A Master of Technology

I have always tried to have a relationship with technology.

Never have I been a pioneer of new toys. I remember getting my first computer for my office at Lewis and Clark Community College, a TRS-80, a fine product of Tandy and Radio Shack, and using it as a bookend for my textbooks. Eventually I started playing with the Internet at home on a product called Prodigy and soon I was hooked on e-mail and doing a column for a local web page.

I shot film in my camera until digital photography just made too much sense economically. I remember my photo journalism instructor, Bill Ward; telling a class that “film was cheap,” so shoot many shots at each assignment. Literally, now, with no need to pay processing fees, I can shoot 200 pictures at a college basketball game and discriminately pick my favorite two or three shots for the local newspaper and the college’s web site. I not only love shooting the games….I love editing the shots on a computer screen….and printing only the ones I like on my personal HP.

I fought using a “Crackberry” until the end of last year when it was just too important to retrieve my e-mails and have Internet capability when I was away from my office. Now I carry Samsung Rouge.

It was only within the last year that I buckled to social technology and became a fan of Facebook. I am a big fan now…and I have dragged my wife along screaming until she became addicted too.

Over the last weekend, I took another plunge. My two-ton RCA television crapped out. It sat next to my laptop in my den. With the help of my step-son and Carol’s reluctant approval, I got a desktop flat screen that doubles as my computer screen and my cable television. It is so cool….and helps my 52-year-old eyes.

But one of my greatest recent discoveries has been Skype, an Internet communication tool that has been around forever and only recently discovered and embraced by yours truly. I simply love it and I have gone about the task of addicting others around me. For Christmas I gave digital cameras ($20 at Wal-Mart) to two sons, my sister, my dad and my in-laws. The software is a free download off the Internet and the $20 camera sits on top of my new flat screen. I have conversations with my son in Missouri while his beagle sits in the background….distracting my focus as he licks his privates. The dog, not my son.

Carol can talk directly to our grandchild when she is visiting Carol’s folks. Last night she sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” to us from 1000 miles away.

It has shrunk the distance between me and the people I love….and for that…..I am grateful to live in an age of cool technology. Texas doesn’t seem so far away anymore.

I’m sure there’s other toys out there….and while I won’t be the first to play with them….I will play.

Eventually.