The new reality

Back in the early '20s we first saw the autobots. Since people had become bored with navigating their avatars around their favorite virtual world, WoW or whatever, they automated them. These bots ran around greeting everyone. "Good morning, nice weather", or "Good afternoon, bad weather". This got annoying but it let the real people go back to their real life. I'm not sure the real people actually enjoyed their real life, but there it is.

The next step was an autobot that could roam on it's own and collect money. You will remember BillBot of course, it was so stupid but loveable and could make simple deals that we all went for. Who could resist their own private island? Since BillBot could make them apparently without limit and sell them at least in the beginning he made lots of money. After a while when people (real) realized that the islands were worthless being endless the charm wore off. But BillBot evolved other strategies.

The real breakthrough was when BillBot's "owner" died. His children, wife and other hangers on had no idea that the real Bill had another life. So when Bill's computer was recycled, I heard it ended up in a 419 parlor in Nigeria, BillBot lived on. There seemed to be an increasing number of these bots, but the "game" administrators couldn't be sure. They paid their dues, they were active, they responded to polls and other requests.

The virtual world companies spent more and more (real) money supporting the ever growing communities. Too bad most of the members were bots! Then the whole economy was going to collapse, then the govmnt bailed them out then... Oh, what the heck, I think I'll sit under a (real) tree. Web design for food?

There is a season

Over the last couple years I've missed the seasons, at least the ones I grew up on. In West Africa, we had the big rains, the small rains, harmattan, and dry season. But truth be told, they were all pretty similar, hot and humid, or maybe hotter and a bit less humid. And the sunrise and sunset never really changed much. One astronomer tried to explain to me that even on the equator the length of the days change due to the eliptical orbit of the earth around the sun. That may be, but from a practical standpoint it's 0600 sunrise, 1800 sunset, year around.

Today, in my California home, we are having fall, at least our version on it. After some really hot days in August, 100F + afternoons, then some cooler days, kind of a teaser, then in mid September another really hot week, our indian summer, now it's back to a cool and breezy afternoon. The light is weaker and the sunset sooner and it feels like Halloween.

The Buckeye tree has lost all it's leaves and the fruit are hanging down. The acorns have been hitting Wayne's shed for a couple weeks, but this year not so many. They do hit with a bang however, like a kid throwing rocks against a fence.

I think it will take a full cycle to get myself back into synch. I look forward to the rain and then the greening of the hills and the rush into summer. That's the northern California year that I grew up in, I guess it's in my bones. After all that I hope to feel like I'm back home.