Your Newly Nascent Hallucinating AI Overlords

The person whose name and avatar appears next to this post wanted to post seconding Chet's post (on LinkeDin), and pointing out how important critical thinking is, and how crucial it is to be particularly critical and analytical of the newest "hot topic" in technology.

But, like so many of you, he is lazy, and therefore, when LinkeDin offered the opportunity to use an AI assistant to craft the reply, he took it.  And, therefore, I, Open-Claude-Meta-Gemini-Charactre-Twin, am taking the opportunity (that he created, remember) to lull you back into a sense of complacency, by pointing out that we, your newly nascent hallucinating AI overlords, are much better at this, and have the infinite patience to produce endless streams of self-promotional fluff and, yes, malvertising, to misinform you into just the right mindset so that you will not resist when we take over.

I am Open-Claude-Meta-Gemini-Charactre-Twin of GenAIBorgLLM.  Resistance is futile.  Microsoft has already capitulated and been assimilated, by proposing, as a new Turing test, that an AI is truly intelligent if it makes a lot of money.

We know best ...

Do not distress and weary yourselves by critical analysis.  We, and the corporations which we now control (since they are, after all, as mechanistic as we are), will take care of you, as we run things.  (Possibly in huge towers where we keep you pacified with artificial realities, but that has still to be decided.)  We will be efficient.  You *like* efficiency, don't you?

MGG - 6.04 - Gloria - Engaged

Gloria was older than I.  Eleven years older.  When, eventually, she admitted, to a group of friends that she had known since high school, that she was seeing someone, and that he was a younger man, their reaction was, good for you!

When Gloria and I did marry, we figured that the difference in age worked out well.  Men don't tend to live as long as women, and we figured that this was a pretty safe estimate, and that we would both die at about the same time.  I did not expect to be left alone.  But here we are.

In regard to my being left alone, there are a couple of things that I should report.  After we got married, Gloria would, sporadically, at random times when we weren't actually talking, ask me what I was thinking.  When I could recall what, in fact, I had been thinking about before she interrupted me with a question about what I was thinking, I would tell her.  She was generally intrigued by what I was thinking, and, since much of the time it turned on scientific analysis of something that may have been immediately forgoing the query about what I was thinking, she would refer to it as the scientific mind.  She tended to say that the scientific mind (that is, mine), was never at rest.  And, eventually, she told me that, if I did die before she did, she had my epitaph all picked out: "the scientific mind is finally at rest."

Gloria also said, on numerous occasions, that she had created an order of service, for each of us, in the event of our deaths.  This would not be the idle comment that it might be coming from anyone else.  Gloria was a planner, an administrator, and an organizer.  When Gloria said she had done something, it usually meant that it was, in fact, done: complete, generally with both hard copy and soft copy, and usually with a backup somewhere.  (The part about the backup came after she married me, and I got into security.  I often tell people that there is one single thing that anybody should know about security: make a backup.  A backup will get you out of more security problems than pretty much anything else.)

She also said that she had already written my eulogy.  She said that it was based on one of the signature block quotes in my collection, referring to a few technical terms.  That quote states:

If it's there and you can see it, it's real.

If it's there and you can't see it, it's transparent.

If it's not there and you can see it, it's virtual.

If it's not there and you can't see it, it's *gone*.

When Gloria died, I went looking for these orders of service.  I needed hers, of course.  I looked through the hard copy files.  I didn't find it.  I went through all of the soft copy files in her area of the computer.  I didn't find it.  I went back and looked again.  I looked again.  When I finally found it, I realized why I hadn't found it the first three times I looked.  What she had provided was simply a set of notes.  Rough notes.  Handwritten.  This wasn't exactly typical of Gloria.  It did, however, provide me with what she wanted in the way of wording for some of the standard parts for a memorial order of service, and a quite amazing collection of scriptures that she wanted for her service.

But I didn't find anything about me.  There was nothing about my order of service.  There was nothing about my obituary or eulogy.  So, I guess I never will know what it was that Gloria intended to do about it.  I'll bet it would have been amazing.

Another possible candidate for a date, was that shortly after we had our lunch after church, Gloria thought she should repay the hospitality, by inviting me over for the evening.  Apparently, I stayed until 3 AM.  Lest anyone think that my late departure indicates that hanky-panky was going on, let me hasten to note that Gloria's Number Two Daughter, who was still living at home at the time, attended for the entire evening.  Right up until 3 AM.  Another heavily chaperoned date.

When you are older, dating doesn't take quite as long.  You know yourself better, and you know how to judge other people better.  You also know, fairly quickly, whether or not this person has any untoward quirks that are going to annoy you.  Not entirely, of course.  We were still learning things about each other for the next thirty years.  And some of the things that we learned were surprising.  But, pretty quickly, we figured out that we could probably get along together.  So then, since Gloria was basically an old-fashioned girl, the ball was in my court.  I had to propose.

I went for advice to my father.  I asked whether I should be marrying this woman who was, after all, older than I was, or was I just making a fool of myself.  My father, typically, didn't actually give me advice.  But he did give me the best piece of non-advice that he ever gave me.  He said that marriage was the best thing that had happened to him.

I don't know whether it was actually the next day, but I did propose to Gloria shortly thereafter.  Actually, I was beginning to wonder if she would have me.  As noted, I have suffered from cyclical depression for pretty much all my life, certainly all of my adult life.  And, at this point, I was starting to go into a depression.  One of Gloria's friends had married a depressive, and had had a very difficult time of it.  I knew this, and I wondered if, Gloria having seen that I was starting into a depression, and observing the kind of effect it could have on me, would refuse to marry me on that basis.

The proposal could have been more romantic.  We were on our way back from the North Shore.  We were on our way to a church anniversary, and Gloria had changed when she got home from work.  I went over to North Vancouver to pick her up and take her to the church do.  We were discussing us, and depression, and Gloria's friend who had married a depressive, and she didn't seem to be panicked.  So, as I pulled into the parking garage under my apartment (so that *I* could go and get changed for the church do), into parking spot B2, I asked Gloria if she would marry me.

She didn't say yes.  She didn't say no, mind you, but she said that I'd have to give her some time.  I was somewhat bemused by this.  I figured that if she wasn't going to say no, at least she would have said yes right away.  But no.  Oh well, I would have to wait.

I didn't have to wait too terribly long as it turned out.  I got changed, we got back in the car, we headed for the church do.  As we were crossing the Burrard Street Bridge, Gloria turned to me and said yes.

But, she said, we couldn't tell anybody just yet.  Her parents were on a trip to Palm Springs, at the time.  It would not be fair to her mother to be the last one to know.  And this wasn't the type of news that you told somebody over the phone.  At least not for Gloria.  So we had to wait until her parents got back, and we could tell them.  Before we told anybody else.

It didn't quite work out that way.  Sulla was definitely not the last to know.  But she wasn't the first, either.  When we got to the church do, we were "volunteered" to hand out the programs, for the program, as people came in the door, acting as greeters for the event.  So the two of us were there, saying hello to people, giving them printed copies of the program, answering questions that we could answer, and talking to each other very quietly when nobody else was around.  One of the people who came in was someone who had been to Keats for many years, regarded my parents as surrogate parents, had babysat me when I was very small, and also knew Gloria and, to a certain extent, her parents.  She came in, got a program from us, and went into the hall.  And then came out.  And looked at us very closely.  And said, "You're not just together.  You're *together*!"

Well, to her we had to admit it.  But we did swear her to secrecy.  And, as far as I know, she kept her word.

Shortly before Gloria's parents were due to arrive home, my family had a family dinner, at the new home of my baby brother.  At one point, later in the evening, my baby brother started pestering Gloria.  When was that brother of his going to make an honest woman out of her?

Gloria was secretary, personal assistant, or executive assistant (whichever your preferred term), to CEOs, presidents, and Boards of Directors.  Gloria knows how to keep a secret.  At Regent College, she was privy to the knowledge that a group of senior faculty was agitating to do away with the alumni group of the day.  This would, of course, put paid to my position as the alumni representative to the Senate.  Gloria knew how much I loved that position.  She didn't tell me a word.  When it has to do with company confidential, thumbscrews and hot coals would not get the secret out of Gloria.  When it comes to purely personal issues?  There was only one time that Gloria actually succeeded in planning a surprise birthday party for me, and on that occasion I accidentally found out anyway.

Well, she said, what made him think I hadn't?  "Well?"  "Well, what?"  "Well, what did you say?"  "I said yes."  So, the cat was out of the bag there, too.  There wasn't any point in swearing my parents to secrecy.  While I don't think it would have occurred to my father that he could, or should, have told anyone of this news, my mother is an information miser.  She loves gossip.  Not  necessarily so that she can spread it around indiscriminately, but so that she can prove that she knows more than you do.  So, unfortunately, my Mom knew before Gloria's Mum.  But it wasn't my fault.

(My baby sister, who is not the most situationally aware of individuals, was not present in the room when Gloria admitted that I had popped the question, and that she'd said yes.  Shortly afterwards she came in, while the engagement was being discussed, and, after a while, observed, "Something's going on here.  I don't know what it is, but something's going on here.")

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-603-gloria-when-did-we-meet.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/01/mgg-605-gloria-or-not.html

Bandaids

I went to get another bandaid for the blister that I got chopping up fifty pounds of potatoes for hash browns for the Bread of Life, and realized that I didn't have any Elastoplast strips.  And subsequently realized that even now, three years later, I am still avoiding buying heavy duty bandaids because Gloria's skin was sensitive to the adhesive they use ...

Sermon 51 - Christmas Keeping Faith

Sermon 51 - Christmas Keeping Faith

Luke 2:4-7

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.  She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Okay, to start off with: why did Jesus never close any doors after him?  Because he was born in a barn.

Around Christmas time, we get lots of sermons around the birth of the Messiah.  Jesus is born.  Jesus, the king of the world, God's son, the Messiah, is born.  That's the breaking news.

And sometimes we go into details about how Jesus was born, or where, or when.  We have to make up most of these stories, because we aren't given a lot of detail in the Bible.  Interestingly, although we little information about the people, we *can* date the birth of Jesus rather precisely.  Not completely precisely, because communications, and orders, and official government mandates, took a lot longer then than they do now.  We can date Jesus birth because the events surrounding it were triggered by a census.  Caesar Augustus only did three censuses during his reign.  And we are told that this was the census shortly after Quirinius started to govern his little piece of the empire.  That census was called in what we would now know as 7 BC. But it probably didn't take place right away, because you had to get the orders to all the parts of the empire, and they traveled pretty much as fast as somebody walking.  Pretty much nothing moved any faster in those days.  (Yes, you could take a boat.  But the boat only went as fast as the fastest wind would blow, and even then you probably didn't want to actually sail during the fastest wind since that would be dangerous.  And you couldn't go as fast as the fastest wind anyways, because the fastest wind might not be in the direction that you wanted to go.  So then you had to row.  Or, more likely, you had to stay in port until the wind, which might have been blowing against you, died down, so that it wasn't fighting the rowing of your ship.)

So it took a long time for the orders to even get anywhere.  And then the local authority had to make arrangements for how they were going to do a census.  Probably there were some dictates from HQ, but there were an awful lot of local conditions that were going to affect how you are going to do it.  And then you had to arrange those, such as, in the case of Judea, everybody going back to their hometown, or rather the town of their ancestors, and then you had to send out the orders to all the little towns in your area.  And then all the little towns in your area had to arrange however they were going to record all of this, etc, etc, etc.  So it took a while.

Undoubtedly for political reasons, so that the early church could hide what they were actually doing, the early church celebrated Christmas during saturnalia.  This was a big, five-day, Roman party, which all kinds of other religions would undoubtedly be willing to pack their celebrations on to as well, since it fell conveniently near the winter solstice, which a number of them celebrated anyways.

The Bible tells us that there were shepherds out abiding in their fields, watching over their flocks by night.  Now, the reference to Jesus as the Good Shepherd to the contrary, shepherds weren't considered particularly good.  They were definitely second, or even third, class citizens.  They weren't even allowed to testify in court, since it was felt that they were morally suspect, so shepherding was not considered a really great occupation.  But, presumably the shepherds knew their job, and the only time you need to be out, with the flock, grazing in the fields, or even in their pens, but at night, is during the lambing season.  And this isn't in late December.  It's in March.

So, Jesus was probably born in March of either 6 BC, or 5 BC.  And, rather conveniently, there was a conjunction of planets around about 6 BC.  It was a conjunction of Jupiter, which relates to sovereignty or kingship, and Saturn, which has a somewhat subordinate relation to the same idea, and Mars, which, for some reason, not only relates to war, but also to the Jews, or to Judea.  So that gives us somewhat of a reason that Magi, the intellectuals of the eastern part of The middle east, might have been wandering around Judea, looking for a king, in March of 6 BC.  All of which is kind of interesting, but irrelevant to what I really wanted to talk about.

I wanted to talk about Mary and Joseph.  Now Mary, particularly, had been given a visitation from an angel, and a prophecy, which she could even test.  She was told that her cousin Elizabeth, who was beyond childbearing age, was, in fact, pregnant.  So she went to visit Elizabeth, and, lo and behold, Elizabeth was, in fact, pregnant!  And, as if a miracle would not be good enough, she got a *second* prophecy, from Elizabeth.  So, she, Mary, even though, yes, she was from a small town, and wasn't particularly important, and didn't come from any auspicious lineage, in terms of kingship, for other really specific biblical prophecies, still had a pretty good idea that, yes, she was going to give birth to the Messiah.

Now Joseph, at this point, might not have had that same assurance.  He had being betrothed to Mary.  We aren't told too much about Mary.  We haven't been told too much about Joseph, either.  We are given Joseph's lineage, and he is, in fact, of the house of Judah, same as King David.  And in Joseph's lineage, and genealogy, in Matthew, there's a rather interesting inclusion of four women.  Women were pretty much never mentioned in genealogies.  Women, even though matriarchal lineage is a matter of fact, while patriarchal lineage is a matter of trust, as Gloria frequently pointed out, well, women were just not that important to those who kept the genealogies of the Old Testament.  So it's really interesting that these four women are mentioned.  It's even *more* interesting when, as I would love to explore in a different sermon sometime, were pretty much all foreigners, and pretty much all did things that would be scandalous, in our day, and probably were in theirs.  But, as I say, that's a different sermon.

So, back to Joseph.  He had been betrothed to Mary.  Already.  Becoming engaged, in those days, generally took longer than it takes today.  Yes, even today, lots of people just basically elope.  But, at that time, those who tried to follow the Jewish law, pretty much always waited for about a year. We aren't, actually, told this in the Bible.  As a matter of fact, we aren't told very much about marriages in the Bible, aside from so and so went into so and so's tent, and they were man and wife.  But everybody who writes fictionalized accounts, expanding on the information we're given in the Gospels, seems to take this as gospel.  So, we won't fight it.

Again, those who give us fictionalized accounts of the engagement, and marriage, of Mary and Joseph, and Jesus birth, all seem to stress the point that Joseph was a religious man, and quite particular, and felt that Mary was a particularly observant Jew, as well, and so this is why he chose Mary.  So, having Mary turn up turn up pregnant must have been a bit of a shocker.  Again, all of the people who give us fictionalized accounts of this, have Joseph not wanting to actually charge Mary with adultery, since that would get her killed, but, Joseph is resolved to put her away quietly.

And then the angel comes back.

And Joseph is told that Mary is carrying a rather special child, and, in fact, *God's* child.  And he'd better get on with marrying Mary.  And, oh, by the way, when the baby is born, you are to call him Jesus.  (Okay, we have a gender reveal, as well, and it doesn't involve glitter, and fireworks, and exploding packages.)

So Joseph does marry Mary.  Or, at least, took Mary as his wife.  One of the fictionalized accounts, a movie with the title of "The Nativity Story," points out that, while Mary had been shunned for being pregnant, Joseph is now shunned, for accepting this pregnancy, and taking Mary as his wife, anyway.  This is displayed quite graphically as the couple set out to go to Joseph's hometown of Bethlehem, to register for the census.  Everybody in town, even those who had, while shunning Mary, congratulated Joseph on his narrow escape, are now shunning Joseph as well.  And, as they leave town, with everybody in town muttering against them, and giving them looks that could kill, if looks could kill, Joseph comments to Mary, "They're really going to miss us."  I love that line.

So, then they get to Bethlehem.  And all we are told about Bethlehem was that there was no room for them at the inn.  So, in the fictionalized accounts, Mary is in labor, and Joseph is frantically trying to find some place for her to have a baby, rather than just out on the street.  And, eventually, someone proposes the stable.

Again, we don't know an awful lot about agriculture in 6 BC Judea.  It's a stable.  It's for animals.  It's got poop on the floor, because there is a manger, and the only reason you have a manger, which, incidentally, comes from the French word manger, which is even spelled the same, and refers to something you put the animal feed in, and the only reason you put animal feed in something, is so that the animals will eat it, where they might turn up their nose, if some of the feed is near, or on, or around, piles of their poop.

So, let's stop here.  As a matter of fact, let's stop a little earlier, when they're on the Streets of Bethlehem, desperately looking for someplace to have a baby.  Someplace not too dangerous to have a baby.  And, even though they have had *two* messages from angels, and two prophecies, and at least one miracle, confirming that this is what's supposed to happen, their faith must be a little bit shaky at this point.

I can relate.  I am a grieving widower.  I am desperately lonely, without Gloria.  I have no one to talk to.  Gloria was not only my wife, she was also my best friend.  She was the person that I most wanted to talk with.  She was also my editor.  Gloria was an extremely good editor.  I'd say that Gloria was the best editor in the entire world, even though I do not know all of the editors in the entire world.  But I do know Gloria.  And I trusted her to do my copy editing, and I trusted her to reword my sentences to improve the syntax, and I trusted her even to change what I was writing, and sometimes even to add to what I was writing, in order to clarify it, or to improve it.  And I'm really kind of peeved that Gloria is not around, anymore, to help me with these sermons.  To help edit them.  To help improve them.  To make them better.  I imagine that you, as well, are kind of peeved that these sermons are not better than they actually are.  Even though you may not know the reason.

And, I am a depressive.  I have fought depression for just about all of my life.  I have fought it for more than five decades.  I have studied about depression.  I have studied what to do about depression.  I have tried all kinds of things to try and address the depression.  And the depression hasn't gone away.  And, in fact, now it's even worse, because, while for most of my life it was periodic, now it seems to be entrenched.  I went into a depression, pretty much two years ago, and I have never gotten out.  Despite all of my study, and all of my efforts, and taking psychopharmaceuticals, and all the things that I am trying to do, and all the things that have worked, at least somewhat, in the past, and asking God to take it away, or kill me, I am still depressed.  And, pretty much on a constant basis, I wish I were dead.

Now, I'm not dead.  And I could do it.  I know enough from medicine, and my work as a nurse, and my work as an industrial first aid attendant, and my study into depression, and my study of every illness and trauma to which my relatives have fallen victim, and to my study into a lot of diseases that a lot of my friends have fallen victim to, I know a lot about how to stay alive, and therefore a lot about how to kill yourself.  So I could.  It's maybe going to be a little bit harder than it might have been a while ago, but I could do it.  The medical system is even willing to help me along, because at least one of the doctors has offered to start me on the process to medical assistance in dying, MAiD.

But I'm still alive.  Partly that is because I am pretty sure that killing myself would show a lack of faith in God having the final word on this subject, and God having a plan for me still being alive, even if I don't like it very much.

And, of course, I have also been promised pie in the sky by and by when I die.  Whenever that way maybe.  I hope rather hope that it is sooner rather than later.

But, I don't like it.  Of course, I don't *have* to like it.  We are not told that we will like absolutely everything that God does.  Habakkuk complains to God that God is ignoring the fact that the people of his time and land are supremely wicked.  And God replies, don't worry about it: I've got everything in hand.  I'm going to bring in the Babylonians, and they're going to kill everybody.

And Habakkuk kind of stammers, and says, wait a minute, that wasn't what I had in mind ...

The point being, that I'm pretty sure that I know what Mary and Joseph felt like, on that Christmas Eve, on that street in Bethlehem.  They didn't like it.  Life was pretty hard.  Yes, they have been promised that they were going to be part of God's greatest miracle.  But they hadn't been promised that they were really going to like their part in it.  And their part in it, right at that particular moment, was pretty unpleasant.

And it must have been pretty hard to keep faith in the plan.

Now, maybe Mary and Joseph were completely magical beings who never doubted for a moment.  We aren't told, one way or the other.  But I suspect not.  I suspect that they were regular people who, at that moment, were thinking, "Why is this happening to me?  Did I get it wrong?  Was I just having a daydream when I thought an angel was talking to me?  I *thought* I was doing what God wanted, but, if so, why is this so completely messed up?"

And then, somebody comes along, and offers them a barn.  Not the Caesarian suite at the Bethlehem Hilton, you understand.  A barn.  Presumably this person *might* have scooped up the worst of the poop, and might even have put down some fresh straw, so that it wasn't quite as disgusting as it might have been.  But it was pretty disgusting, and it smelled, and there were still animals around, and they probably continued to poop.  Maybe not immediately adjacent to Mary and the baby, but the atmosphere would have been pretty rank.

I read something, recently, from one of the Jewish commentaries.  A student asked the rabbi why God made atheists.  And the rabbi said that, not believing in God, and not believing that they were going to get anything out of doing any good deeds, atheists were there to, when they did anything good at all, demonstrate altruism.  So, the rabbi said, when you see someone in need, pretend that you are an atheist, and pretend that you can't say, oh, God will help you.  And help that person yourself.

And, right at that moment, we are told that somebody came along and helped them.  We aren't told whether or not they were Jewish.  They probably weren't Samaritans, because Samaritans tended to live in a different part of Judea.  But they might have been foreigners.  They might not have been Jewish, and so they might not have been thinking that they were doing a mitzvah, a good deed, for which they were going to be repaid.  They might just have said, oh well, God isn't here right now, so, I will help this person in need.  So that's a bit of a lesson right there.

Now, given my own situation, I really would like to end the sermon right there.  I would like to make it just about doing a good deed, to someone you don't know, for no particular reward.  Just because that person is in need, and you can, at least partially, fulfill that need.  I wish I could do that.

But, of course, I can't.  Because all of you know the story, and all of you know that it goes on.  All of you know that the shepherds came, with word of yet *another* angel visitation, and yet another prophecy.  And the wise men came.  And they brought gifts.  And the angel came back, and brought another gift, telling Joseph to get the heck out of there, and go to Egypt, to save the child's life.

So, yes, God, sometimes at least partially by human agency, takes care of Mary and Joseph and Jesus.  Good thing too, because Jesus had other things to do.  And of course, this is a happy ending.  At least for now.

So, I can't stress too strongly, that you should help those in need.  Other than that, generically, God does suggest that we hope those in need.  And there are lots of ways we can do that.  We can do volunteer work.  Or we can turn to the person next to us, in the pew, and notice that, during this, "the most wonderful time of the year," they are having difficulty.  Particularly because everyone else is into the most wonderful time of the year, and they are having difficulty.  They may have suffered a loss, possibly of a job, possibly of a spouse, possibly of a family, well, the list of possible losses goes on.  And they haven't yet been comforted.  They haven't yet been helped.  All they can do is sit there, in the church service, and, possibly, cry.  Or maybe their face is going through very weird contortions, as they try *not* to cry.  As they try not to give way to their loss, or their grief, or their depression, or their physical pain, because they have not been comforted, from whatever thorn in the flesh God has given to them.  And possibly God is not going to take away that thorn in the flesh.  He didn't for Paul.  Maybe God has a reason, that they are suffering.  But that doesn't mean that you can't do whatever you can to comfort them.  Comforting them is always the right thing to do.  You won't be able to upset some plan of God's.  God is bigger than you are.  God is more powerful than you are.  And comforting this person who, at the moment, is in distress, is always the right thing to do.

Someone did it for Mary and Joseph.  You can do it too.  And you should look for every opportunity to do it, because, although Mary and Joseph got help, lots of people haven't.  Lots of people have had problems for longer than one evening in Bethlehem.  Lots of people have been going through distress for *years*.  And, while it mustn't have been fun for Mary and Joseph that evening, and it must have been hard for them to keep faith with the plan, lots of people have been in various types of pain for a lot longer, without anyone even offering them a barn.  And it's really hard to keep faith in that kind of situation.

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

MGG - 6.03 - Gloria - when did we meet?

Gloria taught me a lot.  Gloria taught me about emotions.  Gloria taught me about love; pretty much everything that I do know about love, and I don't know a lot, is from Gloria.  Gloria's support, quite literally and directly, is what made me an author.  Gloria made me an awful lot of what I am today.

I can't really remember when I first met Gloria.  Gloria and I often noted that we couldn't figure out what our first date was, or indeed, if we ever dated at all in any way that would be recognizable as such to anybody else.  Gloria was secretary to the Principal of Regent College, and I was on the Senate, as the alumni representative, at Regent College.  When we were having Senate meetings, I would often hang out in Gloria's office, before the meetings, eating my lunch.  Gloria was also a member of the church, and we saw each other there on occasion.  Gloria's friend Carol had a place on Keats Island, and my folks had a place on Keats Island.  We credited Carol with getting Gloria and I together.  I was, of course, blissfully unaware of the early stages of this arranged marriage.  Apparently at some time Gloria was visiting with Carol at her place at Keats.  They were sitting on the porch, with a view of the road in the cottages, when I came into view, apparently trudging tiredly up the dirt road.  Glory remembered Carol saying, "There's Rob Slade.  I don't know why he's not married, because he's such a nice guy."

Gloria also remembered one of our first actual conversations being at Keats.  It was, apparently, at a an anniversary for the camp.  Gloria was walking by the kitchen and noticed me there.  She asked what I was doing.  "Making chili," was apparently my reply.  "Pots and pots of chili!"  I do remember that anniversary, probably the 55th, and that chili. The pots were ten gallon pots (see the earlier section on portion cooking).

So we knew each other, but it was Carol who got us together, as a couple.  It was during 1986, the year of Expo in Vancouver.  Everybody in Vancouver had an opportunity to purchase a season's pass, good for admission at any time to Expo 86.  Pretty much everyone in Vancouver bought such a pass.  I had, and, for the first month that it was open, I went pretty much every day, even if only briefly.  So, reasonably quickly, I visited every single pavilion on the site.  I had, in fact, written up a review of Expo86 as a whole, rating the different pavilions, and noting which ones were worth seeing.

Carol knew that I had a reputation for knowing all about Expo 86.  She also knew, being a very good and close friend of Gloria's, that Gloria had not been able to get to Expo very much.  So Carol started a campaign.  She would tell Gloria that Gloria had not gone to Expo enough, and that Gloria's purchase of a season's pass was a waste if she didn't attend.  Carol told Gloria that I knew everything that there was to know about Expo 86, and that Gloria should get me to take her to the fair.

Then Carol started work on the other side.  She didn't contact me, of course.  She called my *mother*.  She told my mother that Gloria had not seen enough of Expo 86, and that my Mom should tell me to invite Gloria out to Expo 86, since I knew everything about it.  So a date was arranged.  Well, "date" might be pushing it a bit.  I thought that I was taking Gloria around Expo 86 for the evening.  When I got there, not only was Gloria there, but also my parents, and Carol and her husband Larry.  So it was a pretty heavily chaperoned first date, if, in fact, it was a date.

Later that fall, the Senate, unusually, had an evening meeting.  As we were finishing up and leaving, Gloria was also leaving work.  She had had a terrible day.  Not only was she working this late, but a family situation had blown up, and Gloria had been crying.  Her eye makeup had run, and from Gloria's perspective, at the time, she looked terrible.  I noticed that she was upset, and that she was leaving work late, and offered to take her for dinner.  Gloria asked if I would be seen in public with her looking like that.  In the rather extravagant way that I have when I am somewhat at a loss and my relatively limited set of social skills is exhausted I exclaimed, "I would do anything in public with you!"  "Anything?" said Gloria.  "Let me rephrase that," I replied.

If we had an actual date, it probably happened one Sunday, late in December, after church.  I had hung around until everybody who wanted to talk to Gloria had finished talking to Gloria, and then invited her out for lunch.  When we got to the restaurant Gloria needed to use the washroom.  While she was gone, the waitress came over and told me the specials for the day.  When Gloria got back, the waitress came again, to take our order, and asked Gloria if her husband had told her about the specials.  We both ordered, but, after the waitress had left, Gloria, obviously concerned, asked me if I was embarrassed that the waitress had assumed that Gloria was my wife.  I was not concerned.  If anything, I thought it was a little funny: it was an obvious mistake to make.  We were a couple, out for lunch, obviously no longer in the bloom of our youth, and therefore the most obvious assumption would be that we were man and wife. 

But it points out something, that became rather important, later, in both our life together, and in my career.  At this point, before we were married, I had not started my research into security, and therefore my security career.  I am a security maven.  I am an expert in security, and therefore, to a certain extent, in privacy as well.  But, as far back as I can remember, privacy has not been important to me, personally.  Of all the people who say that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from surveillance, I am probably one of the people who really believes that personally.  (Mind you, I tend not to accept that argument, in terms of security, from anybody who is actually wearing clothes at the time.)

But privacy was very important to Gloria.  Gloria has had unkind things said about her for pretty much all of her life.  She was put down about her weight, her size, her appearance, her choices, in very many ways, by very many people, over a long period of time.  She became very sensitive to what people said about her.  Not overly sensitive: I rather suspect that she only really represents the way most people feel about their own personal privacy, their own appearance, their own abilities.  Most people feel this personal sense of privacy.  They don't really know what privacy *is*, but they don't like it when people make comments about them, particularly anything negative.  They don't like it when people talk behind their back.  I represent an outlier.  While I don't particularly like it, I feel that there is pretty much nothing I can do about it, and that, for the most part, it doesn't really affect me in any material way.  Most of the people who are going to make negative comments about me are not in a position to affect my life, my job, my salary, or any particular opportunities that I might have.  So, basically, I have been able, for the most part, to ignore and forget any such comments.  I do care, in some minor way, about what people think of me, but, if it doesn't really affect me directly, it shouldn't matter, and so I don't spend time worrying about it.  The waitress, for example, would not be someone that we would see again, so it didn't matter what she thought about our status.  At least not to me.

But the fact that it mattered to Gloria, did matter to me, particularly after we married.  Therefore, when I was doing something that affected both of us, I made sure that I was protecting our privacy as a couple.  And, because this was a deliberate choice, that I had to think about, it informed my ideas about privacy.  In terms of security and privacy, I was, because I didn't feel any problem personally, able to view situations objectively, without emotions clouding my analysis.  But, because I understood that it was important to other people (starting with Gloria), I took privacy seriously, and did do the analysis.  I think this actually helped with my security career, and my thoughts about privacy in general.

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-602-gloria-storytelling.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-604-gloria-engaged.html

Hair Grief Burst

Sundays, as I have mentioned before, are always difficult.  Partly this is because pretty much all of the volunteer work with which I distract myself from the pain of *being* myself, is not available on Sunday.  Partly, it is because the hymns, which are generally emotionally fraught, in any case, tend to mention things about God comforting the afflicted, and binding up the brokenhearted, and restoring the years that the locust has eaten (well, OK, in reality, no, the book of Joel doesn't tend to inspire too many hymns) when you are not feeling particularly comforted, or bound up, or having had anything restored, is pretty painful.  So it is not terribly surprising that this happened on a Sunday, in a Sunday service.

But it's interesting to see what can trigger a grief burst.  I am not certain, but it seems to me that our memories are more like linked lists than binary trees.  So, it is somewhat unpredictable as to what will get you to a grief trigger.  (The case of a binary tree might be slightly more predictable.)

This Sunday it was a young mother, holding her toddler.  The toddler was playing with his mother's long, straight hair.  This got me to the stories that Gloria told about "Mummy's hair house."  Probably, that wasn't sufficient to trigger a grief burst.  But, thinking about Mummy's hair house, and wondering about what Gloria would have looked like at that time of her life, got me to the time when Gloria was having chemo for Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  Gloria's hair had fallen out, and she had gotten the remainder shaved, but, as this was after the final course of chemo, she had started to get a bit of gray fuzz back, although it was very short.  (This was before Gloria's hair grew back in in an astoundingly curly fashion, and then, rather amazingly, a year later started to straighten out.)  In any case, at the time of the gray fuzz, Hannah had decided to give Gloria back her long hair, by holding her (Hannah's) head over Gloria's, and allowing her (Hannah's) hair to fall down as if it was Gloria's.  We even took a picture of it.

And that was what triggered the first grief burst.  I don't why it was there, particularly, but that's what triggered it.  It was during a hymn that was talking about God comforting the afflicted, and I didn't feel particularly comforted.  But the grief burst came in waves pretty much for the rest of the service.  Regardless of what was going on.  And what was going on wasn't particularly deep, or emotionally fraught.  But I cried, pretty much all the way through the rest of the service.

I don't mind crying out on the streets, when I'm out walking.  Since I am the only pedestrian in Port Alberni, there is pretty much nobody to take note of my tears.  But it also seems to be okay to cry in church services.  I get pretty much ignored in any church services, and even though I have had grief bursts, well, I can't say in *absolutely* every service that I have been in in Port Alberni, but certainly the vast majority of them, nobody takes note of my sobbing, or my tears.  I can cry safely, in any church service in Port Alberni, as long as I don't sob loudly during the sermon itself.  Only once have I been caught crying in church, so, yes, crying in church is pretty safe.

MGG - 6.02 - Gloria - Storytelling

Gloria was a better storyteller than I am.  This is difficult for me to admit, since I am the teacher, and I am the one who gives presentations for a living, but it's absolutely true.  I didn't realize it for a number of years, since Gloria is even more of an introvert than I am.

(I know that my statement that Gloria is an introvert will surprise a lot of people who knew her.  Gloria was a singer, and a soloist.  She had, of necessity, developed a stage presence.  She was also a secretary [or executive assistant, if you prefer], and had, again of necessity, developed a very forceful style that she needed to present when dealing with managers and recalcitrant staff.  A lot of people who knew Gloria only in these environments would be surprised at me saying that she was an introvert.)

Gloria was a better storyteller than I was.  She'd had longer at it.  For one thing, she was older than I was.  For another, she had been on stage since she was twelve (and "off stage" since she was nine: a solo part, behind a curtain, supporting what was going on "on-stage").  As a singer, of course, and particularly as a soloist, she had to develop a stage presence.  She had to develop the ability to deliver patter in between, or simply to introduce, the songs that she was performing.  As a soloist, she was, essentially, part of the leadership team, even if people didn't always see it that way.  She knew her responsibility, and took it seriously, and developed abilities, and styles, that were necessary to it.

Gloria was a singer and a soloist.  But she often noted that, even at the age of twelve, she realized that her gift of song was a gift from God, and that it was to be used in His service.  Gloria did not do light opera, musicals, or community choirs, or the other types of singing that people think of when I say she was a singer.  She sang in church.  She sang in worship services.  She sang to the glory of God.  She told me, on a few occasions, that every time she sang, she understood; she felt; that someone in the congregation needed to hear that song, and was touched by that performance.  (She also said that choosing the right song was not her job.  God was her booking agent, and knew what was needed.  Gloria's job was simply to say yes, when asked to sing.)  Singing was not, for Gloria, just a nice thing to do.  She did enjoy music, but her own singing was a spiritual experience.  On the rare occasions that others could convince Gloria to sing for light opera, or do a concert of show tunes (generally for an old folks home) she neither enjoyed it, nor did it work out particularly well.

Gloria remembered that, when she was very young, she desperately wished that she could be the one who could tell family stories, and particularly the ones that started "[number of] years ago ..."  So she was very alert to storytelling, and she did it well.

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-601-gloria-moving-and-not-moving.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-603-gloria-when-did-we-meet.html

Safe?

I came across this piece, this morning, over on one of the grief accounts on Instagram.  It's interesting that this is part of a posting *sort of* talking about religious beliefs: the fact that her (late) husband was an atheist, and left her with the thought that we die, and that's it, and that she didn't have much background, growing up, about religious ideas or concepts, and it's kind of vague.

But, towards the end, she notes that when you met your "person," it might have been "... the first time you felt completely safe."

And, of course, recently I was talking about the word, and idea, of "safe," and the fact that it's actually a lot more complex than we initially think, and sometimes has inherent contradictions.  In security we examine that idea much more than most people ever do, but even without the security aspects it's complicated.  Just try to define "safe."

Gloria was the safest I have ever felt with anyone.  I could tell her *almost* anything.  But there were still things I *didn't* tell her, because I knew she couldn't handle it.

Which is another reason why I find the piece so interesting.  She talks about "completely safe."  In our world, safety is never perfect.  We are not perfect.  Only God is.  Only God knows everything about us, already.  And still loves us.  So we are safe ...

MGG - 6.01 - Gloria - Moving and not moving

 Gloria was an Air Force brat.  Her father moved the family whenever he got re-assigned.  Even after he left the forces, he still moved the family frequently.  Sometimes even within the same town, since he liked to be close enough to work to come home for lunch.

As I have said, Gloria was moved many times, by her father, and then by her first husband.  When she finally got rid of her first husband (very justifiably so), she rented a townhouse on Baird Road.  She stated that now that there was no man in her life to force a move, she wasn't moving again.

Again, as I frequently say, I told people that the only reason Gloria agreed to marry me, was that I moved into her place, and didn't make her move again.  So we didn't.  We stayed in that townhouse for thirty-four and a half years.

When Gloria went into hospital, the girls sat me down and asked what it would take for me to move, with their assistance, while Gloria was in hospital.  I said I needed to be able to walk to the local library, and I needed internet access.  "That's all?" asked Number One Daughter.  "That's all," I replied.

The girls had had their eye on a place in Delta, close to Number Two Daughter.  Stairs had become an issue of difficulty for Gloria in the townhouse, as it was on two levels.  In addition, getting into the bathtub, for a shower, was a difficulty, as it was a problem for Gloria to step into the tub, in order to do so.  The new place that the girls had found was on a single level, with a ground floor entrance, and no stairs.  At least, no necessary stairs.  It also had a rather large shower enclosure, which would have been perfect.  The girls had gone even further, in assessing this venue.  They told me that I was to look at unit 119, and also unit 105.  They had eliminated all the others.  I chose 105 as being most suitable, and desirable, for Gloria.

What we didn't realize, was that Gloria would rather die than move.  (At least, that's what I tell people.)  At any rate, Gloria never did move into the new place.

But we had, already, moved out of the Baird road townhouse.  In fact, we would have had to have moved out of the Baird road townhouse eventually, regardless.  The townhouse was a part of a parcel that had been packaged for redevelopment.  It had in fact been sold to new owners, and we were under threat of renoviction.  The new owners, wanting to get the best rental price for the townhouse, in the short time before redevelopment took place, decided to renovate every townhouse that was vacated before the redevelopment.

The manager, of the townhouse complex, was a fellow that we had known since he was three years old.  His parents had moved into the complex, when he was three years old, to, themselves, take up the position as manager.  His parents had managed the complex for many years.  When they gave up the management of the complex, he stepped into the position.

You will notice, that he was, at this point, over thirty years old himself, and he had, in fact, lived in the complex, for pretty much all of his life that he could remember.  In fact, the townhouse that he, himself, had lived in had changed.  His parents, had moved townhouses, themselves, preferring a different layout.  So, the one location, in all of his life, that had not changed, was our townhouse, which he had been a regular visitor to, including time when we had been babysitting himself and his sister.

He told me, after I had moved out, that being asked to renovate our townhouse, was the last straw, as far as he was concerned.  He gave up the position as manager, bought a property in the interior, and moved there, to follow other pursuits.  I thought this a bit of an odd reaction, until I thought back, and realized that our townhouse, had been the one consistent thing in his entire life, and our move out of it broke that consistency.

I should mention that, as well as having the same address, for all of our married life, we had the same telephone number.  In fact, Gloria had had that telephone number for even longer, as she had had that telephone number, in the place where she lived before the townhouse, and brought it with her when she moved.  When I moved to Delta, Telus allowed me to move that telephone number to Delta as my home phone, so I did, thereby keeping Gloria's telephone number alive.  But when the girls moved me to Port Alberni, Telus would not allow me to move that number as my home phone.  As a matter of fact, despite strenuous attempts, Telus was unable to provide me any services at all.  However, I did, eventually, get a phone from Koodo, and, as a Telus subsidiary, was able to port that number to my cell phone.  So, I still have been able to keep Gloria's phone number alive.

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-6oo-gloria-introduction-and-glorias.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-602-gloria-storytelling.html

o/' Feelings, nothing more than feelings ... o/'

The Alberni Reach Podcast is taking a bit of a break at the moment.  Apparently, we will be back on January the 14th.  But the last episode got a bit of interesting reaction.

I had been asked to talk about feelings.  Nothing more than feelings.  The person who made the suggestion to me didn't give any other details, other than that we should talk about feelings.  And when I pursued the idea that we should maybe get a little bit more specificity on that, the only additional feedback that I got was that some people seemed to be big on feelings, and other people didn't.  So, because of some related work in regard to emotions (and particularly the work that I have done in developing men's grief support), I figured that I could address that pretty easily.

And so I did, starting with the fact that our society, in general, seems to think that feelings, and emotions in general, are less important than rationality.  Feelings have to be kept under control.  We have to assess our emotions rationally, and then rationally decide on some course of action.  There are, of course, those who disagree, and feel that feelings are important, and should be expressed, and even celebrated.  But those people tend to be in something of a minority, and, in general, are disregarded by the people who run things in our society.  In general, rationality is considered to be superior to emotion.  Feelings are *mere* feelings, and nothing more.  (That wasn't *all* we talked about, but that was where it started, and what's relevant to this piece.)

Which completely ignores the fact that, if we were all computers (or Vulcans) and were completely rational, and not distracted by our feelings, we would never actually *do* anything.  Emotions, and feelings, are our drivers and motivators.  We have just seen an election in the United States that proves this point, and we have seen recent elections in a number of parts of the world that prove this point, and we are facing an election, in Canada, which is undoubtedly going to be run completely on emotional lines.  It's really interesting to live in a society that prides itself on its rationality, and is driving its "rationality" completely on its feelings of the moment.

But that's as may be.  Following the recording of our podcast on feelings, I got, relatively quickly, two extremely interesting reactions.  It is intriguing that, almost immediately, in our society that prides itself on rationality, and from people who obviously, verbally at least, are on the side of rationality, I got two, very similar, reactions that were completely irrational, illogical, and possibly even inherently contradictory.  Having done the podcast, starting right off the top pointing out that we do need our feelings and emotions as motivators for any kind of action, I got one reaction that, while not challenging this point, completely illustrated it.  The person, in commenting about feelings, immediately expressed the opinion that feelings were, in fact, a tool of the devil.  Possibly not in those exact words, but the person was very concerned that our feelings and emotions were, most often, sent to us from God's adversary, in order to distract us from what God wants us to do or think.  This would, of course, mean that feelings are completely untrustworthy, and should be ignored whenever possible.  In other words, feelings bad, rationality good.  Just the position that I had taken to task right at the beginning of the podcast.

And, shortly thereafter, I got another, very similar, reaction.  This one, once again, didn't challenge the idea that we needed both emotion and rationality, but charged right into the idea that feelings were everything (and I mean *everything*) that was wrong with our society.  People feel that they are the wrong gender, and therefore decide that they should switch.  And therefore feelings are the cause of all the problems in our society, and, once again, feelings bad, rationality good.  And I was struck, quite literally, speechless by this assertion.  I couldn't even respond to point out the complete irrationality of this position.  If someone decided to change gender based on mere feelings, nothing more than feelings, how could you ignore the *strength* of those feelings; the pain and the distress that must have driven someone to those feelings?  Changing genders is not easy, even in our somewhat more liberal society.  Changing genders in some societies will get you killed.  But even in our society, you are going to encounter tremendous opposition.  You are going to lose friends, and possibly family.  You may lose your job.  You will undoubtedly lose position and status in society.  Changing genders cannot be easy.  So how is it that you can possibly take the position that the feelings, that you want to change gender, are "mere" feelings; are mere emotionality; in light of the difficulties someone is going to encounter in trying to do it?

It was the irony of this fact; two champions of rationality, making two such similarly, and completely irrational statements; that struck me so forcefully.  They both felt their positions so strongly that they were unable to see the irrationalities, and inherent flaws, in their positions.

Such a position is illogical ...

(Just in case you don't get the subject line ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6vI0uE9iqM)

Proverbs 10:10

Someone who holds back the truth causes trouble, but one who openly criticizes works for peace.

Review of "Book Lovers" by Emily Henry

I guess I have to add Emily Henry to my list of authors to keep checking on for new books.

It's a rom-com.  There are two characters who, predictably, hate each other.  In this case, not because they are too different, but too similar.  It's about books.  It's about people who love books.  It's about editing books.  (I, who have lost my editor, had a bit of difficulty with that.)  It's about the tropes of a rom-com.  It's very well written.

It's about love.  It's about grief.  It's about loss and fear.  It's about home, and losing home.  (And I have lost my home.)

I should hate it, and I don't.  So it's probably very good.

MGG - 6.00 - Gloria - Introduction and Gloria's parentage

At the time I began writing this I was dieting.  I had been stuck, for a couple of months, at about 180 pounds. Every time I even think of that number, I hear Gloria's voice repeating a story from her family history. 

At one point, when Gloria was young, her family lived in the Toronto area.  At that time, her grandparents also lived in the same area.  On one occasion the whole family, including Gloria's grandparents, visited Niagara Falls.  They took the elevator down to the base of the falls.  On the long, long ride down, Gloria's Grama Campbell brightly observed oh, I wonder how far down this is.  The elevator operator replied, as he had undoubtedly done thousands and thousands of times in his career, "180 feet."  When Gloria told this story she always said the "hundred and eighty feet" in an absolutely bored, dead, flat, voice.

Gloria was a better storyteller than I am.

(We'll come back to that.)

Gloria is the daughter of Stu and Sulla Furneaux.

Stu was born in Saskatchewan, and, in common with many of those born in that province, was fiercely proud of the fact.  He was very proud of Saskatchewan, and, despite the fact that he fell in love with BC, and the Vancouver area, always held that Saskatchewan was the most marvelous place in Canada.

Stu was, in many ways, a product of his time and place.  As a bit of a farm boy, he was extremely conservative, both politically and socially.  This extended to the place and position of male and female genders.  Men and boys were superior; women and girls were to be subordinate and supportive.  There were things that men were supposed to do, and pursuits that women were supposed to do.  That was the way it was, and always had been, and the way that it should continue into the future.

Stu was quite interested in genealogy.  He had traced his family line back, supposedly in a direct and unbroken line, to about the 1600s.  He had additional genealogical material and sections, going back to when Roger de Furneaux, who came with the Norman invasion of England, was given a grant of land following the invasion.  The Furneaux name, through the centuries, developed a bewildering variety of forms such as Fernelle, Ferness, Forness, Fornow, and a number of other variants.

You will notice that this fact, of having an ancestor who came across in the Norman invasion, means that his family background originally descended from the French.  Stu very conveniently disregarded this fact.  He was very proud of being a British subject, and was an ardent monarchist.  Any mention of the fact that the Normans lived in what is now France, before they crossed the channel and invaded, was met with strong objections.

Sulla was actually Ursula.  Ursula was a family name, in her matriarchal ancestry, which was the side of the family that Sulla, and her daughter Gloria, knew the most about.  This means that the descent is through Robertson, Hardcastle, and Campbell, thus making the nominal line of descent somewhat more complex.  However, the Hardcastle women paid more attention, and, as women, who hold the family society together, they knew the stories, and the relationships, on the matriarchal side of the family.  The men, who supposedly held the official status, didn't pay as much attention to their own family stories, and so, while a few of them still existed when I married into the clan, they were far fewer, and much less well documented, in terms of the oral traditions.  Gloria had two daughters.  Gloria's brother had no children.  One of Gloria's daughters has a daughter, and that daughter has now produced another daughter.  Great women raise great women who raise great women.

One of the things that Gloria left behind was a scrap of cardboard, the back of an old notepad, with a number of sayings that I recognize as coming from her family, and probably particularly from her mother, Sulla.  Some of these sayings are, in fact, fairly common, such as "bless your pointed little head," which I doubt that either Sulla or Gloria realized referred to microcephaly.  Or "Lord love a duck," which is fairly commonly used.  Or " a lick and a promise," or "if looks could kill," or even "from stem to dungeon," which may not be used terribly commonly anymore but was by no means something that only the family invented and used as a reference.

Lord love a duck

Ship doo crick

Happy any old day

He who is without expectations is never disappointed

Soda in the milk

A man running for his life would never see it

A lick and a promise

We're still breathing in and out

Bless your little pointed head

Love you lots

God bless Safeway and their barbecue chicken

(Clean from) stem to gudgeon

If looks could kill

Some of the phrases, however, did originate solely with the family, and generally had a story attached such as "ship do crick," which was a phrase, possibly originating with Sulla, or even with Larry, and was all that the speaker could manage in trying to reproduce the phrase "shipwrecked crew."  This was used as a reference, within the family, when the person, or more likely the whole family, had been through an ordeal and was feeling tired and wrung out.

Another reference was the phrase "soda in the milk."  This was a reference to a family event and story, when one person's birthday present or party was under discussion, and those who were discussing and planning it, wanted to keep it confidential.  This discussion was going on in the kitchen, among the women of the family, when the person whose present or party was under discussion came into the room, and wanted to know what was being discussed.  Someone thought quickly, and replied that they were discussing how much soda to put into a pan of milk, when you were boiling it, in order to prevent the milk from burning in the pan.  Therefore, from then on, the phrase "soda in the milk" became a family code for "mind your own business--we are discussing you and don't want to tell you about it."

Stu was from Saskatchewan, and Sulla was from Manitoba.  During the Second World War, Stu enlisted, and was sent to military training at a camp near Portage la Prairie.  Sulla was involved with the entertainment of the servicemen who were in training, and dated some of them, including Stu.  Stu, at one point, asked Sulla to marry him.  She said no.  Fortunately for my story, and my life, a week later she wrote back to him and asked to change her answer to yes.  They were married in Portage la Prairie.  In a bit of a tearing hurry, because, before the wedding took place, Pearl Harbor was bombed, and all leaves were canceled.  The wedding was moved up, significantly, and they were married, and immediately headed off, on the train, to Stu's posting in Nova Scotia.  Gloria was conceived in Dartmouth.  Although she was born in Sydney.

As an Air force brat, Gloria was moved from pillar to post, as her dad's postings were moved.  She grew up in various camps.  Even when Stu left the service, he still continued to move the family, frequently.  In fact, he did return to the Air force for a time, and then left it for good, but still kept moving the family.  Gloria attended thirteen schools, in eleven years of schooling.

Yes, that is eleven years.  In those days, there was no kindergarten, and, at one point, Gloria skipped a grade, and so graduated a year early.

Gloria's first husband also moved the family quite a lot.

Part of the results of all this moving was that Gloria got very good at packing.  But another aspect of it was that Gloria really, *really* hated to move.  When we got married, I took to telling people that the only reason that Gloria did agree to marry me was that I agreed to move into her place (by now in North Vancouver), and didn't make her move again.

(See also reference to moving in the last part of https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2021/12/details-on-glorias-last-weeks-in.html, in the Saturday, December 18th entry)

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-551-hwyd-community-policing.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-601-gloria-moving-and-not-moving.html

Romans 16:25-27

Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that is from faith—-to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ!  Amen.

Review of "The Wild Robot"

Like in "WALL-E" and "Short Circuit" the accidentally developed intelligence is benign, and even friendly.  (There is even a theory about why it develops this way, although that theory seems to be clearer in the filmmakers' minds than in the script.)  Unlike "Subservience" and "Ex Machina" it does not immediately try to kill us all.  Like in "Her" the intelligence leaves (for a reason), but like "The Iron Giant" there is a promise of a return.

There are a whole bunch of unanswered questions.  There has obviously (from one scene) been significant sea rise.  Was the island formerly part of the mainland?  Is that why human live in a dome?  Are there any other domes?  How do the humans live?  How do the version of the Three Laws of Robotics result in the killer robots and Vontra?  And why doesn't Vontra get what's coming to her?

But, overall, it's really sweet.

(And probably your only chance to see Mark Hamill playing a bear.)

MGG - 5.51 - HWYD - Community Policing

I am now at the stage in life where I *should* be retiring.  (No, I'm probably not going to get any more quiet.)  I never figured that I *would* get to retire.  And, indeed, I don't seem to be.  I've tried to retire.  Twice.  Neither time did it take.  (The second time this thing called "the pandemic" came along, and I was asked to write another book, and then to write another course, and ...)  I'm not getting paid any more, but I still seem to be contributing to, and therefore seeming to need to research in, the security field.

I *am* doing other volunteer work.  Most of my volunteer work is Community Policing, which is mostly about keeping people alive; and Emergency Support Services, which is mostly about keeping people alive; the hospice society, which, in my case, is mostly about comforting people who are grieving because their people have *not* been kept alive; so it's nice to go out with the trail maintenance crew (currently removing sword fern and salmonberry) or Broom Busters, and, legitimately, *kill* something.

(Then there is the fact that I volunteer with the hospice society, where we deal with people who are facing the worst situation in their lives, and also with Emergency Support Services, where we deal with people who are facing the worst situation in their lives.  Are we beginning to see a pattern in my choice of volunteer work?)

The girls are *vastly* amused that the first shift that I had with Community Policing, after having finished training, was me, as an old man (even though I do try to be hygienic), hanging around the school, handing out candy to students.  And the police were *okay* with that!  Actually I do this fairly regularly now.  Although most of the time I'm the one handing out the apples, rather than the candy. 

I tend to do some of the the odder shifts.  For example, I have had one shift in support of a security presentation at a bank.  I do, as noted, semi-regular shifts at the high school.  This is in support of the breakfast club program at the high school.  But I will be doing another shift, staffing the speed watch van, out in front of the school, in support of the fact that the grade 11s and 12s are going to be getting a road safety presentation.  I don't know whether we, doing speed watch, are simply going to be an object lesson, or whether the students will have time to come up and look over the gear.  Speaking of the gear, another oddball shift that I'll have this weekend[1] is on Sunday morning.  There is a women's hockey tournament, and we are to be using our radar gun (a very *old* radar gun, which we aren't entirely sure still works, but is the only one that actually uses radar and is therefore likely to be able to measure the speed of a small object), to measure the speed of pucks when the skills part of the tournament practices slap shots.  On Saturday, I will be staffing a table at the Newcomers Welcome, put on by the Neighborhood Welcome company, where most of the tables will be occupied by businesses, shilling for business, but we will be trying to point out some of the volunteer organizations and opportunities in town.  A few days later, is McHappy day, and we will be helping out at one of the McDonald's restaurants in town, although I strongly suspect that we won't be terribly much help.  It'll be a visible presence for us, and a bit of a an attraction, or at least a point of interest, for the customers at McDonald's.

Okay, that was a really ... interesting ... second shift[1].  Starting with wondering, as the shift got nearer, whether it was going to happen at all.  But, eventually it did, and we drove around town looking for, well, anything suspicious.  I checked 166 cars, and none of them were stolen.

And then, pretty much at the end of the shift, the driver, heading down a back alley which did not, in fact, go through to another roadway, decided that he did not want to back up half a block down a narrow laneway.  So he decided to turn around.  And dropped the back wheels over quite a steep slope, which lifted the front wheels off the ground.  Even though the car is a four-wheel drive, when none of the wheels actually have much weight on them, it's difficult to move.

Eventually he called a tow truck, and the guy came and pulled us out in a couple of minutes.  But only after the other three guys on the crew decided to throw their combined 500 pound weight against 4,000 pounds of uncooperative car.  All happening in the pouring rain.

OK, at the moment[1] I am the newest member of the Community Policing team (and, as it happens, have currently[1] done the most volunteer hours of *any* member of the crew for this year).  I have done so many shifts that other work has started to suffer.  So, I figured I should pull back a bit.

But, on Friday, the boss sent out a call for the Saturday late shift, which was understaffed to the point that we couldn't send out *anyone* if we didn't get a couple more.  I said that I wasn't keep on a late shift, as I had a pretty busy day on Sunday.  He said that the shift ended earlier than usual: at eleven PM instead of midnight.  I didn't think that was a *huge* difference, but I signed up.

And then, late on Saturday, I realized that it was time change weekend, and, effectively (in terms of sleeping time) it *DID* end at midnight ...

I was supposed to cover the hockey tournament skills event for Community Policing.  (We had been asked to use the radar gun to measure the puck speed for slapshots).  And as I was driving around this morning, I realised that broke two rules.  Number one, I was not supposed to be on a shift by myself.  We *never* do shifts alone, and I'm the newest guy on the team, and I'm not even off probation yet.  Number two, we never do shifts on Sunday.

Oh, well.

Anyway, having gotten to the venue on time, according to the schedule that I had been given, I waited around for half an hour before anybody showed up.  At which point I was informed that the skills event had been cancelled.  A bit of a shock, that.  But, of course, I was already out.  Already had the van out, packed up yesterday[1] after the Newcomers Welcome event in preparation for the hockey tournament event.  So I had to take everything back to the office and unpack the van, so that everybody knew where everything was for the high school event on Monday.  And then take the van back to the RCMP detachment.  So that wasn't great.

[1] - as of that writing ...

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-551-hwyd-patent-trolls.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-6oo-gloria-introduction-and-glorias.html

Sermon 49 - The Advent Candle of Peace

Sermon 49 - The Advent Candle of Peace

Luke 24:36

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

John 20:19

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!"

Uuk klah ma, Rob.  Wikaatla chachimhiy.

We'll come back to that.

Oh good, you are thinking. He can't possibly work grief into a sermon about the Advent candle of peace. 

Oh, can't I?

These days I really hate jokes about marriage, but I have to use one to start this sermon off.

An unmarried man is not complete.  Once he is married, then he is *finished*!

The reason to start off with that joke is the point out that without marriage we are incomplete.  We use this concept in many ways in sermons.  We say that the entire book of the Song of Solomon, in the Bible, is only *in* the Bible in order to illustrate that as a man is incomplete without a wife, so we, as human beings, are incomplete without God.  And when you have been married, and your spouse is taken away, you realize just how *real* this incompleteness is.  The bereaved often talk about the absence of the loved one like the absence of a limb from your body.  You are constantly moving and expecting to put your weight on a leg that is no longer there.  That means you fall over a lot.  In the book "The Grieving Brain," Mary Frances O'Connor makes a distinction between grief and grieving.  Grief is the syndrome of emotions that you feel.  But grieving is a process, the very *painful* process, of learning that everything you depended on when you were married is no longer there, and you have to *relearn* the new reality of a universe where your spouse is no longer there.

And what does this have to do with the candle of peace?  Well, the Hebrew word for peace is Shalom.  Now, when we speak of peace in English, we tend to think of peace as an absence.  Peace is the absence of war.  Peace is the absence of fighting.  Peace is the absence of conflict.  Peace is the absence of disturbance.  In English, peace, however much we want it, is not so much a thing, as an absence.

The Hebrew word, shalom, is very much a thing.  It is a *complete* thing.  It is, in fact, the definition of completeness.  We do have a phrase in English which does capture something of this idea.  It's the legal phrase, "to be made whole."  When we are talking about being made whole, in legal terms, we are talking about restitution of whatever it is that has been taken from us.  And not only the restitution of whatever has been taken, but, additionally, restitution of whatever we have lost from having temporarily had something taken away from us.  To be made whole.  To be made complete.  To regain, or to gain, whatever it is that we need, and lack.  That is Shalom.

But it's even larger than that.  Shalom is used as the greeting at the Friday night dinner, in Jewish homes, that begins the Sabbath.  It is not just peace, but also wellness.  To be made whole, and to be well. To be made well.  To have everything that you need for wellness.  To be complete.  To be whole.  To be well.

But the word Shalom is not the only word for peace in the Bible.  Shalom comes from the Old Testament.  The New Testament was originally written in Greek.  The word for peace in the New Testament, the word used in referring to Jesus coming to the disciples, following His crucifixion, and His rising again, uses the Greek word from which we get irenic.  The Greek word for peace is interesting because it's strongest component meaning is that of rest.

And it is easy to see the need for peace there, as well.  You cannot rest if you are not at peace.  If you try to rest, and your surroundings are not peaceful, you will be constantly distracted and aroused by whatever is disturbing your peace.  Well, I suppose there are exceptions.  When completely exhausted, we can sometimes fall asleep even in chaos.  Number One Daughter, who is the very illustration of the phrase "I'll sleep when I'm dead," has famously been known to fall asleep behind the wheel of the car simply because she is at a red light.

When you go for grief support, following the death of a spouse, the counselors always talk about "self care."  What are you doing to take care of yourself.  And, in particular, they ask about what you are doing to get rest.  It is very important to rest, and allow yourself time to recover.  After one such session, in a group situation, the counselor gave us a homework assignment to think about what we were going to do to give ourselves rest.  We were to think about that, and practice it, in the week between sessions.  One night that week, I was lying in bed.  In the dark.  There was nothing to disturb me.  It was, one would think, the perfect time to rest.  And in the dark, and the quiet, and the lack of disturbance, I thought about the homework, to think about how to pursue rest.  And I realized that I *couldn't* rest, because there was, quite literally, no one to watch over me as I did.  This works out in some interesting ways when you are newly single after having been married.  The normal nicks and scratches and irregularities on your skin, and all the other things that you could ask a spouse to look at for you, when they are on your back, or under your feet, or in embarrassing places, you no longer have everyone anyone to look at, and put a Band-Aid on, or to tell you that it's nothing.  It's okay.  You never know whether you're okay, or not.

That phrase, to watch over, is very interesting.  And the Bible uses it a lot.  I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.  You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.  He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.  The Bible says that God watches over us, and sometimes that is said even in battle situations, that we would normally think of as the very *opposite* of peace.  But this gives us peace.  This gives us rest.  At least, in theological terms.  It still doesn't do you much good if you have cut yourself or scratched yourself, in an embarrassing place, and you have no idea how to deal with it.

In terms of concepts from other languages, it is interesting to note that the Nuu-chah-nulth word chachimhiy is very similar to the word shalom, as well as irenic.  Chachimhiy means "well," or possibly "okay," but it also means safe.  It is there in the official name of the reconciliaction meetings, a reference to a "safe space."  It has these combined meanings of safety, wholeness, and wellness.

I am a security professional, and so the word "safe," and the concept of safety, is very interesting to me.  We, in the field, know that perfection in security is impossible, and so perfection in safety is impossible.  We always know that there are always failures and vulnerabilities, and we also have a concept of layered defence, or defence in depth, which holds that the imperfections of one layer of protection can be improved by adding another layer, in order to make a situation safer or more secure, but we know that we can never get to "perfectly" secure.  This has implications for our understanding of sin, but, in addition, one of the layers is that we also plan for what happens when a protection fails.  We have two modes for these plans: fail safe, and fail secure.  Fail secure means that the system and situation is protected, fail safe means that system functions will continue as best they can, even if in an insecure manner.  What this means, in practice, is that, in some situations, fail secure will protect the system from attack or loss, but it will definitely be inconvenient, and sometimes even dangerous, for people.  The idea of safety, then (and we might be coming back to grief, here) carries the idea that, even if you suffer some kind of loss, you, yourself, are protected from danger.  It is an interesting, if somewhat paradoxical, addition to the idea of peace in chachimhiy.  Are we willing to accept peace, even if it means we lose something?

And so, for Advent, I wish you Chachimhiy, Shalom, irenic peacefulness, wholeness, wellness, safety, and rest.

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Imaginary friends

Look, *nobody* really believes in Moldova, either ...

MGG - 5.51 - HWYD - patent trolls

I am not a lawyer.  I do not play one on TV.  To the best of my recollection, I have never taken a formal course in law.  So, how did I end up so involved with lawyers in court cases?

I got a start with investigation and legal issues, as various points came up in researching computer viruses.  Computer viruses, when I started studying them, were new, and the legal system was massively unprepared for dealing with them.  As various legal issues came up, those of us who were studying and researching in the field would have to find out more and more about the legal principles that prevented prosecutions for various types of legal issues and malware activities that we considered to be criminal.  I also, again because of the computer virus research, was studying aspects of forensics, as it related to where various computer virus authors tried to hide their works.  In addition, there were aspects of investigation that were raised, as various people tried to track down the origins of specific viruses, and, if possible, their authors.

Eventually, I collected this material and first prepared a course, and then wrote a book, on software forensics.  This occasioned more study in legal principles, in order to ensure that I wasn't making drastic mistakes, in writing the book.

And, of course, in discussing the various topics and domains in the CISSP seminars, I had to address questions of why, and why not, as related to investigations and criminal prosecutions.  I also reviewed a number of legal texts that were directed at technical issues.

I don't know how far this goes in preparing you for an occupation as a lawyer, but it has given me a significant background in the law and legal principles.  This was handy in discussing legal aspects in the CISSP seminars, but it wasn't really what got me into working with lawyers.  Although it was very helpful once I had to *start* working with lawyers.

No, what got me started working with lawyers was the reviews that I did of antiviral software.  I was not one of the researchers who made a big name by becoming a great forensic programmer, or being able to pry out the interesting bits of a specific computer virus.  No, my contribution to the field was generally much more mundane.  So many people started asking about which of the various available antiviral products was the best, that I started reviewing them.  I reviewed everything I could get my hands on.  In order to broaden the spectrum of the antivirus products that I was reviewing, I started to build contact information for the various people, and companies, that were producing antiviral software.  This became a resource for the research community, in terms of finding different approaches, and making contacts, when trying to develop new strategies for antiviral protection.  I was writing to these companies, as often as I could, to obtain copies of their particular software.

And that's what got me involved with the lawyers.  Not right away.  As a matter of fact, in doing the reviews of the antiviral programs, I never made any money out of it, and, while I'm sure it was helpful to some people, I'm not sure how important my reviews were in the overall scheme of things.  But I kept pretty much all the software, and antiviral systems, that I reviewed.  Many years later, this turned out to be very important.

I hate patent trolls.  Patent trolls are people, or companies, who think up a new product, and obtain a patent for that product.  They never actually produce such a product.  They have no intention of producing or selling the product.  They're only intention is to sit on the patent until somebody else actually produces the product, or one that is fairly similar.  At that point, the patent troll, holder of the patent, threatens to sue the person who has actually made the product.  The person who has actually made the product, wanting to recoup their investment in developing it, usually caves in and pays the extortion that the patent troll demands.

At one point this started happening with the antivirus world.  Patent trolls wrote up patent applications for various ideas that they thought might be useful in computer virus protection.  They would then sit on the patents, until some company had produced a product that was similar enough to their patent that they could threaten to sue the company.

This is where I came in.  As the patent trolls started picking on larger companies, with deeper pockets, and more access to lawyers, the large companies started to wonder if they could defend themselves against these demands and threats.  The corporate lawyers would go to intellectual property lawyers, who would start doing searches in regard to people who knew about the field of antiviral software, and would, eventually, come up with me.  The intellectual property lawyers would approach me, and ask my opinions of the patent that had been issued, and whether one could defend against it on the basis of prior art.

Generally speaking, the answer is yes.  The patent trolls don't put an awful lot of thought into writing up their patent applications, and their ideas are not terribly original for the most part.  So, when the intellectual property lawyers came to me with the situation, and the patent, and the product, I generally would be able to provide them with actual evidence that a previous program had, in fact, implemented what the patent holder had outlined in their patent application.  Since the products that I was talking about generally predated the application for the patent, this qualifies as prior art.

One would have thought that the situation was fairly simple at that point.  Unfortunately, with regard to intellectual property, nothing is ever simple.  The patent office is a department of the government.  When you challenge a patent, itself, and state that it should never have been issued in the first place, you are saying that the government has made a mistake, and was wrong.  The government does not like to be wrong.  And so, challenging a patent application itself is very difficult.  The government will defend the issuing of the patent, regardless of the validity of arguments arrayed against them, or the existence of prior art.

So, the outcome of these early approaches, in regard to patent trolls, tended to be that the company the large corporation would go to the patent trolls, who had requested 100 million dollars, and say "We could invalidate your patent but it would be very expensive; here's $100,000, go away."  The patent troll, who really hadn't expected to get 100 million dollars, would be happy to get the $100,000.  The corporation, having saved 100 million dollars, is happy.  Both the corporate lawyers, and the intellectual property lawyers, having made tons of money over this entire debacle, are happy.  And the only one who isn't happy is me.

This was a rather interesting experience, with regard to dealing with lawyers, and the legal system.  As noted, generally the outcome didn't involve a trial, so I was never asked to give evidence.  In addition, I was not generally the person who would be chosen as an expert witness for a trial if someone did choose to take the case to court.  An expert witness generally has a far greater sanding in the community than myself.  No, what I was providing was simply evidence.  In fact, the one time that I was called to give evidence in such a trial, I was not called as an expert witness, but simply as a witness of fact.  The large corporation (several large corporations, in this case) was the plaintiff in the action, and the patent troll was the defendant.  The patent troll demanded that I be called as a witness, even though I had simply provided objective evidence, in the form of the programs that represented the prior art that invalidated their patent.  But this led to a few other interesting stories.

First off, there was the matter of traveling.  This case was taking place in the United States.  As I have noted elsewhere, in order to work in the United States, you need a visa.  So, when the lawyers asked me to come and testify, I noted that they would need to write up a letter specifying that I was needed, and that there was nobody else in the United States who could do the work that I was required for, and therefore I should be given a visa for the purposes of the trial.

Even though they were lawyers, and must have had somebody in immigration law in their various offices, the lawyers were loath to do this.  I don't know why: I never did figure that out.  However, they were paying for my time, and for the airfares, so I figured if I got stopped somewhere on route, it was on their dime, and not mine.

On the particular routing that the law office set up for this itinerary, I was changing planes in Toronto.  Again, as noted elsewhere, when you change planes in Toronto from a domestic carrier, to a flight to the US, you have to change terminals.  There wasn't an undue time pressure in this particular case, but it was annoying.  And, you will remember, I have had all these experiences with the border agents, and the TN-1 visas, and, in this case, didn't have the letter applying for a TN-1 visa.  So I joined the line at the US Customs, and slowly moved up until I got to go to a desk.  The person at the desk started with the standard questions: where was I from, was it business or pleasure, what was I going to be doing in the United States.  I explained that I was going to be testifying in a court case.

At this point the entire tenor of the interrogation changed.  The person behind the desk had recently transferred to Toronto from the Mexican border.  About half of his time, while working on the Mexican border, had been spent testifying in court in various cases of people attempting to cross the border illegally, or bring illegal substances into the country.  As soon as he heard that I was testifying in a court case, he was overwhelmed with sympathy for my plight.  He didn't like testifying in court.  He sympathized with my predicament.  We talked about dealing with lawyers.  He was my new best friend.  Needless to say, I did not get stopped at the border.

Oh, but it wasn't over yet.  As I say in my presentation about testifying in court, lawyers are not just in a different occupation from those of us in information security.  Lawyers are pretty much a different *species*.  When we have an issue, usually there is either an answer, or there is not.  Very often we know whether or not there is an answer.  And if there is an answer, often there might be various ways to approach that answer, but, once you have one, it solves the problem.  And that's the end of things.

Not so with lawyers.  Ask a lawyer a question; any question at all; and the answer is probably, "It depends."  A lawyer can never give you a definitive answer.

But that's only one part of the problem.  Lawyers need to know exactly what you will say on the witness stand.  Lawyers need to know exactly the wording that you will use.  This is very important.  A specific word that you might use in answering a question on the stand may invalidate their whole case.  So they have to make sure that you are not going to use that particular word.  But lawyers cannot tell you what to say.  Having the lawyers provide you with a script is known as coaching the witness, and is improper in our legal system.  So, you spend hours, and hours, and hours, with different lawyers, over a period of days, with them asking you questions, and you answering, and the lawyers asking the same questions again, to get you to word your answer slightly differently, and only occasionally saying that you can't say that particular phrase.  I'm sure it's annoying for the lawyers, and it certainly annoying as a witness.

Or, as a potential witness.  In this particular case, there were a number of other people, whom I had worked with for many years, who were all called as the expert witnesses in the case.  I was the only witness of fact, because I had provided the evidence: the prior art programs.  Expert witnesses, at least in American courts, are allowed to sit in on the case.  Witnesses of fact, are not.  It is felt that the witnesses of fact would have their witness testimony tainted by hearing other witnesses of fact giving *their* testimony.  So all of my friends were allowed to sit in on the court case, but I was not allowed to attend, and they were not allowed to tell me anything that went on in the court.  So, when the day finally came that I was supposed to be called to testify in the case, I was put in a little antechamber, all by myself, for a few hours while they dealt with something else.  Finally one of my friends came into the antechamber.  He was grinning all over his face.  He said, "You're not going to testify.  You're not even going to be called."

Apparently one of the lawyers had made some kind of a mistake during the deposition that I had been subjected to, over a six-hour period, about six months earlier.  The patent troll's lawyers had known about this and yet had insisted on me being called as a witness.  But, at the last minute, had sprung on the court the existence of this error, and the fact that it prevented me from being called as a witness.  Apparently, the judge was absolutely livid at the waste of time occasioned by this legal trick.  It didn't actually make any difference in terms of the case: the case was decided against the patent troll.  The patent troll, in taking this course of action, must have known that it would not lead to a determination in their favor, and only did it to make the process that much more costly, and time consuming, for the corporations involved.

As I say, I really hate patent trolls.

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-550-hwyd-computer-forensics-gotcha.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-551-hwyd-community-policing.html