This porch is the where Texas Governor George W. Bush kicked off his Midwestern Whistle Stop Tour the day after accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination in August 2000.

Like its 25-year-older cousin, the Jacob Henry Mansion, the Haley Mansion caters to special events.

I cannot wait to take this photo again once spring arrives. The trees and plants around this home promise a spectacular scene.

The railroad crossing is a few feet away from the location of another photo of the Heritage Corridor line in Joliet. Every morning BNSF freight trains lumber across the tracks, moving goods from one part of the nation to the other.

The Bison at the “Six Corners” intersection of US Route 30, Raynor Avenue, and Black Road reminds us that these majestic animals once dominated the local area.

A visulization of how Facebook has connected our planet.

When Facebook becomes a public company, the pressure to generate revenue will be tremendous. What, exactly, will Facebook sell to generate revenue, you may ask? Well, it is you.

I have written before that Facebook is not a free service.

While it is true that Facebook doesn’t charge users any money to use its service, Facebook is not free. Users pay by providing a massive amount of personal demographic and psychographic data.

Facebook allows advertisers to target those data sets using very complex algorithms.

Users are Facebook’s product. The more free data users provide; the more tempting it will be for Facebook to stake a claim on that intellectual property in order to monetize it.

My Response

Thanks to the Facebook Timeline, I reviewed Notes, Photos, Links, and other material that I have shared since joining in 2008. I deleted anything that I consider intellectual property. Unfortunately, anyone who shared anything I consider intellectual property nullified my claims.

Facebook describes deleting as an action akin to emptying a Window’s Recycle Bin. In plain English, delete does not mean delete. According to their Terms of Service, “removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time.”

Caveat emptor.

Moving Forward with Facebook

I like Facebook and I intend to use it. Mark Zuckerberg has created an amazing platform that transformed the way a billion people communicate. In fact, Facebook singlehandedly destroyed the High School Reunion.

When I use Facebook, though, I will do so with an eye towards my own privacy. My friends will not see photographs of my family anymore. I will end cross posting from my blog. In short, I am minimizing my exposure a service that views me as a means toward their quarterly earnings report.

Question: Can users trust Facebook to balance their privacy and shareholder’s expectations?

Several groups used the building over the years, including the Rotary Club, Lions Club, and Boy Scouts. Women did not have significant access to the facility until the Y built a Women’s annex in 1950.

Much has changed since I left the business a decade ago. Robotic cameras were a new technology back then, and it appears engineers have worked out the bugs (the cameras used to move on their own without being told to do so).

On the Saturday afternoon when I took this photo, there were many touch-and-goes. I missed what would have been the best photo of the day when a UH-60 Black Hawk did a touch-and-go. My timer had a 10-second delay set and I missed the chopper as it took off above me.