December 2011 Archives

"Mary, Did You Know?"
Words by Mark Lowry, music by Buddy Greene

• The following is a purely hypothetical question. I personally know of no one to whom this might apply. Say you've got some lip balm and you've nursed it along to the point where the last little bit is actually below the rim of the applicator. And say that in your quest to use every last bit you screw it out far enough that it somehow pops completely out of the housing. And say further that it lands on the carpet and rolls around a bit. Here's the question: is there a five-second rule for lip balm?
  
  
• Dear Amazon.com, while I appreciate the sincerity of your offer to text me the delivery status of my order, it seems a bit, well, unnecessary to let me know that my package has been delivered three hours after I take delivery of it. [But we've got technology, and we're by gum gonna use it!]
  
  
• Dear iPhone, for future reference, please rest assured that if I type "ululate" in any context or application whatsoever, I well and truly intended to type "ululate," and therefore your attempt to correct it to "ultimate" is ultimately futile.
  
  
• Speaking of iPhones, if I had known about Popa in time, it would have totally been at the top of my Christmas wish list (well, right after an Aston Martin One-77). If it's not obvious from the photo at right, this little device attaches to the dock port of your phone and turns it into a digital camera complete with a handle and shutter button. No more getting photos of your finger or blurry subjects because you couldn't hold the phone in such a way as to get a proper image. The downside, as it was pointed out to me, is that you can't use it while your phone is in a case, but that's not how I roll anyway. If you're going to have an 8-megapixel camera in your iPhone, you ought to be able to take pictures that do it justice. Popa seems like a good start.
  
  
• Still, the Aston Martin is probably even cooler.
  
  
• A one-hour wait for a table at a restaurant in Midland? Seriously, Luigi's?
  
  
• OK, time for some serious seriousness. Yesterday on Facebook, a local TV station's news team (OK, it was KOSA - CBS, if you must know) posted a headline about a "blowout" south of Midland. But when you clicked over to the actual story on the station's website, it was obvious that it was a flowline leak. The Facebook posting immediately received a number of comments pointing out that a blowout was a completely different - and much more grave situation than a surface leak. As one commenter put it, "blowouts kill people; leaks kill grass." 
  
  There were also a couple of comments to the effect that such observations were simply oil company propaganda intended to minimize the seriousness of the situation. That's a laughable accusation, akin to saying that a report that a car hit a moose crossing the highway last night between Midland and Rankin, causing a fatality, is the same as reporting that a rabbit was hit. Yeah, the animal was a mammal in both cases, and the rabbit certainly succumbed to the encounter, but the situations are laughably different.
  
  In the case of the leak, however, the difference isn't really laughable to those who have family members working on drilling crews. I can guarantee that every one of those people clicked over in a panic immediately after seeing the misleading headline, wondering if their loved one was involved.
  
  I checked back about 20 minutes later, and found that the post had been removed from Facebook, along with all the comments, and a new one put in its place that correctly identified the incident as a leak. And that raised a couple of questions in my mind.
  
  Should traditional news outlets - professional journalists - be held to different social media standards than the rest of us mooks? Is it appropriate for erroneous reports to be removed - "as if it never happened" - from Facebook or a blog or another website, without acknowledging the error? What about the deletion of any associated discussion in the comments to such posts? We're always encouraged to leave comments and feedback by media posters, but should we bother if they'll possibly be deleted on a whim?
  
  My opinion on these issues is still evolving, even as the mainstream media's use of social media as an adjunct to its traditional outlets evolves. I lean toward wanting the same accountability and professionalism on social media as they're supposed to be exercising in print or on the air, but I also recognize that being able to remove erroneous or misleading material could be beneficial. For example, given the level of panic an erroneous headline about a well blowout could have, it might be better just to remove it rather than issue a subsequent correction and explanation. In this specific case, it's a tough call.
  
  I'd be interested in hearing some opinions from any professional journalists who might check in.

• I'm typing this on a Zaggmate bluetooth keyboard linked to my iPad. It's like typing on a computer made for elves. The keys are just enough smaller and closer together to make you think you're doing a better job than you really are.
  
  
• "Just enough smaller..." Is that proper grammar?
  
  
• The NBC Nightly News ran a story last night about the relatively small amount of legislation passed by Congress this year. According to them, fewer bills were passed this year than any time since 1995. The implication was that this was a Bad Thing and that our congresscritters were lazy and undiligent, whereas I was thinking, "wow...finally something to celebrate!" The less meddling by Congress, the better, but I wouldn't expect NBC to share that philosophy.
  
  
• Our company Christmas party was Thursday night. We rented the Cancun Grill, an upscale Mexican restaurant located in a downtown office building (for those who aren't familiar with it), and had a great time. The centerpieces on the tables were a variety of toys, still packaged. Debbie and I had the privilege of delivering those toys on behalf of SM Energy to Midland Fair Havens yesterday, where they'll be distributed among the children living with their mothers at that facility. Fair Havens is a great ministry and I'm happy to know that our company provides support for it (and in other ways besides toy donations).
  
  
• During the aforementioned Christmas party, I enjoyed overhearing one of our young engineers share how he'd souped up his kids' motorized (drivable) toy cars. He used deer feeder batteries to double the voltage to the cars' motors, providing enough power that the kids can literally leave rubber on the sidewalk. I asked him if he also upgraded the tires to improve traction; he admitted that he'd actually considered that but didn't follow through with it. Gotta love that engineering tinkering, even if it does give rise to the next generation of street racers.
  
  
• Deer feeder batteries?! Who has spare deer feeder batteries laying around?
  
  
• Sad news about the death of Harry Potter earlier this week. I didn't know he'd been sick. Plus, you know, he's a fictional character, and that pretty much ensures the end of the book series (although the writers of Dallas didn't let a minor plot element like the death of a primary character slow them down). Still, it's sad to hear about the death of one so young. What's that? Oh...uh huh...I see. Um, never mind.
  
  
• One of life's minor mysteries is why the sky is sometimes crisscrossed with jet contrails, and other times the jets fly over without leaving a trace of their presence. There were at least a half dozen in the clear blue sky yesterday morning, including these two (and I also wonder if the pilots see what they're leaving behind and whether they do it on purpose; any fighter jockeys in the audience?).
  
  

• I posted this on Facebook this morning, but I want to document it here for posterity (realizing that posterity will likely not fully appreciate my diligence). We have a wonderful new multi-million dollar concert venue with an unwieldy name: the Wagner-Nöel Performing Arts Center (named for the primary benefactors). I think we need a more user-friendly way to refer to the facility in conversation, and I propose we begin referring to it as "the Winpac." Referring to it as "the PAC" smacks of political action committees, and calling it simply "Wagner" or "the Wag" isn't respectful of "Nöel," and vice versa. I'm pretty sure no one will come up with a better idea, so I'll expect all of you to start using the shorthand reference from now on. Thanks in advance for your cooperation. These are important issues and if I don't handle them, who will?