Welcome Technically Challenged

When I was younger, I would read about children teaching their parents how to use their VCR and I would get a chuckle. It is ironic that in many ways I have become that technical moron. My VCR still blinks at 12:00 and I shy away from cars that have too many buttons on them. I breathe a sigh of relief when I am able to find and properly use one of the 5 remotes for our entertainment center. I impatiently press the ‘Menu’ button on the DVD player when all the Interpol warnings are shown on the screen.

This is not to say that I am not technical. I am a generator of technical components. In my profession I am pretty much at the top of the technical heap. I write code to control precision devices for NASA, amusement park rides, full-motion simulators, and even lay out my own circuit boards. I do all of this, yet I refuse to change my thermostat from the good, old, analog-based knobbed model to one of those new-fangled digital ones. I have a website for my company and it looks like a child created it.

Augustine once wrote that 'there is nothing new under the sun', I think he needed to attach a small addendum to this proclamation: ‘except for gadgets’. Gadgets are increasing in our lives and our dependence on them has grown as well. I am 38 and when I was a kid, I can't even imagine my parents deciding if I would really need to have my own cell phone or not? Their debate was to give me a dime to make a call from a pay phone.

I am starting this Blog, and I am once again behind the technical curve. As I fumble, please pardon my dust and I hope some of my stuff catches your fancy.

-Doug