Boomer Randomness

Yesterday was the 46 th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon.   I used my calculator to subtract 1969 from 2015.   Seems like I should be able to do simple math in my head. Has technology helped us or hurt us?   Calculators and calculator apps on our smart phones, tech that was unheard of in 1969, is almost a necessity now.   Do you reach for a calculator for even simpler math problems, like determining how many days between today and Tuesday? There is more computer power in a flip phone from 2010 than there was in the lunar lander in 1969.   I guess you could say boomers invented this time-saving, convenient technology, but did we intend for it to replace our brains? I just read a newspaper article about maps; more accurately, an article about how teens in the GPS era might never have seen a map and probably wouldn’t know how to use one.   I grew up on maps, love looking at them, folding them, writing on them.   My road t...

I spent Independence Day weekend with four generations of a family that is close to me. The age range was a few months to 82. One was celebrating an 80th birthday. A few more statistics: three Democrats and 30+ Republicans. Two Marines. Seven trips to the grocery store over three days. Wine is 20-40% cheaper in this county, which is only 90 minutes from my county in the same state. Fireworks are illegal in my county but not in this one. Vaping is replacing smoking. Kids scream a lot. I am Uncle Bernie to the youngest kids, which is kind of cool. Some kids bang on the table when they can't get their way; so does the 80-year-old at times. Independence Day weekend is an important time for many reasons: celebrating the birth of the greatest nation on earth, gathering of friends and family, taking a 3-day break from work, enjoying the mid-point of summer. The people in this group are friendly, patriotic, loud and opinionated. They are not diverse; they are mostly white, Christian,...