Feeling Maudlin

You know, sentimental- like.

I so enjoy coming here and chatting. It is remarkably special to have so many friends you have never met and even a few you have. How is it possible to feel so close to people you have never even met?
Amazing, isn't it?

I am thinking about the future. The cyber future. Will this forum still be around in 20 years? I will be 70. Will I still be chatting here? Will most of you? How about when you retire and are living in a condo somewhere or a retirement community.

When I was a kid I used to think about the future. A lot. It is nothing like I imagined. I imagine 20 years from now, logging on to my computer and chatting with many of you. I wonder if that will happen?

Well some of us will be dead, the forum conversations will be, remember when.....

We're living in a condo, but just got in trouble for having rabbits in the spare room.

We'll all still chat, if we remember to, and who we were chatting with, and about what.

Could get quite comical.

Probably won't have changed much since we'll be making the same posts over and over again (what with not being able to remember that we've posted it already).

I'm doing that already.

In 20 years' time the family unescapable dementia will have me in its grip and I'll be spouting a combination of wisdom and insanity.

Wait, I'm already doing that!

Hopefully we won't get logged off or we may forget our password, have to resign up again under new usernames..LOL. It could be comical to see who will be sneaking chickens/ rabbits into their seniors apartments

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Probably won't have changed much since we'll be making the same posts over and over again (what with not being able to remember that we've posted it already).

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Oh man, does anyone else think Tara is rather long winded and every other groovey emoticon that I could think of to send to this fabulous woman, hugs to you, all day long, long winded gal!! Sorry Tara (well not really), but just couldn't resist. Wishes for us all to have an awesome day, CynthiaM.

What a topic Sue, and good thinkin’. I was just going to type this in the post reply box, but know that I too, may become rather long winded, and to lose these precious thoughts and try to retype, well that is just daunting.

Internet, wow, yes, to me, where would I be without it. I am as Tara, I go back to probably I would say around 1990 when I firstly really got into emailing. At that time we had dial-up, it was wickedly slow, but I got points across to people that I exchanged emails with. Mostly my family, I was not as out there as I am now, maybe good, maybe bad, but suits me fine. So ya, been there through many technology changes. Can’t even barely remember how long it took to send and receive, let alone to ever send a picture, yes, scanning does come to mind.

I think that not much will really change 20 years from now. I think that I will still have a good many people that I love to converse with. Some I will never meet, some met, and will meet. I look foward to my time spent each morning with my friends through some kind of communication that comes out my fingers, goes in through my eyes. I get to know what others are up to, and learn about them, and learn lots of other things too, I love it. I love that I can communicate easily with people all over the world. Phones do not do me well and I cannot stand talking on the phone. And I love texting. I love my blackberry and do text quite a bit. I can remember there was resistance there. Told my Sister, probably about a year ago that I would never do texting, as she was encouraging me to do so. Boy that table turned. And I love it.

I would like to think in 20 years that I am still the same as yesterday, today and forever more. That conversations will never change very much from what they are about these days with my friends. And I am sure that things will be nearly identical. Just a higher form of technology. Good post Sue, I am enjoying this immensely. With that, wishes for us all to have an awesome day, CynthiaM.

I've been doing this internet thing for almost 20 years and I still keep in touch with a few of those early online friends from way back when.

Now I feel old.

I'm enjoying tripping back through time a bit with these reminders of when internet was in its infancy, and "personal" computers in people's homes were a rarity.
I pretty much skipped the radio shack casset era and went right to 5" floppy's and DOS.
My first computer was one I bought second hand from a local business in about 1993 or so. They had used it for keeping their accounting records on and decided to upgrade. It came complete with user manuals...3 volumes in the form of vertical file boxes, each at least 4 inches thick, filled with pages and pages of instructions.

In about 1996 I decided it was time to get connected to the world. I bought my first new computer for myself but I didn't really get the idea of "Windows". The techy salesman was trying to explain that I would not use DOS anymore with this new operating system that would make everything so much easier. I didn't really believe him at the time..

Who knows how we will choose to communicate in the future. I have a feeling these kinds of forums will continue. But I find it disappointing how the advertising is creeping in everywhere. Now you can barely watch a you-tube video without having to put up with ads first. Internet chat forums could become so regulated and 'owned' we wouldn't want to be part of it anymore.
Then what?...on to the next big thing!

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Ah Tara, I surely hope you have not taken this personally, I only teased you cause I know you can take it and you know I love you!! Ya, gonna check out the second page of emoticons for surely, bet there is a few good ones I can wing right back at ya!! Carry on girl, meander and ramble, such as I, it is all good and you know you wanna! have a beautiful night with days to follow, CynthiaM.