Print or Digital?

 It's Election Day in the United States, and it's been going on for so long, and has been talked about so much, that we are all exhausted.

But today, I am asking for your vote on - Print or Digital?

Yesterday, I got an issue of a magazine my spouse and I happen to like - Birds and Blooms Extra. We love it especially to read at our leisure.  It's heavy with photograph. We had just extended our subscription for two years because their price was going to go up.  No problem there.

But there was this on top of the cover:

IMPORTANT MESSAGE. "Birds and Blooms EXTRA is going digital. We are pivoting the format of Birds and Bloms EXTRA magazine from print arriving in-home to digital arriving in your inbox as of the upcoming February 2025 issue...but rest assured the digital issue will contain all the same content you have come to love!" (they will also extend our subscription by one issue.)

Oh no.

The last thing we want is still another digital read.

They did offer a phone number for questions or to cancel and receive a refund.

We are seriously thinking of cancelling.

So, my voting question to you, my readers, is this?

Would you accept the digital subscription (no idea this would happen when we extended our subscription for two years recently)?  Or would you vote to cancel?

It won't influence my decision.  I'm just curious.

Print or digital?

My Social Media Break Status

Surprising myself, I have now (mostly) stayed off of social media (not counting blogging) for a little over three weeks with some minor exceptions.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can maintain the break (at least for Facebook) that much longer.  Right now, I am waiting on more word re a Facebook friend and a real life friend, both of whom are facing various challenges that I want to keep up to date with.

I also am checking in twice a week with a private group on Facebook that I belong to. 

But when I am on Facebook the urge to click on this post or that post can get a bit overwhelming.  The social media sites know all too well how to keep drawing you in.

So, why am I keeping the break up?  Seems I have a lot more time available for other things when I'm not busy doomscrolling on X, or being distracted by this and that on Facebook.  Fortunately, I had never developed addictions to Pinterest and I haven't been on Insta for two or three years.

Yes, I said it - addiction.

Banner Year for Mophead Hydrangeas (not mine)

And a major time suck.  Time I could be spending taking pictures of flowers, for example.

I don't miss X at all.  It had become too much of a cesspool, although I tried to cling to some of the sane accounts (like that of the U.S. National Park Service, who has a genuine comedian running it).  I miss some of the (sane) people I've followed.   Yet, it's not good for my mental health.

So, if you follow me on social media and are wondering why I don't seem to visit you anymore, it isn't that at all.  I am not ignoring you.  I still like you. 

As the saying goes, it's not you.  It's me.

Let's see how much longer this break lasts.

Rethinking Technology

Sometimes, I feel like a lumbering dinosaur, refusing to adopt the latest and greatest.  My motto is "just because it's possible doesn't mean it's a good idea."

But sometimes it is a good idea.

My regular readers know that I've been a member of Weight Watchers (WW) since 2012 (with a two year break at one point of time).  It's been a successful program for me.

Part of the program from its beginnings in the 20th century were meetings (nowadays called Workshops) moderated by a leader (nowadays called a Coach).  Before the days of Skype and Zoom these meetings were all in person.  During Covid they went remote and Weight Watchers has since embraced the concept of remote meetings.  

The downside?  In the "old days" you could go out for coffee after meetings with participants you clicked with.  You could exchange recipes and tips.  Sometimes, friendships were formed.  Even if they didn't, you were interacting with real people.

Somewhere along the line, Weight Watchers introduced a social media component in their app called Connect, for members only.  It never appealed to me.  I don't need more social media than I already have.  In fact I'm trying to cut back.  I took the last 10 days or so as a complete blogging break and I also did not go on social media during the break until yesterday. 

Know what?  I didn't even miss the social media although I would have long term, especially as I learn friend and family news (both mine and my spouse's) through Facebook.

This past May, WW introduced a chat function on their tracking app.  The chat groups are private, and moderated.  I lurked from time to time but didn't use the chat.  Until this past Sunday.

And then....but let me back up first.

When I started WW in 2012, I'm not even sure I used an app.  The way their current points system works, that's just about impossible now.  If you try to use the website to track you are encouraged to use the app.  It's harder to do using paper and pencil, which is too bad. 

Now, about that chat feature.

When I first read about it in an email. I wondered: why are we pushed to use social media and apps to communicate?  What ever happened to just regular communication and not communication in the virtual world?  Of course, I use email and have since around 1997. 

Well, without that chat I wouldn't have found out that my WW coach, a WW member for over 30 years and a coach for over 20 (I think), had left suddenly.  We don't know why but we do know WW has been changing directions for a year or more.  This is not a place to discuss this, but I wonder what happened to make a longtime employee of the organization quit.

The people in the meetings she moderated are wondering that also.  There is a lot of heartbreak - it's obvious that our coach touched the lives of many of us.  I'm one of them.

Sometimes it's good to be old fashioned.

But it's also good to embrace change and technology.  Email, for me, is wonderful.  Chat has its place, too.  I was able to get in touch with my now-former coach and thank her.  Thank you, chat. 

Meanwhile, I am back from my blogging break, but still not sure about my blogging schedule going forward.  I will probably blog daily this week.  After that, I'm still not sure.

Whatever I decide, I thank you, my reader, for sticking with me.

The Good and Bad of a New Hospital Building

The hospital addition that I blogged about last year because of its topping tree is completed and almost ready to open to patients.

Today, the public was invited to tour it.  I have no pictures of the outside because it was drizzling.

(Caution, if you proceed, there are pictures of hospital rooms and related views).

Inside, it was state of the art, which, nowadays, is both good and bad.

The good part:  the emergency department.  This hospital badly needed a good one and the new state of the art ED has negative pressure rooms and intentionally built in privacy.  Also, brand new state of the art patient rooms with lots and lots of windows and natural light.  More on that later.

How about a short tour of the non-emergency area, which is exciting to see when you don't have yourself or a family member inside.

Artwork everywhere (created by local artists). All are designed to be calming and to help promote healing.

An example of a patient room and the large window.

Part of the wall of the meditation room - an electronic wall with soothing (one hopes), changing art.

The bad part:   I'll get to it shortly. 

In this patient room, the old fashioned low-tech whiteboard has been replaced with a screen on which you can watch television (if you have a Netflix account you can even sign into it). You can view videos that will educate you if you have a newly diagnosed condition (and they will know if you've played it), and you can bring up info about your care team and your outcome goals.

Outside your room, this tells the professional about to enter more about you.  What's your preferred language?  Are you a falls risk?  

One of many nurses' stations.  This is  small one.

So, what is there not to like?

Wellllllllll....there are two hospital systems in my immediate home area.  The hospital above is part of one of them.  The other was sold to a new owner in February.  The old owner was hit by a ransomware attack on May 8, before the new owner could totally switch their IT infrastructure and related systems over to their own.

Ooops.  

We who are patients of doctors in that other system are still feeling the aftereffects of the attack, including their continued inability to access electronic records and make new appointments.

So, about all those electronic gadgets I showed you in those photos - we are assured the owners of this hospital system have strong measures in place to keep them up and running.  But, I also know that the weakest part of a security system is its human users, and the attackers get more sophisticated each day.

I was assured that there are backup systems "just in case".  Let's hope.

It was a beautiful building.

I just hope those whiteboards don't have to be pulled out of storage one day.

Don't Expect Privacy

Sometimes, the mail brings a big surprise.

Yesterday, there was a letter in our mailbox.  Yes, a real live, actual, letter.  The return name and address were that of someone we haven't seen in many years - a man that my spouse served in the military with and had become friends with. (Let's call him OMF or Old Military Friend).  

After spouse got out of the military, we visited OMF and his family in the late 1970's when we were in his home area.  I think we exchanged a handful of letters (this was before email) and then lost touch.

Back around 2009-2010, I found a blog.  The blog author was a high school teacher in that same state with the same name as OMF.  I took a chance and contacted him asking if he was the same man my spouse had served with.  He was.  

But after one exchange of letters we lost touch with each other.  Again.

Until yesterday.

The letter began:  "Hello (my spouse's nickname in the military) (at least I hope so)" and went on to say that he found my spouse's address through a 2010 document that discussed a manufacturing building (now demolished) in our neighborhood.  It was owned by the military and rented out to a major defense contractor.

It was ruined in a flood the year after the document was published.

It's a wonderful thing when something online helps old friends reconnect. 

But that document....

I found it online in less than a minute.  I won't get into the document except it had to do with pollution found at the site (not unknown to me).  There was a plan to clean up the site.

And, in an appendix, I found this: (bolding is mine)

Residents Living Nearby [name of building]

Residential Contacts – Pursuant to Exemption 6 of the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA), 5 USC 552(b)(6), this list should not be released to the public to protect the personal privacy of the residents living nearby [name of building].

Below that heading was a list of the name and address of  people living in my neighborhood and a couple of other neighborhoods as of 2010.

Online,where anyone can find it.

And no, I'm not linking to it.

I believe all the information in this appendix is public information and, I know several named people are either deceased or have moved away.

But some of us are still living there.

True, the document had a good use - it helped OMF find us (yet again).  But what ever happened to the disclosure that a list of names and addresses should not be released?  Because it certainly was released.  I'm not a lawyer, and maybe there is a time limit to this exemption to the Freedom of Information Act.  After all, the document is from 2010.

We all know we have no expectation of privacy nowadays. I already have a footprint on search engines due to blogging and use of social media.  So do many of my readers.  And there are all the databases that contain information on us.

But it still feels weird to see what I saw online yesterday.  Maybe "weird" isn't the right word, but I can't find the right word to describe it.

P.S.  yes, my spouse is going to answer that letter.

May the 4th Be With All of Us

Today, May the 4th, is Star Wars Day (May the Force (be with you)).  This has become a day for Star War fans to celebrate.  But could any of us have foreseen the sudden appearance on the scene of AI?

We may need The Force sooner than we think.

Up to now, I've resisted playing with AI.  But yesterday, I got a message from the Bing search engine, a search engine I rarely use.  I know it is using AI now, and it encouraged me to chat, or ask a question, of it.  I decided that May the 4th might be a good day for the Bing AI to write a blog post about Star Wars Days, and I asked it to.  This was its response (below, in red.)

It came with footnotes and links - I'll give it that.

I'm not a professional writer (and I don't intend to use AI to write future posts - if I experiment further I will fully document what I did).  AI concerns me a lot, as an almost lifelong reader of SF.  So, I will simply ask my readers, some of whom are professional writers.

What do you think of AI?  What do you think of this fully AI written post? This is what one expert thinks about AI.  

One of the things he suspects is that AI may already (as in "right now") be smarter than us humans.

It wouldn't surprise me at all.

May the 4th be with all of us. 

The rest of this is the AI generated post.

May the 4th Be With You: How to Celebrate Star Wars Day in Style

If you’re a fan of Star Wars, you probably know that May 4th is a special day for the galaxy far, far away. It’s Star Wars Day, a pun on the famous phrase “May the Force be with you” that has become a global phenomenon. But how did this unofficial holiday start, and how can you join in the fun? Here are some facts and tips to help you make the most of this epic day.

The Origins of Star Wars Day

The first recorded use of the phrase “May the 4th be with you” was in 1979, when Margaret Thatcher became the prime minister of Britain. Her party placed an ad in a newspaper that said "May the Fourth Be with You, Maggie. Congratulations."¹

Since then, Star Wars fans have adopted the date as a way to celebrate their love for the franchise. The popularity of Star Wars Day grew with the help of social media and fan events. In 2011, the Toronto Underground Cinema organized the first official Star Wars Day festival, featuring costume contests, trivia games, and screenings of fan-made films.¹

In 2013, Disney, which acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, officially recognized Star Wars Day and began hosting annual events and promotions at its theme parks and online platforms.¹

How to Celebrate Star Wars Day

There are many ways to show your appreciation for Star Wars on May 4th. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Watch your favorite Star Wars movies or shows on Disney+. You can choose from the nine-chapter Skywalker Saga, plus two spinoffs (Rogue One and Solo), or binge-watch the animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels. You can also catch up on the latest live-action series The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, or watch the new trailer for the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series.²³
• Dress up as your favorite Star Wars character or wear some themed clothing or accessories. You can find a variety of options online or at your local stores, from T-shirts and hoodies to hats and
• socks. You can also check out some of the new products released for Star Wars Day, such as Orbitkey’s key holders inspired by X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Millennium Falcon and Death Star², or Native Shoes’ footwear collection featuring classic and retro designs⁴.
• Cook some Star Wars-themed food or drinks. You can find plenty of recipes online for dishes like Hutt Twins Rice Balls, Grogu’s Favorite Soup, Fruitsabers and Jedi Dip, or Porg Potatoes. You can also try some blue milk, a staple drink in the Star Wars universe, or make some Mandalorian macarons.⁵
• Play some Star Wars games or puzzles. You can choose from a variety of video games, board games, card games, or LEGO sets that feature Star Wars characters and stories. You can also challenge yourself with some trivia questions or crossword puzzles to test your knowledge of the franchise.
• Read some Star Wars books or comics. You can explore the expanded universe of Star Wars through novels, graphic novels, manga, or magazines that cover different eras and aspects of the galaxy. You
  • can also check out some of the new releases for Star Wars Day, such as Marvel’s Star Wars: Obi-Wan #1 comic book², or Sobel Westex’s Antithesis Pillow that features Darth Vader on one side and Luke Skywalker on the other⁶.

  Why Celebrate Star Wars Day

  Star Wars Day is more than just a fun way to geek out over your favorite franchise. It’s also a way to connect with other fans and share your passion for a story that has inspired generations of people around the world.

  Star Wars is not just about spaceships and lightsabers. It’s about hope, courage, friendship, family, and finding your place in the universe. It’s about facing your fears and overcoming your challenges. It’s about learning from your mistakes and growing as a person.

  Star Wars Day is a reminder that we are not alone in this journey. We have a community of fellow fans who support us and celebrate with us. We have a legacy of storytellers who inspire us and challenge us. We have a force that binds us and guides us.

  So whether you’re a Jedi or a Sith, a Rebel or an Imperial, a Mandalorian or a Tusken Raider, a Wookiee or a Droid, you can find something to enjoy and appreciate on Star Wars Day. It’s a day to express your creativity, have some fun, and honor the legacy of George Lucas and his amazing creation.

  May the 4th be with you, always. And remember: this is the way.

 ^{Credits:  1. en.wikipedia.org    2.  usatoday.com   3.  msn.com  4.  abcchicago.com  5.  starwars.com  6.  cnet.com}

A Farm Tale or Two

In one of my blueberry picking posts this year, I mentioned I would blog something about the owners of the U-Pick blueberry farm and what they are going through right now.

Of course, there is the heat and the drought.  Normally, the you-pick would have started at noon on Sunday (to allow the owners to attend church, I'm assuming) but today, due to the possible record heat forecast,  they opened at 9am.

We were so grateful.

The bushes were loaded but I wonder how much business the heat has caused this farm operation to lose.

They used to also come to our local farmers market, and sell (in season) blueberries, squash, and sweet corn.  But, the people who helped them pick moved to another state several years ago.

Until relatively recently, an ailing relative the woman had been caring for took up much of her time.  The family member has since passed away but there is exhaustion.  Something had to give, and it was the farmers market.

Not only that, but they never were able to put in their sweet corn at all, something that was a good seller for them.  

Farming is hard work, and this, added to what life throws at all of us, makes for a hard life.

So, as we picked and picked in the warm morning, we were so grateful. (Yes, we tell her so).

If you are fortunate enough to live where there are farmers, they all deserve our love and respect.

And, speaking of farming and love, I have to close with this emu and south Florida farmer Taylor Blake who have gone viral. 

Apparently, Emmanuel detests iPhones but loves his owner, and the feeling (about love) is mutual.  

I discovered Emmanuel Todd Lopez last Sunday on Twitter (the actual videos are posted on TikTok) and have watched the videos...well, a lot.  Taylor and Emmanuel even recently appeared on late night television (this and a couple of her other videos are here) with Jimmy Kimmel.

As Taylor said at the end of the Jimmy Kimmel clip "Choose Love".

Alexa

Alexa, in the form of an Echo Dot, has been in my life since early December, 2016.  I bought the Dot on a Black Friday sale, as I recall.

This blog post reminded me of my complex relationship with this digital assistant.

My son keeps asking me to get rid of it.  "It's recording everything and invading your privacy", he says.  I don't doubt it.

But Alexa sure is handy, for these reasons:

1.  Every time I need to know how old a celebrity is, it comes right through.  Well, usually.

2.  It's good for my travel dreams, to bring me back to reality.  "Alexa, how far by car, is (where I live), New York to Oregon? To Texas?"  Too far, usually.

3.  It's a wonderful timer.  I have to soak a finger recovering from an infection three times a day and a toe with an ingrown toenail once a day.  Alexa helps.

4.  Fahrenheit to Celsius conversions (or feet to meters) when I blog about weather or other topics.  I have readers in countries that use one or the other.

5.  Hilarity (or frustration) when it mishears something.  Just yesterday, I was asking Alexa what spices go good with blueberries.  It kept responding with advice what WINES go good with blueberries.  Was I being given a hint?

A senior with an Alexa (face it, how many of us call it an Alexa?) could use an Alexa Silver.

Fortunately, though, Alexa can't read minds.

Yet.

Give Amazon time.

How Many People Does It Take to Buy a Light Bulb?

It started with a burnt out little lightbulb.

We bought our chest freezer back in 2012. It has a light in the inside of the lid which turns on when you lift the lid.

Recently, the light started to flicker.  My spouse, who knows a little bit about electronics thanks to military training from years ago, tried various things but nothing seemed to eliminate the flicker.  On Saturday, the light stopped working.

Spouse took the lightbulb out of the lighting compartment.  It was a small thing, an LED bulb that said only "12V E14".  

Now, keep in mind that spouse and I are senior citizens, meaning that most of our lives were spent with the old incandescent light bulbs that have since been replaced by newer, more energy efficient technologies (such as LED bulbs).

My education on LED bulbs, just coincidentally, had begun a couple of days before, when we had to buy light bulbs for my home office fixture.  We hadn't bought light bulbs in a while, and the choices for modern LEDs absolutely overwhelmed me. Warm bulbs. Cool bulbs. Color changing bulbs. Dimmable bulbs.  Non dimmable bulbs.

Now, another project.

So E14, I found,  means a small screw socket. The "E" means an Edison socket, in other words, the socket looking like an old incandescent light bulb, and, indeed, that is what our small freezer bulb looked like.

But this is where the fun (and I use that term loosely) began.  The owners manual for the freezer said that if the bulb burnt out, we were to contact a service technician to replace.

Umm, no.

But, an hour or so later,  I was exhausted from fruitless Internet research. We used to have a couple of appliance parts places in this area, but we knew they were no more.  The manufacturer of the freezer had nothing at all about freezers on their website. They had a customer service number that actually had Saturday hours, but spouse didn't want to try it.  Amazon didn't seem to have anything that looked anything like this little light bulb.  Finally, we gave up for the day.

Sunday, our son came over for lunch and he tried to help us. He discovered our particular bulb had been discontinued, after visiting several more websites.   Finally, he came up with a possibility, on Amazon (a site I try not to order from, but it was looking like we had no choice).  The bulbs (we had to buy two) came Tuesday.  They didn't fit.

So son did a lot more research (after asking us for certain measurements) and he thinks he found a replacement bulb locally. Several hours of research and hair pulling have already been invested in this quest.

So something 11 years old is obsolete.  That's nice to know.

Later today, we will go to that store.

Finally, to answer my blog post title's question:  How many people does it take to buy a light bulb?  

Answer:  at least three.  Maybe more.

The Fickle Finger of Fate

I try very hard not to be grim on my blog, but it's been hot, and I am just a little bit sad this morning.  So, once again, this isn't the post I meant to write.

It just seems, nowadays, that it doesn't take much to put people on edge. It's sad - and deadly. We all ask ourselves "why?"

Something happened yesterday that reminded me how precious life is.

Yesterday, I found out that a man who has brought joy to many people in this area has a rare, incurable brain disorder.  He was only recently diagnosed, and is declining rapidly.  It's a cruel way to die.

It's hard to take in, after all that has happened in the past year.   It just seems cruel.  Let me amend that.  It is cruel.  He's only in his late 50's. Did I mention that it's cruel?

If you go to the picture at the bottom of this post, he's the lead guitarist of the band (Monkeys Typing).

Friends are requesting short videos or short "I'm thinking of you" emails while he is still lucid.  So, here I am trying to think of what to say.  Maybe just "thank you".  I didn't know him personally but was a fan of the band.

Jeff (his real name) was a business owner here in Binghamton for some 22 years, and he struggled mightly to keep his cybercafe (remember them?) open.  Many times, he thought it wasn't worth it but he stuck it out, to the joy of many college students and others.  Eventually, the band Monkeys Typing disbanded, too. 

It's the fickle finger of fate that has touched Jeff, and one day it will come for you and me. 

If you've stuck with me this long, I'd like to reward you, my valued readers, with a flower picture.

Please take a moment, although you never knew him, to think of Jeff.

THANK YOU!

A What If Historic Website

No, the Internet isn't 100 years old and there are no websites that date from 1921, but consider this for a minute:

You may have been keeping up with the news reports and commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa, Oklahoma race riots, a tragedy where tens of Black owned businesses were destroyed, homes burned, and Black citizens killed by mobs of whites.

So the question I heard on television today was "what if those businesses still existed today?  Wouldn't they have a website, perhaps a social media page (or two, or three), and a mobile site?  Wouldn't they be engaged in e-commerce?  Why not teach disadvantaged youngsters how to code, and teach them about history at the same time?"

It's being done in Tulsa.

You may want to check this website out:  Historic Black Wall Street is an effort by an organization called the Urban Coders Guild to do just that.

The website contains a directory of various businesses that were located in the district, as imagined by the students.  They did research, including some menu items of a local cafe, and the phone numbers of the various business.  For other details, they had to use their imagination.  What would the hotel be charging now?  What would its lobby have looked like in 2021?

This website will expand over the coming months to include more student projects connected to this history that is being uncovered by the residents of Tulsa.

I don't know if other cities that experienced these kinds of riots are doing something like this, but, to me, it sounds like a wonderful idea.

What do you think?

Virtual Clutter

Today is the last day of February.  I'm scrolling through memories.

iPhones have a feature where you can look at photos from a certain date.  There is also a "one year ago feature".  Last night, I picked it.

There was nothing for the 28th.  The photos for February 27 were photos of snow in downtown Binghamton, where I worked.

A year ago, we had no idea whatsoever of what was coming to our country.  I don't want to dwell on it, but I can't help it.

The photos on my phone are a historical record of sorts.  When I scroll through the photos of March, 2020, they start so innocently. Flowers.  A special type of onion I'll be blogging about again called the strawberry onion. The first spring flowers, seen on March 5 (that won't happen this year, I'm sure).  More flowers.  An everyday scene for me, the garden area of the Broome County Public Library.

And then...well, we all know what.

I also decided to clear out some old emails today.

I have too many mailing lists.  I deleted about 200 emails worth of newsletters that will never be read.

It's a type of electronic history, and I do enjoy history.

But.

Too much clutter.  Not enough time.

I have a feeling I'm not alone in this. 

So, will I stop taking photos?  No.  Will I unsubscribe to those newsletters?

Maybe.  Or maybe I should just carve out a chunk of time and read some of my emails.  Because email is a type of history, too.

I wonder how much of our history will remain if the Internet fails, or if we all just delete our photos and emails.

In a way, it's a scary thought.

But virtual clutter does weigh us down in a way that physical clutter doesn't.  Maybe it doesn't take up space in our physical lives, but it does weigh down our mind. 

Do you have this problem?

Happy Belated 50th Birthday Internet!

On October 29, 1969, the Internet was born.  I'm just a few days late celebrating.

Back in 2009, I wrote a blog post called "So How Did the Baby Boomers Get Online in 1958?"  Since then, my then teenaged son has grown up, but he maintains his interest in Internet history.

As for me...I was late to the computer world.  I bought my first computer in December of 1996, and went online in January of 1997, as I explain below.  My amazing computer, which cost nearly $2,000. with a service plan, had all but a 1.6 GB hard drive.  I got online using a service called CompuServe.

For my browsing, I used a browser called Mosaic, and things looked just a little different.  You can still use Mosaic, too, via something called a "Browser emulator".  I tried it and...oh those memories.

And if you want to see how the Internet looked back in 1997, you can, too.  This is the archived page of Yahoo from January 9, 1997.

But, about 1958....

So How Did The Baby Boomers Get online in 1958?

First, I am not trying to mock my teenage son. But it shows how, in some ways, the mindset of the present generation is so much different from those of us born only 35 or 40 years earlier.

My son knows about what the computers of the 1950's looked like. People of my generation remember the UNIVAC.  My son has studied it.

Do you remember the famous "hoax" picture of the 1954 RAND prototype of the first home computer? Maybe that was what son was thinking about when he asked his question.

One evening he asked me "how did you get online when you were growing up? Did you have one of those huge computers in your bedroom?" I thought he was kidding me.

He wasn't.

Although he intellectually knew there was no "internet" as he knows it back in the 1950's or 1960's, he had to believe that there was something out there that I used, something very clunky, using technology full of vacuum tubes.

He couldn't believe I grew up in an era without home computers. 

Interestingly, son is also interested in "old technology". For example, he is looking for a good Betamax player (and has several Betamax tapes). He just couldn't make that intellectual leap of "no computer, no Internet".

Let's think about this a minute. I bought my first home computer (a bit later than other people, I admit) in late 1996 and went online in January of 1997. So my son was in kindergarten at the time.  That computer connected through a 14,400 baud modem,  and used Mosaic as its browser.  (How dated can you be?)

From his viewpoint, there was a computer in his life "forever".

This leads to another question.  When did the Internet start? The answer is complicated. This link has quite the discussion and the answer is..."it depends".

But no, we didn't have either the Internet or home computers in 1958.  Just typewriters, carbon paper and long distance.


So....did you get online in the early days of the Internet?  If you did, how was it?

Strange Encounters with Sears Microwave Edition

About a year ago, my spouse received a letter from "Sears at Home".  For my readers not in the United States, Sears and Roebuck has been a retailer in our country for over 100 years, but, like many other retailers, is experiencing hard times.  In fact. the Sears store in our area closed over a year ago.

This letter told us that the warranty on our stove (installed on July 6, 2017) was getting ready to expire.  We were given an offer to continue the warranty, for either one, two or three years.

Only one problem.

We've never bought a stove from Sears.  The last stove we purchased was from a local appliance store, and is some 15 years old by now.

In fact, the last appliance we bought from Sears was a microwave, and that is its own story, which I'll get to in a minute.

So this letter was a mystery, except we do have a Sears charge card.  But we have only used it a couple of times in the past couple of years, both times to buy shoes online.  They have a line of walking shoes I love. I  buy a years worth at a time, around Black Friday.  Anyway....

I had a funny feeling the letter wasn't legitimate, especially as the customer service phone number for Sears at Home doesn't seem to be the same phone number as listed on the letter.  In fact, the 800 number on the letter doesn't even appear on their website.

Spouse ended up calling the number and was told oops, not us, someone made a keystroke error. But that really doesn't give me much comfort.  What if the next keystroke makes a record indicating I am seriously in debt with them?

I thought about this incident when our microwave turntable quit working a week or so ago.

We have been happy with our Sears microwave, a 2.2 cubic foot model, built in 2012 (according to a label on the unit).  It works fine except the turntable suddenly won't turn anymore.  This is a must if you want the food to heat evenly..

We looked online and everyone seems to agree it isn't worth the repair, although a local repairer is willing to give it a shot.  Of course, they will charge just to bench test it.

So the other day we went microwave hunting online.  Maybe Sears might have a similar model?

We saw something right off and the price (at "Sears At Home") was right.  Apparently the unit was being discontinued, which doesn't bother us.  But then we saw something strange after entering our zip code.

It was pickup only.

And the place we had to pick it up was in Porterville, California, which is about 2,800 miles (4400 km) from us. 

Road trip ahead?

I don't think so.

We'll keep looking locally.

Life in 1969

Maybe I should have been a sociologist or a cultural anthropologist (sometimes they look at the same thing from different angles) .  Many times, when I learn about a historical event, I tend to be more interested in how people lived back then.

This year, there are many anniversaries of historical events.  Next up - the moon landing and astronauts walking on the moon.

1969.  50 years ago.

There is some nostalgia in this video for me, as I was close to the (pretend) age of the person who made this video.

It seems so simple.  The teens in the video weren't bullying each other on social media.  They weren't texting or using a chat app.  The Internet (actually ARPANET) had just come into being.
The world was different, all right.

You might not want to eat all the popular foods.

There were almost no handheld calculators owned by the general public.  They were invented around 1966 but didn't really catch on until around 1974.  So scientists and mathematicians used slide rules for their space flight calculations.  Slide rules didn't need batteries and worked in power failures, too.

Long distance phone calls could cost a fortune depending on where you were calling. Forget about video. There weren't answering machines, but then again, there weren't robocalls, either.

There were telex machines.

Microwaves? Well they existed but few owned them.

There was a lot more smoking of cigarettes and cigarette ads had not yet been banned on television.

The Vietnam War was on the minds of any.  We were a split country, People who cried "love it or leave it", some who did leave it for Canada, others who fought and lost their lives, still others who burned the flag or draft cards in protests.  The nightly news brought the headcount of deaths on both sides.

So, that was the world that launched the first mission to the moon on July 16, 1969.  A world where each space launch was covered by each of the three networks.  Many people didn't have cable.  There were no 24 hour news channels. 

Simpler times, perhaps.  Maybe better, but that depended on your nationality, religion, and other factors.  Prejudice was alive and well,  and discrimination was more open.  It still is today, of course.

I'm also finding out that people I know on Facebook had parents or other relatives working in the space program or in related industries.  Perhaps you do know people in your lives, too, who were involved.

I would love to hear your stories.

Brave New Shopping World

We did it to ourselves.

Macy's welcome sign - now it's gone

Yesterday, after work, my spouse and I went exercise walking in our local mall where I live in upstate New York.  Three of the four anchor stores have gone out of business, along with other stores.

The third anchor store, Bon-Ton (a department store) has been having its going out of business sale the last few (or so it seems) months. I understand it will close for good on August 31.  Macy's and Sears closed last year.  Nearby, Toys R Us closed its doors recently.  Across town, K-Mart had already closed.

While walking, I passed two other going out of business sales.

If the last anchor store, J.C. Penney, closes, we don't know if the mall will follow it soon after.

So what did I do after walking?  I went home ,watered my hanging baskets, and turned on my computer.  I wanted to head towards Amazon Prime's July Prime Day sale.  I've gotten some great buys in previous years.

Except a funny thing happened to me.  The home page loaded fine, but nothing after that.  "Sorry..." "sorry...." said page after page, each showing me one of the dogs of Amazon.

Barney, Rufus, Frank, Shadow, and more, were their names.

When you left Macy's they said this - but Macy's left us in 2017

Finally, I got on.  Around me, politics swirled, and uncertainty, and apparently, I wasn't the only one seeking escape.

After several tries, I got to the shoes I wanted.  They cost $13 more than they did on Prime Day in 2016.  I didn't buy them.

I looked at several other pages, once they loaded. Another pair of shoes looked promising, but, gee, I couldn't try them on.  It was a brand I wasn't familiar with.  I wish I could have reached through the computer screen to touch them.

Yes, I will continue to shop at Amazon.  I suspect many of you will, too.  We don't have that much choice, do we?  But then again, I started shopping with them so many years ago I can't remember when I started.  Not often, but out of convenience.   I know people who won't shop with them, out of principle.  But I'm not that strong.
I helped destroy retail commerce.

What a day yesterday was, for Amazon's fail and for other reasons. It's the world we have created for ourselves.  Like it or not.

Computers - #AtoZChallenge

I originally wrote this post in May 2009 and repeated it in October of 2011.


Many people I know can not remember a time without computers.  Even me, and I'm in my 60's. But, in my youth, I saw computers only during the reporting of national elections (it was a big deal), but there were also the mysterious "do not bend, spindle or mutilate" punch cards that were enclosed with our phone bills.

Computers were huge, incredibly expensive, and owned only by universities, the military, and corporations, as far as I know.  Unlike, say, typewriters.  Remember them?

There is still a typewriter (another moment of nostalgia, shall we?) in a room near where our department at work is located.  I wonder if it is the last one the company I work for owns.  Back in 2011, finding it lead to a discussion with other baby boomers (in the presence of a co-worker in his 20's) about manual typewriters, carbon paper, those erasers with a brush on the end we used to erase errors on carbon paper, and Liquid Paper (which still exists).  Then, we got on the subject of long distance phone service and how expensive it was. (I think he was a little puzzled  by the concept of "long distance".) 

I got to thinking about my son, who is just slightly younger than this former co-worker.  An innocent question my son asked in his teens led to this post, which I've modified slightly.  Sometimes I think his generation and mine were born on different planets.

I remember other computer things, too: mainframe computers, keypunch machines (I used them in college, imagine that!), writing simple programs (I took a semester of both Fortran and Cobol, didn't pursue programming, but I enjoyed what I did do in college courses), monitors with a green and white screen.  I was even on CompuServe for a while in the late 90's.  Strangely, I never participated in the pre-Internet online world, and sometimes I wonder why.

Who ever would have thought....

Now, my post from 2009:

So How Did The Baby Boomers Get online in 1958?

First, I am not trying to mock my teenage son. But it shows how, in some ways, the mindset of the present generation is so much different from those of us born only 35 or 40 years earlier.

My son knows about what the computers of the 1950's looked like. People of my generation remember the UNIVAC.  My son has studied it.

Do you remember the famous "hoax" picture of the 1954 RAND prototype of the first home computer? Maybe that was what son was thinking about when he asked his question.

One evening he asked me "how did you get online when you were growing up? Did you have one of those huge computers in your bedroom?" I thought he was kidding me.

He wasn't.

Although he intellectually knew there was no "internet" as he knows it back in the 1950's or 1960's, he had to believe that there was something out there that I used, something very clunky, using technology full of vacuum tubes.

He couldn't believe I grew up in an era without home computers. 

Interestingly, son is also interested in "old technology". For example, he is looking for a good Betamax player (and has several Betamax tapes). He just couldn't make that intellectual leap of "no computer, no Internet".

Let's think about this a minute. I bought my first home computer (a bit later than other people, I admit) in late 1996 and went online in January of 1997. So my son was in kindergarten at the time.  That computer connected through a 14,400 baud modem,  and used Mosaic as its browser.  (How dated can you be?)

From his viewpoint, there was a computer in his life "forever".

This leads to another question.  When did the Internet start? The answer is complicated. This link has quite the discussion and the answer is..."it depends".

But no, we didn't have either the Internet or home computers in 1958.  Just typewriters, carbon paper and long distance.

Join me each day (except Sundays) this month, when my theme is "traveling through time and space."

Amazing April #atozchallenge

Please join me as I Travel Through Time and Space on the first day of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge to a playground in the Bronx, New York City, on a mild April day in 1959.

A group of girls are gathered in a circle.  One bounces a clean, pink Spauldeen ball and starts to chant, standing on her left leg as she swings her right leg back and forth over the bouncing ball:

"A my name is AM,  I come from Arizona, and I sell apples!".  AM passes the ball to the next girl, who bounces it against the sidewalk, chanting "B my name is...."

Many of us have childhood memories.  Some are happy, some are not.  But when we grow up sometimes travel to places we never would have dreamed of ending up in.  

The little girl from the Bronx never would have dreamed that every day now, we travel all over the world, carried by electrons and the interwebs, to even more amazing places.  Hence, my theme, Travel Through Time and Space.

Today, on the first day of the month, thanks to the Internet,  I blog about a giraffe called April.

Who ever thought a pregnant giraffe named April, living in an upstate New York animal park about 30 minutes from where I live near Binghamton, would become an Internet sensation?

After the owners of the park decided to train a webcam on her during the third week of February, hoping she would give birth any time, April the giraffe, as they like to say, went viral.

At any one given moment, upwards of 210,000 people from all over the world watched April and her caregivers.  Thousands participated in chats on their site on You Tube.

And now, all the signs of labor ready to begin are there.  What could be more fitting on the first day of April?  Here's a link to the live, official April channel on You Tube.

I couldn't believe I was spending an hour each night watching a giraffe's butt, along with those  thousands of other people.  I was learning about wax caps, udder filling, how giraffes give birth, and how endangered these majestic creatures are.

I learned to tell the chief zoologist, Allysa, and the other giraffe caregiver, Corey, apart, just by viewing their hands (as they fed April lettuce near the web cam).  I watched interviews with them, and with the owner of the Animal Adventure Park, Jordan Patch.  I learned about young Ava Patch.

What an incredible journey this has been for Jordan and his family, and for all of us who have bonded over a webcam.

Life takes us to many unexpected places, and that's no April Fools.  And that's how the Spauldeen bounces....

Are you part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  If not, here's a quick rundown.  The title of this post starts with A.  On Monday (we have Sundays off, except for April 30) my blog post title with start with B, and so forth.  On April 30, a rare Sunday for A to Z, my post will begin with Z.

"A" on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme: Traveling Through Time and Space.

Throwback Thursday - How Did the Baby Boomers Get Online in 1958?

A "personal favorite" posts from 2009, repeated once in 2014, and edited a little.  My son is grown up, and hopefully, knows the truth now.

How Did The Baby Boomers Get Online in 1958?

First, I am not trying to mock my teenage son. But it shows how, in some ways, the mindset of the present generation is so much different from those of us born only 35 or 40 years earlier.

My son knows about what the computers of the 1950's looked like. People of my baby-boomer generation, do you remember the UNIVAC?

Do you remember the famous "hoax" picture of the 1954 RAND prototype of the first home computer? Maybe that was what son was thinking about when he asked his question.

One evening my son asked me "how did you get online when you were growing up? Did you have one of those huge computers in your bedroom?" I thought he was pulling my leg.

He wasn't.

Although he intellectually knew there was no "internet" as he knows it back in the 1950's or 1960's, he had to believe that there was something out there, just something very clunky, probably in black and white, and using technology full of vacuum tubes.

No.

Interestingly, son is also very interested in "old technology". For example, he is looking for a good Betamax player (and has several Betamax tapes). He just couldn't make that intellectual leap of people living before certain technology existed..

 Let's think about this a minute. I bought my first home computer (a bit later than other people, I admit) in 1996 and went online in January of 1997. So my son was in early elementary school at the time.

From his viewpoint, there was a computer in his life "forever".

By the way, when did the Internet start? The answer is complicated. This link has quite the discussion and the answer is..."it depends".

Do you remember life before "online"? Or, has there been a computer in your life "forever"?

Is The Pen Still Mighty?

Everyone who writes has a fantasy. One day, we will take up our pens (or typewriters, or computers, or smartphones/tablets). We will write something that changes the world for the better.

Women have done it before.

Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams

Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (yesterday would have been her 87th birthday had she survived the Holocaust).

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

The Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling, which changed popular culture forever. (How my son loved those books).

But it doesn't have to be a book anymore.  It can be a text, or a letter, or even a social media posting.

Perhaps, a long letter from a woman known only as Emily Doe will join those books.  It is a letter written by a 23 year old woman who was sexually assaulted by a young man, who was about to be let off with a "slap on the wrist" six months sentence.  Boys will be boys, after all.  And this young man was a star athlete.  And, dare I say it, white.

Business as usual, in our United States.

Emily Doe's letter may join those books on the list of writing that changes our world.  Maybe, just maybe.  This woman is powerful and strong in her telling of what happened, and how it changed her life forever.   The letter I've linked to is graphic.  Chilling.  Not just what was done to her, but the aftermath.  Sleepless nights.  Fear.  Having to quit her job.  The trial she endured, where she was asked questions straight out of 1965.  Did she have a boyfriend?  Were they intimate?

You will flinch when you read the letter.  You should read it.  Every word of it.  And flinch.

Yes, she had gone to a party.  Yes, she had drank too much.    So what happened next became her fault, while the father of the young man who did what he did to her near a dumpster referred to what his son did as "20 minutes of action". 

Thankfully, two men came upon them and acted, and were witnesses at the trial.

Athletes have been able to get away with that "action" for a long, long time.  This man claimed consent, which the facts of the case contraindicate.  Now, it is past time for this injustice to be addressed.   No more blaming the victim.  No more allowing star athletes to do what they want just because they are athletes.  No more judges judging these cases with a wink and a nod.

The Stanford letter, as it is now called, has unleashed the fury of a nation.

Over one million people have signed a petition for the impeachment of the judge on change.org.   Over 120,000 people have signed a petition to the White House for the impeachment of the judge.

I read about the judge first.   Despite the controversy, he was just reappointed for a new term. He may or may not removed.  Normally, I would agree that a verdict should not be interfered with. But, this is not that kind of case.

Whether this ends in impeachment for this judge because of this letter, I can only hope that, one way or the other, justice for Emily Doe is done.

Emily Doe, may life, going forward, be good to you.