Very Vexed by Vasoline

Abby is a doll and she's smart too.  Sometimes, I think, she is maybe a little too smart, and I think that perhaps a little more SpongeBob and a lot less reading and outside fun is a great idea.  You take that intellect and tag on a strong will to never ever nap - even when daddy is begging her to, then you have an issue which if left unattended can leave you with loads of trouble, or should I say a tub of...
Abby.  It's time for a nap.
"No no no!"  She replies with a musical lilt.
It's time.  Let's go.
"No!"  Less musical, more emphatic.
One.  Two.  Thr...
Up the stairs to her bedroom she advances like a midget on the sands of Normandy,  because she realizes that "three" means I carry her and close the door sans story and song. 
"You go second!"  She instructs me pointing to the bottom of the steps.  And honestly, at this point I don't really care - as long she gets up to her room for her nap.
Blinds drawn blissfully making the room dark but for the few patterns of light shining through the little slats.
"It's still daytime.  There's light."
Yep.
I threw her in a diaper, knowing all too well that I would be removing a stinky package exactly five minutes after I depart the room.  And I do.  And she's very clingy at this point and wants nothing to do with her bed.
I took the poopy parcel out of the room, and descended to the study for a little reading and writing.
I forgot something and knew I should have retraced my steps, but she was making a horrible racket of banging and singing.  I needed some alone time, and allowed the noise to crest and wain like a tranquil wave at a sunny shore.
The Vasoline.
About an hour later, I ascended the steps expecting a few things to be strewn haphazardly around the room.  What I did not expect was Vasoline on just about every nook and cranny, including her bed, the frame of the bed, her newly painted wall, the newly redone floor, her pajamas, her belly, her hair - and then on my fingers and feet which made that hardwood floor a little more challenging to navigate.
Roar!
"Hi daddy."  She coos.
Abby!  Why - you?  Roar!
"I make you happy!"  Greasy smile.
Yep.  Sometimes but not - right now!
I struggled.  My hands caressed her bed frame through the stick, thickly applied goo.
She looked up me with those multicolored eyes, while sitting in her dirty clothes basket, knowing (the lil' scamp) that if she played her cards right the worst I would do is wash her clothes and her hair, and then  write about it in one of my stupid articles.
Ab.  You are absolutely right about that.

Probably a Technophobe and getting Closer.

Third and final part of a series entitled "The Ligonier".

I was amazed watching two friends fistbump each other using "intellihands" (or intelligent handheld device) to exchange information. The information that they exchanged - I could not say as to its importance, but I could say it raised some of my more paranoid questions in regards to our future. A future which seems to be rapidly approaching.


The Ligonier brought up a whole lot of topics, and in the conversation regarding my friend's financial disturbance he told me of an article he recently read.

"In a few years, our IDs will be kept in these handheld devices."

And this reminded me of the fistbump I witnessed earlier that week, where the physical action of bumping fists, produced an exchange that the mind alone or the notepad and paper should have accepted and stored to both individuals, and not the madness in mine that soon followed; I reminded my friend that there are devices out there that can be surgically implanted into the skin. The devices are called RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification Device.

RFIDs are used to company inventories, and in some European hospitals, they are used to track patients and their conditions. Here while the first may be used more frequently in the means to protect companies from loss through theft, veterinarians provide peace of mind for the owners of dogs and cats by letting them recognize the unrecognizably scrambled mess on the side of the road, without having to undergo some form of recognition autopsy.

Fear.

I believe it is what drives this technoeconomy. After 9-11-2001 - a time when we were told that no one was safe, intellihands became immensely popular as did the increase of information. What also increased at the time was the rampant abuse of personal and financial identifications which brought forth a wave of ID protections, which continue to prove useless no matter how hi-tech, because on everything we apply for from credit to jobs requires information that would otherwise be ours alone to share with an increasing paranoid government.

And the online malls where we buy our necessaries and unnecessaries, have their own walls of protection built for us, which though well packaged are nothing more than office cubicles - providing just enough protection to think that we are alone.

Fear.

Fear of public speaking - Youtube.

Fear of germs - Bluetooth.

Fear of your poor esteem and close relationships - Facebook.

Fear of mispellings - Spellcheck.

Fear of meeting new people - Face recognition.

Fear of hard work - Wikipedia, Wii, GuitarHero

Fear of want - Amazon.com, Ebay, Craigslist.

Elbert Hubbard, that often thought eccentric artist, once said that fearing a possible mistake by cowering to it is one of the biggest mistakes a person could make. And here, nearly 100 years since his passing, we are creating software applications to avoid that fear at any cost, which in the end will make us, as a species.

If fear is met and conquered, as a climber may challenge Everest, we become more than what we were. However, in this day and age, we hire digital sherpas, who do it (the hard work) all without us moving even a single muscle, and we, if we are honest with ourselves, know that we deserve absolutely for it.

But our egos, sensitive to our fears and luxuries will develop more programs to meet and relieve us of even the most minute sensitivities, and rest assured it will not be long before our intellihands are greeting our virtual children with timidity as they awaken to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

Part 1
Part 2

Not Quite a Techonophobe, but Closer.

Part 2 of a 3 part article.  For part 1 take off the "r".

We found ourselves finally, after some ridiculous and unnecessary hours on the road basking in the Ligonier dusk. I was told that tomorrow an antique show to tell the neighbors about will be featured on the very stret we were staying, and much to my own relief I was not one of the relics to be sold by these artifact dealers.

I had collected my wife and daughter and a myriad of articles that they both found necessary with which to cram the car to overflowing for the weekend retreat, and then myself - coming down from my unpleasant moments of technological blundering through the all too common global positioning device which we mistakenly used to bring us to our lovely destination.

After the giggles of children and the tittering laughter of adults through complete exhaustion and copious amounts of red wine, my beloved and I carefully ascended the wonderfully restored staircase with ninja-like reflexes, passing by our slumbering daughter and into our pillow top bed, where we slept until 6:45 in the morning, receiving the usual better than 2 hours of sleep.

The sun rose and the antique dealers crawled out from their vehicles. They set shops up and down the main street, and quietly waited for interested buyers to creep up on them with coffees and - in our case children in hand or on shoulder.

Yes, two grown men and their respective children walking side by side - writer types. Both a little sleepy looking, and wives nowhere to be found - my, how fancy.

Bait - a really cool, old green-felt sofa.

Fish - "writer extraordinaire" in need of really cool, old green-felt sofa for really old house in a really old neighborhood.

Snag.

She takes cash.

My friend goes to an ATM. An ATM is a machine which reads a magnetized, plastic card which holds personal finances. Its primary use is to divvy out parts of your cash reserves. There are several other duties the computerized teller can perform, including that those reserves may be dangerously low.

My friend is astonished. Not so much alarmed, but bewildered. Apparently, someone, who he has never met has used his card to the tune of over $1000 USD. This stranger is in Great Britain.

We buy stuff on line every day. We pay with these magnetized cards, which have numbers to our personal and business financial accounts trusting that the seller is one of incredible integrity or that the financial institution he is using is credible. Complete strangers.

It is not like I have never bought anything online. Indeed, I have bought quite a few things online, but I have to reconsider it now. The whole "exposed anonymity" economics is seedy to say the least - the secure feeling that no one knows what is in that "plain manila envelope, but the trustworthy individual who gave it to you. Nothing to be embarrassed about, right?"

It used to be that we went to the corner newsstand, restaurant, clothier and supermarket for our goods. We paid cash and we walked away. The person on the other end of the counter was someone we trusted and were familiar with or at the very least a person whom we could “eye-up”, and then somewhere along our consumption, someone invented the credit card. With it we could take into our physical possession, the products that we believed that we wanted, and we went to places that seemed innocuous, and we began to place our trust in people with a nice appearance, never looking into their eyes. Still personal - they may say “Hello” and “Thank you”, thus ending the transaction. Now we go “online” to buy goods and services. We use our financial IDs, willingly giving it over to complete strangers.

It does not end there. These strangers can access our personal history, our families, our consumption history, and market accordingly; like exercise videos and whole foods? You can bet somewhere in your online visits, you will have something marketed to you accordingly – in spam and spyware.

Compare it to walking down a dark alley in the city, with cash pouring out of you pockets – bank number, your car keys, house keys, your favorite music, your favorite food, pictures of your family, and your place of business. And then hand them all over to the first stranger you meet. He.com (She.com) looks great – sexy and armed for protection, not to mention of course that because of this they appear trusting. You hand it over because they have the latest product and service. They tell you to wait by the dumpster for it.

Good idea.

Part 3