15 years online

I started writing this post a couple of weeks ago. My plan was to have it ready to post on the anniversary date mentioned -- but life intervened, as it too often does. I dusted it off again after hearing about Steve Jobs's death this week. I've never owned anything by Apple (yet?)... but no matter what brand you own, he's essentially the reason why we all have personal computers sitting on our desks or in our laps today.

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The last year seems to be chock full of milestone "annivesaries" of one kind or anothern -- our 25th anniversary & my parents' 50th, my 50th birthday, my 25th anniversary with my company. Here's another one: 15 years ago, on September 21, 1996, we bought our first home computer, & shortly afterward, I went online for the very first time.

But first, let's go back. WAAAYYYY back. ; ) I guess my generation sort of straddles the time between the older folks, who didn't grow up with computers at all, and kids today, who seem to be born with an iPad or Game Boy in their hands.

I have no clear memory of when computers first entered my life in a meaningful way. They were around, although certainly not in the same way they are today. My first memories of computers are associated with my uncle, who got into the mainframe computer industry after graduating from university in the early 1960s. He worked for what was then called Univac, later became Unisys, and was Honeywell by the time he retired several years ago. He used to bring us excess continuous form printer paper to draw on, & would send us posters with images of Snoopy and Linus from Peanuts, fashioned from rows of printed numbers.

The one Christmas my family spent with his, in 1976, my cousins had a newfangled game -- called Pong -- that you played on a television set. A little white dot bouncing back & forth between two white lines on a black screen, like a ping pong game. I'm sure today's kids would find Pong about as exciting as watching paint dry (maybe even less so), but it was pretty fascinating stuff back then.

By the time I was off to university in 1979, games like PacMan & Galaga had replaced pinball machines in the campus bar, and one of my girlfriends was actually studying computer science, which meant spending long hours in the lab with boxes of punch cards, learning new languages called BASIC & COBOL. In the early '80s, my mom bought my dad something called Intellivision, which came with game cartridges for Donkey Kong, poker, hockey, golf, etc. My dad was enchanted and it provided us with endless hours of entertainment on cold winter nights during Christmas and February break.

But nobody, except maybe the very geekiest of the geeks, had their own computers or wrote term papers on them. For me, researching and writing a term paper in those days would mean spending long hours going through the card catalog at the library, taking pages of notes from stacks of books (if I could find them), using roll after roll of nickels to photocopy materials that weren't allowed to be signed out, then spreading all my raw material out on my dorm room bed & floor and starting to write. Longhand. I would revise my draft at least once, perhaps two or three times -- and then I would start typing.

Because I had probably procrastinated, I would often start typing late on the night before my paper was due, type through the night, turn in my paper the next morning, & then go home to sleep. ; ) To muffle the sound in an attempt not to annoy my dorm neighbours, I would put the typewriter on top of a couple of towels. And I woudl use easy-erase paper, which was much easier than trying to correct errors with whiteout. And trying to realign the typewriter carriage with the spot where you had corrected the error -- ARRRGHHHH.

I spent the month of January 1984 as an intern reporter at the London Free Press, before entering my final term of journalism school. This was the first time I ever used a computer, I think. Very basic, primitive stuff, of course. I would type my stories on a black screen with glowing yellow type. Then, after I'd filed it, I would read other stories from the wire services that were coming in, stories that would appear in the paper the next morning. It was intoxicating.

When my internship month ended, I returned to J-school for my final term -- and surprise! We now had computers too. We were the first class in the his­tory of the school to use them. Again, very basic, primitive by today's standards -- black screen, green type, very lit­tle for­mat­ting, & there were 30 of us shar­ing a dot-​​matrix con­tin­u­ous form printer (with a tan­gle of num­bered cables cor­re­spond­ing to our indi­vid­ual com­put­ers, which you had to plug in — & then unplug so some­one else could use it).

But oh, what a thrill!!

When I started working in 1986, I still had a typewriter on my desk, but the secretaries had huge, boxlike computers on their desks, called Wordstars. The rest of us shared two Xerox PCs that sat in a separate cubicle, and had to take turns using them, saving our work onto 5.25" floppy discs. We would compose our stories longhand or on the typewriter, & then input them on the computer.


Eventually, we upgraded to IBM PS/2s (blue screens, white type) with WordPerfect software, & just kept upgrading from that point on. And although I never could have imagined it, I became comfortable with composing onscreen (to the point where I do very little writing longhand these days). It wasn't until 2001, though, that we all got e-mail & Internet access (and we were the communications department!!). We switched to MS Word software in 2006.

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By the mid-90s, I was thinking it would be nice to have a computer at home. I could bring work home, write letters, play solitaire! And there was this newfangled thing called the Internet that I was curious about. The idea of all that knowledge at my fingertips, just waiting to be explored, had me salivating. (But then, I used to read encyclopedias when I was a kid...)

At the IBM store at the mall. I'd seen a newspaper ad offering "back to school" specials, & there was a "Back to School Bundle" deal that looked promising. I still have the ad: an IBM Ambra Achiever, including a 100 mhz Pentium processor, 16 MB RAM, 1.2 GB hard drive, 28.8 K modem, one free year on the Internet, speakers and a colour inkjet printer -- all for $1799 (plus tax, plus the cost of the desk we bought).

I had this computer until the fall of 2003, when I bought a Dell Inspirion 4600. Again, I saw a newspaper ad, but this time I actually ordered it sight unseen over the telephone (!) & had the local Geek Squad guys set it up for me & transfer over my files from my old computer. By last spring, it was giving me increasing grief, & my sister's boyfriend -- who, amazingly, could remotely access my computer from their home 1,000 miles away, run a diagnostic program & make some fixes -- advised me that the hard drive was going. So I bought my first laptop -- a Toshiba Satellite that he recommended.

I can still remember the thrill of going online for the first time. I knew that this was life-changing stuff, a whole new world opening up before me, & of course it was. I wasn't quite sure what to do, but somehow, I figured it out. I think I looked up the URLs of a couple of magazines I subscribed to, and some news sites.

Two years later, during my pregnancy, one of dh's coworkers (who was also pregnant), gave him the URL for a pregnancy website -- Parents Place, part of iVillage -- she thought I might be interested in. I didn't join an expecting board -- I was still very wary of message boards & the like at that time -- or otherwise spend a lot of time there then -- but when Katie was stillborn, I went there again, looking for support. The computer became my lifeline. I obsessively searched for information on stillbirth, bicornuate uteri, IUGR. I ordered books on pregnancy loss from Amazon. I found an e-mail list for grieving mothers, hoping to try again.

I spent less time reading and watching television as my time online increased, and I sometimes regret that (the reading, anyway -- I don't think the TV time has been any great loss!). But I've gained so, so much from being online. New worlds of knowledge, new friends from all over the world, the ability to stay in touch so much better with old friends & family members. I certainly never could have envisioned it all 15 years ago.

But I still sometimes think that I'd like to go back to school someday -- if only to expe­ri­ence the plea­sure of both research­ing AND writ­ing a term paper com­pletely on a com­puter. Kids today have NO idea…!! ; )

Odds & ends

* Dh & I went to see "Moneyball" recently, in which Brad Pitt plays the GM of the Oakland As baseball team. He's also the devoted divorced dad of a 12-year-old girl who plays the guitar. Gulp.

* Earlier this week, we stepped off our morning train in the city, & were almost immediately engulfed in a crowd of kids. Hundreds of them. (Including, I'm sure, many 12-year-olds.)(The NOISE!!) We couldn't figure out what was going on -- & then I saw someone's T-shirt, remembered a news story I had read, & everything clicked into place. They were all headed to "We Day" at the Air Canada Centre, the brainchild of Craig Kielburger of Free the Children -- which he founded when HE was only 12. Part of me wished I could go too. ; )

* My much-younger (30ish) boss is engaged & planning a summer 2012 wedding. Which means she'll probably be pregnant by Christmas 2012, right? Then, of course, she'll go on mat leave for a year... which means I'll have to get used to a new interim boss, again. I've already had three different immediate bosses in the last year & a half. I'm getting too old for this.... :p

* I know she's already got baby fever: I was standing in a group of girls beside her when a woman pushing a stroller with an adorable sleeping baby went by. "My ovaries hurt," she moaned.

* A coworker who's currently on mat leave dropped by today with her dh & their absolutely adorable 6-month-old daughter. I was proud that I felt only the briefest pang. I think I was too enchanted by those chubby cheeks. (Yes, I couldn't resist giving them a gentle pinch!)

* Another coworker's birthday is coming up soon & she's taking the day off. She'll be 26. In other words, I'm definitely old enough to be her mother. Erk.

* As if I needed to be reminded of that, she told me it's her mom's birthday soon too. Her mom will be 52. I'm younger than her mom -- but only just. Double erk.

* Suddenly, I press "publish" on Blogger -- and it actually works!! I haven't been able to do that in months.

* On the other hand, I can no longer get "preview," "link," bullets, boldface, or several other functions on the "compose" window to work now. Arrrrrggggggh. (With comments, it seems like I can comment on some Blogger blogs but not others, depending on how their comment window is configured.)

* All my problems with Blogger started earlier this spring, around the time my browser automatically upgraded itself to IE9. Do you think there might be a link there? Is there anyone out there using Blogger who has NOT had any problems with it over the last several months??

30 years : )

The exact date is a mystery to me. I didn't realize until much later that it was a day that had changed my life. 

But it happened 30 years ago, right about now -- late September/early October 1981. I was in the third year of my four-year arts program, and also my third year of living in the all-girls dorm on campus (which these days in now coed). 

I think it was the night of the inter-residence social at university, which brought together students from all the campus residences. Before any big party, though, there was always a pre-party. The girls on my floor would get together with the guys from one of the guys-only floors in the neighbouring residence next door & get a (ahem) head start on the celebrations. 

On this night, the party was in their building, in one of the beautiful old oak-panelled lounges with big fireplaces. The guys from this floor were a great bunch, and we wound up partying with them often that year. And I remember having a long conversation with a very cute, very nice guy -- a pre-masters immunology student from Toronto, of all places. That fact alone probably helped him stand out in my mind. We had lots of kids from Manitoba, of course, lots from Saskatchewan & Alberta, lots from Thunder Bay & other towns in northwestern Ontario -- but Toronto?? It wasn't exactly a popular place in western Canada in the early 1980s (& things probably haven't improved much since then). (I'm not sure there's an equivalent relationship in the States.) If someone had told me then that I would wind up living in Toronto, I would have never believed it. Winnipeg, certainly. Calgary, Edmonton, sure. Toronto?? You've got to be kidding. 

Anyway -- I wouldn't say it was love at first sight, but we definitely made an impression on each other. I remember going over with some of the other girls to visit some of the guys on his floor that fall. Most of us would keep our doors open unless we were out, asleep or deep in studying, so I poked my head in his door to say hi. "Who's the hunk on your wall?" I asked, pointing to the rock star poster on the wall. "Bruce Springsteen," he said to me. I don't think the expression "Duuhhhhh" had been popularized yet, but he might as well have added it. I should have known -- his nickname on the floor was "Bruuuuucce" (most of the guys had their floor nicknames on the back of their official floor T-shirts, & that was his, & he had already explained to me why). 

(Months later, when he went home for the summer -- &, as it turned out, off to do his MBA at another university that fall -- he gave me the poster. It hung on my dorm room wall the next year, & then was rolled up, along with all my other posters, & went into storage in my parents basement. For the next, oh, 26 years. I found it a couple of years back when we were cleaning out my parents' basement, still rolled up, along with all my other posters, in mint condition. I gave most of the other posters to my mom for her next garage sale, but put that one into a box of "stuff to keep." I'm going to retrieve it someday, frame it & hang it in our house.) ; ) 

But I guess he forgave me for my faux pas, because a few weeks later, at the Halloween party, he (wearing a lab coat) asked me (in a waitress's uniform, with fishnet stockings) to dance. At the Christmas dance, he kissed me under the mistletoe. Sparks were beginning to fly. He later told me he spent his Christmas vacation plotting his next moves. 

In January, I became his neighbour for a week when several of us girls on the floor council traded rooms with the guys on his floor's council, & we bonded over a shared love of nightly popcorn. I actually had long had my eye on his good-looking neighbour -- but by the time the neighbour started showing some interest in me, I was already moving on. I danced with both of them at the Ukrainian Christmas social in January, shortly after my 21st birthday -- but I left with the nice, cute guy from Toronto. 

Our first official date was Jan. 22, 1982. And we've been together ever since then. : ) 

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Sadly, the big, beautiful, 100-year-old residence where dh lived, with the beautiful old oak-panelled lounges, closed this spring. Kids today apparently don't like to share communal bathrooms, or bedrooms, for that matter, and the thick, concrete walls aren't conducive to easy wiring for wi-fi and all the other bells & whistles that come with 21st century campus living. 

Happily, though, it will gain a new lease on life as the new home to the school of music. Those thick walls may not be great for wi-fi, but they are perfect for practicing musical instruments! And the auditorium where I attended so many dances & parties & movie nights (where, in the early 1970s -- before my time & before they hit the big time -- it's rumoured that KISS played at a dance), & first danced with dh, will be restored to its former glory as a concert hall.

Me & dh (ages 21 & 25), at our residence spring dance, March 1982. : )
My dress cost all of $19,99. ; )

 

Lurking on my own blog

Hi, remember me? It seems like forever since I last posted (it's been 16 days), & it's probably a longer drought than I've had for awhile, maybe even ever. My excuse is that it's been a heck of a few weeks at work (& it's not even the REALLY busy season yet...). I HAVE been reading other people's blogs (catching up...!) & commenting, and I have had post topics flit through my head. I've just lacked the time &/or motivation to write them down & develop them.

I shall return... soon...

Sept. 11th, 10 years later

I wrote a post a few years ago, essentially answering the question, "Where were you on 9-11-01?" I don't have much to add to what I wrote then. It's hard to believe that 10 years has passed, that the world has changed so much (and in some ways, not enough). I never would have believed I would need a passport to drive two miles over the U.S.-Canada border to visit the cemetery where my ancestors are buried. I sometimes wonder what my grandfather (born on a farm near that cemetery -- he used to tell stories about rum runners driving down the back roads at night, during Prohibition...!) would think of all this. :(

CBC has been showing a number of 9-11 related stories from the Canadian perspective. I know if sounds kind of weird to have a favourite 9-11 story, but Brian Clark's has stuck in my mind these past 10 years -- maybe because he's Canadian, maybe because it's such a great story, and maybe because, as the reporter (Alison Smith) says, he tells it so articulately and well -- & I am so glad they revisited him. I love what he says at the end -- essentially that life is a gift, that it can all change in an instant, that we need to appreciate and enjoy every day while we're here. It's a lesson that is familiar to anyone who has endured traumatic loss & grief of any kind, I think -- but it warrants repeating over & over & over again.

(((Hugs))) to all.

It's a girl! : )

PNGD (daughter of PND) is (FINALLY!) here, safely. My parents called me at work this morning with the happy news, getting ready to head to the hospital. PND thought she was having a boy, but my whole family just knew (& even hoped) it would be a girl -- although needless to say, it is a bittersweet thing for dh & me in some respects.

I don't want to say too much more, because her story is not really mine to tell, but we are all happy & excited (& relieved!), and dh & I can't wait to meet her the next time we are there (probably at Christmastime). As I've written before (& as you can probably guess), I generally avoid Baby Gap like the plague -- but I made a beeline there on my lunch hour, lol. Didn't buy anything (yet) but actually had fun looking.

Thank you for all the prayers & positive thoughts while we waited.

Grade 8

Tomorrow is the first day of school hereabouts. It's been all the talk on Facebook & my non-ALI message boards, etc., and of course, you can't miss it in all the malls, stores, newspaper & TV ads, etc. etc. Adding to the fun (not), AF decided to pay me an early visit, just in time for this long weekend (impeccable timing, as always...!). My one reprieve this year: the annual Labour Day weekend get-together with dh's cousins was cancelled this year because of the recent death of dh's uncle, so I don't have to listen to all his cousins who are not just moms but also teachers. 

Katie would be starting Grade 8 tomorrow. Grade 8!!! I remember my first day (and subsequent days) of Grade 8 very well. We had moved to a new town over the summer, so I was "the new girl." Ugh. Oh well, I survived. I like to think Katie wouldn't have had to go through that. She'd be turning 13 in November. A teenager! 

At most schools hereabouts, Grade 8 is the last stop in either elementary or middle school (jr high) before moving on to high school. My understanding is that Grade 8 graduation has become almost as big a deal as high school. In some ways, I'm relieved I don't have to deal with that. 

But it hurts too, thinking about how much fun it would have been -- having grad portraits taken & proudly handing them out to friends & relatives, shopping for a nice dress (& no doubt fighting over it, lol), giving her flowers from her dad & me, arranging for hair & nails to be done as a special treat, taking pictures. 

I miss my little girl every single day. But tonight, it's hurting a little more than usual. :( 

2010: Grade 7

2009: Grade 6