Today is the first day of the 2011 work week. The resolutions that my family and I have made for ourselves and each other are: (1) Be On Time; and (2) Do Not Fight. Both are difficult but not insurmountable. Here are some thoughts about each and why together they are incredibly important. Of course to get there, you must first meander along the pathway of my thoughts with me for awhile. So here goes.

This morning as I was reading the print editions of the Seattle Times, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times in an effort to divine what might may be “ahead”, I noticed an article in today’s [2011.01.03] edition of the Seattle Times here which was reported a day earlier [more fully] in the New York Times here. [Of course, the Seattle Times did properly cite to the article’s author Brian Stelter.]  Well, regardless of which link or print edition trail you may chose in order to gain access to the information, the content that I want to float is this.

Americans watched more television than ever in 2010, according to the Nielsen Company. Total viewing of broadcast networks and basic cable channels rose about 1 percent for the year, to an average of 34 hours per person per week. The generation-long shift to cable from broadcast continued, but subtly, as the smallest of the big four broadcast networks, NBC, still retained more than twice as many viewers as the largest basic cable channel, USA.

34 HOURS/PERSON/WEEK — That’s Incredible! [I mean that in the full sense of the word “incredible” — i.e. “Unbelievable” and “Do Not Try This Yourself”.]

Yet then, I noticed a WSJ Opinion penned by Andy Kessler here which provides something else to consider altogether in the following:

For centuries, the military has driven technology forward, fostering new waves of industrialization and corporate use. James Watt’s steam engine was perfected with the help of a cannon-boring tool. Computers were created during World War II to calculate artillery firing and to break codes. The military bought half of all semiconductors until the late 1960s. Even the first global-positioning systems (GPS) were funded by Congress, not for navigation but as a nuclear detonation detection system. Add microwave ovens from radar, Blu-ray discs from lasers, or Velcro and Tang from NASA, and there’s no doubt how much government acquisition programs have shaped our lives.

Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower was worried enough to declare that “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” No need to worry anymore. That game (pardon the pun) is over: Welcome to the entertainment-industrial complex.

Well, I’m not a gamer so I don’t have a full sense of what that means. However, it is interesting to then note the WSJ overview as to how regulations are going to impact technology going forward as provided by L. Gordon Crovitz here and also notice the relative paucity of print devoted to the Consumer Electronics Show that is also provided by the WSJ’s Don Clark here when compared with that of the Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley here.

As a further takeaway aside, this is an excellent example of the difference between global and specific thinking; some firms (and the team of lawyers that work for them) don’t get very far beyond the latter, whereas other firms do both. In fact they do both extremely well. I would like to believe that though Justice Smiles has a narrow focus, it is rather global in its understanding and approach to it.

Bottom line though, we are spending more time watching the Boob Tube and playing Vids. Folks, at the risk of shutting down our economy, I am going to [again] suggest that it might from time to time be appropriate to pull the plugs.

Why? Well cycling back to my family’s new year resolutions, by doing so you: (1) have more time — everyon’s most precious commodity — to plan out what you want to do with your time and thus order it so that you don’t waste it, which in turn allows you to “Be On Time;” and (2) dedicate more of your time to family and friends, which allows a greater understanding of one another, which in turn means that you “Do Not Fight.”

Is my logic too attenuated here?

OK, so what does all this have to do with boundary disputes? Well, if you rededicate even a little bit of your time away from the “inactivities of the couch” to that of cultivating your relationships with your neighbors, it is much less likely that you will ever find yourself involved in a boundary dispute. I’ve said it before [here], I’ll say it again: “1. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 2. People don’t generally sue people who they like.”