Jeffrey C. Long

In the Winter 2000 issue of Whole Earth Magazine I came across an article about Long Now Foundation’s work to create a 10,000 year clock. (shown above)

The following comment in the article caught my eye. “Danny Hillis’s idea was that by slowing down the usual speedy movements of a clock, he hoped to slow us down and have us think about the long term. The purpose of a clock that runs for 10,000 years is to encourage us to create things that require 10,000 years to measure. A great civilization for instance.”

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I’ve been meaning to write for quite some time on some of the software and habits that have made my life work so much better. I often harp online about people backing up. My coworker recently had her computer crash and she lost all of her pictures. I just got an external hard drive and I’m about to make a backup of my entire hard drive so that I can send my laptop in for warranteed repairs. My CD drive doesn’t work.

But there is a cheaper alternative if all you want to do is back up your pictures and documents: Mozy. http://www.mozy.com. You can sign up for a free account and get 2gigs of backup for free. It’s a little program that runs in the background and pays attention to folders you’ve told it to back up. When you put something new there, it automatically backs it up to your online account. It works on both Mac and PC. You can just tell it to back up your documents folder and leave it alone. I also keep a backup of my keychain which is where all my passwords and serial numbers for software goes. If anything bad happens, it’s a piece of cake to restore. 

I still recommend a thorough backup strategy. I have my itunes library backed up to DVD. A bootable backup of my entire hard drive. And you should also have an offsite backup. I’ve heard of someone who backs up to DVD and mails it to his Mom. Or like me, you could get a a paid account to Mozy that is unlimited, so my applications, music library, documents and pictures are backed up there. That way if your house catches fire and your DVD’s and hard drive are destroyed, you still have your files. 

Like I keep saying to my friends, there are two types of people in the world: those whose hard drives have failed and those whose hard drives w-i-l-l fail. Don’t be like my friend who just lost her invaluable photos. Get a mozy account and get to backing up. 

Today, while driving to Ephrata, we were listening to the classic rock station. I looked at my 12 year old daughter and asked “who is this band?” She gave me a sheepish look and said “I don’t know.” I threw up my hands in despair and said “U2!”

I’ve been on a path to try and teach my kids what I consider to be the essential bands to know to be culturally literate. U2. Journey. They already know Prince. The Beatles. The Beach Boys. I was trying to think who else to add. Madonna. Probably the Rolling Stones. The Grateful Dead. Phish. Of course, this is only rock, and only from the 60′s on. Credence Clearwater Revival probably belongs on the list.  Bob Dylan too, though I’m actually unfamiliar with his music.

Aesthetically, I should make them familiar with Jazz and Classical too. Bill Evans. Pat Metheny Group. John Coltraine. Miles Davis. Mozart. Handel. 

Who would you add? Post in the comments. And if anyone says “Weird Al,” you are getting flamed

I get a daily devotional called inward/outward in my email. This recent one caught my eye.

True Vocation http://www.inwardoutward.org/?p=658

by Parker Palmer

Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks we will also find our path of authentic service in the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as ‘the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.’ Buechner’s definition starts with the self and moves toward the needs of the world: it begins, wisely, where vocation begins not in what the world needs (which is everything), but in the nature of the human self, in what brings the self joy, the deep joy of knowing that we are here on earth to be the gifts that God created. Source: Let Your Life Speak

I think this sentiment is laudable. It reminds me of the old saying “do what you love and the money will follow.” But my experience so far has been that pursuing your true calling is really hard work and fraught with many obstacles. And I haven’t met many people who feel like they have arrived. For most of us life keeps us busy paying bills, raising our children and repairing our houses.

I think that where sentiments like this get us hung up is that they seem to point us to a finish line to cross. Palmer seems to be saying that “authentic selfhood” is a destination to be reached. But some of the greatest despair I’ve felt was when I looked forward to a hoped for future only to have it dashed on the rocks of reality.

I think a better alternative is to ask the simple question “What’s the next action?” This comes from David Allen’s “Getting Things Done.” Instead of looking for the finish line, focus on taking the next step along the path. Allen calls this horizontal thinking as opposed to the visionary work of vertical thinking. Of course, it’s important to pause now and then to make sure that we have the right destination in mind. Otherwise, you’ll be on the wrong path and taking the wrong next actions. But I think the majority of the work that needs to be done is in answering the question “What should I do next?”

So I think our response to Palmer should not be “What will it look like when I have arrived at that authentic selfhood.” Nor should we expect the money to follow when we do what we love. Instead we should ask “What can I do right now to be true to myself. What can I do this week that I love.” I think that we may never arrive at a destination we imagined. But I think there will be more joy on the journey.

I remember sitting in class at Bible college while my teacher would explain different points on a timeline of the end times. It all seemed so speculative to me, though shared with such an air of certainty. I’ve always been a skeptic regarding end times prophecies, including those that are interpretations of the authority itself, the Bible. Then I happened across the Bible teaching of Steve Gregg and discovered that the current school of Biblical prophecy interpretation is very modern. Someday I’ll write more about it… I’ve been meaning to. Suffice it to say, the beliefs popularized by the “Left Behind” books are very different from that of the historical church.

This has left me with the germ of a thought that I would like to research more. Why are we so fascinated by end-times prophecies and speculation. I don’t really know where to go to research the psychology behind it. So I thought I’d ask you, my readers. What do end-times prophecies mean to you? What meaning do they give to your life? Why is studying them important to you? Do prophecies help you by making the future more tangible? Do they make you hopeful or afraid?

I hope to hear from you.

All around us, we are seeing signs that the economy is going south. The dollar is weak. Gas is nearly $4 a gallon here in Idaho. People are losing their homes and those who are selling theirs are having a hard time.
I’ve spotted another sign: checking cashing and high interest loan businesses. My wife and I both work full time jobs. And we have the added income of student loan money. But still times are tough for us. Because I had to take a job living away from the family we have an additional rent cost. And I drive over 30 miles to work every morning. So we have troubles making ends meet. When we find our selves with more month then money, I often find myself noticing all the check cashing places on the boulevard and thinking “there but the grace of God go I,” and worry that God’s grace is going to run out and there I’ll be.

Recently I noticed that there seemed to be an awful lot of these places. So yesterday I drove down the boulevard and counted. I discovered there is a whopping 13 of these businesses in just two miles.

I think that this is a sign of the economy we live in. The cost of my yogurt, milk and gas have gone up, but my earning power has not.

A couple months ago I was with my wife at a debate contest. We sat down at the judges lounge with an acquaintance of hers who travels with the team. I sat uncomfortably through his demeaning talk about the poor clients in his social work and how they take advantage of the system. But then he decided to minimize the pain of the recession by comparing it to the depression. I blew up. People who are comfortable don’t understand the pain lower income people are in as the economy turns south. They don’t understand that the working poor are becoming trapped by the cycle of credit at these predatory lending businesses. 13 of them!

There but by the grace of God go I. These institutions are preying on the working poor. We need to show more compassion for those who are working hard but having trouble making ends meet. I know I’m talking about myself here. But I have also fallen prey to the lure of judging the poor, thinking they are getting a free ride by the system. That they have control of their situation if they would only work hard. It’s not as easy as that. Poverty is a complicated problem. And part of the equation now are these yellow buildings with red trim offering temporary relief at a high interest rate.

I’m in the midst of a giant remodel of my website. I’m moving from Typepad to WordPress.  Stay tuned. I don’t know how long this will take.  

I’ve put a lot of time into trying to organize my world and read a lot about personal productivity. Always with the mindset that I am not accomplishing all I could, and am dropping balls. But this quote from Howard Thurman on the Inward/Outward site says that there is something else to be gained from ordering our lives.

It Takes Time

               

Howard Thurman

                

               

It
is true that for many people the demands upon their lives are so great
that only careful planning in terms of a workable time table can see
them through. Even where the demands are not great and overwhelming,
the economy, the efficiency of an established way of functioning, is
undeniable. The purpose of such a pattern is not merely to accomplish
more work and with dispatch, but it is to increase the margin of one’s
self that is available for the cultivation of the inner life. It takes
time to cultivate the mind. It takes time to grow in wisdom. It takes
time to savor the qualities of living. It takes time to feel one’s way
into one’s self. It takes time to walk with God.

               

Source: The Inward Journey

From website “stuff” comes this startling bit of news.

It may come as no surprise, but almost every email sent in 2007 was spam.About 95 per cent of emails this year – up from 70 per centin 2006 – were classified as junk messages, according to a report fromUS security firm Barracuda, Agence France Presse reported.Most of this is deleted by email filters run by Internet providers before it hits inboxes.Barracuda analysed more than a billion emails received each day by its 50,000 customers for the report, AFP said.

A few months ago I was trying to find free sheet music online of which there is plenty of copyright free texts available. I went to a website that offered me music but I had to fill out a survey. It asked for my email address so I gave it the one I use only for registering at sites and gave it a bogus mailing address. Thank heavens for this. I have never seen such an onslaught of spam. We’re talking anywhere between 20 and 40 messages per day.Fortunately, I have really good spam filtering. My mail provider dreamhost runs Spam Assassin on their server which gets a lot. Then my second line of defense is Spam Sieve on the Mac. As a result I only see a spam email once ever couple days. But I think anywhere between 20 and 50 are being filtered daily from my multiple accounts. Thank heavens for good filters.   

I remember my first latte. A pretty remarkable feat given the proliferation of espresso stands. But I lived in King County 20 years ago when Starbucks was just getting its start in downtown Seattle. I was still going to school at Northwest College in Kirkland, studying to be a pastor. Newly married, living in the married student housing and with newborn baby Alexis in the house, I would sometimes escape downtown to walk through the art gallery. I soon discovered the new coffee shop across the parking lot. I wasn’t much of a coffee drinker… I got most of my caffeine from Mountain Dew. So I tried one of these newfangled lattes and was pleasantly surprised. I found the coffee shop a stimulating location so I began taking a small notebook with me and would journal ideas I had about God and ministry.This was my first latte. But it was also my first notebook. I’ve been writing ever since. When I moved back to Ephrata and started planting a new church, I graduated to legal pads and three ring binders. I researched and wrote, and brainstormed and wrote some more. When the church closed five years later, I had five 3-inch 3 ring binders full of ideas. I still have them.About 4 years ago I graduated to a program called Devonthink. It is one of many digital junk drawer applications for the Mac. I’ve written about it here and thought it was time for an update. Here are some things that I’ve changed about how I work with it.I no longer use Devonthink as my all-in-one repository of all things digital. Instead, I use it to archive either my own writing or articles that I have researched. There are tools in Devon to suck in your contents from your address book, email, del.icio.us bookmarks and pretty much any digital scrap that you have lying around your computer. At first I faithfully imported all this stuff. But when I went through and organized my database today this no longer made sense.For starters, I had imported my del.icio.us bookmarks in awhile ago. And had ferreted away various links in groups. As I was going through, this didn’t make sense to me anymore. When I am bookmarking a page, I am on the internet. And I bookmark in del.icio.us. Keeping links in two places made no sense because it requires constant gardening to keep both places synchronized. And I discovered from the Devon Technologies forum that links don’t impact the artificial intelligence used for finding similar results via “see also.”So, new procedure #1. I deleted all links from my groups. But I still wanted to be able to access them when I was in that group. So in their place I created a single link to my del.icio.us tag for that group. For example, instead of a list of links in my lifehacks group, I now have a single link to del.icio.us/jeffreyclong/lifehacks. Much cleaner, and no syncing required.Devonthink first came out when Mac was running Panther. This was pre-Spotlight. So one of DT’s claims to fame was its ability to search inside documents, not just the document name. This was a wonder at the time but then along came Tiger and Spotlight and suddenly we were able to do this to every document on our computer, with the exception, unfortunately, of what was in DT’s database. At the time, this made it advantageous to move everything you wanted searchable into DT. So I dutifully sucked in all my mail from certain people. But as I went through my database, I found that I had a bunch of stupid correspondence that really wasn’t worth keeping. And like bookmarks it is redundant to keep the data in two different places. With Spotlight I can no put my fingers on any pertinent email I need to.Another area that got purged was my archive of websites. When I first got Devonthink, I was all gee-golly-whiz! about this thing that could suck in entire websites. I was big into the magazine Credenda Agenda at the time, so I thought “wouldn’t it be great to have every issue searchable in my database? So I sucked the whole website in. Pretty cool. Except it made my search results utterly useless. I was constantly getting hits to articles that really had nothing to do with what I was looking for.So procedure number #2 was to purge this entire archive. Now I am going to be much more selective about what I archive.The bottom line purpose of this post that I want to end with is that I no longer believe it is useful to import everything into Devonthink. It requires too much gardening. When I need a contact, I’m going to go to address book, not DT. Mail stays in mail.app. Links in del.icio.us. What _does_ go into devonthink is all my writing. I use the personal wiki program Voodoopad for brainstorming, journler as my Getting Things Done project and task management system, and Bean or Google Docs for writing. Every program has the ability to export as either html or .doc so periodically I export what I want to keep and import it into its appropriate group in my database. This has cleaned up my search results and has also made “see also” far more useful. Hope you find this useful.