Okay, I can’t take it anymore.
Dave has begun to use his iPad2 to teach himself the intricacies of Morse Code.
Some of you are familiar with my blog post Jackie vs. iPad 2, wherein I regaled you with my feelings on giving a hippie an iPad. This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. You can’t give someone who isn’t interested in technology an iPad2. They will only use it for ridiculosities. He’s using a device on the cutting edge of technology to learn a dead language.
Dead. Dead, I say.
Last night he sat on the couch with his iPad aglow, booping and beeping back to it. After 20 minutes, he looked over at me excitedly and told me he can do the word “face”. Then, realizing every letter from A-F was in his command, he began to compile a list of the words he could speak to other Morse Coders. If, in fact, such people exist.
“Face… bad… dab… cab… ab… cad… ad… fad…”
I decided to test his retention this morning by asking him in the car on the way to work how to spell “face”.
“do do doo do. do doo. do doo do doo. do.”
I told him I would have to take his word for it. After all, I don’t speak “doo”.
You see, the thing about the iPad2 is that it has brought Dave’s curiosities to a slam halt. I call him a man of a series of brief and passionate interests. One day he’ll want to pour his life savings into starting an herb garden and the next he’ll want to be an upholsterer. But since those were things that weren’t so readily available (he was never too into browsing online for hours), he filed them in his cabinet of good intentions. But now… he feels like the iPad makes everything so easy. There’s an app for absolutely everything and all he has to do is flick, tap, and drag his way through a beautiful, dense, rainforest of knowledge.
Some time ago we watched a documentary on origami (because we’re nerdy nerds) and that evening he stayed up all night becoming an origami master. I woke up to a freshly pressed dollar bill shirt-and-tie. The cabinet of good intentions has quickly morphed into a series of crash courses.
I’m hoping that eventually these will be crash courses in something useful. I mean, origami dollar bills are awesome and all (I know – I tried it) but far more practical would be an app that lets you start up the car and recognizes the peculiar humming, buzzing, or squeaking that plagues it and offers step-by-step instructions for an easy fix.
But alas, he is back on the couch with the iPad aglow, and has just celebrated his conquer of the letter “G”.
iPad be damned. ♣
P90X Update: Okay, so there is no update. I stopped last Thursday and I haven’t done it since. I told myself I’d start back up Monday when I got back from my parents’ over the weekend but I totally didn’t. I nursed my 5K shinsplints and the idea of not having to return to the wrath of Tony Horton. Tell you what – going from an hour long blog post and a 1.5 hour workout to just the blog post every night suddenly makes me feel like I have so much time. And also, a big fat loser. I’ll start up again tonight?
The Jackie Blog 
*giggle*
Uh – have to side with Dave on this one…
When I finally started surfing the web I used it to learn how to speak Latin and to get tips on how to make nappie wipes from bounty paper towels.
Oh – and how to garden on roof tops with discarded pop bottles.
Morse Code sounds interesting… *looks up*
and – what is this iPAD you speak of? (I am a little behind the times)
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Nappie wipes from paper towels?! Oooooh pop bottle gardens.
Wait. Wait, no. Stop it.
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And just in case you’re genuine with the iPad comment —> http://www.apple.com/ipad/
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I can’t believe Dave hasn’t learned “iPad” in morse code yet… do do dee do
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Give him one more day. 😉
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I’ve lost my husband to the glories of the I-Phone. When you’re over 50, you’re more easily impressed with technology.
Last night he spent an hour downloading and figuring out an app to put a thumbprint security feature on the phone. I spent 15 minutes ranting about trust issues, and what’s he got to hide, and what if he died and I couldn’t get in his phone. He spent 1 minute saying it was an impress-your-friends gag.
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Wow. A thumbprint security feature? I thought I couldn’t be surprised by apps anymore, but I have just been proven wrong. Let me know if it makes him the coolest kid in the class 😉
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