Jennifer Sweete's Blog: Sweete Blog Roll
January 12, 2020
A 2020 Vision
A NEW YEAR'S EVE STORY -
Today is the eve of a new year and a new decade. Frankly, I was shocked to wake up in the year 2000 so imagine how surprised I’ll be tomorrow morning on the first day of 2020!
In a conversation with my 11-year-old neighbor boys (twins) the other day, I was trying to explain how much the world has changed since I was their age. In the half of a century between us, I lived in a world where the inventions that now rule the day simply didn’t exist. And, as time rolled on, they were only “ideas” awaiting patents and the technology to help build them. For instance . . .
We had no telephones when I was a little kid. Eventually, in the mid-1960s, we got a rotary phone on which we could dial the 0-perator to patch us together with the intended recipient of our call. No one in our blue-collar circle could afford to make a long-distance call, which meant we didn’t call anyone whose house we couldn’t walk to OR we sacrificed a large sum of our grocery money to make a call that couldn’t last more than 120 seconds. We had no caller-ID or voicemail—not even an answering machine—so we had to guess who might be calling us and decide whether or not it would be safe to answer the mysterious ringing machine. Push-button telephones (cordless or corded), along with slightly cheaper, though still ridiculously expensive, long-distance charges came into existence when I was in high school. Then cellular telephones came into our world when I was plunging toward my 30s, though we have no way of knowing how many brain tumors and other cancerous effects were caused by the radical amount of radiation they exposed us to along the path of “progress.” Today, in my semi-retirement and much to the consternation of many of my friends and family members who would rather send me photos in text messages than to have to email them, I still opt for the old “beam-me-up-Scotty” Star Trek version of the cell phone—the "flip phone." I can call out and receive calls, and though I have unlimited texting and an enormous amount of rollover data I will never use, those who text me know it is highly unlikely they’ll receive a texted reply because these old fingers of mine aren’t up to the task. It’s not a computer I want to carry in my pocket—just a phone . . . unless, of course, Captain Kirk calls to let me know I can finally board the Enterprise, in which case, I will gladly fumble with the buttons long enough to figure out how to open the online channel. But I’m jumping ahead now, so let’s return to my non-tech childhood for a look at another batch of inventions I began life without—for instance . . .
We had no such thing as a home computer when I was a kid. We had a typewriter. It had keys and a ribbon, and a return carriage that needed a good manual whacking to get it to move. I watched my mother type letters on it. I watched her paint over misspelled words with white goop and blow it dry with pursed lips, the same delicate way she would paint her fingernails. If the white goop wasn’t properly dried before typing the correction over top of it, she would have to use nail polish remover to clean it off of the keys before any more typing could continue. Another fun project that was part of this do-over was her attempt to re-align the carriage to be sure the keys would re-type the word on the same line, in the same space. A tedious process that made me all the more grateful for my pencil and eraser. I never wanted to learn to type but was forced into a typing class in high school because, as my parents put it, “the only job suitable for a woman is a secretarial job—and secretaries must be good typists.” “Fortunately,” they followed up, “a woman need only stay in a secretarial job until she finds a husband, gets married, and begins to raise a family.” O-M-G! So, I flunked the typing class but excelled at General Business in spite of the fact that I only showed up in the classroom to take the monthly quizzes and final exams. I learned a lot about accounting in that class, including how to balance a checkbook, though I somewhat regretfully neglected to put any of it into practice for the next decade or two. Still, it did come in handy when I became an accountant in my 30s. But I digress. Back to the computer at hand.
As a young mother in my 20s, I stood in horror as my brother installed a Macintosh 128k computer in my home “for the children,” to be followed by an IBM PC—both of which he built from scratch with his own brain and hands. In that year I lost my kids to a fake world of low-tech games such as “Pong,” “Tetris,” “Pacman,” “Kings Quest,” and “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.” Soon came video games to play on the television. Mario and Luigi took over our living room and the growing minds of my children. Some folks asked me why I allowed these foul, satanic machines into my home. As hard as I fought it, the truth is that my choice was to watch my children playing video games at our house or not watch them playing video games at their friends’ houses. I opted to have my children live at home with me. That was the reality in the 1980s and ‘90s. Just as video games were developing and growing, so, too, were computers. By the mid-1990s, I had my own computer and printer, making a work-at-home mom’s job easier and a lot less expensive. Typing my year-end thoughts on this much-evolved Windows-10 platform today, to upload to my website and share on social media, is something I can only accomplish thanks to the tech r-r-r-evolution that invaded my life so long ago. Back in those days, I worked on my slo-o-o-o-w-w-w-w PC while my kids played video games. Nowadays, they work on their laptops and phones while I type articles for blogs and chapters for books. Clearly, I’ve lost my war against typing, but am eternally grateful for the tech-heads that replaced white-out and carriages with highlighting and delete buttons!
We couldn’t have video games, computers, or internet without first having had television technology. As kids, my parents had radios. Period. No pictures, only sound and their imaginations. Their parents didn’t even have radios, only their imaginations. Evidently, the goal became to create the most excellent ways to erase our imaginations, and this has been achieved in a fairly short amount of time. For practical intents and purposes, black and white televisions were in many living rooms in the 1950s and color televisions followed in the 1960s. Many tech-heads had already been hard at work on this technology for a century in order to bring this medium to the world of bored housewives and fidgety children. Men enjoyed watching the news and sports, but were also coerced into watching Sunday night Disney programming, Lawrence Welk’s polkas, and Sing Along with Mitch's “Follow the Bouncing Ball” as a way to “bring the family together” as defined by family members staring mindlessly into a small, square screen rather than having to talk to each other at day’s end. It all ends up in a big blur—radio into television, television into computers and video games, and all of that into a Smart Phone that does everything, including taking still pictures and moving video. I’ll stick with Captain Kirk and our mutual Tribbles.
Nevertheless, I do adore my Black and Decker toaster oven, my KitchenAid mixer, my Hamilton Beach bread maker, and my Frigidaire freezer. Life wouldn’t be the same if I spent all my waking hours grinding wheat and kneading dough. Although I’m certain this blustery winter day would preserve my frozen foods, summer would not keep Olaf in very good health. The snow-blower, the chainsaw, the log-splitter, and the electric sander have all been helpful inventions. Tech can be a true blessing. Alexa, Siri, and Google? Not so sure I’m ready to be under their watchful eyes just yet. However, these thoughts of mine are growing ever-closer to being transmitted to you over the wide-open waves of the ever-watched-over internet to wherever you think you are hiding out there . . .
My final thought, as I shared with my favorite tow-head twins several days ago, is that when their 11-year-old youth has strayed far behind them, bringing them a half of a century into the future, what will the world look like then? What new inventions will have made life easier—or more complicated? Where will the tech-heads lead us lemmings? Over the edge, into the abyss? Or into Heaven on a Star-bus? Wherever we’re going, unless immortality is affordable, I won’t be here to see it built from scratch and installed in my home “for the children.” But, if all goes well in my sleep tonight, I will wake up tomorrow to see 2020, which is more than I ever envisioned. For now, however, my flip phone is playing a polka so I should answer it . . . the old-fashioned way, without my glasses on so I can’t see the caller-ID. Let the mystery begin!
Sweete Quote: “A blogger is an impatient author.”
Striaight from my blog at jennifersweete.com © Jennifer Sweete, New Year's Eve, December 31, 2019
Any typos found in this here are caused by sleep deprivation and/or playing video games while proofreading. The author pleads insanity.
Today is the eve of a new year and a new decade. Frankly, I was shocked to wake up in the year 2000 so imagine how surprised I’ll be tomorrow morning on the first day of 2020!
In a conversation with my 11-year-old neighbor boys (twins) the other day, I was trying to explain how much the world has changed since I was their age. In the half of a century between us, I lived in a world where the inventions that now rule the day simply didn’t exist. And, as time rolled on, they were only “ideas” awaiting patents and the technology to help build them. For instance . . .
We had no telephones when I was a little kid. Eventually, in the mid-1960s, we got a rotary phone on which we could dial the 0-perator to patch us together with the intended recipient of our call. No one in our blue-collar circle could afford to make a long-distance call, which meant we didn’t call anyone whose house we couldn’t walk to OR we sacrificed a large sum of our grocery money to make a call that couldn’t last more than 120 seconds. We had no caller-ID or voicemail—not even an answering machine—so we had to guess who might be calling us and decide whether or not it would be safe to answer the mysterious ringing machine. Push-button telephones (cordless or corded), along with slightly cheaper, though still ridiculously expensive, long-distance charges came into existence when I was in high school. Then cellular telephones came into our world when I was plunging toward my 30s, though we have no way of knowing how many brain tumors and other cancerous effects were caused by the radical amount of radiation they exposed us to along the path of “progress.” Today, in my semi-retirement and much to the consternation of many of my friends and family members who would rather send me photos in text messages than to have to email them, I still opt for the old “beam-me-up-Scotty” Star Trek version of the cell phone—the "flip phone." I can call out and receive calls, and though I have unlimited texting and an enormous amount of rollover data I will never use, those who text me know it is highly unlikely they’ll receive a texted reply because these old fingers of mine aren’t up to the task. It’s not a computer I want to carry in my pocket—just a phone . . . unless, of course, Captain Kirk calls to let me know I can finally board the Enterprise, in which case, I will gladly fumble with the buttons long enough to figure out how to open the online channel. But I’m jumping ahead now, so let’s return to my non-tech childhood for a look at another batch of inventions I began life without—for instance . . .
We had no such thing as a home computer when I was a kid. We had a typewriter. It had keys and a ribbon, and a return carriage that needed a good manual whacking to get it to move. I watched my mother type letters on it. I watched her paint over misspelled words with white goop and blow it dry with pursed lips, the same delicate way she would paint her fingernails. If the white goop wasn’t properly dried before typing the correction over top of it, she would have to use nail polish remover to clean it off of the keys before any more typing could continue. Another fun project that was part of this do-over was her attempt to re-align the carriage to be sure the keys would re-type the word on the same line, in the same space. A tedious process that made me all the more grateful for my pencil and eraser. I never wanted to learn to type but was forced into a typing class in high school because, as my parents put it, “the only job suitable for a woman is a secretarial job—and secretaries must be good typists.” “Fortunately,” they followed up, “a woman need only stay in a secretarial job until she finds a husband, gets married, and begins to raise a family.” O-M-G! So, I flunked the typing class but excelled at General Business in spite of the fact that I only showed up in the classroom to take the monthly quizzes and final exams. I learned a lot about accounting in that class, including how to balance a checkbook, though I somewhat regretfully neglected to put any of it into practice for the next decade or two. Still, it did come in handy when I became an accountant in my 30s. But I digress. Back to the computer at hand.
As a young mother in my 20s, I stood in horror as my brother installed a Macintosh 128k computer in my home “for the children,” to be followed by an IBM PC—both of which he built from scratch with his own brain and hands. In that year I lost my kids to a fake world of low-tech games such as “Pong,” “Tetris,” “Pacman,” “Kings Quest,” and “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.” Soon came video games to play on the television. Mario and Luigi took over our living room and the growing minds of my children. Some folks asked me why I allowed these foul, satanic machines into my home. As hard as I fought it, the truth is that my choice was to watch my children playing video games at our house or not watch them playing video games at their friends’ houses. I opted to have my children live at home with me. That was the reality in the 1980s and ‘90s. Just as video games were developing and growing, so, too, were computers. By the mid-1990s, I had my own computer and printer, making a work-at-home mom’s job easier and a lot less expensive. Typing my year-end thoughts on this much-evolved Windows-10 platform today, to upload to my website and share on social media, is something I can only accomplish thanks to the tech r-r-r-evolution that invaded my life so long ago. Back in those days, I worked on my slo-o-o-o-w-w-w-w PC while my kids played video games. Nowadays, they work on their laptops and phones while I type articles for blogs and chapters for books. Clearly, I’ve lost my war against typing, but am eternally grateful for the tech-heads that replaced white-out and carriages with highlighting and delete buttons!
We couldn’t have video games, computers, or internet without first having had television technology. As kids, my parents had radios. Period. No pictures, only sound and their imaginations. Their parents didn’t even have radios, only their imaginations. Evidently, the goal became to create the most excellent ways to erase our imaginations, and this has been achieved in a fairly short amount of time. For practical intents and purposes, black and white televisions were in many living rooms in the 1950s and color televisions followed in the 1960s. Many tech-heads had already been hard at work on this technology for a century in order to bring this medium to the world of bored housewives and fidgety children. Men enjoyed watching the news and sports, but were also coerced into watching Sunday night Disney programming, Lawrence Welk’s polkas, and Sing Along with Mitch's “Follow the Bouncing Ball” as a way to “bring the family together” as defined by family members staring mindlessly into a small, square screen rather than having to talk to each other at day’s end. It all ends up in a big blur—radio into television, television into computers and video games, and all of that into a Smart Phone that does everything, including taking still pictures and moving video. I’ll stick with Captain Kirk and our mutual Tribbles.
Nevertheless, I do adore my Black and Decker toaster oven, my KitchenAid mixer, my Hamilton Beach bread maker, and my Frigidaire freezer. Life wouldn’t be the same if I spent all my waking hours grinding wheat and kneading dough. Although I’m certain this blustery winter day would preserve my frozen foods, summer would not keep Olaf in very good health. The snow-blower, the chainsaw, the log-splitter, and the electric sander have all been helpful inventions. Tech can be a true blessing. Alexa, Siri, and Google? Not so sure I’m ready to be under their watchful eyes just yet. However, these thoughts of mine are growing ever-closer to being transmitted to you over the wide-open waves of the ever-watched-over internet to wherever you think you are hiding out there . . .
My final thought, as I shared with my favorite tow-head twins several days ago, is that when their 11-year-old youth has strayed far behind them, bringing them a half of a century into the future, what will the world look like then? What new inventions will have made life easier—or more complicated? Where will the tech-heads lead us lemmings? Over the edge, into the abyss? Or into Heaven on a Star-bus? Wherever we’re going, unless immortality is affordable, I won’t be here to see it built from scratch and installed in my home “for the children.” But, if all goes well in my sleep tonight, I will wake up tomorrow to see 2020, which is more than I ever envisioned. For now, however, my flip phone is playing a polka so I should answer it . . . the old-fashioned way, without my glasses on so I can’t see the caller-ID. Let the mystery begin!
Sweete Quote: “A blogger is an impatient author.”
Striaight from my blog at jennifersweete.com © Jennifer Sweete, New Year's Eve, December 31, 2019
Any typos found in this here are caused by sleep deprivation and/or playing video games while proofreading. The author pleads insanity.
Book Review - THE WAY I HEARD IT
The Way I Heard It by Mike RoweMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The way I heard it Mike Rowe is a great writer. The way I see it after reading THE WAY I HEARD IT, Mike Rowe is a SPECTACULAR writer! Am I biased? Well, I don’t know him personally, though now that I’ve read his book, listened to his podcast, and having watched him host so many TV shows through the years, it feels like I do. He reminds me of my childhood hero, Paul Harvey—yes, I’m dating myself (again). To me, he feels like a brother. He feels like a friend. He feels like part of the family. No, I don’t know how he feels, just how I feel when I see his smile or hear his voice, live or in print. That’s what a spectacular writer can do—make you feel like he’s sitting there at the table with you, chatting it up, pouring another cup of tea. That’s Mike Rowe, my buddy, my pal whom I’ve yet to meet in person.
So, am I biased? I can’t tell.
THE WAY I HEARD IT is Mike's memoir, yet it embraces every quality I hunger for in a book. Humor—Mike’s a funny guy. Emotion—what a ride! Intimate sharing—with wit, whimsy, and wisdom. Both history and mystery—his crafty weaving of the often unknown or unfamiliar stories of historical figures and sly entanglement of two or more celebrity possibilities reads like a Who Dunnit, leaving you slapping your knee in a “Yes, I got it!” or your face in a “No way! How did I miss that?!” He’s a mischievous man! There are even stories in there about a couple of important people I didn’t know existed, but now I do—never too old to learn something new, including the various vocabulary words sprinkled surreptitiously throughout the chapters to challenge the reader's intellectual prowess or stimulate one's urgence à rechercher la définition.
As in everything Mike does in public view, his writing elevates and strengthens our intimacy with him. His personal stories, as he relates his life experiences to each luminary he elucidates, engage us in the ride of his own lifetime. And what a lifetime he has lived! Not that it’s over by any means, as he’s clearly discovered yet another blazing trail, enlightening readers and writers alike with the glow of his flaming quill.
Grampa had a little ol’ radio, maroon in color and no bigger than a loaf of home-baked bread, that sat square in the center of Gramma’s kitchen table, and backed up against the wall. It had two giant knobs—one for volume and one to tune into the station that played Paul Harvey’s "The Rest of the Story." We all sat together, the old and the young, glued to those invisible electromagnetic waves, listening to the familiar voice of our distant “Uncle Paul” brought near to us by the magical box. To this day I can’t read or hear a news broadcast without wondering if I’ll ever know the rest of the story. Harvey is immortalized in our hearts. If you never knew him, you should google him and listen to some of his shows archived on youtube. History remembers him.
History will remember Mike Rowe as well, for he, too, is an inspiration to us all. THE WAY I HEARD IT is as much a treasure trove of gold nuggets for writers as for readers—authors, bloggers, and journalists, beginners and adepts. Something new can be done. Something new can be learned. Something brilliant can be created. The proof is in the pages.
Go ahead, buy the book and read it . . . I’ll wait.
P.S. Don't stay up all night! I tried to read just one chapter each night so I could savor it into the following day. Failing at that, I tried to limit myself to just two chapters each night. I was able to hold strong for a few nights, but then I fell off the wagon. Three chapters, then four chapters, and finally reaching the end of the book far too soon. Now I will have to read the entire book again, and probably a third and fourth time, because it really is that good! Perhaps you think you will be better at moderation than me—best of luck to ya!
Straight from my blog at jennifersweete.com © Jennifer Sweete, January 2020
Sweete Quote: “A book review is worth a thousand words, or thereabouts."
View all my reviews
August 14, 2018
What’s on the Menu?
What’s on the Menu?
by Jennifer Sweete
Have you looked up this summer? At the planets turning? At the meteorites hurling? At the stars twinkling? At the furnace burning in the bright, blue sky? Has your view been clear? Or smoky? Cloudy? … Read more
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June 21, 2018
More Than Just a Brick in the Wall – A Mall Wall!
“Oh, what a wall, what a wall,” moaned the wicked witch as she melted into nothingness. So attached was she to controlling her environment that she could not otherwise exist. And what was the message from the good witch? That a colorful … Read more
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May 7, 2018
The Search for my “OH, THERE IT IS” . . . and Babies
Where did I put my . . . ? Oh there it is! This phrase has become a refrain to a daily hymn at my house. My keys, my hat, my shoes, my coat, my just about anything, has its place and … Read more
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February 7, 2018
Panning for Gold in the Social Media Stream
How can Indie authors use social media to boost their book sales?
The theory is “Build it and they will come.”
And, then there is the fine print . . .
The first question to ask yourself when you’re thinking about building … Read more
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January 23, 2018
Pod People and 9 Ways to Save on Editing Costs
Where do they come from? We may never know, but the galaxy “AGCT” is missing its Coder. Do you remember, as kids, having our mouths washed out with soap when we sassed or used foul language? Is there any one among us … Read more
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November 21, 2017
20 Steps to Writing a Delicious Blog, AND CATS
Does it seem that the world at large is losing its collective mind? How could I ever possibly hope to keep up with the tangled web that is coming unglued around me? Certainly not in a blog when everything has changed by … Read more
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November 14, 2017
Salem Witch Hunts - Twitter Style
'Nuff already. The world is losing its collective mind. When a writer can't even scribble a blog about anything pertinent without sounding politically incorrect (which is how I usually sound about everything anyway), something is amiss.
I never thought I'd say this, but the Kardashians are starting to sound saner than the rest of the world.
This is the second Monday this week and I still can't seem to get it together.
But I will! I have grandchildren to explain it all to me . . .
I never thought I'd say this, but the Kardashians are starting to sound saner than the rest of the world.
This is the second Monday this week and I still can't seem to get it together.
But I will! I have grandchildren to explain it all to me . . .
July 13, 2017
Camping at 60 – Napping with Nature
[image error]I went on a road trip. I chose camping over an air conditioned hotel room. But when I returned . . . yikes! My inbox is INSANE! 321 emails, 43 mosquito bites, 3 spider bites, 1 head wound followed by a tetanus … Read more
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