Well…as if on cue, mother nature stopped the world  just long enough for me to consider where I am going with this experiment; so here it is (in a round-about way).

This Christmas I gave my 81 year-old father a computer. In the space of 3 weeks he is “surfing the net” as he says, on email, and on Facebook. And, what he lacks in knowledge, he makes up for in tenacity – he is not afraid to fail.  Last night, I was getting ready to walk the dog, and he called to announce that he could not get “home.” I thought…oh God! he is out on the road lost – something has happened to him! It didn’t occur to me immediately that he was “home” sitting in his easy chair lost  in cyberspace – Ha!  Home for him is igoogle; a place where he can access everything he is interested in with the touch of the mouse. To my amazement, he had managed to change his homepage…  3 TIMES! So, my pup and I stopped by to correct the problem, and we were all on  our merry way. Me, out on the road, disguised in a night reflective vest, and he, in his rowboat,  (rather than surfboard) on the internet. And why does that matter?

He is exploring…at 81. This medium is no longer a place for the few. The digital universe was, at one point secretly unfolding all around the generations and now it feels a little like it is in my face every day. To me, its affect has been kind of like a style of music affects a generation – if you are born into it, it seems natural to like it. If not, you are left feeling like you just read Shakespeare – the clear message slams you in the face hard, and you somehow miss the nuances. Personally, I love it -I don’t know why. There is something raw and immediate about it. It is not like crafting the perfect novel. In fact, I think that is what I do like. To acquire a taste for it a person must have curiosity, desire, and open mind, and the energy to back it up (a cross between a jack russell terrior and a bloodhound). Perhaps it is in the genes, so I am going exploring too.

I must put down the hand-written journal for a while and  tell a digital story or two. This class and this personal, private blogspot are the first evidence that I have put on the digital boots. I am prying the beautiful, private, paper journal from my white knuckles for a while and writing to the wave. I am not a good writer, but I am a junkie for writing, literature, comminucation, information, and the outdoors so many of the posts going forward will likely have that flavor.So here it is ds106…lets go!