Becoming Mathias

I used to make fun of the Luddites. And now it appears that I am one.

I'm not sure how this happened...just as I have no clue exactly when I transitioned from a vibrant and charming young ladies man into Burt Mustin.

Technology users fall into 4 broad categories:

1. Risk takers. These are the folks who buy the first version of a product. These are the guys who paid $1500 for the first generation of Betamax, or like my buddy Steve Smith, paid several hundred dollars for an SR-10 calculator.
2. Rapid Adopters. This is where I used to be. We're the guys who buy the SR-10 6 months later when it only costs about $80...but still have one before the mass adoption of the general population. Being in this category explains why I have gone through almost a dozen film and video cameras over the years, and why I spent more than a month's salary on a 1st generation IBM PC clone back when monochrome monitors and 360K floppy disks were pretty close to the cutting edge. I read the DOS 2.0 users manual cover to cover, and learned enough BASIC programming language to draw a Blue Oyster Cult symbol on my computer screen before there were any dedicated graphics programs available for home computers.
3. The General Public. These are the folks who are not averse to technology, but will only get on board when society more or less forces them to. They'll learn to use a word processor, and might even take advantage of Spell Check...but probably won't write macros or attempt to master using styles and/or bookmarks.
4. The Zombie Amish. Some people seem to be able to shuffle through life without ever grasping the most rudimentary technological skills. A few of these are simply stupid...but the majority are just wired to approach life with a non-technological perspective.
   
   My dad, for example, has always been comfortable with hand tools -- and has tackled household chores and personal construction projects that I would never attempt. But for whatever reason, he could never get along with computers. Simple things (like saving a file to a specific location) continued to elude him despite extensive tutoring and detailed written instructions.
   
   I wonder if it's simply generational? My dad grew up in a time where he was not the only kid who rode his horse to school. He was able to master the technology of the time, though, and spent decades designing electrical systems for the world's most sophisticated airplanes. But the personal computer baffled him.
   
   My son, on the other hand, intuitively grasps every video game ever made...while I got lost shortly after they turned PacMan into a chick. I could understand the concepts behind Tetris and Asteroids, but the actions and motivations of the Mario Brothers and Donkey Kong, et al, remain beyond my comprehension to this day.

Anyway, today's story begins with a request from my ex-wife's sister, who had some VHS tapes she wanted to digitize. Several years ago, I had purchased a video capture device for my PC -- you could play a videotape through a standard VCR and the software would convert it to Windows Media format. So I thought I'd be able to help.

Then my computer died. And the new box wouldn't accept the capture device's driver -- at least not without more effort than I wanted to put into it. Around that time, the Amazon Local discount promotion service sent out a not for 60% off video transfer service. I decided it would be easiest to just buy the package and let somebody else transfer these tapes. (I will update you on that whole process in a later post.)

It turns out that the transfer service provider was a dude working out of his home, and he lives on the edge of the eastern Aurora in one of those cleverly-designed neighborhoods where the streets resemble FSM appendages. Using my technological acumen, I found the address among the internets, printed a screen capture of the map, tossed the printout in the car, and headed in the general direction of Kansas.

I found the neighborhood without incident and am pretty sure I made the first two turns correctly. But moments later, I realized that none of the street signs I was seeing matched anything visible on my printout.

I was already late for my appointment, so rather than pursuing my normal strategy (ie, driving around in circles for as long as it takes), I decided to stop and ask for directions. I spotted a school with cars in the parking lot, and figured somebody would walk by before too long.

I pulled into the school lot and left my vehicle, map in hand. A moment later, a young woman walked by...and (trying not to appear creepy), I approached her. "I'm completely lost," I said. "Can you help me find Hitching Post Trail?"

She didn't recognize the street name, and couldn't find our current location on the map. I began to think that I was going to spend the evening in the Twilight Zone, circling around staring at signposts with ever-more-obscure street names until eventually my rusted Honda and dessicated corpse would be found by some distant future Blair Witch wanderers. Ugh.

But then the girl said, "I'll look it up on my phone."

D'oh!

I gave myself a crisp "coulda had a V8" head slap and thanked her for her time. It took about 10 seconds to speak the address into my smartphone's map app, and about 60 seconds more for the embedded Android direction babe to guide me directly to the dude's front porch.

So my question for you is this: What sort of brain degeneration is responsible for my precipitous decline -- from high-tech DOS guru to genial street idiot who doesn't realize that he is carrying a device that negates the need for street maps? And how close am I to becoming the kind of fellow who wants to tie up Chuck Heston in Shae Stadium and set fire to his Hi-Fi? Am I in danger of declaring that Google is indeed eeee-vil, and that stone knives and bearskins are preferable to mnemonic memory circuits?

I cannot say. But I pray that there is hope for me...and that when they finally implant chips in our heads, my brain won't explode from software/gray matter incompatibility due to an outdated intra-cranial operating system. Geez.

Oh well. The good news is that those video tapes are being processed, and that a few more horrible home movies will soon be available for the U-tube (or whatever). Take solace in that, and have a great day!