Today is the big day. Today we go unplugged so we can move into our new apartment. It feels a little like the scene of a couple realizing it’s time for a mutual suicide pact.

He to She: “You first, dear.”

She to He: “Oh no, you go first. I want to be sure that you can actually do this before I take my first step.”

He to She: “Do you have the caskets ready, I mean the boxes?”

She to He: “You’re sitting on yours.”

“Oh yes. I knew I was a little bit uncomfortable. There’s no swivel to this support system.”

She to He.. “Take a deep breath and pull the trigger.”

He to She: “The trigger?”

She to He: “On the electric screw driver.”

He to She: “I remember how it works. Just pull the trigger and start driving down the road to oblivion.”

She to He: “They say we won’t even know what hit us.”

He to She with a great grinding of teeth.. “We’ll know, and we won’t know what to do with ourselves – UnPlugged.”

Death! It’s supposed to be the body and the spirit going their separate ways. But I can see now that it’s much more than that. Death is giving up connections long held dear. It’s giving up Christmas and giving up Easter. It’s giving up the chance to put jelly beans in the prize egg. It’s giving up the chance to hear the phone ring and a grand child saying “Pa-Pa.. look what I did on Farmsville all by myself.”

It’s giving up instant news and the excitement of hearing about a tornado heading our way. How can we give these things up, even for just a single week? So too will be the separation of our spirit from our body. “Good bye piece of clay. I’ll see you tomorrow at the first bright gleaming in the dawn of the Millennial Day.

Maybe this Online Life was a little bit like birth too. I know kids going to school that weren’t here when I first heard that squall of… CONNECTING. There are kids alive today that would never recognize that squall. I remember the first time I heard it, after hours and even days of getting my modem put into my computer. It was the fastest thing going at that time, “It is so fast you’ll think it is greased lightning.. It’s a 14.4” Good salesmanship. He would have had a Technician install it for me for a hundred dollars. Naturally I wasn’t about to part with a hundred dollars just to screw in a few screws. But it didn’t work when I finished. Not the first time, not the 10th. No, and not the 20^th time either. But finally there came a time when I told the computer to CONNECT and that’s when I first heard this horrendous squeal of wretched metal grinding against metal. I grabbed the power plug and yanked it out of the wall before my computer suffered any more damage.

I sat there, shivering. Was everything fried to a crisp inside my $3,750 computer with “two whole ‘megs’ of memory” ? Sobbing wildly I took everything apart and hauled it back to the self-styled computer expert that had built it for me and “burned it in” too so I wouldn’t have to. I would have a clean machine, all I had to do was plug it in and turn it on. “There’s nothing you can do that will hurt your computer.”

Ha! You don’t know me, Jack. The motto of my life is: “If anything on earth can go wrong, it will go wrong on me.” And now I saw the truth of that statement again in this, my fried crisp computer.

Thus it was that I sat there with my clenched fists locked down in under me as the Technician sent my computer through its paces. “Yes, this is okay, and this, and this. Okay, let’s try CONNECTING again.”

No sooner were those words out of his mouth than I heard that horrible squeal of wretched metal grinding against metal squall from my computer again. “There it is!  See! It’s doing it again!” And to this day I can see the big, puzzled look on the guy’s face, swiveling from me, to the computer, and back again, still puzzled.

Then the squalling quit and a message flickered on the monitor screen.. User name, and password? He typed it in – and my computer was CONNECTED to the Internet. Gee, oh Gee. I was so excited I couldn’t hold myself still. Ever after that, when I heard that grinding squall I associated it with life and wonder – for I was a true pioneer.. in the entire state there were less than a thousand ONLINERS.

The people I rubbed shoulders with ONLINE were the great technicians of our day. They talked about megs and couplets, and new modems with competent ease, and I was a part of that world. But where they talked about performance, I began dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s of performing. I built a web site, a lonely outpost on the road to the whole universe. Technicians would bump into it and ask in all innocence.. “What is this?” I would tell them and they would then ask.. “What is it for?”

Yes indeed.. Struggle hard as I might, I could not make them understand.. but there it was. I was a bridge between their world and what was to come. I remember driving 260 miles to meet the second guy in the state to make a web site. We talked for days, and never left his computer room except for mundane purposes that could not be shunted aside forever. Oh yes. Those were the days: One connection after another until the whole world is securely knit together. My web site is still up, still running somewhere in the ether, but today people don’t ask me what it is or even what it’s for, they want to know why it looks so plain, so old-fashioned.

I just smile and remember that horrifying memory of the squall they have  never heard.. the squall of a brand new 14.4 modem connecting with other outposts light years distant, pioneers that never dreamed of Farmsville, FaceBook or movies and television shows at the tap of a mouse button – but we were dreaming of the next step.

Today there are 3 and 4 year old kids that can leave me in the dust. I’m not just a pioneer any more; I’m a forgotten pioneer, not quite useless, but pretty close.

Now it is time to take a deep breath, close my eyes, and go UNPLUGGED. It won’t be for long, 2, 3 days at the most, but I wonder as I sit here typing.. Changes are happening so fast these days, will I even recognize the world when I plug back in?

The end

The author:  Lin Stone has been a professional writer for 30 years and an author for 12.

It’s very frustrating to receive an email from someone that says little more than, “I really need to work at home. Please help me.”  

It would be impossible for me to make any kind of recommendation to this person.  The fact that a person would put so little effort into making an inquiry like this tells me that they probably don’t have what it takes to work from home.

Sadly, I receive emails just like this so frequently that I’ve created a template of the response that I send when I get one. In it, I tell them that I’d be happy to make some suggestions, but need more to go on. Do you want to start a business, or work for a company? What skills do you have? What line of work are you already in?

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Tale Wins has posted the rest of this article on the Internet where you can read it for free.

 Kids, Teens, and adults too for that matter, have short memories. Tell them one thing they’ll remember it, tell them two and they might remember both of them if they use them soon enough, tell them three things and most of them will remember all of them — but never go past three new items.
 Do your points relate to the course you want your audience to pursue?
 Why are they important?
 How will they benefit your audience?
 What will make this bargain irresistible?
 What is the fastest way they can get it into their hands?
 Click HERE to explore the Power of 3.

So let us not heed these counsels of fear and suspicion. Let us concentrate more on keeping enemy bombers and missiles away from our shores, and concentrate less on keeping neighbors away from our shelters. Let us devote more energy to organize the free and friendly nations of the world, with common trade and strategic goals, and devote less energy to organizing armed bands of civilian guerrillas that are more likely to supply local vigilantes than national vigilance. John F. Kennedy

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Touring bikes made today come with special equipment to help you travel long distances with less fatigue and greater comfort. You will want to pay special attention to the saddles and find the one tailored for your happy pumping. You want to be really comfortable, no matter how long the journey may end up being. Get on the bike before you buy it, and check out those rough road handlebars.

Study the potentials offered to you in its front and rear luggage racks; will they accommodate all of your gear. Touring bikes are built with sturdier wheels and stronger rims that will withstand a lifetime of hard knocks riding. You want to be sure they are stable and durable. But it is the saddle that you should put at the top of your list of priorities because you can always find trailers to tow some of your gear and this would be a wonderful idea, especially if you have quite a bit of supplies to take along.

***

Kids, Teens, and adults too for that matter, have short memories. Tell them one thing they’ll remember it, tell them two and they might remember both of them if they use them soon enough, tell them three things and most of them will remember all of them — but never go past three new items.
Do your points relate to the course you want your audience to pursue?
Why are they important?
How will they benefit your audience?
What will make this bargain irresistible?
What is the fastest way they can get it into their hands?
Click HERE to explore the Power of 3.