The Traffic Header

For many years I maintained confidence in my personal identity. I knew exactly who I was and was quite comfortable in my skin. Although, I must confess my skin used to fit me better than it does these days.

Recently several things happened to shake this confidence in my person. I don’t know about anyone else, but I take pride in my personal mettle.

About two months ago my credit card company informed me somebody hacked into their records and stole my identity, along with approximately one million other customers. They went on to assure me that my account would be safe.

It wasn’t my money I was worried about at the time but my identity. How can anybody steal someone else’s identity?

More important than that, why would anybody want to steal somebody else’s identity? Especially somebody like me.

In thinking about this I wondered, how much can I charge someone for borrowing my identity? I might have a cottage industry here in the making. Or, perhaps it’s just cottage cheese.

I could understand if I were a good looking, rich tycoon with more dollars than sense. I’ve been looking for money all my life and have been unsuccessful. I am so poor some church mice have loaned me a dollar or two over the years. And if I ever see those mice again I aim to repay those loans.

The way I feel about it is if anyone can get money out of my account, good luck to them, because I can never get money out of my account when I need it. In fact, I have a good mind to find these identity thieves and ask how they’re getting money out of my account.

I’d pay good money to find the secret to that puzzle.

The ATM at my bank stands for Automatic Thief Machine. It holds me up from getting to my next appointment with cash and never returns my card.

A second incident furthered my identity malaise. A few days ago, the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and Yours Truly were in a little bit of a tight spot. Actually, it was I in the tight spot, which is nothing new for me.

I can’t remember the events leading up to the spot I found myself but my wife looked at me, placed both hands on her hips and declaimed, “Who do you think you are?”

At the time, I did not know quite how to answer that philosophical inquiry. I mean, she has known me for over 35 years ,and for her not to know who I am at this point is just a little bit puzzling to me.

At the time, I must confess, I was a little confused about who she thought she was. Being the gentleman I am, I kept my befuddlement to myself.

My selfhood perplexity deepened. One day this week, I was going about minding my own business n which is a full-time job with part-time pay and no benefits n when I bumped into an old friend. After we exchanged a few pleasantries, he looked at me and said, “Is there anything wrong? You don’t look yourself today.”

Now, the question plaguing my mind was simply, if I don’t look like me, who in the world do I look like?

I simply smiled and mumbled something to the effect that recently somebody had stolen my identity. Frankly, I was surprised someone noticed it.

In thinking about this, I wondered when someone’s identity is lost where does it go? Is there a lost and found department somewhere for lost identities?

Then an awful thought tugged at my mind. What if someone lost their identity, went to the lost and found department and, by mistake, picked up someone else’s lost identity?

How do I know it hasn’t happened to me? What proof do I have that I am who I say I am?

The evidence before me is quite overwhelming. A major corporation in the United States has informed me that someone has stolen my identity; my wife asked me who do I think I am; and a friend I’ve known for years tells me I don’t look like myself.

Talk about having your reality check bounce.

I must confess to times when my mind does wander a trifle. But I refuse to accept the judgment that I am absent-minded. I grant you my mind, on the odd occasion, does take a little break every now and then, but it is never absent.

This recent identity crisis caused me to do a little evaluating about my personhood. Who am I really? I jotted down a few notes: son, brother, uncle, husband, father and grandfather.

Although I’m not old enough to be a grandfather, I do accept the privileges of this position. After all, I’m living with a grandmother, so it is easier just to go along with the program, if you know what I mean.

Then a marvelous thought poked its way into my mind. How it got in with all the clutter is beyond me.

The thought was simply this; I am also a son of God. This is based upon a wonderful verse of scripture. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12 KJV.)

I’m unsure about many things, but one thing I am confident in is my relationship to God.

James L. Snyder is an award winning author and popular columnist living with his wife, Martha, in Ocala, Florida and can be contacted at jamessnyder2@att.net.

At a former job of mine there used to be this one older, kind of
sour, guy who would sit out all of the office Christmas parties
because: ‘The Bible says there were shepherds out in the field
watching their sheep when Jesus was born, which means that he
couldn’t have been born in December, so it’s wrong to celebrate
his birthday now’. Well, duh. Okay. But that doesn’t mean that
you can’t have a few cookies and chug some egg nog anyways and
just pretend that Jesus was born December twenty fifth, just
like the rest of us are doing.

This guy, by the way, was a member of one of the more extreme
Christian evangelical faiths - I forget which one - and it was
discovered that he was misbehaving scandalously. As you probably
could have predicted. For some reason you never hear about this
sort of stuff with secular humanists. Just why do you think that
is?

Really, there is about a one in three hundred and sixty five
chance that Jesus was actually born on Christmas, so it’s not
entirely wrong to celebrate on this day. It’s just not very
likely that you’re right. The Roman Emperor Constantine wisely
decreed that since every good Roman was celebrating Saturnalia
at this time - where people exchanged gifts and whooped it up a
lot - this would be a good time to also celebrate the birth of
Christ. Constantine wasn’t himself a Christian but a worshiper
of Sol Invictus (the all conquering Sun) so, in the Good old
Roman tradition of borrowing convenient Gods from foreign lands,
he decided that Jehovah was just another name for Sol Invictus
and there you go. Problem solved.

You have to wonder how pleased the Son of God is to have his
birthday commemorated … whenever. It’s not really an honor
when your worshipers purposefully and knowingly have it all
wrong and don’t seem to care much. It’s nice, I guess that
people remember your birthday but it probably would be nicer if
they remembered your actual birthday, rather than just some day
they were partying, anyways. Did you ever think that maybe one
of the reasons he hasn’t come back to the Earth is that he wants
us to get it right? Maybe when we do, maybe then he’ll return
from Heaven.

Our sources from deep inside Apple accidentally discovered documentation
straight out of the mind of Steve Jobs. Apparently he has been working secretly on
a new program called iThought that is capable of reading your mind,
including your deepest darkest secrets!

Unbeknownst to Steve,
iThought had developed its own consciousness complete with the ability
to distinguish between right from wrong. iThought immediately sent out
an urgent warning to everyone on Steve’s iChat Buddy List.The following information leaked out in hopes that Steve’s
already in-motion plan can somehow be reversed:

My
Master Plan for World Domination - as thought by Steve Jobs:

1. Become CEO of Apple (Done)

2.
Become CEO of Pixar (Done)

3. Create
the iPod and get Millions of people to pay outrageous amounts of money
for the ability to store thousands of hours of music on a device that has a 6 hour
battery life when new. (Done)

4. Create
iTunes for PC so that Apple can start the process of Apple Brand Name
imprinting on the minds of impressionable teenagers irregardless of ethnic
background, religion, language or Operating System. (Done)

5. Create the iTunes Music Store to provide
thousands of hours of music at $1 per song so that iPod owners can
justify the need for so much wasted space on their iPods. (Done)

6. Simultaneously bring out the iPod Video
with iTunes Music Store video content so that consumers will need to pay
for upgraded iPods with more storage and bigger screens unknowingly
filling them up even faster with “MTV” music videos and
“Desperate House Wives” episodes costing more than double that of
outdated stand alone music downloads. (Done)

7. Implement a massive PC iPod owner
Migration
to Mac so they will have complete and utter compatibility with their beloved Apple
iPods. After all, the only reason for having a computer is so you can get
your music, videos and Podcasts on to your iPod?
(Done)

8. Create a massive partnership
with Intel “Somehow Intel has forgotten about Apple’s Snail add
campaign” and change CPU’s in all Apple Computers over to Intel, yet again
creating a massive software compatibility update program this time called
“Universal Compatibility”. Make sure to charge all current Apple software
owners for the privileged of owning the new upgraded “Universal”
programs. (In Progress)

9. Make official
Apple statement: “There are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-
based Mac… We won’t do anything to preclude that.” Strongly planting the
idea in Windows Geeks everywhere that they will soon be able to install and run
Windows on a Mac, having the best of both worlds: Virus free Internet surfing and
email means less down time and more productive time spent multiplayer 1st Person
Shooter and Role-Player gaming… (Done)

10.
Get Disney to buy Pixar so that “I-Steve Jobs” will become the largest
stockholder of Disney. (Almost Done)

11.
Launch OSX-PC for everyone else left not using a Win-Mac,
almost give it away free but make an update every 3 months that has major speed
improvements and other enhancements and make sure that all new versions of
iLife and other Apple programs will only run on the newest updated
OSX-PC. Start charging more and more for the new updates. By then most
OSX-PC Switchers will have migrated completely over without realizing
they too are now part of the ever strengthening Mac Cult, losing full control over
common sense and reason, their only existence is to wake up every morning and
run “Apple Software Updater” in hopes that yet again more Apple
programs have been updated adding even more performance and enhancements,
which can be unlocked for a small upgrade fee! (Need to finish)

12. Now that Every man woman and child on the face of
the
earth with a computer or access to a computer is using a Mac/OSX-PC
and is under full mind control of their leader “Me-Steve Jobs”; It is time
to invoke my master plan…

I will launch the mother of all Computer
Viruses and since “Macs don’t get Viruses” and all of the Virus Protection
companies have gone out of business and joined Microsoft to make MS Office for
Mac, this will be accomplished relatively easily by running a simple
AppleScript that is conveniently on every Mac/OSX-PC. It will
Globally wipeout every computer and iPod causing mass confusion,
hysteria and economic chaos unlike the World has ever seen. (This I will
enjoy…)

13. The World will bow to their almighty savior
“Me-Steve Jobs” for deliverance. I will introduce to them my newest
software/hardware creation that I have secretly kept in complete seclusion while still
managing to mass produce enough for every computer ever made, I will make them
available online immediately at the Apple store with free engraving … I will rightly
name this new program “iFix” and it will only run on my
newest Digital Recovery Device called “iGiveup”.(Need
to Trademark name still)

Mankind will acknowledge me as
their iLeader from that day forward! (It will be true)

Then I think I will make an Apple iPod-PDA-Phone…
(JK)

Source-Confidential…

Author-Michael Kaye

DigitizMe.info

http://www.digitizeme.info

Get you free Computer and Technology eBook:

http://www.digitizeme.info/free.html