second choice, Hell (assuming of course, that I might end up at the end of an unfinished road just a stone's throw from Heaven)?

GPS be damned, full steam ahead my pretty!  I hit search.  The little machine springs to life: .....searching for Heaven...........

As it turns out, there are a lot of Heavens.....who knew?  Let's see, there's Husker Heaven....I suppose where all good Huskers go.  There's Hog Heaven....can only imagine how it looks.  There's Children's Heaven Daycare.....apparently no sleep overs in Heaven.  And many, many more.

Actually this is kind of amazing news, and makes a lot of sense if you think about it.  Would you want to spend eternity with those not of similar interests and values, ages, etc.?  I personally am not a big football fan, so Husker Heaven would not be a good fit for me.  Actually, it would be a lot like.......well, you know.

This was good!  My smart phone has helped answer a centuries-old question.  Yet, one still remains:  where in the heck is Hell?

Again, with more trepidation then last time, I type in my destination:  Hell.  No, dammit, not Help, Hell.  Stupid tiny virtual keyboard.   ......searching for Hell........

You can be relieved to know that picking out your personal Hell is easier than picking out Heaven.  There's only one, which makes sense, and it is in Michigan, which also makes sense.  That's right all you sinners, I can now tell you with all certainty, that you are going to Hell, Michigan.  Smart phones don't lie.

I have to assume that there are probably a lot of you wondering what's in store for those that might end up in Hell.  Not you, of course, right?
As luck would have it, Hell has a website: http://www.hell2u.com/index.htm.  Feel free to check it out, and don't forget to write.  I'll be picking out just the perfect Heaven for me.

Ain't technology fun?

"I've Got Blisters On My Fingers" - John Lennon

When my wife and I were first working on the old derelict house we bought, my brother-in-law came up to me and said something that has stuck in my memory banks for years: "You know, I really don't like tools".  I suppose that has stayed with me because it was such an odd thing to hear.  How can you *not* like tools?  It was, I'm sure, an innocent and casual remark, but the implications are enormous and I see the effects of that mind-set in our society.



Tools, to some, mean just work; dirty, dusty, sweaty,  hands-on manual labor.  Oh yeah, I can attest to that, having spent more than thirty years living in that world.  It's all true.  Also true is living with the stigma of being in manual labor.  Manual labor is not a four-lettered word, but it might as well be.  Just recently, I had dinner with a friend from high school whom I hadn't seen in forty years.  He is now a vice-president of something-or-other with a large corporation.  In the course of our dinner conversation, he looked at me and asked:  "You're not still doing the work part, are you?".  And there it is.

Tools to others (myself included), are simply the instruments used in the process of creating.  I think this is the part most people fail to understand.  There are those of us who need to create.  This is what drives us.  This is what gets us out of bed and into our dirty, dusty, sweaty workplaces everyday. And at the end of the day, we need to be able stand back and see what we have produced, as we bandage ours fingers and put away our tools.

I think it is this lack of understanding and acknowledgement that bothers me.  I don't for one second think that people don't like tools.  Quite the contrary.  I think we have a great love of tools in this country.  This love of tools keeps the big box stores' doors open.  But we've lost a connection somewhere along the line.  Somehow, the pursuit of money for money's sake has moved too far ahead in acceptance and importance from doing what is real and concrete.

We are craftsmen, we are skilled labor and we are independent as hell.  We have no problem with getting "down and dirty", and  we are the legacy of the American Spirit:  We have created and will continue to create a body of work that will serve society.  That *is* real and concrete.

Frosting on the Cake

Every once in a while we get a treat.
After all the back and shoulder pain suffered from shoveling snow,  Mother Nature has rewarded us with an exquisite landscape frosted with delicate ice crystals.  Every tree branch, every twig, every blade of exposed grass, has been transformed into a work of fine art.  Spider webs left from warmer times are now the most intricate bits of lace hanging from eaves and gutters.
The dull monochrome exterior of Winter is now an awe inspiring display of nature's finest work, unrivaled by the hands of man.
We do not possess the tools, nor the ability to create what nature can create with a bit of water and cold air.  We are crude imitators.  Our best is to be mimics; plagiarizers.
And so it should be, for how else could we become inspired?  If the world's artisans and writers had the ability to rival nature, to match its beauty and expose all of its secrets, they would quickly lose interest, and their recipients, you and I, would become bored and jaded.
No, every once in a while we get a treat, and I, for one, am okay with that.