Facebook Plans

They tell me as you get older you have to grow up and make decisions and such.  Well for me the time has come to say goodbye to ye old Facebook.  I know, I know...you can't do that you say, but I believe you actually can permanently delete an account.  Here's why I am jumping ship on a site that claims to be all about social networking.

1. Facebook has become stupid. I can barely get into Facebook without being inundated by ads for companies, organizations, and other products I have ZERO interest in.

2. There is no privacy on Facebook and while I lead a semi-public life I get requests all the time from "friends" I do not know or who I only know in passing.  It is hard for me to consider this a social networking site when it keeps me from...being social.

3. Along these lines, we know that Facebook released a study recently revealing that they were undergoing a new type of data collection.  In the new program we find out they were tracking when people typed content out and then removed it without publishing. Their mission is to understand why users "self-censor" themselves in updates.  Really?  I wonder how many people they caught starting to type a thought, catching a phone call or running to the bathroom only to complete the thought more than ten minutes later.  Either way...tale a hike.

4. I admit it.  I spend way too much time here looking and it distracts me from the work at hand.  The Facetube is just distracting.  It doesn't help me be productive.  It doesn't help me relax and nine times out of ten has more useless information in it than a trivial pursuit game directed at shows running on TVLand.

5. I have no idea what the current terms of service are for Facebook.  What I do know is my wife who believes in breastfeeding can not post a picture doing so because feeding a child is considered pornography to the Facebook goose steppers.

A note on this one...while my wife is pretty modest and I doubt she would ever do a breastfeeding picture, much less put on on Facebook, they are against breast feeding, but had no problem allowing people to post death threats to Mitt Romney in 2012.  They allow pro-terrorist messages, but have a problem when I complain about American Airlines.

Finally, I can not stand getting any more game requests for Bejeweled, Bedazzled, Farmer's Freak Friends, etc.  Really?  Do I need to say any more?

If you really have need of finding me, it will be easy.  I am still on LinkedIn which is a professional networking site without many of the same harassing issues.  If you really still want to know my views on politics, policy, pop culture, sports, or the things most important my church and my family, hop on here and read my blog.  You can still comment, you can still harangue me, you just can't suggest we become farm friends.  You have until August 15, 2014 at which time I have to say goodbye to Facebook.

Milestones

So almost two weeks ago it was time to celebrate.

Yes, it was a birthday, but due to travel schedules and life, the birthday party was later in the week or was it?  Ash Wednesday, my birthday, was full of presents as was the week.


So...first off, work.  I am required to obtain my certified flight paramedic credential.  I have more than a year to complete it, but it is done already.  I worried when I was told that a small envelope had arrived for me at home the first day I had left for my most recent conference.

A small envelope?  A small envelope is the same thing as college...thanks, but no.  A small means a letter without patches and pins and such, i.e. a "thank you for attempting to pass the test, but your knowledge base is what we call the small size of tiny" letter.  Instead it was a breakdown of my scores with the magic word - passed - on it.  How in the world did this happen?

I'm not sure, but Hallelujah!

Of course if I am being religious I have to note a gift I received as well.  I carry with me a 9/11 rosary when I work.  It is one of those things you do to both remember the past, as well as your own, and an item that provides me hope and determination for the future.  Recently my parish priest joined several other Anglican Ordinariate priests in a pilgrimage to Rome.  My darling girl decided that perhaps our parish priest, Father Timothy, might have the opportunity to have my rosary blessed by Pope Francis.  It was.  To think, the item in which I find my strength, that lies in my breast pocket when I work to ease the suffering of the ill and the injured was blessed by the successor to St. Peter I feel more energized than ever.

Pope Francis has called on us to serve those in need and I always thought I had, but now I find myself wanting to do more...to try more...to anything to succeed.

My birthday came and went without much fanfare - again work and life did not so much get in the way as make it a non-priority - but the milestone birthday was marked by both a personal and professional success that I am not sure I earned.  Even passing the FP-C test I feel was ordered for me as I know I still have so much to learn.  How then can I have had this success laid at my feet?  It still amazes me on so many levels.

However, the next step is I guess the one that matters.  Milestones can show us where we have been, and they may be markers for the future, but only if we enjoy the recent view long enough to start the journey towards the next one.