AHA

I had an AHA moment this am.  Two things came together provoking the AHA I moment.   The first came while watching “Halt and Catch Fire” on Netflicks.  The show is all about the creation of the early computers and the internet.  In today’s episode, a husband and wife were communicating, long distance, over a dial up line.  Do you remember sitting at the keyboard, typing messages to friends or loved ones, over a dial up line?  Long distance calls were expensive, computers were novel; so I guess it made sense.  Before I left my parent’s home in Norfolk to drive back to Charlottesville, my mother always made me promise that I would call her when I arrived safely.  I would dial the operator and tell her I wanted to make a collect call to my parent’s home.  The operator would call saying, “I have a collect call from Iam Okdookie, will you accept the charges?”  Naturally, my mom would say no, hang up and tell my father they could relax.  “Stewart called, he’s back at school.  Do you remember collect calls and using a bogus name to save money?  Can you still make a collect call?  If you get a collect call from Jack Mehoff, it may be me.

The second event that provoked my AHA moment occurred while I was reading my cousin’s response to yesterday’s blog.  Despite the fact that long distance calls are now free, we still sit at the keyboard and carry on conversations with others rather than calling.  So much is lost when you can’t hear a person’s voice or see his/her face.

My AHA moment was when I recognized that the internet is a great way to communicate with the masses and a horrible way to communicate with individual friends and family.  So, I’ll keep writing my blog, sharing my ideas with as many people as I can and I’ll call (or Facetime) my cousin tonight. I’ll send less personal email and make more phone calls.

Here’s your joke for the day and a song.

On the Internet you can be anything you want.

It’s so strange that many people choose to be stupid.