Familiar Yet Strange

Flashback to the summer of 1988: I finished my four years of college but I hadn't amassed enough valid credits to graduate. I returned home to Brooklyn and started working at a temp agency in the City. Meanwhile, my sister was working at a traffic engineering consulting firm and she asked if I wanted to make some extra money interviewing passengers for a survey whilst waiting for their flights at Newark International Airport (now Newark Liberty International Airport). Who can't use an extra couple of bucks? So I said, "Sure."

My friend and I were assigned to Terminal A and most of the flights there were on Piedmont Airlines. We had a blast meeting new people and feeling like we were doing something special, and indeed we were. The survey answers were recorded on a Radio Shack TRS 80 Model 100, the first "laptop" I ever used. We thought it was so cool with its eight lines of LCD text.

Now it's 26 years later. I haven't flown through EWR in many years, and I don't think I've been back to Terminal A since my days as a survey taker but some things never change. Here I am and it's still hot, it's still noisy, and it's still full of travellers waiting for their (delayed) flights.

Something else that hasn't changed is that I'm still using a computer while I'm waiting, but it's not a laptop or even a tablet ... it's my smartphone and who knows how much more powerful it is than that early portable personal computer I used so many years ago.

All of this seems so familiar, yet strange at the same time. So here's to Val, Art, and Jerry, who helped make some great memories during that assignment.

How Times Have Changed

I'm sitting in one of my classes while pursuing an MA in Bioethics today and it suddenly struck me how things have changed so rapidly in the last 30 years. The main object of my wonder has to do with the technology we use and how incessantly connected we all are (and yes, I'm writing this while listening to the prof with one ear).

I was recently reminded by a high school classmate that we graduated 30 years ago. At that time, my high school was considered very progressive because we had classrooms full of Apple II+ and IBM PC computers. We were learning to write our own programs in BASIC and Pascal, but only a few classes had the privilege of using these machines as my sister--one year ahead of me in school--had to learn programming in FORTRAN using card readers.

Even when I entered into university and I started learning Ada, nothing had changed much as I still had to go to the computer lab, hope that there was a terminal available, make my adjustments to my code, and wait for the output to be printed.

My, how times have changed. In my current classroom, of the 18 students and the professor present, 17 of us have our laptops open and multitasking (some shopping, some on Facebook, one writing a blog, some taking notes). And considering most of us have smartphones (I know this to be true because most of us have them on the desks next to our laptops or plugged into an outlet being charged), we actually have two computers on each of us.

Surprisingly enough, the prof, because he's having a bad time with technology today, just mentioned how the university had only one computer when he was a student here 40 some odd years ago.

My, how times have changed.

Feeling Old Thanks to LinkedIn

Well, it's not really LinkedIn's fault, but I'll blame it anyway. I just connected via LinkedIn to a colleague who works at a subsidiary company of my employer. We've communicated often before this, but last night was the first time I found out any of her personal history because I read her bio and background.

Why does this make me feel old? Because both of us are alumni of Boston University, except she graduated 19 years after I did. Actually, going by the year I would have graduated if laziness and apathy hadn't got a hold of me so many years ago, the difference becomes 21 years.

I don't know why this fact surprises me. After all, BU graduates thousands of students every year and since I hope to live a long life, it's reasonable that I'd eventually cross paths with other alumni. I guess there's a part of me that doesn't want to let go of the past because memories of friends (only one or two that I actually have any contact with anymore), places, and events are still so vivid that it seems like it was just yesterday that I roamed the streets of Boston and surrounding environs as a student/roadie/copy machine operator extraordinaire.

This is the point where my wife usually reminds me that it's been so long ago, what's the big deal where I went to college? Don't get me wrong, I'm not fanatical about remembering my alma mater and even though I try to keep connected by catching an occasional BU ice hockey game on TV or keeping up-to-date with the Beanpot every year, I haven't gone back for homecoming, campus visits, or written to the alumni magazine.

But there is a part of me that is proud to have graduated from BU. There is a part of me that remembers what it was like to be on my own for the first time in my life. And there is a part of me that remembers the mistakes, arrogance, and regrets of a young teenager set loose in a new city. Those were my salad days, indeed.

So, thanks a lot LinkedIn, I feel young today.

Go Terriers!

Updated 15 January 2013 at 12:46 p.m.