Subscribe in a readerReunions and Old Memories…
Received an email this morning about my upcoming High School Reunion. Needless to say it puts you in a strange frame of mind when your 20 year reunion is steadily approaching. Of course there’s all the normal feelings (”Wow, can’t believe it’s been that long…”, and “I wonder what ever happened to so and so…”). I’ve got to say it was pretty neat to hear from some old friends and acquaintances throughout the day.
But then I started thinking about friends I’d lost touch with. Started reflecting on where I’m at in life verses where I might have thought I’d be at this point. Of course, I was at work, so this wasn’t exactly the best frame of mind to be in for writing some actionscript for a flash piece I’m working on…
Being a computer geek at heart, I started thinking about how different things are in regards to technology. There was no internet (at least exposed to an 18 year old back in the late 80’s). I was just making the transition from buying albums to buying those ‘new-fangled’ CD’s. I enjoyed all 30 of our cable channels. Had to use phone-books and pay phones.
So as I sit here now with a shiny new 17″ laptop on my lap, a history channel special about the philosophical context of the Star Wars movies plays off my TiVo , my fully loaded 80gb IPod sitting smugly in my laptop bag, I find the past 20 years from a technological standpoint to be pretty fascinating. I haven’t bought a CD in ages, and my daughter is baffled by the concept that when I grew up, we had to go to the library to find out random information, didn’t have a microwave for instant popcorn gratification, and used to have to ‘drive’ our cars instead of ‘fly’…(oh wait, we still don’t have those damned flying cars they thought we’d have by now…)
So where is all this headed? Who knows…I’m just ramblin, cuz it just made me think today.
What will my daughter be pondering when she gets close to her 20 year reunion? Will technology be even more integrated into our everyday lives? Dunno…But for now I gotta grab the TiVo remote so I can skip this Geico commercial I’ve seen 100 times already…
June 2nd, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I completely understand this introspection…maybe because we graduated together. Great site! I just find it amazing. I am currently trying to create a successful social networking site/web portal, but when teachers and friends in high school asked me what I would be doing when “I grow up”? I would never have thought to answer entrepreneur in the Internet community (selling nothing tangible, just access to a website!). The furthest I would have guessed would be becoming a teacher, or “just” a mom. Instead, I am a “stay at home” working mom who uses her laptop to email her friends from high school and to help create her website. Take that back to 1988 and see who would understand (or believe)that. Remember the commercial song: “I can bring home the bacon”…. about working mothers doing it all. Not to mention the differences in communication devices. What would high school have been like with cell phones. Mr. Nictine would have had a field day! Just amazing, but here’s to 20 years!