Modern Art

Have a good look at this picture.  Tell me what you see.

Now think to yourself, "Why in the world is this important, and why does Joe want me to think about this odd collection of things?"  It's a sculpture, comprised of:

7 Company Tokens
1 Singalong CD
1 Finding Nemo DVD
1 Spoon
1 Duplo Car
1 Playdough Lid
1 Soda Bottle Cap
1 Hair Elastic
1 Twistable Crayon
1 Side-panel to a Computer Tower

Okay, now let's think back to this post.

Yes, this collection of things was dug out of the innards of our computer on "annual clean the dust out of the heat sink night."  You know that night has come when your computer's fan spins into overdrive every five minutes asking for a little more cooling power.  Anyway, our computer has a HP Hard Drive Expansion Bay in the front, which is very convenient for short and long term storage purposefully placed by my beloved two year old.  I really love Blake.  He never ceases to amaze me, though.

And now, it'd be a good time to put that spoon back into service with a late-night scoop of ice-cream!

Cell Phone Heritage

I don't pretend to be an early adopter.  Well, maybe sometimes I do.  But I'm not really an early adopter.  And I guess I don't do change very well, either.

Take our cell phone usage for example.  In the almost ten years of our marriage, I have owned exactly 3 cell phones.  Granted, the first 2 years were cell-phone-less years.   (Can you remember what it was like to be be in college/married/out-and-about without a cell phone?  Liberating thought or devastating-- you choose.)

So these three phones get a little overview here about what they were and why I liked them.

4/2005 to 4/2007
Samsung SGH-E105

This phone was TINY and I kept mine on a tether just so I could find it among all the other stuff in my pocket. Crazy, I know.  It was small in my hand, but dense.  I remember feeling trendy having a flip phone that would end a phone conversation when you clapped it closed.  I remember the screens being so nifty and enviable.  "Oooh, a screen on the outside and the inside!"  And to what end?  I didn't have a camera on it, didn't have any games to speak of, and really was for... making phone calls.  But it was novel.  And fun.  It went through the laundry once, and survived.  I dried it for a day or two, and it booted up, but the screen was black.  Then after a week, the screen was on, and I used it happily until it was time for a free upgrade.

4/2007 to 10/2008
LG CU550

Life got a little more interesting when I got this phone because it had a camera... that could swivel to be forward facing or back facing.  I could take pictures and assign them to phone book profiles.  I could do voice activated dialing (which was a cool feature, but how often did I really use it?)  It had splendid annodized metal on the casing and the keys, and was a nice solid phone.  I felt like if it wasn't heavy, it wasn't sturdy.  This phone had a microSD card slot which was a thrill, because then I could load in my .mp3 music collection and listen to it on hands-free device.  And yet.  I tried and tried and tried to get the microSD card to slot, even going to the user forums to get this wacky user code to reset and recognize the card slot, but it never really worked right.  Ultimately, the outer glass on this one cracked, and I became unenamored with it.

10/2008 to present
Sony w580i

Can it be that I've had the same slider phone for the last 4 years?  I guess it can be.  The funny thing is that I am STILL in love with this phone.  Here's why:

• It has an FM radio with L/R stereo handsfree headset... Sony headphones with great sound.
• It has a great .mp3 player built in.
• I can put all kinds of movies and shows on the phone to watch in .3gp
• I put in a couple Gb of storage on a M2 SD card, so can have hours upon hours of video/songs.  I currently have like 60 episodes of Perfect Strangers, several movies, kids shows, and a full music library on it.
• It has a decent camera.
• Its battery life... honestly, I charge it up twice a week, and its going strong.
• The speaker phone.  It recently out-performed a blackberry and iPhone in around-the-desk conference calling.  Again, leave it to Sony.
• Step counter.  How else would you feel guilty about only taking 2295 steps today?
• Games downloads, themes, and the like.  These were from pre-"Apps" days, so getting anything at all was a real treat.  But really, how cool is a customizable phone?!
• The LED lights around the case.  Yes, shwanky lights that will change colors based on who's calling.
• Bluetooth.  Easy data transfer.  And in that rental car in MN this summer, it auto-synched and I could voice-dial from the steering wheel!  With a four-year old phone, people!

Blake dropped the phone Saturday and now the sound on the earpiece is starting to buzz.  I've replaced the screen, I've re-skinned it using a relative's retired version of this phone.  Do I stick with the phone I love, or do I consider a new phone?  Consider for a minute:

• I don't text.
• Not motivated to pay a data plan, since I have internet all around me at home and work.
• Don't (think that I) need apps on the go really, since we have an iPod touch, GPS, a Kindle, a netbook, a DVR/Media PC.

First?

Jen really hates to be the first one to a party.  It means you engage the host, or stand around waiting for the other guests, or feel embarrassed as the host scurries around making final preparations.  I hate to be the last one to the party, because I feel like I might miss something.  Most of the time we fall somewhere in the middle, as a compromise to both facets.  So what about technology?  Are you an early adopter or late adopter?  We tend to follow the same strategy as for our party-going.  You don't want to arrive to early, else the technology is still a bit infant and getting some of the kinks worked out.  The only downside to waiting is that you might miss out on some worthwhile benefits.

I didn't grow up in a family that always rushed out for the latest and greatest, but on some items, my parents were more toward the front than the back.  For example, Dad bought a computer in the mid-80s for more $$ than several of his cars added together.  Also, my mom drove a Toyota minivan only a few years after the 1984 debut of the small van concept via the Dodge Caravan and Toyota Minivan (we went with the Toyota).  I remember the torment Dad felt to get the house wired for dial-up internet (when, 1994?) and set the technology as a prize for finishing painting the exterior of the house.  Turns out he subscribed to the WorldWideWeb before we finished the house, and always the motivator, I remember asking, "But what about finishing the house painting first?"  The answer was more of a silent shrug that of course we'd finish painting the house!

Here's a look at some of the Hi-Tech things I've plunged for, an indication of timeline, and whether I consider that entry early or late.
Film Camera 8 y.o. (1989)-EARLY:  I had to have a camera for 4-H Camp!
First Car (2003)-LATE: Yeah, it wasn't much of a priority until just after we married and I was nearly 22.
Desktop Computer (2004)-MEH: The wife came with a Laptop, and otherwise I had regular access at the Library
Digital Camera (2004)-MEH: This was a splurge, and I remember feeling so great that we could take a bazillion pictures and not worry about printing them.  I also liked the ease of taking digital videos.  However, given that I had friends on my mission that were starting to do digital, we must've been a little before the peak.
Cable Subscription (2004)-LATE: Yup.  It was a "prize" expense for Jen graduating from college.  Interestingly, I think the only channel that really got a workout was HGTV, at the time.
Gmail (2004)-EARLY:  Thanks to some geek friends, I got an invite in the first few months of beta testing.
Cell Phone (2005)-LATE:  It was almost embarassing, but it was a cost that we justified upon my graduation from my undergraduate program.  Seriously, I sat in a computer lab all day with a phone, and Jen had her office with a phone, so we felt like we didn't need one for the pocket and the desk.
22" Computer Monitor (2007)-EARLY: Graduate present to myself.  At the time, 19" was the standard and 16:9 was just coming into its own.  We felt like we had crazy-huge screen real-estate!
GPS (2007)-EARLY: Move to the Northeast.  Jen thinks we were late here.  But really, why would we have needed it in Provo where everything was neatly gridded?
Quad-core PC (2008)-EARLY:  It's still awesome, and can do just about anything we throw at it.  We bought it about 6 months after the chip debuted.  (refurb!)
DVR (2008)-EARLY: Sure, I had friends in 2005 who subscribed to DVR services, but it was far from standard then.  We felt pretty swanky to have a computer with a TV-tuner. (refurb!)
Netbook (2009)-EARLY: We hopped on this bandwagon since we "needed" a second computer and wanted a laptop, and the technology was out long enough to see some great little machines (refurb!)
Kindle (2011)-EARLY-ish: Let's be honest, we have the 3rd Generation.  But until everyone has one, I'm going to claim early on this.
Minivan (2011)-LATE:  Yeah, so the car had 102K miles on it.  But we only have 2 kids, so maybe we get an early on a technicality.
IPod -what's an ipod?  We haven't owned any Apple products, cause we don't look good in white earbuds. (?)
SmartPhones -you mean you can check your email without a computer?  How futuristic!

Okay, so I'll have to admit that we aren't really early adopters for anything.  We're perhaps on the front edge of early majority for some things, but for many others, we just fall in the hump with the majority.  The only things I can remember us ever pre-ordering are Ken Jennings' book Brainiac, then again pre-ordering Maphead this year.  I guess we're just that kind of geek.  It's almost like we don't belong with our generation!  Jen claims to have been late to the Twilight series, to The Hunger Games, and I still haven't read past book four of Harry Potter.  Yeah, I guess if we are going to shine it's on our being early adopters of Jeopardy!.  I was a 14 year old eagle scout, does that count for something?