Random Wednesdays - I love my gadgets

Way back in the early 80s... and I mean the 1980s... when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was a student at Virginia Tech, I majored in computer science. The primary reason I did it was to secure gainful employment after graduation. My parents were old-school and told me (1) they would only pay for 4 years of college,and (2) at the end of the aforementioned 4 years I needed to have a job.

Mind you, it wasn't the perfect career match for me, of which I had an inkling during my sophomore year. Aside from the challenge of problem-solving, I didn't enjoy programming and I did what every floundering second-year student does - I took a career placement evaluation. Of course it confirmed my suspicions that I wasn't well-suited to a career in programming, but what I WAS suited for didn't pay enough to keep me out of my parent's house. So I stuck with the original plan and graduated with a BS in Computer Science, and it served me WELL, in more ways than one.

As it happened, I DID secure gainful employment immediately after graduation and I enjoyed working 8 years in the industry. (At the end of those 8 years I was a young mama with 2 babies, and it was time to move from systems support to domestic diva - a position I completely LOVED!)

More importantly, I gained a level of comfort and confidence with programming electronic devices, which been a skill that has paid off HANDSOMELY. My vcr NEVER blinked "12:00" and I embrace every programmable gadget that enters our house, much to the delight of the Gov.

Anybody who knows me AT ALL knows that I love my Blackberry and that little piece of plastic polymer is of great value to me because it has become my brain. It contains all my contacts, my calendar, my lists, my notes, my tunes I can't live without, my email...

And then there is my iPod... I won't get started on that except to say that it does almost everything that my Blackberry does except to function as a phone (which my Mac buddies tell me is my next frontier - iPhone)

And I have to mention my netbook. This little laptop has been halfway around the world with me, and is one of the handiest things I own. All I need is a back-up flash drive and I'm in business!

Way back in the day we couldn't imagine the technology that we have now. The thing that blows my mind is the storage - my co-workers and I never dreamed we'd need more than a gigabyte for personal/home storage, and we knew of a terabyte but couldn't even fathom that kind of storage. I've got a 16G memory card in my Blackberry that's the size of my pinkie fingernail and you can get a terabyte of storage at Staples. And for those of you who may be wondering, after terabyte comes petabyte. (No clue what comes after THAT.)

Technology is so cool - Just think of how far we've come with cell phones in the past 5 years, and what will they look like in another 5 years? Smartphones will be dumb, petabytes will the new standard, and who knows what kinds of apps we'll be using, but I'll be the geek studying the user guide and scouring the online forums to figure out how to use them all.

BUT... if something terrible happens and we end up gadget-less, I can always pursue the career I was best suited for... and this is not a joke:
Funeral Director.

Go figure.