Facebook

I had an epiphany Sunday night. I was corresponding with Marnie, our executive pastor at Peachtree Presbyterian Church via Facebook. The dialog was clearly supportive of My 95, an initiative of the missional church to guide parishioners in how to spend the vast majority of their life.

As a part of MEDITECH, my email at work is OPEN. That means that anyone can read it. As an officer of the company, I don't even have a log of who read it (most employees can see who has read their email). It's a very convenient mechanism for checking an ill colleague's email, to make sure their clients get appropriate responses. But now I recognize that it is also a very interesting way to convey to the entire company whatever it is that I want to convey. If I'm writing another officer, I know that dozens of employees will read it.

Clearly, we at Peachtree are using Facebook this way as well. I want you to read what I write on Chuck Roberts or Vic Pentz's wall. We're trying to influence you. As followers of Jesus should be hoping to influence others who watch them with everything we do.

My cousin Randolph has made a career out of figuring out how young folks are using the current media. I think it's cool that we old folks can use the new media as well.

I Love Technology

The first half of this was written on 9/25, as I waited for Delta for 3 extra hours to get home after a conference in Canton, MA. The title, of course, comes from Kip's song (after the credits) in Napoleon Dynamite.

I'm stuck in Logan Airport with an hour to kill before my flight. Logan advertises their WiFi all over the airport, but I'm too cheap to pay the $10 per day for an hour's benefit to get access to the net. Unfortunately, all my story ideas are on my Google Docs. It's so rare these days to not have access to the net that leaving my story ideas there seemed perfect – I could get to them from whatever computer I was using.

The Legal Seafood test kitchen at Logan has, as always, a great clam chowder. The lobster roll isn't bad either.

What does ubiquitous connection to the net really mean? Google is betting that it means having all your data in the cloud is the technology of the future. As I use more and more different computers (2 desktops and 2 laptops at home, plus a work laptop), it's easier to imagine not caring which machine I'm on. My daughters' generation assumes it; they have never used an email client that stored the messages on their local hard drive.

Having all my data on the cloud reminds me of when daughter Eleanor first became vaguely aware of the telephone. She assumed that our home number in Mt. Pleasant would follow us when we went to a friend's house. Before she reached adulthood, that was her reality. The dorm freshman year included a land line; I don't think she ever gave out that number. She certainly never checked the old-fashioned answering machine I attached to it. The cell phone in my pocket is now the best way to reach me also.

As I review my airport ramblings towards the end of the next week, it's clear that the theme I was trying to get to while stuck at Logan is the evolution of technology to meet at least some of our expectations. Eleanor expects her phone number to follow her and eventually that's exactly the way it works. I have always thought we should have a cashless society. Clearly, I was ahead of my time.

In 1984, six months after our nuptials, I was on my first business trip. NDC was selling its pharmacy system to Rite-Aid and somehow I was sent to a 2 day meeting in nowhere Pennsylvania. It took one day more than expected to close the deal, so I extended my trip. That meant that I used the last of my cash in Washington National airport as I changed planes on the way home. I spent $10 in 1984 dollars for an unappetizing hot dog. I arrived at Hartsfield about 10pm. I recognized my dilemma immediately in that my VW Rabbit was in the parking lot and I didn't have the cash to get it out. There were no ATMs at the Airport. The ticket counters were closed, so no one could cash a check for me. The worst part is that I spent an hour looking around to try to find some way to fix my problem by myself. By the time I called my bride about 11pm, our friend Kim had just left the house after giving up on waiting for my return. MA had to go to the ATM on Jimmy Carter Blvd (a sketchy place even then), and then drive 20+ miles to the airport. That's an awful lot to ask from a 22 year old girl raised in small town SC, especially very late at night. When I saw the maroon Renault Alliance approach the drop-off point on the airport road, I was thrilled. Herself, clearly less so. She stopped and I opened the door. She threw a 20 dollar bill on the passenger seat. I grabbed it and she sped off quickly enough that the door closed on its own. It was a long drive up I-85 to the Treehouse apartments.

Today, the parking ticket machines inside the terminal don't even take cash to pre-pay before leaving ATL; they only take credit cards.

I love technology.

Modern Communications

Well, response to the blog has been somewhat mixed. Most of my friends and family apparently don't do blogs on a regular basis. Someone guided me to Facebook instead, to see her profile, but I don't do social networks much. I am now on Facebook, with two friend invitations out. I've seen at least a few people that I have lost touch with that I will work towards reconnecting with via Facebook, which makes that effort worthwhile.

Anyway, even in the empty nest, with supper to make, puppies to walk and just a little relaxation time, it's hard to imagine how folks spend too much time on social networks or blogging.

That said, email has been a great boon to communication. I email my father-in-law almost every day and we both are better for that correspondence. And, to continue my edits on this post, I had to bring a laptop up to the bedroom, so electronics are good for something.

I talk with herself a lot about maintaining contact with people. It takes time and effort, and perhaps these mechanisms can be a way to leverage some of that time. College friendships seem easier by comparison because you're in close proximity with the people you want to see. Many of our friends and most of our family are tens of minutes if not hours away.

Herself wrote some hand written notes this evening. Now there's a communication method that we reserve only for expressions of gratitude.

Even after stewing for several days, this post is rambling. Then again, that may be what blogs look like.