Living In America

It's not easy to stay motivated and positive...

The alternative however, is not a good choice.

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling alright until I moved to get out of bed. At first I thought that allergies, which are prevalent and very bad this year and the medication I had taken before bed, had caused me to sleep hunched up. That was my explanation until I stood up and realized that my back hurt badly, in the kidneys-kind-of-way and not just sore but painful.

This always freaks me out because it is close to the pain I woke up with one Sunday early in 2008 to find out during a week of doctor visits, something I dislike, that my left kidney had failed and as a result the right one was failing. Sparing the details, I ended up with months of several operations and outpatient procedures. I've also been having these past few weeks other small signs that could be related that I've brushed off. OK, I can deal with it, knowing it's probably only at worst a kidney infection or a stone. I drink a lot of water (it's all I drink) every day and now drink even more now to try to clear it out. I'll wait until Monday to see how it goes and then decide how to proceed if nothing's improved. My theory is if I'm not unceasingly nauseous, passing blood or throbbing with intolerable pain, physical problems usually can wait a few more days.

That discovery would have been alright if I hadn't been told shortly thereafter that the person I've lived with for 15 years, suddenly realized that he couldn't find my Post Office Box key, the only one that exists. This required retracing his steps to all the places he'd been before the post office, at the post office and from the post office as well as searching the house. Still...no key. Later in the day I went back to the post office again to ask if anyone had turned in a key. To summarize, this is going to be a different kind of pain in the backside, since I've had this post office box for decades and the other key disappeared years ago. I am going to have to pay the Federal Government to replace my lock, which will also wait until Monday, when I plan by then to still be walking upright.

Why am I recounting this Too-Much-Information in a blog that could be read by anyone? One of the few YouTube video bloggers that I still subscribe to who is of the video online community I was once part of, Mean Black Dude, in the Washington DC/Maryland area, posted a video blog "Motivate Me!." In his vlog he asks "how does one stay motivated in this society?" and keep on going in this economy. (Careful if you're squeamish about the "BS" word.)

It's a good question I think everyone from all segments of our society ask themselves. Some ask it every day, all day and others of us just ask it every once in awhile on a bad day. My response to him was in the limited context of what YouTube allows in 500 characters. Essentially I commented: What keeps me motivated may sound really corny but it's staying positive. I'm a pragmatic, realistic man so I control what I can, myself and my attitude, letting the rest go. I avoid negative people and refuse to buy into bad attitudes. That said, it's not easy to do, it takes effort. You can read the entire comment section here to see his response and the variety of other comments.

Am I always positive? Am I one of those happy, upbeat people that drives everyone nuts? Absolutely not. It is work to stay optimistic sometimes and I have down days. Some of them have been down weeks these past few months but in the back of my mind there is always the thought, that the only other option to not being generally optimistic and positive is not a pleasant one. I know because I tried it for a time when I was younger. Fortunately I discovered that being an angry young man wasn't good for me and especially for anyone around me. The prospect of being an angry old man also meant being a very depressed and bitter old white guy we all recognize. I'm not sure what woke me up but I'm glad something did. Perhaps it was another dramatic medical event in my twenties, the early death of my father when I was starting college or a combination of a number of unfortunate things that happened then.

When I had a medical crisis in 2008, far worse than I let most people realize, I again recognized that my only option was to remain optimistic, positive and self-reliant. That is because when you send out those signals to people, they are returned to you, multiplied. It attracts people to you who will also provide you with support and mutual help. When I had a less than productive or good day such as today, I somehow manage to keep putting one foot in front of the other and stop it from being a negative day.

I also reminded myself that no matter where you are in life you are, high or low, you can always look and find someone better off than you are and someone worse off than you are. That is what keeps me motivated to stay optimistic and positive as well as considering that the alternative is not a good choice.

A Head of My Time

Business goes social web...

Uh oh...move over Facebook and LinkedIn, the business world has entered the social web. I know quite a few people who work for large companies that have adopted internal social web pages. I've heard about the managers who've been asked by their manager why they were not "connected" or "friended" by their employees.

I've always been an early adopter and was blogging in the late nineties, getting the idea from one of the original well known blogger, Andrew Sullivan. Prior to that I had already been through BBS, ICQ, forums and other internet communication tools. Early on in this past decade I adopted the new social web services and instant messaging platforms that got eaten up by other big internet names. Then along came YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare; by the middle of last year I was done with Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, StumbleUpon, etc. and deleted all my accounts. I enjoy the interaction on Google Reader and Buzz but YouTube and Blogger are enough for me right now.

Blogging and YouTube are considered old hat by the early adopters now and they're onto the latest platform. By now the pattern is familiar...early adopters take to a service, it becomes popular and the latest craze, gets bogged down by the noise of the masses and the early adopters move on. Personally I believe that the social web platforms as they exist now are pretty much in place and there will not be much more innovation and new social web services. Rather the ones that exist will morph and continue to grow and develop. The reason I still blog and make videos for YouTube is I like the challenge of continuing something considered outmoded by faddists, that actually is still relevant, keeping it current, alive and well. I now tend to view early adopters as people who think they're cool with short attention spans. They don't stick around to develop and achieve on a lasting platform.

When LinkedIn first started I saw the value in it and when I was invited to join their site I accepted the offer. Little did I realize how the social web would catch on and that later business would adopt the concepts and when that happens, you know that a conception has not just become mainstream, but has been co-opted by "The Establishment.". So now my life has come full circle to this...the company I work for has now introduced a social web site. Having seen the value of LinkedIn, although the mainstream social web services became too time consuming for me, I see the worth of participating as an early adopter of this tool for work. My perspective is that it is another method of networking to be used at work just as the phone, texting, instant messaging and email is a way to build working relationships with others in my company. We'll see how it goes.

Writing: Fact and Fiction

My anxiety...

An exercise in writing on a topic I rarely publicly discuss.

Like a low vague sound of some humming electrical device the feeling is omnipresent and hangs in my soul somewhere, haunting me without explanation. I'm not exactly sure when I really became aware there was a name for it except it was sometime in the late eighties. It's an unexplained disquiet which for me usually leads to a low level melancholy or depression if I don't resolve it. It occurs to a lot more people than is recognized since those of us who live with it don't like to talk about it. Men suffer from it as much as women but we're generally not very good at identifying intrinsic emotions and expressing them well. Many of us act out inexplicably due to it.

There are two themes underlying my faint angst. The first theme is some unfinished business or I did something I wish I hadn't that is bothering me and it has not been addressed. Very often I really don't know what it is or conversely, I do, but would rather push it down with some cement of the mind to keep it from surfacing. If I do nothing and don't dig within to figure out what is bugging me it turns to melancholy. The other theme is my anxiety is right out there, live wire on the surface, edging to be dealt with immediately. That can be the most dangerous since if I'm around people I'm likely to do and say things that result in something worse. Remorse. That is the tipping point depression sets in.

When I refer to melancholy or depression it is not of the clinical variety but rather a natural emotion that most people feel sometimes, some experience it more often than others. It is a flat or dead feeling and I am sluggish. The best solution is to sleep it off. I have experienced deep, dark, black depression a few times in my life but it was due to a specific tragic event, a normal and typical reaction. Death of a loved one, job loss and broken relationship come to mind. Thankfully I had a support system during those times who listened to me, although in each case the only real answer was time.

Over the years I have tried a lot of routes and taken advice on how to deal with my anxiety. Some of the roads and answers were good and others were very bad for me. With no humility I think I can truthfully say I've learned that I'm smarter than any psychologist or therapist I've ever seen professionally or known personally with the exception of one friend. She is atypical for her field and believes most therapists dish out pablum and balderdash. Her advice, like so many of my head-on-shoulders friends, has helped me make sense of how to deal with anxiety more than any psychologist ever has. The same can be said for doctors who want to feed you pills, there is a price for taking them and it's high and not worth the expense of the aftermath.

What does work is knowing yourself well enough to recognize what is happening when it happens. The discovery of how to cope with it and solve the puzzle before it escalates can be a painful process but well worth it. I know that for fact because I have done it and can follow my own advice of what works for me, however, actually implementing the solution is sometimes another matter. The same strong character traits that usually work for me can also work against me. Persistence becomes stubborn. I know in my intellect that what I should do is think, search and find what is nagging my soul and deal with it. Herein lies the rub, sometimes I am just stubborn and don't want to take the time to deal with it, even knowing full well what will be next.

Fortunately most of the time, especially these past few years, I deal with my anxiety effectively. Writing is integral to my methods of both clarifying and purging my vital essence. Once I mull over and reason out the core of the matter, I am then able to implement very old fashioned solutions to the problem.

Think positively.
Take action to fix what is broken.
Accept it as a learning experience and personal growth.
Things usually work themselves out the way they're supposed to.

You're granddad's or father's advice maybe? Probably. Modern psychology and psychiatry is great for other people if it works for them. All I know is if I take the bull by the horns and wrestle the beast to ground, I won't get gored.

[inspired by Maryann, who is braver and more courageous than she thinks]

Thinking Out Loud

The Bitch(ing) is Back...

Vlog by Mike (Aspiring46er) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6nQdBhjQsQ&feature=feedu

http://www.youtube.com/user/Aspiring46er

Thinking Out Loud

Real Life is like fiction...

So why not write about it?

It is time, actually overdue, to recharge my creative batteries, set a new aspiration to challenge myself with. I do not remember a time that I was not writing something, even as a small child I scribbled in childish scrawl little stories and made notes my father proudly called his "five year olds diary." I was a very early voracious reader and to the chagrin of my siblings and later my classmates I had a vocabulary and ability to spell grades above the one I was currently in. My aunt would show me off to adult friends when I was a kindergartener and say to me "Spell Czechoslovakia!" to be followed by "Spell encyclopedia! hypothetical! observatory!" and her favorite: "Mississippi," which she had taught me as M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-in-your-I" to my mother's annoyance.

Naturally as a youngster I wrote fantastical stories where my mind wandered into far-fetched situations I imagined myself as the hero. Pure Fiction. My notes were observations of things I saw, thought about, lists of things I wanted to do, devised out of boredom when I was riding in the car with my parents or waiting for something or someone. All Non-fiction. As I grew older, around eight or nine, I started becoming more interested in history and started reading some good quality history books. Although I still read fiction, it was mostly historical and political things I was interested in reading.

As an overactive child, both in mind and physical activities, my parents had a lot to deal with in keeping me occupied. My father had the idea I start writing a history of where we lived, to keep me engaged during certain times, when my parents, sister, aunt and uncle and cousin, needed a break from me. He figured it accomplished two things, kept me quietly preoccupied and out of others hair, as well as develop my writing abilities. Due to my reading interests, the result in the long term was that by the time I was 13, my interest was focused solely on writing non-fiction.

It was a pattern set for life. Through undergraduate and post-graduate degrees and beyond I have taken classes in Journalism, Non-Fiction Writing, Technical Writing, Historical Writing, Policies and Procedures Writing and Legal Writing. I have also written and published, in their medium, in each of these categories. I'm not being modest when I state that a lot of it wasn't very good, since much of it wasn't. My first website in the late nineties was topically political, modeled after Andrew Sullivan's pioneering website blog, where I first got the idea to start blogging. It was far better in my imagination than I'm sure it was in actuality. The same could be said for my writing for a website in the early part of this past decade.

The upshot of it all is in spite of a lot of bad writing, I've learned to write non-fiction, particularly policies and procedures, history and political articles, essays and blogs fairly well. There is truth in the axiom "writers write every day" because it does hone your skills. In times when I wasn't writing anything in particular, I wrote long letters and later email to friends who mutually returned the favor with long well written replies.

In 2005 I became enamored with video and the following year YouTube. Since then I've played around with video blogging and learned some editing and have developed a moderate skill at it. I started this blog in 2007 and for over two years played around with it but have placed back in draft mode most of the work from that time period. In 2009 I decided to get more serious with it and by the end of the year pledged to myself I would work in 2010 at it every day and develop my own style with it, which I intend on continuing.

All that just written to say this: to grow more in my writing I have decided to tackle fiction and am going back to the very junior college, now a Community College, that I began my college career at decades ago. I'm taking a freshman level class, although not a beginning one, in structuring and writing fiction. I decided to take the classroom route for a variety of reasons, primarily discipline and mostly to be around other aspiring fiction writers. This particular school is known for "robbing" the universities of good professors because of the school atmosphere and pay. Therefore the instructor is not only your standard PhD but also a published author of recognizable books and an interesting character in his own right. It also opens the door for me to be less intimidated going to writer's workshops. My mission is to stimulate and stretch my imagination to keep the creative juices that sustain me flowing.

This blog will remain what it is, a work in progress of non-fiction blogging of my personal observations of real life and social commentary about it. My ultimate intention is to learn the new world of self distributing ePublishing and if I end up writing any worthwhile fiction, I will produce it in the form of e-books, as well as non-fiction work as electronic articles. To me being creative and especially writing is something I can't imagine not doing and will continue the rest of my life, just as some people do woodworking, quilting, photography, rebuilding cars, vlogging, gardening, playing music or whatever captures their verve.

Thinking Out Loud

2011...

A new decade in a new economic, social and geopolitical world.

The year 2010 turned a page into a new chapter of my life in momentous ways that I did not expect but could not have hoped for a better outcome. Life is much better now. I clearly remember New Year's Eve and Day 2010 because it was a long and difficult weekend with a pending decision weighing heavily on my mind. On Monday, January 4th, I went into work for a few hours and then confirmed my instincts by resigning from my job. It was the right choice but difficult in these economic times and seemingly unwise from a personal financial standpoint. I had to do it to be free to move on in a new year, the last in a Biblically epic long decade in my life, that began in 2000 when my life was radically altered also by a work decision, one I did not choose. Like hundreds of thousands of others I was "separated" from the company I worked for almost 30 years.

The Economic Crisis started early for me, in hindsight I am very glad, it gave me a long running head start on what was to follow in this country and is not over yet.

This past year has been extremes of highs and lows, ups and downs and everything in between. At times I was in complete control of my situation and in others I was not. In the dead heat of summer I was struck by a virus that kept me bed-ridden for two weeks and during that same month I serendipitously found a job that suits me perfectly. It was a classic time that epitomized the characteristics of the entire year, simultaneously flowing triumph and disaster.

In the end it has been a richly rewarding and fulfilling year furnishing me with optimism, positive thinking and confidence. Regardless of what 2011 and the next decade brings I have at last returned to the summer roots of my inner self and in harmony with my true nature, after a decade of a mostly estranged winter. I say that with an assurance, that I did not have but was yearning for, this time last year. I knew then where I had been for a decade and did not want to continue but rather move on to another journey and I can say that I have.

One of the best decisions I made at the end of 2009 was to set a goal to begin posting to this website blog daily and start creating and uploading videos on YouTube again. It was part of documenting my life that served as a release valve, a steadying constant, as well as a confidence builder and confirming my ability to be original and self-reliant. Through expressing myself it reminded me I am a unique individual in my own right.

Another good determination made this past spring was to get off most of the social web, especially Twitter and Facebook. I never cared for Facebook and was reluctantly coaxed into it and Twitter became a time-killer, full of unwashed masses bubbling out a constant stream of babbling junk. That is not a judgment on other people who choose to be on those sites, those sites just weren't right for me at the time or even now. That choice, by it's very nature, also meant limiting my interaction online but I've found the remaining interaction to be of better quality.

The time I had spent online and with other things I chose to stop doing was spent reading good books in a self-designed "Great Books" list. What a wonderful determination that has turned out to be. My mind has not only been enriched but it has had an unexpected but welcome calming of my soul.

"He not busy being born is busy dying"

How very fortuitous it has turned out to be that on that day, Friday the 13th in October 2000, I was surplussed and laid off from the company I had worked for since high school, through my college degrees and experienced my thirties and forties. My involuntary "separation" (their term) actually was not accompanied with anxiety but rather rejoicing at being freed from the institutional madness of the only place I had really ever worked. That does not mean there was not angst of learning as I traversed down the road in the decade ahead. It prepared me in too many ways to enumerate to cope with the new world of 21st century economic, social and geopolitical circumstances.

Although this year and this decade has ended with a finality specific to me, it does not mean an end to always learning and facing new challenges moving forward. Now I look ahead to them with a renewed freedom I once had and have revived. It is certain that the Great Disruption that became obvious to the world in mid-2007 will continue and perpetuate the economic distress that challenges us all and disturbs other social institutions. We live in an exciting time as our universe is reborn anew once again, following in the footprints of world history. That does not bother me since I know that as an individual I have the determination, will and ability to overthrow adversity. Also I have a perception of others difficulties and an ability to understand what some may need help in learning to cope for themselves.

If there is anything I am able to impart to others, it is that we all have something within us that allows us to rise above and overcome. My hope is that in my own small way I can do that.

"He not being busy born is busy dying" quote from "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" [Dylan]

A Vlog

In which I say "uh" a lot...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6LRCOmy_80

http://www.youtube.com/jrsnyderjr

Word of the Day: YouTube Attention Span

"I won't watch anything over 3 minutes..."

Your normal attention span only significantly decreased due to YouTube. Whereas normally 10 minutes is a short amount of time, YouTube turns it into a cinematic experience.

Urban Dictionary
Urban Word of the Day 08/10/10

No, It Wasn't April Fools Day

"My concern is...the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize..."

This video of US Congress Representative Hank Johnson (D Ga 4th Dist), sounding like a fool during a House Armed Services Committee Meeting on March 26, 2010, questioning Admiral Robert Willard was released on April Fools Day. The topic was the stationing of an additional 5000 marines (and associated family and other military branch personal, including my nephew) on Guam, an American territory.



Rep. Johnson replaced another standard liberal Democrat "nutcase," Rep. Cynthia McKinney, infamous for her confrontation with Capitol Hill Police in 2006 because she was not instantly recognized as a congresswoman and allowed to bypass security procedures. The taxpayers pay US Congresspersons $174,000 a year for carrying out their duties and responsibilities.

I defy anyone to mock Arizona for it's elected representatives, when it appears the entire nation is glutted with people of this caliber all across the country. It is a sad commentary on where we are with the political class including elected representatives, appointed officials and agency bureaucrats on all levels.
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Cynthia McKinney Sings Pink Upon Defeat by Hank Johnson in 2006

On Social Web Platforms

Bringing The Digital Life All Back Home...

Recently I've being spending less time on the social web and when I am on my preferred platforms, I'm using them for different reasons. Although I like Facebook (it's a pleasant walled garden) it has always seemed a bit like high school and the applications and games don't appeal to me. Twitter, where I've spent most of my time the past few years, started for me as simply a note-taking service for brief thoughts that occurred to me. It morphed into something pleasantly unexpected, a replacement for the interaction I once had on the community that existed on YouTube during 2006-2007, as well as meeting new online friends. After trying Google Buzz it is still a non-starter for me, social web celebs raves aside, currently it just seems more of the same.

It is natural these platforms progress and evolve and for me they have come to feel more like communications tools than hubs for social interaction and community. I embrace that, I find myself more interested in using them to discover new things to read, do, gather information and make contact with people for more extended interaction. My perception is the social web is narrowing down to a connection point for more personal, in-depth conversation, than can be conducted on limited space open social web forums.

Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Latitude, Yelp and other Location Based Services along with smartphones are making inroads I believe because people are looking for more depth in their online connections and want to bring the social closer to home as well as offline. A more personal web, where the platform becomes the communications tool that bridges the community people create online, to more intimate levels for deeper relationships. The internet is the replacement for the old social network, the telephone system, so it is no surprise it is making connections in the same way. Fundamentally human social networking remains the same, regardless of the tools used.

Buzz Is Not A Whisperer

Google Buzz is calling...an opportunity to make a call?

I'm still missing some pieces from the Google Buzz puzzle and I haven't got that much time to devote to it right now, possibly that's one flaw inherent in it's launch. Buzz wasn't exactly welcome in my life but I kept an open mind and clear head and now have a few plugged in thoughts about it.

In a Buzz post, I think Sheryl Breuker (The Gabby Geek) of Stardust Global Ventures, brought up an important point regarding following and that this launch could be an opportunity from the outset. A window in which we can choose who to follow, be followed by and finding new people. In my mind we have the option to make a judgment call, a chance to decide if we want our scope to be narrow or wide and for professional or personal use or both. This new connection could also be a good platform to scale up or down our online social networking if we choose.

To that end I can also see how this could end up appealing more to the business, enterprise and eventually the public sectors and subsequently more appropriate for professional and business use. It may compete just as much with LinkedIn as Facebook and Twitter. If that is the case, as an individual, it might be better to start out slowly and not poison the well. Many people have started using social web sites without thinking of the consequences and paid a price when potential clients, employers and recruiters started using these sites as research tools. The lack of real knowledge about what has happened with our personal privacy is startling to witness when something new like Buzz comes along.

It's my opinion some of the noise about privacy comes from the usual suspects. They tend to be the same people who belch junk and then wonder why they get trolled and/or hacked. Don't do stupid stuff anywhere, online or off, act responsibly and you stand a good chance of remaining intact. On the other hand, that calls for Google and other keepers of our data, to continually improve the protection of our information and privacy by giving us easy access to controls. Users shouldn't have to search and try to figure Buzz out, it must be more intuitive if they want people of this decade to feel comfortable using it. I'm practiced at figuring these things out and that factor of difficulty has made even me a bit cautious, since I don't have the time to fiddle with it right now. Like everyone else, Buzz was thrust upon me with an existing Gmail account and consequently required some immediate attention to decide what to do about it, if only to figure out how to turn it off should I want to. My personal choice was to devote a little time to it and see what the implications are.

I can't help but wonder what the person thinks who has a Gmail account because they were forced into one by YouTube, someone who is skilled at only (and only cares to be) using Gmail as email or a Blogger user that doesn't really use Gmail, about getting Buzz. Whether it was taken into consideration by Google is a toss of the coin, they either took it as a calculated risk or most likely, didn't think of it at all.

It is a good concept, I admit to being surprised at liking it as much on first impression as I do. I hope it gets better and gets a good response from a responsible audience but it needs interface improvement for privacy and controls as well as interaction. It's an opportunity to review what we want or don't want with our personal online social life and make a choice about making connections or not. I think it will gain traction because it's already caused me to re-discover and find out new things about Gmail...that in itself is a "win" for Google and probably worth their risk, intended or otherwise.

Top left photo: Albuquerque (NM) Toll and Assistance Switchboard Tandem Circuits

Bottom right photo: Sunset Point (Arizona) Communications Towers

JR Snyder Jr copyright 2010

 

Online Social Networking: 2010

What I think now...

Two years ago I did a video blog "Online Social Networking Revolution: Thinking Ahead." It was one of my first video blogs and although I cringe at my presentation and editing, it remains a video that continues to get views.

This is my follow up video blog with some of my current thoughts on online social networking. Over the 15 years that I've been interacting online, YouTube and vlogging really changed the game for me four years ago when I first ventured there. The interaction on YouTube, the video sharing site, made it also a social web site. It pushed many of us further online because it allowed the presentation of self in real life (apologies to Erving Goffman)...we could see each other in video and get a better sense of the people we interacted with online.

Much has been made about what happened with online social networking, interaction and the community on YouTube, however there is no doubt that the site advanced online interaction into the mainstream. It remains to be seen what happens with YouTube but my belief has been that Google as a corporation had (and still has) no idea what it had in YouTube in the aspect of online social networking and what direction to go with it. It has never been in the MBA/CPA marketing business school mindset principles the company operates by, no matter how cool their campus was too work at and trendy their logo was. It was only a matter of time before the community on YouTube became a temporary moment in an era now gone by.

In any case what I've learned personally about online social networking is that it intersects in my life and is integrated now with offline "real life" social networking. A large number of the people I've met online since the early nineties I have met in person and maintain contact with. Those that I haven't, the virtual relationships have become as real as those with people I know in person. I no longer distinguish the difference.

One thing has become clear, everyone must now come to terms with how to handle life online and offline, even if for some that means opting out and not engaging online at all. That is still a choice that must be reckoned with, since to engage or not through the internet, means a decision has been made about relationships. It is neither right or wrong and everyone must decide individually what is best for them in their own personal happiness and choose how they want to interact with other people.

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Online Social Networking 2010 (What I Think Now) from JR Snyder Jr on Vimeo.

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January 14, 2008

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Phoenx South Mountain Communications Towers

Twenty Towers Top South Mountain



Over the years I've wondered about the vulnerability of the towers on South Mountain. Usually decades ago when lightning protection was not what it is today, the concern was lightning strikes. That also sparks another concern, wildfires from the brush that covers the mountain, which could be started by lightning.
After September 11, 2001 the security of locations like this all over the US was reconsidered. The Bush Administration quietly spent millions of dollars in securing all kinds of locations. Among other things 911 emergency communication systems were upgraded both in locations like this and correspondingly in 911 centers.

This video blog was taken on South Mountain where the communications towers are located.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8obFpg_MTYk

http://www.youtube.com/jrsnyderjr

The Economy and Me: My Hometown

Phoenix, Arizona | Labor Day Weekend

This is the summer I believe we will look back and remember as the time when the fullness of this economic crisis and the aftermath, became much more real to the mass population.

Relatively no one will go untouched by the current and upcoming extended economic period. The United States and world are affected profoundly and in this video blog I discuss my thoughts on the one city and state, Phoenix, Arizona that I know well. In my mind the most difficult bear to wrestle is going to be unemployment because that is about income. The conundrum is an old one and too large to tackle here.
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Due to my personal circumstances I've had unique opportunities to see this economic crisis develop to it's ultimate collapse in a variety of ways. My professional associates, friends, family and myself have had to and are dealing with issues daily very directly and no end seems in sight. Currently I am in a good place of acceptance with an understanding of basic facts that no public relations spin of any corporation, media outlet or government agency will change my mind about, when they're as plain as the nose on my face. Of course my acceptance is subject to change with new information, since the ground is shifting beneath us. Another key though is knowing that shifting ground is part of the package.

It's been a long road since this Economic Crisis really began for me with the Tech/Telecom Crash in 2000 and then exacerbated by the events of September 11, 2001. Additionally I am living in a state that was giddy with vaporous money at the height of the market, when my mindset was that if it seemed too good to be true, it was. There have been employment and monetary struggles but they have been overcome, but not without challenges.

As painful as it's been at times, this decade for me has been rich with learning new things about myself and others, as well as where, when and how my values diverged with certain parts of American culture (such as consumerism). So many of us were sidetracked and I'm finding many of us are now finding our way back to our original selves and reflecting on "where do we go from here"?

This is a topic I am far from done writing and video blogging about I suspect.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbCARgTdin8

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There is a lake in California...

A visit to Dry Ford Lake in California in August, peak heat of the year



My video blog on YouTube



http://www.youtube.com/jrsnyderjr

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...on not casting pearls before swine

If you live long enough you experience the joy of learning things over and over again.

This is certainly true for me regarding the internet and specifically the social web. In the nineties when the internet came into the mainstream and more social with the advent of the worldwide web, I learned some lessons which laid the foundation for how I intended to deal with a technology that quickly became an information backbone of our time.

Since then, the internet has become more ubiquitous. A wealth of information and a cyber junkyard, a web of commerce and a social networking venue but above all else an overflowing warehouse of too much data. The rules controlling my online social engagement are pretty much the same as they are offline. I have come to relearn that not only is it intrinsic to my nature to be selective but also a requirement in order to keep my sense of self relatively intact as well as balance and order in my life. Rules for my life online need to come from my experience in life offline.


I was the kid who lived in a remote place and back in the day would have loved to have online interaction to explore the world and for a while escape what seemed like a mundane local world.


Oh, if I only knew then what I know now...

For some reason it seems necessary to reconsider the ground rules for operating on the internet. I'm not sure why...but I trust my instincts. It's not clear if this is due to the economic crisis, a change of decade, feeling overwhelmed, I'm wiser or something else and right now the reason seems irrelevant. The bottom line fundamental rule is I have control over how much and what information I see, and who I interact with online and any benefit or repercussions are due to my choices. In any case I use and interact on the web on my terms and what I use any website for is generally my business and not subject to the opinion of people who do not influence me.

This doesn't mean that I'm stopping or slowing my current online activity or judging what anyone else does. Perhaps our privacy is not as intact as we'd like to think and we should recognize accessing the "information superhighway" means sharing the road with unlicensed drivers. That also means making intelligent choices about how much road we can handle and proceed with caution.

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http://www.youtube.com/jrsnyderjr

Signs of the Times

Phoenix Arizona 07.21.2009

It is now two years after it became glaringly obvious that Arizona was at the epicenter of a cascading real estate market fall of epic proportions...

the state is in essentially in suspended animation, at an impasse, with no real resolution regarding what real estate is actually realistically worth and the refusal of lenders/real estate to concede they're over-leveraged, and "there is no there, there" to extract back the overextended amounts they loaned out.

The State Legislature in September will start the state budget from scratch. The current budget is a makeshift, temporary fix with an expanding deficit that hasn't been addressed.

A few signs of the times...
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Mortgages Ltd filed for bankruptcy in June 2008 after the suicide of President Scott Coles. Mortgages Ltd fueled the commercial real estate bubble as one of Arizona's largest private lenders, using cash from private investors. The returns were paid by proceeds coming in from new investors and not actual gains. They funded the largest commercial real estate projects, many now unfinished, causing long term damage to commercial real estate in the state.

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Arizona government has never done well at social service programs and the recognition is slowly dawning that probably our government is not a good place to humanely solve those problems. The best possible solutions in this economic environment are likely to be found in local community resources and self-reliant financial support. __________________________________________________________________

Biggest Anxiety of All: The Other Side of the Tracks

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It is no longer unusual to see BMW and Mercedes in the parking lot of uptown pawn shops.




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As much as Arizona epitomizes the Boom and Bust cycles of the American West it actually may have the best opportunity to reinvent itself, although it will take innovation and hard work. There are unique factors about the governmental process in the 97 year old 48th state. We are not encumbered by too many complex processes developed over centuries as some states are.

FWIW: My Thoughts on State Government Shutdown

Why I think shutting down state government is a bad idea, using Arizona as an example...

Today, 19 states are struggling with their state's budgets and how they are going to meet services with declining or no tax revenues. Arizona is one of them and less than 24 hours from a meltdown.

No matter your political point of view, recognize that a state government shutdown is much more than just stopping services and putting everything on hold until everyone makes up their mind. It triggers responses that have irretrievable consequences and is irresponsible. A shutdown, slowdown, meltdown, whatever...freezes all the State's money and the State Treasurer can not issue any warrants or checks (vendor payments, payroll, utilities, janitorial companies, loan payments, tax refunds) or disburse Federal money such as Unemployment, Medicare, Food Stamps, TANF, etc. The National Guard could be called out for prison duty but because they're federally funded, the money for them to operate will also be frozen. How many will accept an IOU for that assignment for very long?

If you choose to take the position that the state needs a shutdown to get it's house in order, know the consequences no matter which side you're on. Social services may be distasteful but the answer is not abruptly halting them without some thoughtful unwinding. The chaos ensuing affects all citizens, because the ripple of destruction will run through the state economy on all levels.

Destruction is not the same as Disruption.

There are good reasons why even a partial shutdown is a very bad idea right now. A shutdown will destroy the state's credit rating. We are already insolvent and any money borrowed to operate will have to be paid back at higher interest rates due to bad credit. The entire state economy is in a precarious position and even a 24 hour shutdown will have a negative impact and far worse if protracted. The law suits against the state alone will hinder us for decades.

I am absolutely against spending money we don't have and are not likely to obtain in the near future. This is the worst possible time for taxation and I have grave doubts about the effectiveness of government social services. On the other hand I do not see any sense in further destruction of the state's economy and government, simply because some people don't understand that there is just not enough money, and others are too stubborn to reflect that destruction is irresponsible anarchy and nothing more than that.

If there ever was a time to call for cooler heads to prevail, this is it.

Everything is amazing, nobody is happy...

Louis CK appearance on Conan O'Brien's 03.18.2009 show viral video on YouTube

Enjoy...hopefully this video won't be removed from YouTube by DMCA

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Thomas Edison's Automatic Telegraph at the 1872 Centennial Expedition
First keyboard of The Victorian Internet

For those of us born smack in the middle of the Baby Boom, the advances in communications, medicine, transportation and social norms is staggering. We're fortunate to live in a period of history when advances equivalent to those in the Renaissance have occurred at lightning speeds in a mere few generations. The Dark Ages lasted from the fall of Rome in the 5th century until the Renaissance began in the 14th...centuries of decline in culture and no progress, generations where life never changed and knowledge stood still, secreted away.

Amazon Kindle 2 Unboxing

Jon Rettinger of jon4lakers.com gives a good overview in this video

I really want an Amazon Kindle 2 and it is on my short list of must have items. Upcoming blogs will be about devices and applications I use (or plan to use) and how I try to Keep It Simple Stupid with my use of technology.

Twitter has been an example of my experimenting with a subversive technology going mainstream and I'm still exploring it every day. More comment on that to come also.

The underlying philosophy I operate with, before I adopt and use any technology, is it must integrate with my organic real offline life easily and improve my life without distracting from it.

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