So my wife and I are getting ready to leave on a weekend trip and I am doing my regular job as "Pack Mule." I begin hauling all the bags out to the car and realize I am carrying two computer cases for two people.
I comment to my wife about how interesting it is that maybe ten or so years ago we would not have been taking any computers to the car when going away. In each computer case there is a notebook computer and a tablet. Isn’t that sweet; his and hers sets? The notebooks are for actually writing things like lesson plans, quizzes, tests for her and a column or two for me. The tablets are there in case we want to read a newspaper (yes, the Daily News-Record Online is a good read) a book, magazine, or play a game, etcetera. Notice notebooks are used to contribute information and the tablets are mainly for acquiring information. Yes, you can type on a tablet but after a few hundred words without a keyboard you are not as productive as you would be with one.
Of course she corrects me and says there are more than four. I ask what she is referring to and she mentions the two smart phones we have and says, "Aren’t those computers too?" Well yes, absolutely! So now we are up to six computers.
As we begin our five hour trip she pulls out the Garman GPS and enters our destination address and comments, "Here is number seven." Gee-whiz, that is way more than I thought we had and I am the geek…but wait, there is more.
After we get our bearings and are on the interstate my wife asks me if I have any good audiobooks that might be good to listen to during the trip. I pull out my iPod with music and a couple of books on it and POW, number eight!
We then start laughing about all the computers we are using. We talk about not knowing the number of computers running the many functions of the car. Say for instance, the radio, the auto-dimmer on the rearview mirror, ignition, etc. Then of course, there are the computers which run the traffic lights. So I leave those numbers out of the equation.
Finally I think we are done numbering ours computers. Then we pull up at our destination and I check my blood sugar with my glucometer… number nine. Since I am a Type 1 diabetic I do that often. Then I use number ten, my insulin pump which is a very important computer to me.
Do you have only one computer, no computer or are you even worse than me?
