Moving On Up

There is zero video footage of myself or family that exists from when I was young. A camcorder was just not something our household ever owned. I was raised in a middle class neighbourhood by working parents who could easily afford the technology. They just didn't bother with it. The same goes for a weed whacker. Never had one to edge the lawns, get around tree trunks or into the hard corners. Mother's Minolta was good enough to capture the memories in still life. Just like her kitchen scissors were good enough to trim the long grass that grew up hugging our basketball hoop's pole. When I analyze how I function in my every day life, now 30 years old and with access to all of the luxuries and advancements of the 21st century, I see that I've followed closely in my parents footsteps. My cellular telephone still has a hinge. A good old fairly reliable flip-phone that requires more than just thumbs to operate and without a data plan draining my bank account of it's precious contents. Speaking of which, I rarely use my debit card. Proud to be carrying cash that I regularly extract from a machine every few days, I can count on my fingers the number of times I swipe my card at the point of purchase within a calendar year. Sure money is dirty, and it's dangerous to carry a lot of it...but the crooks who 'compromise' those gas stations and convenience stores, they stack a whole lotta dirty and danger, no? Not a magnetic stripe or pin seems to be safe. A new trend I marvel at, and am as yet impervious to, is electronic books. Down-loadable versions to be read from one flat screen, back-lit and warm. Requiring charging, constant guarding from beverages and elements. Just doesn't make much sense to me. Books have their own presence. A tangible smell and feel, decorative quality adorned across walls of our favourite rooms and an accomplishment attached when turning each page and absorbing knowledge while moving the pile of pages from right to left. VCR vs. PVR. I am not negligent to the benefits and positives of having the latter. My relic still works and performs basically the same duty. Timeshifting needn't enter my vocabulary just yet. I'll not upgrade! Yet. That being said, I was just barely buying CD's as opposed to cassettes when the mp3 hit the scene. Chuh. After 8+ years, and not since I was 21, I am now unemployed and am going to enter the cycle of looking for work. My resources will be places we know by just one buzzword...monster, craigs and 'opolis. We've evolved from circling classifieds in newspapers with red lip stick onto sending resumes electronically from our memory stick. Some things however are just as good when repeated, even if just slightly altered. A couple of decades ago Prince wrote and released an anthem that proudly and literally took us from one century to the next, with his work, 1999. Upon listening to the radio recently I realize that an up and coming British artist has shared with us his song that will likely be included in our declaration that the so called end of the world will be proven wrong, with this work, 2012. Oddly enough, after all these years, now that I'm into the digital age of photography and cut the grass myself, it amazes me that neither a video camera recorder or lawn trimmer have crept on premises. Old habits die hard.

Toodles