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accelerated life not I seem to be having quite a few emotional outburts lately and I'm not sure why either. So here is something to contrast what I wrote yesterday. I'm not sure why I let the whole certification issue with Ann fester as long as it did on Saturday. If she wants to do take the test, then good for her. More than likely she is going to need as much help as she can get before her life changes at the end of the month when she'll be reunited with her daughters and ex-husband. Once that happens I have a feeling that all of her free time is going to disappear and studying won't be happening anymore except at work. As for me right now isn't the best time to be going after any kind of certification, because I have too many other things going on in my life. My best chance would be during the winter break between semesters. Somehow I don't think that Ann remembers that I am already going to school for something entirely different. Now as to whether or not I'll ever abandon the whole information technology area has yet to be seen. For me I see it as easy money and it pays the bills. However, I also keep waiting for the salary madness to level out at some time, but that probably won't happen until the previous computer illiterate generation is dead and buried. Someday we'll all be monkeys pushing buttons in the service of the great machine and I hope to be dead before that happens. I don't want to live in a world that looks like The Jetsons or The Matrix. I find both of them to be equally sad. Of course what will really happen in the future will probably be completely different than anything we can imagine now. ... Sitting in class with the English major crowd is such a contrast to the technology obsessed people like Ann that I see at work. For example, there was this one guy who made a great comment about email early in the semester. "I guess that I'm not 'hip' with that whole email thing." It sounded so funny, yet at the same time I found it to be so refreshing as well. To him it wasn't that important. ... The media continually bills my generation if not the one after me as being digital geniuses who will change the world as we know it or some other kind of nonsense. According to the propaganda machine we would just as soon as have ports in our heads so that we could get that much closer to the machine. The computer is life and we can't survive without it. Okay, whatever. I like technology to a degree, but I also like other things in life as well. I like things that have warmth and texture. I like things that are alive. Getting back to Ann, I think the fact that she is seven years younger than I am also plays a factor in the way that we relate to computers. Back when I was an undergrad, the university wasn't wired yet, nor had the web exploded into the popular culture. Technology hadn't become the money making job of the future for the hip and those who wanted to be hip. It was still the realm of geeks and losers. It was middle-aged men puttering around with mainframes. Yes, I am making some serious generalizations here, but I am amazed at the difference in opinion five or more years can make. Another example would be my sister who is ten years younger than I am. She uses the computer, but has no interest in getting a job that has anything to do with them. She wants to go into the field of medicine, which uses the technology, but still has a human element to it. ... I suppose that I probably am more conservative than some people are today, but I still think that getting a tattoo and or some form of body piercing is an adolescent phase. Oh, look they are rebelling by doing the same thing that all of their friends are doing. Isn't that cute? Rage against the machine my silly children. Ann used to have her tongue pierced, but she let it close shut because no one took her seriously. My sister still has hers pierced and runs into the same thing. ... Maybe I am more of a hick than I thought, but I have never seen the appeal of living on either the west or the east coast where supposedly everything that is really important in this country happens. I don't need to be living on the cutting edge or be surrounded by massive quantities of people. I like a somewhat slower pace of life and Milwaukee can give me that kind of lifestyle. I'm not saying that I want to be sitting in some corner bar drinking bad beer eating pork rinds and developing a gut for the next thirty years, but I don't feel the need to be at a rave every other night of the week either. Actually if I ever do move, it'll probably be to another country. This of course falls into my all or nothing philosophy of life. ... I neglected to mention what I was doing at work for most of Friday night. Instead of doing anything work related, I was listening to Nicole tell stories.
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