Just Plain Gardening

We all have a love-hate relationship with technology. We love when it works and hate when it makes us stop and update.  Seriously Siri. You may think that is what I said, but you and autocorrect spelling have it all wrong.

In computer terminology, we reboot our brains when we learn something new.  Stop learning and we close our minds to life in general, and I for one am not gonna participate in that closed mindset.  

It’s OK to be nostalgic, you just don’t want to live there.  Back when telephones were stationery and connected to a wall outlet, the telephone answering machine was the first technology capable of control. You couldn’t go out for a walk, without having to respond to something that happened when you were away.  Those times are long gone. Now we can’t even step away from our phones, we are connected to them.

It never hurts to be a slow adopter of new technology, and wait a bit until the bugs are worked out. My husband Ted is quick to remind me it was he who bought me my first digital camera (Nikon Coolpix 990 - a 3 megapixel camera with a 110 minute battery life) when I was still clinging to the superiority of film.  

The desire for education and learning is part of my DNA, and the best way to learn is to teach… and when you teach you get to learn it twice. The class prep for “Intro to Digital Photography” was incentive enough to actually read the instruction manual and press all the buttons, until everything was understood.

Digital was great. Flaws and features on my human subjects disappeared magically. Mom was soon looking as good as her little girl, in their matching mother-daughter Lilly’s, and quicker than you can say “suck in your navel”.

Don’t call me a manipulator, let’s say we just like to improve reality.

An even more powerful concept is that digital reality, which is not reality, is supplanting humans for many common tasks. That is why next month I will be attending a technology trade show in Las Vegas, focused on the latest technologies and trends in printing.  With 550 exhibits, over four days, let’s get prepared to be blown away by what people have done using digital technology and machinery.

Photo Caption: Working in the Yard ~ Redefined
October 2000
Carol works on her tangerine iBook Clamshell. The first low cost portable Mac with an “Airport” network card making it possible to connect wirelessly to the internet through an Airport base station. It also had a 6 GB hard drive, 12 inch screen, (800 x 600 resolution).