Wednesday, December 19, 2001

Alienation is an engine that moves while at the same time debilitates the 'advancement' that's achieved with technology in our ultra-mobile society. As people move around, growing further apart, having a hard time staying in one place for very long, they often snatch at anything that lends the feeling of connectivity and sharing between beings. Tools of artificial closeness, such as discussion groups, email, web-logs, wireless phone mail, etc. are invented and marketed more vigorously with each passing day. Unfortunately, unless one's friends and family are ravenous readers, blessed with mountains of time and money, or simply questing thinkers and artists and we fountains of creativity and glib wisdom, it seems the distance we seek to negate gets less negligible as the novelty of electronic closeness wears thin.

Go for the real thing this holiday season. Really touch someone, pour out the soul of your heart to someone you miss. They may be yearning for just that sort of interaction. They might not be so far away, after all.

The follow-ups might become easier as you keep this sort of interaction growing.

Who knows? You might have to take a pay cut and move physically closer, but the spiritual and emotional rewards might surprise you. Perhaps the substitute will still work best for you in your current situation. Just don't let alienation tear at your relationships, aye?

Saturday, December 15, 2001

Brynni's birthday! And along with all the familial bliss came sixteen inches of powder to make the whole world look pure and clean. I love snow! What's the big deal about driving in it? The biggest problem is when the damn scrapers come and make heavy, brown slush out of it all and everybody thinks they can go seventy miles an hour and fishtail and swerve all over the road. I say let it compact and drive slow as humanly possible on what little sand they can scrounge up out of the local pit. Salt is for food and making homemade icecream, for hell's sake. My poor Toyota has had about all the seasoning it can take before it turns to dust next spring when it finally gets a chance to dry. Oh well, the busybacksoons rule the world...

If you're looking for photos of the grand occasion, look no further than this link. Enjoy your Christmas and Hanukkah season and drive with care!

Monday, December 3, 2001

This may not be the promised tomorrow on the last entry, but it is still less time between entries than the previous few. Keep faith, dear reader.

Everyone is well at our home. The greatest thing to happen in recent days is the ascendency of Hyrum from the crawling caste to the uprightly mobile class. Not only is this good for his self image, it's his ticket off the damn cold floor in our drafty old poorly-heated house. He was sick for a week or so during the latter part of November, furrowing our brows with a sticky cough that threatened pneumonia. Now he is back to normal, learning to negotiate the floors with slippery socks or clompy shoes, the bugaboos of those who learn to walk in the winter. I wonder if this causes annoying scars that last into adulthood? I don't like wearing shoes to this day. Hm.

To update our many avid readers, (i fear i am the only one, but don't tell me, i like my visions of blogging grandeur) we enjoyed our trip to Yellowstone this year with the whole family and Moshe too. Dustin and Misty Crawford were able to join us this year as well, they brought their dogs Cache and Marley and we had a great time hopping from place to place.

Winter was long in coming this year, temperatures staying well into the fifties and sixties until the fourth week in November. Sheesh. Now we have been blessed with the largest amount of snow on the ground that we've had in years. Amazing what the seasons bring and how fast things can change.

Christmas is well on its way, the lights are up and "It's a Wonderful Life" has been watched. We'll now see how much eggnog i can consume afore my coronary arteries turn into swizzlesticks...