Monday, December 5, 2011

How connected are you?

    How old are you?  Where do you live (I work with a woman who can only get dial up in her neighborhood)? With this information it's easy to determine how plugged in you are.  My number one electronic device is my laptop.  I panicked this morning when it struggled to start up and the screen went black.  What would I do without it?
    I work on it (job 2 with ETS testing), write daily, watch movies and an occasional TV show, listen to music, and manage my ever expanding virtual social life.  Without it, I'd be lost.  Far less so are the other devices in my life.  I've taken to leaving my phone (gasp!) at home when I go to job 1 (teaching) so I get a break from texts or voicemails.  That and the fact I have an MP3 say a lot about my age.  I only use the MP3 on long bike rides or when I'm travelling and can't get to sleep in a strange room.  I remember the endless loop of music in the hot Miami apartment of a friend's while sleeping on a blow up mattress that even through sheets made me sweat.  AC, like heat, is expensive.
     Then there's my kindle.  I haven't decided yet what role it will have.  So far, I'm revisiting old (free) classics like Moby Dick, Little Women, and for some reason, freebies in  Spanish.

The great divide is greater with the electronic world:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/internet-access-and-the-new-divide.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss


Transit morning traffic,
truck stopped
cars workbound,
a child, coldproof in mittens,
waits with his father.
Inhale, at this moment,
in this tableau
no one escapes.

No cryonics,
no tucks or lifts,
nothing will free
you from what waits.

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