Why writing is deleting
I’d like to share with you a haiku I entered in a BookBaby contest:
Write by deleting.
What is not necessary
Bothers the readers.
Why do I believe this is so? Read more »
What is good technology? — Part III, or why I got a Mac
When I first started shopping for a replacement to my aging Dell laptop, it was almost a foregone conclusion: I would get another Windows laptop. I have been using Microsoft Windows for 20 years and invested a lot in software and data.
However, I was getting tired of buying disposable laptops that last three years and die. That was the situation with my Dell laptop. I bought a top-of-the-line Studio 15 in 2009, but I had various problems with it. Hinges cracked. The optical drive didn’t always read discs or eject them. What made this worse is that this was a slot drive, so it would take many frantic presses of the Eject button to get the computer to spit out the disc. That was when the keyboard worked at all, as my Dell had keys that required several presses to type.
Some of our Windows laptops didn’t even last as long as my Dell. My daughter’s Compaq laptop conked out after two years, and my son lost three keys from a two-year-old HP.
If my past experiences with Windows laptops weren’t enough of an issue, the future of Windows didn’t make my choice any easier. I just wasn’t feeling the Windows 8 love. My son already has a Windows 8-style interface on his XBox 360, and he hates it. It may be a fine interface for tablets and smartphones, but not for game consoles and traditional computers.
That left me one other choice: The Mac. I had used Macs before, but I hadn’t touched one since the Reagan administration. With my options for Windows laptops dwindling, I decided to give the MacBook Pro a look. Read more »
The Eagle in the Chicken Coop Revisited
“The Eagle in the Chicken Coop” is one of my most popular speeches. I think one reason is that it’s more honest than the original New Age fable.
Eagles don’t stop being chickens the moment they see others being eagles. Once someone is used to being a chicken, it’s hard to convince that person to become an eagle — no matter how much better an eagle’s life may be. That’s because it’s easier to be a chicken than an eagle.
The lesson of the myrtle tree
Last fall, we bought a pink crepe myrtle tree to plant in the front yard. When the gardener planted it, the tree was filled with delicate pink flowers. It added lively color to a yard that used to have a plain and hard-to-keep-green lawn. Neighbors complimented us on the new look for our house.
Then winter came, and our myrtle tree lost all of its leaves. Our colorful tree turned into a dead-looking stump with thin bare branches. Read more »
The other side of the closet
Every gay person has his or her coming out story. What is often not told are the experiences of the family members and friends they came out to. This is my story.
