Thursday, June 10, 2010

                                     Soon to be Extinct?
A while back I showed a picture of a small metal gizmo and asked if anyone recognized it. Very few did. It was a skate key, something that members of my generation owned and often kept on a string around our necks. It has become, to me, a symbol of the past. I wonder if the pay phone is about to be added to that category.

It used to be that I would do an emergency case and be headed home at 2 am when my beeper would go off. All the info a beeper gave back then was a phone number to call. I would get off the expressway and have to drive around until I found one of these modern marvels (no cell phones yet) and call in to see if I had to turn around and go back to the hospital. In those days, we always kept loose change in the car just to use in these phones ( and, I guess, parking meters). Times have changed.

Not so very long ago all the kayaks were fiber glass and the carbon fiber paddle had not yet been introduced. The sport had very few participants, and most people had never heard of these boats. Now, these little vessels to happiness are everywhere and made of everything. Once was, all cars were black and all kayaks of limited color. Shazam! It looks like whoever used to design drapes is now in the boat design business, and new and creative schemes are showing up all the time (I still think that basic black is best for the skin on frame boats).

Go back just a few decades, mention Gortex, and folks would think you were from the future or another planet. Materials have improved at an amazing pace. And for those of us who used to get around with just a map/chart and a compass...oh my. There are little futuristic boxes out called GPS that tell us where we are, how fast we are going and how to get to where we want to go. Heck, they even got a little lady in some of them who speaks the directions out loud to us. Perhaps our brains are in danger of becoming extinct.

Sometimes it is best to move on and accept the new improved ways. It makes life easier, often better and frequently safer...as long as they don't screw with the whiskey.

Paddle safe...
DS

8 comments:

DaveO said...

Amen on the whisky! I met the master distiller from Bushmills on one of my Irish bike jaunts. He'd been on the job for 4 years. He commented that it was a great job because no one would really know if he was any good for another 3 years, since that was when his initial batch would hit the market. We need more patient, slow, high quality experiences in this world. Like good Irish whisky.

Silbs said...

Somewhere out there JB is smiling.

JohnB said...

you betcha!!! :-)

RoyM said...

so is it time for a blog post on which is the best single malt for what ocasion....now that school is out....I would volunteer:) (as a tester)

like which single malt is best for ego, or rolling or sitting very very still and thinking:)

Best Wishes
Roy

JohnB said...

Roy may be on to something there, I'm in. Perhaps we (the testers) could each bring a bottle of our favorite (under $100)single malt to one of the symposiums (or both DCSKS and GLSKS) and have a taste testing over the course of the symposiums). Who's in? BTW, I did something similar last yeat at DCSKS, but it was held on a single night and I was the supplier--what a hoot!!!

Silbs said...

Somewhere the gist of this posting got lost. I do recall last years fiasco/testing. I recall snoring and a 2 am phone call by a distraught women looking for her husband who will remain unamed (DM).

JohnB said...

That 2 am phone call from Mary looking for Derrick was 2 or 3 years ago. Last year you were sleeping when I came back to the room to get the other bottles of whiskey, did I say "sorry" for waking you? If not, just remember that "loving is never having to say you're sorry". ;-)

DaveO said...

I hereby volunteer to bring a bottle of Irish to the GLSKS. Its a little known fact that the VOR is a connoisseur of Ireland's triple distilled finest as well. See ya'all in a month or so.