21st Century Moments

I've been feeling pretty astonished by the days I live in recently, by the matter of factness with which I have adapted to improbable things.  I live 20 miles from where I grew up, yet my best friend lives in another country and this is workable because of technology that was speculative fiction until 5 years ago.

A few weeks ago I was in the car, crossing this bridge when I noticed that the river had frozen in the past 24 hours.  I was, at the time, talking to a friend and I pulled over, jumped out of the car, grabbed my camera and scrambled down to the river wall. 

I'm not a photographer.  I make a workmanlike record, rather than creating a beautiful image.  But I have good digital camera and I do enjoy how I see differently through the lens and through my eyes.  I'm standing there, phone stuck down my bra, wireless ear piece in - some fluke gave us a crystal connection in the wind - digital camera in hand, trying to find a way to show how extraordinary the ice looks and I had this moment of complete disassociation.

This is a 21st century moment. 

Later that day I had another one, less wonderful, but no less illustrative.

I don't know any phone numbers by heart any more because I have speed dial.  I do know a lot of email addresses.

I needed a hotel room recently, I went to Priceline.

I needed a claim number for a 6 year old workman's comp issue filed through a defunct contractor?  I went to Google, found a number, made a call and got what I needed in less than five minutes.

Google is a verb.

Checking email is a recreational activity.

Most of the most important people in my life I met online.  This no longer seems weird to me.

The baseline for minimal technology for 1st world life gets more and more absurd.  My handbag sometimes looks like a tech store: Phone, MP3 player, camera, notebook (and by notebook I mean very tiny computer), accessories and cords for same.

I just put my mother on Bluetooth to save my neck.

Ticketmaster is mocking me with its failure to put up the presale ticket information it was supposed to post at 10 am this morning.

Last time I bought a concert ticket, Ticketmaster sent me a text message to remind me when the tickets went on sale.

I bought my first computer in....1995?  It was a fortune, I researched for weeks about what to buy and the internet was AOL and a lot of undeveloped potential unless you were a real geek.  Things have changed.

My final example is a little indulgence I am actually kind of mortified and fascinated by in equal measure.  Meet the Aerogarden.

Its a counter-top hydroponic garden.  I'm growing my own lettuce.  Because I love a fresh salad and got tired of how bitter a lot of commercial greens are.

This picture is from almost two weeks ago...I've got sprouts now.  I come home every day and look to see how they are growing.  Sometime I think I can see a difference from moment to moment.

I find it all a little too entertaining.

I also wish you could have seen how beautiful the ice was that day.

   

Comments

[julieloves2knit]

I was cruising blogs and came to yours - I love the ice pictures - and you are so right - technology is a wonderful thing and I can't imagine being without it.
I drive by incredible mountain views every day - and often wish I had my camera - and I usually don't. Good for your for having it!
Also found on your blog the Standards/Measurement link - I've been wishing I had something like that - just this morning as a matter of fact - so thanks!!
Knit Peace!

[anne]

i can't WAIT to hear how the lettuce tastes. you're making a lot more use of modern technology than i am. what constantly amazes me is that certain things, certain machines, are so connected still to this very fast-changing modern life. like the bicycle. it is not really technology. but it could, and does, power technology. a spinning wheel, (which is really a bicycle in disguise, or vice versa), could power a tlephone or clock, or some other very efficient electronic item.

[lanea]

So, Yarrow wants to know if he can borrow your Aerogarden just for a moment. He muttered something about getting extra points for massacring plants people try to eat.

[LauraJ]

I was trying to explain how weird it all is to my daughter while IM'ing here to/from Italy. When I went to England there was a timelag in communication of at least a week or a very stressful and expensive phone call. When she left, she took her entire social set, all the news she wanted from home, all the music, her preferred time-sink (Sims), and essentially everything but her boyfriend's actual body.
We love the Internet.

[michelle]

That Aerogarden is so cool! Not long ago our microwave finally gave it's last nuke. The kids freaked because how is popcorn now going to be made. Jiffy Pop totally blew their minds :) It's amazing how mainstream so much has become in the last few years.

[claudia]

She speaks the truth. So imagine my horror when the internet went down at the Disneyworld Hilton this weekend.

;-)

[charli]

And another 21st century fad: spinning. Which I hope to learn very soon! However, at the moment I know absolutely nothing about spinning. Can you recommend a book for me? I planning to start with a spindle, but beyond that, I have no clue.

Thanks for those beautiful pictures.

[tina]

It's a good thing, isn't it? Isn't it? In so many ways, yes. But the constant fucking CONSTANT communication scares me (I have four kids, and I wonder if they will know how to be alone, which is so important -- can anybody be alone anymore?). And yet, I love that you shared that crazy ice moment with ... how many of us? I'm jealous. Here in the mid-Atlantic, we've had the most boring winter EVER.

Trade-offs. Blessings? Lettuce. Yep, blessings.

[Kathy]

I think the Aerogarden is amazing! How cool that you can have fresh lettuce in the dead of winter.

[carrie]

I completely understand what you mean. I frequently stop and think about what people would think of our world, 100 years ago. It's pretty amazing, and quite spacey, from that point of view. Ice is very pretty, and I'm glad you took the moment to enjoy it.

[Rosemary]

The ice and bridge made me think about how we take mobility for granted in the 21st Century (and how we did in the 20th, as well). Two or three hundred years ago, that cracked ice was a major barrier to transportation. The river too solid for boat traffic, but not solid enough to walk on. Madeline Island in Lake Superior still deals with this issue every winter.

Now we travel across partially frozen rivers on bridges and over major weather events on airplanes. I went from Virginia, to Boston, to Cincinnati, to Miami, and back to Virginia in 5 days last week.

[elizabeth]

What an insightful post... it's funny how so many things that we now take for granted were complete SciFi just a few years ago. Sometimes I am exhilarated by the exponential growth of technology- most of the time, it scares the daylights outta me!

[Kristy]

I was just thinking about this over the weekend. My boyfriend liked a recipe, and my friend promised to e-mail it to him. A friend's mother really liked a knitting doodad I own, and I said I would send her the link. When did all of this become so casual?

I'm reading a SciFi book right now with futuristic technology. When I think about how far we've come so fast, it really doesn't seem that far off.

[Sara]

mmm - I love pretty ice pictures. Here's one I posted a bit ago: http://saraskates.typepad.com/sara_skates/2007/02/aesthetic_ice.html
of a lake that a friend of mine lives on - too pretty.

[Kim]

The ease with which we use technology really is amazing. My 7 year old loves to hear the list of things that didn't exist when I was his age: computers, video games, cell phones, answering machines, microwaves, cable TV, cup holders, etc. Your ice pictures are beautiful. I take the ferry to work everyday and love to see giant chunks of ice in the Hudson & East Rivers.

[Carrie]

Wow, I never thought of that. I wonder if it's cold enough in my house in the summertime to grow lettuce?

[k sallyjo]

Everything else will come and go, but ice is always itself.

[Chris]

Isn't it amazing and stunning how much things have changed during our lifetime? When I was born (1966), my dad (IBM) worked on computers that used punch cards and were massive - the size of rooms. Large rooms. Multiple large rooms. (Remember the movie Desk Set?!) Now he carries more computing power than all of those computers put together around in his pocket (one of those really cute little Sony pcs).

[Rachel H]

Matthew and I were at my Dad's yesterday. Where there still lives a rotary dial telephone in active service. Matthew was absolutely fascinated, but needed me to show him how to make a call on 'this thing'.

Love the Aerogarden. I deeply covet one specifically set up to grow tomato plants upside down, but just don't have the room for it.

[Lee Ann]

We have hydroponic stores on every corner in Montréal.

I don't think they're growing lettuce, though.

[Ruth]

Love the hydroponic garden. (Not that it would survive in my house - the 21st century has yet to invent something to thwart / withstand a curious 6 year old). And your bridge-receding-into-the-distance shot is far more than workmanlike! I do think digital cameras are one of the greatest technological inventions ever - photography is such a wonderful way of slowing down and really "seeing", but the expense of film and processing was always a barrier.

[Katherine]

Yeah--I so want an iPhone! My purse is way too heavy. I'm looking at getting a Treo.

Yesterday I worked at home because of the snow--logged in remotely and the only thing I couldn't do was run up and get a paper document to fax for an attorney who was on a conference call and couldn't leave his desk!

And we take it all totally for granted.

[Specs]

I teach a science-fiction class at my university, and I'm constantly trying to get my students to appreciate how awesome all this new technology is (and how quickly it changes everything). I think they got it when we discussed that new commercial for satellite TV that features Doc Brown from Back to the Future yelling "TV FROM SPAAAACE!".

Then I told them that I didn't get a cell phone until I was 21 and lost all their respect.

[elisa]

When we were driving back to the DoubleTree Sunday morning, I marveled at how lovely the docks were in Portland, all icy, and seemingly leading off into nowhere...it was a similar moment to your bridge moment, I think...

And also? I love the aerogarden, but now I just want to see more pictures of your kitchen. ;)

[Cara]

I quite love that bridge.