Why I blog

Several reasons factor into my blogging, most of which is a time stamped documentation as proof that, “I was here.”

I never met either one of my grandfathers nor do I have any of their written words, thoughts, or ideas about the times they lived in. I’m sure back then it wasn’t convenient to grab a goose feather and inkwell. Add to the fact that hemp paper was in short supply and it’s understandable why there’s not much of a written history about my Gramps and how they saw the world. For instance, what did my great grandpa think of Woodrow Wilson and his secret police? Did my surname from generations past grumble and rail against the fascist state set-up by Wilson and FDR? Those questions and more will never be answered, so I’m left blind to the political leanings of my short-distant relatives.

We live in an age where it’s much easier. My purpose is to leave this stuff floating in cyberspace for generations behind me. Hopefully they’ll get a sense of what it was like living during this age. (Side note to my wife; have www.thewayronseesit.blogspot.com written on my tombstone.) This is not a family history, I have little use for Uncle Jed came home from the war and married Aunt Bee. They settled down in Two Egg Florida and raised four kids, blah, blah, blah. While genealogy has its place, you won’t find it here. Now if Uncle Jed protested the “Revenue Act of 1913” then its right up my alley and tell me more.

I completely understand that blogging is not for everyone. Currently two in my family blog and their links can be found on my main page. My brother Rick, whose story about surviving a heart attack will benefit anyone who suddenly found themselves in the same situation. His blog is jammed packed with information and personal stories about living with a heart related illness.

My brother Randall blogs on occasion, mostly when he travels overseas doing the “Lords work.” While not as frequent as Rick’s blog, it’s still insightful about his observations and the things he encounters.

We all need to leave something behind and I can’t think of anything better than words. While not the voice of this generation, I am a voice among many reacting to the times. Jim Morrison said, “No one gets out alive” and it’s true, but we can be heard indefinitely as long as the bandwidth holds up. With all the useless information that’s flooded the Internet maybe it will crash before I do, but for now, I will assume the grand old superhighway will stand until the end of time.

One hundred years from now, if we survive, historians will have a plethora of information. Family members, through ancient blogs, will know us better than their next door neighbor. The future will always be uncertain, but the past, like never before, will only be a click away.

This is the 136^th entry I’ve made; none of them would be confused with great works of literature. The best way to sum up my style is, “I get by.” I’ve covered the gamut from running a marathon, to my obsession with grits (and Sarah). I’ve gotten political and rambled on about guys wearing ponytails. Each word may not always be spelled right, but thought has always been in each word. What I write comes to a surprise to those who don’t know me well, and those who know me well, nothing I write surprises them.

This is what I enjoy doing and I hope to do it until they pry my cold dead fingers off the keyboard. With the times that loom ahead of us I’m afraid this blog may take on a darker tone. I try to write with a humorist edge and will do everything I can to keep it that way. During the “Great Depression” (the one in the 1930’s) laughter was in short supply. This generation may soon understand what that means.

My fear tells me hunker down we’re in for a change. My hope tells me we just elected “Hope” and hunker down we’re in for a change.

If all goes as planned, my great-great-great-great-great-great grandson will click on this page and say, “Old Gramps was here.”

Get your click on

The Internet, still in its infancy, but yet seems old hat. Between “My Space,” “Face Book,” and yes Blog nation, everything is thrown up for the world to observe. It’s a way to shout, “Look at me,” without anyone noticing.

It’s hard to pinpoint when we lost our patience, but we’re an ever-increasing society racked with slipped attention. Today, things move at breakneck speed, causing clutter, and confusion that makes our antiquated mind feel somewhat bored. While newspapers take their last breath and movies drift away from interesting plot lines and great dialogue in exchange for computer generated fakeness and unrealistic action scenes. We become restless and indifferent.

You can’t watch a newscast or sporting event without having information fly in tiny words from one side of the screen to the other. Somehow listening to an anchor report the news or becoming lost in the drama of a ballgame isn’t good enough. Now we must read while we watch. Thanks to technology we’ve ruined T.V.

Do we really need to know half the crap they peddle across the tube? Example, back when Hillary was still the smartest woman in the world, one of the yak news channels had braking news scroll across the screen. My attention was diverted from a pointless story about the economy to this earth shaking news. “Braking News… Braking News… Braking News…” This finally rolled by, “Ricky Martin has endorsed Hillary Clinton… Ricky Martin has endorsed Hillary Clinton…” Okay, in Ricky Martin’s heyday, he wasn’t relevant. You say you’ve never heard of Ricky Martin? Exactly, useless time filler disguised as braking news. Just because we have the ability to relay instant information doesn’t mean all information warrants a scroll, right?

Thanks to satellite, we’re able to view bombs dropped on a country a half a globe away. But also, we can see the latest drunken celebrity puking his guts out on the seat of a Porsche because someone captured the event on a cell phone and put it on YouTube.

It’s all about information. A nude photo of someone’s ex-girlfriend is posted in cyber space. Bloggers preach there own brand of gospel. Music and movies are illegally downloaded without regard to copyrights. And on and on the Internet turns. We click, we move on, and we forget about what we just saw. Never mind privacy or the law…just click and get your fix.

Nothing surprises us anymore. Sure we’re amused, but we seldom say, “Wow.”

The big question, what do we gain from this information age? The world is certainly smaller and more convenient. But at what cost? We’re losing our vocabulary, penmanship, and manners. Communicating is dumbed-down to text messaging.

The art of a handwritten letter went out sometime ago, and we behave much different in anonymity with a user name like “bigfella812”

We’re vague personalities clicking in space looking for anything new, where 25 seconds is an eternity and owning a blog is a rite of passage.

As soon as I click publish, this can be viewed world wide, (hence www.) In another day and time this would be magic and certainly mythical. How would Washington’s email to Jefferson read?

t,

u ok? i’m fine BUT NEED AMMO. u hear benedict is a traitor? i never trusted that guy. need favor, goggle diphtheria (sp) my internet service has been spotty since crossing the delaware.

sorry about the whole, i’m not volunteering for anything. u no martha she wants me home. foreword this to adams in paris, i’ve lost his email address and i need the name of his dentist

gotta go cornwallis just text me, this thing might be over before beerfest 81

hopefully this email gets through and i look foreword to reading you’re blog about cats.

gw :)

Each generation lives in a different world than the previous. It’s faster, more advanced and educated. However, with each generation, time and patience become scarce properties to this enlighten age. We’re trained to beat our mouse into submission until the page loads or the program is installed.

More often than not, news becomes blurred with fiction and facts float off into a never ending sea of argument between political hacks. (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?)

Sudden information might just be our downfall. Without enough time to ponder what happened, we move on to something else that’s about to happen. Yesterday’s news is one thing, but we’re talking about news that’s not even dry before it’s outdated.

But this is the state we live in, like trained monkeys anything is a mouse click away. No points are ever made, we just affirm the points we believe in and move on to the next page. We click, click, click looking at everything and absorbing nothing, gnats laugh at our attention span, we don’t think, we react, it’s in our cyber blood.

Cell phones, GPS, and iPods are this generation’s version of “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” We never pull into a gas station for directions. GPS cut out the middleman for conversation. Of course we’re always on the cell phone talking to friends, so why make new ones.

I’m guilty as anybody. You won’t find me playing the role of hypocrite, like others (Al Gore). Everyone who knows me knows I usually have some sort of device hooked up to my ears. A constant stream of information runs into my head, most of it worthless, but information just the same.

Like the masses, I’m trapped in a virtual world while the real one passes by.