Facebook killer? Are you kidding?

Yeah, that’s what I thought. I mean Google Buzz was supposed the be the next great social thing and the buzzed turned into fizzle. And didn’t MySpace just throw in the towel in defeat to the undefeatable Facebook?

I feel a little bad about this because Facebook is building a new data center some five miles from my home and it’s a great source of pride to our community. But Google+ looks like the real deal. On the surface it looks like a Facebook remake. But there’s so much to it.

One thing I like about it is that, so far, there are no games on it. The main thing I hate about Facebook is all the game requests I get. They comprise of more than half my posts and, sorry, I don’t have any chickens to give away to someone’s FarmVille. I really like the way you can set up a “circle” of friends or family and place your “friends” in one or more of them. Facebook just added Skype to their fold for one-on-one video chatting. Google+, however, allows to create a “Hangout” where you can face-chat with up to ten people. They haven’t quite got this down pat yet, but knowing Google, they’ll plug at it until they get it right. I don’t have a webcam anyway, so I can’t take advantage of either offereing.

I haven’t really gotten into all the bells and whistles, but supposedly it could knock Twitter for a loop as well. You can blog as well as mini-blog in Google+. Apparently it has a lot more and, as I said, I haven’t used it a lot, but what I’ve seem I really, really like.

I don’t know if I’ll ever leave Facebook as most of my “friends” aren’t techies who’lll try anything once and once a non-techie starts using something and understands it, they get set in their ways and it’s hard to change.

But we’ll see. As someone said… “Has Facebook been MySpaced?”

 I remember when I was young summer meant church camp. Even into my early adult and married life I went to camp. It changed my life. I met Jesus there when I was nine years old. I met my wife there when I was 21. I remember as a child, our camp was in the middle of nowhere in south Georgia. Camp was strict back then. We couldn’t wear shorts and it was years before we had a mud hole to swim in. No swimming pool or anything like that. It didn’t matter—we had fun. We didn’t know any better than to complain about wearing stuff that made us hot. After all, we were kids and we were resilient. Heat didn’t seem to bother us as much back then.

The drill was up at seven, breakfast, class, crafts, lunch, nap, play in the afternoon, supper, worship service, hour of free time, then lights out. We played softball in the afternoons. Sometimes we played “half-ball”. It’s like baseball where we took a rubber ball, cut it in half, and used a broomstick for a bat. Sounds odd but it was fun.

I remember the worship services. We would get there early and gather around the piano and sing. Our favorite song was “Down On Our Knees” and we sang it every evening. It was like the camp song. I remember the preacher would wear a coat and tie, even though the congregation was almost entirely kids. I also remember that none of the camp was air-conditioned. So you can just imagine…

Before lights out we would take our showers. Only that first year, I was shy and I never took one. When my parents picked me up, I had beads of dirt on my neck. I didn’t like changing clothes either. I took my folded shirts and pants and rubbed them on the floor to make them look dirty, then I put them back into my suitcase—still folded. Needless to say, it didn’t take much detective work to realize my ruse.

Many years later at a camp in South Carolina, we congregated in the assembly area for our first meeting. We sat in these wooden chairs with a bar across the bottom where a person behind could rest their feet. In front of me was a pretty teenage girl that hopefully, I would get to meet later. At a point in the meeting we were told to stand. A young girl who was sitting next to me picked that time to say something. I remained seated as she talked to me and the pretty girl in front of me stood up. When she did, the weight of my feet pushed the chair into the back of her legs. She gave me a look but it was not the kind I was hoping for. Well, so much for my chances of meeting her later.

Later that week I was pulling lifeguard duty. We swam in a lake and there wasn’t a lifeguard seat so I sat on top of a boat house. So I was sitting there watching everyone swimming when this teenage girl climbed up the ladder and sat next to me. It was the chair girl! I was scared to death! But we chatted and hit it off. Four years later, (and four more years of camp) we got married.

Together we went to camp and a few years later moved to North Carolina and went to camp there. It’s been a lot of years now since we’ve been to camp. Life has gotten in the way. But I still get excited when the others go and talk about it. This year is a little more special because of our little sweetheart we care so much for. I received a text message letting me know that she got special recognition for some good things she had done today.

I miss camp. I miss her, too.

“Do not ever give a Queen a home appliance as a gift. Period. The end. Now, an exception can be made in the event she just happens to mention in passing that she wishes she had, say, a full Viking kitchen, and then she goes out of town for a few days; and when she comes back, her entire kitchen is renovated with fabulous Viking appliances. She will be touched. On the other hand, if it is her birthday and you, all on your own, select, purchase, and present her with a Crock Pot, well, you are over.”
- Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queen’s Book of Love

True grits, more grits, fish, grits, and collards.
Life is good where grits are swallered.
- Roy Blount, Jr.

(editoral comment… that’s the truth!)

Spanish Moss flutters in the wind like angel hair,
Look, don’t touch! Redbugs, you know – chiggers we call them.
But still, who can resist?
Lay and bask in it’s shade and feel it’s breeze…
Close your eyes and let those angels take you yonder away,
Paris, Rome, anywhere is fine,
Just as long as they bring you back
To where the Spanish Moss flutters in the wind like angel hair.
– Curtis Rice (who definitely ain’t a poet)

The summer picnic gave the ladies a chance to show off their baking hands. On the barbeque pit, chickens and spareribs sputtered in their own fat and a sauce whose recipe was guarded in the family like a scandalous affair.
—Maya Angelou

Anyone with a lick of sense knows that you can’t make good barbeque and comply with the health code.
—John Edgerton

Because I was born in the South, I’m a Southerner. If I had been born in the North, the West or the Central Plains, I would be just a human being.
—Clyde Edgerton

Southerners have a genius for psychological alchemy… If something intolerable simply cannot be changed, driven away or shot they will not only tolerate it but take pride in it as well.
—Florence King

“What has always been clear, for Southerner and non-Southerner alike, is that Dixie is the most fascinating part of the country. There may be a book out there called ‘The Great Midwest’ or ‘A Turn in the Midwest’ or ‘The Mind of the Midwest’ or ‘The Midwestern Mystique’, but if there is I’m certainly not aware of it.”
–Fred Hobson

“Down South everybody cherishes dreams. In dreams this world and the next mix like sugar and grits.”
—-Grandmother Ernestine, to novelist Jewell Parker Rhodes

My friends call me “Curt”.

What do I call you?

Do I know you?

Ummm… no.

Call me “Curtis”.

What do you do for a living?

I interact with humanity in such a way that they express their desires to me and I attempt to make those dreams a reality. I do so with all the skills I possess at my disposal as I sooth the nerves of the hopeless by performing miracles to restore to them what they thought was forever lost. I touch the object of their longing and, though it is seemingly lifeless, or suffused with dementia, and reconstitute its normalcy to which gives meaning to life to said humanity as we know it today.

What are you? Some sort of god?

Sorta. As before mentioned, I’m an IT person. I’m the computer guru where I work.

Oh!… you work with computers. Can I ask you something? My computer lately has…

Do I know you?

Huh… no.

Email me for my service rates.

Oh, I… oh.

Yeah… sorry dude. It’s my work. I need to get paid for it

Wait… he doesn’t know you, but I do. Can I ask a question?

Sure.

My computer keeps saying system disk not found. Can you help me?

Do you have a diskette in your floppy drive?

Mmmm.. yeah…

Take it out and reboot.

Hey! That worked! Thanks!

No problem. That’ll be $52.75.

Wha?…

Does your doctor treat you for free?

Well… no.

OK… slip me a fiver and I’ll call it OK.

*&%&$%#@

OK. Next question.

I like reading your stuff. Can I send you something in the mail?

Is it money?

No.

No.

What kind of dog do you have?

He’s a Golden Retriever. He’s eight years old and his name is Charley. The name was my wife’s idea.

So can Charlie…

Charley. The spelling was my idea.

Oh. So can Charli… Charley do tricks?

He can do a few. His best one is speaking on command. He is the official drive-thru dog of all the fast food places in town. The workers all scamper to the take-out window when the see him and he barks for them. Sometimes they give him food. McDonalds even has a stuffed dog at the window in his honor.

That’s pretty cool.

Yeah… They should give me food for bringing a little sunshine into their lives. But… noooo.

Sheesh!

It’s OK. If I’m really hungry, Charley and I split 50/50 once we’re out of sight.

Let’s talk about your work some more. What all exactly do you do?

I exactly go insane at least once a day. But generally, I manage a 100-node network and the nodes (computers) on that network. I install computers and software, fix them when users tear them up, listen to their lies when they say, “It just started doing that. I didn’t do anything!” and then uninstall some “handy” utility software that just hosed every printer attached. “Oh! I didn’t mention that. I didn’t think it would do anything.”

…*SMACK*…

I also listen to moans and groans about how slow the network is, how come I can’t get to eBay anymore (banned at work). I would be a good bartender, I think. I can certainly listen to people pour out their problems.

Sounds like you don’t like your job.

Oh, I love the job! If it weren’t for users, it would be perfect.

If you hadn’t gone into computers, what would you have done instead?

I probably would have been a band director. I was a bass clarinet player in school. Actually, I played a little bit of everything; bass clarinet, clarinet, sax, drums… even a bit of tuba. I made All-State in Georgia.. I was pretty good. Music was my life – still is a big part of it.

What happened?

My dad was a minister and we moved from Georgia to South Carolina. The church was big, but the school was small – the smallest public school in S.C. I still had two years of high school left, so I lost my opportunities. So I got into computers. It’s been a good career – over 35+ years so far.

So what kind of music do you like?

I love classical – mostly contemporary composers like Copland, Holst, R.V. Williams. I also love soundtracks by Thomas Newman (Shawshank Redemption), John Horner (Braveheart, Field of Dreams) and John Williams (Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark). I love choral music by John Rutter and Eric Whitace. I like a lot of pop and contemporary Christian and I love Bluegrass. I despise country, however, as well as rap, hip-hop, and anything metal. I don’t really like opera, either. I do like Big Band. Best Female voice – Allison Krauss. Best Male Voice – Harry Connick, Jr. I have sung in a few choirs that have sung Rutter and the Messiah by Handel. If you have ever sung either, you know what a wonderful challenge they are.

Sounds like you’re quite a singer, too.

No. I just know music and know how to sing the notes in tune and in time. No one has ever asked me to sing a solo, however. I suspect they never will either…*L*

Any last words?

Run low and fly high.

Welcome to my little portal to the South. What is the South like anyway? Well, it depends on who you ask, but since I’m the one writing here I’ll tell you what it is to me.

There are two Souths – the New South and the Old South. Never having lived in the New South, I don’t know what it’s like to live there, but I’ve spent some time in it so I know sort of what it’s like. You have Atlanta with the CNN Center, the Braves and the Falcons, Centennial Olympic Park, skyscrapers reaching for the heavens, and Peachtree Street, Peachtree Drive, Peachtree Lane, and Peachtree Place. No matter which way you head, you are going to end up on Peachtree. You have Charlotte, the financial center of the nation, the Panthers and the Bobcats, the center of NASCAR and a smaller, yet no less impressive set of sky-reaching buildings. Life moves as fast as a Jimmy Johnson Chevrolet in the New South.

And then there is the Old South. This is where I live. I’ve lived in South Georgia, where the Spanish Moss sways in the breeze looking like witch’s hair against the moonlight at night. Where azaleas burst out in glory in the spring. Where football is king. Where the land is flat – you may drive down a road that is lined on both sides with pine trees and so straight you can see it disappear over the horizon. I currently live in the foothills of North Carolina close to the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains. If you’ve ever seen Dirty Dancing, then you pretty much know what it looks like where I live. The picture that heads my blog was taken at Lake Lure, one of National Geographic’s ten most beautiful man-made lakes in the world. I live in what was named the most beautiful small town in western NC.

No matter where in the South you go, people will wave to you as you drive by that you have never met. You will cut humidity in the summer with a knife. Coffee is served to you with a smile and a “hon”. Neighbors will congregate on porches to discuss… well… you name the topic, we’ll have an opinion. Whereas in other places people have dogs, in the South we have dawgs. Caviar may be a delicacy in some places, in the South it doesn’t get more exotic than a pickled peach.

A quote from the movie Field of Dreams said “Heaven is a place where dreams live.” South is my heaven. Life is definitely slower here. But I imagine a small town in the South isn’t much different than one in Indiana, or New Jersey or Idaho, except maybe they talk a little funny. In all my born days, I’ve been all over. I’ve even been to Africa. But heaven is where I want to be, so heaven is where I’ll stay.