Smiley Anders for August 23, 2008

• By SMILEY ANDERS
• Advocate columnist
• Published: Aug 23, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

Dear Smiley: The conversation about kids and technology reminds me of something that happened while I was in California last month.

Just as I was getting ready to go out and take in some sights, my wife called from Baton Rouge and reported that the hot water heater had gone out.

Actually, at this point, it was a cold water heater.

Getting it relit is usually my job, but clearly this wasn’t an option.

I could walk her through it, but needed my memory of the controls refreshed.

I had my daughter Sammie snap a picture with her camera phone.

She texted it to me, where I Bluetoothed it onto my laptop.

Using that as a reference, I could talk my wife through the process of relighting it.

Only in the 21st century do you involve camera phones, the cell phone network, Bluetooth and a laptop to light a hot water heater.
Hal W. Gould
Baton Rouge

Patsy, Elvis, Jim
Dear Smiley: Just wanted to let you know that although the younger generation (I am 31) may have different music tastes, we can still appreciate old technology.

I recently received my grandparents’ chest-style stereo, complete with working turntable, numerous old records and an AM/FM tuner.

I remember putting on many old records at my grandparents’ house on Friday nights and having a blast.

Now I can put on an old vinyl record of Patsy Cline, the Kingsmen or Elvis, or I can tune the FM to 98.1 and hear Jim Hawthorne call a Tigers’ game.