Even with going to bed so late last night I was still awake, without an alarm, around seven this morning. Today at work is the first day in a long time when I am not backlogged with tons of SGL maintenance that needs to be done. What a good feeling.
Normal day at the office. Actually it was quite busy. I was hopping all day long. I was tired by the end of the day and left work a little after 5:30.
Tonight is leftovers. I had left over Papa John’s pizza from the fridge for dinner. Not very exciting. I watched some Magnum P.I. and did some work online.
Today I got emails from two friends that I haven’t talked to in many, many years. The first was from Seth Webster whom I attended MCC with back around 1996-1998. We started the program together in the fall of 1996 and had most of our classes together. He is originally from Cohocton a bit south of where I grew up. Seth is actually the person who bought my first car, my 1981 Chevrolet Monte Carlo with the eight cylinder 267ci small block. Seth dated Mary back around 1997 for a little while! He is still living in Rochester. I haven’t seen him since I ran into him working at a guitar shop somewhere around 1999 or 2000.
The second email was from Belinda Holstein (a.k.a. Toast) whom I probably haven’t spoken to since 1993! Belinda went to high school with me at York from around 1991 – 1993. After high school she went into the US Navy and served in Iraq. It is awesome getting a chance to catch up with people.
One of the greatest things about having the Internet be so pervasive now is that it has really served as a platform for remaining connected with or reconnecting with people from long ago. Now that everyone has, more or less, permanent email addresses, personal websites (like this one), blogs, directories, instant messaging, cell phones, text messaging, etc. we are finding that people stay in contact with each other in ways that has never happened before. When I was younger if you mailed or telephoned someone and didn’t talk to them for a year or two often contact information would change, they would move, or whatever and you might never be able to find them again. But today, casual acquaintences that you swap email addresses with might stay in contact for the rest of their lives even if just casually. The human dynamic is changing. The idea of not having spoken to someone that you know for twenty years doesn’t really exist.
This effect is very noticeable in situations like the one that I am in where I am moving on a regular basis. My friends and family are able to continue communicating with me just as easily and transparently as if I was right next door no matter how often I move or where I am. I really notice when we have some friends who do not have good Internet access or mobile phones and are not on the computer all of the time like Mary or Phil and Kate that they are really hard to keep up with.
I was in bed nice and early tonight. After staying up late last night I needed to catch up a little. I am working from home tomorrow morning and going into the office part way throught he day to meet some friends for lunch. The cubicle neighbour is leaving the company (he is a consultant so we move around quickly) on Monday to return to midtown instead of working out here in the country so we are doing lunch just about every day.