Monday, October 31, 2011

What's That in the Sky? It's A Bird...It's A Plane...

    Every year groups of children young and old wonder from house to house collecting candy from individuals for dressing up and saying trick-or-treat!  To witness this happen in my own home is a revolutionizing experience.  They all flock around your door as if it's the gates to heaven and the chocolate bar you are about to hand them is their key inside.  Parents sit and watch proudly as their child brings in the good keep that they will most definitely sneak a piece or two from that very night.
    The search for the "best house" of the year continues walking through yard after yard of ghosts, goons and goblins towards the jar that says take 1, but of course you take 3, or you vainly take it to mean 1 handful, knowing all the while that nobody is watching you and hey, who cares it's Halloween!  At the end of the day the kid who brings the most candy to school the next day is essentially the guy who always brings the Lunchable, king of the table.
http://media.lawrence.com/
    The most amazing thing about this "holiday" is that it has stayed true to his roots.  It's about children, it's about going door to door in America and showing that we will still open are doors to our neighbors, even if it is only for candy.  However, recently, this holiday has turned into something very scary-expensive.  People spend hundreds of dollars on decorations, costumes, candy, food and drinks for parties and americas oldest friend, booze.
    As long as the simple traditions are kept it will be easy to forget that we are in the hardest time in America's history that most of us have ever experienced.  We are struggling as a people to a man right now, but with nights like tonight, it makes it a lot easier.  After all, we do have about 45,000 Super Mans out their looking over every city right now, so go have some fun, he's got your back!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Steve Jobs Leaves a Legacy

Photo by Tech Digest
Apple's Founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, passed away at age 56 this week.  He is easily one of the greatest innovators of all time next to whom I like to call "The King," of innovators, Walter Elias Disney.  What I find most interesting is that just like an artist who dies and leaves his artwork to the masses, Steve Jobs' legacies have become almost priceless.  His autobiography is said to be the top seller for this month and who knows, maybe his creations will become priceless objects of remembrance, to be put in a museum of technology at some point in the future.  I would find it kind of amusing to see the very first iPod in a display case somewhere fifty years from now and be able to say, "I owned one of those!"

I do not mean to make fun of a serious event here.  Steve Jobs will be revered and his legacy will live on hundreds of years from now.  What most people seem to remember about Jobs is that he was very temperamental, almost like nothing was going right in the world for him.  I can understand the pressures of a society who wants better and better technology and desiring to be the leader in providing that technology must be a very difficult goal to maintain.  But at least Jobs had all the money in the world to find or create the next greatest innovation.  Walt Disney rarely had the funds he needed to produce his ideas, and almost went bankrupt at one point, now that would be something to be temperamental about, as I believe Walt Disney must have been at times in his life too.

Jobs' impact on the world of mass media was great.  He introduced us to the most advanced communication technology to make our lives less complicated, changed the way we listen to music, watch movies, and read books, and opened a whole new world of educational tools with his products and innovations.  There is no denying that like a great artist, like Walt Disney, Steve Jobs will be one of those names that everyone knows and knows something of what he's done for this world.