Another day of sliding back into the real world: unpacking, storing, haircuts, errands, watching the new Harry Potter movie.
Also, a charming little movie, Thunderpants, from NetFlix, featuring Rupert Grint and released the year after Sorcerer’s Stone. We highly recommend it. If it were not for a couple of profanities released by Ned Beatty’s character, it would be a great daycare movie. The main character, Patrick Smash, has an enormous flatulence problem, and his only friend is Allen A. Allen (Grint), a super-nerdy genius who has no sense of smell. It plays as if it were written by Roald Dahl.
9 days to go.
Point conceded, but even if you deny being a pure-blooded Democrat, I still refuse to believe that you are a blatant Republican. You seem quite liberal, and I’m jumping to the conclusion that your political beliefs correspond accordingly. 🙂
Blogging is regarded as “modern” and “contemporary,” and (no offense meant, of course) older-generation individuals are generally not expected to be able to acclimate as easily to modern society as, obviously, teenagers who were born into it. For example, whenever I see my parents on the computer, I get a feeling of helpless frustration as I watch them click through menus at the speed of a floundering tortoise. Of course, it’s understandable, but it’s frustrating all the same. Of course, I’ll now assume that I’ve found a exception to the stereotypical rule.
I do indeed know exactly what you mean by the nothingness that follows GHP; it is an incredibly empty void that is no longer filled by daily interaction with your peers. However, it is much easier for you to accept daily life again than I. You have a very feasible option to meet and contact your peers for more interaction; I, however, cannot. Every day, I must take care of my brother and babysit without leaving the house; I have not seen a single teenage soul (or an adult one, sans my parents, for that matter) since last Saturday morning. I could say that it is now driving me insane, but that would include a prerequisite assumption that I was sane to begin with. 🙂
How was the movie?
Regards,
Alvin
PS: It’s always harder to walk in shoes of a smaller size. 🙂
Republican? Hardly: I have morals. I am a liberal, and yes, that must mean Democrat, although often I don’t see that party as representing my interests either.
Remember that some of us older types have led the way into this “modern” technology age. I actually wrote a word processor for the old Apple ][e, plus an overdue book fine program and a catalog card printer. My prowess with HyperCard was legendary, and I can make FileMaker Pro do anything, like assign 690 students to dorm rooms in 8 seconds without allowing anyone from the same school system to room together.
But I understand your frustrations; when I watch my wife try to negotiate even a website, I can only grit my teeth.
And I also know that being stuck in your house since Saturday has not kept you from contacting your peers, Mr. Young Technology Guy Person. In that, you are probably more in contact with your peers than I am with mine. It’s a lot easier to fire up AIM or iChat than drive to Decatur from Newnan.
The new HP movie was quite good, although how they will get around leaving out the locket will make for interesting script writing in the next two movies.
BTW, how did you find my blog in the first place?
Morals? Republican? Those two should hardly be present in the same sentence. I do understand the liberal != Democrat sentiment, as no one party seems to match one’s opinions quite exactly; however, I think you’ll agree with me when I say that I can identify with the Republicans just about as much as I can identify with Furby.
Apparently, looks can be very deceiving, for I did not suspect you of technological prowess at all. Perhaps it was because of the waltzing lessons. At any rate, my image of you has changed rather drastically – Whereas before I saw you as the grizzled, culturally robust GHP manager, I now see you as a fellow Young Technology Guy Person. 🙂
I’ve never actually used a first-generation Apple before, not surprisingly, but I would really like to see one in action. Eh, perhaps another day, when I have the time (and resources) to go antique shopping.
I conclude, from the powdered enamel leaking from my monitor, that your wife is not a Young Technology Girl Person.
Although I must protest your peer contact retort; even though I can keep in contact with my friends online, chatting through a small white box contains none of the qualities of talking in person. Can you imagine living an entirely chat-based existence? Sanity would hardly be an option! Also, you (hopefully) interact frequently with your wife, a contemporary and a similarly-aged peer. I, on the other hand, can either interact blandly and facelessly online or interact with a 7-year-old brother with an obsession for MapleStory.
They left out the locket??? What on earth are they going to do for the later movies???
I found your blog through a friend who posted the following as his GMail status:
lyles has a blog: http://www.dalelyles.com/blog/
Needless to say, curiosity prevailed. 🙂
Regards,
Alvin
PS: You wouldn’t, by any chance, be a programmer, would you? 🙂
I am not a programmer. I stopped learning programming languages some time ago. I can write scripts in AppleScript or in FileMaker, but I have no reason to learn any of the new, hot languages. I know enough HTML and CSS to get into and out of trouble. (I was the Mac computer lab instructor the year before I became asst. director of GHP, and my minors built the first GHP website, by hand.)
As for your image of me, the great lesson of GHP is Never Assume. For example, Alex Sigmund owns no cows or pigs and is not in an Ag program, yet he was an AgSci major. He plays flute and English horn, and is an accomplished pianist. Who knew? I didn’t until the Convocation speakers and I met to discuss their speeches. I was not surprised. All of you have similar polymath tendencies. It’s what keeps me coming back.
Tsk, tsk, Lyles. Implying that being a Republican makes you amoral. Isn’t that making things just a tad simple? Wouldn’t it be an easier (and likely more accurate, although likely still way off the mark) statement to say that being a Senator makes you amoral?
As to us old folks and technology, when I was in Tennessee’s equivelant of GHP 21 years ago, would you like to guess what we discovered (albeit on the UT mainframe) as a rather usable form of communication? That’s right. Chat. BTW, use thereof was never a topic covered in our training. Mice are notoriously industrious.
Being a Republican doesn’t make you amoral. Being Republican makes you an asshole.