The Pen is Mightier Than The Sword: A Low Tech Love Affair

   Tech Tuesday is a place for all things technology.  Here we will discuss both low tech and high tech thing-a-ma-jigs.

    

    I am a pen addict.  I collect them like some people collect coins, except I am really particular about what kind of pen I collect.  (I guess there is some particular coin collector out there only looking for pennies, what a weirdo.)

   

Jinhao 321 Fountain Pen
(I have three of these pens: black, red and yellow)

    I love fountain pens.  I have three of them and I even have ink bottles to refill them. There is just something about dipping the tip into the ink and puling up to fill the cartridge.  You can buy pre-filled cartridges, but what fun is in that? I love that fountain pens are thin tipped because I tend to write very small and very quickly(I lose my thoughts and to avoid the loss I must rush).  

   

Happy Day Korean Pens
(can still be purchased on Amazon)

    I bought some Korean pens that I really loved on Amazon a few years ago.  The main reason for the purchase was because the pens were thinner tipped than any pen in the U.S. at a very thin .3mm.

    You may or may not be a pen nerd like me, so you may or may not know that pens come in different tip measurements.  The smaller the number the thinner the tip.  In America, our pen tips are typically .7mm or .5mm,  .5mm are okay for me, but the .3mm Korean pens were a game changer.  Fountain pens come pretty close to the .3 so I write with them a lot.

   

A close 2nd The Pilot G2 

    I also have a few name brand pens that I gravitate to.  At work, it is hard to carry around my fancy fountains, so I resort to mainstream store bought ones.  Cheap Bic pens are not a preference, in fact, ballpoint pens of any brand are just meh to me.  I love the G2 Gel Pens by Pilot.  Gel pens often write smoother and Pilots are top of the line, in my opinion.  

   

The Paper Mate Flair

    The other mainstream pen I have always liked is the Paper Mate Felt Tip.  Currently I have about six black .7mm Paper Mate felt-tips.  They were on sale and I have a weakness both for pens(obviously) and for sales.  (By the way: I just spent about 10 minutes looking for thinner Paper Mate pens, I found that they have an ultra-fine felt tip that is .4mm.   Somebody may be spending ten dollars on eight new pens today.  I think I may have a problem.)

    I get it, some people may just think a pen is a pen and any pen will get the job done, but for me pens are much more significant.  The pen is what takes my ideas from a neurological spark to a tangible symbol on a piece of paper.  I want that tangible symbol to look a certain way.  I also want to feel a certain bit of feedback from the paper as I write down those neurological sparks. (Don't even get me started with paper.  That is an entirely different post. )

Low-Tech Tuesday: Books

   Tech Tuesday is a place for all things technology.  Here we will discuss both low tech and high tech thing-a-ma-jigs.

     I am a book lover.  I am always reading one or three books.  With the push towards online learning this year, my students have gotten really used to doing everything on their Chromebooks. I feel we have traveled far away from the beauty of books.  

    I just love the feel of books in my hand.  I like that my own kids know I am reading at home and can pause at any moment to give them attention(I don't think the same feeling happens when scrolling on my phone, even if I am reading a book on it.).  

    Here is how I always plug how amazing our textbook is when we are in Health class and using the book.  (I have used my current read Drink, Slay, Love by Sarah Beth Durst for this demonstration)

                                                               To Power On:  Open book:

To Zoom In:  Move book toward face:

To Zoom Out: Move book away from face:

To Scroll:  Turn page:

To Power Off:  Shut book:

Sometimes, low-tech is better, no?

The Technology of The Ball Drop

    Tech Tuesday is a place for all things technology.  Here we will discuss both low tech and high tech thing-a-ma-jigs.

  

Image found here: 

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/new-years-ball-drop-1606862641.jpg

Image found here:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7842085/Millions-ring-new-year-ball-drops-Times-Square.html

 The end of the year is a big thing, every single year. People make resolutions and look forward to a reset. I think that the end of 2020 is an even bigger thing. We have all joked about what a dumpster fire 2020 has been and we feel as if the change of the calendar year may be just what we need to change the crazy chaos we have been feeling this past year.

    When the ball drops on New Years' Eve, I know it will bring many of you a sigh of relief and this is why today's post will be all about that ball. You have all heard of the ball, right? The big lighted sphere that drops every year in Times Square, in New York City? If not, where have you been? Anyway, I digress.

    Ever think about why dropping a ball down a flag pole was something anyway? In the 1800s, time was important to the shipping industry and the navigation of ships. Captains aboard those ships relied on an instrument called a chronometer in order to calculate their positions. Often, these would be a little off, so a captain, Robert Wauchope, had the idea of a ball drop on shore to signify a certain time each day that would help nearby ships set their chronometers. Cities built these fancy timepieces and the ball drop idea began.

    The actual ball drop in New York City to commemorate the new year first happened in 1907. The seven hundred pound, five foot diameter ball was made of wood and iron and had one hundred 25-watt incandescent bulbs attached to it. Artkraft Strauss, a sign company built it and for most of the 1900s the sign company was in charge of that ball.

    In the 1920s the wood was replaced with iron, making a four hundred pound full iron ball. In 1955, that iron was replaced with aluminum. It was much lighter at one hundred and fifty pounds and had more lights, a total of one hundred and eighty.

    The lights on the ball were traditionally white. But for a bit of time in the 1980s, it was red and had green lights on the top to represent an apple and the tourism ad theme of "The Big Apple."

    In 1995, the ball got a makeover with added aluminum skin, twelve thousand rhinestones, new strobe lights with 180 halogen bulbs and computer control. The new tech ball only dropped a few times because of the changing of the millennium in 2000 and the need for an even more special ball that year.

    The redesigned ball for ringing in 2000 was a Waterford Crystal and Phillips lighting collaboration. The new ball was made completely of crystal and had the latest of lighting technology, but again that ball didn't drop more than a few times because the ball was again redesigned in 2007.

    2007 marked the one hundredth anniversary of the ball drop and it was definitely appropriate to again redesign the ball. The old halogen and incandescent bulbs were replaced with newer and brighter Phillips Luxeon LED lights. A total of 32,256 LEDs to be exact. There are now 2,688 Waterford Crystal triangles, which cover the twelve foot diameter ball. This high technology weighs in at about six tons and has a color palate of about sixteen million vibrant colors.

    Up until 2008 the ball was set up and taken down each year, but it now is a permanent fixture at One Times Square atop a flagpole of The Times Building.

    *If you would like to learn more about the history of the ball drop, I found lots of info here:

https://www.timessquarenyc.org/times-square-new-years-eve/nye-history-times-square-ball#:~:text=HISTORY%20OF%20THE%20NEW%20YEAR'S,to%20signal%20the%20New%20Year.

    *I also found the wishing wall amazing.  Here you can make New Years' wishes and they turn them into a piece of confetti to be rained down on New Years' Eve participants in Times Square.  I wrote one for this year, but you will have to wait until next year.  Read about it HERE.

Eyes on other Things.

   Tech Tuesday is a place for all things technology.  Here we will discuss both low tech and high tech thing-a-ma-jigs.

    “Mommy!  Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!  MOMmy! MOMMy!  MOMMY!!!!!!!!!

“What, Zarah?”

“Mommy, eyes on me.”

She has a pretty great point.  She is one hundred percent more important than my phone.  Being face to face with her beats any scrolling of Instagram or Facebook, the two apps who grab a lot of my attention.

So, one day I decided to come home and put the phone on the charger.

“Okay, guys, I am putting my phone on its charger and you have me for the next two hours.  What are we gonna do?”

I look down at two very shocked, deep in thought faces.

“For reals,” Zarah said, not really knowing what I fully meant.

“So, like Mom, we can do anything?” Ellis inquired.

“Of course, within reason so that we are still safe and happy.”

“Mommy, can we drive our truck around the neighborhood?,” Zarah asks.

“You bet.  You guys get to decide what we do.”

And off we went. Ellis drove first and took us around our block and past some of our friends’ houses.  He was so excited to be able to see an Appa(a character from The Last Airbender) sticker on the back of a friend’s van. Zarah took her turn and went around another part of our neighborhood.  I walked slowly behind.  It was a pretty day and I was glad to be out in the sunshine.  Little did I know that this one little gift of time would help the rest of the night be more calm and relaxed. 

We carry technology around all day.  It often makes life easier and we have a world of information at our fingertips.  It isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but we do need to realize that sometimes we need to plug it into the wall and leave it alone: free from its influence.  I’m happier and have happier kids when we have real together time, what they like to call “Mommy Time.”  Mommy time is low tech and sometimes you just need to go low tech.

Having eyes on other things is needed. Give yourself a break. See what happens. Comment about how it goes.

High Tech Pumpkins

 Tech Tuesday is a place for all things technology.  Here we will discuss both low tech and high tech thing-a-ma-jigs.

Technology often makes life easier.  Some may say that technology makes us lazy.  If this is the case, I am so glad that I can be lazy while making my jack o'lantern each Halloween. Let’s compare these higher tech alternatives that have revolutionized pumpkin carving to their low tech counterparts.

1. Candles vs. LED Lights

The low-tech candle could make for a hot mess inside carved pumpkins.  And if you had a windy night, there would be no way that candle could be lit or stay lit.  

With an LED light, you never run into that problem and you can also have any color light you can imagine.  You also could get a light that flickers like a real candle or you could even get a strobe light to make for a real spooky pumpkin.

2. A Sharpie and a Knife vs. a Pattern and a Specialized Pumpkin Carver

I have created lots of jack o’lanterns in my forty-three years on this planet: some good, some better and some amazing.  Technology has made it so I can, without that much artistic ability, make a work of art out of any squash.  Back in the day, I only had a sharpie and a scary, cut-off-your-finger kind of knife( manned by my father, when I was too little to carve).  The marker would smear all over the face of the pumpkin and the cut edges would always come out jagged or parts would get cut off that I didn’t intend to have cut off. Today, you can search online, print off a template and then use your fancy cutting kit to punch holes around the design and then cut in the exact shapes, with your specialized pumpkin cutting knife, creating your desired design..

3. Spoon vs. Pumpkin Scooper

I think the worst part about carving pumpkins is hollowing out all the slime and seeds from the center.  It is so gooey and moist, which I can only handle for a short time.  With the spoon, not only does it take longer, but it also makes you more susceptible to rubbing into the slippery sides of the pumpkin.  With the Scooper, you are able to get more guts out and with it’s shorter handle, you do not risk getting sticky from the sides.

So, the moral of this post is that we should be very thankful that we have technology.  We should not just be thankful about the compex sort of technology you are reading this on, but we should also be thankful for the little tech things that help us enjoy the best of holidays.