When you and I met, we hit it off quickly, and got married sooner than many thought was advisable — including my aforementioned mother.

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While we didn’t agree with that assessment, we knew we didn’t need to throw a child into the mix immediately. We were never quite where we wanted to be financially, but who ever is? Through the next decade we brought up our sweet dog Lexie from a four-week old pup. Although we learned a few things about taking turns with pet care, and loved her very much, the challenges of taking care of her didn’t even hint at what was to come. We knew that, and so we waited.

Regardless of the various reasons, they all added up to our waiting more than a decade to have a child. We might not have learned much about child rearing, but we learned a lot about one another. Many are thrust into parenthood before they have had a chance to get their bearings as a couple, let alone keep another human being alive with any sense of grace or confidence.

Still not sure we’ve mastered that last part, but who ever does?

When I think back now I have a hard time recalling what we did before we were parents. Watched a lot more TV, for the most part. Those VHS tapes labeled for each day of the week were ample evidence of that.

Back then, you were my wife. Now, instead of becoming your mom or my mom, you’re the kind of mom our home needs. I am proud for anyone to meet you and our son.

Sure, I’ve always done my share of the parenting, but you are the one who gets him off to school in the morning, and manages him during homework time. You spend the most time making sure he becomes an independent, responsible man. While doing all that you manage our home.

When we met I knew you were beautiful, funny, smart, and caring. Soon I knew we had a lot in common, and that I loved you, and you were a great woman. When I married you, you became a great wife. Now you are a great mom, and that has revealed depth in your strength and character that I might never have known otherwise.

How lucky was I that the woman I chose (and who chose me!) happened to thrive on being a caring mother to our son?

Happy Mother’s Day!

A few days before that, through the modern device of online social media I found out that a college friend had passed away. He was nearly 10 years my senior, but still not what I generally consider “old enough” to die.

A trucker by trade, AJ was licensed to drive large groups. Many times we all crammed ourselves into a 13-passenger van and AJ safely guided the vehicle to our destination — sometimes more than 1000 miles roundtrip. I don’t know whether he knew it, but he missed out on some of the camaraderie by being up there behind the wheel.

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Once we all poured out of the van, however, he became one of us again. He slept on the same church floors and rode the same rent-to-ride horses. We laughed, cried, watched the television as the first President Bush announced the start of Desert Storm, and then the end of same. We built a volleyball pit and threw a huge banquet honoring women. For all of that, AJ was right there with us.

Although he wasn’t a student, he was a regular attendee at the same religious student center that I made my second home. Because of his frequent appearances and involvement in our functions, we all knew AJ. I rarely saw him outside that environment, however, so I didn’t know him as well as several others did

A few years after that, another college cohort and I culled photos from the Methodist Student Center’s photo albums and scanned them into a computer. I then made a web album out of them and borrowed the Mac at my workplace’s computer lab to burn it onto a CD-ROM.

AJ appeared in photo after photo. Sometimes lurking in the background, sometimes front-and-center, AJ made every picture more interesting, just as he made every event more memorable. I still can remember his voice and his inflection as if I had heard him speak yesterday.

After I left college in 1995, besides those albums and his Facebook profile pic I never saw AJ again until I saw him lying in his coffin. I admit I barely recognized him. Although I’m sure that was largely due to the weight he had lost while fighting his grave illness, it probably also was thanks to the mortuary preparation process. Somehow the person never looks at all the way I remembered them.

He looked exactly like himself in the prints I hand-delivered to his father, who seemed glad to have them. I got the feeling he was a bit surprised that his son — raised in a Baptist household — hung out with a Methodist student group. I didn’t take the time to explain to him that denominational affiliation was the last thing on any of our minds back then. If you wanted to have good, clean fun and support your peers in their endeavors while getting the same in return, you were in. Or, if you just wanted a place to shoot pool or play ping-pong between classes, the doors were open for that, too.

During the service I heard about the new group of friends AJ had made after most of us had gone our separate and distant ways. It sounded like he brought the same positive vibe to them that he had to us.

I saw people at the funeral whom I had not seen since college. Some I had reconnected with via Facebook, but even that was just a cursory glance at carefully selected images. In addition to the already substantial turnout, at least 16 of our group showed up for the visitation, and more than 10 also attended the funeral and graveside service.

Afterward we ate at a local steakhouse and blended conversations of recent events and reminiscence. It was great to hear everyone talk of their children and careers, considering how aimless so many of us seemed back when we formed our friendships. We all agreed that we should get together more often than just when one of us dies.

In his last days it had been those new people who were there for AJ, they who had visited him in the hospital. A few of our group were close by and had made opportunities to visit, but as a whole we had not been there for him in nearly the same way we had been back in college. Miles, marriages, jobs, and parenthood all conspire to keep friends from the past in the past.

From what I understand, AJ died believing that he would go on to a better place. I only wish he had known that we appreciated him in all his AJ-ness. It was a unique and wonderful quality, and it will be missed.

I have enough apps on my Droid Razr that I have grouped some of them into categories to keep down the clutter and reduce swiping away from the home screen. I present my favorites below, in the same categories I use.

All are free unless otherwise stated, and I note whether they are available for iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad), if I know for certain.

Productivity

Dolphin Web Browser – Primary function: viewing websites. For me, it performs better than Google Chrome browser and the built-in Android Browser, and blows away Firefox.

4G Toggle – Primary function – turning on or off your data plan. Because Motorola doesn’t offer a quick, easy way to turn the data access on and off, this app’s widget has become invaluable to me.

QuickOffice – Primary function: viewing and creating documents similar to MS Office. This app can open and work with Microsoft Office files and many others. I don’t use it often because I don’t have much use for those kinds of documents in my personal life, but it has come in handy a couple of times.

ES File Explorer – Primary function: finding files on your phone or your SD card. With this app I can look at all the files on my Droid, just as I can on a PC. It also features a built-in FTP client, but typically I use the one in the next featured app.

AndFTP – Primary function: transferring files. Because I have my own FTP server through my website host, this has become a very useful way for me to backup and/or transfer files to and from my Droid. I can change the local or remote directory I am viewing after I have already connected to the FTP server, and transfer files quickly and easily. It also allows SSL and SSH.

WordPress – Primary function: editing blog posts. Although I have slowed down considerably on my blog in the past couple of years, this is a good way to knock out a quick draft that I can open later from my PC when it’s time to add photos not taken with my phone. I can view and edit existing posts and drafts on my self-hosted WordPress blog (meaning, I don’t use WordPress.com). From what I understand, it supports WordPress.com blogs as well. (iOS version also available)

Printer Control by HP – Primary function: printing to an HP printer. Although it offers the ability to print to printers across the web, I only use it to print from my phone to my home printer. I can print documents and photos. Works great. (iOS version also available)

Reference

Merriam-Webster – Primary function: looking up a word’s meaning. Completely free, this dictionary does not require an internet connection in order to look up words. (iOS version also available)

Flixster – Primary function: seeing how a movie rates with critics/fans, and where it’s playing locally. When it’s time to read reviews from RottenTomatoes.com or find what’s playing locally, this is a great app for Android. (iOS version also available)

Fandango – Primary function: finding movies showing locally. Sometimes I actually go to movies in a theater, and this app is great for finding places and times. Admittedly, I prefer WiggleHop, but right now that’s available only on iOS (Apple devices). (iOS version also available)

IMDB – Primary function: looking up facts about movies. The Internet Movie Database has been a favorite site of mine since back in the 1990′s. It has come a long way and is a very polished, intuitive app. IMDB is currently owned by Amazon, just FYI. (iOS version also available)

Wikipedia – Primary function: online encyclopedia. This one should need no explanation. It provides fairly straightforward access to the wealth of information on the world’s most popular online encyclopedia. It requires an Internet connection, but if you are looking to carry Wikipedia’s contents in your pocket, there’s the WikiReader device. (iOS version also available)

Maps – Primary function: finding where you are and where you are going. Google’s Maps app is unbeatable for exploring your world.

News

NPR News – Primary function: streaming live broadcast of an NPR affiliate station. Because I like to start my day with reporting, not with pure speculators, political pundits or other talk-show blowhards, I use this app to stream my local NPR station every morning. Call it left-leaning if you want, but I always have found it to be the most even news reporting on any form of media. I simply plug my phone into the speakers we have mounted in the bathroom, but when I don’t have that convenience I can listen through the phone’s speaker. (iOS version also available)

AccuWeather – Primary function: local weather conditions and forecast. This is available for free (well, ad-supported), but I wanted to get it ad-free, so I paid for it. It is a very good app, with a great widget. It actually provides enough detail that three adjacent towns in the same county have slightly different forecasts. (iOS version also available)

ESPN ScoreCenter – Primary function: sports scores. As a person displaced from his home state, I find this a great way to keep up with my favorite teams. It ties into my ESPN online account (free) to always show me just what I want. (iOS version also available)

Razorbacks – Primary function: Razorbacks sports news. When I want only Razorbacks news, this is the go-to app.

USA Today – Primary function: overview of what’s going on in the news. This app was designed with mobile devices in mind, not as an afterthought. I can quickly get to just the news I want to see. (iOS version also available)

ESPN BracketBound – Primary function: NCAA Basketball tournament news. Every year I allow myself to be suckered into filling out an NCAA basketball tournament bracket on ESPN’s Tournament Challenge (free). This app is invaluable for those wanting to track the tournament’s progress and/or their own ranking in the challenge and any group they have joined. (iOS version also available)

Mail

Y! Mail – Primary function: accessing your Yahoo! Mail account. This has become an excellent e-mail app. (iOS version also available)

Gmail – Primary function: accessing your Google Mail account. I’m not sure there is any Android-based phone out there that does not have this app loaded on it. It’s pretty good, but no better than Y! Mail. (iOS version also available)

Photo/Video

CameraZoomFX – Primary function: taking pictures. Although this paid app features many effects, I use it as a camera app rather than a photo processing app. It offers fairly easy access to settings while providing a large preview area. It also has a very powerful, configurable self-timer feature, you can customize hardware buttons (make volume up your shutter button!), and much more. I go to it more often than any other when I want to snap a photo with my phone. ($2.99)

Shot Control – Primary function: taking pictures with immense manual control. I bought this app because it provides so much control when I am taking photos with my phone. It allows setting the focus on one spot but the light metering on another, expanding or shrinking the area metered, and much more. A constantly updated, maturing app, this one looks better on a larger screen because of how many controls it places alongside the preview, but it works great. (free demo, $2.99 for full version)

Photo Editor – Primary function: editing photos. This is much more feature-rich than Adobe’s PhotoShop Express and other name-brand editors. It provides features like Unsharp Mask, Curves, cropping, and many that I don’t use. If you don’t know what those are, then you probably have no use for it. Incredible for a free app.

Pro HDR Camera – Primary function: taking HDR photos. I don’t use it much, but that’s just because I don’t get into HDR photos much. They are the ones that combine (usually) three or more shots into one, to make all areas of the photo well-lit, sometimes giving it a surreal look. If you like taking them, then this is about as good as it gets on a phone. Also a paid app. ($1.99)

Movie Studio – Primary function: editing video. I can edit and combine clips, add music or a recorded track, and generate a final video. More fun on a tablet, but useable on a phone.

Media

ClearRecord – Primary function: recording sound clips on the go. A great free app, this is my favorite for recording sound clips. It records in high-quality wav file (uncompressed) if desired, and the results are very good — impressive for a phone. I do get the occasional skip if it’s a long clip, so I wouldn’t trust it to be my only recording of an important event. I still have my dedicated digital recorder for my son’s choir concerts or other live performances I don’t want to risk missing. (iOS version also available)

Pandora – Primary function: enjoying a customized entertainment listening experience. These days I use it mostly to listen to stand-up comedy while I’m making my lunch for the next day, letting the dog out one last time for the night, and brushing my teeth. I often have to stifle laughter to keep from disturbing my wife. (iOS version also available)

Shazam – Primary function: finding and/or sharing the title of a song that’s playing. Easy and quick, this app finds most relatively popular music that’s playing either in your car or at a bar, or at a friend’s house. I often stump it, but it correctly identified a Muse song recently and I love that tune. (iOS version also available)

SoundHound – Primary function: finding and/or sharing the title of a song you can hum. For those times when Shazam can’t find it, or you want to identify a song by humming it, this app is great.

ACast – Primary function: finding and managing the podcasts you like. I use it mostly for downloading my favorite podcasts, but it’s also a good podcast streaming app.

SoundCloud – Primary function: sharing sound clips. Great for when you want to share a sound clip instead of a video clip, this app very easily integrates with Facebook. I can use SoundCloud to record the clip, or choose a clip I recorded in another app. (iOS version also available)

YouTube – Primary function: viewing video clips. Fun if you want to search for a particular video on Google’s ubiquitous service. (iOS version also available)

Netflix – Primary function: watching Netflix videos. This app works great. With my Motorola Razr dock, I can stream HD movies to my bedroom TV using my phone. Or, of course, I can watch movies on the phone’s screen if I want. My only complaint is that it does not allow me to search the Netflix DVD availability. If a title is not available to stream, it just says nothing was found. (iOS version also available)

Amazon Kindle – Primary function: reading books from your Kindle collection. I love the ability to read a book no matter where I am, because my phone’s always on my hip. The great thing is that Kindle remembers where I left off across all devices — even my iPod Touch. (iOS version also available)

Nook – Primary function: reading books from your Nook collection. Same goes here as does for the Kindle app. (iOS version also available)

Buy

Domino’s Pizza – Primary function: ordering pizza. With the recent improvements to their cheese and crust, this has become our favorite low-price pizza place. Ordering pizza via their app is one of the best app experiences across any category, both on a phone and on a tablet. (iOS version also available)

B&H Photo Video – Primary function: ordering photo and/or video products. My favorite place to buy camera and/or audio-related equipment, B&H has also produced a pretty good app. (iOS version also available)

CVS – Primary function: ordering photo prints. When I absolutely, positively have to have a decent-quality print and the hassle of doing it on my home printer just isn’t worth it to me, this site makes it simple to manage my CVS albums, or upload photos from my phone. Once I even ordered the photos to be printed at a location six hours away, because I was going to be there for a funeral and needed a few good memory lane photos for the family. Bonus? I changed clothes in CVS’s clean, roomy restroom stall. (iOS version also available)

Social

Facebook – Primary function: keeping in touch with people. This app has improved greatly just since October 2012, when I got my phone. It’s still a little buggy, though, as sometimes it just won’t accept my “Like” no matter how hard or at what spot I tap it. Rarely, it has to close after I’m warned it has stopped working. Also, it shows only some of my many FB photo albums, so it’s pretty much useless for adding photos to a particular album. Example: I have an ongoing Observations album that would be perfect for phone photos snapped on the go when I see something silly or outlandish, but I can’t get to it from the FB app. (iOS version also available)

Twitter – Primary function: saying something you feel like you just have to say, or reading the same posted by someone you follow, but without expectation of a convenient way to form a reply thread. It works as expected. I only installed this because I was watching a live celebrity interview, and he mentioned using Twitter. I got on it to see a few tweets he posted, posted a few tweets of my own and read some by friends still active out there, and then haven’t been back since. I just don’t like Twitter’s system of replying to a Tweet. (iOS version also available)

Google+ – Primary function: keeping in touch with people. The app is very good, but I don’t use Google+ very much at all, so I’m not sure whether it’s all it should be. (iOS version also available)

Toys and Tools

Flashlight – Primary function: providing light where there is only darkness. Provides a fairly good light when I find myself in the dark. Uses either the screen or the phone’s built-in LED, depending on the function chosen. Has a neat, adjustable strobe light effect. Screen functions include warning lights similar to a train crossing, and a light bulb with adjustable brightness and color.

Unit Convertor – Primary function: converting units. I would not feel complete without the ability to convert units wherever I am, and this app works great for when I need to convert length, weight, distance, volume, velocity, or one of many other measurements. Until the United States climbs on board with the whole metric system idea, I will never want to be without this app.

For the first time, they are moving toward a system that’s eerily similar to that used by cable companies. By that, I mean that with the new Hopper and Joey system, they require not only a receiver for your main television (the Hopper), but also additional units (Joeys) attached to any television you wish to use with the system. Dish always has charged a monthly for the main package and the receiver, but now there’s a new wrinkle.

While there are pros and cons of staying with the old system, versus going with the new, I’m starting to wish I had kept our previous receiver rather than upgrading to the new Hopper system — for now.

Quick Tip:
If you are a DishNetwork dual-tuner DVR user who has not yet “upgraded” to the Hopper, and storage space is your primary concern, consider buying an external hard drive for your existing DVR and being happy with what you have. It will save you money after the initial fee of adding a hard drive.

Now, to the full story, for the “why” of it all.

In our ViP 722 DVR receiver, we had the usual two satellite tuners. We could record two different channels at once, while watching a previously recorded selection at the same time. Or we could watch one channel and record another, simultaneously, while also watching a recorded selection. It was very slick and smooth.

We were able to attach an additional television merely by running a coaxial cable to it and tuning it to a pre-set channel. We also could watch programs recorded on either tuner 1 or tuner 2. We could use the remote control for tuner 2 from any room in the house. We were able to add a VCR to that setup and, if we wanted, record whatever came to that second TV (live broadcast or a recording).

The only drawback was that we had to watch the second television in standard definition, but if we chose we could watch HD content letterboxed to keep from missing part of the image. Also, we could watch any of our recordings, whether in HD or standard. Our only HDTV was in the living room, so standard was fine everywhere else.

The bonus to this setup was that I installed a splitter on the line running to the second television, thereby expanding our viewing versatility to a third television in our guest room/computer room. Of course, that meant that the two additional TV’s could not watch independently of one another, but that never caused a problem. Was I in violation of some DishNetwork policy when I installed that splitter? Possibly. We were using it no differently than if I just moved the cable back and forth each time I wanted to watch TV in one of the additional rooms, so I had little moral hesitation.

We also attached an old-fashioned rabbit-ears antenna to the ViP722 DVR, which allowed us to receive and record crystal-clear, HD-quality broadcasts from thin air. That added the capability of recording a three channels at the same time, and at no extra charge besides what I already paid ($5/month) to receive local channels.

Ultimately, the HD content we had recorded proved too storage-hungry for the meager hard drive in the ViP722. I found myself recording the standard definition versions of our channels so that we wouldn’t max out the storage. We also started finding ourselves wishing we had HDTV in the master bedroom — for the few times we wanted to watch television immediately after our young son had gone to bed. Our home is fairly small, so living room sounds easily carry down the short hallway to his room.

Letterboxed though it was, such an image looked kind of small on an old 27-inch screen. It looked especially tiny on the 13-inch screen I watched in the computer room.

Considering all of that, I took the plunge and ordered DishNetwork’s new receiver, the Hopper. It quadrupled our DVR storage space, and any additional sets would enjoy HD signal. The Hopper, however, didn’t provide all of that by itself. Alone, it allowed television viewing in only one room. Like the cable companies, DishNetwork now required an additional device and monthly fee for every television added. I could not add one TV and split the signal this time, because instead of passing just a standard TV signal down the coaxial cable, the Hopper sent data that had to be received by something more advanced than a television.

That new device is called a Joey. While its capabilities are impressive, it is helpless without the Hopper.

So now, when I’m doing work in the computer room, my only television viewing option is a DVD. Plus, the added bonus of using rabbit-ears to pull in HD signal over the airwaves now requires an adapter I must purchase from DishNetwork.

Another gotcha was the desire to upgrade the master bedroom television now that it could get HD signal. So, I found a good deal on a 21-inch LCD HDTV from Vizio. This was motivated, too, by my wife’s desire to rid our bedroom of the old, hulking, convex screen TV.

Looking back, I probably would have preferred staying with what we had and invested in a large external hard drive to attach to the ViP722 DVR. It would have saved us more than a few dollars. Instead, I got the Hopper and its behemoth hard drive and the $7/month charge for the master bedroom Joey. I also might soon end up coughing up $7 more per month to get a Joey in the computer room.

The devilish detail there? I can either pay $95 upfront for the installation of the Joey, or agree to pay for a protection plan for at least four months. That would bring my total up to $14/month for four months, dropping back to the regular $7/month rate for the Joey. So, instead of nearly $100 for the installation, I’d pay $28 — if I remembered to cancel the protection plan. I failed to remember it after the first Joey, and my wife pays the bills. She just figured it was part of the deal, so it wasn’t until nearly a year later that I noticed and dropped it.

This is EXACTLY what DishNetwork and all companies with similar “protection” plans are hoping.

While I still believe DishNetwork offers the best value and the best DVR, bar none, I am wary that with their popularity they are now becoming too much like the cable companies they originally set out to replace.

Baby steps, people.

This is part of our effort to hit our son’s attention deficit disorder (ADD) from the environmental angle. Included in that is controlling things in his diet like artificial colors and added sweeteners (natural and artificial). I’m not saying we have completely cut those things, but when even my wife is reading ingredient labels before purchasing, I know we’re making progress.

After just one week, his bedtimes already have gone more smoothly.

I am proud to say, also, that the few times he has emerged from his bedroom this week to use the bathroom, he has looked down the hallway to catch us reading and playing Solitaire, not watching TV. It surely must be easier to enforce a rule when you yourself follow it.

Easier, too, when favorite shows like “Downton Abbey” and “Breaking Bad” are not showing new episodes.

It isn’t that we planted our son in front of the television or stuffed him with Skittles prior to these intiatives. On the contrary, he always prefers playing with friends in the neighborhood over anything else, and rarely eats candy. Sometimes, however, we would allow television after school if he had all his homework done and there was nobody available to play with him. From the food angle, I was surprised at some products that use artificial colors.

I also don’t want to come across as saying that TV causes attention problems, although there are conflicting rather than consensual reports on that claim. This seems to hinge on what age the television watching begins. I certainly believe it can aggravate what’s already there, and that for some children (and adults!) it is an unhealthy reprieve from real life. It’s one thing for an adult to use it as an occasional escape, versus letting children camp out in front of it before they have developed reading comprehension and social skills.

I had read at least 10 years ago that watching television stimulates the brain in ways that are not always conducive to calm behavior. Between then and now I also saw studies on artificial colors causing problems for those already predisposed to attention deficit, not to mention the potential cancer-causing effects. We decided to eliminate TV on school nights after a friend did the same and saw positive results in her ADD-afflicted son. Similarly, we started paying more attention to food labels after more than one friend saw fewer attention problems in their children.

We may not be trailblazers, but at least we try to be picky about whom we follow.

That brings me to whom the United States should follow. Why not err on the side of caution, as do many European countries? For one, Kraft Mac & Cheese in the United Kingdom is sold without artificial colors, but in the United States it is loaded with them. Likewise with M&M’s. If they consume these products in other countries, then what makes manufacturers think Americans wouldn’t?

Some companies are responding to consumers’ health concerns — sort of. For one, PepsiCo, already not using brominated vegetable oil (BVO) in Gatorade sold in Europe and Japan, has decided to pull the ingredient from that product in the United States. Sadly, however, they are replacing it with another artificial ingredient (sucrose acetate isobutyrate) that presents its own problems. That doesn’t impact our family because we don’t use Gatorade, but it is a good example of how hard it is to convince companies to go all the way with their efforts.

Aside from using only fresh ingredients and making everything from scratch (just not going to happen in our home), controlling what our family ingests is difficult, and I believe that companies already selling products without artificial ingredients in other countries should do better in the United States.

As far as television viewing time? That is strictly up to parents.

We’re just taking both of these problems day by day.

Further Reading:

Artificial Colors Linked to Behavior Problems in Children (2011)
http://technorati.com/women/article/artificial-colors-linked-to-behavioral-problems/

F.D.A. Panel to Consider Warnings for Artificial Food Colorings (2011)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/health/policy/30fda.html?_r=0

Food Dyes Suspected of Causing Behavioral Problems in Kids (2012)
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/02/27/food-dyes-suspected-of-causing-behavioral-problems-in-kids/

PepsiCo Will Halt Use of Additive in Gatorade (2013)
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/gatorade-listens-to-a-teen-and-changes-its-formula/

Fixated by Screens, but Seemingly Nothing Else (2011)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/health/views/10klass.html

There Is No Meaningful Relationship Between Television Exposure and Symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/117/3/665.short

Study Finds Link Between Television Viewing And Attention Problems In Children (2004)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040406090140.htm

Once our son is in bed, my first thought is, “What can we watch?” If my wife turns in early for the evening, it’s, “What can I watch?”

My wife and I watch a few TV shows together, via DVR, but far fewer than we did before we had a child. After all, when your TV watching begins at 8:30 p.m. or so instead of 5:00 or 6:00 o’clock, there’s only so much you can fit in before bed time. Recording shows for viewing on our own schedule is not new to us. Before DVR, we re-used seven VHS tapes, religiously, each labeled for a day of the week, to record our shows. When the image quality got bad enough, we replaced the tapes.

In retrospect, obviously we’ve always been fond of television. We never had money to spend going out, so we had lots of time for it to fill. We just don’t have as much time to fill as we once did. That’s a good thing. Besides our son, our viewing has dwindled due to social networking sites, and because we live in an area where my wife has lots of friends. Positive contact with a variety of real people must be better than sitting on the couch staring at fictions.

In the event there’s nothing recorded, we have Netflix. A fan of foreign, independent, and old films, I never have trouble finding something to watch. If I get analysis paralysis looking at the 300-plus movies in my instant queue, I can always pick a television series. I would like to say that the documentaries get just as much air time as other offerings, but I prefer not to lie.

My insatiable appetite for audio-visual input doesn’t stop when the TV goes dark.

When it’s time to brush my teeth, let the dog out one last time, and get ready for bed, I use my phone to pull up a stand-up comedy channel on Pandora. I typically listen to it until I’m all the way in bed and my head has hit the pillow.

Now, as always, a TV screen or other electronic device is the center of my entertainment world. Except on my lunch hour, I will choose either of those over reading, every time. Yes, I still enjoy reading at home, but I recall times in the past that I would pick up a book after the shows or movies were over. At the very least, I would read a book for 10 or 15 minutes before bed.

Now, thanks to on-demand media, that never happens.

We stopped taking a newspaper more than a decade ago, and I have piled up two years worth of unread magazines I got with leftover frequent flier miles. Despite all the screen time and other distractions, we both have found time to read at least a few books each year, and sometimes several, so we’re not completely illiterate yet.

It’s encouraging to see the schools spending time on reading and writing, and all educational disciplines rely more heavily on reading comprehension than when I was young. I wonder, though, whether children growing up in this country, with an electronic device always available, will ever choose to read. I shudder to think what will happen if they don’t.

Until they come out of their bedrooms needing a drink of water and catch us reading books instead of watching television or visiting a social networking site, I can’t say I blame them.

He was going to perform the procedure without a needle and without a scalpel. Just a few high-pressure sprays of local anesthetic, reminiscent of the hypo spray Bones used on Star Trek, and then a small puncture into which he would insert his tools and work his magic. Then he would clamp on a few titanium clips and cauterize the severed ends of the reproductive tunnels he had closed.

I read about it on my own, and found it was first developed in China to help men curb their fears of, you guessed it, vasectomy. The new way invented is needle-free, scalpel-free. Not in the original Chinese procedure, however, was my wife’s sheer panic and that pesky ambulance ride.

I arrived at 7:30 a.m. as instructed, with my wife and our son in the car and the 20-degree weather nipping at our noses. The plan was for me to take Valium to relax “things” and then have the procedure at 8 a.m.

The doors finally opened at about 8:10 a.m., and the receptionist checked in everybody who had arrived after me, then handed me a Valium at 8:25. It was my first one ever, but I had never had an adverse reaction to any medication, so I swallowed it down with reckless abandon.

At 8:30 I was called back to an exam room and the doctor started his work on me at 8:45. My metabolism is pretty quick, but I don’t think 20 minutes was quite enough for that Valium to do any relaxing.

He warned me about pain I might feel at certain times during the procedure. Remarkably, I never felt more than a slight pinch someone might give for St. Patrick’s Day, albeit in a different location (one hopes).

I paid my $58 and left the office. Pretty cheap for lifelong contraception, right? Stay with me.

My wife loaded the car, and under doctor’s orders I held a bag of frozen corn on my groin as we headed out for a four-hour drive to a family Christmas. We stopped for fast food on the way out of town, but not before filling a prescription for Vicodin (generic, of course). The doctor had advised that I fill it “just in case.”

Figuring that a four-hour road trip qualified as “just in case,” I took one pill as directed. This was two full hours after I had taken the Valium, and on a full stomach.

About an hour later, I was looking up something on my phone and started getting nauseated. Within a minute I got very hot and sweaty, and felt desperately uncomfortable. I let my wife know I might be sick, and while she maneuvered the car onto an offramp, I quickly emptied our take-out bag to prepare it for violent refill. I dry heaved a couple times.

I said, “I think I might pass out.”

The next thing I knew, I awoke to the sound of my wife on the phone.

“He’s awake now,” she said, clearly frazzled but able to communicate.

She later told me that after I uttered my fateful phrase, my head immediately dropped to the side and hit the car window, but my eyes remained open. She thought I was joking at first. She soon realized that I was not faking and shook me while screaming for me to wake up. Our son, nine years old, got frantic, and there was little she could do to comfort him while she was dialing and talking to 9-1-1.

She and the dispatcher finally agreed upon our whereabouts using nearby landmarks. I looked up and saw the Exxon sign she had mentioned, and kept my eyes on it as much as I could while not dry heaving.

We reached the parking lot and I opened my door for fresh air. We sat only a minute or two before I saw an ambulance, lights blazing and sirens blaring, racing across the overpass to our site.

It was my first time to see an approaching ambulance and know exactly why it was in the vicinity.

I completely lost track of Shannon and Benjamin when the EMT’s walked up to my side of the car.

“Sir, can you get up and walk on your own?” one of them asked.

“I think so,” I said.

I pulled myself up and felt hands under my armpits as I took a few steps to the stretcher. I laid back onto its tilted cushion and then the professionals took over.

And what professionals they were. With a calm, business-like yet comforting manner, they lifted me into the ambulance and began administering emergency care. They offered to recline me all the way back so I wouldn’t see the world shrinking away in our wake. Never once did I get the feeling that the situation was out of control.

I told them that I needed a reference point for the movement, then pulled down the oxygen mask when I felt the urge to dry-heave into the plastic bag they provided. I don’t remember donning the mask again.

I put out some major decibels even when I only almost vomit. “Sorry, guys, I’m a loud puker,” is the only other thing I remember saying during the ambulance ride.

They expertly lowered me from the ambulance and wheeled me into the ER. I thanked them, but whatever I said couldn’t have been nearly enough.

Nurses and technicians worked on me next. They attached me to an EKG machine, ran IV fluids into me, and drew blood. I have no doubt they were saying tv-show things like “chem 7,” “tox screen,” or similar phrases, but just where I couldn’t hear them.

My nausea subsided and instead of feeling hot I got body-shaking chills. I told the doctor and at least one other person about the uncontrollable shivering, but got no answer. Because I was fairly sure what had caused my episode — taking two new medications relatively close together, my chills were the only lingering question.

Finally the nurse let me know that the IV fluids, lower than body temperature going in, often cause an uncomfortable cool-down. It’s funny, how easy it would be to allay a patient’s fears if all medical professionals cared enough to listen. Such a simple, sensible answer, and my mind was at ease.

That is, until we saw the bill. Turns out this went under individual deductible, not family deductible, and mine was nowhere near being met for the year. That and the emergency care negated the advantage from all the down-to-the-wire planning to get it done before 2012 was over. It also meant that the harried scheduling of it on the same morning we were leaving for a family trip was not needed.

Nagging at me, too, is that had we not had a road trip ahead of us, I probably never would have taken that Vicodin. Two weeks out now, my pain never has reached a level that over the counter medicines had any trouble managing. (By the way, guys, the “twist-to-activate” ice pack the ER gave me didn’t last nearly as long as the frozen corn.)

I call my wife my hero now, even though she spurns the title. She always has been, but this magnified it.

My nine-year-old son and I ventured to our city’s historic downtown district on Sunday afternoon. Our goals were simple: enjoy the 80-degree weather in December and find something for him at the Star Wars toy store. For five dollars.

On the drive there he and I grabbed some fast food, because our cupboard had been bare, and buying food downtown was not in our budget. For that I used all but one dollar of the cash I had brought with me. The boy had the cash he needed, and I didn’t intend to buy anything, so I wasn’t concerned.

As we walked around the first corner onto the historic square I noticed a chalkboard sidewalk sign announcing a sale on rare and specialty guns. More than the sign itself, I noticed that the arrow drawn on the sign pointed to a basement-level space that had been vacant for a couple years. Intrigued, I directed my son to follow me down the stairs.

Two waist-level glass cases ran along adjacent walls, making an “L” shape. Under the longer case’s glass sat weapons of various technological eras in mostly excellent condition. Handguns ruled this space, but on a shelf below and in front of the case sat a pump shotgun and a double-barrelled, break-action shotgun. On the wall hung assault rifles in both black and jungle camouflage.

“So, how long have you been here?” I asked a skinny man standing behind the gun case.

“A week.”

I smiled and nodded. “I thought you were new.”

The price tags were well above what I could pay, even if I were interested. My folks and a local friend are quite the enthusiasts, however, so I made a mental note of the place. I told the skinny man the same, and he seemed glad for it.

“Hey, Daddy,” my son said.

“What is it?”

“Come over here and look at these.” He pointed at a row of merchandise inside the case along the short wall.

I approached and saw that, among several unadorned leather holsters, a few Old West Christmas ornaments were on display. The $4.50 price tag looked pretty good to me, and we usually let the boy pick out a small present or two for his grandparents. Two of the ornaments would be perfect, he said, so we asked the skinny man behind the gun case to get them for us.

On the way to the register, I asked, “So, do you take credit and debit cards?”

“Yes, we sure do,” said Skinny Man.

He set the ornaments on the counter in front of the register. I pulled out my debit card, expecting to swipe it or hand it to him.

“Hold on a minute,” he said, and turned to face a large man who had wandered out from a back room. “Um, he needs to use a card.”

The large man lumbered across the store. He looked at what I was buying. “You don’t have cash?”

“Not enough to cover this.”

Large Man looked again at the ornaments and then at me, somewhat exasperated. “It’s nine bucks.”

“Right, but I spent what was left of my cash on fast food on the way downtown.”

“There’s an ATM just down that way,” Large Man said and pointed in a generally western direction. “That really would be cheaper on us and on you.”

I thought to myself that an ATM withdrawal surcharge would make this meager purchase considerably more expensive for me, but I stood quietly, almost dumbfounded that he was about to send me out of his fledgling store. My son, however, had picked out his perfect gift for my parents. I was going to hate it, but I was going to go get cash and come back and buy those ornaments.

I sighed. “I’ll go get some cash.”

“I’ll hold these for you,” said Skinny Man.

The boy following close behind, I grumbled aloud as we ascended the stairs to the sidewalk. “That’s bad business.”

“What is, Daddy?”

“If they’re going to take cards, then they should take them. Otherwise, they should just say ‘cash only.’”

The ATM charged me $2.50, and I don’t know yet what my bank might have charged (if anything). By the time we returned from the ATM, I had cooled off a bit. Having recently looked into all the options for accepting credit cards, I understood how much it costs someone who doesn’t pay a monthly fee for transaction processing. I was just guessing, but being brand new these guys probably were trying to avoid monthly fees as much as possible. That puts a higher percentage per transaction into the coffers of the processor.

Even so, that means my purchase of $9.00 would have cost the seller a maximum of 25 cents had I used a credit card. Instead, I paid at least 10 times that amount for the privilege of taking extra time out of my day to get cash. I hope my displeasure was worth that store’s quarter.

Back inside the store, Skinny Man’s face looked apologetic, but he managed only to say, “I won’t charge you any tax on that.”

Whoa. I better not spend all of that 74 cents in one place. With the “no tax” comment, he hadn’t given me much besides a clearer picture on why Large Man insisted on cash.

In the case of sweetness in a beverage, my tastebuds perhaps never will mature. In fact, the only two plain drinks I enjoy are milk and water. Anything else — carbonated, extracted, brewed, aged in barrels, must be sweet either by the way it’s made or with an additive. There are a few hard ciders I enjoy that don’t actually taste sweet, but that contain enough sugar to drown out whatever it is that I normally don’t enjoy in beer.

Most of my adult life, I have been disappointed when I enjoy the aroma of a flavored coffee being brewed, or or an herbal tea being steeped, only to have the flavor come nowhere near its equal. It’s normally so far off the mark that I must add sweetener to either, and milk to the coffee.

That’s why I was pleased when I discovered a tea that tastes as delicious as it smells without my adding any sweetener: Celestial Seasonings Cinnamon Apple Spice Herbal Tea. It is caffeine-free and its ingredients are cinnamon, hibiscus, chamomile, natural cinnamon and apple flavors with other natural flavors, roasted chicory, orange peel, and roasted carob.

I thought I had found the perfect drink for me. It’s the parenthesis after “other natural flavors” that caught my eye. It says “contains soy lecithin,” an emulsifier.

Further research revealed that Fooducate, another blog, already had asked Hain Celestial (makers of my new favorite hot beverage) why they use soy lecithin, and whether it is a genetically modified organism (GMO). To sum up, the company answered that it “keeps the ingredients smoothly blended together and prevents clumping,” and also that it “is not from a GMO source.”*

I wondered, though, why ingredients already locked together inside a tea bag need any assistance from an emulsifier. Would “clumping” prevent boiling water from penetrating in the recommended brew time? Wikipedia’s entry regarding soy lecithin states that it “helps complete dispersion in water.” That still doesn’t quite clear it up for me.

Regardless of the answers, I will continue drinking the tea, as it does not contain soy protein, a somewhat controversial ingredient on health-food blogs, whether GMO or not.

I also recommend that you try it if you like cinnamon. If you make it with 8 oz. of boiling water, as suggested, and steep it for six minutes, you can make a very tasty cup of tea. Like mine, your co-workers or family members might ask, “What smells so good?”

* Source: http://blog.fooducate.com/2011/12/07/why-is-there-soy-in-my-hain-celestial-tea/

By visiting and commenting on other blogs that interested me, and ultimately adding their link to my list while they reciprocated in kind, I unwittingly morphed my blog into a small community. It spawned what I believe will be life-long friendships with folks far-flung and nearby. I even made my first trip out of the country to visit the family of one of those people, as part of a larger annual effort for three of us to visit the others’ homes. Despite our foray into meatspace relationships, the standout beauty of such bonds is that, from the start, they never depended on geography.

I wasn’t the only one whose personal blog mushroomed into a small, tight-knit online social group. Like mine, many had a loyal following comprised of both silent readers and avid commenters. Unlike on political or news blogs, the discussion remained civil — sometimes serious, sometimes funny, but always civil. You didn’t have to be a member to read the content, and actively participating required nothing more than an (unpublished, never sold) e-mail address.

By either returning daily via bookmarks, subscribing to e-mail notifications, or using an RSS reader to track fresh content at our favorite sites, we kept up with the few blogs we enjoyed. We spent a few minutes reading a post, then took a moment or two to add our own thoughts on the topic. At some sites, we subscribed to the comments and returned more than once to a post to keep contributing.

I created a second blog to publish original serial fiction, and enjoyed immediate feedback on what readers loved, kind of liked, and thought was just plain awkward. It motivated me to finish writing many more stories than I had even started in the past.

Then came Facebook, and the giant sucking sound as blog readers, and subsequently personal blog writers, left for the world of five-second missives about banal daily life events, witty e-cards, and privacy-invading games. Sure, in addition to brief status updates, users sometimes post links to articles, but it is not the same as well-written commentary on everyday life found on the personal blogs I frequented. I kept up my usual blogging pace for a while, but soon the lack of involvement from all of us took its toll and I began neglecting this space.

Now I rarely visit blogs except when they show up in a Google search. Even then, most personal blogs I click over to have a final post two or three years old, with no note about leaving or quitting. They were just abandoned, without any forethought or admission of ceasing. Rather than a final post acknowledging that it was over, the last entry was more often like those that came before it — nothing to indicate anything had gone wrong or was going to change. I suspect many do not want to admit that something they worked so hard to create and maintain, sometimes for five years or more, has died.

Occasionally I see a spike in activity, and even new comments, each time BET airs a movie dedicated to a local woman whose tragic death prompted me to write a post. The comment thread, populated by those who knew her and those who just saw the movie, gets rather emotional at times.

I’m being a bit vague because Google search still seems to think my blog is relevant in at least a few isolated cases, and I don’t want to bring people to this entry and disappoint them.

My major disappointment in all this is that Americans seemed to be moving back toward reading and writing as a rewarding way to spend their time. They seemed to value quality over quantity. Then along came Facebook, with its (at first) spartan interface that spared us those eye-straining personalized themes on MySpace, and a new focus on quantity was born. We added “friends” as if we suddenly cared what Suzy from third grade was doing these days, despite having thought of her a total of never in the past 20 or 30 years.

Obviously I feel there is value in Facebook, or I wouldn’t use it. I think more than anything it’s where the eyeballs are, and as someone who once got paid for his words and images to go out to tens of thousands, when I say or display something I want at least some indication that someone, somewhere, cares.