MobileMe: Moonshots

I've been goofing around with iPhoto and MobileMe a bit. Just a quick and dirty to see what's what, but here are 18 pictures I took of the moon in the last four years. You'd think I'd get better at it...

iPhone: The story thus far...

My experience with my iPhone 3G continues to be a positive one. No dropped calls. 3G coverage, even Edge coverage, is a bit weak at the naval station where I work, but it's pretty good at most of the places I tend to frequent.

The device itself works well. Call quality is equal to or better than what I experienced with the Nokia 3660.

I've been reading about some people having problems with the iPhone 3G, but my experience has been great. I'm happy with the phone, and I'm pleased with the service from both Apple and AT&T to this point.

Happy Birthday Hal Rager

Hal Rager celebrates his 53rd (or "LIII," as he put it) birthday today. Two days ago was the 10th anniversary of his ordination as Clerical Member of the Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun. And he's an archeologist! Somebody ought to make a movie about this guy!

As has been noted before, here and elsewhere, Hal and I go back to 2000 or so, in the old editthispage.com blog family.

Cheese Omelet: The Boss

You may recall the young ladies, Ally and Inga, flanking your genial host above, as we were last all together in March at the Gate River Run. But last night we were back downtown to see The Boss. And yes, the iPhone camera does leave a great deal to be desired, but at least I could get it into the arena.

I had to explain about "The Boss." I'm sure you know, Frank was the Chairman of the Board, Elvis was The King, and Bruce is simply "The Boss." (Whether or not those appellations really are titles and therefore appropriately capitalized is left as an exercise for readers with more time on their hands than me.) But when I asked Inga if she'd like to go see The Boss, her response was, "The who?" (Which might have lent itself to a whole Abbot and Costello thing, but I demurred.) Anyway, neither of my friends could be said to have been Springsteen fans, but I think that's a little different now.

Five years, five months and eleven days previously, I had been downtown for the same reason. Things seem to have changed a bit in the intervening half-decade. Last time, I was thrilled with Bruce and unhappy with the audience. This time, the crowd came to play, although they did throw me a bit of a scare.

Learning my lesson from the last concert, I got tickets on the floor this time, so I could stand up and pretty much make a complete fool out of myself as much as I wanted to. The tickets said showtime was 7:30, but I'm not so foolish as to believe that. Nevertheless, when we did wander onto the floor about 7:40, probably half the seats in the arena were empty. I confess I was pretty much convinced Jacksonville had let me down again. But I guess they were all out in the passageways buying t-shirts or something, because by the time the band finally took the stage, the place was full, and on their feet.

It was a much better concert, in my opinion, than the one in 2003. I suspect at least some of that is due to much better crowd reaction. It may also have been due to the two-week break they had before this show. In either case, it was an awesome show. The sound was a little louder than I would have preferred, but it wasn't so loud that it was painful. My ears are still ringing as I write this, but I've been to worse. Bruce was balls to the wall the whole time. Every time the camera focused on Max Weinberg, I worried about him a little. He's probably the only guy up there working every bit as hard as Bruce and he was looking a bit tired toward the end!

Mary's Place was the centerpiece of the revival pitch, which Bruce has changed a bit from the one you're probably most familiar with in the HBO Special or Live in New York City DVD. Lots of "house building" goin' on. I loved it. He offered some political commentary in the intro to Livin' in the Future, which didn't garner a hostile reaction that I could detect. Jacksonville is pretty much a right-wing, almost reactionary town. But last night, the only response I could hear was actually positive, so maybe we're a little less republican than we used to be.

Big surprise of the night for me was the performance of Back in Your Arms, which was a tour premiere, and a song I care about a great deal. It was the only slow number of the night. I think the show ran just about three hours, quite a bit longer than the 2003 show. His set lists have been running about 28 songs for most of the year, and this one was a bit under that at 26, but I'm not complaining. I don't think I could have made it through two more numbers. I left with a pounding headache, mostly from that whole "make a complete fool out of myself" thing. Because I did.

I'm a bit deaf and very hoarse this morning, but very pleased and happy. It was a great show with some great friends and a great showman. I don't know how many more times I might get to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, but I'm ever so glad I had this one.

Politics: If only...

Sometimes, not often, I get the urge to write about politics, but I choose not to. More so than even the other things I write about, people's minds are closed, their beliefs are fixed; and about the only thing one can contribute is another layer of ossification, or some shallow titillation.

But Hal Rager commented on something another blogger wrote recently, and while I normally agree with Hal on most things, I don't agree with his sentiment here. And I know he knows better, which probably sounds both presumptuous and arrogant.

Anyway, check it out, but for the sake of those too Google-addled to do so, it's a reflection on Clinton's sexual indiscretion, inspired or provoked by Edwards'. And it catalogs a litany of presumably undesirable outcomes, if only Clinton had "kept it in his pants."

This misses the obvious point, and it illustrates a fundamental flaw in our nature, a blind spot. We like simple answers to complex problems. We like to affix blame to specific people, sometimes specific groups, for specific negative outcomes, on some inherent moral failing. But, "the fault, dear Brutus..."

A sexual indiscretion, or marital infidelity, is a personal tragedy for the principals involved. It's a sideshow to everyone else. That is to say, it's none of our business. Yet we allow ourselves to be distracted by it, or manipulated by others using it, exploiting it and us, for that purpose. We can choose not to be distracted by it, but we don't because we actually enjoy witnessing the major moral failings of others, particularly those who are presumably superior to us in some fashion. "All men have feet of clay," yet we focus on the failings in our leaders, or would-be leaders, perhaps because it allows us to ignore, indulge, or forgive our own.

"Well, I've never cheated on my spouse," might be a likely rejoinder. And that, while admirable, doesn't grant anyone license to offer sweeping judgments about the moral failings of others; even less, the historical consequences thereof. We just do it because it makes us feel good about ourselves. We exploit the imperfections in others for our own selfish reasons. Even as I hope, perhaps vainly, that I'm not doing so here.

So there's little to feel good about, even as I try to avoid the news about Edwards and the pain his family is enduring; and I unintentionally encounter the disappointing and dispiriting comments of others. We know better, and I know we know better.

And all those negative outcomes that presumably stemmed from Clinton's inability to "keep it in his pants," are really the negative outcomes of our own inability to be the kind of people we know we ought to be, and nothing more.

Some of us look to political leaders to "make the world a better place." Some of us look to technology. And as much as our reliance on simple answers is almost invariably an error, the answer really is simple. It's the execution that's really hard.

If you want the world to be a better place, try being better people.