I have had to laugh at this because I cant understand a lot of todays technology either.
Things are spiraling out of control. I think I have become lost in a world of electronic madness.
One of my sons informed me this week that my cell phone has become obsolete and I must head down to the Cell Phone store and get a phone that is contemporary with the time.
I pointed out that the fancy Razor/Slim line phone with camera built in that he made me trade my perfectly good flip-top Motorola cell phone for two years ago still works perfectly fine. Well, except for the camera thing. Never could figure that out.. Even the few times I actually did take pictures I couldn't figure what to do with them and gave up.
That is except when I would push the wrong button and take a video of the ceiling or my feet.
Seems the issue is that I am unable to text with the tiny little 3 character buttons. "Hi, son," would come out looking like, "G Qmo." My grandkids have even spoken to my wife about Poppa's crazy text messages. Give me a break. Whatever happened to actually talking on a phone? Isn't that what they were invented for?
They want me to get one of those phones that you can turn upside down and sideways and has a typewriter keyboard with keys about one-eighth the size of my pinky finger.
One of my four sons is a realtor whose real occupation is fly fishing. "Way to go, son."
Or in my text language, "Xbz um Io, rmo."
We were floating the Yakima River in his guide quality drift boat south of Ellensburg , Washington. We were miles from anything remotely resembling civilization. Rock canyon walls were on either side of us. Bear with me as I try to explain this strange thing.
His "Blackberry" rang. It was blue and I asked him why it wasn't called a Blueberry. He shook his head with that "dealing with an elder" despair look I get a lot these days. It was another realtor who called to say that the sellers he represented had agreed to my son's client's changes and he had the signed documents in hand.
My son told him to FAX the papers to his office and he would get them signed and Faxed back, to close the deal that morning. A minute later the phone rang and he hit a few buttons and looked over the FAX, now on the Yakima River with us.
He then called his clients and told them he was Faxing the papers to them to sign and asked them to FAX them back to his office. While he was waiting, he hooked into a fat rainbow and was just releasing this 22 inch beauty as his phone rang again with the signed FAX from his clients.
He called the other realtor and told him he was sending the signed papers back by FAX. The deal was closed. He smiled and just said, "You are a little behind the times, Dad." I guess I am.
I thought about the sixty million dollar a year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.
I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouse, 13 grandkids and 2 greatgrand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.
That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twipix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.
My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [red] phone I'm supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Nobles talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and got a little loud.
I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul-ating" You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GSP lady, at least she loves me.
To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.
The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop.
I bought some of those cloth re-usable bags to avoid looking confused but never remember to take them in with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?"
I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual."
Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.
Sandie Seward
Yes Maisie, I can relate to some of that....particularly the texting, I hate it, and because I have trouble seeing those tiny letters printed under the numbers on the keypad.
I just use my mobile as a phone, that's all, I also do not want texts, or to access the internet with it or even take photo's.
Ken R
I couldn't agree more with you young ladies ! I bought a mobile phone, under sufferance, so i could make phone calls on the move ! To take pictures, I have a perfectly good digital camera and also a rather nice 35mm film camera, being the daring soul that I am, I even invested in a video camera some years back!
If I want to access the interweb, I use the perfectly good PC that resides in my house, I have one cordless phone and one hard wired one, that way, I get to make calls even during a power cut !
All this works for me, I am useless at multitasking acan usually only do one thing at once, so I only have one gadget to do that one thing at a time.
How difficult does life have to be ?????
JoJo
I do text and take photos on my phone and download them to the computer, I do this because I often see something I want to capture and I have not got my camera,now the one thing that does puzzle me is this new record and pause on the TV now how does that work???I have got a video recorder but my children are telling me I am way behind sometimes I just want to shut the world out it's all moving to fast for me!!!!!
Sandie Seward
Don't worry about having a video recorder, Joan, so have I, in fact I have not long bought a replacement for my old one.
I still watch videos, I still listen to "real" records (vinyl), and I still have a tape cassette player in my old Rover! (In full working order, too.)
marieann
We got one of those digital boxes with a hard drive in it and an extra freeview channel so Tony could have programmes recorded. Since then we had to change the tv and no way can we get this digital box to work let alone record. I can't get the video recorder to work and I haven't plucked up sufficient courage yet to buy a dvd player.
I carry my camera with me in my bag because by the time I managed to get the camera setting on my phone it would be too late. Maywalk copes brilliantly with technical stuff.
I can always watch dvds on my computer of course but on the whole I find BBC iplayer is great for catching up. There are certain programmes that it doesn't show again though, like films and some replays. I don't get on so well with Itv catchup possibly because I'm still using the laptop that had the hot coffee spilt over it and is slowly deteriorating.
