Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Hi technology..howyah doin'?

Tonight was tedious. Really, really a throw back to about ....12-14 years ago.

I had to send some information (about 8 pages) to a company and they asked me to "Fax it." I said "You're kidding right? Can't I just e-mail it?" They laughed and said "Don't I wish."

I did find the way to make my computer fax something but could not seem to gather all the pages and send them as a batch. So I did a cover sheet for each page and listened as my high speed computer shifted down, almost grinding and groaning into a low, low rumbling gear and s-l-o-w-l-y, s-l-o-w-l-y cranked out the cover sheet and page 1 of 8, then cover sheet and page 2 of 8, etc. It took forever.

Finally I got back to making a rapid copy of a friend's CD to add to my blues collection and scanned the cover and back sheet and my speedy printer spit out perfect color copies on shiny photo paper which I trimmed and inserted in the jewel box. Good as the original!


This picture shows me discovering High Tech back in the 50s when a Bishop England high school buddy and I dropped in to the old WCSC TV5 on East Bay Street and we wandered over to the weather map. Wow. Look at all the weatherman's secrets.

I picked up Charlie Hall's spiffy hands-free microphone, slipped my head through the loop and picked up the wax chalk to mark what the highs and lows were going to be in Wyoming, way up there, up close to the Montana border. It just felt natural.

They've lost that personal touch..the weather person was writing backwards! Mr. Hall was more talented than I ever imagined. No wonder he lasted so long on the air in Charleston.(Actually, since this was black and white broadcasting, the "secret" was writing all the numbers and information on the weather map in advance in a color that did not show. Then he merely traced the letters on the back of the plexiglass map as he spoke into the camera. Shhh...keep that to yourself.

About that time a WCSC employee stopped and asked what we were doing and we mumbled "nothing" and quickly headed for the studio's exit.

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