Technology

So Downie has hit the nail on the head again, and lest I were to take over her blog with a mere comment I'm writing part 2 on mine.   Don't misunderstand me, I'm grateful for the ideas and how it takes less space to store it.  It's just that I haven't joined this century.  I can't afford it.  But then again, I can't afford not to.  We have an extensive collection, but the new format is always more expensive, the converters, the speed at which it becomes obsolete...

Nearly a year ago I purchased a digital record converter.  SO EXCITED!  Now, not so much.  After installing the software and getting all set up I've found not too terribly outdated computer didn't have an internal speaker... doesn't that come standard, no.  I don't know where to begin looking for one, and don't want to buy one just to find out there's something else I'd need to get it going.  GOOD GRIEF!


And I'm so totally in concurrence about the life expectancy of CDs and DVDs.  How many have been pitched because the kids still live here.  Does anyone out there have blueray?  Do they really NOT get destroyed?  I know they play DVDs but CDs too?

So here I live in my techno-blur of Records (yes 33 1/3, 45...) VHS tapes, 35 mm film camera, slides...  I have a desktop computer... Can you say 8-Track tape (no, I don't have any of those)?  Talk about something that never wears out.  Heck, last I knew my mother still has her old reel-to-reel.

I hate change I can't keep up.  But, I suppose this isn't the only thing in life in which I'm outdated.  (I'm sure I've all too clearly given away my age.)  Besides, if these companies really want it to not be pirated why not get credit for old devises and recordings. Please, tell me I'm not the only one that has herself strung out over the decades.

An island trip

About a year ago my, then, 5 year old was invited to see the inside of the plane a friend of ours flies.  My son, Scotty, asked if he could fly to an island.  The pilot, thinking theoretically, replied yes.  So my son was ready to go.  Disappointed he resigned himself to a mainland visit of a non-moving plane.

We've made many attempts to help meets this innocent dream.  After asking a few weeks later when he would be going I decided to be a good mother and make cardboard boxes into planes for he and his friends, run down the sidewalk and take flight into our imagination.  A great deal of fun and effort later, it was insufficient to quench his desire.  After a year he's decided that he'll go on his church mission to Japan (since that's where Daddy went and it's an island.)

But he's still making alternate plans as this isn't a given and he'll be assigned the destination for his mission.  He's taken a fondness to dinosaurs and is determined to be a paleontologist.  He told Daddy the other day, "When I grow up to be a paleontologist I'll tell all the other paleontologists that we should go to Dinosaur land to find bones, it will probably be on an island so we'll have Pilot Jimmy take us."  (His brother now 21 months has taken a fondness to aircraft of any sort and are called 'flys'.)

I love the dreams of a child.  There are no limits or lack of confidence, no dream too and is taking measures to find happiness in every hope.  Let your dreams soar little one.

Kid's theories

I love the things kids come up with. 

 Some of my faves are my husband's theories on death when he was a child.

1. There were only 2 ways you could die, as he was often warned of the first, getting hit by a car or, as in the old movies, getting shot.  As a result, and grandpa was old, he went around telling his friends his grandpa was shot.
2. Then he started learning about heaven.  How do you get there...?  A GIANT Ferris wheel, that's it!
3. But wait, if you get on while you're alive you have to die when you arrive at the top... a giant shoots you at the top, of course.  (Apparently he forgot getting run over.)

What are your favorite kid theories?

You might be in Texas...

On a recent trip from the Ft. Worth area... and realized... only in Texas!  I recalled the culture shock I went through in moving here.  So here are a few of my own hill folk jokes...

1. If you are certain the locals are speaking English, but you can't understand them...
2. If a house is trimmed in burnt orange...
3. If you watch more High School than Professional football...
4. If the homecoming corsage weighs more than your date...
5. If you the tumbleweed is larger than your SUV...
6. If your belt buckle weighs more than your shoes...
7. If you can drive all day without leaving the state...
8. If you see more Rebel than US  flags..
9. If your jeans are so heavily starched that they hold you up...
10. If your limo has long horns on the grill...
11.  If buying a family-friendly vehicle consists of buying a king-cab rather than a standard cab pick-up...
12. And lastly the one that brought it all to mind...If you can pick up a snack for yourself and alfalfa for your livestock at the corner service station...you might be in Texas.

What are some of the things you enjoy most about the Six Flagged State?

Man-sized job

As you well know I grew up with brothers.   I think very well of men and have no desire to demean them, but I do not understand them even after being surrounded by them my entire life.  At times they are hard workers anxious to please and make themselves useful, and at other times I feel like I have to nag to get them to do it, we women get tired of waiting around and do it ourselves.  And at other times we just want to test our talents and try our hand at something different than the norm of running a load or fixing a meal no one will enjoy.

Can I be self sufficient without offending my husband's or any other man's, for that matter, sense of masculinity?  And does that somehow make me less feminine to be more adept at 'manly things'?  It certainly doesn't make a man feminine to change a diaper, it just makes them less inept. 

I'm well acquainted with hard work and am quite capable of doing it by myself.  I make my own honey-do list and sometimes I start them and other times I actually complete them. I admit, I jump in a bit foolheartedly a bit oblivious as to what this actually entails and my adventures spring a leak as it were, sitting half-baked for a good spin around the calendar.  I like the idea of being a self-sufficient Texan woman with no need of the husband that's out on the range.  I fancy myself much more capable than I am, landing me in a fix and throwing a tantrum about the nail that refuses to find wood behind the molding.  But is it good or bad?

My son, now nearly two, came out of the shoot with a character so fierce and firm as to label him determined.  I wish for nothing more than that my children's dreams come true.  I am certain that they will, nothing will stand in his way.  I hope that my characteristic will be a positive, but will I always fall short of my personal expectations?  Can you be both patient and determined, feminine and proficient?