Thoughts about Life

Greetings!

I haven't posted much to this blog, mostly because my trips are on GFPKTravels, coastal access advocacy is on Coastwalk California and California Coastal Views, forest protection uses Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, and homeless advocacy on Voices on Homelessness.

But every once in a while I have something I have to contribute which doesn't fit in any of those topics.  It's usually something which occurs from being old, and experiencing lots of life.  And I hope I get lots more of those thoughts.   And that they are worth reading.



Gregory

Earthquake Activity Today, February 6th, 2015

Greetings!

Alerted to the small earthquake this morning below Redwood City at 3:44am, I thought it might be interesting to check the U.S.G.S Earthquake Map to see where else earthquakes were happening today.

Two-thirds of the earthquakes in the world today were in: Alaska (4.3, 3.6, 2.5, 4.3, 2.8, 3.3, 2.9, 3.3, 2.8, 4.6,); Phillipines (4.4, 4.8, 5.2); or Oklahoma/Kansas (3.1, 3.5, 2.8, 2.7, 2.8., 3.0, 3.1, 3.5, 4.0).   

Tuesday, Jan 20th, Priorities

Greetings!

Every morning, I wake up and head to the market, church, school, library, city hall, community center, and park.  And I do it without leaving my bedroom couch.  I check in with the latest happenings in the lives of my friends, the concerns of community leaders, and the opportunities too many think I shouldn't miss.

With the Internet feeding an extensive wifi, connected to three computers, two mobile devices, and an entertainment system, we're pretty much in touch with the outside world.

I leave the couch to feed the fish in our pond, make breakfast and lunch, and enjoy life with my wife. We attend meetings, dine out with friends, support fundraising events, take drives to the coast and on county back roads, and I play golf.
 
A few times a year, we travel.  Sometimes in our Airstream to places within a thousand miles, more often by plane, train, bus, and boat to all over the world.

The cockpit of my life is my hot tub.  It sits outside my bedroom door, between the house and the fence around our yard.  The fence is a combination of 1X6's and 1X2's between two 4X4s that affords me seven blank slates on which to prioritize my day's goals.  Seven clear accomplishments that I choose while waking up my body in the warm, misty waters.

Left to right in priority (and sometimes in chronology), I place yesterday's leftovers and tomorrow's dreams amidst today's have-to-be's.  Fortunately, retirement means that there are very few have-to-be's.  So it really ends up with want-to-be's.  And with good health and lots of money, the list can be quite large and very flexible.

But I sometimes feel like a big dinosaur.  I fear no one but poor health and climate change.  I've lived so long that I know I must have learned something worth giving.  But there's growing distance between what I experience and the lives of most of the world.  Even with extensive travel, it's becoming easier to avoid seeing how the other six and a half billion live.  And formulating what I can do to help.

But it probably would help if I got up off my ass more often during the day.  An article in yesterday's Press Democrat reported that sitting down for long periods of time was not helped much by playing golf twice a week, or taking hikes in parks and on the coast every few weeks.  Better that I should walk down to the real market at the end of the street, or through our neighborhood to see the flowers and trees, than wither away those muscles and neurons plunking on laptop keys and straining my eyes on diminishing text.

Let's see if I make that a priority.



 
   

The Vietnam War - with Today's Youth

Greetings!

I dropped into a classroom at my local junior college at noon today to listen to a debate on the Vietnam War.  A regular event for the past ten years, it featured three Vietnam war veterans as judges examining the performances of the pro and con teams on their final class day in a ten-week semester.

While awarding the victory to the pro side of the argument, the judges acknowledged that it seemed that neither side engaged more than one-third of the class of 30 in their presentation, and that answers seemed spontaneous and not well-researched.

I think they were being awfully polite.  I would have failed the students, teacher, and the college.  It was far from a debate, and appeared that most of the speakers had become badly-informed.  The teacher explained that she let the students do their own research, and that she had not provided them with much materials, nor direction.  She said that she had limited their research to materials produced between 1954 and 1968, and it appeared their understanding of key events had not gained from the many excellent analysis of the past 50 years.  If she hadn't intervened halfway though the debate, it would not have risen much beyond two very-opinionated speakers hardly listening to each other.   It failed to demonstrate debate techniques, deep knowledge, or enhanced curiosity.

If I have some extra time in January, I'm going to do some more research into the effectiveness of this approach, and what improvement ideas I might be able to suggest for the next semester's class. 

January 6th, Visiting Online Worlds

Greetings!

Over the past few weeks, I've been fully establishing myself on every online social website. This morning, while checking into the latest activity on each, I realized how similar it feels to what I imagine inter-dimensional travel must be. On each site, some of the same characters exist. They display slightly different personalities, and share information appropriate to the individual site purposes. The Facebook world is younger and more intimate, and has by far the largest community. LinkedIn is a little older, and consumed with the importance of networking and making connections. GooglePlus is the newest site, filled with a more mature user base, with the least-developed features. MySpace and the others seem to be fading...

When I logon to each, I keep thinking I should change my user name to one which reflects some acknowledgement of the reality there. My Facebook avatar ought to be the young high school surfer dude whose nostalgia for the past, and his friends from San Diego, reminds him that it was those childhood years that shaped his values and loves.

My LinkedIn avatar should be able to answer the question one gets when first introduced (What do you do?), and should somehow reflect a community-organizer, nonprofit activist, and government bureaucrat.

GooglePlus's image would be the young elder I think I am now. Seven years into retirement, traveling twice a year, and working as hard as ever to contribute my resources effectively to bring about change.

But I find that I can't do it in one world alone. Not everyone I care about is in any one world. Each day, I have to pursue and explore adventures in each, and that the crossover benefits are real and mostly unpredictable. There are far too many of my friends from my middle age who hang out in Facebook, but whose creativity is displayed in GooglePlus products (YouTube, Picasa,blogging, etc.) The art of it is how you keep the interactions as real as possible, and find ways to bridge the spaces in-between.

Definitely not for the apathetic.

Gregory Fearon

Google Plus Review

Greetings!

I've been slowly expanding my use of the features of Google Plus, having been invited early into the Beta test of the new bundle of features which Google has assembled in its headline service.

I have to say that it was easy to take it slowly. Touted as a Facebook alternative for those who think "There's a place for friends in your life, just not everyplace", it's begun to appear to me that it is a smarter version of Facebook. It helps facilitate communication between adults who want to share intelligent conversations, linkages to great information, and explorations of what they have found interesting.

I recommend it for those who need to organize their lives around working with others, and minimizing confusion.

Gregory

Volunteer Videos Blog

Greetings!

I just wanted all of you who visit this blog to know that another one has been established which will focus on sharing videos describing opportunities to volunteer in your communities. I'm intentionally collecting and producing videos which are short enough to run well on handheld communications (Cell phones, Ipods, etc.) and which don't have much delay when played on systems with limited memory.

Check it out at Voluntter Videos


If you know of videos which should be featured on the blog, let me know.

Gregory