I Love Saturdays With Nothing To Do

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Today was a nearly perfect lazy Saturday, and I didn't even hit the Bailey's this morning. Bailey (the dog -- not the booze) woke me up at the usual 5 a.m.; however, after a brief spin around the block we were soon snuggled back in bed. To my surprise, she didn't really pester me to get up until almost 9:30. That's unheard of! But, who can resist this cute face pawing at you? 


After my yoga workout and a short nap on the couch, I did a little cleaning and got all my laundry done. I kept up with the breaking news story of the shooting of U.S. Representative Giffords and others in Tuscon. What is wrong with our country? 

My main focus today was my dire need for a new computer. I've been using a vintage 2003 Gateway PC that I inherited from my sister. This relic is running a 2002 version of XP and has a mere 256 MB of RAM. I can't even open most video clips. Everything I do, just about, is somehow done via computer so getting some new technology is dire. I remember clearly the very first computer I bought. It was 1991, and I was working at the University of Dubuque. I could get a discount on an IBM computer. Even with the "educator" discount, I paid over $2,000. Compared to today's technology, it was bare bones. It had Windows 3.1 on it, and my word processing software was Word Perfect. Remember Lotus 123? I remember being very excited to buy a software program that let you map trips. This was long before Mapquest or Google maps. 

This got me to thinking about all the other innovations that I have witnessed in my (ahem -- short) lifetime. Today alone I used:
  • A microwave to heat up my coffee. I think we got our first microwave when I was in 7th grade. It was huge, and I courageously attempted many of the recipes in the free cookbook that was provided. It wasn't until years later that I realized they really were just meant to re-heat things. 
  • A home theater (DVD) system to play my yoga DVD. No more vinyl albums with Jane Fonda's workout. Does anyone else remember that if you jumped around too much the record would skip? 
  • An iPod to listen to any of the 1,300 songs I've loaded onto it, played via my Bose docking station. (superb sound), and it will play for hours without having to do a thing. Of course, my old 8-track tapes would play forever too, but you always knew when it switched to the next track because it made that clunky noise. 
  • My PC to balance my checkbook, pay bills online, network with friends, read breaking news, track my Weight Watchers points, catch up on celebrity gossip, and write on this blog. (Could any of us even imagined what the heck a blog was 30 years ago? Shoot, even 10 years ago?)
  • My cell phone to talk to friends. I got my first cell phone in 1992 when I was taking a big road trip to visit friends in Pittsburgh, PA; Atlanta, GA; Dallas, TX; and Fort Smith, AR. It was a bag phone that had to be plugged into the cigarette lighter (remember those?), and I had to hook an antenna on the window. So, there was the cord plugging it in and the cord that connected the handset to the battery thingy in the bag and the cord  that connected to the antenna hooked to the window. It was very clumsy. If you weren't careful, you could have accidentally strangled yourself. Now, my little cell phone fits in my pocket and is the only phone I have. I got rid of my land line nearly 8 years ago. I am, however, still a bit behind the times. I haven't yet upgraded to a smart phone or even a phone that accepts e-mail. Baby steps...I'm notoriously slow to accept new technology. 
  • My ROKU. This is my newest acquisition, a Christmas gift from my parents. With it I can stream movies from Netflix, wirelessly, right onto my TV. Back in the day, we actually had to wait for movies to be released on network TV to see them again. 
  • My Dirt Devil bagless vacuum cleaner. Yes, yes, I covet a Dyson with a ball, but I have so many other wants that spending $400-$500 on a vacuum seems crazy. At least the Dirt Devil forces me to clean out the dirt and dog hair after each cleaning. I was notorious for keeping the same bag in the cleaner for MONTHS previously.
  • My stove with radiant heat cooktop. I much prefer a gas cooktop, but you work with what you got, right? I was raised with an electric stove with the old swirl type burners. Anytime something boiled over it created a lovely mess to clean up...with everything falling under the burner and onto the little metal pan that was under the burner...then they would get all crusty and corroded so that instead of actually trying to clean them, you just went and bought new ones. 
It kind of makes me excited to think about what will be invented in the next 40 years. Or maybe I am just a dork! 

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