Jo's Personal Blog at Blogger.com: cars

Tuesday

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Technology

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-book-of-me-written-by-you-topic-1.html#sthash.2TuO2bVu.dpuf

The prompt for the week is:

Technology

The Brief:

What technology changes did your ancestors see?
What technology changes have you seen?
Did your family own one of those early changes? - such as television
Do you like or dislike technology?
What do you think has been the best technological change in your lifetime and historically?

My Ancestors Technology
My Great Grandparents
I know when my paternal great grandfather Adam came from Poland to the US, about 1911 or so, it was during the industrial revolution. My great grandmother Mary and grandmother Jean followed in 1920. However, during that time, Adam would have seen farming go from almost no machinery to

Sample of picture of jobs of the industrial revolution - image taken from http://www.gaumatanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/house.jpg

doing much by machine. Further, when my great grandfather's, on both sides, came to the US it was by steam engine ship and took weeks. However, by the time my great grandmother's and grandmother came to the US the ship was more industrialized and took only a few weeks.

Betamax machines (from Wikipedia)

My Grandparents
My grandparents seen more technology because of the years of innovation - this ranged from radios to phones with answering machines and black and white television. I still remember my grandmother's face when I brought a small Pac Man portable game when I went to visit her. I do remember when I would spend a few weeks with my grandmother she was confused with records (remember the 33's and 45's), answering machines. She figured if anyone wanted to talk to her they would call back, she understood records but not the record players which were used in the 1970's and 1980's. My grandmother Jean and I used to play cards or to bring something to read. I do know at one point my grandmother had a camera that when she took a picture put it on a glass plate. We know this because one of the pictures my father gave me the print of we could tell because my husband's family, which had photographers in it, took those types of pictures.

My grandmother Jean drove a car as well. My great grandfather Adam didn't as he would take the bus from New Jersey to Newburgh, New York to see my grandmother and my father. My grandmother did drive, however, it was not very fast due to her being in a serious car/train accident in the mid 1930's where she went through the windshield and almost died. She suffered until she died because she would have tiny slivers of glass her pores would spit out every now and then. I helped her get them out every time I went to her apartment. Because of that, she drove very slow and very carefully until she passed away.

Technology I've seen
1970's
When I was born, there was already black and white televisions and the telephone. I do remember the telephone party lines we had which were annoying and I didn't use the phone because of it, but I knew many people loved them. However, it wasn't until the mid 1970s my father had an answering machine. I still remember when HBO and then, later, Cinemax or cable started. I remember the turntables which had a radio in them. The radio which you could turn on the 70's disco lights and flash and dance like John Travolta. LOL.

From http://winktimber.com/photos/radios/zenith_1.jpg

1980's
Then in the early 1980's we went from black and white TV to colour TV and by mid 1980's we had an Atari game console. I loved my watch with a calculator in it. I had a bicycle that was a 10 speed, and I still remember Mom and I trying to figure out how to use an electric stove with a cleaner in it. I also had a Polaroid camera and then the rolls of film, then onto the daisy wheel film.

Atari Game picture from http://arcade-games-web.com/galleries/atari/atari_2600_5.jpg

One of the Polariod's I used to use - http://www.georges.com.au/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/270x270/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/i/m/imp600camcloseup.jpg

Daisy Wheel Negatives - https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdevers/2782581581/

By the late 1980's computers were starting and Mom went out and bought me a typewriter which had a 2 piece ribbon - black for the typing and white for backspacing and correcting the mistyped word. When I wanted a computer, my mother got me a Franklin ACE 500 which was battling Apple and IBM with the 5 1/4 floppy drive and only 8kb of RAM memory to start it. You needed to know commands to get into the programs and games. What fun! *grin* Recently I was searching for something and saw Oregon trail game and shuttered in memory because that was one of the few games I had for it. I always died in the game. I even had a few report cards which were punch cards!

Franklin ACE 500 computer (no monitor is shown but it had one) take from http://oldcomputers.net/pics/ace500-right.jpg

The Oregon Trail game - screen print from http://lparchive.org/Oregon-Trail-(by-Chewbot)/Update%202/13-introGame1.jpg

1990's & beyond
Then in the 1990's, I bugged all the teachers about the Apple computers and finally they let me to a trade school for Business Computer Technology which we used adding machines and 286 computers with the monochrome screens to do things like typing and letters. It was great - I was using a computer and loved it. By the time I graduated in 1991 and started Orange County Community College, I learned how to program, use a computer to do helpful things. I couldn't get enough. This included at night when my mother wasn't at home, I found a place I could dial into and play Bulletin Board Role Playing Games.

286 Computer - image from http://ksinfos.perso.sfr.fr/Collection/computers/ibm/xt-286/Dscf3947.jpg

Late 1990's, I found myself at State University Technology at Utica Rome in Utica New York. I then learned all about the computer, telneting, FTP, and the list went on and on. Then after I met my husband online and I moved to Australia, I started to learn how to do HTML coding. Over the years, I've learned how to code in CSS and a tiny bit in Javascript and PHP. In 1996, I took my first airline flight - it just happened to be to Australia. Not the smartest thing I've ever done (first flight almost 40 hours long? Not good.), but compare that against my great grandparents and grandparents doing things by ship - WOW!

HTML sample

CSS sample

Then you have the things the computers and attachments can do today - scanning, photocopying, faxing, saving, USB sticks, USBs, idrives, and the list goes on and one. I know if my grandparents and back further could see the things we can do now - wow! They would be completely shocked and concerned about everything.

Even if you go between countries (like we do between the US and Australia), you run into huge differences. For instance, my sister came out to visit a few years ago from the US. She couldn't understand why we didn't have any toll booths but heard beeps. I showed her that the beeps were us going through the toll booths and we just pay an account. She was shocked - pleased but shocked.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

Sunday

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Cars and Transport

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

Cars and Transport

The Brief:

Did you have a car in your family whilst you were growing up?
What methods of transport were there? And what did you & your family typically use?
Your Driving Test
Where Did you learn? - Can you drive?
Your first car?
Your Favourite Car?
Do you name your cars?
Can you remember the registration details? And perhaps explain what the registration means.

The Family's Cars
This is an interesting topic as most of the time we've had cars in my family. My mother finally got her drivers license just before she left my father when I was under 4 years old. My father had the drivers license up until then. I can imagine it was very difficult for my mother up until she got her license as my siblings are all older than I am and we all know just how many accidents and cold children have.

After my mother left my father, we didn't have a car for years. Instead we walked from where we lived, outside of the main part of town, into town for school and work. I can still remember the winter when my mother and I got up and left to go to work and school and it was snowing like crazy out. There was that much snow, we had to walk in the road because people hadn't shoveled yet and it was half way up to my mother's chest and she stood about 5 foot 4 inches tall, so that goes to show you just how much snow there was. Anyhow, we stopped once to warm up in a small restaurant and get something warm to drink, and then continued on to school and work - only for both of them to be cancelled because of the snow. It wasn't long after we bought a car when I was about 8 years old.

On the other hand, my father had a car when I was that age (below is a visitation day when I was about 6 or 7). My father has always had a range of car. Currently, he's had his PT Cruiser which he loves.

Jo with her father's car in Newburgh, NY

My License & Cars
I received my first permit when I was 16 - as is common in the US. Because of my good grades, my mother's boyfriend, Lyle, bought me my first car - a used Chevy Citation(below) he got a great deal on - only cost him $500 US back in 1990.

My Chevy Citation in front of our apartment (middle 3 windows)

Upon being taught, I was driving down a very narrow and dirt road during either the summer or spring. I was going very slowly past parked cars on the road (they were on the right and there was just enough room on the left to pass them) and all of a sudden some idiot came down the driveway at a good speed and I saw it and stopped. Thankfully I did that or else I would have gotten T boned. The idiot stopped, looked up and his jaw dropped because he didn't even see me until then. Then he just continued on like there was nothing wrong with what he just did. However, with me being a beginner driver, I started to shake. I got us back home, went up to our apartment, opened the window and proceeded to rip up my permit and throw it out the window.

However, within a year, I knew I had to get my license in order to get a job and some freedom. Ever since then, I'm very careful with how I drive because of that. In 1990, I finally got my license.

I haven't had that many cars in my driving time. Like I mentioned above, my first car was a Chevy Citation. I was going to take my drivers test in that one; however, on the day I was to go take it, it started to rain and my wipers wouldn't work, so I ended up having to take my mother's Isuzu Pup truck instead. I never drove this car/truck at all, so I was really nervous because of the parking involved, not being used to the car/truck and the rain. I drove the the testing site to get used to the truck before the test - a 20 minute drive is all I had. Then I went through the test, and passed. Shocked both myself and my mother that's for sure!

Jo's Drivers License results

Since then, I've had a Nissan Sentra which we got while I was at college in the early 1990's. However, once I left and moved to Australia, my mother's boyfriend was driving it about 3 years later and the tie rod broke and made the car undriveable.

I drove my husband's Holden Commodore when I first moved to Australia and then later his 2 Ford station wagons, before I had enough saved to get myself a my first car. I was driving on my international drivers license and by 1998 or 1999 I got my Australia license, and I bought a
Daihatsu Charade II (below). I bought it from a used car yard. It did fairly well and lasted about 4 years. When pump's, and other major stuff started to go wrong, we decided to go and get either new cars or almost new cars as it seemed as we were always fixing them.

Jo's Diahatsu Charade II on the car lot where she bought it

In 2007, I bought my Toyota Yaris. I paid for it brand new and drove it off of the car yard.

Picture after Jo drove it home for the first time

I still have this one even after it was vandalized later in 2007 at a train station (below).

The back of the car after it was vandalized

Then in 2012, when I was on my way to an appointment, a young girl wasn't paying attention and decided to hit my car with the front of her car (and I did my best to avoid it by pulling out of the way but wasn't completely successful - if I hadn't done that my car would have been wiped out).

Moments after the accident - a picture I used for the insurance claim

Anyhow, my car was fixed and I'm back on the road since then.

Keep Safe & Happy Traveling!

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.