Using a Password Manager

Keeping track of logins had become a source of stress and frustration for me years ago, but since I’m a glutton for punishment, I did nothing to change the situation: I kept a six-page list of usernames and passwords that I’d printed from an Excel spreadsheet (deleting the file, of course) and on which I had scribbled in a multitude of additional logins over the past several years. Goodness, I had a lot of passwords to keep track of.

But no more! I finally bit the bullet and subscribed to a password manager – Bitwarden in my case – and after a day of figuring things out and entering all of my information, I’m happy to say that I am positively giddy about my decision.

I’m no expert, so I encourage you to read more on-line, but in a nutshell a password manager keeps track of all of your logins, allowing you to change passwords quickly and safely (and to ones that are more challenging to hack into).  All you have to remember is one master password to log into your manager.  That’s it. If all goes according to plan, I will remember just one password for the rest of my life. This will no doubt come in mighty handy as I age, as there have already been times at Target when I froze because I couldn’t immediately recall my 4-digit PIN.

If the thought of having one service storing all of your data scares you, you are a wise person!  Read on.

It was tricky to know which password manager to use; I spent hours going down the rabbit hole of professional reviews, user reviews, ratings, features and costs, and it quickly became overwhelming. Ultimately, I decided to go with the one CNET described as the best free password manager – Bitwarden.  I have no problem paying for a service, and I may eventually upgrade to one of Bitwarden’s premium subscriptions, but I figured I had nothing to lose by just trying out the software and seeing what it’s all about.

I set up my account and immediately didn’t know what I was looking at. YouTube to the rescue! I don’t know the guy’s name who posted the following videos for the Password Bits channel, but his instructions were impeccable:

Bitwarden Beginners Guide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30QqIeb1Pu4
Using Bitwarden on Android https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyqxR20I1NY

I followed these instructions almost to a “T”, deleting my saved passwords on Google, as well as my stored credit card information, and proceeding from there. I first got everything working seamlessly on my desktop and then set things up on my mobile device. Things don’t run quite as smoothly on my Android – I often have to do an extra click or two, and occasionally have to copy and paste a password – but it still works quit well, and I can open Bitwarden with my fingerprint. I suspect I’ll eventually get a finger scanner for my desktop so that I don’t have to use my master password on that either. (But keep in mind that if you NEVER have to enter your master password, you will likely forget your master password. This could come back to haunt you.)

Speaking of master passwords, if you lose yours you are screwed. Seriously. Your password manager will not be able to get it for you. Because of this, I have a copy of mine saved in my safe deposit box just in case. You could also ask a friend or loved one to keep a copy for you someplace safe. As for the rest of my passwords, for now I still have the six-page sheet in my house, but as I start to change passwords to safer word/number/character combinations, that sheet will become obsolete and shredded.

As for the legitimate safety concern of storing all of your passwords in one place, I encourage you to read this article and several others to help guide you to a decision that’s right  for you. 

ALSO, keep in mind something called the Double Blind Password Strategy.  This is a fantastic idea, and one that will ensure that your most sensitive login information – perhaps for banking, investments, email and social media – are never breached, even in the unlikely event that someone manages to access your password manager account. I will be utilizing this strategy once I get everything set up and synched with my wife’s account.

With Bitwarden, you can share logins with your partner for free, or with your family for a very reasonable fee.  So once I get my spouse set up, we will have shared access to some of our common logins, like travel and shopping websites.

If you’ve been on the fence about using a password manager, I strongly encourage you to hop off and give one a try.  It sure beats the alternative stress-inducing password management system: one’s brain.

Time Loop Fantasy

Two months after delving into the fantasy of time travel, I’d like to address another fun fantasy scenario: that of living in a Groundhog Day-type time loop.  I think we can all agree that reliving a day in Punxsutawney circa 1993 would have been a challenge, though Bill Murray’s character gave a good go of it in the aforementioned movie.  But existing in a time loop prior to widely available internet and streaming services would certainly limit your options.  Even worse would be living in a time loop in, say, rural Nebraska in 1890. Or in 2020-2021 during the worst days of the pandemic!  Fuggedetaboutit!  But fast forward to the 2020 film Palm Springs, which deftly borrows the Groundhog Day synopsis, and it doesn’t seem nearly as awful to be stuck in time.  For one, Andy Samberg’s character has a time loop partner in Cristin Milioti, and Cristin’s access to the internet allows her to discover how to escape their predicament.  Still, the city of Palm Springs is not a booming metropolis with much to offer, and if you had to live in a time loop, you might choose to pull the levers of circumstance just a bit to make eternity not only bearable, but even a palatable sentence.

Unlike the time travel question I posed two months ago, there aren’t a multitude of rules to consider in a time loop fantasy; only that no matter what you do, you wake up at the same time on the same day in the same location as the day before, without end.  The only additional wrinkle is that for the purposes of this exercise, you’ll have the luxury of knowing in advance that you’ll be stuck in a time loop and therefore have the ability to prepare.  What do you choose to do?

For me, I would choose to live more or less in the present day, but before or after the worst of the pandemic.  Let’s have all the restaurants and stadiums open at full capacity.  Let’s put masks and social distancing behind us.  And let’s make air travel as easy as possible.

Speaking of air travel, this is an essential element to living happily in a time loop, so residing close to a large airport is number two on my list.  I currently live 20 minutes from O’Hare, so I’m in good shape, but it may be useful to live on the East Coast, which opens up all sorts of interesting locations to visit in the U.S., not to mention much of Europe.  Hell, you could hop on an early departure from JFK and reach Paris in time for dinner.  Chicago would of course be a better bet if you needed access to the western United States.  Or maybe you’d choose to live in Europe, where visiting a multitude of countries is within reach.

I would stick to the U.S., but regardless of location, I would then choose to relive a beautiful 70-degree Saturday in September.  The importance of the weather component is obvious, and the request for a Saturday is multifold.  First, I could visit 15 different MLB ballparks and scores of college football stadiums to take in a game.  I’m not a huge college football fan, but in the midst of an eternal time loop, I could become one. Furthermore, some museums, businesses and restaurants are closed on Sundays, as are banks, so Saturdays offer more flexibility.  Also, concerts, plays and musicals are more plentiful on Saturdays, and I could probably spend hundreds of days traveling to see a different act each night (this does strengthen the argument to reside in New York, though Chicago wouldn’t be a bad option).  Finally, traffic isn’t so bad on Saturdays, so I wouldn’t have to spend a good chunk of eternity stuck on a U.S. Highway.

Like Adam Sandberg’s character in Palm Springs, I would want someone to be stuck with me in my infinite time loop.  In my case, that’s my wife.  Sorry, honey!

Prior to the time loop, I would transfer all of our money to an easily-accessible bank account, and I would make sure that our credit card balance is at zero so that we could take advantage of our full credit.  We could then of course choose to spend as much money as we want on any given day, knowing that the money will be available to us the next morning.  Buying a last-minute first-class ticket to London would be of no concern.  We could eat at the most expensive restaurants in town (assuming we could finagle a reservation, but my guess is that dropping a few thousand-dollar bribe to the host would get the job done at most places), buy a sports car for the day, get front row seats to a concert, or walk downtown and give each homeless person a couple of grand that they could enjoy for the day.

During our time loop, we could watch practically every movie known to man, listen to every piece of recorded music, and read every book we’ve never had time to read.  Sure, we’d have to repurchase it every day to get to the end of the book, but who cares?  We’ve got nothing but time! 

We could also visit all three of our kids, though not for as long as we’d like.  It might behoove us prior to our time loop sentence to ask our kids to move close to us (this would likely take some convincing).  That way we could invite them to join us on whatever adventure we choose.

The above may not make as interesting a movie as Groundhog Day or Palm Springs, but it would be a much more pleasant sentence than enduring a cold shower each morning in frigid Punxsutawney in 1993 or a wedding in hot and dry Palm Springs in 2020, with or without Andie MacDowell or Cristin Milioti.  If you can give me reign over my time loop circumstances, I might just sign up!

Where would you Time Travel?

When it comes to thought-provoking discussion topics, one of the most intriguing has got to be: “If you could go back in time, where would you go?”  I asked a friend of mine this question recently and he said, “I’ve never thought about it.”  I find this mind-boggling, as I’ve spent days of my life contemplating just the rules of such an endeavor, never mind the actual answer to the question.  There are so many variables to consider:

• How long can I travel back in time?  An hour?  A day?  A year?

• Do I get to choose when to come back, or is the duration predetermined?

• Can I stay if I choose to?

• Am I going merely as an observer, or do I get to interact with my environment?

• Will my actions change history?

• If I do interact with my environment, will I know the language of the people I meet?  Will I arrive with the proper clothing and currency?  Will I have access to basic toiletries and lodging?

• Can I go back as myself and relive an event from my own life?  If so, do I go with my 53-year-old brain and understanding of the world, or do I go back to the person I was at that time?

• Once I arrive, am I bound to the travel restrictions of that time?  For instance, can I visit multiple places with the snap of a finger, or would I have to walk or ride in a bus, boat or carriage?

• Can I die, be harmed or put in prison while I’m away?

It can get complicated quickly, and each answer to the above questions will radically change the central answer to the central question.

When I asked a few of my Christian friends, they didn’t need to think twice: witness Jesus’s resurrection.  Fair enough.  Another friend of mine thought that seeing her grandparents as young adults would make for a good trip.  I like that one a lot.  Some of my music-centric friends thought about attending one of the seminal concerts by their favorite bands.  One friend thought about witnessing the JFK assassination and paying particular attention to the grassy knoll to see if there’s any truth to the conspiracy theories.

For me, I’ll make the following assumptions:  I will not interact with my environment in a meaningful way, but I can make small talk, order food at a restaurant, etc..  I can observe people, places and events, I can eat food, and I can be visible if I choose to be or an invisible observer when appropriate.  I am not subject to injury, death or imprisonment.  I can travel via the methods appropriate for the time period.  I can sleep in some other dimension, as opposed to living along in a dingy motel somewhere.  Money is no object.  I can not change history.  I can stay for up to a month.

Given these assumptions, I would consider time-traveling to Milwaukee on September 23, 1957 and staying for at least three weeks.  I have the following in mind:

I’ll first attend County Stadium to witness the Milwaukee Braves game on Monday night, September 23, and watch Hank Aaron hit a game-winning, league-clinching, two-run homer in the bottom of the 11th inning and celebrate with over 40,000 other fans in attendance.  A few weeks later, I will attend games 4 and 5 of the World Series and watch the Braves beat the Yankees, and I’ll stick around in Milwaukee to watch/listen/cheer/celebrate with my fellow fans on October 9th and 10th while the Braves beat the Yankees in the Bronx.  I could try to travel to New York to see the games, but I think it might actually be more fun in Milwaukee.

Since there’s a lot of time to kill in between these two events, I’ve got some ideas. I’d like to take a bus to Memphis, Tennessee, and on September 27th see The Biggest Show of Stars, including Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, The Drifters, The Everly Brothers, Frankie Lymon and Paul Anka.  Not too shabby.  And two days earlier, on September 25th, I can see Elvis Presley at the Eagle’s Nest, also in Memphis!  Even better, the weather in Memphis that week looks to be in the mid-70s to the low-80s, so I’d try to take a boat tour, eat some good southern food and get a flavor for the area.

If possible, I’d then like to quickly travel up to Green Bay for their 21-17 victory over the Bears at the inaugural game at New City Stadium (now Lambeau Field).  I’ll be there with 31,000 other fans, and future president Richard M. Nixon (and current - at the time - Vice President) will dedicate the stadium at half-time.

During the following week I’ll go back to Milwaukee and visit both sets of my grandparents.  I knew my maternal grandparents, Elmer and Louise, quite well as a young adult, but I’d love to see them again, hear them laugh, watch them cook a meal, play cards, sing in the choir, etc.  I’d even take a few bus rides with my grandfather at the helm as a city driver.  What a hoot that would be.  And then I can go just a short drive away to my paternal grandparents, Edwin and Mildred, who I didn’t know nearly as well in my lifetime, and get a fuller picture of who they were.

I would also kick around the land where I grew up in Menominee Falls and Brookfield.  None of the homes I lived in will be there yet, but I’d still like to see how things looked prior subdivisions being developed.

During my downtime, I’ll watch current movies in theaters.  It’s hard to know exactly what films will be played during this three-week period, but they might include Jailhouse Rock, Sweet Smell of Success and A Face in the Crowd.  Maybe a few older films will be playing around town as well. And I’m sure there will be local concerts worth seeing. I’d also like to attend a Reform Judaism service somewhere in Milwaukee or northern suburbs and see what the services consisted of back then, and I’d like to visit Capitol Drive Lutheran Church where I’ll attend Sunday School a few decades later.

That sounds like a pretty good three-week time-travel vacation.  If the parameters were to change, so would my answer.  What if I can only go back for one hour?  What if I can change history?  What if I can snap my fingers and change locations?  What if I can interact with my environment with absolutely no worry about changing history? 

Oh, the possibilities are endless.  Sorta like this blog entry!

Where and when would you like to go?

Memories of At-Home Fatherhood

In Meg Wolitzer’s insightful and punctilious portrayal of at-home mothers in New York City, The Ten-Year Nap, she writes of an at-home father:

…his appearance at the school in the afternoon was confusing; it threw off theories about how the world worked.  You were initially pleased by him, but then after a short while you felt slightly annoyed.  He seemed like a loiterer here in the world that the women had formed for themselves.

I read this with a nod of recollection.  It’s now been 24 years since my wife and I made the decision to have me stay at home with our twin daughters while she continued her career in human resources.  As I wrote in my song, “Daddy’s at Home”: 

I remember the time
When I found this wife of mine
Was earning more than I ever would
And as her due date arrived
We needed to decide
Which one of us would stay home for good
I wasn't tied to the workday that took me from nine to five
But now I'm wishing I could just rest my eyes

This song highlights the joys of at-home fatherhood – many of my songs do – and I unequivocally stand by the decision to stay at home and raise the kids.  I wish I could do it all over again.  I loved being a dad to young children.

But there was also a flip side to the journey: being an at-home father was often isolating, particularly on the East Coast where people are less open and tougher nuts to crack in general, but even in the friendlier Midwest.  And while one could theorize about why this was the case, I think Wolitzer offers a plausible explanation: because women were dubious about this interloper, a man entering a world that had been reserved for them.  I wasn’t invited to join their walks, their coffee outings, their phone call chats – and really, I shouldn’t have been.  I see more clearly now than I did then just how presumptuous it was for me to think that I should have been treated as a colleague. 

When I first took my twins to preschool in Illinois, many of the moms viewed me as a novelty, and I was able to establish a rapport with some of the friendlier ones.  Looking back now, I’m grateful for the few mom friends I made, who occasionally took my phone calls to chat about which park district program we were signing up for or to just unload about the trivial trials that parenting includes.  During dark winter days, when parenting could feel like a life sentence, these phone calls were a lifeline for me.  

Over time, some of the relationships I established graduated to in-person gatherings.  I think that what I had going for me more than anything else was a nonthreatening quality, some sort of signal that read, “I am not going to make a move on you.”  In a way, I preferred these relationships to any I could have established with fellow fathers.  Too often, I found dads to be a bore.  If you weren’t talking to them about sports, finances and home improvement, the conversations dried up.  The women I became friends with were more interesting, unafraid to express regret and uncertainly.  They were more self-effacing and more empathetic.  More human.

As my kids grew older, I saw other fathers walking their kids to and from school.  Most were working in some capacity, either out of the home or on odd shifts, but there were a few of us full-time stay-at-home dads roaming about.  It became less of a thing.  Less novel.  More accepted.  A quarter of a century later, I like to think that I helped them along in some small way.

Mental Timelines

When you picture your life, do have a timeline in your head? I do, but I’ve learned that some people don’t. During my three-year stint teaching sixth-grade Sunday school, I devoted considerable time drawing timelines on the chalkboard, attempting to place historical events in their proper context.  I had always thought that mental timelines were a natural part of people’s imaginations.  To me, being able to picture a timeline is an essential element to my being: it helps me visualize my own history in particular, but I can also visualize years prior to my existence.  If you say 1960 to me, I don’t have loads of information at my fingertips, but I immediately visualize Kennedy vs. Nixon, Psycho, The Apartment, and my parents’ first date.  Fast forward to, say, 1974, and I can tell you much more:

My first-grade class with Mrs. Davis at Marcy School
Nixon’s resignation
The Godfather Part II
The Conversation
Henry Aaron’s record-breaking home run
The third Oakland A’s Word Series victory in a row (over which team?  The Reds?  The Mets?)
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis
Relayer by Yes
Late for the Sky by Jackson Browne
Get Your Wings by Aerosmith
It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll by The Rolling Stones
Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan
Crime of the Century by Supertramp

I was only six years old in 1974, and while my timeline is unbalanced toward pop culture, I’m happy to have some sense of what was happening at the time.

Back when I drew timelines for my students, I would first try to anchor things in the context of seminal events.  For example, I’d ask them to approximate when the Civil War took place and I’d get a myriad of responses, most of them way off the mark.  I’d get an answer like the 1950s, and I’d say, “Okay, so I was born in 1968, and my parents were both born in the 1930s.  Do you think the Civil War took place just fifteen years before I was born and during my parents’ childhoods?”  They’d answer no, and gradually we’d come up with a better guess, if not entirely accurate. 

Not everyone may share the mental timeline that I can recall, though I imagine that many people could develop their own with some guidance.  When my children were young I purchased a large roll of blank white paper that I laid out on the floor and – after drawing a long line – marked the years of their family members’ birthdays, the years when movies they love were released, when various wars occurred, when the Packers Super Bowl victories took place, etc.  I hope this had some impact on their own understanding of their place in the world. 

But while I’ve always known on an intellectual level that people are different – that we all have strengths and weaknesses – it’s one thing to know this and quite another thing to stop yourself, apply the lesson and really consider others’ experiences.  I may have a decent mental timeline, but someone like the actress Marilu Henner has a condition called hyperthymesia that allows her to remember life experiences to in fine detail and with great accuracy.  According to Wikipedia, only around 60 people worldwide are thought to have this gift.  I would LOVE to have this condition, but I imagine that Marilu had to learn early on that not everyone has her ability to recall whether it was Mother’s Day in 1971 or in 1972 that temperatures plummeted and her family’s outdoor party needed to be brought indoors.  She would know this, and she may have as a young person wondered how her fellow family members could be so daft.

I would be lost without my mental timeline, just as Marilu Henner would be lost without her amazing gift, but other people have their own strengths and may wonder how others live without them.

And all this comes back to the lesson we’ve all learned multiple times but perhaps need reminding of from time to time: not to judge people, but to try to understand them.  I’ve come to learn that the people who don’t say hi to me on the street when I pass them maybe aren’t being rude, but may be absolutely terrified of social interaction.  They could also just be rude, but it does no good to assume so. Six years ago I wrote a comparison of the movies St. Vincent and The Fisher King, and concluded that “it doesn’t hurt to assume the best in people, and it could even do a lot of good.  And as contrived as this message may be, this is exactly the default setting we should be employing in our lives.”

I personally need to be reminded of this adage all the time. Fortunately, when it comes to remembering dates, I don’t need the same guidance.