Jack and me

I grew up in the shadow of John F. Kennedy's murder, and in the long period of national mourning that followed. Something about the stark tragedy of his death captured my young imagination, and by the time I was eight, I was obsessed with him. I read books, starting with a beginning readers biography that was one of my prized possessions, and culminating in Robert Donavan's record of his wartime exploits, "PT-109." During my youth, I collected things like memorial records, a small white bust of the fallen president that melted the first time I tried to clean it, and a collector's plate showing John and Jackie. I also built the Revell model kit of PT-109 at least three times before I reached 18.

Early in my youth, one of my favorite things to do was to read through a Pittsburgh newspaper that had been published within one or two days of the tragedy, and which my parents had wisely kept as a memento. I don't remember which newspaper (I think it was the Post-Gazette) and don't recall the publication date, but it became almost like a holy relic to me — handling the frail pages, and reading the stories written within hours of the tragedy, became as close as I could get to going back in time to that day. As befitting a priceless relic, it was kept safe in a metal safe deposit box, and I had to ask permission to read it. That not only made it more special, it makes the times I did read from its pages that much more memorable.

I read all of the paper, including advertisements, and stories that had nothing to do with the assassination. I remember that one of these stories was a brief item about an author named C.S. Lewis, who lived in England, and who had died the same day as JFK. I honestly don't remember anything else about the article, but that name jumped out at me then, and stayed with me for years. From that time on, I noticed Lewis' name as if it were written in red ink, even though I continued to have no clue about who he was, what he'd written, or why he was important. I simply saw and recognized the name each and every time I saw it.

After we moved to Tennessee, I was given a whole attic room to myself, amongst several long shelves full of paperback books (heaven!). One of the titles I remembered was a playbook titled "Dear Wormwood," which was, the cover promised, a play based upon The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Later, I found a copy of this same book, with my oldest sister's name written in the front cover. I filed this information in my head to go along with the name I'd been carrying around, but took no further action on it until I reached college.

Now, I had grown up as a somewhat conflicted young man when it came to spiritual things. I believed in God, but had no real concept of Jesus, and had a growing dislike of some of his followers. By the time I'd reached college, this had mushroomed into an active dislike of organized religion. What I loved was music, including the band Rush. A frequently-used piece of Rush iconography was the star of the Solar Federation from the 2112 album, which many erroneously thought was a satanic pentagram. A few, no doubt well-meaning, young believers had noticed this logo about my person (I had it on at least one T-shirt that I wore constantly, as well as a three-by-four-foot wall hanging in my room). One or two (although it seems more than that today) made it plain that my fascination with bands like Rush and their ilk would lead me straight to hell, and they proceeded to shun and disdain me.

Back then, attacking the bands I loved was a far more grievous offense than attacking me personally, although it amounted to the same thing. But if these believers were trying to convert me with this fire-and-brimstone ultimatum, they were mistaken; there was no question whom I would side with. And while it hurt to find myself on the outside looking in, the wounded pride of the small boy inside me led me to embrace to the role I had been placed in.

I began to find organized Christianity more and more ridiculous, and to think of Christians as a great, unenviable Them — either delusional, or willfully hypocritical, or both. What I learned later — that there are millions of believers who are neither of these things — had not yet been made clear to me.

But even as I was growing more hostile to religion, there was a small, tiny part of me that wanted it be true. I have always, from boyhood, believed in God, even if I could not believe some of the things that were said about Him (or, if you like, Her — I simply follow the habits of my upbringing). I would have loved for Christianity to be true, but as I understood it, it simply didn't make any sense. There were simply too many doubts, and too much illogic.

Happily, about this time, I met my future wife, who saved me in a hundred splendid ways, not the least of which was my own warped and jaded take on the Divine. She was a Christian, and of a variety that I hadn't before encountered. And while she wasn't perfect, even to my completely smitten eyes, the faith she practiced began to win me over.

Instead of making her judgmental and hostile, her beliefs tended to make her generous and loving. She nearly always gave people the benefit of the doubt, and was quick to come to someone's defense. She was forgiving of others, at a time when I scarcely knew what that word meant. And, best of all, her beliefs were reasoned — she knew why she believed what she did, and could argue the point; a far cry from the "God said it, I believe it, end of story" theology I was expecting.

Finally, and most importantly, she had a real relationship with God. He wasn't some abstract concept, and He wasn't some malevolent all-seeing headmaster, waiting for a chance to punish her. She loved Him, and trusted Him. The God she worshiped seemed real, and not at all the Great Boogeyman in the Sky that others had warned me not to run afoul of.

In short, she, and a few friends, helped to unlock a door. The writings of C.S. Lewis would soon push it open the rest of the way.

Somehow, as a newly-married man, that copy of The Screwtape Letters that had belonged to my sister had found its way onto the headboard of my bed. Today, I'm not sure why I'd brought it from my parent's home. I think it was the nagging, lifelong sense that there was something important about the name C.S. Lewis. It may have also come from a sense of simple curiosity — I'd heard about Screwtape all my life, and I may have just wanted to see what the fuss was about. In any case, I took it down to read it, with absolutely no clue that my life was about to change forever. As Lewis himself said of himself in Surprised by Joy, "A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading."

Today, I have little memory of that first read. I remember liking the author's self-effacing tone at once. He mentions the brisk sales of the book in preface's second paragraph, the counters in the third with this:

"Of course, sales do not often mean what authors hope. If you gauge the amount of Bible reading in England by the number of Bibles sold, you would go far astray. Sales of The Screwtape Letters, in their own little way, suffer from a similar ambiguity. It is the sort of book that gets given to godchildren, the sort that gets read aloud at retreats. It is even, as I have noticed with a chastened smile, the sort that gravitates towards spare bedrooms, there to live a life of undisturbed tranquility in company with The Road Mender, John Inglesant and The Life of the Bee."

In the book itself, I found something I hadn't expected. Lewis tackled many of the usual Christian themes, but focused through the lens of "the other side," who were working at to turn the main character away from Joy, and towards suffering. According to Lewis, Hell was not a place where people were hurled after failing to make one crucial decision; instead, it was reached after a lifetime of wrong decisions. People weren't hurled into to Hell by an angry God; they walked there, step by step, and locked themselves away, while resisting all His entreaties that they could be set free.

Lewis' assertion, born out in his later books, that the journey towards God began not with large gestures, but with small, steady, and sometimes event shaky and hesitant steps, slowly won me over. I was still wary of other believers, and could still be wounded by them. But, to my amused chagrin, I was slowly becoming one of them. Every time I opened a new book by Lewis, or re-read a much-loved older one, I was nudged closer and closer to what his character Screwtape called "The Enemy's Camp."

As I read more and more of his books, I quickly grew to love the man holding the pen. Particularly in his apologetics, Lewis' personality beamed from the pages. He was fiercely intelligent, vastly educated, keenly insightful, and yet possessed a warm, wry and often self-effacing humor. He seemed to shy away from criticizing others for their shortcomings, but was quick to hold up his own failings so that others could learn from them. And he was quick to confess his ignorance of a topic, and begged you throw away his arguments if they did not help his readers to understand. And through it all, his writings were cloaked in warmth and love, not judgement and condemnation. Best of all, he found a way to make Christianity make sense to me that no one has ever has, or, I think, ever will.

Lewis became much more than a writer to me; he became a friend, and a teacher. This man who I had never met helped to guide me through the mine field of my past, and helped me to discover a faith that I cannot now imagine being without. Once I found out that he had abandoned his given name — Clive Staples Lewis — around the age of two, and insisted on being called "Jack" (the same name as the family dog), I, too, began to call him Jack. I know it is presumptuous of me, and could even be seen as disrespectful. But I have come to love him so much through his writings that to call him Lewis seems cold and distant (for some reason, I have made an exception for this writing).

As I write this, we have reached the very day that, fifty years ago, saw the deaths of both C.S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy (who was, ironically, also known as Jack by friends and family). As I think of Kennedy's death today, I am gripped by grief, sadness, and a sense of injustice, as I have always been.

But I am much more moved by my remembrance of Lewis, who has grown from a few terse paragraphs on a newspaper page into an imagined friend, and a very real teacher (albeit one separated from me by time and space). He is for me, just as he once described George MacDonald, my master — the teacher that helps to shine a light onto the universe, and into yourself.

So much of the story today is about Kennedy's death, and rightly so — his foul murder began a pollution of our national psyche that continues to this day. It was, in a lot of ways, our first national loss of innocence. There would be more: Vietnam, Watergate, John Lennon, Challenger, Columbia, and 9/11. But JFK's murder was the first, and perhaps, the deepest.

But when I think of Lewis, today, I think of life. I think of what he brought to the world, and the countless people that he helped — myself among them — by merely trying to explain and convincingly argue his faith. As an Oxford Don, he had no need to do this, and indeed, some saw it as an interference with his "real" work. But he seemed to be compelled to, as he explained in the preface to Mere Christianity.

"I am not trying to convert anyone to my own position. Ever since I became a Christian I have thought that the best, perhaps the only, service I could do for my unbelieving neighbours was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times...That part of the line where I thought I could serve best was also the part that seemed to be thinnest. And to it I naturally went."

Today, on the 50th anniversary of his death, I, and millions like me, are eternally grateful that he did.

A link to the past

I continue to be stunned by the performance of my Pittsburgh Pirates. Last year, I am led to believe, we had a promising first half, followed by a complete meltdown after the All-Star break. As I type this sentence, we have a 1.5 game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals, and are not only leading our division, we have the best record in baseball. Only a fool would be crowing with such a slim lead, and much can still happen in the 50 or so games remaining until October. But I have enjoyed myself immensely so far this season, and am still stunned that I happened to return to baseball, and to being a Pirates fan, at such a seemingly perfect moment. Again, kudos to my wife, who lingered on just the right game at just the right moment — it means much to me that I started following the Bucs at the start of the season when they scrapped the bottom of their division, and not after they had 60 wins under their belt.

I'm sure my grandfather is loving this. I didn't know my Mom's father all that well, as he passed away when I was 10 or so. My Dad's father was "Pap;" I called my maternal grandfather "Pap on the farm," because he was an ex-chicken farmer, and lived in a rural area of Pennsylvania. He and my grandmother relocated to Florida when I was 8 or so, and I think we visited him there one time before he died. While my father's father was the one who gave me a Willie Stargell bat, my other grandfather was, according to everything I have learned, much more of a die-hard Pirates fan. My mother has told me stories about how she used to be sent to bed at 8 p.m., very much against her will, and would lie awake in the next room listening to the games on the radio on the Pirate's home station, the storied and historic KDKA-AM.

Times have changed, but not that much. My own principle method for following the Bucs is not the family radio, or even our TV (although I have been blessed with being able to watch several games this year), but my iPhone, which carries the MLB's At Bat app. At Bat allows you to watch play-by-play descriptions, stream at least one TV game each day (or buy seasonal access to all of them if you have deep pockets) and, even better, listen to live radio broadcasts of the games for the bargain price of $3 a month. And If you're a Pirates fan, this means you'll be hearing the play-by-play on none other than good old KDKA.

Last night, as my wife and I cooked dinner, I plugged a speaker into my phone, and we listened to the Pirates playing the Rockies at PNC park. There is something indescribably magical about listening to a radio game; it doesn't have the immediacy of television, nor the instant ability to check player stats and monitor other games that smartphones, tablets and computers have. But there is something about hearing a game described as it happens by your home town announcers that has an anachronistic charm that is undeniable. When I hear a game on KDKA, I feel connected; connected to the thousands of fans around Pittsburgh who are listening along with me at that moment, and to generations of Pirates fans who heard games exactly the same way.

To my surprise, I also feel a strong connection to one Pirates fan in particular. More than once, as the friendly tones of the Pirates' announcers have filled my home, I have thought of my grandfather, sitting in his own living room all those years ago, listening the ups and downs of the Battling Bucs on KDKA, and been warmed by the thought that his grandson is doing the exact same thing 60-odd years on. It is a link to the past that I never expected, but am surprised and grateful to have found.

A matter of time

This will be an uncharacteristically brief post, and composed on my iPad at that. I have noticed that all of spring, and mot of summer have fallen away without me adding to this blog. And while I have a fair amount to discuss and report, I have little time at present.

My lack of attention can be partially blamed on two things: a lack of time, and a lack of conviction. The time problem is self-explanatory — none of us have enough of it, and if we do, that is likely a problem in and of itself. Nevertheless, "not having enough time" is something of a poor excuse; it is more accurate to say that my attention has been elsewhere, and beg your forgiveness.

The lack of conviction is more complex. I have long felt that the world did not need me to say something on the various social media sites I belong to unless I have something substantial, or at the very least, entertaining to say. There is also a reluctance to reveal too much of myself; I will not discuss anything work-related, since I think it's unprofessional to do so, and I will not turn this into an online diary about my personal life.

That leaves mundane details about my life, random thoughts, and similar shorter fair. And for the first time, I think this might be a good thing to start including. After all, long pieces are fine, but are not always desired — often, we lack the time to read them. And often, we can learn as much, if not more, about someone by observing the little things over time, rather than trying to digest quarterly speeches.

So we have come full circle. I lack the time to write the longer pieces, and if I were a reader, I would lack the time to read them. So with the words of the immortal Bard, who wrote "brevity is the soul of wit," I shall close.

The Rites of Spring

It snowed a few days ago. In late March. In full sun, and with flowers blooming, and green grass on the ground. Weird.

Despite this atmospheric anomaly, I'm definitely seeing signs that Spring is about to emerge. Plants are beginning to bud, and birds are beginning to sing. The former pleases my wife, who is an enthusiastic amateur gardener. She seems to possess an internal clock that sends her to the local lawn and garden center a week or two before Winter's last frost — probably similar to the urge that sends salmon upstream. Whenever I find myself driving home from Lowe's with a new collection of potted plants nestled safely in the back seat, as I did two weekends ago, I know that Spring is just around the corner.

The bit with the birdsong is my part of our hearth-and-home equation. While my wife is the family gardener, I find, to my great surprise, I'm slowly becoming a bit of a birder as I get older. Oh, not the sort that takes to the local refuge with high-powered binoculars on the weekends. Not yet, anyway. But I am definitely much more conscious of our avian friends as I go about my day; increasingly to the point of distraction. More and more frequently, I will stop in mid-walk as I try to identify the tweeting thing perching on the light pole in the parking lot. And, more and more often, I remember to refill the bird feeders parked outside my window.

If all goes well, I am able to spare a little time on Saturday mornings watching the flurry of warblers and sparrows as they vie for sunflower and thistle seeds. And slowly — very slowly — I am trying to become acquainted with the birds that call the habitat of our nearby woods home.

This morning, there was the odd Tufted Titmouse (which I particular like for its slate blue and white coloring), one or two Cardinals (my favorite since boyhood) and — just identified — a sizable family of Pine Warblers, with olive backs and yellow chests. My chief challenge at the moment is identifying a mottled brown sparrow, some of which have highlights of bright yellow hidden amid their wing and tail feathers, and some of which do not. It is our most common houseguest, and so far, our most mysterious.

It is this sort of thing that I find appealing about birdwatching — the challenge of identifying specific species amid the dizzying variety that God has given us. It appeals to my intellectual curiosity, and gives me a tiny window into the diversity of His creation. Plus, I just like the cheerful little things; hearing birdsong has raised my spirits on many a grim morning.

The other herald of Spring is, for me, rather unexpected. The other day, my wife (good woman that she is), was channel surfing, and felt the urge to stop for a moment on a pre-season Pittsburgh Pirates game. Those that know me will remember that, as an 8-year-old, I was a fiercely dedicated Pirates fan. One of the highlights of my life was when my father took me to Three Rivers Stadium, and I was able to see legendary players like Bill Mazeroski, Roberto Clemente, and my hero Willie Stargell, play in person. Later that year, I watched eagerly as that same team brought home a World Series trophy. So in my first years as a fan, my team went on to take the championship — in retrospect, a bit of a mixed blessing, but one I wouldn't trade for anything.

Since the 1971 World Series, my enthusiasm for baseball has waxed and waned — mostly waned. I slept through the 1979, when my hero led the team to another World Series win. I was awake in 1992, when we vied for the pennant, but walked away in disgust after we were shut down by the Atlanta Braves. And for a long time after that, I simply didn't have it in me to care anymore. The once-and-future worst team in the league, the Bucs had lost their shot at redemption, and (even worse) at the hands of the hated Braves. Since baseball now only evoked pain, anger and bitterness in me, I more or less walked away.

My master, C.S. Lewis, says in The Great Divorce that for a thing to be resurrected, it must first be killed. And the type of fan I was then was certainly deserving of death, in the metaphorical sense. Baseball only brought out the worst in me, though that was only a symptom of a deeper problem that I will not touch on here. As such, it was good that I ceased to follow it, and that my love for the game, twisted and warped by bitterness and disappointment, was allowed to die.

Imagine, then, my surprise when those few minutes of Grapefruit League ball woke up the 8-year-old boy who had once loved the game. Since then, I have downloaded the MLB app for my phone and tablet, begun following the team's schedule, and have taken the first steps to learn this year's lineup. I haven't watched a baseball game in years, and I've got a lot of catching up to do. But that's part of the appeal — like birding, there is a complexity to baseball that appeals to my intellectual curiosity. There are players to learn about, rules to sort out, and standings to keep track of. It's early days yet, but there seems to be lots here to sink my teeth into.

The Pirates are, according to the admittedly meaningless Grapefruit League standings, among the worst teams in the league. But right now, I don't care. Opening Day is Monday against the Cubs, and as it stands right now, we all have the same record win-loss record. And so, it is with the spirit of optimism endemic to opening seasons that I close with a hopeful, and grateful, Go Bucs!

Great Expectations

I'm back in Middle-earth this week, thanks to the home video release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. To celebrate, I burned two of my Audible credits to pick up the unabridged Rob Inglis narrations of The Two Towers and The Return of the King. As a result, I now carry all of The Lord of the Rings on audio, and am thinking of making yet another run at the series, this time on audio.

How many copies of The Lord of the Rings do I actually need? It depends: how many are there?

I honestly don't know how many times this will make for me reading LOTR. I first picked it up in January 1978, I believe, and have read it at 2-5 year intervals ever since. My last one was in 2009, when I was laid up with a back injury, so it's about time again.

I'm writing today because, in the midst of my internet snooping about The Hobbit movie, I've discovered several reviews that expressed disappointment about the film. Chief among these disappointments is the fact that the first Hobbit movie pales in comparison to The Lord of the Rings films. Blame for this goes all over the map, including, but not limited to, Peter Jackson's obsession with too much detail, stretching too little material over too much screen time, too much dependance on fighting and walking sequences, and so on.

So far, no one I've found has hit on what I think is the real reason someone might find The Hobbit a disappointment after The Lord of the Rings: as a story, The Hobbit isn't in the same league as The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien started dabbling in Middle-earth as a young soldier in the first World War. The Hobbit itself didn't come about until the early 1930s, when, as the famous story goes, professor Tolkien scribbled the line "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit" on the back of an examination booklet. In 1933, the book was published to an enthusiastic enough reception that Tolkien was asked for a sequel. Five years after finishing The Hobbit, he began writing The Lord of the Rings. It was published in the latter part of the 1940s, after about 12 years of work.

Twelve years versus two or three. A children's story versus a novel. An inexperienced writer versus a well-seasoned one. An adventure story versus a fabricated history. All of these are, I think, solid reasons why one should not expect as much from the story of The Hobbit as one does The Lord of the Rings.

As a story, The Hobbit is delightful, but it is not in the same league as its successor. In fact, several of my copies of The Hobbit, including my cherished original, label it as "The Enchanting Prelude to The Lord of the Rings." The Lord of the Rings is that rarest of birds: a sequel that eclipses its progenitor. As such, The Hobbit cannot fail to be a bit of a let-down if one happens to stumble across it after reading or watching the sweeping epic that is LOTR.

Second, I'm not entirely sure it was wise to spread The Hobbit, which is thinner than the thinnest of the LOTR books, across three nearly three-hour films. Mind you, I'm not complaining — I will take as much as PJ wants to give me. But for those who's lives were not inexorably changed by Tolkien's world; for those whom it is (shudder) "just a story," it could be seen as killing them with kindness.

Happily, I do not share their fate. I am delighted to have fresh PJ/Tolkien in my life, and indeed, am a few minutes away from a sneak preview of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Sadly, in a few short years, it will all be over. I very much doubt that PJ will want to make another 3-film epic of The Silmarillion, even if he could get the rights to it (a very large if indeed). Eventually, the final Extended Cut of The Hobbit: There and Back Again will be released, followed, very likely, by an anniversary cut of LOTR, including new footage from The Hobbit cycle. After that, I fear it will be over.

But for now, we will, in the words of Gandalf, "make the most of the time that is given to us." And now, if you will excuse me, I have a conference call to New Zealand waiting for me.

Exquisitely bored

I'm about to break one of my cardinal rules of the internet. Namely, never blog about religion, politics or technology; you'll just make someone mad. I'm breaking it because I just used 50 minutes of my valuable weekend time to watch the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4, the new flagship Android-based smartphone.

Why did I, a documented fan of Cupertino-based technology, check out the competition? It wasn't to make fun of "the other guy," although Samsung certainly has no qualms about making fun of iPhone users like me. If anyone from Samsung is reading this, ridiculing people = not a great way to make them customers. For the record, I've been using Apple gear since 2005, and I've never once had to queue for it — of course, common sense, aided and abetted by my bank account, have cause me to wait for a couple months after product launches. I have also never bought a Samsung phone for any of my non-smartphone-using family, and hopefully, never will.

Despite the fact that I pretty much loathe Samsung, I decided to watch, Mostly, because I really do love new tech, and I'm always intrigued with what we can do with it. While economics and an extreme dose of common sense dictate that I limit my technology buying to one platform, I sympathize with, and am even a little jealous of, comedian Stephen Fry, who currently uses five different phones — a Samsung Galaxy III, a BlackBerry Z10, an iPhone 5, an HTC Windows 8x and an LG Nexus 4 — because he loves exploring the differences in their varied approaches and capabilities. If I had the deep pockets that he had, I'd be strongly tempted that way myself.

So that curiosity, coupled with an inexplicable interest in product unveilings and informercials, was one of the reasons I decided to watch. The other was that I'd heard that it was weird — "Samsung weird" — and was really curious what that entailed.

I came away thinking the event at Radio City Music Hall was a perfect illustration of the differences of approach between Apple and Samsung, the two undisputed giants of the smartphone trade.

For starters, there are the phones themselves. The new advances in the iPhone 5 are increasing the screen from 3.5 inches to 4, making it lighter and thinner, improvements to the camera and processor, and the addition of 4G LTE. There's also the addition of the panorama function on the camera. Great stuff if you own an iPhone 4 or earlier, but not compelling reasons for an upgrade if you own last year's 4S.

While I'm not as well versed on the Galaxy series, the S4 seems to be a similarly incremental upgrade: slightly bigger screen (from 4.8 inches to 5 inches), more megapixels on the camera, faster processor, more internal RAM, and so on. Again, good news if you're in the market for a new phone, but not a vast improvement over the S3, from what I'm led to believe.

To differentiate the new phone, Samsung has piled a series of features on it. Things like being able to pause a video by just looking away from the screen. Or scroll by gesturing at the screen (called, I believe, air gestures). Or a built-in translator app. Or a built-in pedometer, thermometer and barometer. Or the ability to share the song you're listening to with other S4 users (one would be the left channel stereo, another right channel, etc.)

Very few of these strike me as either practical or useful. For example, the scrolling gestures are done, not with short, quick Jedi-like hand flicks, but with broad arm swipes that look kind of silly, and not as efficient as just tapping the screen. I seldom have call for translation services, and while I know a few people that have my make and model of smartphone, the times when we would want to kick out the same jams are almost non-existent. In the end, it seemed like Samsung was adding more stuff, not because it was something people needed or wanted, but just for the sake of adding more stuff. Some of the reviews I've read have pretty much nailed what these features are good for — used once or twice to show off the new phone to coworkers, then forgotten about. It is, as I said, more for the sake of more.

The product launch was absolutely a demonstration of this philosophy. As an Apple follower, I'm used to product keynotes being emceed by one guy — typically the CEO — who brings on department heads to help explain features or products; Steve Jobs bringing out then iOS-head Scott Forstall to demonstrate iOS 4, for example.

Photo from The Verge

Samsung had two emcees: an actor, and the company's head of marketing. One would have sufficed — preferably, the marketing guy, who actually talked specifics about the phone, while the actor provided asides.

These were aided and abetted by a top executive who's title escapes me, a full orchestra, and a cast of about ten who demonstrated how the phone was going to make your life easier by using a series of flat jokes and ostensibly amusing stereotypes, including a lady who could benefit from air gestures because she didn't want to put down her drink (CNET's Molly Wood has a great rant on how sexist the whole thing was here). Again, the whole over-the-top production number seemed to be more for the sake of more.

To be fair, Apple sometimes leans too far the other way where the products themselves are concerned. While the iOS interface is unfailingly intuitive, there are times when I wish I had a tad more control over things: at the top of that list is being able to change the resolution of YouTube videos myself instead of having it done for me depending on my internet connection speed. But I can think of very few features built into the iPhone that I haven't picked up and run with at some point (at the top of the list is Passbook, an electronic ticketing app that I'm still waiting for companies I actually use to adopt).

At the end of the day, I think it comes down to a question of focus. Apple often talks about developing products by looking at them from the perspective of the user — keeping what is useful, and discarding what is not; Samsung, on the other hand, seems to be throwing features and technologies at the wall and hoping they'll stick.While both have apparently made a very good phone, I know which approach I prefer.

The good news for everybody is that either of these devices are absolutely amazing, multi-faceted wonders that would have been unimaginable when I was born, and that are now becoming quite commonplace. Matt Honan of Wired did a piece when the iPhone 5 debuted called "The iPhone 5 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring"in which he says that, while the iPhone 5 is an amazing device, it's an evolved product that is now commonplace. It's still quite cool, but it's also the latest version of old news. Which means that this pocket computer/gps/video recorder/gaming device/media player/e-reader/digital camera/cellphone I carry around that makes the communicator from Star Trek look crude is now an everyday object. And that, in itself, is extremely cool.

(By the way, Honan's latest piece came out Friday. The title? "The Samsung Galaxy S4 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring." A nice way to keep the trolls on both sides happy, and a nice elaboration  on the themes he explored in his piece on the iPhone).

I am becoming more and more convinced we are living in the future we used to talk about when I was a boy. Yesterday, my parents and I talked to my sister and my niece using Apple's Facetime videoconference app on an iPad. We had a face-to-face conversation across 1,800 miles using a 10-inch sheet of glass and aluminum about as thick as my little finger. My sister touched a screen on one side of the country to make the call, I touched a screen to answer, and the technology did the rest.

When I leave work, I routinely push a button, and tell my phone to send a text message to my wife that I'm on the way home. It transcribes what I've said, knows who I mean when I say "my wife," and sends her a (mostly) accurate version of what I just said.

At one time, I thought this was pretty amazing stuff, and it still is. But increasingly, though, it's just the way things work. Like the car, and the airplane, and the phone, and the computer, the smartphone is becoming commonplace. The same phone that millionaires and software designers carry can also be found in the hands of schoolteachers, shopkeepers and grandparents.

Personally, I think that is completely amazing, and not the least bit boring.

Checking in

With a third of March gone, I thought I slap a couple quick thoughts on the wall about my Facebook holiday.

On the whole, the thing is going fairly well. As I suspected, the traffic to my blog is pretty much unchanged. After all, I didn't specifically invite anyone, so my audience remains confined to my wife, my nephew (sometimes) and niece-in-laws (mostly) and the many, many people who leave anonymous posts directing me and my 6 readers to websites for payday loans, Canadian prescriptions and porn.

This latter group has actually been out in force lately — so much so that I reluctantly had to close down the ability to leave anonymous posts entirely. After I got four in one morning from the payday loan guy (or, more likely, payday loan comment 'bot), I decided I didn't need THAT MUCH attention, especially of the artificial variety.

I'm actually not at all a fan of anonymous anything on the internet, since it apparently brings out the worst in people. One of my friends from work has adopted a "never read the comments" policy. "No good can come of it," he says. I'm afraid I must agree; the mean-spirited often hide behind the cloak of the internet, though I have known some who haven't minded being known for who they are. Facebook is full of them. In any case, I think it will become my policy, too.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can adopt a no-Facebook policy for long. It's not because I miss it so much. Once the habit of checking went away, I got over missing it fairly quickly (apart from the odd "did you see what so-and-so said on Facebook" encounters). But I cannot shake the feeling that while this boycott has been good for me, it's ultimately a selfish act. I may be keeping my temper down, but it's at the price of being more involved in the lives of people I care about. We are supposed to care more, not less.

As for the hiatus itself, it's going pretty well. I was becoming amused by the increasingly persistent emails from Facebook reminding me of all the great stories from my friends that I was missing by not logging in. Unfortunately, shortly after that, a friend of my mother's told her that she was going to send me something for her. Since this lady didn't have any of my email addresses, I knew she could only mean Facebook. Reluctantly, I checked my message section (empty) and my wall (pretty much as I left it, safe for a few 'likes' from friends on my hiatus message. I still feel a little guilty about "falling off the wagon," but it was in a good cause.

Strange and unusual

I never thought it would come to this; I may be going into Facebook withdrawal. It's only been 24 hours since I made my decision to abstain from Facebook, and here I am, actually wishing I could go check my news feed. I'm actually missing be able to check on people. Hearing about how (INSERT POLITICIAN HERE) is the anti-Christ? Not so much.

Am I tempted to break my Lenten resolution? No. It was an impulse decision, so I didn't have enough time to prepare myself; hence, the weirdness I'm feeling right now. Also, see my previous post about my serious lack of impulse control. But I am resolved. It was doing bad things to me. But I had to at least acknowledge that this may not be quite as easy as it seemed yesterday.

And besides — my wife will tell me if anything real happens, so it's not nearly as self-centered as it sounds.

Losing face

I've never been terribly good at the Christian Church's tradition of giving things up for Lent. To begin with, I have no willpower. Lent is, as I understand it, a time to deny one's self of a pleasure. It reminds us of Jesus' 40 days of temptation in the desert, as well as a way of preparation for the joy of Easter through denying ourselves certain pleasures. Well, self-denial has never been something I've excelled at, so there's that.

So, with the thought that most people actually do give up things that they enjoy, the fact that I swore off using Facebook for Lent yesterday is probably not at all in the spirit of the occasion. I initially created my Facebook account several years ago in order to see some photos posted from an overseas family member. Since then, it has served a valuable function by allowing me to contact friends that I would have never have otherwise been able to, and to get a better sense of the day-to-day activities of my far-flung family — both good things.

Lately, though, Facebook has become a tiresome exercise in the worst that the Internet has to offer. Every time I check Facebook, I am subjected to a daily dose of political vitriol from both sides of the political spectrum. Like anyone, this is tolerable enough when it happens to line up with my own views, but infuriating and anger-producing when it does not. Since one of the things I am trying to tame is my temper, a period of abstinence from the thing provoking the anger seems the wiser course.

I want to like Facebook — I really do. I want to know more about what my family is doing, and have even been tempted to do more frequent posting of my own comings and goings. But actually getting to the content that matters to me is increasingly becoming too much work, being, as it is, lost amid the political broadsides and humorous placards from well-meaning friends and family. For example, some vital news about one of my nephews was buried yesterday amid so many such posts that I would never have known about it if my wife hadn't seen it and told me.

I know my abstinence comes at a cost — by ignoring Facebook entirely, I'm throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Things that I might have seen from family are now, effectively, lost to me unless I see an email or blog post from them. And that alone tempts me to resume using Facebook come Easter Sunday. But if I do, we're going to have to put some ground rules in place.

A director with flare

A couple of nights ago, the final piece of the puzzle for new Star Wars movies, apart from the casting of actors (or, hopefully, the re-casting of actors), was announced. J.J. Abrams, Hollywood golden boy de jour, was confirmed as the new director for Episode VII by Lucasfilm.

Abrams is a favorite of many of my co-workers, particularly for his involvement on Lost. The only of his movies I'm familiar with is, of course, Star Trek. While I'm grateful that he and his team were able to kickstart that beloved franchise, I initially didn't think Abrams was the man for Star Wars. He seemed too trendy, and with a vision that was too specific and personal to take on someone else's world. If anything, the fact that he did Star Trek took him out of the running for Star Wars, in my opinion, since he put so much of himself in that film. I really don't want lens flare to start injecting itself into the Star Wars world ever 15 seconds.

There's also the fact that no one man should have that much absolute power over geekdom without some sort of general election, or something. Either, way, I thought it wasn't a good thing.

Happily, after a couple days to reflect, I'm pretty sure I was wrong.

In one of the articles I read on this, the writer referenced a TED Talk where Abrams talks about his love of mystery — both in life, and in storytelling.

There are a couple of cool things that came out of this talk. For one thing, he sounds like an Apple Geek's Apple Geek, which makes me like him immediately. The main thing, though, is when he references the first Star Wars movie as his primary example of the importance of withholding information in storytelling. I won't pretend to do it justice here, so just go and watch it.

Before I started watching this talk, I was pretty indifferent to Abrams getting his hands on Star Wars. After I saw it, I was one board 100 percent. Because, like Michael Arndt, he seems to get what makes Star Wars special at a basic level. It's not the characters, or the worlds they inhabit, or the technologies they use — its the story, and how that story is told.

I love the Prequels; to me, they are just as much a part of that world as the Original Trilogy. But what was missing, particularly in the first two films, was a sense of suspense. I'm pretty sure that, between Arndt and Abrams, that won't be a problem for Episode VII. And that is a very good thing indeed.