Be Best

Watergate is a vague memory. I remember liking Nixon, but I’m sure that’s because family spoke positively of him. The time of impeachment was a time of frowns and anger. A time to not say anything and stay out of the way of every adult.

When it was over, there was a finality. A sort of “Nixon did it to himself” and a distancing from things… because it was a single incident rather than the failure of an entire party. I remember the set of my grandmother’s chin, mouth in a thin line of anger. Disgust.

I remember seeing that same disgust when we visited Washington DC, when a tour pointed out the Watergate Hotel. I tried to understand how a hotel brought down everyone’s dreams. Was it the strange build? Is that what did it? Was it the round shape or the odd lighting?

Years later I understood the points of Watergate better, but part of me to this day has a lingering impression that architecture somehow unmade a President. That Watergate hotel was haunted, and a memorial to all the things stopped in their tracks–that changed direction.

Many things in life do that, create different directions. But the thing that never changes, is we go on those new directions together. I admit that experiencing a Trump Presidency has been a challenging change of course. An unwanted, new direction.

I can feel that set of my grandmother’s chin, looking back at me in the mirror. Disgust … Anger. Finality. The heart of a person who is shutting a door. I really don’t care what side of it Trump believers are on when it closes. Would say I “just don’t care” but justice has nothing to with it. I never had trouble throwing babies out with bathwater. Something I learned from Watergate.

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Motorola G6 Amazon Version Android Oreo #googledevs #google @googledevs

My problems are because of this version of android, not a Motorola issue. And so far two things that ticked me off a bit with Oreo. #googledevs #google

1. Google no longer provides a link to their Voice Search. So you either have to burn up tons of battery to run “ok Google” ALL the time — or you get to do TWO clicks instead of one, to pull up the voice search.

I know for most people that’s stupid and doesn’t matter. But for me, I think about the person programming it, and I think “what in God’s name would make any programmer decide to make a function that takes one click now take two clicks. And the only answer I have is they’re trying to ‘herd’ users into the OK Google assistant feature. And what if you don’t want it? What if you don’t want your phone always listening for your commands? What if you don’t have the luxury of letting a battery run out because you aren’t in a car, you’re walking and you need to make it home before the battery runs out? So you do everything you possibly can to preserve power. But now, to do a search, you are penalized for that by having to first open the app, find the voice icon, click on that and then get a search function.

It’s no big deal. What ticks me off is it doesn’t make sense to remove the direct link. It wouldn’t have cost them anything to leave a direct link in place on the apps list. It’s basically an FU from google. And I don’t appreciate that kind of programming. Not at all.

number…

2. The “clear all” link for apps only shows up after you CLEAR ALL THE APPS. I’ll admit, this FU made me laugh. I’m going where is the clear all button? I have like twenty apps open. I’m trying long presses on the X. I’m trying to swipe in from the sides. Nothing. So I delete each one individually and there at the bottom of the stack is the “clear all.” And I just cracked up at that point. So kudos for being THAT funny — but minus the kudos and thensome for doing a programmers FU to the user by hiding the clear all button underneath the apps you want to clear.

And that’s about it. I replaced the stock launcher with ADW2 launcher because it’s just better. And installed the icon packs I like. The stock launcher makes the icons SO tiny you can barely see them. But with ADW I can choose how many icons I want in a row and how big they should be.

The good news is the nice time/weather/battery widget still works with the ADW launcher. I like that I can shake the phone to make the camera come on. Or do the chop motion to make the flashlight go on or off. I haven’t initiated Alexa, for the battery reasons I noted before. But I’ll first get an idea of how long it lasts on a charge, and after a few days I’ll try initiating Alexa and see how much more power that takes to have on.

The G6 feels a lot smaller than you would expect from almost a 6″ screen– 5.7″. I guess that’s because of the longer aspect ratio. The camera works pretty good. Or I’m liking it ok so far. Somebody said in a review that the audio was just amazing — because of the Dolby. But I’m not seeing it. The Windows phone has much better audio — and it took quite a bit of tweaking of the dolby controls on the G6 to make the songs even somewhat acceptable for pleasurable listening. So that was kind of a letdown. I guess the person that was wowed by it was coming from a much worse experience.

The entire fingerprint setup thing has me puzzled ……. because you have a fingerprint reader to quickly unlock a phone, but then require a pin to even use the fingerprint reader. Which I’m pretty sure doing a fingerprint read AND a PIN, takes more time than just a PIN. Or just a fingerprint. So I can’t figure that one out.

number 3 … a third thing that’s annoying about Oreo ………… is they removed the “none” option for sign-in. Usually I just put the setting on none, so that when I push the phone button the phone comes on. I don’t need all these fancy entry crap to make me feel the phone is more special than it is, because look at how hard I had to work just to get into it! I don’t NEED that.

So it’s a little F’d up that they took away the “None” function for the lockscreen. So I have to swipe the screen for it to come on. Which again — isn’t a big deal. But it IS. Because it makes no sense to remove the option other than you’re being a dick to those who don’t want to waste time opening a phone.

So after looking at the Oreo edition of Android — I’m really concerned about the level and type of programmers they have making decisions at Google. That doesn’t portent well at all for the company. They are known for ignoring bugs and not dealing with boggy programming, but purposely programming in FU’s is usually not Google’s style. So that has me feeling both angry and depressed tonight.

None of it are game-changers for the phone itself. Overall, it looks like Motorola packed in quite a bit of quality for the economy price tag. And at the same time, they don’t install near as much bogware as Samsung does on my tablet. AND what is installed on the G6 does not have the uninstall or disable button greyed out like most of the Samsung programming does.

It clips along fine without any hanging …… which is what I want. As far as I’m concerned, if you slow responses down even by a microsecond so that you can have mandatory “malware protection” — then you just let the bad guys win. They won. They managed to make things worse for you, by you making them worse for yourself.

I don’t go to porn sites, I don’t click on click-bait sites, and I know how to set a browser to not accept third-party cookies. I would rather be fast than decide slow and boggy is ok because I’m “safe.” It’s not. It’s not ok. They don’t get to win.

So other than a few frustrations because I’m in that kind of mood — and why is that, btw? Christ, it’s one of those days when I’m changing the strap on my grocery carryall, and the old one doesn’t want to come loose and I’m swearing outloud and practically screaming at this thing … because part of me knows nothing —- nothing is going to go right. Part of me feels like there’s a million things getting in my way. That’s what kind of day it feels like.

And while I’m in the grocery store, looking at all these fine Utah red-state people shopping and wandering around in the aisles …. I’m thinking about how the Republicans had a special meeting with the Kremlin, and how it’s very likely that our entire country has been sold down the river now. I think about that, about how far Republicans would go to remain in power indefinitely, as I’m reaching to put the sugar in my cart. I wonder what kind of deals the GOP would make with Russia to get what they want and use the Russians to defeat and destroy all left wing and all democrats. After all, they were desperate enough to put something like the trump family in power. Lord only knows how far that desperation will take them into betrayal. Always expect the worse. Just do.

So that was the happy thoughts I was having as I pushed my cart along looking for the best deal on shredded cheese and grabbing the generic instant coffee with a sigh while I sort of cursed economizing in general and how I feel a little bit smaller every time corners get cut. I thought about the end of all life as we know it, while I walked down the beauty aisle to pick up some of my favorite body spray.

I’ve been using mine up on the ants. They are back this summer, and all over the cat food if I don’t keep her food placemats sprayed with perfume of some kind. Then I have to dump a cat dish crawling with ants into the sink — and it disgusts me in a really strange way. Like I throw the dish so hard into the sink that I almost break it.

I helped serve lunch to the homeless today. And this time I didn’t even see them. Seriously — I didn’t look into a single face. That’s bad, when I think about it. Usually I look and/or smile, and I think I do that because it’s important to be reminded of humanity, and to not see people who are in rough situations as somehow less of being people inside. I have to open up to that, because it’s too easy to gloss over and think every insurmountable problem doesn’t matter because it’s not your personal problem. Because it IS everybody’s problem. And I don’t say that as a bleeding liberal, I say that as a member of a military family that knows you don’t LEAVE MEN BEHIND. All for one and one for all. If they’re hurting, that means I’m hurting. It doesn’t mean I’m more happy because it’s not me, and so I never allow myself to feel that way. I ALWAYS carry the weight. Always. He ain’t heavy — he’s my brother.

I remember listening to that song while at Oxnard College, while working out in the gym and doing leg lifts. Something about pumping iron to it, really drives the message of that song home.

The road is long
With many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where
Who knows where
But I’m strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother
So on we go
His welfare is of my concern
No burden is he to bear
We’ll get there
For I know
He would not encumber me
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother
If I’m laden at all
I’m laden with sadness
That everyone’s heart
Isn’t filled with the gladness
Of love for one another
It’s a long, long road
From which there is no return
While we’re on the way to there
Why not share
And the load
Doesn’t weigh me down at all
He ain’t heavy he’s my brother
He’s my brother
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother, he ain’t heavy
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

*Songwriters: Bob Russell / Bobby Scott

And anyway ………. yea, the Motorola G6 phone is good. Happy I got it, and it’s kind of nice to have a phone that was just made available 2 months ago and is that much of a new-tech item. Even economy — it’s ok. I usually go for the older flagships, so can have the lower pricing.

This is going to work out fine. The phone. I think the country is screwed and people better hope the Republicans didn’t promise the Russians your first born.

I’m all over the place because I’m tired and have been walking in the heat. I’m going to make some lemonade and take some very large gulps, and all will be good. And I have a new phone to play some games and explore other functions. Life ain’t bad. But I do wish I had grandma here so I could ask her what’s next. Maybe I’ll wake up Alexa and ask her what I should do with my life. To be honest, that scares me. I’d rather not find out what a computer would decide on that.

Self the Future Holds

I am the precursor
Did I ever tell you
That before the Disney Frozen phase
And the pop hit “Let it Go”
I painted “Let it Go” on a painting
And before I left California in 2007
I set that painting in my living room
With the pics of my 2 kids
And I wept and wept and wept
And I sang and sang … telling
Myself that I needed to let go
To let it go ….

Therefore I ignored the Frozen movie when it came out
and the song that was being sung
across the nation in the backs
of mini-vans by children ….

I ignored it
Because who needs fate mocking you? that severely?
Who needs such proof?

not me …………
I love the random
The beauty of unexpected ventures
I love looking at the sky
And never knowing what I’ll see …

And I am the precursor

To see and measure and bleed before
To quicken or slow
To raise or fall

To sooth and say nothing
There is no way for my being to instruct
No path that perfects … insolence

But if I’m smiling
You know the mine is fine
Air is clear

If I’m flapping and struggling
You know danger is upon
And if I lose all self-regard because of fear
The complete insanity of lost minds

Then ends dance so close that
Any salvation is matter of luck alone

Couldn’t say why
I can disengage, now … remove
from that crank or foresight and find
refuge in the now

ok, I always could
just didn’t always let on
show the real of the variegated realities

I don’t worry about much
true

tomorrow I won’t worry again
but maybe you should
maybe should

like 3 weeks in
to get to watch the always missed
a treat
And to let it go
truly let it go means nothing … nichts

except never forget
the poet finds other
the other meant
“to let” is slice and bleed
oozed and spent

how does your physician heal?
mine is slow and very slow

and I cried true tears only for my vision
only for ME, they remain

and refrain

Every Now and Then

Every now and then I wonder
Every now and then I see
Every now and then I look away
When you look right at me…

It’s a shame we aren’t forgiven
For all the things we’ve never done
All the hopes we’ve never shared
All the games we’ve never won

Every now and then I wonder
Every now and then I see
A light ahead
A darkness
A journey just for me

There’s no sin for being worthless
For there’s nothing left to prove
There’s no heart that can’t be broken
There’s no love that’s always true

Though I try to see the dawn
Up there ahead it’s kind of faint
There will be an answer soon
Where soon forever paints … the sky a deeper blue
A striking red! A hit
Of colors, flaming
through the next day … After you went away
Now gone

I only sing my song to fly
I only worship open skies
Then ask myself …

Every now and then I wonder
Every now and then I see
Has it mattered … does it matter
What is best for me?
Has it mattered
Does it matter?
What is best for me …

Every now and then
I’m jealous
Of the River that meets the Sea

Strong is my Consternation

The interesting thing about insults is they are tells.

1. That the individual felt the need to belittle someone else. (ego needs lift)

2. Insults used against others are most often the kind that would hurt themselves the most. (Pinpoints vulnerabilities)

The thing to understand, is an insult rarely fits the person receiving it. Even exaggerations have a direction, exposing their source.

Insults are often used as a junction of commiseration … mutual feelings among fellows. It is important to recognize that use, as it negates the tell regarding lift to the ego. Instead, that tell points to loneliness or a shaky reality.

Therefore, those gop that thrilled to call others weak (snowflakes) — are themselves extremely afraid of being perceived as weak. A resurgence of “real men don’t cry.” Or more importantly, the need for imperviousness within a society of large competitive factors.

And so, the factors and realities of competition, and how those are molded and melded into the functions of a society … in relation to levels of violence versus levels of peace.

I would be perfectly fine with high levels of peace. However, many are not, and find that higher levels of discord are more entertaining. Those more tuned to outward perspectives, need more outward entertainment.

And one way to disturb the peace, is to level insults … directly or behind backs. To choose enemies. If only we were as diligent in “choosing” friends! If only. The insults that hurt me the most, are those tied to factors not under my control.

Or even “constructive criticism” after i have tried my very best, seems particularly cruel. The largest tell in those who enjoy insulting others, is the joy itself. The happiness achieved in lessoning the joy of others. Which that, then, is a tell for sadism.

The distinction of sadism is in what it canNOT achieve. Which is an inner joy from the happiness of others. The power is a thrill or drug, the joy felt by the unhappiness of others. And power has its antithesis, which is humility.

The humble rarely insult others. Blessed are the meek… I believe that kindness is stronger than insults. That living well does not need to mean better or worse. That being a person who understands others can make you smile and make you cry. But it doesn’t make you weak.