My Low-Tech Life

In my perfect world, I'd be at CES this week planning my future technology purchases and loading up on swag. In my perfect world I'd also have 20/20 vision and a bottomless bank account.

In my real world, I will be working my decidedly low-tech job and juggling the three digital compromises that make my day tolerable.

I used to work for a big mental health centre in the states. The workers there have access to all the neat toys that can make my kind of job easier. I now work for a small not-for-profit and all they gave me was a truly lousy cell phone. There is an acceptable computer in my office, but I am almost never there, and even if I were, my office is pretty much unusable from January through April. 

I've been promised a heater any day now, so that may be changing.

My life is ruled by my Palm TX, a definitely not-an-iPod MP3 player, and that truly lousy phone I mentioned earlier. Yes, I am one of the 267 people in the world who still use a stand alone PDA rather than a smart phone. I paid for it myself. The non-iPod decision was intentional. I haven't owned an Apple product for 15 years, and I don't expect to any time soon.

In any case, I spend my days driving around in a ten year old car that was never sold in Canada (and thus is a joy to get parts for), listening to music of my own choosing, and wishing for Wi-Fi, so I could upload my scheduling changes to Google calendar and do my casenotes between client visits.

This is somewhat of a challenge, as I work and live in a city with only one public hotspot. It would be less of a challenge if my phone could do something other than the phone thing, but it can't.

Damn, I wanna be at CES.

posted by taming at 06:17 | link | comments (6)|
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No Bam

In the past, I have successfully resisted the urge to jump on the New Year's resolution band wagon/train to hell. Not this year.

It's not just that I have gotten off track with diet and exercise (and I have, oh my, I have). After all, one can start fixing that kind of mess anytime. And my resolution has nothing to do with having a vision of neatly arranged closets or a new filing system for my bills. I married my bill organizer in 2000, so no problems there. Besides, there are only so many ways one can organize 60+ pairs of shoes. My sock drawer(s) are hopeless, and I know it.

In any case, I would not waste blog space with a discussion of any of the more usual New Year's resolutions. That's what Joe's Goals is for.

No, my BIG GOAL is different.

I,Taming Smith, do hereby declare that I will make a daily effort to be less annoying to the people I love, the people I work with, and most, but not all, strangers.

How am I annoying, you might ask? Well, the feedback I have received for the past 35 years or so would suggest that I talk too damn much. I have opinions on everything under the sun and share them over and over again. I feel compelled to tell perfectly competent people, who have successfully navigated through many, many years and situations without my help, exactly what I think they should do. And I don't just tell them once, oh, no, not me. 

I believe that is called nagging. It may be genetic.

Ever the optimist, I believe that I can resist even that which is genetically hard-wired. After all, there is no doubt whatsoever that I inherited both the mahjong and single malt scotch  genes, and look at me now: I'm standing upright, and there is not a tile to be found anywhere in my house. Not even in my sock drawer.

posted by taming at 06:26 | link | comments (2)|
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