Keep the Faith!!!

This is for my friends who are struggling to make their dreams real and are fighting to start new lives: there are happy endings. You can change your life for the better!

It’s a small challenge for me to believe that right now because I’m fighting a fever, but happy endings do happen. I’m not talking about the sexual kind, either. I’m talking about being able to change your situation and go for something better.

First, let me define a word: depression. This word is over-used and under-comprehended. If you say, “I’m depressed because the Bears lost the Super Bowl,” that’s not depression, that’s disappointment. Real depression lasts longer than a day, longer than a weekend. Depression can pull you in and not let go. Not all depressives are suicidal or burdens on society. In fact, some depressives can be very functional. Winston Churchill fought depression (which is called “the black dog”) while fighting the Axis during World War II. Ted Turner became a billionaire while caught in the cloud of depression. Some depressives think success will make them feel better, but they are seeking the wrong cure. Regardless, depression is mental, but can affect the physical.

Remember that the mind and body are connected. The anxiety brought on by depression or other mental maladies can have negative effects on the body. For example, my mother had never lived alone. She grew up in a house full of sisters and loving parents, lived with roommates at Virginia State University, and got married. I don’t think she developed the coping mechanisms one develops as a young woman living alone. Instead, her first time was right before retirement age. My father was very ambitious; his goal was to be a superintendent of schools, the number one person in a school system. He got as high as number two. In the early 1990’s, my father was offered a position as assistant superintendent in a North Carolina school system. Chesapeake, Virginia is on the boarder with North Carolina, and the position was about two hours away. So every Monday morning, my father would drive down to North Carolina, stay with my mother’s relatives in Rocky Mount and then drive back up to Chesapeake after work on Friday. If my father had business travel, he would take my mother with him. However, there were many nights when my mother was forced to be home alone, and she did not sleep those nights. I believe the stress and the sleep deprivation had disastrous long-term effects on her body. I think that’s one of the reasons why my mother didn’t live to see seventy years old. And she might have been unknowingly suffering from depression. The point is, don’t let the mind mess up your body!

I’m probably a little more prone than other people, but I fell into acute depression around May 7, 2002: the day my mother died. Acute depression can be like being in a coma; those are years just erased from your life. The time period between my mother’s death in 2002 and Ray’s death in 2005 was like a coma. Three years of my life are gone, and I’ll never get them back. Please don’t let that happen to you.

Ray’s sudden, unexpected death was like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I took it REALLY hard. Something had to be done or else . . . Thank God for grief counseling.

In the past I was reluctant to see a doctor. One reason (at least I thought it was a reason) was because of my career. Most of my jobs in DC required some type of secret clearance, which meant I was in a perpetual state of background check. As part of that check, Uncle Sam wants to know the name of your therapists. I wasn’t trying to take a chance. Ironically, I was sacrificing the help I needed for a career I didn’t even really want. Ray’s sudden death changed all that. I just asked God to guide me to the right grief counselor and He did the rest. My first session was February 15, 2005, my mother’s birthday.

As an African-American Southerner, I know the stigma attached to psychology. I was taught that what happens in the house stays in the house. Problem is, it’s hard to resolve problems when you aren’t allowed to acknowledge their existence. My relatives in Virginia still don’t about the counseling; I doubt if they would understand.

I went in to deal with Ray’s death, but I didn’t realize that I had never resolved my mother’s death. It was like being stabbed and then just leaving the knife in instead of treating the wound. It took me over a year to deal with both deaths, but it was worth it. I was roused from the coma. There are years that I’ll never get back, but in exchange, God gave me, not just a new lease on life, but a new life. And I wasn’t trying to waste my new life on Washington, DC.

It’s amazing how clearly you can think without depression. Stuff just becomes obvious to you that you would have never figured out while in the coma. The first thing I realized is that I do not, and never have, liked working for government clients, especially on their site. I was just faking the funk for a decade. I liked my actual work and “doing what I do,” I just don’t like doing it for Uncle Sam’s people. I’m reminded of a discussion I had with Ray a couple of years ago. Once upon a time, Ray had an employer who wanted him to go work on a government site. Ray quit instead of going. Ray was a bold brother and I hope I live up to his example. Anyway, in order for me to leave government work, I had two options: 1) take a massive pay cut, or 2) get the hell up out of DC. Guess which option I chose?

So now y’all know why I got the hell out of DC, but why San Francisco? Of course, some people, who shall remain nameless, assumed it was because I was gay. All I have to say is, “Niggaz are ignorant.” Not only ignorant, but there is a perception among so-called “professional” blacks that the only places they can go are Atlanta, DC, or New York. There are other options, people! People don’t realize that nearly every tech company of importance can be found between San Francisco and San Jose. Ever hear of You Tube? I live 20 minutes from them. Ever year of Google? I live 30 minutes from them. Ever hear of Apple? 40 minutes. I’m not sure where I fit into all this high-tech goodness, but at least I’m in the right part neighborhood. In addition, San Francisco is a MAJOR food town, and the Wall Street of the West Coast, and it isn’t cold in the winter or hot in the summer. So far, I like SF and I don’t miss DC at all.

Moving here was tough, but I was blessed with assistance and support. I would like to thank my brother, Mussa, for insisting that he ride with me across the country. It was a great adventure. I would like to thank the rest of my brethren (Mark and even Tchaka) along with my sister Veronica for giving us moral support during our trek. I’m serious, in many ways, y’all are more like my family than my real relatives. I would also like to thank Melissa Remigio, who held it down while the movers where taking my stuff out of my condo and also for occupying the condo to keep it safe and tidy until it sold.

I talked to Ray for 5 hours the day before he died. I was amazed by how content he was with his life and his bright outlook for his future. I’m now the age Ray was when he died, and now I can know how my big brother felt.

The future can be bright for all of us. Just be willing to fight for what you REALLY want and let the other shit go. Don’t give up, don’t give in, never surrender!

Moi


P.S.: On Tuesday, February 20 (in about a week), my new “special roommate” should arrive here in SF. That’s when the happy ending will really begin!

MacWorld Keynote Comments Part 1: Apple TV

On Tuesday, January 9, Apple officially became the new Sony.

Of course, Apple’s gradual metamorphosis into Sony started in 2001 when they debuted the first iPod. However, I think that metamorphosis was completed when they changed names. “Apple Computer, Inc.” died and “Apple Inc.” was born. Apple is now a consumer electronics company. The iPod was their first major consumer electronics product, and they announced their second one.

A few months ago, Steve Jobs debuted a prototype device known as iTV. He said then that the name wouldn’t stick; the final device would have a different name. Well, Steve announced the new name on Tuesday: Apple TV (“TV”). Personally, I like the old name better. But what is this gadget? TV is a device that allows you to stream whatever is in your iTunes library onto your TV. Okay, if you don’t have an iPod and have never used iTunes, stop reading right now. I’m serious, this article ain’t for you.

Now back to what I was talking about. Let’s say you bought a TV show from the iTunes store. Traditionally, your options were to either watch the show you bought on your computer, or download it to your video iPod. If you wanted to watch the TV show you bought on an actual TV, you had to either figure out a way to plug your video iPod into your TV or you were just plain out of luck – until now. You plug your TV to a TV and then that show you bought will be available on your TV. That’s cute and all, but what good is that?

First, let’s assume you have a home-theater setup with an HDTV or and EDTV. If you don’t then there isn’t much point in buying TV. Why? Because it only works with HDTVs or EDTVs. If you have a regular TV, forgetaboutit! In fact, you can stop reading right here and move on with your life if you’ve only got a regular TV. TV won’t work on a regular TV. Apple’s cold like that, sorry.

However, if you do have some type of home theater with said HDTV, you’re in good shape – if your HDTV has a component or HDMI input. Your HDTV doesn’t? Stop reading, go get a snack and wonder why you got gypped. Oh yeah, if your HDTV doesn’t have HDMI, then you can forget about Blu-Ray Disc and HD-DVD as well. And if it doesn’t do component either then you’ve pretty much defeated the purpose of getting an HDTV. In other words, that’s what you get for: 1) not doing your research, 2) buying cheap shit. Back to the story.

So you get the TV and hook it up to your HDTV, or better yet, your receiver that hooks up to your HDTV. The TV device can connect wirelessly to a Mac or PC with iTunes software (if you have an iPod, you have iTunes). Now EVERYTHING that you have in your iTunes library is available to your TV/home theater. Every song, every podcast, every TV/movie you bought, even pictures that you might have in iPhoto or Adobe Photoshop Elements can be shown on your TV. I think that’s really cool and here’s why.
Let’s start with audio. TV lets you finally get those damn CDs out of the house! First, you take every CD you own and rip them using iTunes. I recommend you make sure the music is being converted into MP3 format. Once you have ripped every CD you have ever owned in your life (and some you borrowed for me and never returned, thieving bastards), you can decide whether or not you want all of them on your iPod (probably not). Regardless, they are all on your computer’s hard drive. Then I HIGHLY recommend you back up your computer. Once you get your TV set up, all of those CDs will be available to your home theater. Now, why would you want to do that? Because chances are your best speakers are part of your home theater setup, regardless of how humble that setup might be. And it’s nice to have access to your ho-biscuit baby making slow jams playlist from your living room on those romantic evenings. Ironically, the TV was made mainly for video, but audio might be the Trojan Horse feature. But lets talk about video.

So TV lets you display the video you bought from iTunes on your TV. That’s real cute, but what if you didn’t buy any video from iTunes? Can you rip your regular DVDs into iTunes and then stream them just like you did the CDs in the previous paragraph? Well, that’s illegal. You see, unlike CDs, DVDs are encrypted. So, technically, it isn’t illegal to copy your DVDs that you bought onto your hard drive, but it is illegal to defeat the encryption, which keeps you from copying your DVD to your hard drive. Yes, some lawyer thought up that shit. Of course, I can’t encourage you to break the law and de-crypt the encryption. However, if you did do such a bad, bad thing, you’d still have problems. Why? Because TV is not set up to stream regular DVDs, even on a hard drive. And even if TV could do that, DVDs have a lot of data, which would clog up quite a bit of bandwidth. But fear not, funky children, I have a plan! It’s called compression.

Basically, it works like this: let’s say there happens to be a decrypted movie on your hard drive. I don’t know how the hell it got there, and I don’t want to know (I ain’t going to jail with y’all). You can shrink that puppy down using your choice of compression/decompression algorithms, or “codecs.” Your two codec options are H.264 or MPEG-4. So you take the movie that somehow magically appeared on your hard drive, shrink it down with H.264 or MPEG-4, copy it over to your iTunes Library and voila – you can stream your movies over to your TV using your shiny new TV!

Before you get too bored, think about this: you can theoretically take all of your CDs, podcasts, movies you recorded with your camcorder, pictures you took with your digital camera, your DVDs (if you don’t mind breaking the law), your porn and anything you bought from the iTunes store and put it on your computer. After that, you can hook up the TV and ALL if it can be on your TV/home theater. You’ll never have to get off your couch again! You can put those old CDs from the 1980s in storage! You can show your vacation video to everyone! On the other hand, will Apple’s new gadget take the place of your cable box? Not really. Will it take the place of your DVR? Not really.

In fact, let me tell you what this device is not:
- Not a cable box, which okay because you already have one.
- Not a DVD player. That’s fine, because everyone who wants a DVD player already has one at this point.
- Not a high-definition disc player. That’s fine because there is a format war happening right now and there is a risk of ending up obsolete if you choose the wrong side.
- Not a DVR. I think Apple was smart to leave DVR functionality from the Apple TV. DVR functionality is increasingly being folded into the cable box. In my opinion, the day of the stand-alone DVR is coming to a slow end. Soon, people will just use a cable box with a built-in DVR.

Basically, think of the TV as an extension of your iPod/iTunes situation. In fact, the cost of a TV is not much more than the cost of a high-end iPod: about $300. The device should be available in February. I’ll write a letter to the Easter Bunny in March. Maybe he’ll bring me one. If not, I guess I’ll have to sell my sperm or peddle crystal meth for the government.