Like sands through the hourglass…

I generally try to adhere to the philosophy of “Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional” as I make my way through the funhouse of life. I refuse to dwell on my actual age, or the oh so slow degradation of what my body parts will or won’t do, or what they’ll still do but now it hurts like a sonofabitch later on. I can play for hours on end with a real Slinky, or pass an afternoon with a set of buckyballs. I own a working set of Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots. And I’d much rather spend a day playing pinball than learning the intricacies of “the cloud” (which by the way is how I make my living). So I’m occasionally blindsided by current events and progress. For example, I had no idea until the other day that scientists can grow you a new bladder in the lab, using materials from pigs.  Or that they could make new blood vessels using cotton candy. That kind of stuff is interesting, but tends to roll off into the seemingly humongous store of useless information I carry around. But every once in a while a milepost event happens that makes me sit up and realize “shit! I really am getting old”.

It wasn’t when my sons turned 21, nor when I realized that if it ever came down to it they could kick my ass if they wanted to. It wasn’t when I received my AARP card. It wasn’t when my wife and I celebrated our 25th anniversary. It wasn’t when my orthopedist, only a little older than I, suddenly died. You’d think the fact that I HAVE (or had) an orthopedist would be a clue. It wasn’t even the day I realized that I was setting my alarm clock 15 minutes earlier than I used to, basically because I do have  an orthopedist and it takes a while to get everything working right in the morning.  Nope, it was the death of the car cassette deck that did it

An article in the New York Times notes the passing of the factory installed car cassette deck. For the first time in over 40 years you will not be able to buy, anywhere, from any dealer,  a new car with a cassette deck in it. I didn’t know you still could, but now you can’t anyway so I didn’t really miss anything there huh? BUT….

Was it that long ago that I took a job just so I could install one in my car?

The car cost 200 bucks, the cassette deck?

$300, but it was replacing an 8 track and worth every penny.

How many copies of “Born to Run” did I wear out because Bruce is the fucking Boss god damn it and I’ll play it every day if I want to!

How many mix tapes did I make to try and persuade the girl of the moment to help me with the clasps on her bra, or at least let me touch it…please?

A lot of people I know have never seen a car cassette deck, having grown up with CD players, mp3 players, and satellite radio. I haven’t seen one in over 15 years. Haven’t seen a cassette either, except at flea markets 5 for a dollar. As I read that Times article my knees creaked just a little bit more, my vision blurred just a little bit more, and I had to turn the volume on the mp3 player up just a little bit more. I thought about picking up some “Just for Men Gel” for my increasingly white beard and moustache. And I wondered if it might be getting time to have “that” conversation with my doctor, the one about the little blue pill. Though apparently that’s really my wife’s call.

Thankfully, before I called to make the appointment I realized that yeah, I used to have a cassette deck in my car, and that was a long time ago and yeah I’m getting old. But I still have my slinky, was reading that Times article on a Kindle, was listening to The Gaslight Anthem, don’t own any neckties or slippers, and just the other day I knocked my son’s block off in Rock em Sock em Robots. Maybe they can take me, but they’ve got to sleep sometime (and they’re sleeping in my house.) If AARP wants to help me buy stuff cheaper and cut ahead in lines who am I to argue. I have a voice controlled mp3 player in my car, the stereo is worth twice what the car is, and Tuesday nights are bowling night…

XBox 360 Kinect bowling.

Now if you’ll please excuse me, I dropped my Buckyballs and I’ve got a Roadrunner cartoon marathon on tap for the evening.

round and round

Over 3-1/2 months. 144 days. A new year. A new decade. Yes it’s been another long drought in blogging endeavors. As to why – suffice it to say that chronic pain is a bitch, and narcotics are not necessarily the best treatment Now back to blogging:

So I’m sitting on the bus the other day, riding to the downtown office, headphones plugged into the Droid for  some music. The Droid has to be one of the best ‘toys’ to come along in a very long time. Wait… stop… don’t start… don’t even think about talking about iPhones, or ianything for that matter. I can’t stand Apple products, not because it’s bad technology, but because Steve Jobs is so arrogant he’d rather deliver cool than functional. Innovative? Yes. Successful businessman? Yes, very much so. Good businessman? Not a chance. But back to my point, if I can remember what it was.

Oh yeah circles. So I’ve got the phones on playing my music and looking around at my fellow terranauts and almost everybody has ear buds in their head, plugged into whatever they carry their music around in. And I thought to myself that maybe technology really was damaging our social fabric by allowing us to isolate ourselves in our own little worlds. And maybe I was contributing to that because I am after all 1) a professional geek and 2) an avid consumer of that technology. I sometimes have only a minimal set of moral guidelines, so this sudden introspection was disturbing. Thankfully we pulled up to my stop and I was more concerned with getting through the coffee shop line and still making my first meeting than with contributing to the death spiral of face to face social interaction.

A little while later I realized there was nothing new about this, we’ve been finding ways to do our own thingfor a long time. The toys have just gotten fancier. If you’re of an age like mine at some point in your early years you owned a transistor radio. And because your parents couldn’t stand your music and wouldn’t let you play it on the big radio in the house, your transistor came with a little hard plastic, monaural, one size fits all, drill painfully into your ear canal earphone. Your mother saw that thing in your ear and immediately yelled at you to turn the radio down so you didn’t blow your brains out. And you weren’t cool unless you were walking down the street with your radio in your shirt pocket, earphone jammed into your ear, everybody listening to their own music. Of course everybody was listening to the same station, but it didn’t matter, if it wasn’t in your ear you were a dork. Sort of like now, with the Droid, or the iPod/iPhone, and the ear buds. We travel in circles our entire lives, we just sometimes forget where we’ve already been.

a connected guy

No, not that way, though I always wanted to be when I was a kid in Jersey. Think “The Sopranos” flashback episodes, that’s the people and places I grew up with and in. I watched the show just to see what I recognized. But I’m talking about socially connected over the web, not the mob (not that there is or was any such thing). And because of my job and hobbies I have a lot of stuff to keep me connected

7 PCs – 3 desktops, 2 laptops, and 2 netbooks

• 3 phones – an IP phone on my main work laptop, a BlackBerry for my work mobile, and a Droid for my personal mobile
• 5 email accounts – which I think is reasonable
• A Facebook account
• 3 Instant messaging accounts

Bottom line, I’m not a hard guy to get hold of. But there are limits…….

There are people who go through life living by the rules and axioms handed down from their mothers and fathers. ‘Always do your best’, ‘do unto others…’, ‘if you can’t say anything good about a person…’, and my personal favorite  ‘perseverance is a virtue’. We admire these people, hold them up to our kids as role models, “see that’s how you should live your life.” But then there’s the people who heard their parents, paid attention to every word, they just lack that spark of common sense that helps us all apply those tidbits of wisdom to life so they can get through the day without pissing off too many people.  Normally they’d just be a pain in the ass. Armed with technology however and they become lethal weapons. Please to observe:

Last week I was in an online meeting for work. The little IM client status clearly showed I was in a meeting and in this case I was actually paying attention to the meeting. Still, an instant message pops up with a “got a minute?” from someone wanting a quick answer. I could have IMed back “NO” and maybe that would have been the end of it. But that would be me taking responsibility for the other person’s lack of manners or knowledge, I won’t speculate which. My status was clearly “In a meeting”. Had I been locked in a conference room they couldn’t reach me and would have waited. There shouldn’t be a difference, a meeting is a meeting. So I ignored it.

About a minute later my desk phone rang, and the caller ID told me it was the same person who sent the IM. Since I was using that phone for the online meeting I let it go to voice mail. 30 seconds later my Blackberry started vibrating and again caller ID tagged my antagonist. Now maybe this isn’t really an unreasonable expectation, that I answer one phone while simultaneously on another. After all, I have 2 ears. But my brain doesn’t multi-task that well so I let the Blackberry go to voice mail too.

I should have known what would happen by now but I was engrossed in this meeting and so was more than a little surprised when the Droid started to dance across the desk. Guess who? Now I’m pissed! Cursing vehemently, lyrically even,  but unfortunately silently, I let the Droid also go to voice mail. I swore to never, ever, listen to those voicemails. I’d delete them, but wouldn’t listen to them. And the thought of spamming the caller’s inbox for days crossed my mind briefly. At least I was out of phone numbers, and could always hope my now lifelong enemy would forget what they wanted.

Just as I began to focus back on what the current presenter was saying while studying his meticulously crafted Powerpoint slide my Droid beeps, the Blackberry pings, and the email popup on my PC pops up to let me know that said enemy has now mail bombed my office and main personal email accounts. In fact it’s popping up on the 3 PCs arrayed around me, and the chinese gong that is my email alert is chiming out of 2 of them. I’m surrounded, trapped, harassed from all angles. Pissed doesn’t even come close. I’m out of my chair, pacing through the house screaming new combinations of profanity. The cat runs and hides. My youngest son, who lives on vampire hours, sticks his head out his door, takes one look, grunts “oh shit, Pops is pissed, glad I’m not that asshole on the phone”, and goes back to bed. My wife rolls her eyes and shuts the door. I can’t think, can’t sit, can’t pay attention to my meeting. I’m going to eviscerate this stupid sonofabitch next time I see him.

As my breathing begins to return to normal it dawns on me that if this person is so determined to reach me it must be really important, like I’m getting fired, or promoted (not), or one of our colleagues is being rushed to the hospital. So I calm myself down, mute the Droid, mute the Blackberry, turn off the PC speakers on all 3 boxes and pull up Outlook to find out what’s so important. I see the note at the top of my inbox and open it. 

 

The subject of the email???

 

 

 

“do you have a minute for a quick question?”

 

 

 

The body of the email?

 

 

Completely blank.

 

Some people’s kids!!!!!