TweetDeck is Free!

Then I realized that I might want to separate business tweets from personal ones. And some new initiatives I’m working on such as my ReaderWar website made me want to create more separate accounts.

Too much redundancy though. I can’t be logging in and out all the time. Too much room for mistakes. I can’t be wasting that much time on them to say the same things twice and 3 times. Maybe it’s better just to post under one umbrella and let things fall where they may.  I thought that until I found TweetDeck.  It’s a cross-platform application that let’s you read tweets on your subscription and see in multiple columns your retweets and direct messages and user profiles.  It doesn’t let you read facebook postings, but it DOES let you post to both your facebook accounts, AND the business or other ‘fan’ pages you set up for yourself. If you’re an admin or owner of a fan page, you can post JUST to that page only using TweetDeck.

How do you post separately?  When you set up multiple account profiles for Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In etc., you can toggle them on or off when writing the tweet. See illustration below.

What you can do with TweetDeck

Post updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, Foursquare, MySpace, Google Buzz
View updates from these sites
Post to Facebook Fan pages (that you own or administrate)
Retweet comments from Facebook
Send messages to Facebook users
Look at Twitter user profiles
Attach Photos
Automatically shorten URLs (bit.ly is default URL shortener)
Quick Preview shortened URLs just in case
View embedded Youtube video links in tweets
View Facebook photos and through galleries
Global Filter posts or topics you don’t want to see (e.g. Justin Biebr or #fail)

So TweetDeck does a lot, it’s a fantastic app for your PC, Mac, laptop. They also have an iPhone and iPad version.

Other Applications like this

Hootsuite
Seesmic
CoTweet
Tweetie
Echofon

In this talk, to find the path to long life and health, Dan Buettner and team from National Geographic study the world’s “Blue Zones,” communities whose elders live with vim and vigor to record-setting age. At TEDxTC, he shares the 9 common diet and lifestyle habits that keep them spry past age 100.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html

No surprise, Japan and Italy include one of the blue zones where people in a certain community share a long life. And we find out a little bit of why that is. It’s not all what you might think.

I’ve managed to keep it subtle. Friendly and casual emails. Thankfully some of my friends have been responsive too, willing to help.  But when it’s 6:30 am on a Sunday morning and you just want to ’strategize’ with people, even on something not that exciting, it’s humorously painful.  This need that is terrorizing me, I’m chalking up to being a little too reclusive in my lifestyle. It’s good and bad I suppose. You can’t learn without focusing on your own away from distraction, and if a side effect is a sensation that’s igniting a fire, I appreciate its usefulness. No matter what, you need others at points to build up excitement and carry it through. It takes groups of people more often to invent something vastly important or helpful and rewarding.  But it’s 6:30 in the morning!  Why must I be so energetic at the strangest hours?  Why can’t my friends, for no reason just be up and ring my phone right now and say “Hey I’m listening, what can I do?”

I suppose this could be a cue for me to remember that I can be a source of energy and ideas and answers when my friends and family want to do something new and special, give them support, help inspire it to actually happen for them. See the idea, help flesh it out with them. Get excited about it.

And yet when I think about that. It sounds like I want to rush through a segment of my life to get it where I expect I should be. As if I’m not quite complete yet. Not good enough. Analyzing that is kind of fun at this moment, because it’s a good reminder of how ridiculous it is. I’m happy that I don’t really believe that. And I’d be sad if others did for themselves.

If someone’s birthday is a day to be celebrated, it’s because of a person’s uniqueness and celebrating it because before that date, they weren’t here. The world before them didn’t enjoy their personality and contributions, their silliness, their ideas, and the things they do for others. At their moment, the pebble struck the water’s surface and the ripples began. The sequence of events in our world without their existence is difficult to imagine. Maybe even lonely.

And because they are here, often so briefly, it is one day a year where we remind them that it has been important that they are here, important to us, many of us. That’s the best thing we can probably do for people. And if we are all too distracted on that day to know or remind ourselves of the reason, that’s ok too. Because even if we realize it on another day, it’s that moment we appreciate somebody for who they are, we are bigger, we have grown.

So how do you celebrate someone’s uniqueness? I wish I could give a perfect answer, but I’ll try. I think the best you can do, is knowing them, you know what they like, what they do, want to be, or accomplish. Do your best to imagine what it takes to get there or to do that. And if you find your own personal way to help them do that, that day, I think it would be a hero’s gift, without a doubt. If you are close to them and already doing that, then maybe just a small surprise is something that’s needed. If you are far away, a card sent or a friendly phone call, can encourage and help and just tell them how much you and the people in their world appreciate them. You can also try to engage in their world a little more too. If you only saw them twice this year, try for five times over next year.

So many stories like this are written, usually not by the MSM, but they trickle in every year.  They rarely get to the most important points. They are rarely written by people who are able to compare their experience with most people.  These articles usually center around the fact that you can install a free Linux Operating System such as Ubuntu and just use that, no longer having to worry about the expensive Windows upgrades.  This option sounds attractive, but nearly every article (except by those who are Pro-Linux) will typically end with “Yeah it sounds great right, but it’s actually not likely to work for you.”

I will enter this cesspool with my best effort.

Starting out.  Microsoft sucks in so many ways.  In particular, from XP to Vista. What a joke. Vista came out and had a new glossy black look and thats about it. Not only that, it was unnecessarily bulky and worse, very expensive.  For a small number of new features and eye candy, you pay a lot of money. Also that eye candy which was a heavily pushed and highlighted feature (see task switching on every vista commercial) it’s actually not that great.  The menu update is OK, but also a little difficult to navigate. The amusing thing is that all the glossiness is easily done in Linux. Linux users laugh or shrug their shoulders when they see that flashy Windows stuff shown.  Because it’s free, faster and more flexible in the Gnome or KDE desktop environments of Linux.  Before I move onto those, I’ll mention one more important feature of Windows Vista. DirectX 10 is an update to a 3D graphics framework only available in Vista. Clearly done purposely to influence gamers to upgrade. Many people said that it was a very pretty update to games, making things look more realistic, such as reflections and light and texture effects. But not worth it given the strong system you’d need to run it and the sacrifice you’d be making on overhead with Vista just running by itself.

So it must be known that there are some high quality free operating systems available using the Linux kernel.  When it’s Linux, they call these operating systems “distributions” and in a lot of ways, they are similar.  They have the start button menus you are used to, even if they don’t say “Start” on them.  They have folders and files you can open and rename. They run programs such as office spreadsheets, image viewers, and solitaire.

I’ll center this around Ubuntu because it’s popular and very heavily worked on by both the community and a company called Canonical. Ubuntu is a distribution of Linux that uses as a default the Gnome desktop environment (controlling the menu / folder / window look).  Certain things are branded Ubuntu, certain things work the way the developers wanted, that slightly differ in other distros of Linux.  These are the core things of Ubuntu I guess.  In the details, you have things like support for Wireless laptop cards, easy configuration of devices (hopefully) and lists of things that make Ubuntu unique as a distribution of Linux.  Ubuntu is free, it has a very straight forward CD install and can replace Windows and work well for many people for a long time. It has many simple auto updates which means it keep itself up to date for you. And like most distros, it’s very extendable.

Will Ubuntu or another Linux distribution work for you? The significance or usefulness of these free Linux distributions come down to how you answer three questions.

1. Are you tired of Windows or having trouble with it and prefer not to upgrade to the new Windows, and instead would like to take a shot at something new and slightly different?
2. Are your computing needs general such as document creation,  web browsing, photo viewing, watching videos, playing CDs?
3. Are you willing to forego certain things such as specific games and applications in case they aren’t available on Linux due to the difference in program structure?

Most articles that are written about all this don’t cover this issue properly because the experience of computing is always unique to each computer user. The fact is you can dump windows easily replacing it with a dead-simple experience in general computing on several variants of Linux. Where things get a little hairy are some specific things that some people might like. for example:

• You want to use a certain online service that have only support for Internet Explorer. (When I see companies with limitations on browsers and ignoring other popular ones, I’m very disappointed and see it often as poor site construction rather than a reasonable limitation) Netflix is working right now to support the free and popuar Firefox browser for example, but aren’t quite there yet.
• You want to do animation with Flash or special Video editing perhaps using software from Adobe, Pinnacle, Avid, Sony or another. Video editing can be done on Linux, but there are lesser known programs that do it, and video codecs are often proprietary so if they can be used on Linux, it’s going to likely be a special install. Don’t be scared of that, just be aware.  I personally think it’s worth exploring.
• Audio editing needs. Mac users get the free Garage Band software. Windows users don’t get anything free, but there are many available audio editors for music makers. Cake, Reason, Ableton Live and more. Linux has some audio tools too. RoseGarden for example is a very pretty program. Not having used it, I can’t comment other than it looks very capable.
• You need to support specific equipment and all it’s features. (Printer drivers for windows only might not be available on Linux and perhaps you won’t get all functionality such as scan to file and PDF OCR. Too many printers to run through. For me, the experience was my webcam would not allow outgoing video streams on the version of Skype I was using.  Not a deal breaker, but a significant disappointment.
• Needing specific financial software. Being that financial software companies want you to keep buying it every year they seem to be closer to offering subscription webbased software in some cases. Intuit Quickbooks has this.  But if a store has a certain Point-of-sale software running. Linux might not work for them.  On the other hand, power users might be able to find and istall the equivalent.  But to be fair, any Point of sale software install is likely going to be done by a technician anyway, so Windows isn’t winning the “easy” test here.
• Wanting specific games to run. Games are more important than people give them credit. They are driving the future of learning (realistic simulation). Plus games drive the advancement of personal computing.  Most importantly, games are enjoyable and unfortunately the more elaborate commercial games are developed for Windows PC more than other operating systems. Here Mac has no advantage over Linux, like it does with Video and animation.  Applications such as WINE and Crossover help to allow game play of some windows games. Some games are developed for Linux, such as versions of America’s Army and many free games. This will continue.

I said earlier that whether moving to Linux is a good idea depends on the individuals unique needs. So let me give you a short case study of myself. I don’t like Windows all that much.  I don’tcare about it.  I own a Mac but I don’t like doing a lot of my graphic work on it because the mouse handling feels mushy to me.  The actual cursor, not the mouse device.  I’m not alone here even if you think I’m nuts saying that. Trust me ok. I also despise Windows Vista and the entire campaign with the seven different versions, the limits placed on cheaper versions and the audacity they had of complicating Vista instead of simplifying it.  I’ll say again SEVEN VERSIONS to figure out which one to buy?  What the hell Microsoft.  People all along the chain of that decision need to be stabbed.  And during that time, Apple releases one version of it’s OS X operating system. That’s how you do it. One option that handles it all./end rant.

So you’d think I’d be the likely candidate to try Linux.  And I have.  But there are problems that prevent me from being ‘Microsoft-Free.’ Those problems aren’t due to a lack of computer experience. They are genuine limitations.  I want to use the Latest Adobe software on a system that feels non-mushy. Because Linux can’t run Adobe CS4 Photoshop, Flash, AfterEffects, Premiere and more, that leaves Windows. I also enjoy the game franchise Call of Duty.  I also like being able to print photos with my Canon scanner / printer. I also like to use certain wireless mouse and keyboard features that only the windows drivers support (switching buttons)

Linux can probably get me pretty close to my goal.  Despite Canon not making Linux printer drivers, somebody else has written them. I might not get every printing option or be able to see ink levels in the system tray like I can on Windows XP, but still if I can print good prints on the right paper, I’m happy.  Whether I can do that without a nightmarish install process is a question though. Because anyone configuring their mother’s computer knows that seeing you five hours into it, they are frustrated with Linux without having touched it. My mom might reject Linux because it SEEMS complicated, even though I take care of the difficult one-time stuff.

One more case study: My wife.  Linux helped her a lot because of an older laptop and a missing Windows disk. We weren’t able to legally load Windows for her after a hard drive failure left her with a blank slate.  We recovered files, loaded Ubuntu Linux and I did my best to configure it nicely.  She was used to the “My Documents” folder and where it was located.  With a little walkthrough, she learned the new best location to save files.  Her problems with the webcam were evident, and her favorite greeting card software wasn’t available. We couldn’t find an alternative to that.  One big problem for her might be small to somebody else, but when we were able to Install Windows again, she was ready to because of it.  For whatever reason when she wanted to attach a photo to an email, she could not view thumbnails of the photos for attaching to Yahoo mail.  Maybe a silly small thing but that was her need.  And you can’t argue with that.  She did really well for the few months Linux was running, despite some printing challenges, which again would have been perfect with the Windows driver.  It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just personal preference and in a lot of ways, expectations.

It must be known though, that Linux kicks Windows behind in so many areas too. Such as the sheer number of free applications, many chat channels for help, ability to learn new things, ability to make many massive theme changes with less overhead. And it’s only gonna get better with the cross-platform Adobe AIR and the slow migration of favored programs.  Some pressure is on companies like Canon and Logitech and Nvidia to create drivers for Linux users. It’s in their best interest to support as many as they can.  There are also some Linux-only programs that are exquisite and you’ll take advantage of those.  e.g. Rosegarden which I mentioned previously.  There’s a lot more there to be discovered.  And Linux can be installed with a ready-to-use webserver. Admin tools are strong, as well as programming tools.

In conclusion, whether you can enjoy Linux, Mac or Windows depends on your expecations, your individual needs and what software supports those needs.  I cant’ tell you how many small needs I have that NO computer meets.  So to say that Windows is better than Linux, or Mac is better than any of them is just ignorant and biased. I think being free and supporting old hardware is a big advantage of Linux. Wouldn’t it be great to spend $90 on a used laptop and outfit your college student with free office, browsing and learning tools? That is very possible and that may be an enormous significance to people who are willing to try it. I love that Linux gets better constantly, Ubuntu releasing new versions every six months and people are trying to get things to work with popular devices.

Been thinking a lot lately on how open the world is to us when we get to a certain level of intelligence and skill, or at least belief of that.  Not that I always display a lot of intelligence or skill, but still I begin to really see the power of what you can accomplish with no fear and a few hours work.  Success, both in feeling and financial seems to really hang in the balance with people having a constant choice, rather than some sort of destiny.  You may have read that kind of statement before, but it’s much different than really experiencing it first hand.  I think working for myself, I am able to see it a lot easier.  Were the last few hours used to make something new, significant or interesting, or were they wasted on something that’s not in my actual goals.   So many fun things intrude on your focus and your long term goals. It’s really hard for me to manage it, without getting help from my two maniacal friends, fear and urgency.

Sometimes I think the most important moments of our lives are when we write letters.  In most letters, we are either asking a question, or giving thanks.  Both are very powerful and significant things we can do.  They are actions of growth I think.

Focus has been a challenge lately, so it’s a matter of walking the long-term path as often as possible.  No self-help stuff here.  Just a few thoughts.

Regardless, I had to do it, thinking positively about it.  Turns out something happened that I didn’t expect.  While writing a contract, you have to search for words with the right meaning, not just kind of the right meaning, you have to consider what you can and can’t agree to, and how to present it.  You also have to go back over it multiple times, removing problems with the logic.  I know no one would go for this just as an exercise by itself, but I actually doing it was quite valuable, in that after completing it, I think my brain has grown some new neurons or connections.  I actually think I got smarter writing contracts.  And that’s not to say my contracts are perfect, or bulletproof.  I’m sure they are flawed.  I was constrained by time and experience.  But I did however start to see new things, and again just logical thinking, using factually descriptive and consistent language to create these documents was even satisfying at the end.

I can  see how lawyers can get quite good at this. Much of a contract is repetitive sort of lingo.   Words used and understood inside this special  framework that, once you know, turn into words as we know them, like emotional or logical tags of sorts.  Some of it feels very foreign as if from an older different culture.  I think by thinking this way, by exposing yourself to the limits, or benefits or extensions a contract creates, you then take from that a slightly more logical brain perhaps.   You look at how to use exceptions, and what you can and can’t include according to your status and how the contract affects someone’s ownership of an actual tangible thing, or in property of an intellectual nature.

Now, based on this experience in any discussion in the future I may be more aware of the consequences of a certain type of argument and whether it was presented responsibly.

So men, let’s go out there and write some contracts!

Over a year ago, I heard about an initiative called the “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) project created by a guy named Negroponte. His mission was to create a way to help educate children in 3rd world countries. He decided he could create a communications and learning device to do this. But he knew he’d have major challenges bringing this to fruition. A device would have to be electronic, but work with all the problems that poorer regions have. His idea became a laptop that would overcome as many of these difficulties. It would be low power and have a means to self power, with a hand or foot crank. It would be shock resistant, easy to use and a very open platform. His initiative grew to an organization and is working with governments to see about getting as many of these into schools as possible.

People, myself included have said that these countries need water and basic necessities, not computers. Not true. In fact, that kind of thinking is very one sided. You see, there are thousands or more villages that have school houses, they have systems in place where kids learn. But they can be given a great resource. I’m a bit concerned that this initiative will make the machines vulnerable to theft. This could be true, but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be tried.

The organization originally was only going to build the laptops and supply them in bulk. But they decided that the demand was so strong that it would be a great idea to allow western countries get them too. But with a limit. There is only a two-week window which the laptops can be bought. And the two that I bought, I only get one of them. The other is a donation to somebody. After reading about the laptop, it appears to be something I can use and may even solve a problem I’ve had lately with a project I’ll be releasing in the next couple months.

I like being as philathropic as I can, but I’m fairly selfish too. I’m of course writing off half of this purchase as a charitable donation. The other half will be written off under my company, as it’s a work related expense for special projects I’m doing. In particular as a communications device as well as the tablet stylus features I’ll need.

Some really cool features of this laptop:

• Laptop and E-Book reader formations
• WiFi with mesh network capabilities
• Stylus writing area
• Linux Open Source OS
• View Source button to see code
• Gaming buttons
• Opera Browser for surfing net
• Low power use
• 3 USB ports
• 1 year free donated T-Mobile area WiFi (starbucks, cafes, airports)

There’s a lot more to it, and once there’s a hefty community here in the US, more things will be shared and configured among the techy and education crowd. Plus the world over using it will introduce more cool configurations and possibilities. If I can write articles from it in the car and on trips, it’s really valuable to me. It can also be a good platform to program learning games using flash for example. It might just be great to have in the living room to boot up and find out latest movie times.

If you want the best overview on this laptop, read David Pogue’s review in the New York Times and watch the embedded movie with the article.

This is a huge win of a purchase for me. I don’t know who’s going to get my 2nd laptop, but it’s an even bigger win for them. $400 is a lot of money and of course I won’t be eating for a few weeks. But how cool is it to contribute to a good cause, get a new gadget, change a few lives? It’s really cool damnit!

I don’t believe that it’s best for any individual to take the burden of the world’s problems to bed with him every night. When I say that I also must stress that we all must practice compassion, truly practice it daily. We can’t ignore suffering because “hey at least it’s not me this time!”

Even having compassion, can we still understand the complexities and hidden arguments of so many issues we’re exposed to. Sometimes the right choice may be to throw it out entirely. Let others work it out. There is no foul on ignoring one thing in order to focus on more meaningful choices. Here is my matrix for dealing with the burden of media, news and world issues.

You may find that effectively dealing with the over-abundance means cutting out everything that falls outside the marked category in the matrix above. If it affects you and you can do something about it (and you actually will) you will feel better overall, and experience less drain. Outside the marked realm, you are consuming interesting news stories that might cause pain or eat at your valuable time. Practice ignoring things outside the marked realm, yet remain compassionately detached.

Quick Example:

You read a story that a man dies by suicide, having jumped from a major city landmark near you. (This actually happened yesterday.) Unless you knew the person, it falls outside the realm of the matrix. It’s very sad and tragic, AND has the components of a newsworthy event in many people’s minds. Even geographically, you want to even say that it affected you. This story carries a burden with it. But instead of carrying the burden, you spend time interacting with one of your neighbors, creating a positive experience that you can take to bed with you. A lift instead of a burden. It’s an interesting life question isn’t it? Are we better off not knowing about tragedies? One can’t measure what the knowledge of a tragedy does to a person, when that person can’t do anything about it.

Cut off from many info sources, means extra time and life experience gained elsewhere. Be mindful over the next few days when you are reading or watching news. Where does each story fall within the matrix? Is there a sense that much of the “conflict” of the news is contrived, manipulated to appeal to your senses? What does this do to your well being? Is it time to detach from that source of news? Might you live better without it? My bet is that I probably will.

Things I’m doing:

Not watching TV news (Already do this)
Removing 60-80% of news sources from feedreader
Being mindful as I read the stories that filter down to me, fostering selectivity.
Meditate on what I can and can’t affect.
Reading books, to gain more complete knowledge to facilitate good decisions
Focus on benefits of experience with a person over reading news of past event I can’t control.

I walked a couple blocks away enjoying the breeze, the rising sun and the lack of traffic on the roads.  I jumped on the path at the park and strolled.  Soon after I came across a park bench under a tree.  I’ve had a few short conversations and plenty of friendly “Hellos” at that bench the many times I’ve jogged around the park.  This time, a guy in a hat and a windbreaker sat there. I said ‘mornin’ to him.  He said “Whadaya Know?”

“Not much I think” I replied truthfully.

I slowed and paused for a moment.  He asked me “You don’t happen to know the time do you?”  From that and from looking at him, half empty 2 liter soda bottle by his side, I bet that he’d been there all night. He wasn’t out for a morning stroll like I was.  He might have just woke up from somewhere nearby.

I told him I wasn’t sure but it must have been close to six.  I didn’t have my watch or anything with me. He said thanks and I walked off.  For the next 10 meters I thought about how it could have been to sleep in the park all night.  Last night was mild, most nights aren’t. My neighbors and I talk about riff raff all the time, but that wasn’t this guy.  He was friendly for no reason.  I could make all kinds of assumptions, but what came to mind were these two watches I brought back home from Japan with me.  My father-in-law got these free Mercedes Benz watches for buying from the dealership.  They sat in his house for a while in the boxes brand new.  While we were visiting, he cleaned up a few things and asked if we wanted them.

I originally envisioned selling them in a classified ad, maybe making a few bucks off them, if it wasn’t too much of a hassle to carry or ship them home.

I smiled big.  I instantly imagined solving at least the one problem I knew for sure that guy had. He didn’t know what time it was.  I killed off the rest of my walk and went back home.  I dug up the watches from my father in law.  One of the watches was large and begging to be stolen.  The other watch, much more conservative, brown.  It would blend in, not stand out.  This one I knew was his watch.  I grabbed my keys and got in the car and drove back up to the park.  I went past the bench in the car before the park entrance. He was gone!

Pulling into the parking lot, I glimpsed his silhouette over at the barbecue pavillion with some other guy. His friend? If it was another homeless man, how could I give one of them the watch and nothing to the other?  As I started walking towards the pavillion, I could hear that the other guy was yelling at my guy. He was telling him to get the hell out of there.  “Don’t make me say it again!” he shouted repeatedly as he bit into some kind of breakfast sandwich.  Why was he mad at him?

My guy walked back towards me and as he passed, he looked at me and say “some people!”  I noticed that he had scrounged up an unfinished cigarette on the ground which he had relit for himself.  I didn’t know what to say to him. I was worried that the other guy would come over and hurt one of us.  So I let him go.  I pretended to be on a walk trying to avoid a glance from the pavillion sandwich guy. My confidence in the situation had sank a little.

I watched my guy cross the street. He was going to the FastStop gas station and checking out little piles of trash on the way in the parking lot.  He went in the store.  I walked in after him.  I pretended to browse the coffee dispenser.  I wasn’t sure what he might have been buying.  I made a little small talk with a clerk and walked out.  I waited for my guy.

When he came out, he had a tall can of beer in a paper bag.  Was that why he wanted to know the time? What time do they start selling beer in the morning? I asked him why that guy yelled at him. His story was kind of incoherent, but he made it seem like he knew that guy and later when that guy “smokes some water” he’ll come back and be friendly again.  Smokes some water?

I talked with him for a little bit.  I said to him, “remember you asked me what time it was?” And I handed him the watch.  He looked at it and started to cry a little.  I think he was happy.  I told him, “Hey don’t worry about it.  I got two of these and I just want you to have it, it’s no big deal.”

He was happy because he said he can tell what time he needs to be somewhere for an appointment. Usually he has no idea, and he’s just waiting around.  He went on to tell me that he didn’t have an ID and that he was wanting to get a bank account.  He showed me his nails because he works really hard doing odd gardening jobs.  I could only imagine it.  It was not the kind of life he wanted, but that’s what he had.  He had other stories to tell. Some I couldn’t understand fully.  But the kinds of little stories to tell me what kind of a guy he was.  I was happy to listen.  And he said it really helps him to talk to people.  We shook hands.

Why am I writing about this?  Shouldn’t I keep it inside? Have I gained bragging rights from my wonderfully good deed?  Not at all.  I am writing it because I want you to know that you should indulge  your ideas.  You should help people because in many ways, we are all locked on an island together. If only we can eliminate some suffering.

Frank has my watch.  His name is Frank. And I gather that for all intents and purposes, he’s a good man.  I hope I can see him again.  I hope that he doesn’t have to sell the watch, and it helps him for a while.  But if he sells it, that’s ok too.  I worry somebody will steal it from him.  I worry he will suffer because of the watch somehow. Some people need a little guidance, a place to clean up, or to know what time it is. A watch can help you make better decisions.  Better decisions can make a better life.