Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
I am not really sure what my dad would think of his prescription pad’s being used as note pads. He was a man who brought me home scrubs from work so i could use them as Pajama’s. Based off that he might think this is a good use of paper.
Photo from my mom’s use of these when we last visited NY.
My mum visted for April term break. She took the girls for a few days to a hotel. One day she took the girls to the postal museum. We went to the same museum with her when she visited a few years ago. It was nice and the underground tunnels and train ride was fun. When my mum needed an activity for a day she thought to go back there.
One of the activities is to create a stamp with your face on it. Both girls created ones.. The museum makes it easy for you to send your work of art to yourself by emailing them. My mum did just that to my personal email address. She really doesn’t know any other one.
The moment I got the mail and realised what it was I didn’t think oh cute. I thought oh great who knows who now has my email since it was sent via an unsecured system on a public kiosk. To be fair the stamps were cute however that wasn’t my first thought.
Today was my mom’s birthday. When talking to my sister last night she mentioned that she was going into the city with my mom for a show and they were going to grab lunch. I pointed out sarcastically that I work in Times Square and I also have been known to eat lunch. She didn’t know why she didn’t think of asking me but we made plans to get lunch.
We met up at an italian restaurant around the corner from my office. That was coincidental since my mom got a recommendation from a friend to go there. We had a nice lunch. I had Veal Parm. It was good to see both of them especially since I wasn’t going to see my mom for dinner on her birthday.
Today for the 4th of July we went with my mom to the beach. T was at the beach once in Florida but she never got out in the sand to play so today was really her first trip to play at the beach.
My mom’s beach club is near the beach club we went to when i was growing up in Atlantic Beach. We got a late start but once we arrived my mom got a baby pool with an umbrella setup for T. She had a blast playing around in the pool. She also tried her hand at eating sand. She didn’t like it, but that didn’t stop her from trying again, and again.
After the kiddie pool we took her to the ocean and stood her up and let the waves crash into her legs. she had a blast doing that. Since M, T, and to some degree I am sensitive to the sun we didn’t stay at the ocean that long. After that T hung out in pool again, ate, and then we took her for a walk on the boardwalk and she feel asleep for a nap. After that we headed home. My mom was nice enough to give us a ride to and from the beach. it was a nice day.
We live in a very technical world now a days so I don’t know why it surprises me that my parents are slowly embracing modern tools. I am less surprised by my dad than my mom but it sometimes still takes getting used to.
My dad at least has a long history of having useful gadgets. He was the first person I remember to have a PDA. It was an old Sharp Wizard that I eventually inherited. I get my love of gadgets from him, but I think I take it to a whole new level. Of course there is alot cooler stuff out now.
My mom on the other hand is not tech savvy at all. I still get calls from my mom for help doing basic stuff on my dad’s GPS. Of course my sister who once programed for a living also calls me just as frequently about similar issues so I shouldn’t judge.
What is funny recently is that my dad had been dead against a smart phone for ages. At one point I got him a Treo 300 that he used for a year or so, but didn’t like the small keyboard. He ended up going back to a regular phone and an old style Palm handheld. He has had a palm handheld (minus the time with the Treo when it was Handspring) since they first came out in 1996. Recently, well actually over the past few years he has been asking about an all in one phone/PDA. The problem is he doesn’t like the little keyboards. Because of that he hasn’t switched his setup, but has really wanted to ditch his phone, PDA, and pager (yeah he still has one) for one device. His work was going to give him a Blackberry a while ago but he turned it down because again he didn’t want a keyboard. I showed him the iphone when I got it and we decided it wasn’t for him since he would have a problem with the lack of feedback on the virtual keyboard. Recently he has been wanting a new phone again, so he went to the Verizon Store (his carrier). I was surpassed when he came back and said he wanted a Blackberry Storm. He liked the feedback of the virtual keyboard, and the phone did everything else he needed. He even wanted to get the data plan to get work email. He spent about an hour with sales guy and ended up buying one. I now need to go over and migrate his palm data to the Blackberry. In some ways I am not surprised he got that phone and in others I am a bit surprised he has a phone as advanced (arguably) as the one I have!
My mom also surprised me with technology when she started asking me about the Amazon Kindle. Apparently Operah had a special about it and she was interested. My sisters mother in law gave my sister a Kindle and my sister lent it to my mom for a cruise she went on a few months ago. She really liked it since she didn’t have to pack a bunch of books. She took a while to get over some issues with it but apparently got the hang of it. For a while I was pondering upgrading to the Kindle 2 and she asked if she could have my old one if I did. At first I wasn’t going to upgrade. For me the price of the Kindle 2 was too much to be worth the upgrade from the first version. My mom’s birthday is coming up and I couldn’t figure out what to get her (and I still owe her a mothers day gift) so I asked if she wanted my Kindle for her birthday gift? She said yes, so I ordered a Kindle 2 for myself. The new one would be a waste for her, so I don’t feel so bad giving her the generation 1 version. I am excited for the new Kindle and hopeful my mom doesn’t run into any problems using the Kindle the next time she uses it.
In a later post I might write about part two of this post, about my progress at weaning both my mom and dad off AOL. They still use it for email. I setup a mail domain on Google Apps and created accounts for both of them. I just need to show them how to use the Gmail web interface and get them to tell people the new addresses.
I had one last day of rest and now work starts again tomorrow. I did my laundry and cleaned a bit today, but other than that I took it easy. I still have a nasty cough, but other than that I feel allot better than I did last week. Not 100%, but better. My parents came over to measure stuff. I am getting my new furniture (there old furniture) in a few weeks and we wanted to make sure that everything will fit. I did an awesome Visio of my apartment and all the furniture in it. it was to scale and everything. Unfortunately I cannot seem to find it. It was lost when I had my hard drive issues a few months ago. I cannot seem to find it in my backups. I am not happy about it. A work skill finally put to use for my house and it is lost. I found it so funny that my sister was amazed at that visio, and it only took me like 1 hour of measuring and about an hour an a half of work in Visio. 🙁
My mom talked me into getting more stuff than I anticipated on. I am getting this huge plush chair for my bedroom. I need to get rid of my Pier 1 papizan chair to make it fit. I love that chair but it is starting to break anyway. It is take this chair from my parents or buy another $300 papizan chair. The only think I will need after this furniture arrives is a small kitchen table. I am not even sure if I need one, but I will have the room for it. I can always eat on the dining room table.
OK, I am off to bed. This will hopefully be my last night on Tylenol PM. I need to wean myself off that stuff.
This entry was written while listening to American Girls LP from the album “Hard Candy” by Counting Crows