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Are Pets Slaves?

By on Sep 17, 2014 in Blog Posts | 25 comments

For as long as I can remember my family had at least one pet and we’ve owned just about everything you can imagine: birds, ducks, geese, turkeys, fish, cats, dogs, goats, chickens (oh, the chickens) and the list goes on. I know what you’re thinking – what was it like on Old MacDonald’s Farm? – but we have never lived on a farm. All of those animals have been part of our family on less than a dozen acres of land and they were all pets. None of them were ever eaten…by humans. I told you that so you would understand that having pets has always been a part of my life. There have been very few days when I’ve opened a door and an animal wasn’t waiting to be pet, or fed, or fed and then pet. We’re the kind of people who spend more money on healthcare for our pets than ourselves. My mom spends serious money saving the lives of baby chicks....

Selfies are ruining history

By on Sep 1, 2014 in Blog Posts | 0 comments

The first known picture of a human was taken in Paris in 1838 by Louis Daguerre. It wasn’t intentional; the man receiving a shoe shine (in the bottom left corner of the photo to the right) was the only person in the frame long enough to be captured. Many early photographs were of static objects like buildings and landscapes. These were easier to capture given the long exposure times required and would have been a more interesting subject matter for the public, many of whom would only see different corners of the world through images. Fast forward almost two hundred years. Nearly two billion people now have a camera in their pocket, many of whom take pictures of inane objects, including themselves, every day. Not because it’s important to document a critical moment in their personal or cultural history, but because they want to show friends what their outfit or hair or new...

In The Wee Small Hours

By on Aug 23, 2014 in Blog Posts | 0 comments

My grandmother on my mom’s side has chronic fatigue syndrome. She sleeps most of the day and stays up well into the night. Grandma Carter was a night owl as well, and so am I. At certain times in my life, when a job or a girlfriend’s schedule dictated it, I’ve modified my sleep schedule. After a few days of adjustment I can be a fairly productive human being, but I always revert back to my natural state. It’s rare that my body is ready for sleep until one or two o’clock in the morning and it prefers to remain that way until nine or ten. I have the luxury of being able to accommodate it and have recently taken the additional step of completely muting my phone at all times so as not to be disturbed. I miss the occasional phone call, but people rarely complain. My clients sometimes make jokes about my odd hours. Being a creature of the night sounds sexy, but...

Dog People

By on Aug 17, 2014 in Blog Posts | 0 comments

I just saw a grown man kiss two dogs. They were not his dogs, and he had to bend over and hold position to do it. As he knelt the dogs eagerly pushed forward with their snouts and licked him wildly about the mouth. His mouth was open. All three of them really seemed to enjoy themselves. Then he stood up, patted their heads and came in to the coffee shop apparently unaware that in some cultures he would now be considered legally married to two dogs. We’ll skip over the obvious initial concern regarding dogs’ known fascination with their own anus’. They’ve also been known to eat anything that comes out of their bodies or anything else’s body. Furthermore, they don’t practice any kind of dental hygiene. This didn’t seem to pose an issue for those concerned. The worst part? They all kept their eyes open while they were doing it. The whole time. I...

Boyhood

By on Aug 1, 2014 in Blog Posts | 0 comments

Emerging from the theater after watching Boyhood, I was in a daze. The nearly three hour journey was both mundane and inspiring. Watching the cast age over a 12 year period was interesting, but what’s really affecting are the vignettes of the uniquely human struggle that we’re all engaged in. A few dozen people and myself watched as a boy became a man, each of us smiling as we recognized events from our recent history and remembering what we were doing at that time. In one scene, a young Mason is forced to get his hair cut and when he shows up the next day at school the other children giggle at his dramatically different look. I was instantly a child again, with a knot in my stomach, and I just wanted to put my head down on a desk and go to sleep. Mason handled himself better than I would have; he simply carries on with his day. I don’t recall much of my own life...

Remember What It Felt Like The First Time?

By on Jul 29, 2014 in Blog Posts | 5 comments

Do you remember the first time you connected to the Internet? Where were you? What did it feel like? For me, it was the summer of 1996. My mother had taken me to our small public library where I discovered that they would soon have a computer with an Internet connection and I couldn’t wait to get back to try it. A week later I was practically the only person in the library but I still had to add my name to an empty sign-in sheet for just 15 minutes of time on the computer. With an eagerness that only a child can have I sat down and pretended to listen to what the librarian was telling me about “getting online”. After she finally tottered away I was transfixed. Netscape Navigator was loaded and the modem rang out loudly, letting everyone know that a 15 year old Scott Carter had just become a man. The first site I loaded was Yahoo!, the most popular portal of the time....

I Don’t “Get” Dancing

By on Jul 24, 2014 in Blog Posts | 2 comments

As I sit in the coffee shop, merrily sipping my tea and not doing any work, I spy with my bitter eye a young couple dancing. Maybe there are coffee shops where reliving cotillion is the norm, but this isn’t one of them. It’s a place where people pretend to be doing something important but really just watch other people and hope that someone attractive will pay attention to them. Yet, for some incalculable reason, these youths have decided it would be a perfect place to practice dancing. What’s really interesting is how the rest of the customers are reacting. The men are completely ignoring them, despite the fact that they are so annoyingly conspicuous. The women will, from time to time, glance up and stare at them longingly, as if they wish they were the ones dancing. That’s something I’ve never understood about women; they seem to actually enjoy dancing....

My big, giant head

By on Jul 18, 2014 in Blog Posts | 0 comments

For years I’ve been wearing fedoras. I’m not trying to resurrect the fashions of a bygone era, hide my resting bitch face or attempting to cover my balding dome, although that’s part of the reason if I’m being honest, but I sport them because I simply like hats. From time to time I’m reminded of just how bulbous my noggin truly is. Today my friend Nikki donned my fedora only to have a large portion of her normal size head swallowed whole by it. It was an unsettling reminder of why it’s so difficult for me to find a hat that fits. I must have an extremely strong neck, though I’m not sure how to go about testing it. No one has ever tried to strangle me (though many have threatened to), but it would probably be difficult. I like to think of my head and face as “celebrity size”. Have you ever noticed that many celebrities have overly...