My wife dropped by a thrift store today and got me a copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables, Salem Edition, Printed 1893. It looks “loved,” but is still somewhat readable. All said, it’s in pretty nice shape for a 116 year old.

I enjoyed several authors throughout my schooling. Washington Irving, Henry David Thoreau, Hemingway and Ray Bradbury were among my favorite American authors, but few could compare to Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Hawthorne lived in the early to mid nineteenth-century and had credence that he lived under the guise of a family curse and thus changed his name to separate himself from a family’s controversial lineage – particularly that of his great-great-grandfather who was a judge during the Salem witch trials.

It isn’t by accident that The House of Seven Gables is about a long string of consequences to generational sin that in many ways reflects Hawthorne’s own fears. And it’s an interesting question he poses: Does a person, like Phoebe, who lives out of human kindness and gentleness immune to that curse? His answer is that such people certainly experience pain, but they are redeemed by their own moral quality. Sadly, this is a strong humanistic world view rather than a Judea-Christian one where only God determines the rules that save us from contempt.

Plotlines that reflect the soul of man to reveal anguish and helplessness, bound to evil intent by our own accord, and show a point of resolution through submission to universal moral law is lacking in today’s novels about witches (Harry Potter) and vampires (Twilight). The contemporary books might someday be considered classics, though I suspect it to be more because of a fan base than because of its literary maturity, but they can never be ranked with the eloquent works of Hawthorne.

I seriously doubt anyone would be looking at this blog or reading it unless they’re researching my background or trying to find something disgusting to do to me and my family. My general context of reason is based on the various times I’ve seen first-hand how the most despicable people in our society gather information about their victims. I also have personal experience with friends or family members reading too much into the blogs and causing frustration that really doesn’t need to exist.

So who really reads personal blogs anyway? Voyeurs? I figure everyone is looking for something they can gain through a blog. People who want to live another life aren’t looking to live mine, though I have a pretty good one. Those who are looking for an infatuation fix of the rich or famous need to look somewhere else. I offer only a handful of freebies and I don’t advertise the tools except from within this site. I even turned off google indexing to reduce the number of hits I get.

That all means one thing if you’re still here. You’re either so bored that you’d rather hear the ramblings of a middle-aged software engineer who rants about paranormal activity more than dotNet generic classes and their implication on basket weaving, or you’re wanting some juicy tidbit on me or my family.

So why is anyone looking for me? Why would anyone be reading this terribly dull blog post?

My dad had MIBs looking for him a few times while I grew up. He isn’t associated with aliens, though he’s come up with some pretty fancy technology. Though I never knew of him to have a top secret clearance, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was some special agent in the past and had to sign some sort of non-disclosure agreement that he could never reveal his position to anyone. He really is that smart.

There’s another member of the family who chooses discretion so much that ‘one’ has asked that we don’t even upload pictures of ‘oneself’ on facebook. ‘One’ has had some high security clearance jobs in the past but if I told you any more one might have to kill you … that is … if the government doesn’t get you first.

I might or might not have top security clearance with certain government institutions which shall remain nameless. Unless you’re an investigator that won’t matter to you. If you are an investigator then you already know.

The government already knows what I’m doing. They’re my real-life Santa clause. They know when I am sleeping and they know when I’m awake. If only they’d give some special gifts under the tree (that don’t require tax return reductions like last years’ stimulus package does). So it isn’t a MIB catching up on my life.

So if it’s not the government or an insider or an investigator who’s on this site, it’s either family (who is very peturbed at this post about now – and alerting ‘one’ of my leak), someone who already knows me or a complete stranger who wants to know if he or she can trust me. Those who know me know how paranoid and jaded I can be. I feel sorry for the complete strangers who at this time are probably wishing they never came to this site. I research the background of anyone who I know of that comes here. Possibly before you even came to this site… and if you haven’t guessed it by now, you have good reason to be paranoid just by coming here.