Number of days in Amsterdam – 256
Number of days without a bike theft – 252
Days since it last rained – 0
Technology amazes me.
Now, when I say that, I’m not acting confused are bemused about all these high-powered new-fangled thingamajigs we have now, but I was just realizing how technology has not only made our lives so much easier, but has also preserved our mental health.
I got a Kindle for Christmas, which has made it so much easier here, where English books are of a limited selection and command a premium price, and where we don’t have to storage for books anyway. On this device, the size of a DVD case, I have tons of books already, many of them classic pieces of literature that I was always going to get around to reading, and while I may still never get around to them, at. least they don’t take up any space.
Nicole has an iPad, and through the Sirius app we are allowed to listen to American radio whenever we want, keeping in tune with both what’s going on, and listening to our version of “classic rock”, such as The Talking Heads, which I’m listening to right now.
There is of course the interwebs, which allow me to do email, Facebook, blogs and all the sort of thing that lets me keep in touch with everyone everywhere.
But perhaps the most amazing technological item that we make use of is Skype.
For those of us old enough to remember it, think of The Jetsons.
OK, granted we don’t have flying cars yet (Seriously, where’s my flying car? Or at least my jet pack?), but another big thing there were “video telephones,” video screens where folks could talk to one another face to face. With Skype, we have that.
Tonight we had a Skype party, where we sat and hung out with our friends in Detroit for a few hours, just catching up on gossip and talking, the same way we would had we actually been at home. Just sitting together, having drinks and doing nothing, from thousands of miles away.
It helps us stay connected with some of the most important folks in the world to us. It helps the grandparents, aunts and uncles see the Kitten, see how she’s growing, and for her to see them, and she recognizes it for what it is. She interacts and babbles at her family back home. She’s engaged.
But I have noticed another potentially disturbing trend.
Here is the Kitten sharing a Skype moment with her Aunt Jen:
And here she is watching a video from the Supersuckers (“The greatest rock and roll band in the world:
I can’t help but wonder if she feels that her uncles in the Supersuckers are putting on a show just for her, the way her family talks to her from home.
A bit distorted.
I don’t want to have a child that’s raised by television, but how do the boundaries blur when that “television” is her connection to her family in the States?
