Technology. It's a wondrous testament to man's undying quest to invent, improve and innovate. However, for me, and people like me, who are privileged enough to see a literal technology boom, it can be, well, kind of stressful.

In my lifetime, I have seen the birth of the mobile phone (cell phones in today's lingo), cordless phones, pushbutton dialing, answering machines, and voicemail. We used to wait until we got home to make a phone call which held you hostage only three feet from the wall until you were finished. Airtime was limited due to frequent bathroom breaks and if your friend's phone number contained too many zeros, you just didn't bother and walked over and knocked on the front door, risking that an actual human being might answer the door and you would have to speak out loud, to a human.

The audio and visual entertainment industry has changed dramatically, for example. I remember when I owned a big old stereo on which I would play my records, which became reel-to-reel audio tape that morphed into cassette tapes and 8-track tapes which morphed into Compact Discs. Please, let's not forget all of the handy dandy gadgets invented along the way to play these musical miracles. I would get an iPod but I'm afraid that by the time I learn to work it, folks will have direct implants into the ear.

Then there's the video component. Huge floor-model console color television, larger televisions, teeny-tiny televisions, giant-plasma-flat-screened, or LCD all with remote control. I could watch them using Beta tape, Video tape, DVD player and CABLE! All of which are obsolete except for cable, which I really need only for my high-speed modem, which connects me to the Internet through my personal computer. Which also did not exist, we had to go to the library or sift through dusty old encyclopedias on closet shelves. More than likely, the letter that you needed for your chosen subject was missing or damaged. Current events reports always began with finding a newspaper that was less than three days old, sweeping off the coffee grounds, cutting out an article and gluing it to a piece of construction paper with Elmer's glue.

There is far too much to analyze, and I only focused on a few examples out of thousands. I can hardly work my own car.

So why is it stressful? Simple. I have to learn how to use these things every single time something new comes out. No sooner was I figuring out how to get the clock to stop flashing on the VCR (and the microwave),

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