Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Old Dog, New Tricks

Gramps with his free tech support.
The old cliche says that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.  But I happen to know this is not true...at least not  all the time. In fact it depends on what the dog wants.

For a long time my grandpa, who turns 90 in 3 weeks, marveled at the capabilities of our laptop.  He kept saying he should get one of his own. Finally he did.

His new laptop doesn't have a ton of capabilities but he can create any sort of document he could want and more importantly he can access the internet.  He says, "Back in the 1930's we had to go to a library or search in an encyclopedia for information, sometimes it could take weeks, now we have anything at the touch of a button!  It's amazing."

It's not all fun though.  He gets frustrated when pop-ups appear. He doesn't realize he can close them.  Or a page will load slowly and he thinks it's his fault. But as with anything else in his life, he keeps at it.   Then yesterday, my daughter Jessica said, "Mom look, I'm talking to Gramps on Google chat!"    Move over Smith Corona this old dog has just gone digital!


Do you know any "old dogs" that have learned a new trick recently?  and what inspired them to do so?


Have a great day!

Kathy :)






4 comments:

  1. Kathy, When my grandma was alive, she would play Mario Kart with my kids. She was well into her 90s by then. I was always amazed at how she took on the challenge as if it were no big deal. I don't believe in that old saying - old dogs can't learn new tricks. If we aren't constantly learning, we become useless or out-dated.

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  2. Just think a computer is outdated in 2 years, if we don't constantly update our own internal hardware we are going to be lost by the time were 90! Happy learning. :)

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  3. I can remember having to go to the library and employing the Dewey Decimal System to find an outdated book that was little to no help for research LOL!

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