Lockdown Drill

When I was a kid in school we occasionally had fire drills. The alarm would ring and we would all file out of the school in an orderly fashion and wait until it was "safe" to go back inside. It was all very fun because we got to get out of class for a little while. There were always thoughts of seeing that old schoolhouse burn.

When my kids started going to school, they had fire drills and they also had earthquake drills so that they would know what to do in case of an earthquake.

The other day Laura told me that they were going to be having a lockdown drill. She explained to me that this is a drill where they prepare for an intruder in the school or on the school grounds. No one is allowed in the hallways and everyone has to stay in their classroom. Both doors are locked and the blinds are shut until the threat has passed.

It is a necessary drill but it's something that I just didn't think about. How times have changed. It really makes one wonder what will be next.

Goodbye Streusel

It is a sad day in our house today. We lost our little budgie, Streusel. I noticed that she wasn't feeling well yesterday because she wasn't chirping like crazy at the birds outside. She was also spitting up her seeds a bit. I hoped that she'd get over it but at 12:30 this morning I found her lying on the bottom of her cage panting. A few minutes later she was gone. I was so sad but I had to take care of her right away. Now she is with Roger and I hope she's happy there.
It is so funny how little creatures can take our hearts with us when they go. They become so much a part of our lives. She was a cranky hen a lot of the time but she was also so cute when she'd get excited about the birds outside. I have a link here to a movie of her in action that I took last year. I'm glad I did that. We had an open cage policy with her and she respected that. She always stayed close to her cage and her favorite spot was right on top, so that she could see everything. She never liked to be out of sight of her cage and if she happened to be riding on my shoulder, she'd usually fly back home if she couldn't see it. She loved the window in the kitchen though because she could see the other birds as well as hearing them.
Christmas was always very disruptive to her because she would usually get moved out of the way so that we could have a Christmas Tree. She would relax again once the tree was gone.
Streusel was such a good little bird and we are going to miss her very much.
I guess you could call this post a memorial to a little bird who meant a lot to us. Good bye Streusel, we'll miss you.

The Age of the Jetsons

An old friend of mine, Henry, recently got in touch with me. I haven't seen him in 23 years and he'd been looking for me online for quite a while. He finally found me on Facebook, which is a friend finder website. We both downloaded a program called Skype (just click on the link to see), which is a free video conferencing program. On Saturday, we sat down and chatted with each other for almost three hours. I could see him and he could see me on our computer screens and we could hear each other talking, it was just as if we were sitting in front of each other. He even hooked up his camera to a laptop and gave me a tour of his house. Oh, by the way, he lives in Australia and the call was free because you don't have to pay if it is a Skype to Skype call. One other thing about it is that you can make calls to land lines and cell phones for a small cost per minute but it is no more than most people pay for cell phone charges, even to different countries.

The whole event made me think of the old Jetsons cartoon when they talked to each other on tv screens. It's amazing when you think back only ten years ago most people didn't even have a computer or a cell phone. A little further back, I remember only having to dial five numbers on the old rotary phones to make a local call, and when you had to make a long distance phone call, the operator would ask you for your phone number. There was also no such thing as call display and few people had answering machines so you actually had to answer the phone to find out who was calling you. How fast things change.

I wonder what the next ten years will bring us. How much further can we go with technology and how much faster will it come as time goes on. Now look at us, talking with people in different countries, thousands of miles away like they were in the same room. Also, do you know anyone right now who doesn't have a computer or at least one cell phone.

What will be the next big thing? I wonder, maybe flying cars. Could it be so impossible?

Oh, and by the way, if you download the program, my Skype name is "david_aird", just in case you want to chat.