A Sad Weekend

I am saddened this weekend by the loss of two famous people.  Whitney Houston died yesterday afternoon, cause unknown.  Glen Campbell has not died yet, but he is dying slowly of Alzheimer's disease.

Whitney Houston had a fantastic singing voice, and she was beautiful as well.  She has left behind an incomparable singing legacy, and she even performed well as an actress in the movie "The Bodyguard" with Kevin Costner, a ground breaking movie at the time because of the interracial relationship portrayed in the movie.  Yet she paid a heavy price for her fame and talent.  Perhaps if she had a little less talent and a little less fame, she would have been more able to pay the price for her talent and fame, and Whitney Houston would still be alive today.  It is sad when someone dies so young (she was only 48 when she passed after all) and with such a talent, but it is even sadder to think what the drugs and alcohol did to her, that they caused her to lose that talent, and maybe ultimately, her life.

Glen Campbell has a great talent of his own, a talent for singing and for playing the guitar.  According to CBS Sunday Morning,  Glen Campbell played guitar on many recordings, including at least one recording of Frank Sinatra.  He even was a Beach Boy for 6 months before making records of his own and hosting a TV show for 4 years.  He has had many hit songs, and he acted with John Wayne in "True Grit".  He is 75 now, and last year he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.  Not only is there no cure for this disease, but it robs a person of who they are, their ability to remember things and remember people.  It robs people of their personality.  Glen Campbell is on his last concert tour, and his last album is now out.  Three of his children play in his band, including his daughter who helps him stay on track, especially during the concerts.  His life is slowly ebbing away, and it is so sad to see that happen to Glen Campbell.  It is so sad to see that happen to anyone.

No Man is an Island

No Man is an Island is the title of a poem by John Donne, an English poet who lived from 1572 to 1631.  Why am I bringing this up?  I am not known for reading poetry, or for knowing anything about poetry.  That is usually left to a fellow blogger Dan Verner, who is a retired English teacher.  However in one of my GED classes yesterday, the subject about being connected came up, and John Donne's famous poem came to my mind.  I remembered studying about it in high school, which is quite a feat for me at my age.  It is a short poem, but a very meaningful one.  So I recite it here.


No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 


As I see it, this poem is saying we are all connected to each other, that when we lose someone, we are in someway diminished.  A part of ourselves is gone, never to be retrieved.  Even if we do not know the person, we are affected by the death of this person, whether we realize it or not.  If a church bell is tolling for that person, it tolls for us as well.  A part of us has also died.


I am not sure when John Donne wrote this poem, in the 16th or 17th century, but obviously there was not much technology around then, not to today's standards.  I think he would be more than amazed to see the technology of today.  He would be amazed to see how connected we are through our social media of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and the like.  But are we really connected in the way John Donne would like us to be?  Do we feel the lose of someone on the other part of the world, or the lose of someone across the street?  We still fight each other.  We still hotly debate the issues of the day, but we debate in a personal and hurtful way.  We have the "my way or the highway" attitude.    


I wish people realized how connected we are to each other, not by our technology, but in a spiritual sense.  We are all human beings, and we have more things that are the same than are different.  If we focused more on the things we hold in common, perhaps we would get along a little better.  That may be a lot to ask, but if we don't ask, it won't happen.

You Get What You Pay For

The expression "you get what you pay for" has been around for a long time.  It generally means the cheaper something is, the less value for your money it has.  The more expensive something is, the more value it has.  This is not always true.  There are expensive items that are not worth the extra cost.  Sometimes you are paying more for the item's reputation and ad campaign versus how good a product really is.

I was reminded of this expression a couple of weeks ago in a very small way concerning my laundry detergent. For a long time I have used a detergent, which I will call brand A, that cost more than most other detergents.  In an effort to save a little money, I decided to switch to a cheaper brand, brand B.  I did not notice any difference in my clothes with brand B.  They all felt the same on me with one exception, my blue jeans.

My jeans felt real nice when I wore them the first day after washing them with brand A.  When I wore them a second day, my jeans did not feel as nice.  On the first day with brand B, my jeans felt like they did on the second day after washing with brand A.  I did not think much of it at first, but after a while, I began to realize why my jeans did not feel as good after washing them.  Sometimes I am a slow learner, but it finally sunk in that the cheaper brand was not as good as the more expensive brand.  My jeans were not as clean with brand B as they were with brand A.  I indeed was saving a little money, and over time, those little savings can add up to a big savings, but my clothes were not as clean.

Now I am have returned to brand A.  I may feel the extra cleanliness only in my jeans, but it makes me feel better when I know my clothes and anything else that I wash in the washer are cleaner.  I am keeping the container of the cheaper detergent I already have in case I need to wash something and I don't have any brand A available.

Now I understand better the expression "you get what you pay for".  Hopefully I will keep that expression in mind more when I am shopping.  That does not mean I will always buy the most expensive item.  It does mean that if something about an item is important to have, I will be more willing to pay the extra expense.

Reading is Fun

I have always enjoyed reading, whether I am reading strictly for pleasure or for studying something.  When I was a kid, I would borrow books from the library, read them all in two weeks, and then return the books back to the library and borrow more books.  I would do that more during the summer when I had more time to do so.  I don't quite read that much now, but I certainly do read something everyday.  I start each day by drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.  That time is my favorite part of the day.

I am currently reading the book 11/22/63 by Stephen King.   Mr. King is known for his horror books, but this book is a science fiction book.  The main character is able to travel back in time, and his mission is to stop the assassination of President Kennedy.  One day last week I was reading one passage where I found that I could not read the passage fast enough.  I could not turn to the next page fast enough.  However, I did pause enough in my reading to realize that I was having fun, a lot of fun.  I was really enjoying myself.  It was like I was on a roller coaster, and I wanted the vehicle to go faster and faster on the tracks.  The faster I went, the more I liked it.  It was quite a feeling.  It reminded me how I much I like to read.  You almost can say reading is a passion of mine.  I just don't read at home.  I like to go to Starbucks or Barnes & Noble, get a Vanilla Latte, and read a book or magazine.  If I go with someone to a shopping mall, while that person is looking around in a store or actually shopping, I will find a place to sit and read with another Vanilla Latte.  Now that I have a Nook Simple Touch, I am reading even more.  At least for me, reading is fun.

Changing My Blogs

In December 2010, I started my first blog.  I blogged for over 6 months fairly consistently, and then I stopped writing in July, the reason for stopping mainly being nothing came to my mind to write about (writers block?).  Then about two months ago I started writing again, but I wrote in a different blog that had the same name as the first blog but was under my Gmail email account instead of my AOL email account.  I wrote more about tech issues in the second blog, and I got at least one comment back indicating that person was not interested in tech issues.  That got me to thinking that maybe I should separate my writings into two separate blogs, one dealing with mainly tech issues and the other dealing with non-tech issues.

I have combined my two blogs under my Gmail account.  I am keeping the name of my first blog, Blog from a Florida Gator in Virginia, and that blog will contain postings of non-tech issues.  I have renamed my second blog Blog from a Florida Gator in Virginia with Geek Tendencies (not a big name change).  That blog will mainly deal with tech issues.  A lot of my tech issues come from Lockergnome.com, a Geek web site, but I will certainly be talking about tech issues from other sources, including myself.  It will be interesting to see how that works out, at least interesting to me.

Amazing, I never thought I would be a blogger, and now I have two blogs.  What is this world coming to.

Is There a Solution to this Mess?

In case you haven't been keeping up with the news about the crises over the budget deficit, we have a very serious problem in this country.  That problem is not the budget deficit and increasing the debt ceiling.  That problem is the inability of our leaders to solve problems.  We elected our leaders to run our government and to solve problems.  That is not being done.  All our leaders seem to be able to do is blame the other side on why a particular problem is not being solved.  All our leaders seem to be able to do is score political points at the expense of the other side.  All our leaders seem to be able to do is talk, talk, and talk.

I think I have a solution to this problem, but I do not have the power to implement this solution.  It is called binding arbitration.  Our leaders should be put in a room with no contact to the outside.  Then they work on a solution until they can all agree on it.  They will not be let out of the room until a solution is found and agreed upon.  Whatever the solution is, that will be the solution that will be implemented.  No debate. 

Obviously binding arbitration can't be used for every problem, especially in a democratic society.  However, binding arbitration has been used when there is no other way to forge an agreement.  We seem to be in that situation now with the issue of the debt ceiling and the budget deficit.  Just when we are getting close to an agreement, the talks breakdown when some group says no.  Some groups seem only to want to say no, and only no.  There is no willingness to compromise.  It is my way or the highway, to coin a phrase.  Our government can't work with this kind of attitude.  Our government, at least our government in Washington, is not working now.  Both sides are to blame.  I have my opinions about who is more to blame, but that doesn't matter.  I just want an agreement so that this country will not default on its financial obligations.  The long term consequences of defaulting will hurt us all in the long run.  I am tired of the blame game being played by our leaders.  What the people of this country want is for this problem to be solved so that we do not default, and then we can move on to try to solve the other big problems that we have.  Our leaders have been elected to solve our problems.  If they can't find a way to do that, then we will find someone who can do that.

I am Addicted to my Smart Phone

I admit it.  I am addicted.  I am addicted to my smart phone.

My addiction started when I bought a HTC Sensation 4G smart phone from T-Mobile a week ago last Thursday.  I have been wanting a smart phone for a long time, but I did not buy one because I had higher priorities (like eating).  My old cell phone was a flip phone with two basic functions that I used, making and receiving phone calls and texting (to a small extent).  This phone was really all I needed in a phone.  I dropped my land line over two years ago, and my cell phone kept me in contact with people everywhere I went.  The problem was my old cell phone was starting to have issues.  It started to miss phone calls even though the phone was right next to me.  My phone would still tell me that I had received a voice message from the person who just tried to call me.  Also, my phone started not to match the person's name with the phone number even though that person was in in my contact list.

The problems with my old cell phone was an excuse, a very valid excuse, for me to buy a smart phone.  I had heard and read all about the things smart phones can do.  I felt like I was missing out on something, that I was behind the times.  I saw people engaged with their smart phones ( they were smart phones, not cell phones, because they were not talking on their phones), and I wanted to be doing the same thing because everyone was doing it.  I did not want to miss out on the experience they were having.  It must be a good experience because they would keep doing whatever they were doing on their smart phones.  They would be oblivious to what was going on around them even though they were with other people.  They were enjoying themselves.  They might not be talking to anyone near them, but they were certainly connected to other people in other places, even to people around the world.  They did not have to be at home to do this, nor did they have to bring their laptop with them.  They just had to bring a small device that fits into a pocket or small purse, and they can be connected to almost anyone.  How cool is that?

My salesperson at the T-Mobile store at the Dulles Town Center did not have any trouble selling this phone to me.  You can see why.  However, I now realize I have a problem with this new phone.  I take this phone everywhere.  I not only do that (I did that with my old phone), but I doing something with it all the time.  Part of that is the time I am taking to learn how to use the phone.  There are so many functions, apps, and widgets on that phone.  I have also installed some apps and widgets.  I can now check my email on this phone.  I access Facebook and Twitter.  I look at videos on YouTube.  I check my bank balance.  I check the standings of golf tournaments.  I check the weather forecast.  I use the GPS function to help me get somewhere.   I do some of these things even when I go to bed (not the GPS part, obviously)..

I now feel like I know something about drug addition.  Being addicted to my cell phone is not the same as being addicted to drugs.  I am not physically addicted to the phone.  I may be mentally addicted to my phone though.  I feel better mentally when I am doing something on my phone.  It is so much fun.  Of course, drug addiction may have a mental component to it as well.  Drugs can make you feel better, too.  Hopefully, I will not have to go to some organization like AA to get over my addiction.  Hopefully, I will get over the newness and excitement of this new toy.  I do worry about some people who really do seem to be addicted to their phones or other electronic devices.  Being engaged with their device seems to be all they do.  I hope this is not creating a society where there is no personal social connection, and all connections are via electronic devices.  That is not a society I want to live in.