Me and technology

I am in love with technology. I'm not interested in how things work, building my own computer or pulling things apart but I do love sleek design. The affair began when I was a college student in 1975 and encountered my first futuristic Bang & Olufsen record player. It was love at first sight. I was told (because back then I had to be told what I should and shouldn't like) that really you were paying for the B&O name and it was all about appearance rather than sound. It's a bit like Apple/Mac today - people say that it's all about name and design rather than performance. But it isn't.

If any object is going to have pride of place in my life, it's got to have visual appeal as well as effectively fulfill its function. My favourite techno-thing, without which I could not do, is my iPod. What a genius piece of gadgetry it is. It's sleek, shiny, smooth, minimalist and a joy to hold and behold. My hands are as dry as paper because I stopped using handcream so as not to make finger marks on the screen.

Fond as I am of sleek and minimalist design, I'm not exactly a sleek and minimalist person. I crave cosy, warm and comfortable too, so the stainless steel, rubber-floored industrial look is not for me. I like the warmth of wood, the drapery of curtains, the softness of leather and the plushness of carpets. I want my walls to be a 'complication' of art and bric-a-brac so I paint the walls in a neutral background colour. (Why not use complication as a collective noun? It's a fitting word to describe my kitchen wall.)

But technology is a different thing. I got my first record player, made by Fidelity, in the early 1970's - it was given or sold to me by a friend who had got a stereo. It looked exactly like this:



In 1975 I got a white Fidelity stereo record player which cost £50 and was an 18th birthday present from my grandparents. You can see one here. I kept it for several years, until I saved up enough money and replaced it with a Philips stacking system. Now I was really getting somewhere. It played records and had a dual cassette player so I could now (illegally) record my records on tape and make tape to tape copies too. It even came with a chipboard wood-effect veneered cabinet with a glass door. Oh yes, I was at the very pinnacle of cutting edge technology - at least, that which I could afford. However, I was told that the very best stereo system was manufactured by Pioneer, so several years later, I upgraded once again to a Pioneer stacking system in a black cabinet. I am not a purist so I wasn't going to bother building my own system with seperate components. Besides, it wouldn't look good!

About the time I got that system I became aware of the existence of compact discs. At that time, in the early 1980s, shiny cardboard holographic versions of them were hanging tantalizingly from ceilings in a particular record shop in Germany. I wanted those shiny things more than anything. But they were soooo expensive and besides, I had nothing to play them on. So let's fast-forward (a technophrase that we all use now) to 1991 when I finally got the Holy Grail of stereos - a black and gold Pioneer stereo midi system with record deck, tuner, graphic equalizer, double cassette deck and six-disc CD player! I was in music-lover's paradise. Slick, classy and now that cabinets were 'out' I was definitely 'in' with this new display of electronics.

However, I've now had it for 18 years and it sits looking old, dated and big in our living room and I rarely use it. Hubby uses it for the radio and we do occasionally still use the record deck to play old LPs, but annoyingly you can't plug an iPod into it and the speakers are the size of small tables and have trailing wires. The once proudly owned CD collection hardly gets used either - I just bung the CDs on the iPod and then they sit there gathering dust.

For me the next pinnacle of listening lust is the iPod touch (which I have) and a Bose speaker and radio system on which to play it. I bought a cheaper Altec Lansing InMotion speaker/radio system which I like well enough, but Bose is still beckoning. Or maybe perhaps Bang & Olufsen are making one...

Spring is coming!

Today has been another warmer day, with some early Spring sunshine. I heard a few birds singing in the still-bare trees and the sound of garden machinery could be heard in the distance. For the first time in months there is only the merest trace of the snow and ice that's been covering everything and soon the rest of nature will wake up to the change in weather. It's really a nice time of year in New England, especially after a long snowy winter. The air feels warmer, the birds are nesting and in the house it's time for Spring-Cleaning. I don't actually do a thorough srping cleaning in the old-fashioned, traditional sense, but I do try to create a cleaner, brighter, airy environment. I change the heavy red curtains in the living room for greens ones, wash down the paintwork, shop for flowers and try to clear away some of the clutter.

This year, I'm going to get out the paint and rollers and whiten the ceilings, freshen up the walls, paint where I've never painted before and get everything ready for a new carpet. I need to see a change here. I need to get rid of some of the stuff I've been storing away for years and the Spring is the time to do it. If I can achieve all of that by the end of May, I'm sure the summer will be all the more enjoyable. Perhaps I can enlist the services of the kids this time! It's time to brush away the cobwebs (literally!).

Sometimes it takes a kind person to point out that something is wrong and it's been suggested that I've seemed to be a bit down in my blog postings recently and for that I apologise. Life really isn't all bad, but I have a tendency to be somewhat melancholy when I'm alone and in quiet moments when I'm free to write, my thoughts wander and dwell in places that should be left alone. I thrive when I'm around people and there's nothing I enjoy more than to be with friends and have a good laugh but sometimes it's hard for me not to get bogged down in all the drudgery and dwell on what's wrong. I need to stop all the self-analysis!

I'm going to check in at Weight Watchers this morning for the first time in two weeks. Not so much to see whether I've lost or gained, but to remind myself of why I joined last October. I'm so pleased with the progress I've made so far. My clothes are getting baggy and those which were tight, now fit. I don't want to return to that size again, and even though my current weight is still considered "obese", I feel so much better and those are twenty-eight extra pounds that I don't want to carry again and as we all know, positive thoughts and positive thinking get us all a long way.*

Tomorrow night hubby and I are going to a local theatre to see a performance of Capitol Steps, a satirical political comedy group which originated in 1981. They became famous after their performance was broadcast on NPR (National Public Radio) and they've continued to perform ever since. I was introduced to them back when I was first married and hubby played a one of their early recordings for me. I'm sure it was funny at the time, but humour based on current events, requires the audience to know what is/was in the news at the time to appreciate it. This time, having been listening to the news, I'll know what they're talking about.
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Finally, I want to remind myself to count my blessings and remember that the squabbles, disagreements and tribulations of family life are not so important when faced with the sudden death of a loved one. I can only imagine the devastation and loss which Natasha Richardson's family are feeling. When someone close to you dies, the first thing you do is recall the last time you spoke to them and what was said. With luck the words were pleasant and kind; often they're ordinary, throwaway phrases like "see you later", "have a good day" or "don't forget the milk". Sadly, some final words are spoken in anger and the last thing heard is the slamming of a door amid shouts and tears. No matter what one's life throws up in the way of challenges, it's better to be loving and forgiving and savour all that is good. Happy memories are the best and to have no regrets is better. Take care to make each day and each action as positive as it can be.
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*11:50am - WW update: Total weight loss now stands at 31lbs. Big smile!

Teen Angst

If there is such a thing I don't exactly know what it is. From my memories of my own teenage years I know that the biggest dramas occur in relationships: rows with parents, fall-outs with friends, break-ups with boyfriends and they don't even have to be one's own. A teenager can take all those emotions and transfer them on to the dramas of their friends, so they are able to wallow in it together. Somewhere down the list can be found 'trouble at school' and 'concern for family'. Obviously there are teenagers whose lives dictate that their priorities must be in a different order, but for the teenager whose home life isn't in turmoil (other than that which they cause themselves) and whose basic needs are met, this is the age of "Me and my Friends First".

My daughter mentioned in one of our less pleasant exchanges that her friends were all that were important to her and I remember saying exactly the same to my mother at her age. I wasn't inclined to give her the same answer I got, because I've told her before that "friends come and go but your family will always be there". At least we hope they will be. So-called teen angst is really more about the dramas that make up their lives as well as pressures both real and imagined from adults and peers. They absorb some of their friends' pressures as if by osmosis and pass them off as their own. It's empathathetic to the point where they practically live each other's lives - living in one another's pockets, as they used to say.

Psychologists have been telling us for years that the adolescent teenage years are the hardest and we must understand that there is a lot of anxiety and pressure involved as well as the teenagers having to cope with the psychological affect that body changes and emotions have on them. I even remember as a 14-year-old being told (perhaps in an "Educational Film") that "it's a difficult time" and thinking "is it?" and then (perhaps subconsciously) using that as an excuse for bad behaviour. When I heard it as a teenager in the early 1970s, I think the adults of the world were still trying to come to grips with their older children being hippies, taking drugs and rebelling as teenagers had never rebelled before. The parents of the hippies were often law-abiding and middle-class; having lived and possibly fought through the austere years of the Second World War they wanted their children to have luxuries and advantages that they did not. However, instead of receiving their children's eternal gratitude they were rewarded with drop-outs, riots, law-breaking, rebellion and quarrels. Society didn't understand them and tried to rationalise their behaviour, saying that it was "hard" for them. They didn't realise that giving them freedom to "be themselves" meant also giving them freedom to rebel. Like parents then, we also try to rationalize their behaviour. Surely we didn't make the mistakes our parents made? Surely we did. And worse. Our parents might not have been so good at boosting our self-esteem, but the kids now are so boosted they're deluded into thinking they can be anything they want to be. Ha ha. How will they cope with the real world? How will the real world cope with all those super-egos in a few decades' time? Who will care enough about the sick and elderly thirty or forty years from now?

Teen angst is a myth. What we have is kids who follow the rules and kids who do not. Most of them make their own rules. Hurrah! for those whose rules coincide with ours and bad luck to those whose don't.

To be continued...

What do you eat when you're thirsty?

I should ask that question and heed the advice more often! Today I've had one drink plus the milk on my cereal and have had a substantial lunch without a beverage. I'm still looking for something to eat when actually, the problem is that I'm thirsty. So why aren't I drinking, I hear you ask... well the truth is that the only hot drink I like is coffee but I've already had a CV today and I am too cold for a cold drink. Somewhere the answer is out there....

I can be a bit of a talker myself.

If I were on a long-haul flight and had to sit next to a talkative person with a really irritating voice, or a quiet person who keeps staring at me, I think I'd choose the former.

The irritating talker probably has nothing to hide. I could always attempt to excuse myself by saying I have work to do, and plug into my iPod while I read. The quiet starer is an unknown quantity and who knows what he/she is considering during those prolonged stares. Perhaps it's that fear of the unknown that makes me uncomfortable. It would certainly make me want to look away and try not to notice, but failing that I would probably eventually start to stare back.

I enjoy chatting with people but I hope I know when to stop - I can read body and facial language, as long as people aren't pretending to be interested. If they are good at pretending, I'm floored and they only prolong the agony for themselves!

I hope that if I was next to a persistent chatterbox that I would be able to respectfully extricate myself from their attentions. But that creepy starer? I'm not sure about her at all. Or him.

My Font

Coffee Shop

I really should come here more often. It's cosy and friendly and having people around me while I work is far more inspiring than sitting at my kitchen table. From my seat I can see a couple of men at a table discussing the affairs of the day, a couple of women in athletic gear talking about their kids and my husband sitting at another table working on something and listening to NPR on his headphones. Ah the joys of coffee and technology all rolled into one! I'm waiting for my friends to join me for coffee and catch-up time but I don't think I'll have enough time to finish this blog entry before they get here.
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Well I'm home again after a three-hour coffee marathon. It was good. I will go there again to blog though because all my kitchen makes me think of is mice and madness! I've been enjoying the Urban Sketchers blog and it's kind of sort of inspiring me to take up sketching and painting again. I keep thinking big because I'm still looking for that one perfect big striking painting to hang on my wall, although Big isn't always Practical and I'm not sure my talents are sufficient.

I like the paintings and sketches that capture the essence and feel of being in a cosy coffee shop. There's something about them that makes me feel warm and comfortable inside. I dont know - the palette of colours associated with coffee and muffins is comforting I think. Or maybe it's the actual coffee and muffins!

Oh well - the day moves on and so must I.