This morning, during my bus ride to work, several passengers were smirking and pretending not to listen to the cell pone conversation of a younger person and his friend. This boy was about 13 or 14 years old. Cell phones and text messaging are a normal part of his life. “No, dude! I send hella-text and I don’t understand why my mom cares so much, cuz I pay for it, but whateva.”
What was I doing 20 years ago?
- I had a CB radio in my room, with a homemade antenna in tree. I had gone to the library and had done my own research for how to make an antenna like that, and how to tune it. I even went so far as to figure out the specs needed for the coaxial cable and decided to use regular cable TV’s coax cables and to solder on adapters from Radio Shack, because it cost way less than using “the official” cables made for CB stuff – especially if I needed 100+ feet of cable. And, the cable TV coax cables actually had better specs and could go longer distances, with less interference and less resistance.
- I had a 50cc Yamaha motorbike that I drove all over. Yeah, I got in plenty of trouble with that thing.
- I got cut from the basketball team during my sophomore year of high school, so I was probably playing ball at Junction Park in Minnetonka, MN and probably sliding the picnic tables onto the court so I could jump off them and dunk and play horse with friends, etc. I was determined to get better and to make the team the next years. I did that, and ended up playing some small college ball, and plenty of other summer leagues and the like.
- I was in 9th grade at Hopkins West Jr. High, in Minnetonka, MN, and I was working with a 7th grade student as a tutor. He had trouble studying and trouble doing his homework, but he was smart and did well under pressure. I wrote a computer program that was sort of like a game. It was to test his math, while adding some pressure and making it sort of fun by having to give an answer before a little x made it to the bottom of the screen and blew up. His math and other reading comprehension went up. I basically put a timer on and said he had to finish before the timer went off. That gave him focus to drive through his homework. That was also my one of the first “practical” things I did with a computer, for anyone else.
- Hmmm… ten years after this time, Google was invented. Man, junior high and high school would have been different with computers everywhere and with search and other tools all over the place. We got a cd-rom drive in the Hopkins High School library, during my senior year. It came with a disc (cd-rom, oh yeah, 1x speed!) that would allow us to research the library contents. I knew that would be a hit, and so much faster than using card catalogues…
These were the beginnings of my my more obvious early adoption habits with technology. When looking back, it’s much more clear to see than it is at the time. I’m seeing that same thing, still today – as I turn 35. Happy birthday to me! 
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Happy birthday, man!… slightly belated, albeit.