It’s “Cyber Monday” today, the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season in the United States. Do you do much online shopping, holiday or otherwise?

• I love to shop online - it’s so much easier to price compare and usually the deals are better.  I especially like the no sales tax and free shipping sites.  Amazon.com and I have a “special relationship!”

Are you a Mac or a PC user? Why?

• I’ve used both - especially when I worked for a time at NMSU.  However, I know my way around PC’s much better.  My home desktop (which I finally upgraded the RAM) was a Christmas gift from he who shall not be mentioned, and I have a small personal laptop which I love.  Although I think that Mac has a better platform, it’s still a PC world.

What website do you spend more time on than you care to admit?

• Flickr - I’m editing and uploading photos on a regular basis and I’ve started to visit my contacts on a daily basis and comment on their photos.  It’s a nice “cyber” relationship…

On a cool day near Venice Beach on the advent of spring I discovered this woman near the back parking lot when I dashed in to get my morning coffee fix before attending a conference. The disenfranchised and poor will always be among us, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t react.

Sometimes, I wonder about my accumulation of “earthly goods.” I like “stuff.” I consider myself to be somewhat frugal, but in reality I know that I surround myself with creature comforts. What is appalling to me is the lengths that people go to acquire material goods.

Don’t get me wrong - I love a bargain. However, I’m not about to get up and stand in line at a store at 5:00 a.m. in a crowd to get one. Are people so blindsided by “stuff” that they ignore fellow humans and trample them to get “stuff?”

Just another reason why I loathe the holidays and wonder about the survival of the human race…

Happy Holidays?

It’s Thanksgiving in sunny Southern New Mexico.  It’s been a difficult year for me with the complications of my broken wrist in April, but I realize that life basically is good and there are many “little miracles” in my day-to-day life.

In order to reinforce that fact, I’ve decided to take a photo a day and express my “thanks” for “30 Days of Gratitude.”

Thanksgiving Day - November 27, 2008:  My twelve year old nephew J. who was diagnosed with lymphoma in September is getting better.  Although he’s having a problem tolerating the side effects of the chemotherapy, all the sites where he had the tumors have come back “clean.”  What a wonderful Thanksgiving gift…