Klaatu barada nikto

I am living without critical technology. Just like in The Day the Earth Stood Still, minus Gort the big robot. Obviously, it is not my computer or an internet connection.

No, it is my garage door opener, which mysteriously stopped working yesterday. Now, when returning home, I need to stop, get out of my car, bend over to reach the handle, and lift the door (preferably with my legs so as not to hurt my back).

It is amazing to me how much I have taken for granted this masterpiece of engineering. For most of my life, I never gave a second thought to how the garage door would open. According to this link, the electric garage door opener was invented in 1926 by one C.G. Johnson by what is now Overhead Door Corporation. I do not know why he was overlooked for a Nobel Prize of some kind. Same goes for the guy who invented air conditioning (which is another story of technology on the fritz in my house).

This event has caused me to take stock of my tech-dependent life. Suddenly, with a manual garage door and inadequate A/C, I feel like a contestant (or is it "guinea pig") on one of those PBS series where they drop modern people into a replica of the tech-deprived past. Perhaps I am in 1900 House or the impossibly fussy Manor House. Either way, one thing has not changed: I still do not have cable television. Which is bad because, at the moment, I am not getting UHF.

I don't watch a lot of UHF except the Simpsons and the occasional episode of House. But, the fact that my garage door, A/C, and UHF are not in perfect working order is making me a bit nuts.

Oh, and my Treo keyboard never got fixed.

I do love my new MP3 player. It is a Samsung Z5, which is a very close replica of an Apple Nano but it plays nicely with a number of online music stores. It has a really nice screen and a cool feature of displaying the album art related to the track currently playing. Only . . . that doesn't seem to work.

Oy. Maybe I would be better off volunteering to be in the next version of Colonial House.

Comments

Anonymous said…
In some ways, I can sympathize since you called me a Luddite once. This is being sent from my new whizbang computer. Almost finished customizing!
Dad
Larry said…
This from a man who used me as his own personal garage door opener for about 17 years!
Anonymous said…
House and The Simpsons? Whom are you trying to kid?!? You also watch Smallville and whatever Trek spinoff happens to be available. I have it on good authority that you're quite a fan of the Gilmore Girls, too.

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