Technology

I've been writing my blog for almost a year now, and I'm starting to bore myself. So in the interest of spicing things up a bit, I've decided to start a series of articles about things that we take for granted.

Today's topic is cell phones.

I grew up in an era before cell phones. Today I marvel at how we as a society survived.

Just a few minutes ago my husband called me to ask if he should pick up our youngest son since it was raining. He wondered if they'd still have track practice after school. Since I hadn't noticed it was raining and don't usually pick up the kids, I told him to call his son. Of course the logic there is flawed, because kids don't carry cell phones when they are running around a track in the rain. Or so one would hope.


Going back a few decades, I don't mind telling you that I had the benefit of being on the leading edge of the mobile phone phenomenon. When I worked in media relations for the utility company in the late 1980s, we had a car we would drive to sites away from corporate that had a phone in it. Our department also had a mobile phone that we traded between us depending on which of the three reps was on call. I don't mind telling you that, although the phone in the car was cool, that "mobile phone" was in retrospect a really funny thing.


If you watch old episodes of 1980s cop shows, you might see the type of phone I'm about to describe. It was very similar to the phones you also saw in war-era movies, like Vietnam or maybe even WWII era. The guys on the field had a big phone (ten inches at least) with a long antennae, and a huge battery pack that traveled with it. That's what our department phone was like. It came with a suitcase -- a very heavy suitcase -- that included the charger. The phone had a battery, but it didn't last long. The EMFs that came off the phone will probably be my demise in another 20 years, but at least I could talk to Channel 4 or a radio station from a restaurant on a Saturday night and explain a local power outage. Besides, having a mobile phone was way cool.


I bought my first cell phone -- a Motorola Flip Phone, remember those? In 1994. I was pregnant with my second child and felt I needed the security of having a cell phone. My husband had given me a mobile CD player for my birthday, but I returned it and bought that phone. It was so cool.

A year or so later I bought a BMW that had a cool car phone in it. We never hooked it up, but my by then toddlers loved to play with it and pretend we were in an airplane calling the tower.

Flash forward a decade or more and I now pay for five cell phones on a shared plan with bills so complicated I'd never understand them. All I know is that two out of three times I try to reach anyone whose phone I pay for I get their voice mail.

Not to mention that the new house we bought is in the country and the cell service here is abominable. We all have to go outside the house to get a decent signal, and our phones never ring. They go straight to voicemail. Even if we do connnect, we're roaming and we tend to lose the signal within ten minutes. It's helped all of us keep our chatting to a minimum and keeps me under my maximum minutes.

But what did we do before cell phones? How did we tell our spouse to pick up milk or tell the kids we were running late? How did mothers get their kids to meet them in the drive to carry in groceries? I guess they had to go inside and yell for the kids. I find the cell phone much more civilized.

At the same time, I liked it back before clients or employers knew how to reach you if you weren't around. I liked it when people wouldn't dream of calling me at home or late at night. They wouldn't expect me to pick up a call or retrieve a message and return a call on a Saturday morning. In the era of cell phones, there's no excuse for being out of touch.

Now I remember what I did before cell phones. I focused on my driving, listened to more music, and didn't dally to my destinations. I worried about being on time because there was no time to stop and find a pay phone. I returned missed calls because the people really did miss me, not because I had avoided them the first time around. I legitimately got back to people the next day, rather than feeling guilty for holding off until then.

I also didn't pay thousands of dollars every year for the privilege of being reachable 24/7. I'm not sure what I did with all that money I saved, but I think those were easier times. Phone calls used to be cherished things (remember "Reach out and touch someone...") not requirements.

Now I do like text messaging, and I find that to be the best way to reach my kids. In fact, I can sit in my living room and say, "Dylan, Dylan, DYLAN" and get no answer from my son's room. But if I text him a message saying, "Dylan, please come here," he'll usually respond. Oftentimes with a message that says "Y?" But at least I'm communicating with my kids.

Ah, technology. It really is a marvelous thing.

People and Polos - the Trade Show

I have to say that I still can't think of a better way to meet a whole lot of people and really launch a public relations program than at a trade show.


The International Builders Show attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. It's the trade show of trade shows, and a lot of people attend to see the coolest building products, appliances, tools, trucks, and windows, lots and lots of windows.


I've been coming to this show for several years. Not every year, but at least every other. It's been in Orlando at least five years running. I'm looking forward to when it goes back to Vegas, but for now I've at least become comfortable with getting around Orlando. The best thing about trade shows is the friendly people.

The people you meet at a trade show are immediate friends. After all, you all have something in common because you're at the same show. I enjoy working a booth and talking to people. I swipe cards and provide product information as best I can. It's a great place to meet all the ad reps and editors that I hope will someday help promote my clients.


But I like wandering around a trade show and typically I manage to avoid being stuck in a booth for any extended period of time. I've worked a lot of booths, for a lot of different clients. I can do it, but it's just not very good or me to be confined in a 20 x 10 space for several hours at a time. It's like being an animal in the zoo.


Now something I don't like: I don't really like polo shirts. I'm the only person in Orlando at this time without one -- guaranteed. Everyone at a trade show wears a branded polo shirt. I have never asked clients for one and have never had a client make me one. So I show up without my uniform, stick out like a sore thumb, and that's pretty much okay with me.

If you're a potential client and you're reading this, you should know I'm real good at a trade show. I like to talk to people and I learn quickly, so I can at least pretend I know what I'm talking about and do it convincingly. I also do a good job tracking down media people and giving them client information -- when I'm not stuck in a booth.

One thing that will probably never change though, I don't own and probably never will own a polo shirt. Please don't ask me to wear one. Thanks.

No more George - Thank God!

George Bush gave his last State of the Union address last night. I didn't watch because the man annoys me, but I must say that simply knowing it was his last address of that nature to this country as our Commander in Chief has made this a very, very good day.

By the way, for those of you die-hard Republicans who think you need to lambast me for the above paragraph, please know I am not a Democrat. I am also not a Republican. I am a free-thinking American who has been unimpressed (and yes, embarrased) with and by "W" since the day he was elected governor of Texas. The fact that he stole the office of president with a little "hanging chad" B.S. in his brother's state made my respect for the system wane. When no one bothered to campaign in Texas the last time around because the state was going for George that really pissed me off.

I'm just really, really happy that we have less than a year of that bozo left. I just hope he stays on the ranch and doesn't screw up anything else.

By the way, if you want to see who he's really working for, check out the photos you'll find on Google or Yahoo of his month. When you see him wining and dining with the Sultans in Saudi, note the happy looks on his face as compared to when he's doing his real job back here in the U.S. Filled up your tank lately? Blame George. He and his buddies are richer than ever. The rest of us are not.

And if today his "Save the economy" package passes, remember that the check you get from the government will need to be claimed on your taxes next year. There are no winners with this jerk. Except for the American people when he finally gets on that helicopter for the last time and rides off in the sunset.

Good riddance.

Change Needed

Small town Texas is alive and well in 2008, complete with every stereotype you can imagine. Some of us remain outsiders, no matter how long we've been here. I will forever be a Yankee in these parts, even though I technically left "the north" around 1980. I'm a worldly Yankee though, influenced greatly by college spent in the south, 15 years living at altitude becoming eco-savvy in the west, and nearly a decade here in Texas.

For those of you who don't know, the south is different. Everyone knows people here talk funny. It's annoying when you first arrive. Everyone sounds stupid. But it grows on you until you eventually adopt a twang yourself. In my case, I can turn it off or on depending on present company. Because most importantly, in the south, you need to blend in. They don't really like outsiders.

Above the Mason Dixon line (wherever that may be), you may be surprised to learn that "Yankee" is still a dirty word in Texas. It comes with all sorts of connotations, like "Cold Fish," "Direct," "Know it All," even in some cases "Evil." One only needs to say, in reference to someone being talked about in some negative connotation, "He's a Yankee," and everyone in the room will nod and say things like "Oh..." or "Hmmmm..." or "That figures."

Because I use my twang when appropriate, and because I've been around a while, not everyone in town knows I'm a Yankee. But I was born in Milwaukee and raised in Indiana and Iowa, by third or fourth generation Yankees. In fact my family has been Yankee since the American Revolution.

At the risk of sounding like a Yankee. In this part of the country, more than anywhere I have ever been, they seem to celebrate and even reward ignorance, at least among elected officials. These folks put a bubble over the town and pretend the outside world does not exist. Life here is "better" than anywhere. We pray in school and before county government meetings. We teach abstinence -- not birth control - to kids and shrug our shoulders over our outrageous teen pregnancy rate. Because life is good here. It's the south.

Now everyone knows you can't talk politics or religion and avoid conflict. In our town, religion is discussed, faith is proclaimed, and as long as you go to church you're okay. Politics is another story.

The other day I heard something really amazing. An elected official in our town was discussing the recent resignation of a school board official who had moved out of the area. Discussion ensued about the fact that with this board member's resignation, another seat had opened up, meaning three seats were up for grabs on a seven seat board for the May election.

The resigning board member was the token female, the only female ever elected to the local school board. I consider her a friend, although mostly by association. Actually our kids are friends. I do know she is the smartest person on the board, by miles. Why she stuck it out the seven years she did is beyond me, but I guarantee you she didn't cry when she resigned.

Anyway, this particular elected official said, "With XX gone, we could use another lady on the board." "You could use three, maybe five," I proclaimed quickly. My friends all laughed. He suddenly looked scared. He even went white, as if the thought had never crossed his mind. Oh my gosh! What if there were three women on the board? Could that happen? What would that be like? Oh my gosh! We're not ready for that "down here."

I honestly think this guy thought he was being really hip and open-minded by suggesting in a room full of women that we might want to replace "the gal" on the board with "another gal." What a progressive southern gentleman! Even though he surely didn't REALLY mean it.

Now I would never run for office because I have a personal fear of spontaneous combustion and truly believe the insanity of bureaucracy would ignite me and I'd be gone. I love education, but I hate ignorance. Here -- and in far too many government schools -- the two go hand in hand.

I am on a mission though. I need to find and encourage a couple big minds to throw their hats in for a seat on our little school board. I don't have any problems with the incumbents, but there is an open seat and we need some smart people who have been more than an hour's drive away from here to offer fresh perspective. We need people who will attack our problems with clinical precision. Traditions be damned. We need someone who won't soft-pedal or "yes man." We need progressive minds that think globally and act locally. No softies. No more mamby pamby, stuck in the 50s good old boys.

I don't care what gender these minds are. I do think it could be good though if they'd spent just a little time up north.

Saving the Earth

Today is a red letter day in my book, because yesterday I got my new driver's license. Now that I am officially a Kaufman County resident, I can use the county's recycling center. I cannot tell you how excited I am.

Before I moved to Texas, recycling was sort of my hobby. My garage in Boulder was full of bins of different sizes and shapes. Every day I sorted junk mail, newspapers, milk cartons, cardboard boxes, cans and glass into the various bins, and every Saturday the whole family went to Eco-Cycle to further sort our trash for recycling. It was a family event.

The boys remember how much they enjoyed taking the bins of different types to the correct dumpsters. They remember how they used to throw the beer bottles into the glass bin, and how it was okay if they broke. That was fun.

I doubt I'll get the kids too excited about going with me to the local recycling center, although from what I can see from the road, it looks about the same as the one in Boulder.

But I will go. I can't wait to take the 24 plus soda cans and the four or five gallon jugs and the occasional wine bottle or beer cans to recycling. It took me a long time to get used to throwing those things away, but where we used to live here at the lake, we didn't have any other option.

Now we are back to saving the earth. It's a good feeling. This weekend I'll get my bins all organized and begin the process. Re-training the kids to save rather than discard their trash will take a little time, but not much. I know they appreciate the point.

After all, as Jerry Garcia once sang, "We don't own this world like we act as if we did, it belongs to the children of our children's kids."

It's good to keep that in mind. I'm so glad I can get back to doing the right thing.

My new alarm clock

A few months ago I was doing my typical Monday morning thing, which is avoiding work. Now before potential clients get turned off, let me explain that a few years ago when I started working for myself I decided that the purpose of being self-employed was to eliminate the down side of work. Since most employed individuals will agree that Monday mornings are a big hairy drag, I hope you'll respect my decision to eliminate them from my work week. I've replaced them with Monday evenings, which used to be laundry night. I didn't like laundry night either, so instead of doing laundry on Monday nights, I work. If you need to know when I get my laundry done, I'll tell you when I figure that one out... Anyway...

While sitting at the coffee shop on a Monday morning enjoying conversation, a woman got up and announced she had to go. "I'm doing the substitute teacher training," she said. "Oh, I've always wanted to do that," I said, which was only a half truth. It is true that I had thought about getting myself on the substitute list, but I had usually replaced that thought with a reality check reminding me that I make pretty good money as a writer and would have trouble dealing with clients if I was locked up in a school all day. Anyway, I'd never actually put "Become a substitute teacher" on my to do list, but on this particular Monday I decided, "Why not?"

"Come along," my new friend said. It's just over at the school administration building (two minutes away) and it takes just an hour or so." "Sure," I had replied, and off we went, lattes in hand.

So I went to substitute teacher training, got trained, and even followed up by delivering a copy of my graduate school transcripts, social security card, and driver's license proudly to the school office. I received word that I passed my background check and was an official substitute. I used my training to go online and sign up for the automated system that would allow me to pick and choose among the plum assignments at any of the local schools of my choosing, whenever I had a free day or otherwise wanted to help young minds blossom, I could teach. Awesome!

"This is so cool," I thought, imagining the thrill on my 13-year-old's face when he saw Mommy subbing in his math class. I couldn't wait for the first call, the first assignment, the first rush of exhilaration I'd get from actually teaching young minds something new. I was going to make a difference, not just write some ad drivel.

My bubble began to burst immediately upon announcing my new status to my kids. "Just don't come to my school" my 7th grader said. "Don't you think I'd be a good teacher?" I asked, reminding the boys how I'd taught them how to use computers and make pretty posters for class projects.

"Substitutes don't teach, Mom," my older son informed me. "When we have a sub, we usually either review something or mess around." "Well, you won't mess around when I'm your sub," I informed the sophomore sternly. "Just don't come to my school, Mom," he warned.

Okay, no problem, I would limit myself to teaching assignments at the elementary level so as to avoid embarrassing encounters with my teens. I also decided to list myself as available to teach in the alternative school. Problem kids have always been a pet project of mine. After all, I was sort of one myself. I figured I'd be the best thing that ever happened to those kids who hate school enough to get kicked out and sentenced to alternative school.

So after a few weeks of never getting a call to sub, I went online to see what was going on. There I discovered that I had not checked the box that said, "Call me!" So I enthusiastically checked "Call me any day," and logged out, hoping that the next day my first assignment would come and I'd begin nurturing young minds.

Promptly at 6:15 the next morning, my phone rang. "One day assignment" the voice said. "Not a good day," I replied, so I opted out. The next day at 6:15, the phone rang again, "Special ed at the middle school," Not my cup of tea. The third day...kindergarten at Lakeview...what do they think I am, crazy? The next day, "one week assignment at the alternative school," I'm a little busy to take that on...and so on, and so on...so that now we're into the second semester and I still haven't taught.

But I have come to rely on the phone to wake me up. It's interesting to note that there are more needs for substitutes on Mondays and Fridays. I wonder why? It's also interesting to note that there were a lot of assignments the day after Halloween (veteran teachers do not want to deal with sugar crashes), and no assignments during test weeks. It has me wondering whether or not these teachers are REALLY sick.

Anyway, the chances of me subbing seem to be getting thinner and thinner. Eventually the machine will probably quit calling me. I also got notice that the state legislature now requires uncertified teachers to get fingerprinted. That's way too big brother for me. I think I'll pass.

So let's just let it suffice that until the system kicks me out, I'm using it as my personal wake up call. It's much more personal than an alarm buzzer and far more effective than the radio. I like to know that I'm at least wanted in our nation's public schools, although it is a little scary that with absolutely no experience and an hour of training I am qualified.

Today's Post

I felt the urge to post something today, but I wasn't exactly sure what it should be. The weather has been so nice that I'm not feeling any angst, and my best writing is typically when I'm a little upset about something.

But I said a little prayer, and asked God what I should write about today. Here's what came to me:

"Just tell everybody to be happy."

I guess that means enjoy your day! Now back to work!