Thanking today's technology.

I think that most  people my age (!) have a bit of a love/hate relationship with new technology...

I am no exception...

I think I am just about keeping up with what I need to know and use it to my advantage.

I use some social media but the 'Tweet' stuff  is still a bit of a mystery!

I have an iphone but probably only use a small percentage of its capabilities.

Just as an aside, did you notice how clever my iphone is?

It can speak Welsh!!

I must say that I am so impressed with that. 

Within minutes of the iphone arriving in the house Sibs had mastered the camera and had set a photo of herself as my home screen! Now I have a different daily photo as my lock screen - it's lovely.

The kind of world that she is experiencing is full of technology working for her. My job as a parent is to make sure that she embraces it but has a healthy recognition of some of the dangers. We haven't really got to that stage yet...but I'm already thinking about it...

However, this past week or so I have experienced the positives to the way that our technological world operates, - let me share a couple of stories.

My first story is at the expense of Neil ...
I'll set the scene - A couple of Saturdays ago he was invited to the races. Horse racing is quite a thing here in Brisbane and there was a big day at a local racecourse with some famous horse or other...

Neil was rushing around doing some house jobs and then off he went to the shops to pick up a few things and to get some cash.  He returned home and everything seemed fine until all of a sudden I heard a screech of brakes and Sibs ran upstairs saying - "there's an emergency and Dad has gone somewhere!"

I had no idea what was going on, he didn't take his phone so we waited and worried...

Ten minutes later a white faced Neil came home...and in between muttering something about being an idiot, he explained that earlier on he had pulled up at the ATM, requested his cash...and promptly left without it!!?!

 

He was so cross with himself and there was nothing I could say.
I adopted all of my counselling skills, but to no avail...

When he got his breath back he phoned the local branch of our bank. Would you believe it - the woman on the other end of the phone calmly told him that unless someone was directly behind him and snatched the money from under his nose, then the ATM would swallow the cash back within seconds. This new technology saves "idiots" (his word not mine) thousands of dollars a year. Apparently other "idiots" do this kind of thing all the time!

He has since received a letter from the bank to inform him that their records showed that an amount of money was requested but not taken from their ATM. As he had reported this incident to them they were crediting his account with the said amount. Result = one very happy and grateful "idiot" husband! Thank you whoever came up with that idea.

The other positive for me this last few weeks was the ability to get a lovely snap glimpse into the day of a couple of friends from overseas. I use Facebook to nosy keep in touch with friends from home. Mainly friends that I went to school with and have known for a long time. I have to admit to reading more than writing on Facebook, although recently I had a good giggle reminiscing over a 17th birthday party photo...but that's another story.

Anyhow,  I discovered 'Facebook chat' works on my phone.  I have been able to 'chat' with two of my bestest friends from my old life...

We exchanged the obvious 'how are you' and then shared a few titbits of information about our children and what we were up to right that minute. When one was going to bed I had just returned from the school run and was waiting for my coffee machine to warm up, when the other was thinking of making lunch for her boys I was locking up the house on the way to my bed!

I loved the fact that even though we were thousands of kilometres away, on different continents, in completely different time zones,  we stopped and shared a few minutes - the same few minutes.
It made my world feel small in a good way - a really good way.