Something A Little "Lighter"

I recently purchased an Apple iPhone. It seemed like the thing to do. My old Palm Treo was acting up. Sometimes it would take a call. Sometimes not. Sometimes you could actually make a call. Sometimes, well…….not so much. It was time. It was time for me to move fully into the 21st century. I needed the latest and greatest gadget so that I, too, could “get an app for that”.

At the store, the sales rep assured me that my iPhone would sync easily with my old Palm software and all my calendar information would be transferred to my new wonderful device. Again, not so much. I really didn’t feel like I was taking much of a risk, because I WAS only paying 99 dollars (with a two year contract) for this most amazing piece of technology. Oh, well it was actually 160 dollars to get out the door because I DID need the latest and greatest hard cover, protector -thingy for my new toy. You can’t actually INSURE an iPhone so you better be able to protect it.

On my first attempt at HotSyncing, I learned quickly that iPhone does NOT actually sync easily with Palm software. In fact, iPhone ONLY syncs with MicroSoft Outlook, OR occasionally with Google Calendar/Contacts, but it isn’t quite that simple. So, I went gingerly off to my local Best Buy and purchased my brand new version of Outlook. It was only 119 dollars after tax, after all. Upon installation, I found that my old Palm phone, which stored all my previous data, would not sync with Outlook because the software version I had was incompatible WITH VISTA!!  After downloading the latest version of PALM software, I could now sync my OLD phone with Outlook so that I could THEN sync Outlook with my new fancy iPhone. It took two hours on the phone with a really nice guy from India to figure all that out.

But here’s the really good news. This phone is amazing. Today, I downloaded a new “app” which is called “virtual lighter.” It’s a must-have for concert-goers. You open the app and a “lighter” pops up on your screen. Using only your finger, you can open the lighter and actually strike it like the real thing, at which time a flame appears which actually BLOWS IN THE WIND!!!! I know, right?! If you want to share information with another iPhone owner, you need only open the information you need, and bump phones. POOF!! Like magic the phones share selected data. How that works is WAY beyond my shallow mind. But of course, all this has me thinking.

Anyone over the age of 40 must easily remember Dick Tracy. You know, he was the famous comic book detective that used a two-way wrist radio. It was the stuff of fantasy land. How could someone just talk on his wristwatch? That kind of technology was reserved for someone from outer space or some vast frontier. Certainly not something we’d see in our lifetime. Boy, were we ever wrong in a very, very, very big way.

Consider how technology has evolved in only the last 120 years or so. Only 200 years ago we didn’t have things like the internal combustion engine. Electricity, the telephone, cell technology, the internet, micro-chips, ad infinitum. My girlfriend in High School had a party line at her country home. Are you KIDDING ME? Today, I can take a small device from my hip and make a call, send a text message, surf the internet, play on Facebook, check my email and calendar, read my horoscope and get a tarot reading. The things I can do on my “phone” would have taken an acre of computer hardware to handle only 30 years ago. 30 years before that a “computer” was something of science fiction. Imagine all this in only 100 years or so.

Now consider that our earth/universe is billions and billions of years old. Mankind has only been part of that picture a fraction of that time; a very SMALL fraction of that time. We’ve only been around a few million years. It took millions and millions and MILLIONS of years to get to the beginning of where we are technologically today.

Now ponder this. If we’ve developed this much in only 100 years, imagine what will happen in the next 1000!!! We’ve already mapped human DNA. We have the technology to clone actual human beings although it hasn’t been done yet…..at least to our knowledge. Quantum physics is in its infancy. Things that once were thought impossible are now, well…….likely. How about time travel, worm holes, quantum leaps? You’d have to be living in a cave to disbelieve that we’ll someday be traveling on little spaceships. I’d say it’s only a matter of a generation or two before we’re actually considering things like time travel, or literally transponding from one location to another…instantaneously. This of course can all be true if we don’t self-destruct first. We may actually be able to travel to, and explore new galaxies.

Nothing is impossible. Dream big. Imagine the unimaginable. Consider the impossible. I only wish I could live to see the amazing things mankind has yet to invent. If you still don’t believe any of this can happen, you should come take a look at my new “virtual shotgun” app. Amazing……..simply amazing.