This week at my work we have been replacing computers. Battalions of techies and sweepers (their names, the ones I have for them make my mom cry) have been scouring our campus, gathering up our old Dell machines and replacing them with shiny new Hewlett Packard boxes.
I remember when Gateway was the flavor of the month-all those off white monitors and processors. They grow up so fast, don't they? And then it was the midnight black of Dell and we transitioned from boat anchor shaped monitors to sleek display panels. I never found them to make the simply awful things in the world that popped up on them to be any better, but they were way cool.
And now, it's Hewlett Packard whom I recall for multi-functional fractal calculators when our kids were in school-or was that Texas Instruments and are they different or the same. Who knows and, unasked is its companion question to which we all already know the answer obviating the entire exchange.
We are getting Windows 7 instead of the XP Pro we now have that no one liked when it first showed up but now we all love and are reluctant and unhappy to abandon, as if we have a choice. He who abandons a sinking ship that doesn't sink needs to be a strong swimmer, especially in this current.
What has happened since last Thursday afternoon is that I don't have a computer at work (because something so awful happened to my new computer no one had the heart to tell me or the person supervising the replacement process). I hate when we play keep away with information, but we like to do so and not just with new shiny toys but with everyday objects, all of which are usually closer than they appear in your passenger mirror.
I'm not a big fan of change and this change has (so far) given me lots of reasons to not be a big fan. But perhaps by the dawn's early light today, it'll all make glorious sense. Or not. The sun also rises. Turn and face the strange and embrace the change.
-bill kenny
Friday, September 7, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
And They're Gonna Sock it to Ya
He's a footnote, at best, for most pop music fans of The Swinging Sixties and now, Joe South, is an obituary, dying yesterday of heart failure in Buford, Georgia. As a socially awkward teen of that era who was to eventually know how to do everything with rock music, except enjoy it, I knew Joe South first as the guy who wrote Billy Joe Royal's massive hit, Down in the Boondocks and not that long afterwards played on Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde.
It was an era before we'd perfectly compartmentalized music by genre and where never again, or before (come to think of it), shall the twain meet. All there was AM radio-that little three inch speaker in the dashboard of the car and some of the stuff that poured from it, like Joe South, was absolutely amazing.
He was, and should be, remembered for Games People Play which is what that song is called you're hearing all over those automated soulless Soft Gold radio stations today where the play lists are computer generated and Joe South makes the cut because the upper end of the demo buys American-manufactured cars who advertise heavily on these stations. Tell you who else should, the folks who manufacture drinking straws because these stations suck.
All the Fashion with None of the Passion. All Hits or All something else remarkably similar. Turn the vocalists upside down and they'd sound like sisters. Another piece of the soundtrack of my growing up has gone away forever, leaving me with memories. And smiles.
-bill kenny
It was an era before we'd perfectly compartmentalized music by genre and where never again, or before (come to think of it), shall the twain meet. All there was AM radio-that little three inch speaker in the dashboard of the car and some of the stuff that poured from it, like Joe South, was absolutely amazing.
He was, and should be, remembered for Games People Play which is what that song is called you're hearing all over those automated soulless Soft Gold radio stations today where the play lists are computer generated and Joe South makes the cut because the upper end of the demo buys American-manufactured cars who advertise heavily on these stations. Tell you who else should, the folks who manufacture drinking straws because these stations suck.
All the Fashion with None of the Passion. All Hits or All something else remarkably similar. Turn the vocalists upside down and they'd sound like sisters. Another piece of the soundtrack of my growing up has gone away forever, leaving me with memories. And smiles.
-bill kenny
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
The Depth of the Habit
There's a lot to be said in praise of constancy and consistency. We applaud those who are steadfast in their beliefs, even if we sometimes have doubts about those beliefs. You have to admire those who try even when they fail. Might I suggest we are so blinded and distracted by the admiration of the effort that we lose sight of what became of the outcome.
Connecticut thinks of itself as "The Land of Steady Habits" (having been raised in an East Coast state not too distant from here, I assure you none of us called any of you 'steady' but that's a discussion for perhaps another time) and takes a great deal of pride in the title. But maybe doing things the way we always have is getting in the way of getting things done.
One of the biggest impacts to Who We Are now in the Age of Applied Technology is how well and how rapidly we, as individuals, families, neighborhoods or urban centers (society in general) respond to altered circumstances and considitions. In much the manner that the advent of the telephone altered person to person communication, the convergence of computers, social media and technology have, again, caused us to reinvent ourselves.
The more successfully we respond and react, the higher the rate at which we succeed. As faxes overwhelmed teletyped messages and, in turn, were ovetaken by email which has yielded to text messaging, the agility with which we adapt and adopt new tools to accomplish our tasks and then expand both the scale and scope of those tasks, could be the key to renewal in New England in general and in Connecticut in particular.
He who hesitates is lunch and he who lags, loses. An innovation only remains an innovation until times change then, if it doesn't, it becomes an historic artifact. If you don't think so, ask the people who ran Eastman Kodak how it feels to have gone from cutting edge to history's dustbin as Kodak's bankruptcy winds down.
It's great to treasure our past and never lose sight of where we came from but not if it keeps us from clearly seeing and traveling to where we need to go next. Because we are comfortable with traditional manufacturing and retailing doens't mean other forms of it, combined with new approaches to previous successes cannot play a significant role in this regions's continuing rebirth.
We have private sector employers heavily dependent on their workforces' intellectual ingenuity to maintain worldwide market share. We have celebrated resorts striving to stay at least fifteen minutes ahead of their time and their competition. We have world-class secondary and post-secondary educational facilities preparing students today for tomorrow and all of these entities and enterprises are always on the prowl for fresh talent and new blood.
We are seeing a growing number of visionaries and futurists who always ask "what if?" questions when looking at industry, education, business and government and the role each plays in our lives. Because we always have doesn' mean we always shall, or should. Sometimes the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the habit.
-bill kenny
Connecticut thinks of itself as "The Land of Steady Habits" (having been raised in an East Coast state not too distant from here, I assure you none of us called any of you 'steady' but that's a discussion for perhaps another time) and takes a great deal of pride in the title. But maybe doing things the way we always have is getting in the way of getting things done.
One of the biggest impacts to Who We Are now in the Age of Applied Technology is how well and how rapidly we, as individuals, families, neighborhoods or urban centers (society in general) respond to altered circumstances and considitions. In much the manner that the advent of the telephone altered person to person communication, the convergence of computers, social media and technology have, again, caused us to reinvent ourselves.
The more successfully we respond and react, the higher the rate at which we succeed. As faxes overwhelmed teletyped messages and, in turn, were ovetaken by email which has yielded to text messaging, the agility with which we adapt and adopt new tools to accomplish our tasks and then expand both the scale and scope of those tasks, could be the key to renewal in New England in general and in Connecticut in particular.
He who hesitates is lunch and he who lags, loses. An innovation only remains an innovation until times change then, if it doesn't, it becomes an historic artifact. If you don't think so, ask the people who ran Eastman Kodak how it feels to have gone from cutting edge to history's dustbin as Kodak's bankruptcy winds down.
It's great to treasure our past and never lose sight of where we came from but not if it keeps us from clearly seeing and traveling to where we need to go next. Because we are comfortable with traditional manufacturing and retailing doens't mean other forms of it, combined with new approaches to previous successes cannot play a significant role in this regions's continuing rebirth.
We have private sector employers heavily dependent on their workforces' intellectual ingenuity to maintain worldwide market share. We have celebrated resorts striving to stay at least fifteen minutes ahead of their time and their competition. We have world-class secondary and post-secondary educational facilities preparing students today for tomorrow and all of these entities and enterprises are always on the prowl for fresh talent and new blood.
We are seeing a growing number of visionaries and futurists who always ask "what if?" questions when looking at industry, education, business and government and the role each plays in our lives. Because we always have doesn' mean we always shall, or should. Sometimes the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the habit.
-bill kenny
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Better than Winning the Irish Sweepstakes
I think it was more my parents' parents' generational dream-to win the Irish Sweepstakes. As kids, I don't think any of us knew as a practical matter what all was meant by the turn of phrase or how ludicrous and nonsensical the whole endeavor actually was.
Here in the 21st Century we don't have to imagine any of that quaint stuff anymore because we have a bajillion variations of the Nigerian 419 scam, one of the lesser celebrated by-products of all this world wide connectivity. (Why 419? Perhaps because 418 just won't do.)
In a 24/7 news cycle, information washes over us. We don't wade in the water, we drown because we cannot possibly walk on it. Schemers and scammers rely on that. All they need to do to live comfortably ever after with whatever goofy and often outrageous hustle they concoct is get .00001 % of everyone to whom they email their tale of woe to respond. If you have trouble with the values to the right of the decimal point, that's one hundred thousandth of one percent.
You've read me write of Norwich as a city of forty thousand, so in this case, double the city and add half again. and then have one person of all of those bite on the offer. But what kind of offer, you ask. How about this one that showed up yesterday in my email and to which I'm about to respond in such an alacritous manner as to assure I'll need never work another day in my life, assuming I die later today. It's from someone neither of us didn't know we didn't know. Golly, Wally, we sure get around, eh?
"From: Mrs. Safiya Gadhafi.
Wife of Libya leader.
Dear Friend
This may appear a bit surprising to you but as a matter of fact, I am desperately looking for a foreign partner whom I can trust to handle some investment of fund movement. I MRS SAFIYA FARKASH, A wife of late Libyan leader ... who was recently killed by his political opponent, I her wife is contacting you for help ...in getting some money which was deposited by my later husband in Burkina Faso where....But before we continue, we have to build a memorandum of trust that you will not betray me. As soon as you agree, I will quickly furnish you with the contact address of the GROUP BANK where the US$25 Million (Twenty-five Million United State Dollars was deposited. Perhaps am waiting for your prompt and positive response. Reply to my private box at mrs.safiyagadhafi10@*******.com
Best Regard.
Mrs. Safiya Gadhafi."
Someday our children, when they visit us at the home, will listen to us speak fondly of email from Mrs. Qaddafi, Mrs. Arafat (a personal favorite of mine) and Snooki among others. I suspect all their correspondence will always be grammatical car crashes and syntactical tsunamis, even in our memories. And long after we shuffle off our mortal coil, some variant of this money for nothing, or less than nothing, will still be extant. After all who of us doesn't want to believe you can exist exclusively on the kindness of strangers. And the strange is just starting.
-bill kenny
Here in the 21st Century we don't have to imagine any of that quaint stuff anymore because we have a bajillion variations of the Nigerian 419 scam, one of the lesser celebrated by-products of all this world wide connectivity. (Why 419? Perhaps because 418 just won't do.)
In a 24/7 news cycle, information washes over us. We don't wade in the water, we drown because we cannot possibly walk on it. Schemers and scammers rely on that. All they need to do to live comfortably ever after with whatever goofy and often outrageous hustle they concoct is get .00001 % of everyone to whom they email their tale of woe to respond. If you have trouble with the values to the right of the decimal point, that's one hundred thousandth of one percent.
You've read me write of Norwich as a city of forty thousand, so in this case, double the city and add half again. and then have one person of all of those bite on the offer. But what kind of offer, you ask. How about this one that showed up yesterday in my email and to which I'm about to respond in such an alacritous manner as to assure I'll need never work another day in my life, assuming I die later today. It's from someone neither of us didn't know we didn't know. Golly, Wally, we sure get around, eh?
"From: Mrs. Safiya Gadhafi.
Wife of Libya leader.
Dear Friend
This may appear a bit surprising to you but as a matter of fact, I am desperately looking for a foreign partner whom I can trust to handle some investment of fund movement. I MRS SAFIYA FARKASH, A wife of late Libyan leader ... who was recently killed by his political opponent, I her wife is contacting you for help ...in getting some money which was deposited by my later husband in Burkina Faso where....But before we continue, we have to build a memorandum of trust that you will not betray me. As soon as you agree, I will quickly furnish you with the contact address of the GROUP BANK where the US$25 Million (Twenty-five Million United State Dollars was deposited. Perhaps am waiting for your prompt and positive response. Reply to my private box at mrs.safiyagadhafi10@*******.com
Best Regard.
Mrs. Safiya Gadhafi."
Someday our children, when they visit us at the home, will listen to us speak fondly of email from Mrs. Qaddafi, Mrs. Arafat (a personal favorite of mine) and Snooki among others. I suspect all their correspondence will always be grammatical car crashes and syntactical tsunamis, even in our memories. And long after we shuffle off our mortal coil, some variant of this money for nothing, or less than nothing, will still be extant. After all who of us doesn't want to believe you can exist exclusively on the kindness of strangers. And the strange is just starting.
-bill kenny
Monday, September 3, 2012
In a Cardboard Box 'Neath an Underpass
When this story surfaced and circulated during a very short news cycle back in late July, I made a note to return to it, even if I didn't know when or how. I just knew in a Presidential election year with already filled with memes and mummery there'd be room for more (and no one heard Clint Eastwood ask for a chair).
Over the weekend, I've been working on this book, because of this blog and my disquiet over where we are as a nation, how we got here and what we may end up doing about it. In the last couple of months, the economics of despair has moved from the abstract to the mundane in my experience and I'm starting to develop an appetite for choosing a horrible end over horrors with out end.
As brave a new beginning as we all want as we make our way into adulthood, it's our comfort level with the less than happy ending that bothers me the most these days. Everywhere I look, it's the same movie, with a different cast and too many shades of grey. "Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge. Shelter line stretchin' 'round the corner. Welcome to the New World Order. Families sleepin' in their cars in the Southwest. No home, no job, no peace, no rest".
-bill kenny
Over the weekend, I've been working on this book, because of this blog and my disquiet over where we are as a nation, how we got here and what we may end up doing about it. In the last couple of months, the economics of despair has moved from the abstract to the mundane in my experience and I'm starting to develop an appetite for choosing a horrible end over horrors with out end.
As brave a new beginning as we all want as we make our way into adulthood, it's our comfort level with the less than happy ending that bothers me the most these days. Everywhere I look, it's the same movie, with a different cast and too many shades of grey. "Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge. Shelter line stretchin' 'round the corner. Welcome to the New World Order. Families sleepin' in their cars in the Southwest. No home, no job, no peace, no rest".
-bill kenny
Sunday, September 2, 2012
A Fragile Construct
I may or may not have mentioned I played hooky from work on Friday. Actually, I asked for and took the time off-I knew Monday was a holiday and we were getting new computers with new and alien (to me) operating systems (and coin slots, at least it feels like it) Friday and I am absolutely useless in these situations so I took the day off and got a head start on the long weekend.
Which meant yesterday felt like Sunday but wasn't. We had a mostly nice day, though it clouded up in the late afternoon and I went for a jaunt up the side of a hill to a very large green space in the physical center of where I live though most of us see it as on the outskirts because of where we concentrate most of our attention (considering how that's been working out maybe we should decrease the Ritalin?).
Managed to almost be part of a wedding in the park-Ashley and John, I believe. I tried to get the crowd to go along and chant "Jump! Jump!" with me but they would have none of it and, thinking back to our nuptials almost 35 years ago in the Offenbach Rathaus, I smiled and silently wished the young couple well. I also didn't get any cake about which I was less than gracious and still am.
I'm sure before the two of them celebrate their 35th anniversary, I'll have forgotten all about it, but if I were them I wouldn't count on it and I'd stay out of the park until the coast is clear. What I really enjoyed was the minister asking all of us attending (technically all of them attending plus me, the interloper) to vow aloud to help them remain together and when he got a murmur of assent instead of a tumultuous shout, he had everyone do it again, twice. It turned out there was no to-go window for cake so I decided discretion was the better part of valor and beat feet out of there. It made for a different way to kick-off Labor Day.
And truth to tell, I'm never sure what we're supposed to do with Labor Day and in recent years, especially in the poisoned political climate of a Presidential election, I'm not sure it's a good idea to do anything on Labor Day since organized labor seems to be the whipping boy right now for at least one formerly great though still surprisingly national political party. And like so much else, we've heard and will hear this election season,
it's never eaten as hot as it's served and read for yourself who helped create whom for the 21st Century.
Suspect that's why I'll always have a soft spot for Dave Cousins and the Strawbs. Till the day I die.
-bill kenny
Which meant yesterday felt like Sunday but wasn't. We had a mostly nice day, though it clouded up in the late afternoon and I went for a jaunt up the side of a hill to a very large green space in the physical center of where I live though most of us see it as on the outskirts because of where we concentrate most of our attention (considering how that's been working out maybe we should decrease the Ritalin?).
Managed to almost be part of a wedding in the park-Ashley and John, I believe. I tried to get the crowd to go along and chant "Jump! Jump!" with me but they would have none of it and, thinking back to our nuptials almost 35 years ago in the Offenbach Rathaus, I smiled and silently wished the young couple well. I also didn't get any cake about which I was less than gracious and still am.
I'm sure before the two of them celebrate their 35th anniversary, I'll have forgotten all about it, but if I were them I wouldn't count on it and I'd stay out of the park until the coast is clear. What I really enjoyed was the minister asking all of us attending (technically all of them attending plus me, the interloper) to vow aloud to help them remain together and when he got a murmur of assent instead of a tumultuous shout, he had everyone do it again, twice. It turned out there was no to-go window for cake so I decided discretion was the better part of valor and beat feet out of there. It made for a different way to kick-off Labor Day.
And truth to tell, I'm never sure what we're supposed to do with Labor Day and in recent years, especially in the poisoned political climate of a Presidential election, I'm not sure it's a good idea to do anything on Labor Day since organized labor seems to be the whipping boy right now for at least one formerly great though still surprisingly national political party. And like so much else, we've heard and will hear this election season,
it's never eaten as hot as it's served and read for yourself who helped create whom for the 21st Century.
Suspect that's why I'll always have a soft spot for Dave Cousins and the Strawbs. Till the day I die.
-bill kenny
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Our Love Was Like the Water
I had someone ask me if I were going to opine about the Republican National Convention which caused me to worry that I have become so known as a crank that I am perceived as that guy who would boo Santa Claus or choose the lions over the Christians (depends on the point spread on the latter, by the way).
But truth to tell, and the RNC schedule I just passed along is more for you as a souvenir than a reference, if they had held their convention on our front porch, and I'm talking about you, too, Democratic Party (in Charleston, North Carolina, starting Tuesday), I'd come in and out of the house through the back door.
I "get" the bread and circuses aspect of these congregations and conflagrations. I appreciate the mental gymnastics of claiming one's opponent believes in galvanizing babies at birth and in employing all manner of abominations and accusations flung like, well, you know what monkeys fling, and which will now only gets worse through Election Day. I did not watch one moment of one minute of the convention offered by the Party of Lincoln (and Teddy Roosevelt, one of my favorite fictional characters who isn't fictional) and will probably treat the party of Jefferson in the coming days in the same manner.
Both parties now have so many ideologues demanding fealty if not commanding fear that I don't think there's any room remaining for the "can we talk about this?" contingent. I will confess to an abiding loathing of the stridency from both flanks except the Democrats, to my ears, sound silly and and trippy (a Woodstock word to describe those, I think, who disregarded the 'avoid the brown acid' warning) whereas the TEAliban of what was once the Republican Party hate government and everything about it.
They call it THE government because that's easy to demonize but I see it as MY government and that means they and I must agree to disagree, but I don't think it will stay there for very long. Thus, as Mom says, when you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything. This is usually where I interject 'how 'bout them Mets?' but Lee H, probably still in the Adirondacks, hates when I do that (or would if he knew) so I won't.
I don't know how much more life the "two party system" has left in it. I think I'm not alone when I say I'm out of patience with it and those who wield it as a weapon to smite 'others' whomever they might be. I've got no expectations so while I hate to say I am a pessimist, I have to point out as such I can only be surprised and never disappointed. At least until Election Day; and in the interests of saving time, I have already assumed the position.
-bill kenny
But truth to tell, and the RNC schedule I just passed along is more for you as a souvenir than a reference, if they had held their convention on our front porch, and I'm talking about you, too, Democratic Party (in Charleston, North Carolina, starting Tuesday), I'd come in and out of the house through the back door.
I "get" the bread and circuses aspect of these congregations and conflagrations. I appreciate the mental gymnastics of claiming one's opponent believes in galvanizing babies at birth and in employing all manner of abominations and accusations flung like, well, you know what monkeys fling, and which will now only gets worse through Election Day. I did not watch one moment of one minute of the convention offered by the Party of Lincoln (and Teddy Roosevelt, one of my favorite fictional characters who isn't fictional) and will probably treat the party of Jefferson in the coming days in the same manner.
Both parties now have so many ideologues demanding fealty if not commanding fear that I don't think there's any room remaining for the "can we talk about this?" contingent. I will confess to an abiding loathing of the stridency from both flanks except the Democrats, to my ears, sound silly and and trippy (a Woodstock word to describe those, I think, who disregarded the 'avoid the brown acid' warning) whereas the TEAliban of what was once the Republican Party hate government and everything about it.
They call it THE government because that's easy to demonize but I see it as MY government and that means they and I must agree to disagree, but I don't think it will stay there for very long. Thus, as Mom says, when you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything. This is usually where I interject 'how 'bout them Mets?' but Lee H, probably still in the Adirondacks, hates when I do that (or would if he knew) so I won't.
I don't know how much more life the "two party system" has left in it. I think I'm not alone when I say I'm out of patience with it and those who wield it as a weapon to smite 'others' whomever they might be. I've got no expectations so while I hate to say I am a pessimist, I have to point out as such I can only be surprised and never disappointed. At least until Election Day; and in the interests of saving time, I have already assumed the position.
-bill kenny
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