Visiting with Grammie in May, 2011. This was the last time I saw my Grammie.

The last time we were able to visit was in May. You were at home, in your own bed, watching birds and flowers outside in your little garden. You told me of the newest flowers that your children had recently bought for your garden. I saw almost no one else on that 30-minute visit to Cambridge but, by God’s mercy, I did see you. Aunt Cheryl also had the wisdom, perhaps the foresight, to take a photograph of us together. That photograph is now my favorite. Several hours later, as I was on my way back to Montana, I received a phone call and learned that you had been readmitted to the nursing home. I will forever treasure the memory of our visit that spring day.

I have spent the past few days wondering what to write. You were one of my biggest fans as a writer. It was you who encouraged me to continue with my first novella, Treasure Mountain. You were also the first to read the manuscript when I finished, actually you were one of the few ever to read it, and you still managed to find something good to say about what was surely the worst fiction you ever read. You also scoured every newspaper that has published my work to be sure you missed not a word of my writing. How could I do other than to say goodbye for now in writing.

I have struggled to write this letter because no amount of words will do justice to what I wish to say. Your life was too excellent to reduce to several hundred words. Several thoughts do stand out to me though, so I offer them here.

You are one of the best people I have ever known. I don’t know that I have ever heard anyone say a bad word about you. You taught me by your example what it means to live as a good person.

You and Bumpa had a promising career in music and entertaining. I remain certain that you would have gone far and been wealthy and famous. You discovered a higher calling though, and you taught me by your example what it means to forsake all for the sake of conviction and living out what you believe.

You taught me what it means to live a life of influence through service. You have loved others, served others, and had a profound influence on more people than I could ever hope to influence.

You lived a life of integrity and character in a world where these are not common. You taught me what it means to live with character and integrity as defining values.

You taught me to laugh, and to be quick with a witty response. I enjoy making people laugh. You would have been proud of the one-liner I pulled at work on Friday.

Your life also was marked by grace and poise. In trying to define this it occurred to me that you are a lady. You lived your life with such class that I just cannot think of a better term. I have known many good women in my life, each of whom have different strengths and traits. None of them are as much of a lady as you are though. You will always be the standard in my mind when I think of a lady.

You also taught me to love God and the Scriptures. I love the Scripture that reminds us we do not grieve as those who do not have hope. I do grieve your passing terribly, but I also have hope. I also love the psalm which reminds us that precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of one of His saints. I may mourn that you are no longer with me on this earth, but God rejoices that you are now with Him – which is much better.

The power of a life lived well cannot be overstated, but it can be appreciated, emulated, and celebrated. Thank you, Grammie, for living well. I love you, and I look forward to the day when we meet again and you can take your firstborn grandson for a nature walk through heaven. Until that day, I will treasure the memories we share and continue to celebrate you for there is no one like you.

Note: I wrote and published this letter today for my grandmother, Clara “Bonnie” Collier Campbell Witham. My dear Grammie went home to be with the Lord on Tuesday, January 24, 2012. This is a brief, and grossly inadequate, letter in her memory.

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Microsoft still doesn’t get it. I thought for a little while that, perhaps, the software behemoth had finally begun to grasp it, but apparently I was naively optimistic. Microsoft, for all appearances, seems to be trying to just get by until Mac and Linux somehow fail and leave Microsoft once again without any meaningful competition. Of course, we all know that ain’t going to happen any time soon.

Crisis

I was recently faced with the annoying necessity of replacing an aging PC laptop before it crashed one time too many. (It since has crashed one time too many.) Since I work from home part-time and in the office part-time this replacement really needed to occur before the old computer crashed and left me sans-computer with a looming deadline. Since I use Mac at work, I was tempted to just convert to Mac when I replaced the computer. Unfortunately, since I had not planned to replace the computer when I did, a new Mac just wasn’t in the budget.

Starter

My research into replacement options enlightened me to Microsoft’s new marketing gimmick for Office 2010 – Microsoft Office Starter 2010. This version of Office is shipping on new PCs with Windows pre-installed. Microsoft essentially offers a stripped-down version of Word and Excel, bundled into this Starter edition, free with new PCs. Microsoft also embeds advertising in Office Starter 2010 to annoy users generate revenue.

Since the built-in limitations of both Word and Excel were clearly explained, and since the advertising policy was also clearly explained, this sounded like a fair deal. Honestly, the included versions of Word and Excel would handle somewhere between 99 and 100 percent of what I do with an office program anyway. I didn’t figure I could go wrong. I have been using OpenOffice.org and, more recently, Libre Office for years and rarely use more than the most basic features of these programs either. Lately, I do the vast majority of my writing (including this article) in FocusWriter – a free, zenware writing application that works with files in either .rtf (rich text) or .odt (open document) formats.

Microsoft offers the option to upgrade to the professional version of Office at any time, thus removing the limitations on this software. At the least, this approach sounded better than the trial period approach to evaluating software. Users can upgrade when they need additional features or get tired of the annoying advertising banner.

Features

I was generally satisfied with Microsoft Office Starter when I first tried the program. As I mentioned though, I don’t need to do anything fancy with it either.

I was pleased to discover Microsoft finally figured out that people actually export documents as PDF. Finally, Word offers PDF export without needing to install a third-party utility. Microsoft is only years behind the free programs on this feature. Truthfully, this is the one feature that initially pushed me toward OpenOffice.org and away from Word – quite a few years ago.

Failures

Unfortunately, I quickly tired of using Microsoft Office 2010. The user interface is horribly cluttered and distracting. Several other writing programs I have tried (and currently use) provide users with a full-screen option. In my opinion, full-screen is the only way to write now that I have experienced the pleasure. Full-screen mode eliminates all the clutter and leaves a writer with a keyboard and their words – rather like a typewriter did in years past. Certainly not all users of Microsoft Word 2010 would care about or use a full-screen option, but some writers most certainly would. Whether everyone would use the feature is not the question though. The question is why Microsoft waits for years to implement a simple feature that their competitors already offer – for free.

Microsoft also introduced another “feature” with Office 2010, something Microsoft calls Click-to-Run. I prefer to call it Click-to-Crash. In theory, Click-to-Run allows users to download and install a minimal feature set, and the program will download additional features when you attempt to use the feature for the first time. In theory. In practice, Click-to-Run seems to download some new feature every time anything is clicked – and this process does not stop after a few days (by which point the program would presumably know how to open a file or insert a picture into a document).

Attempting to perform any task or command that activates Click-to-Run causes an information balloon to pop up with a message:

“Microsoft Office is downloading the required feature Microsoft Office may appear unresponsive temporarily as the required files are downloaded.”

No, Microsoft Office does not appear unresponsive temporarily. Microsoft Office is unresponsive. Whether Microsoft Office is unresponsive temporarily or is unresponsive permanently is the only question.

The persistent unresponsive states are bad enough. Microsoft does not bother to warn users in advance that their new bright idea will require a constant broadband connection though. The suggestion from Microsoft documentation is that a broadband Internet connection will only be necessary when new features are being downloaded. Thus, according to Microsoft’s own documentation, users should be free to disconnect while using features that are already installed. Not so. Instead, the program looks for an Internet connection every time just about anything is clicked and, not finding a connection, promptly crashes.

Internet searches reveal too many reports of similar problems with Office crashes to count. Microsoft seems clueless as to what causes these problems if their own support forums are any indication. In any event, it is not an isolated problem with my PC.

Microsoft Office 2010 also presents users with a horrible user interface that limits menu options and hides too many features under the “File” tab – which is really an entirely separate page rather than a menu item like one would expect. Something as simple as viewing the document properties requires accessing the File page, while something as simple as obtaining a character count, somewhat useful for writers, requires multiple steps and the opening of the File page and then the properties dialog box. Microsoft is apparently unaware that most programs allow users to view this from the menu bar. Good programs, like the FocusWriter application that I currently use and several others like it, allow users to view customized character and word counts in the status bar at the bottom of the page.

Grade = F

Why write another article bashing Microsoft? It is easy to hate Microsoft, but that is not why I wrote this article. Actually, I was excited about this product and thought Microsoft was finally beginning to compete with Apple in delivering an OS that “just worked” out of the box.

Ultimately though, I was again disappointed with Microsoft. One might reasonably assume that Microsoft could handle shipping an OS with a functional office suite. Sadly, Office Starter is functionally useless because Click-to-Run is really Click-to-Crash. The program is more frustration than it is worth. Further, like many people, my only computer is a laptop and I am not always connected to the Internet. Why does Microsoft Office need to again download something every time I click on the File tab?

Microsoft seems to rely on the assumption that they beat WordPerfect at the office suite game so they can now release lousy software and businesses will just keep buying their software because Office file formats are the industry standard. There are several problems with this assumption. First, this is the era of open source. There are already competing products that provide more features than Microsoft Office – for no cost. Second, Office format is no longer the standard. That distinction now belongs to the open document standard – as it should.

Microsoft Office Starter 2010 is another fail for Microsoft. This software is unstable, lacks basic features like auto-save and full-screen, is adorned with a dreadfully cluttered interface, and ultimately fails to impress – a big problem if they want people to pay money for this program rather than using better featured, more stable, open-source options.

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I have a confession to make. I have a love/hate relationship with automobiles.

Truth be told, I have owned a number of vehicles since I received my driver license at the age of 16 and immediately retired my trusty 10-speed bicycle. Some of these vehicles were memorable, some were quite forgettable, and a few are in a special category which I wish I could forget, but cannot. Despite the fact that I have owned and operated cars for my entire adult life, I am steadily becoming more convinced that, as a nation, we need to start parking our cars. Permanently.

We have a problem in the USA. We are addicted to automobiles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) statistics for 2009 reveal that there are nearly 259 million registered motor vehicles in the USA and 209 million licensed drivers (yes, that is 50 million more vehicles than drivers). American motorists traveled nearly three trillion miles during 2009. This is a lot of vehicles and a stunning amount of mileage.

This automobile addiction, like other addictions, carries great costs. Unfortunately, these costs that are not always readily apparent. Some costs of our automobile addiction are obvious; other costs are hidden, or at least easily overlooked, and thus potentially ignored.

Budget programs (and most people) typically think of auto expenses as a budget category by itself, rather than as a subcategory of transportation, revealing the extent to which we are addicted to the automobile and consider it an indispensable part of life. Even transportation is an optional category as we are equipped with feet to transport us around our planet. Some communities, such as the Hanover/Lebanon, NH area now offer free public transportation around the area further eliminating the need for owning a vehicle.

Obvious costs of automobile addiction

Our national automobile addiction carries certain costs that are obvious. These costs are difficult, if not impossible, to ignore or miss – no matter how much one might wish to pretend otherwise. Nonetheless, I think these “obvious” costs are worth mentioning here as it is quite possible to become so accustomed to something that it is taken for granted.

Consider these obvious costs of automobile ownership:

• purchase cost (and rapid depreciation of the “asset”), or down payment and monthly installment payments
• automobile insurance
• maintenance and repairs
• fuel
• parking fees
• tolls

Automobile ownership accounts for a significant percentage of the household budget for many families as the obvious costs of automobile ownership accrue rapidly. Many families now spend hundreds of dollars each month just on gasoline for their automobiles. Adding in the other costs of automobile ownership amounts to a staggering sum.

The average person drives 13,476 miles per year, according to the US Department of Transportation. Data from the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that, while new passenger cars are much more fuel efficient than cars were even a few years ago, the fuel efficiency of the average vehicle on the road hovers around 20 miles per gallon. The current national average for unleaded gasoline is $3.299 according to the GasBuddy website. Crunching these averages tells us that the “average” motorist in the USA can plan to spend $164.95 per month just on gasoline. Obviously, a household with two average drivers – and there are many – could reasonably anticipate spending more than $300 per month just on gasoline.

These obvious costs of automobile ownership are staggering. Driving an older-model car that is paid for, shopping carefully for insurance, being careful to avoid wasted mileage, and carefully maintaining the vehicle to avoid wasted expenses still equals many hundreds of dollars per month in transportation expenses. Needless to say, these automobile expenses force families to make cuts in other areas where money could be better spent – budget categories like housing, food and health care.

Hidden costs of automobile addiction

The American automobile addiction also carries significant hidden costs. These hidden costs can include issues like health costs and social costs.

Health costs

Health costs of automobile dependency include traffic fatalities, obesity, and related diseases. Traffic crashes kill, injure and maim a staggering number of people each year. Motor vehicle dependence also contributes to many other health problems that are a scourge to the entire nation.

Motor vehicle dependence promotes obesity as we drive or ride places rather than walking or cycling. The obesity epidemic in the USA also brings a host of related diseases and illnesses, with everything from diabetes to cancer being linked to sedentary, overweight lifestyles. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 33.8 percent of American adults are currently obese. Roughly 17 percent of children aged 2 – 19 are also obese.

The ultimate health cost associated with motor vehicles is motor vehicle-related death. During 2009, NHTSA reports that 33,808 people were killed in automobile-related crashes This number includes 4,872 non-motorists – mostly pedestrians and cyclists. The fact that these numbers actually represent an improvement in traffic death rates from previous years is little consolation.

Taken together these health costs represent a staggering price to pay for automobile dependence.

Social costs

The social costs of automobile addiction include suburbia (room to park cars), strip malls (room to park cars), the loss of community businesses, and the loss of neighborhoods with neighbors who know one another.

Poor infrastructure planning contributes to dependency and retards better alternatives

Many (most) roads and business/service accesses are designed for automobiles, making it difficult or impossible for cyclists and pedestrians to safely navigate streets. Even when cities do add public transportation, bike paths, bike lanes, or sidewalks it is often an afterthought rather than a core infrastructure component.

The bulk of US transportation funding is dedicated to highways, rather than to public transportation like train or bus service, or to cycling and walking options. Since the US government subsidizes road construction and maintenance, it presents a skewed picture of the actual cost of maintaining that infrastructure rather than investing in better options.

The USA has long fostered an attitude that automobiles are superior to walking/cycling/public transit. This cultural attitude discourages alternative transportation, and contributes to an attitude of disdain toward anyone not in a motor vehicle, thus creating safety issues for pedestrians/cyclists/public transportation users. Anyone who has ever tried to navigate poorly designed streets is already too familiar with this situation.

Rising fuel costs may be the only impetus imaginable to force people to park their cars

Fuel costs now make up a significant portion of many household budgets. My own household, which owns only one used sedan averaging 30 mpg and carefully combining trips, still spends just as much on gasoline as on food each month. Many households certainly spend more.

When monthly fuel costs equal hundreds of dollars it does not take a significant percentage increase in fuel prices to significantly impact household budgets. This creates uncertainty, stress, and financial insecurity for many families.

It is likely that no other force will have a greater impact on compelling Americans to park their cars than rising fuel costs. Sharp increases in fuel costs have been shown to affect driving behavior during recent years. Rising fuel costs could easily be the impetus that causes motorists to consider ways to park their cars and employ alternative methods of transportation.

Once people begin to utilize alternative transportation, the excessive cost of automobiles begins to come into focus. This awareness may also prompt greater support for policies that favor non-automobile transportation solutions, like public transportation routes, bicycle and pedestrian paths, and automobile-free zones.

My current situation

My current situation is one of owning a very used automobile. I presently live in area where walking or bicycling down many roads would be a suicide mission. Motorists traveling along at 70 mph (yes, that is the legal speed limit on secondary highways here), no shoulders along the road, and irrigation ditches immediately adjacent to the roadway all combine to make walking and bicycling quite dangerous. Public transportation in this area is laughable.

I was without a vehicle for some time last winter while I lived in another community that provided free public transportation. Zipcar also had a few hybrid cars conveniently parked within walking distance of a nearby bus route. This worked out quite well for me. Unfortunately, my wife is battling cancer and it did not work out so well for her – particularly during winter months. We ended up purchasing a very used, fuel efficient sedan for her safety.

My future plans are a toss-up between moving to a community where it is practical to not own a vehicle or ditching the house altogether and going the full-time RV route. That may seem contradictory to this article, and in a way it is, but my tentative plan of limited travel (and limited fuel expenses) would still save quite a bit of money over renting a house and utilities, and owning and maintaining a car. Careful planning would also allow my to spend less on fuel than I currently spend.

So, I am stuck with a car for now, but hopefully will not need one in the foreseeable future. I very rarely missed having a car when I did not have one last year. I ordered what I needed from Amazon and walked to the post office to retrieve the package. I also walked to the corner grocery store with a backpack every few days for food supplies. I look forward to parking my car permanently and either not owning a motor vehicle or living out of a motorized home which I only move every few months.

Feedback

What are your experiences with parking your cars? Have you attempted a car-free lifestyle?

Related posts:

1. How to spend less at the gasoline pump

Starting a Web Design Business has been priced at $.99 for quite a few months. I am now making the book available at the same price, but as an instant PDF download. Starting a Web Design Business covers the critical steps in starting a web design business and is based on my own experience as a web design freelancer for 1o years.

Home-Based Business You Can Start Today was originally priced at $9.99, and has been gradually incremented down to $2.99. Today I also dropped the price on this e-book to $.99 while also making it available for instant download as a PDF. Home-Based Businesses You Can Start Today profiles 65 different business ideas for the home-based entrepreneur.

• Read more about Starting a Web Design Business
• Read more about Home-Based Businesses You Can Start Today

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1. Starting a home-based web design business

I wrote candidly about my difficulty with Nativity season readiness two years ago in an essay titled Advent Lessons Confessions. Apparently the old adage about “the more things change the more they stay the same” remains true. Here I sit, Sunday before Nativity, no more ready for the season than if it were still mid-summer.

The reason for the season

I was raised in a religious home, “growing up Christian” as much as it is possible to do so, with every Nativity season marked by a transition to Christmas carols rather than the regular hymns – as well as the requisite Christmas Eve service. During years where Christmas Day fell on Sunday, we would still trudge off to a morning church service, though the earlier Sunday School classes would certainly be canceled. Protestants in the 1970s and 1980s, at least we Evangelical types, had some form of adjustment to the usual routine during December to help reinforce the point that there was a reason for the season – and shopping and gift-giving were not that reason.

My parents even made a point of always having a “birthday cake for Jesus” as part of our holiday feast to help reinforce the reason for the season at home. My parents made certain – through conversation, decoration, and practice – that we children remembered that this was really all about Jesus and His Incarnation. I would assume, based on anecdotal evidence alone, that the reason for the season was more obvious in my home than in the homes of many of my peers.

Nonetheless, despite family and church structures designed to remind me of the reason we were celebrating Christmas, I can’t say that the Nativity season has ever had the focus that I wish it had in my life. I have never forgotten Who and what Christmas is about, but neither has the season had the transformative impact and effect which it deserves.

This was my experience for the first 30 years of my life. My experiences have only become more complicated in the years following.

Bah! Humbug!

It is an interesting twist that as I have become more deadened to the seasonal cheer that accompanies our cultural celebration of Christmas I have also come to resemble Santa Claus. (Except for the old man’s girth – I am on a diet.) Over the past two years I have grown my hair out so that it is now shoulder-length when down, and have also grown a full beard. My hair and beard are somewhere between white and salt-and-pepper gray. So, in all honesty, I am told on almost a daily basis that I look like Santa and should moonlight as a mall Santa this year. In reality though, I might make a better Scrooge.

I really don’t go around saying, “bah humbug” each Christmas season. There is a part of me that is dead inside though, and this dead part of me just doesn’t care if Christmas comes and goes or if we skip it altogether. Actually, I would prefer to skip.

This is not a struggle that I fight alone. The reasons for my struggle are different from the reasons for another’s struggle because each person’s story is their own. Mine stems from divorce, while other people may struggle due to a death or some other type of separation.

In my case, holidays will never be as they were when I was young. I have fond memories of the entire family gathering twice each year for feasting and reunion. My holiday memories are very traditional in that sense, but they are memories only and not destined to be repeated. In other words, holidays disappoint. The cultural Christmas, the one we celebrate in song and story, is a fantasy for many people – a disappointing fantasy.

My historic attempts at spiritual experience during the Nativity season – no matter how imperfect – were aided by, and intertwined with, cultural and family Christmas traditions. Those traditions and experiences, now shattered, are no longer available to help me focus on the Incarnation. Instead, as I avoid cultural holiday traditions that are painful, I find myself without some helpful reminders that there even is a season. It is not so much that I forget Him Who alone is the reason for the season, but rather that there even is a season that has a reason. I don’t get wrapped up in cultural expressions of Christmas – I just abhor holidays and dread their occurrence.

Liturgical envy

This is one point where I find myself experiencing liturgical envy. I am certain that I will shock some people with this statement. It has been a long and slow journey, but I have come to appreciate liturgy.

Liturgical churches have liturgies that follow the church calendar. This serves to prepare people, at least those people who wish to be prepared, as various seasons approach – times like the Nativity season or Pascha. It would be impossible to miss the approach of the Nativity season in a liturgical church.

I attended Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church while I lived in New England this past winter. The Orthodox Church has a beautifully complex liturgy that has been refined over the past two millenniums, but is also substantially unchanged from the liturgy used by the Church during the earliest centuries. This was my first experience with a sacramental, liturgical church and the experience did not leave me unchanged.

To be honest, as I grow older I also become more willing to admit my own failures and imperfections. I need all the help that I can get when it comes to spiritual development, and liturgical structure is truly useful in focusing during special seasons. There is probably a reason why the Church has seen fit to continue using liturgy for 2,000 years – with the notable exception of some Protestant groups over the past few hundred years.

If we are faithless, He remains faithful

Every year I purpose to be more spiritually prepared the next year. Every year I also frustrate myself with my failure to be more spiritually prepared. My intentions are good and noble, but my ability to be faithful to my intentions is lacking.

Fr. Thomas Hopko offers interesting commentary on the genealogies of Jesus provided by St. Matthew and St. Luke in their Gospels. Fr. Thomas writes, “… God is faithful to His promises even though His chosen people are often not faithful. Among the people from whom Jesus came are both sinners and heathens. In a word, Jesus comes not only from the righteous and holy, but from the wicked and sinful. And He comes not only from Jews, but from Gentiles. The names of the four women specifically mentioned in St. Matthew’s list– Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba)– were noted, not to say notorious, Gentiles, including one of David’s own wives, the mother of Solomon. The point to be seen here is one beautifully made in an early Christian hymn quoted in the Bible in the second letter to Timothy…”

“This is a faithful saying:
For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him.
If we endure, We shall also reign with Him.
If we deny Him, He also will deny us.
If we are faithless, He remains faithful;
He cannot deny Himself.”

2 Timothy 2.11-13 OSB

“If we are faithless, He remains faithful’; He cannot deny Himself.” I am so glad.

Jesus is always faithful, even when I can’t seem to get it together – because of Who He is. It is His nature to be faithful. Who Jesus is does not depend on my ability to get it together; rather, my ability to get it together depends entirely on who Jesus is.

This, indeed, is good news this Nativity season. The One who took on human flesh and became man also demonstrated His faithfulness during His life, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension back to the Father. He who alone is the reason for this season is faithful even when I am faithless, disappointed, and distracted.

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