Go hug a geek.

A friend of mine asked me to make some drawings for him to use in a presentation next week.

Tonight was the only block of time I had available to work on them, so I dove right in and got them done in a couple of hours. When I finished, I took some quick photos of them and slapped them onto a Web page for my friend to look at.

He called me back a few minutes later to report that he was happy with the posters. While we were on the phone, he told me that he and his wife had just been laughing about the technology I’d employed to get his proofs to him.

His comment made me appreciate how truly amazing this technology is … and how much the world has changed in a very short span of time.

I got my first video game — an Odyssey something-or-other that offered an assortment of Pong-like games and ate batteries by the case — when I was about 5 or 6. I was 7 when I played my first game of Space Invaders, and I was 9 the first time I flipped the toggle switch on the back of an Apple IIe and heard its reassuring “PBLRRRRRRRRRRRRRT! Chk-chk-chk-chk.”

Today, the expensive toys of my childhood have given way to digital cameras and cell phones that keep track of my schedule. I spend a third of my time — or more — in front of a computer. I use the Internet to communicate with friends across town and around the world. And I don’t even think about it.

My friend does. He grew up a generation ahead of me, and he remembers a world without computers, cell phones, or digital cameras.

I remember it, too … but the details are sort of fuzzy, and by the time I was old enough to need such conveniences, they were readily available — mass-produced, and sold at reasonable prices.

Thank God for geeks….

Emily