Tag Archive for cameras

10 Technological Life Changers

Earlier this year Travel Man and I were driving back home from a road trip we took to Arizona. We were jabbering about this and that, and got on the topic of all the gadgets (because Travel Man is known to be a gadget guy) that our grand-kids will never use. These are the things that they will not have a need for, and that most of us grown-ups will miss. Here is the list of the top ten gadgets that made our lives complete, and that our grand-kids will never own.

1. Record Players – I remember riding my bike to the Ben Franklin to get the latest and greatest 45 record.  I distinctly remember buying one of Donny Osmond’s 45’s. Oh, and I had a portable Panasonic record player that I could play my 33’s or 45’s on, and I could take it to a friend’s house!!  That made for some great slumber parties.

image

2. Black and White TV-  My memory of watching black and white TV was when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.  We watched that event on our black and white in our family room.  I don’t really remember when we got our first color television, but I may ask my Mom about that.  When we were kids black and white was the norm for us.  We did not know any better.

image

 

3. Kodak Instamatic Cameras- Remember how you had to have the little flash cubes, and they would rotate to all four sides?  We always took our Instamatics on vacation with us.  Then my parents would lovingly get the film developed, and then we would have tons of random, silly pictures.

image

4. The ever famous home phones (of the rotary variety) with the long squiggly cord.  That would have normally been the phone in the kitchen.  The cord was long so you could walk around the room and talk or hide in a corner for some privacy.

image

And then there was the princess style phone.  If you were lucky enough to get your own phone in your bedroom this was the one to have.  That was every teenage girls dream.

image

5. Polaroid camera’s -Do you mean I can take a picture, and it will spit out the front of the camera, and then a picture will appear? That’s amazing!  I remember the flash bar on the front of my Mom’s Polaroid camera.  Do you have an extra flash bar?  That was almost as distinct a question as, does anyone have any double AA batteries?

image

6. The Sony Walkman for your cassette tapes.  This was the best way to walk around with your music while listening to it.  That’s amazing!  I can listen to my music by myself and ignore everyone else!

image

7.  Cassette tape players- I can remember when my kids had these when they were young.  We got each of them a little portable cassette player for listening to their music “tapes” and for making their own recordings.  That way they could each have their own “music machine” and there was no arguing.
image

 

8. Fax machines- I can still remember how cool I thought it was when our office got its’ first fax machine.  Do you mean I can place a document on this thing and it will transmit the same image to the person I’m sending it too??  That’s truly amazing!

image

9. Electric typewriters-  When I started my career as a professional administrator we still used an electric typewriter.  Shortly after I started, probably within 18 months , my boss bought the company’s first IBM computer.  So now I could learn word processing, make my corrections on-screen, and then print my document.  Wow! That was amazing!

image

 

10. VCR- This is really a more recent electronic wonder, yet it has already become a thing of the past.  The VCR tapes used to be stacked all over our living room and game room.  Then we transitioned to stacks of DVD’s.  My kids would always want to watch the same tape until it you thought it should  be worn out and ready for the VCR tape graveyard.

imageimage

Looking back I can see that all of these “gadgets” changed our lives in one way or another.  And I am certain that as our own kids and grand-kids get older they will have just as many if not more gadgets than we did.
What was your favorite gadget that is no longer around that you will be sure and tell your grand-kids about?

 

How do you Charge your Electronics?

What’s the best way to take control of all of the electronics being charged in your house?

I’m a fairly organized person.  I prefer to have things in order, and put away as much as possible.  But here is my current dilemma, there are chargers everywhere in our house.  I have tried and tried to corral the cords, but they always end up back in their own little corners.  Near a chair here, or a table there.  For our house, The Party House that is, we have a never-ending stream of cords, especially in the living room.

Chargers for phones, chargers for netbooks, chargers for headphones (this a travel man thing), chargers for kindles, chargers for camera batteries.  Yes,  we do have a lot of electronic devices.  Remember,  I live with Travel Man, and he’s a “road warrior”, so he has a lot of gadgets.  I had been asking him what we can do to get the cords under control.  So our first solution has been to try  this:

A big charging station in my office, which is closest to the living room by the way.  This has definitely helped the situation.  But, when Travel Man comes home from a trip the chargers and cords multiply by leaps and bounds!  We have quite a few phones in the family that all use a similar charger.  I thought with my charging station some of the straggling chargers in the house would disappear and everyone could just use my office charging station.  The chargers around the house have diminished slightly, but not as much as I had hoped.

Oh,  and how many of you use your cell phone for an alarm clock too?  So that means you have to be able to charge your phone next to your bed.  Another cord!  See what I mean.  It’s getting almost to the level of the Tupperware dilemma.  You know how you have that one piece of Tupperware that you can’t find the lid for, or you have a lot of lids and no bowl.  It’s like they duplicate themselves when you are not looking!

If you have any suggestions for taking control of the “charging” dilemma please leave me a comment and let me know how you’re handling this situation.  Maybe it’s not a dilemma for you, I’d love to hear from you.

 

  • Subscribe to Blog via Email

    Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 1,175 other subscribers

Skip to toolbar