Facebook Fatigue

At the current time, I have 51 Facebook "friends." This is too many. I am fascinated with people who have hundreds of friends on, not only Facebook, but other social networks. Out of the 51 people I have on my friends list, I only keep up with about 5 or 6. I've slowly continued to eliminate people who, for reasons unknown to me now, I added. Guess it seemed right at the time. I just have one problem. I don't want to offend anyone. But, just like ending a relationship, most of the time it isn't going to be smooth. However, it may come down to the person. For instance, I had a "friend" from work ask me if she could be my friend on Facebook. Having known this person for a long time, I said yes. Subsequently, in following months, she unfriended me. I have no problem with it. Really. Again, it was one of those times where I didn't have any interest in what this person is doing. Nonetheless, I accepted her friend request. So maybe the people who I'm considering unfriending feel the same way about me. I just don't know who they are. I wish I did, it would make me feel a lot better about hitting the unfriend button.


I seem to be saying to myself more and more "I'm so sick of Facebook." When I dissected the reasons behind my displeasure, I concluded that my frustration had nothing to do with Facebook. It's my friends list. The nexus of my frustration is as follows. When I post something on Facebook, I first think to myself. Is this post going to mean something? Is this post going to enlighten people? Is this post worth posting? Most of the people on my friends list ask none of these questions. I hate posting, what I consider, superfluous content. Examples: "I woke up with a head ache" or "my dog learned a new trick" It's amazing to me that those postings garner a number of likes and comments. Are you kidding me? I guess postings like that mean something to someone. Not me. When I post something on Facebook it is always: a useful website, photo site, news event, a documentary or something that contributes to substance. And, almost always my posts get no likes and no comments.


It may sound like sour grapes on my part. It's not that at all. It just sounds that way. As I've said, it's not Facebook and it's not my posts. It's my friends list. 


That's my fault.

Down on the NBA

When the NBA players decided to strike a few months ago, I couldn't rap my understanding around it. WHY? What are they protesting? Well, it's money as usual. Of all the professional sports, the NBA players are among the athletes that should least be crying about money or anything else related to their playing conditions. The pro baseball players, by the way, are the ones that should never cry about money and playing conditions. Are you kidding me? Baseball? Work? No. Getting paid millions for swinging a bat, running around a little bit, catching a ball and sitting in a dugout is cool. You have nothing to cry about. Pro basketball players have nothing to be crying about either. What do you do? You run around back and forth dribbling a ball, shoot at a basket and get a great workout while getting paid millions. The minimum wage for an NBA player is over $470.000 a year. Your F_ _ _ing joking? If they paid me $50,000 a year, I would play my heart out. Yes, the owners are raking it in. But, that is their franchise. It's their club. don't like the conditions there? Go somewhere else.

I'm a capitalist. I believe people should venture into a risk and have a chance to make a profit. I believe a person should "get as much as they can." But it rubs me the wrong way when pro players whine that they aren't getting paid what they should based on the disparity of income the franchises are making. It's not your club! Start a league of your own and pay out whatever you want.

At this time, I have not been able to watch an NBA game. Not even my beloved LA Lakers. I'm just too turned off. Maybe time will heal, but for now, no Pro basketball for me. Thank you.

The strain of sickness

It was a sore throat. "No big deal" I said. Then, it was a sore throat and a cough. I said to myself, "damn, I'm getting a cold." OK, so I'll have the symptoms as usual: running nose, cough, sore throat etc. for a few days and I'll be just fine. OJ, NyQuil and some good rest will do the job. But, I had no idea of the unrelenting and deplorable sickness I was about to encounter.

I have no health insurance and at this moment in time my financial condition mirrors the condition I was in, so a visit to the doctor was out of the question. My best guess was that I had pneumonia. Let's see, I had the most intense cough I have ever had, I was coughing up green glop, then yellow glop, the most intense head aches I have ever had, fever (103.4) and loss of apatite. A couple of friends took mercy on me and gave me antibiotics. I thank you guys, you just might have saved my life.

The timing of this illness couldn't have come at a worse time. I had two more weeks of Algebra class and a final exam to deal with. Just to give some perspective, math is the one thing in this life I hate the most. HATE IT WITH A PASSION! More perspective? Just think of something in this life you would hate to do the most. And, you had to do this in order to complete a life goal. Let me give you some help, if you are having trouble thinking of something. Let's say you had to eating a dozen sandwiches made of excrement. YES, that's how I feel about algebra. Did I make my point? I hope so. I finished up the last two weeks of class as the illness got progressively worse. By the time the final came around, I was in the throws of the wickedness that had invaded my body. I don't know how I managed to study the week before the test. I just took it a little at a time. I approached studying for the test very differently than I had planned earlier. Some how I was able to drag myself to class that morning, take the test and pass it with a 78. I ended up making a B in the class, which later bugged me because I knew I could have made an A had I not been sick. But, Oh well, I PASSES! I DON'T EVER HAVE TO TAKE ANOTHER MATH CLASS AS LONG AS I LIVE!

I'm well now.

I thank God for the recovery. The animal inside me did it's damage but my body has done it's work once again. You don't know how good it feels to be healthy until you have been in a chasm of a treacherous illness. For the first time in my life I felt so vulnerable and so alone. For the first time in my life I feared not waking up in the morning. I see a lot of very sick people where I work. My sympathy for those peoples' needs has turned into empathy. The health care field is the last place I want to be. But, for the short time I have left there, I will intensify my compassion for the infirmed. Because, I know what it feels like to be in pain. Severe pain and distress.

My first DSLR

I feel like a kid again! I bought my first DSLR; it's a Nikon D3100. WOW! What a camera. I have always loved taking pictures of family, friends and just anything that seems interesting to me. I first started back in the 70's with a Kodak 110. Then came the Kodak instant camera. Later I bought a Kodak 35mm fixed lens camera which I loved and kept for many years. I actually used that camera to shoot pictures on my honey moon with my wonderful wife. After a hiatus from photography, I bought a Nikon L18 point and shoot. And now I'm here. Nikon D3100. Since I bought it (last Friday May 13th 2011), I've been shooting pics like crazy. I've posted a fraction of a fraction on Flickr.com. To view those pics click on this link. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdeanda67/

So now I'm enjoying a passion of mine. I'm learning how to take better pictures and learning all about photography jargon and techniques. And, I'm loving every moment. This is as close to reliving my childhood as I'm probably going to get. My thanks to Leo Laporte and Lisa Bettany from Mostly Photo on http://www.twit.tv/photo as well as Jared "froknowsphoto" Polin from http://froknowsphoto.com/ for helping me sooooooooooooooo much to learn terminology and tips. Thanks!

Coliseum site

On a whim, I took some pictures of where the Memorial Coliseum used to stand. It is, fort the moment, a flattened area. Construction has started on something, not sure what they are going to build there. I just wanted to document the site with the coliseum, after the coliseum, before the new structure and after the new structure.

New notebook

It was one day, about 3 weeks ago. I was having a great time on my computer: watching twit, reading e-mail, tweeting, and reading articles. I felt like watching a movie on Netflix so I clicked on Child's Play, I missed Chucky. The movie got through the first 5 minutes and my computer locked-up. The screen froze up and I was hearing a fuzzy sound coming from the speakers. I thought to myself, well its just a crash, let me restart. Well, my machine would not shut down. Even hitting the power button wasn't shutting it down. I finally removed the battery and that finally did the job. However, when I tried turning the machine back on, ya, it wouldn't turn on. My laptop would go through a strange cycle of coming on for about 2 seconds and shut off. And, I could not get it to stop this cycle any other way except by taking the battery out. Needless to say, I was pissed. I have many ideas as to way my computer went down, but my overwhelming suspicion is that I over heated my CPU. Just a guess.

I am now back up and running with a new notebook. This time a Gateway. Should not have bought it when I did, but here it is. First impression, its pretty cool. Very light, very fast and has a great display. No review right now, will have one later. Bottom line, right now I'm getting acquainted with it but I really like it right now. It's great to be back in the saddle again. I thought I could access the WEB via my phone (which I love) for a month or so but no, no cigar. You can do a lot of things with your phone but it doesn't compare to a full fledged computer

web DMC is a downer

Thus far I have no idea what anyone else's experience has been with the new WEB DMC, but I simply hate it. This is the absolute worst website I have ever used. It took me 2 hours to register online using this ridiculous site. It took too long to load pages and I had to read a tutorial in order to get registered. I have nothing against tutorials, however I have never had to read a tutorial in order to purchase something on Amazon or Best Buy. Are you kidding? If that were the case, I don't think they would attract very many customers. On those, and other websites, things are so simple and easy to use. A customer browses through categories, makes selections and hits the check out tab. Your done. My God, but not the WEB DMC. First of all you have to wait until they allow you to register then you have to wait (what seems like forever) for the pages to load, follow specific steps (enter the tutorial) and then maybe you can finalize your registration, if you haven't missed any steps, in which case you have to start again or go back to the tutorial.

I try very hard to stay away from this site. I only go there when I absolutely have to.