Working my Blog Concept List
Today could be filled with empassioned writing about familial issues and upsets and worries and concerns or filled with screeds of love, joy, happiness and elation. Or I could fill it by talking about these cool new puzzle toys I found at the art store yesterday (yeah, I'll mention more about them).

Instead though, I think I'll knock off a line item on my ever growing list of blog topics.
Today's first post will be about the new anonymity in the internet age. It is the faceless melting into the background afforded to those who have names like Bill Johnson or John Smith or Mary Peterson. Open your nearest phone book of some reasonable size and check to see how many of each of those names there are. If you were trying to track down someone with a common name like these or others then your task becomes that much more difficult just by virtue of having to wade through the dozens and hundreds and THOUSANDS of false positives.

Heck, Google: Bill Johnson and it returns more than 2 million hits! And sure, not all of them are going to be distinct but its a pretty illuminating picture of what I'm trying to convey. I'd give you my name to Google but I already know what comes up on it and I just don't feel like sharing. Besides, most of my hits are press releases and how exciting are they?

Anyway, on some levels I'm jealous of those people who can fade into the over named background by having a common handle. Its impossible for me as I am, to my knowledge (and Googles) the only one of me that exists anywhere in the world. And if not now then I will most certainly be the only one soon enough as I add another middle name to my existant one (if I've not blogged on it yet, I'm taking my father's secret middle name and adding it to my own). At the same time, I take extra pride in the uniqueness of my name, that I can trace both sides of my family back hundreds of years and know those factors that went to create me, the events that transpired to push my family tree all over Europe and into America.

But having a common name might be simpler (though I'm sure being confused with other people all the time would be a bit of a drag) though easier for the Terminator to track you down. Three Sarah Connors and the right just happened to be the last in the list, phew! Or we'd all be Skynet's little bitches by now. Ooops, sorry for the tangent but that's part of where the idea for the post came from. That and trying to track down a buddy who's moved out of town and his phone number was already busted before he left. So its damned near impossible to track him down now without paying $25 to USSearch (I wonder if they charge more for people with more common names? They should because there'll be more work involved in weeding out the wrong ones).

I don't know, that's really about all I've got to say on it for right now. I'm bummed because Paula's driving back down south as we speak (yes, she'd originally intended on heading out on Tuesday but I convinced her to stay a couple of extra days!). And there has been some unpleasant news from my family and some potentially very sad news. But I'll not write about any of it until I know for sure what the score is and where we all are. For now, just send good healthy thoughts towards Maine and send some to New York.