Keeping Score

It is difficult for me to remember life before computers. Oh, I remember not having a computer. I just don’t remember what I did with my life. I vividly remember the progression from my first digital watch to my first clunky portable digital calculator. Then it was on to a tiny Sinclair computer with its cassette tape player for storing data. Each was a substantial investment and each was a real milestone. Each changed my life forever as has all the technology since.
Things seemed to proceed rather rapidly once I embarked on the slippery slope of technology. In fact, it seems to border on an obsession with “the latest and greatest” that COMDEX (a technology exposition in Las Vegas) offers each year. There was the now ancient Kaypro computer with its tiny screen (which I believe my sister still has somewhere). I remember my first Intel 286 DOS then Windows based computer, and quite a few since. Amazingly though, no Blackberry in my quest for technology.
Since there are now only two of us in our household, over time a “tiny” 13 inch laptop computer took up semi-permanent residence at one of the place settings on our kitchen table. I pushed the envelope last week by “temporarily” bringing a second 21 inch monster laptop to the fourth place setting. The “temporary” was prudently observed and it is now banished to its old home in our downstairs office before it became an issue.
The kitchen is the focal point of our life in Schnecksville. I guess it dates way back before our present home. Come to think about it, the kitchen was the center of our lives when our kids were growing up in Denver and Memphis, and also when we were growing up back in our childhood homes in Watsontown. Actually I guess it goes back to my earliest memory of my Grandparent’s kitchen and its aromas in Milton. Some of my fondest life memories are based in an assortment of kitchens of family, friends, and even strangers. What wonderful relationships (and food) come to mind. Wish I had time for more of that type of memory-making bonding around kitchen tables.
Back to the present; enough day dreaming. Occasionally I wonder how healthy all my attachment to technology really is. I can justify each and every benefit to me and society in general. Perhaps the biggest benefit is the amount of time saved. Somehow though there is a nagging notion that something is amiss.
This morning was typically technology-fueled. I checked my email, updated Face book, and read my computer based devotions and Bible study while dining on my traditional predawn raw oatmeal and banana laced with skimmed milk. I even downloaded crossword and Sudoku puzzles from USA Today Online for the “love of my life” to start her day right. Soon, I was absentmindedly into a quick game of Solitaire on the computer. (I didn’t have enough time for a game of hearts.) I am a self-assessed “expert” on Solitaire but this time I lost rather quickly (42 seconds). In fact, it shocked me enough that before I started another game I checked the statistics that are automatically recorded after each game. Somehow the computer didn’t know my reputation and “mistakenly” thought that I’d only won 6% of the time. (Maybe it was the other computer that I won on most of the time.) I decided to check further. Yes, I had won a whopping 42 games on this one. The shocker was that I’d somehow played 606 total games on my wife’s computer.
Well, I’ve got to go now. Hopefully, I’ll find some time soon to help some friends and acquaintances that have addictions and such. Just have to somehow find some precious time to devote to those poor folks with their issues.