The dawn of technology as viewed from my tin can and string

I never really considered what might be the inspiration of my first blog post. It had never crossed my mind... until I lost my internet connection today. Boy, what a reality check that is. Suddenly no e-mail, no Google, no CNN, no RSS feed of the up-to-the-second report on Britney.

Unfortunately, the cause of my connection loss was beyond my control. You see, I live in the woods in a rural county. That means my neighbors have cool things like guns, hunting dogs, canons, bulldozers... and my neighbor with the bulldozer K-O'd my connection to civilization. Damn it.

With one misstep of his blade, my little DSL connection was toast. Done in by a wacko with a backhoe. Hey man, what happened to "call before you dig?"

So, suddenly I found myself alone in the woods with no umbilical to the mother-ship. After the tremors of info-deprivation subsided, I remembered that it's possible to exist outside of the cyber realm. Sort of.

With nothing better to do, I started to ponder how this whole tech thing got started, and came to a startling conclusion. What started this whole "information now all the time culture" is The Fax Machine!

Actually, I think the fax is the lynch-pin in the downward spiral of the family and our over-worked modern culture. Think about it - with the fax, suddenly we could get actual documents across the country (or world?) in a few seconds. Before that, snail mail was the only way to go... and we didn't really consider it "snail" at that point. Overnight package service was a serious luxury. You got to sit and wait, and there was such a thing as "after hours" where people could have a private, personal life. 6pm was dinner time with the family and work was a distant recollection. People had boundaries, time for non-career pursuits... it was the stuff of dreams.

Then came the fax - we could communicate across vast distances with something beyond conversation... and people could work more, from more places. The expectation of availability and productivity started down a slippery slope.

Fast forward 30+ years, and to me it seems there's a direct correlation between the dawn of the fax... followed by dial-up modem computer communication... and pagers... and cell phones... and e-mail...

And now Jr High School kids want a blackberry. To me, it has slowly evolved into an instant-access/24-hour "i want it now" culture. It's just not healthy, as the normal boundaries of human relationship are blurred by this encroaching expectation on productivity and limitless communication excess.

So, back to my no-DSL situation. There is an up-side to this. In my little town, the only place that has WiFi at this time of day is the local tavern. So, here I sit with my frosty bourbon-cask ale, along with my neighbors (with the notable exception of the wacko with the backhoe). What started as a search for a surrogate cyber connection has resulted in ACTUAL CONTACT WITH HUMANS THAT LIVE NEAR ME.

What an unexpected twist of fate. And not one fax machine to be seen anywhere.