Category: iPhone

Electronic Confession

I don’t really consider myself to be a gadget kind of girl. I mean, I do like my electronic device (ahemiPadcoff) now and again, but I don’t tend to get every new device the moment it hits the market.

It’s just not that important to me. Fer goodness sakes! I still have a tube television! (*gasp*)

The iPod I use is the second generation shuffle, which is still my favorite iPod.

I do have an iPhone 4, but I bought that when I started this job almost 17 months ago. I had an iPhone 3 prior, but an OS update had rendered it unusable (sooo slooow), so I upgraded to a new device.

My iPhone4 works great. I’m happy with it. Nary a problem. Yep. It’s all good.

So I was looking in my work ordering system the other day, and lo and behold, it reported I was eligible for a phone upgrade.

And I thought naaaah, I don’t need a new iPhone 4s.

And I thought naaah.

And I thought some more.

And then I thought…well maybe.

And I thought. And thought.

And then without thinking, I ordered one.

(My employer doesn’t pay for the device, by the way. Only the service.)

Gah!

Maybe I am a bit of a gadget head. At least about Apple gear. I’m quite susceptible to the magic they weave.

Do you suppose Siri will take my confession?

Bless me Siri, for I have sinned. I have lust in my heart for a device I totally don’t need.

Now where is that delivery? Huh, huh? Where? How about now? How about now?

Siri, are we there yet?



Cartoon by Nitrozac & Snaggy from JoyofTech.com



This week’s Theme Thursday is: gadget


A Dead Language

When I was a pre-teen and earning a few extra bucks as a babysitter, I sat for a family who had two young, rambunctious boys. They were a good family but those boys were a nightmare to babysit.

Since the parents would usually be out late, the mom liked for me to write up a little note before I left for the evening so that in the morning she could review what the boys ate, when they went to bed, how they behaved, etc.

Those little creeps knew they were hellions, and so when it came time for me to write up the note, they always were at each elbow to try and see what I was writing so they could get ahead of it with their folks.

Well…I fixed their wagon. I started writing the note in cursive. They were both too young to have learned cursive in school and it drove them *bonkers*.

Under the steely gaze of their dad, the older boy generally denied anything and everything and the younger boy sang like a canary. It was awesome.

Personally, I don’t generally use cursive writing in my day to day life anymore. I don’t know why, but somewhere along the line I stopped. My handwriting is so sloppy anyway that the addition of cursive made it damn near unreadable.

About the only place I still both to use cursive writing is when I write a check, and then only on the line where you have to spell out the amount and my signature.





And who writes checks anymore anyway?

Still, I’m a bit sad to hear all the talk lately of schools opting not to teach cursive writing to school kids anymore. I guess with computers, iPhones and iPads, it’s become, well, a dead language. Known only to the elders of our little (6 billion strong) tribe.

I love to look at old letters from my parents, grandparents and even great grandparents. My paternal grandmother had an often difficult to read tight scroll. My maternal grandmother’s hand was a bit more open and looping.

A letter from them was easily identifiable by their handwriting. It was like a thumbprint.

Within just a few years, kids won’t be able to read these old letters, or as the blog MoxieQ notes, the original US Constitution or even the original Declaration of Independence.



Original US Constitution, in cursive



Declaration of Independance


If kids see these documents while on a field trip or in a book, it will simply look like a foreign language.

That seems….wrong.

I get that the times, they are a changin’ and the call for cursive writing is less and less, abandoned in favor of teaching touch typing earlier in school (I had it in mid-school but by early grade school, kids need to know how to interact with a computer).

But still, cursive writing is a basic foundation of our culture, not just being able to express oneself in written form, but as its own language. It was a rite of passage to learn to write in cursive. Suddenly my mom’s shopping list went from being a bunch of scribbles to making perfect sense (except when she wrote it in stenographer’s shorthand, another dead written language).

I guess the rite of passage now is when a kid gets their first cell phone or iPad. I suppose in the end it’s ok, as long as we keep finding ways to express ourselves.

I’m still a little sad about the change, though….


Hit the Road, Jack

What better way to celebrate the long drive home from L.A. than with my favorite story about the ubiquitous Grapvine. The Grapvine is what they call the bit of road leading through Tejon Pass in the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California. After miles and miles of bleak, hazy and bland I-5, the Grapevine is sort of a welcome breakup to the drive.

It also, in my opinion, serves as the gateway to Southern California. Everything changes once you come off that mountain pass and drop down into the outskirts of L.A.

This bit of road is the stuff of legend and lore. Many a car has met its match on the Grapvine as the climb from sea level to at times as high as 4000 ft proves to be too much.

And with that, I’ll turn it over to a great New Mexican, the cowboy poet and dear friend of my best friend’s family, Baxter Black.

I read this story aloud to The Good Man as we made the summit….being on the very same road made it that much more hilarious.

Enjoy.

____________________________


The Grapevine
By Baxter Black


Equisearch columnist Baxter Black ponders the futility of tryin’ to impress the ladies while driving a Chevy Nova.

How better to impress his new lady friend, thought Rob, than to take her to his friend’s rancho for an afternoon branding and BBQ.

She would be pleased to see that he had many friends who drove pickups with chrome grill guards, tinted windows and coordinated paint jobs. He admitted to himself that his own outfit was less ostentatious. His ’64 model two horse trailer had been repaired so many times that it looked like a well drillin’ rig! The ’76 pickup was using 2 quarts of oil to tank of gas and his horse was . . . well, ol’ Yella looked right at home.

Rob was eager as a piddlin’ puppy when he picked up Delilah and headed north outta the Loa Angeles area. He was anxious to make a decent impression but one large obstacle lay in the pit of his stomach like a pea in the Princess’ mattress . . . THE GRAPEVINE! It was a monster of a hill dreaded by truckers and people who still drove a Chevy Nova.

The engine was screamin’ and smokin’ like a burnin’ pile of creosote posts when they finally leveled out at the summit of the Grapevine. Rob had sweated through his shirt but he sighted with relief as he gave Delilah a comforting look. She smiled back uneasily. Then the motor blew! A big dent appeared in the hood and it sounded like someone had dropped a Caterpillar track into the fan!

They coasted silently into a service station at the bottom of the grade. He assured his sweetheart there was “no problema”. He had lots of friends nearby. Her reaction was one of forced optimism.

By dark he’d borrowed a pickup from Hank and they both agreed returning back home was the best option. He loaded Yella, hooked up the trailer and back over the Grapevine they flew! Halfway down Rob managed to slip his arm behind Delilah’s neck.. Soon she was lulled into discussing’ her dreams of home and family. She snuggled closer as he watched a tire bounce by him on the driver’s side. No headlights shown in his rearview but he couldn’t help but notice the huge rooster tail of sparks spraying up from beneath his trailer! He could see her astonishment in the flickering light.

Rob wheeled the screeching rig to the shoulder. Together they unwired the trailer doors and Yella stepped out, unhurt. Rob tied him to the highway fence and unhooked the trailer. Rob’s facial tic had returned.

Seemingly in control, he jumped in the pickup and headed south for the nearest phone to borrow a trailer. He returned to the scene to find Yella grazing in the median with semi’s whizzing by on both sides and his date shivering over the still warm axle, forgotten. She, herself, was smoldering. She spoke not a word and Rob conceded to himself that it was gonna be hard to regain her confidence.

In the space of 12 hours and 50 miles he had left his pickup, his trailer, his horse and his girl scattered from one end of the Grapevine to the other.

Next day he towed the pickup to the shop. He left his trailer to be impounded by the State Police. His horse made it home safe but Delilah changed her phone number, wrote him out of her will and has not been heard of since!

For more from this cowboy poet, visit BaxterBlack.com.

____________________________




iPhone photo of The Grapevine, copyright 2008, Karen Fayeth




Story reprint found on Equisearch.com.


How Did I Get Here?

Yesterday was not what I’d call an ordinary day by any definition.

Let’s roll back a few days to give you the backstory.

On Friday I stood shoulder to shoulder with my best friend inside an auction barn in Las Cruces. We tried to talk over the drone of an auctioneer and watched the local 4H kids walk their animals around a pen while local businessmen bid up the price.

On Tuesday, I stood on the show floor of one of the largest IT conventions in the US, surrounded by the drone of booth workers shouting out to passerby as I tried my very best to be all business.

I have to say, it was a bit disorienting. I guess that 180 degree turn in the span of just five days is the closest example I can get of who I am. Both auction barn and big corporate.

Yesterday was my second day attending the show and I was doing my best to stay grounded in the midst of the chaos that is any trade show.

While waiting for a morning meeting, I idly checked my email on my iPhone. I saw a note from one of my aunts letting me know that a dear uncle of mine had passed away. He had gone through a long and valiant battle with cancer, and for a while he got topside on that demon. Sadly, just yesterday he lost the fight.

I was instantly crushed and heartbroken. I couldn’t begin to imagine how my aunt must be managing. I’d sat with my mom in the days after my dad passed, and I know that for a woman to lose her husband of 40-plus years is a long, sorrowful journey. It is a world turned upside down.

Glancing at the clock, I saw it was time to go, so I put on my game face and got back to work.

Later I had to meet with a Senior VP of the company who demands answers as he fires off questions from a fire hose and I do my best to keep up. He’s brilliant but irascible.

After I finished with Mr VP, it was off to another meeting with a telecom carrier, and then a hardware manufacturer, and then…and then…..

It was a brutal day and I had gotten up extra early to get to San Francisco through morning traffic and suddenly the lack of sleep caught up with me. My legs and back ached.

But I pushed forward.

When the day was mostly over, it was time to go to the big celebration to close the show, a huge event put on over at Treasure Island.

I changed clothes in a dingy bathroom and then set out for the meet-up spot to catch a shuttle bus. I got myself turned around and walked about three blocks in the wrong direction, only to turn and walk back against of tide of city people at the end of their day.

I was tired, sweaty, in pain and generally DONE with the day when my iPhone buzzed. The Good Man conveyed to me the sad news about Steve Jobs.

As I had worked for the man for a decade, I felt a certain affinity for him and at that moment, it was the straw that broke me.

I leaned against a mailbox on New Montgomery street, while cars honked, police officers directed traffic and busses coughed fumes, and I cried.

I cried because after traveling then working at this show, I am worn down to a nub. I cried because I did a terrible job of comforting my godkids last week as I found myself at a loss to explain why their pigs had to die. I cried because my uncle was a good man with a good life but grief never gets easier. I cried because the passing of a legend means the end of a very profound era.

It’s just a little to much death in too short a time frame.

Sometimes when it’s all built up inside you and the pressure cooker is about to blow, and you’ve found the end of your tether, crying is just a real good way to let off some steam.

It only lasted a few minutes. Then I straightened my spine, threw my shoulders back and walked ahead to meet my boss because he’s in town from London and had terrible jet lag. He relied on me to help get him to the right shuttle. And my supplier expected me to “say some words” to the team. And every one expected me to be adult and professional when I felt anything but.

Thankfully I met up with a couple friends out on the island. They handed me beer and gave me nodding, knowing looks.

And today, while still sad, I’m trying to be myself again.

Or in the immortal words of Stevie Ray Vaughan, I’m “walking the tightrope/both day and night”






Image from Agent Faircloth