Technology is an amazingly fast moving thing in today's world. I remember going with you to Silo and looking at stereo systems back when cd's were brand new technology and you wanted to buy a player for your house. Nowadays, with cds being considered old tech and digital downloads supposedly the way to go, I look back at that shopping trip and it seems amazing that it was 20 short years ago. I remember the days before cell phones and vhs and the internet even computers, but I have embraced technology and I love it. I pay attention to the latest technology and I try to keep up with things, though I have to admit I was hesitant to get a so called,"Smartphone", because I didn't like the idea of companies being able to track my physical location at all times, but then I started weighing the possibilities of a mobile hotspot and digital tethering as well as being able to have a laptop at my fingertips, that combined with the fact that they finally got reasonably priced, I decided to finally get service.
My ex, who is over a decade older than me, is a technology hating curmudgeon. He has hung onto his vinyl records and most of the stuff from his youth, resistant to upgrading his lifestyle or his abilities to even try to keep up with modern times, but with two boys that are hungry for technology and for staying connected with me and their siblings, he finally had no choice.
Even with the help I provided, he was losing his cable and his cellphone and then I wouldn't be able to talk to my sons, and that would be a problem. With them almost 10 miles outside of town, it is just not safe for them to be cut off from phone service and with no internet or cable, they would be essentially cut off from news, weather and any kind of entertainment to keep them busy when the wind blows 50 miles an hour, so I decided to step in and get him a phone on my service that would double as a mobile hotspot so he would have internet and via the wii, internet television.
I got him the exact same phone I have, had it delivered to him and ever since then I have had to field calls that have ranged from accusations of attempted murder via frustration heart attack, to stress related insanity. Did I mention that this is the same man who would bitch if he won the lottery over the denomination of the bills used to pay it out to him? Yeah...I expected him to bitch and gripe, and its fine with me. He is 1500 miles away and he knows he needs to just suck it up and deal with it. I think his biggest problem is that he has finally realized that while he has pretended to be old for years, he has finally realized that he actually IS old. He is very behind the times and he is very out of touch with the world around him.
I work very hard to keep up with things that my kids are interested in, the music they like, the books they read and the culture that they are growing up in. Some of it, I dont much care for, and I am DREADING if daughter ever becomes one of those tweens that wants to go see movies like the Bieber film or whatever. But luckily, she is into pretty cool and interesting stuff,(largely because I try to influence her to stay away from the over processed and hyped crap as being for "common sheeple", but I encourage her to do things like read and think and check stuff out and if she is curious, we check it out and I try to reserve comment at things that aren't geared for me. He is not so careful, he tells the boys he doesn't like some of the stuff they like, and he tries to force his likes onto them and consequently, they dont talk to him about their likes as much. He wont let Stubby read Harry Potter, and Stub is bereft. He thinks his father thinks he is too dumb to understand it, but the problem is, his father is biased against it because he wants Stub reading books HE liked when he was a kid, books that Stub is not interested in at the moment, so Stub has quit reading. Its the same thing with hobbies. He wants to work on jewelry, and he wants the boys to do the same. The boys want to play video games or be outside.
I dont expect he will ever change, and the boys just try to work around him. The phone will provide them a link to me so I can talk to them and see them on video chat and just stay in touch. I told their father that if he cant figure it out he could just hand it to Sticky, after all, he was the one who figured out how to connect the Wii to the internet and stream movies through the LCD tv, and if a kid with Downs Syndrome can do it, surely an old man can eventually be taught at least the rudiments.