Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Odds and Ends

We just got back from a trip to Costco. We just bought the necessities of life. Pork loin chops, popcorn, Danish butter cookies, shredded pork, cough drops, calcium, vitamins and 9 volt batteries. We went to the store for the last four items. Okay, we were shopping pretty light for Costco shoppers. But, there were plenty of shoppers making up for our stinginess!

On the way home we stopped at Cash and Carry, the store where restaurants shop. I love walking through this store and seeing all the restaurant sized cans of ...everything! Plus, they have lots of restaurant equipment and tools to buy. A four foot long pizza spatula. A three foot long potato masher. On and on. We weave through all the serious shoppers and bought our four little boxes of Stash Chai Spice black tea. It's my favorite.

On the way again, the dash screen told me that the car had successfully connected to my phone via Blue Tooth. I remarked on the fact that our cars are now loaded with technology. Dealers used to advertise horsepower and now they stress connectivity. Speaking of horsepower; I  have looked at the engine in my car one time and I doubt that I will look again. Why bother? There is nothing that I can do with the engine. Time was, you would lift the hood and imagine how the car would perform with a four barrel carburetor on it, or better yet, with three two barrel carbs! When I looked at the engine of my new car I could not identify the carburetor. Maybe it doesn't have one?  

The SI joint pain still has me on Norco and so I have not been able to enjoy the new backup camera that my son installed. Of course he used YouTube to help the install go smoothly. You know, Blue Tooth and YouTube and all the rest...they make life so much more pleasant. The 'good' old days simply weren't. In fact, I would probably be in a wheelchair if this was 1950. And would I have lived to be 75 back then? Sure, there are lots of little irritants in our lives but you can find those in every era. In fact, some of the things I will be sorry to have missed when I die will be the marvelous new things that technology will bring us. I'm pretty sure I will miss the final development of the quantum computer and that computer can or will change the world.

I have my own little computer to play with now. The Arduino Uno that my wife gave me for my birthday. Basic and very simple. I have a tiny 'motherboard' and a 'breadboard' to use when adding resistors, transistor, capacitors and all the other stuff I need to make this computer work. I've never done this before. I started my life's career hanging drywall and although I ended my career in construction as an instructor, showing our employees how to use their pc's. I was very good at repairing computers and networks and I had changed out various elements on the motherboards, but I really didn't know computers at their most basic level. Maybe I will now.

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