Thinking Travel

Yes, I said awesome.

Today, while Aaron labored outside, I sat in front of the computer, blinking a total of three times. Because I forgot to blink. Because I was so enraptured by new web tools that aren’t really new but are new to me. (Kinda like some of the clothes I wore as a kid ; )

I spent too much of my teen years begging the parents for Guess and Esprit clothes simply because they were “in”. I wanted so badly to be trendy. And then I moved to Germany, dyed my hair red, shifted my wardrobe to favor black, and wanted anything but to be trendy.

So I tend to be a late adopter of many things. Like Capri pants. But that’s another story and I don’t want to get side-tracked from these awesome web tools I mentioned.

But before I get to those web tools, another quick aside. Recently I found this test:

1. Do you have your own web page? (1 point)
2. Have you made a web page for someone else? (2 points)
3. Do you IM your friends? (1 point)
4. Do you text your friends? (2 points)
5. Do you watch videos on YouTube? (1 point)
6. Do you remix video files from the Internet? (2 points)
7. Have you paid for and downloaded music from the Internet? (1 point)
8. Do you know where to download free (illegal) music from the Internet? (2 points)
9. Do you blog for professional reasons? (1 point)
10. Do you blog as a way to keep an online diary? (2 points)
11. Have you visited MySpace at least five times? (1 point)
12. Do you communicate with friends on Facebook? (2 points)
13. Do you use email to communicate with your parents? (1 point)
14. Did you text to communicate with your parents? (2 points)
15. Do you take photos with your phone? (1 point)
16. Do you share your photos from your phone with your friends? (2 points)

0-1 point – Baby Boomer
2-6 points – Generation Jones
6- 12 points – Generation X
12 or over – Generation Y

I scored solidly in Gen X, which isn’t surprising because I was in Germany during the whole fall-of-the-wall-reunification-thing, didn’t have a personal computer until my senior year of college, and watched Clerks, Singles, and Reality Bites when they first came out. So anyway, to continue…

First off, I think blogging is pretty darn cool. Now, that is. Even though I’m an uber-journaler and enjoyed creating websites back in the 20th century, I couldn’t fathom blogging.

For me journaling is extremely private. Websites are public. And since I’m a very private person I would rather be gagged with a pitchfork spoon than share my innermost, personal, deep dark thoughts with the blog-o-sphere.

But then I took a journaling class and then a couple non-fiction writing classes at the Carrboro Arts Center and became more comfortable reading my writing aloud to strangers. Then I started a blog and actually enjoyed it. Anyway, blogging was my gateway technology to…

Flickr! I’ve had a digital camera since the early part of the century (in 2000 I borrowed one from a prof that took two hands to hold and saved about 3 photos on a cd) and I’ve seen others’ photos on these type of sites. I’d just never taken the time to learn how to get my photos from my camera to my computer to Flickr. Well, today I figured it out and boy is it fun. It’s just as fun as…

Del.icio.us! I have a lot of bookmarks but I never use them because they’re so disorganized. And I found it annoying to be at work and want to visit a site I knew I’d bookmarked and then after much searching realize that I’d bookmarked it on my personal laptop. And due to much appreciated computer upgrades at work I’ve lost my bookmarks a few times. So I checked out del.icio.us and now have many of my bookmarks nicely organized online. Now I can access them anywhere, just like…

Library Thing! I’ve had a LT account for a few months but not much time to add to it. LT is awesome because I can access it anywhere and it helps me be organized. I wish I’d had this when I was writing my dissertation.

Even though I don’t jump on every new bandwagon, when I do find something I like I go full force. (Remember when I mentioned Capri pants a few paragraphs ago? Well, I have a closet full of them now.)

So up next on my techno to-do list: Join Linked-in (Aaron has invited me several times) and maybe even Facebook.