Dick Tracy would be proud

I was thinking about motherkitty's blog the other day about not keeping up with the times and learning new computer skills. I thought about all our childhood toys..Dick Tracy watches, walkie talkies, etc. We pretended to really talk to our playmates.

Well, I've come a long way. Today I'm surfing from my wireless laptop toughbook computer. I'm eating lunch, and I can entertain myself by reading my email and the news, while signed in wirelessly. I will read various blogs to catch up with all my blog friends.

I just love a good toy, I have two cell phones, one personal, one for work. Then there are three computers, home, work and mobile. Digital cameras for work and instant gratification. We have digital voice recorders, atomic clocks, satellite television. I even have a washing machine that weighs the load, uses 40% less soap and water, computes agitation time and sends a message to the dryer via a computer cable telling it how long to dry the clothes. Our grandkids have gameboys, x-boxes and PS2's. Just go to Costco and Fry's Electronics, the possibilities are endless.

I don't get nostalgic for party lines, ice boxes, wringer washers, or manual typewriters. I remember sitting on my grandmother's bed, listening to her stories of the old country. She emigrated here in 1905. It seems they had electric street cars in Kiev and horsedrawn streetcars in Chicago. As kids we had radio shows like "The Shadow" and Amos and Andy. Finally some neighbors got a TV, we went over to see Howdy Doody. My parents used an old mechanical cash register in their grocery store and an adding machine that had a handle you pulled every time you wanted to enter an item.

Now we have bar codes, self check out, wireless everything. We can talk across the world instantly on our cell phones. Personally, I'm loving every minute of the electronic revolution. You'd have to drag me kicking and screaming back to the "simpler life". I'm just waiting for those teleporters so I won't have to commute to work.