When I got out of the Marines Corps, cool, usable technology was limited to what they had in Science Fiction movies. Cell phones were attached to your car or as big as a suitcase, and about the same price as a small seagoing yacht. And although, I did have a friend in the Marines who bought a fake antenna and handset (to impress girls), they were rare. Computers were slow and clunky. My breakthrough technological toys were a walkman tape player and Tetris on a SuperNES. Now, twenty years later I have a laptop, a kindle, a Wii and an iPhone. With those devices I blog, Facebook, Twitter (yes I got a twitter account - @flipaul), text, attempt to write books, read books (usually successfully), listen to books being read, listen to music, play video games, take photos, watch TV and movies, and occasionally make a phone call. It's AWESOME! I have a little computer... in my pocket.
Technology has made my life so much easier. Sometimes I spend several hours a day on my iPhone trying to find apps to save time. I've lost track of the fruitlful hours I've spent searching for ways to make my Kindle, laptop, and iPhone cooperate better (still waiting for that true cross platform technology we were all promised). I dream of the day that I can get even more stuff to simplify my life. If only I could afford an iPad or another flat screen TV, my life would be indescribably better.
Thankfully, I don't have to strain myself picking up that paper book anymore. Now I just pull out the laptop or iPhone, wait for it to find a wifi signal, sign in, get on-line, go to iLibrary, get an iBook, download it, agree to terms, authorize the download on my device, find it in the menu, make sure the device is charged up, and start reading. What could be easier? Taking in music, TV and movies are all similarly superior to the old fashioned way of doing them. And texting. How great is that? Now instead of having a 3 minute conversation with a friend you can spread it out to 30 or 40 excrutiating, I mean incredible, minutes. Now, somebody just needs to come up with some device to help me get over the panic I feel when my cell phone is dying or I don't have service. Then my life would be perfect, or as perfect as it gets in an analog world.
