Old enough to be amazed

I picked up Esther from a party at 4pm today and I saw this sunset and took a picture with my phone. Not my camera, my phone. I am old enough to see the wonder in this. Our kids don't and won't see anything amazing about many of the minor miracles of technology I see and will see.

I remember my Dad saying that when he was a boy they were the first in the street to have a telephone; the neighbours would come round to look at it. (But who could they ring?)

I can remember:
- Having to turn the TV on a good 10 minutes before your programme started in order to give it time to warm up.
- The first calculators.
- The start of Breakfast TV.
- The first microwave ovens*
- Space Invaders being cutting edge.
- Video remote controls on a wire**
- The invention of the wheel...

I do feel really privileged to have been born (1969) at a time when I've been able to see and appreciate so much technological change, it amazes me in a way it may never ever amaze our kids.

* Dad would buy the first of most things. The microwave was very exciting. As a family, we stood looking through the window as the frozen sausage roll slowly turned around inside. Nothing appeared to be happening for a while until a little hole appeared in the top and acrid smoke started pouring out. Quite quickly we turned the oven off. The post mortem revealed a piece of charcoal still wrapped in apparently unaffected pastry. We were still impressed though...

** The first video film rental we watched was "Jesus Christ, Superstar". You had to pay £30 to join the Video Rental Shop. The picture quality was so bad it looked like a snowstorm throughout. We watched the whole thing though, fighting each other for the remote control on a wire...