Monday, March 12, 2012

#54. or, 14 day learning curve

  Someone told me when you get a new cell phone, it takes 14 days to get your head wrapped around it and know what everything does. I don't know who came up with that stat, but i know it's not something that my parents worried about.

  When i was a kid, the phone was black and hung on the wall. It had a numbered, rotary dial, and i can't be certain about the statistics, but i think that the learning curve on that phone was about 37 seconds.

  I know that there were other styles of phones available. I know that if you were fortunate enough to have a hot-line from the Batman, that phone was translucent red and flashed then he wanted to get a hold of you. For the most part though, everyone else had the same phone. I seem to remember one of our neighbours having a beige desktop model, but really, they all were pretty straight forward to operate.

  It's been about 14 days since i replaced my old phone. I like the new one quite a lot. In reality though, it doesn't really do much more than what i could do with the old one. It just does it 100 times better than my old one. To be honest, i spent a significant amount of time looking for apps that will help me find grain and cattle prices, and tools that will help me do what i do better. But, i did also find a pretty cool whip-cracking app. I drove my kids crazy this weekend going around the house cracking my bull whip. It didn't help that Raiders of the Lost Ark was on last night and every time Indy used his whip, i was right there cracking the whip with him.

  As smart as my smart phone is though, i think it makes me a little dumber. When i go to bed, i like to try to read something. Something from an actual book. I helps clear the things of the day out of my head, and i seem to be able to sleep better. When i sleep better, and i give my brain time to relax from the stresses of the day, it seems to be all kinds of easier to come up interesting things to tell you guys about.

  The last couple weeks i've been learning my phone. Spending the time that i usually set aside for reading on going through the ins and outs of this phone. The side effect of this, is that when i go to sleep with my gears turning, i tend to wake up just as tired as when i went to sleep.

  I'm going to try to put the phone down a little more. I think my family will appreciate it if when we are talking to each other, part of my attention is not drawn to whatever news is being sent to my phone at the time. One good thing is, we all are on a more healthy kick in this house and all of the vegetables we are eating these days has made me so mush more regular. I thing that i can use the extra time i'm spending in the bathroom to catch up on the commodity prices.

  ...............that being said, i don't think i'm quite done with the whip crack app yet so i'm pretty sure i have at least a few days left to traumatise my children before it gets old.

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