What's next? Blogger?
HG has got this fear that Picasa will go one day and she will lose all her precious photos. I tell her no, but it is quite frankly a legitimate concern. We have to have backup of backups now in the vast expanding universe of clouds and other yet-to-come-cleverly-named technologies. As far as Picasa goes, I am proud to say that I have a system. Photos get clicked on the camera and 5 second decisions are made on deletion/keep. They are loaded into Picasa where various cropping, lighting and other things happen that make me feel like a proper photographer/editor (in reality its mostly constable's two line tips combined with trial and error). And the filtered good (and great) ones go on Picasaweb. The trouble with being married is that your spouse swoops in armed with your password and bingo, you have albums with multiple photos of the same person (read wife) in many different angles. And of course, she will not let me delete any, so there they are, an affront to the system.
So what's up boo? Long time.
Why did I stop? Partly too busy, but partly its this - I started this blog with the pure intention of being honest and frank. Having spent 27 years through the looking glass of other people's eyes, it was time to use mine. Somewhere along the line, I lost it. Blog entries started appearing based on -- let's see how do I put it -- not exactly what I thought people will like but close enough. Validation or the hint of it. Arch enemy.
I am off FB too, much to HG's chagrin. A while ago, we had this fight about disclosing too much stuff on FB, especially political/liberal beliefs. Given that at that time the job search was going very badly, it seemed a valid point that HG raised in that why do you want to put yourself out there like that for companies to find out about you. I huffed and puffed about being open and all that, and told her it took a while before I even had the courage to say out loud that I was a heck of a lot more liberal than others around me (You would have voted for the other guy, my old prof had said to me once. Don't you think people in Iraq need liberation from a dictator? I grew red and lost my tongue). But, man, FB is hard for me. Not that I was very active in posting things. For one thing, there's all the stuff that you put about yourself and then start thinking about reactions (all of you who say you don't care if anyone likes/dislikes anything you put up there esp photos..yeah, you lie). Sure, in the real physical world, you do give out from time to time, but it's a lot more selective and manageable. Second, half your friends turn out to be idiots who mourn for bal thackerey, which is fine, but they fill up your feed with their sentiments. Yes, you can tune and change and ignore but really is it worth it? Third, my boss HT asked me for a number that had to do with my research. I knew the number, I had seen it 10 times before, but I couldn't remember for the life of me what it was then. Here's what I did remember, VG's dissertation was to start at 900 am that day, go till 11.30 maybe 12. It was on perceptions of risk in privacy. There were 6 members on his committee, 2 of which were off campus. VG was streaming it live on FB for everyone to see. He was nervous and his coffee wasn't helping. All this was stark and clear but no number. And that's the kind of important stuff that gets muddled under layers. I had talked to VG about 7 times in the last three years. And here I was, knowing everything about him. That was straw that did the thing to the camel. I was off.
So why am I back here? Frankly I don't know that I am. But this whole being honest and open thing? I figured that you only need to do that for yourself. Most people who want to find out about you will do it one way or the other. Nothing is really safe in this day and age; you can easily find out who this is or who HG is irrespective of us being anonymous. Hell, I confess that I've found out identities of anonymous bloggers before. But, really, there's no reason I have to silver-platter it, is there?
