Old Dog, New Laptop

So this blog tends to be about getting out there and trying new things, expanding horizons, opening new doors. I'm a huge fan of all that. But I have to admit in some ways I'm about as resistant to change as a person can be. It's always something silly, but I can cling to the old and familiar sometimes with a death grip. The funny thing is, it's usually (or I guess I should say always) Lisa and John who drag me kicking and screaming away from my comfort zone. That's funny because in many if not most ways those two are much more conservative than me. Here's the most recent example.

I sit here writing this on a brand new, touch screen laptop computer. Lisa is next to me on the couch, I'm comfortable and relaxed with a coffee in easy reach. The TV is on a cooking show that she and I are both half watching and talking about (she's also on her laptop.) It's great. It's also been pretty normal for most of America for years. Laptops are everywhere and the desktop PC is about dead in the home. But in a very old man get-off-of-my-lawn kind of way, I've been completely dismissive of and even hostile to laptop computers since they appeared.

I didn't have a good reason. They were just "new" and I was used to my desktop and, and, and......well, I really can't think of anything else. It's totally unreasonable unless maybe you look at it in the wider context of technological advancement coming so fast it can be a bit scary to a 45 year old. Lisa had a laptop assigned to her when she worked for the State Port Pilot, like ten years ago, so I've seen it work and seen her use and love using it. She and John both got new ones a year or so ago and teased me for not even wanting one. I just dug in my heels.

We'd look at the laptops in Best Buy and I'd poo poo them. When the touch screen versions came out I was especially poo poo-y about THAT feature. What a gimmick, right? How entirely silly and useless.

Then Lisa ordered a Bluetooth keyboard for our Kindle tablet. I never would have bought one. But I tried it out when it came. well, more like a week or two after it came. I'm stubborn. I downloaded the Yahoo Mail app and used the Kindle to check my email. The keyboard came with a nifty little case that allows you to prop up the tablet with the keyboard laid out in front. I used my finger to scroll and select emails and the keyboard to type responses. It was entirely intuitive and natural, I guess because we all have been using touch screen phones for so long. But it was beyond intuitive, it was.......fun. I loved the combo of keyboard and touch screen, and no mouse. It dawned on me, no, it STRUCK me, that a touch screen laptop would be like this all the time.

I kind of sheepishly, for me, hinted around to Lisa that I was looking at these things. Lisa, much to her credit, did not do the HA! I told ya so! Dance. Instead, we stopped into Best Buy last weekend and found a reasonably priced touch screen laptop and bought it. And I LOVE it. I use it on my lap. I just reach up and touch whatever I want to see or do. I swipe and scroll and click. I can write on this blog without bansishing myself to the other room. I can reach over and poke Lisa in the side whenever I like. See, I just did :-) This is great!

I kinda feel like I'm living in Star Trek.

Kirk out.