iPod therefore iAm

Do you ever get a song stuck in your head? You know like.....wait, I won't do that to you. But you know what I mean. A song in your head that interrupts the background noise of your life. It may even be a song that you like. Anyway this stuck song thing got me to thinking about background music. To be specific, the background music of my life.

I remember a comic strip, probably from the '60's called Mr. Abernathy, in one particular strip, he is exiting a movie theater and comments that he thinks all of life should have background music, just like the movies. Well, most of my life I have created my own background music, humming or whistling tunes I like. And then in my work life came Muzak, the tunes you can't escape. The background music of movies you never saw, or bands you never listened to all pumped into your life. All my years of working in retail stores, a person got so used to the loop of music being played, that you anticipated what the next song was. It was extremely annoying,... wait, next is the instrumental version of, .. wait for it... "Hey Jude" or some other rock song. But it just didn't sound quite right.

With all this music floating around and a huge choice of radio stations, and the tech advance to a CD where you can pick the sound you want to listen to without rewinding the tape of having to wait until the song comes up, everyone should have background music. But, I guess it wasn't enough. Welcome to the iPod world.

I received an iPod for Christmas, well, honestly, I asked for it. And now, wow, I can create my own background music for anytime, any occasion and any kind of music.

The prevalence of the iPod nation has been amazing to me, and yet, now that I have an iPod, I have seen an inkling of the obsessiveness. In the world of "me, mine and personal space" the iPod has taken that all to a new inner level. Mr. Abernathy's background music is fed directly to my ears, anytime, anyplace. iPod will even help you understand where you need this background music.

I was surprised when I downloaded my first music that there was a play list already waiting to be filled titled "Running Music" and one "On the Go" indicating that iPod understood and anticipated that I would not always be sitting still while engaged in the iPod mode. It seems that a majority of runners or walkers are sporting wires from their ears, even when running with someone else.

At a recent organized trail run on a 22 degree January day, many people had wires leaking out from under their stocking caps. As I looked around at these people I saw one young man with wires had actually taped his "buds" to his ears with black electrical tape. iPod has become, motivator, coach and guru of escape. I am defined by my play list, and recognized by my status of wiredness. It seems, iPod, therefore I am in my own little world, is where the culture is headed.

I experienced a disheartening example of iPod behavior last spring at the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. This marathon was established to remember those who died in the terrorist attack of the federal building on April 19, 1995. Each race starts with the national anthem and a time of silence to remember those who died. My first year there I was amazed and moved, that over 1000 people could be that quiet for over 60 seconds. It is very moving. This year it was a cold miserable rainy morning,( this all starts at 6am). As the race started and we began running I heard a iPod wired guy bragging to his running buddy, "Hey, you know during that national anthem and the silence time thing, man, I was rocking out to Guns and Roses." How sadly disrespectful, I wanted to trip the guy, he would never had heard me coming, there in his own sad little iPod world.

iPeace

Do Do Do Lookin' Out My Front Door!

Well, I have to admit it, I am one with the Facebook nation, who reportedly, number in the millions. And on Facebook I have reconnected with some old friends, avoided others and sought still more.
In my Facebook world the "25 Things About Me" list has been circulating. This is an invitation to list 25 things about yourself, and you choose what they are. Following close behind are other lists with specific questions to answer, I don't do those. What I like about the "25" is that I choose to share what I want, no right or wrong. I can inflate my ego and tell of my great deeds, or I can talk all about how others are so important to me. I can thank God or curse Him, my choice.
I have some very creative friends, one did the list and said it was best when sung to the tune "Turkey in the Straw" which I'm sure everyone under the age of 25 knows by heart (ha!). It was cool. My own list was mostly revealing one liners "#3 I hate black olives", like that, short straight to the point and very very character revealing. Some friends were able (including Turkey in the Straw person) to write their life story in a 25 point biography, I was impressed. Like all things that go around the cyber world, "25" has become bit of a pest, and thus has spawned critics of not only the list but of Facebook. Someone sent me a list of "25 Things about Facebook" mostly humorous comments, that in a veiled way made users of Facebook seem naive and perhaps way too needy of something, although what was never made clear.
I responded and as I did, I came up with this thought about what Facebook is. I have described it to some as "community" or "place to reconnect", but tonight I thought of a different analogy: Front Porch.
In a nostalgic scene from a 1940's or 50's world where after supper people would walk through their neighborhood or down the road they might see a neighbor sitting on the front porch smoking, or drinking lemonade or just sitting, it was almost required to stop and visit, catch up on the news, gossip and remember events past. To me at the moment, that is Facebook.
I personally don't look at it more than once or twice a day, but in those moments I can catch up on what people are up to. I get new jokes, I learn little tidbits. "25" that my friends sent out let me into a more personal world, one that in this run, run, run, busy, busy, busy world, we don't have much time to explore. It's fun, and with common sense it's safe, and you can find out secrets about people. The list about Facebook said that someday someone will post high school pictures of you on Facebook, and what big hair you had. This has already happened, pictures from high school of our younger son, Brent, surfaced. It had all his group of friends he hung around with, including Karen (we didn't know it then) our future daughter-in-law. This was nostalgic and brought back fond parental memories. When I mentioned it to them, Karen said that she wasn't happy about that, and warned her friend "I have pictures too!" That too is part of Facebook, what goes around comes around, so be careful out there.
All in all Facebook will probably burn itself out , but for now if you want to stop and visit on my front porch, feel free.
Peace

Slow down, your're moving too fast....

January 2009: The wind is blowing 30 mph, the real temperature is 17 degrees F, it is typical January. Yesterday it was 53 degrees at noon, by 6pm it was 36. But I don't have the blues about any of this. While on Facebook, Regina (the lovely wife) noticed some friends posted they were going hiking. With this inspiration, we decided to ditch plans to work around the house (I had taken a vacation day), and headed for Busiek State Park, about 20 minutes south.
When we left home it was a balmy 42 degrees but sunny.
We arrived, drove past the quarry that operates butt-up against the park, parked near the shooting range,and headed up the switch-backs of the "Purple Trail". It was beginning to warm up. I had a black shirt on, and the sun on my back was hot, making me sweat.
This particular part of the trail has a great view of the valley that small and often dry creek Wood's Fork runs through. This is also the trail that some "crazy trail runners" of which I am one, use for training. Today was the first time I had walked the whole trail and got to really see what was there.
The cool thing about switch backs on a trail or a road is that you can look back where you came from, see your progress and take in a bigger view as you go. When we were about half way up, we stopped and I saw down below another car had parked by the trail head. I could see someone making preparation to hike, trunk of car open backpack on the ground, etc. .. I figured we were moving fast enough we would stay ahead of them. Like I said I had only run this trail, and the amount of time it took us to get to the top, was about the same as what it took me running to get all the way around to where it comes back down. Anyway we stopped and took some pictures and went on our way, leisurely enjoying time together, time without real time constraints.
As we got to the top, I looked back to see if the other hiker had was in sight, nope, nobody back there. Just as I turned around Regina said something like "we're not alone" and there in front of us was the other hiker. This person, I couldn't tell male of female, had bushwhacked, up the side of the hill, ignoring at least part of the switchbacks, and now was on top, ahead of us.
This made me think, "What is your hurry?" but I quickly had to withdraw that remark, because it was too self- incriminating. Today I wasn't in a rush, but only for today. I am usually weighing how much time something will take against how that time would be better spent, and as I said this was the first time I had WALKED this trail, not ran it. When I ran it was with the idea of being ahead, on top.
So as we continued to hike along, stop and take pictures of ourselves, the other hiker was soon out of sight. We stopped to look at the only green in the woods, moss, on the ground and on trees The moss seemed to be especially glowing, showing off even, in the filtered January sunlight.
Completing the loop, we walked along the dry creek bed, gravel probably a foot of two deep in places and discovered a spring coming out of the rocky creek bank. It was cheerfully gurgling over bedrock and disappearing under the gravel of the creek bed. We took pictures of each other at a place where another spring had created an ice cave of sorts, hanging from the rock bluff. We took our time, and in total spent about 2 and half hours just slowing down and accomplishing, by measure of the normal world, not much. It was the most fun we had had in a while. That in itself is a very sobering statement. We should have stayed longer, but there were other things calling that "needed" to be done.
I write this, not to brag that we have thrown off some of the chains of "doing", but to hopefully remind me (and perhaps you) that life is short, and we need to ....."make the morning last", because if you do at the end you'll be "Feelin' Groovy!"

A new Mr. President and some change..

As a nation, we are just a couple of days from a historic event. A new President. All the news channels are abuzz about just how HISTORIC the swearing in of Obama will be. There will be change, yes there will be, you betcha! But this blog is not about politics, it is today about observations of change.
This morning my wife and I watched our 5 year old grandson play his very first basketball game. This is the kindergarten league at our church and it seems oh so simple, basketball that is. For all but a few of these kids, up until now, a gym was not for basketball, it was a place of freedom. No obstacles, a wide open space, where when the rules were relaxed you can run and run and run. A place of inventing variations on the game of tag, or chase, or racing anything. Unstructured in a large open structure. It was great! Today, and all the nights of practice changed all that, well at least it should have.
We laughed and said we love this league, the league where the players don't all run onto the court, some skipped, others hopped. A league where dribbling the ball is a constant battle against gravity, where forward motion of yourself and another object has yet to be mastered.
This is a learning league. The coaches are on the court directing and encouraging, as are the referees. Helping shots go in and even a couple of times a referee lifting someone off the floor to dunk. The coaches and referees all watching to make sure that everyone who is playing touches the ball,or gets a shot, reinforcing that everyone played today.
That was the game today, nobody got called for walking with the ball, which they did a lot of, or double dribble, which they did very little since they hardly dribbled at all, they just had fun. For some the object of the day was to see how loud they could make their footfalls be as they ran down the court, grinning all the way.
Later we watched the older brother play, he's 10, this will be his fourth year of play. What a change. It was still fun, but much more serious, and the refs did blow their whistles a lot more. There was still encouragement and fun on the floor. Smiles and cheers for both teams, but somehow, it changed from the kindergarten game. The intensity was higher as well as expectations. There were no players skipping onto the court. But, the smiles were just as big when a basket was made and the cheers for good plays still rang in the room. Expectations were higher, but the fun was still there. It was just different. Something had changed.
When change comes we may regret that it makes life different, but as the old saw goes, "if you ain't changing you must be dead!" So I'll take the change in basketball style in stride and adjust my fan status as needed. I also will look at the change to come in the country and remember my favorite words from the Bible "and it came to pass.."
Peace.

Of Flea Markets and Landfills

Today is Tuesday, trash day. Of all the events that have importance on the weekly calendar, Tuesday cannot be missed. The big truck comes by around 8:30 or 9am, stops for maybe a minute and carries off what has taken a week to collect. In the last year or so we have become more intentional in recycling and so if we miss a week of feeding the trash truck, our trash can will have room for another week of collecting. Collecting, that is what we do as Americans, we collect. Each week I save up all the unwanted stuff and send it to the big collection place in the city where it is transferred to bigger trucks that take it to the bigger collection place, the landfill. Landfill is itself an interesting word, seeing as how most of the time, the trash I send is not filling up the land, the land is already full. The landfill people, just scrape off some of the land and pile the trash high and then cover it with what they scrapped off. Now the collection is covered.
This past weekend my wife and I partook in one of our fun activities, we went flea-marketing. Almost always we have some goal or item or "collectible" which we are looking for, this time we did not. And so we spent more time just looking, it gives us time together that doesn't require reservations or much planning at all. As we were going through these monuments to the American way of life and desire, it occurred to me that the line between flea markets and landfills is very thin.
Nearly every flea market you shop in has some really good stuff, stuff that is new or looks like new. There are booths that are decorated with the stuff of the past and are much fancier than any room in our home. But in almost everyone of these markets you will find an area or a couple of booths that are filled with stuff that looks just like what the trash man picked up at your house last week. So in all this shopping around on Sunday, it suddenly dawned on me that each and every person really should have a flea market booth. It makes so much more sense than paying someone to take your trash and bury it. It really is the ultimate recycle center.
I thought of all the flea markets just in our area and was grateful to the people who had opted not to make more trash heaps, but to display there cast offs, and occasionally make a dollar off someone like me. I tried to imagine how many cubic yards of dirt it would take to cover all the iron, aluminum, tin and plastic in the flea markets in southwest Missouri, or how much pollution would be pumped into the air from burning all that furniture, paper and wood. This thought process made me look at the whole world of flea markets and antique stores in a new light. Now each time I pass those rundown building with a poorly lettered "Antiques" sign, I will be thankful that someone will take the time to sort their castoffs, display them and live in hope for a dollar here or there . I'm thankful for flea markets, they are helping save the Earth. I'm also thankful for those green bottles I needed for a garden project and that John Denver and the Muppet's VHS I got for a dollar. See you at the landfill, er, flea market! Peace.

There goes the Sun!

"At last the sun touched the skyline, merged with it for a moment in a final explosive blaze of light an heat and sank out of sight. " Edward Abbey, author: Desert Solitare
Everyday that happens somewhere on this planet, in New York City, in Australia, at the beach in Hawaii someplace significant. Funny how it seems people are always remembering that special sunset with that special someone in that special somewhere.
My blog title refers to where I live with my wife, 3 dogs and a cat. It's 3 acres on the corner of a farm of memory. A place where someone had a small orchard, kept calves in pens near the barn and gardened. On top of this ridge on the Ozark Plateau, two pear trees still struggle to bear some fruit, walnut trees sprout and iris fight their way up through fescue in the field next to our property line.
Here the wind always seems to blow and no matter where strike the ground to dig with shovel, hoe, or pick, there will be, at that precise place, a rock, some sizable some not, but always a rock. Because of promince of wind and rocks we have dubbed our little garden spot "Windrock" or more formally "Windrock Gardens". Lying beneath the wind and mixed with the rocks there's also a little dirt. With that said, the main feature that brought us here almost 6 years ago, is what Abbey described in his quote.
Everyday, clear or cloudy, the sun completes it's journey in the west, and there just off our deck is a memorable sunset. We have become somewhat snobbish about this, to the point that when we are driving somewhere and see a great sunset, my wife or I will usually say, "Not as good as at home!"
A few weeks back a low cloud ceiling gave us one of those memorable sunsets, it was sensational. A week later a photo and story showed up in the local paper. The writer commented that even people in the Best Buy parking lot were looking up. It was spectacular. I think they all are. Spectacular in that they are unique, and for some a witness to the Creator of all things. I remember that sunset, I even have a half dozen pictures, but none of them are as good as the memory. They never are. So when the sun goes down today, pay attention, it will be something to see! Peace.

Running to the New Year

Yesterday was the 9th annual Run for the Ranch race event, 5k, 10k, Half and Full Marathon. I ran the 10k. With a goal of finishing in the best time I could. It was a great day for running, my goals in races these days is to finish, and not be too low in the rankings. The race was 2 loops, I did the first in 22:47, decent, but I knew probably too fast for a good steady second lap. I was pleased at the half way point of that loop to be no longer be passed by anyone and to know that once I was up the last hill into the 15 mph wind it would be downhill to the finish. I passed a few people in the last block. As I came into the finish gate somebody blew past me. Oh well, I finished in 47:20, not bad, under 8 minute miles. I was surprised to see the post of the finish and I was 2nd in my age group, which means I was probably 5th fastest finisher over 40. I had not won a trophy or medal this year. What was amazing was the way this made me feel. Just that morning in Sunday school class, we had been talking about the importance of such things as recognition and rewards for overcoming adversity and how in all we do it is not so much the reward as the finish, or survival of such things. Why did this place in the race and the fact that I recieved a shiny little trophy with a cowboy boot on it give me some elevated sense of accomplishment, recognition or something? I can only attribute it to ego, that part of me that I make fun of and denegrade to keep it in check. But what I found was that even in a race at the end of the year, what really keeps me coming back is not the chance to beat my old time, it really is the chance to prove myself "better" than others. This is not really the theme I want for my 2009 resolution, self-improvement sounds much better, but if I look inside I find I still want to beat somebody.