OK, so I don’t have a hyperactive social life anymore. My twenties are long gone and most of my Saturday nights are relegated to home life. While many folks my age (I’m only 42) might still enjoy heading out to the bars and making casual acquaintances, their partners may not really appreciate that.
I realized today how much I like being a geek at home on Saturday night. It’s relaxing and never really boring. Life is a hundred times too short to ever be bored.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t usually spend all day playing around on my computer. This morning, for example, I drove my car to a few auto body shops to get quotes for a minor fender bender and a friend stopped by a little while later to pick up some items for local charity. This evening, I cooked baked potatoes with all the fixin’s and made a batch of brownies too.
Yes, I took a nap this afternoon, but I enjoy those. Would love to have a nap every day. Naps on Saturdays let me stay up late so that I can spend some quality geek time in my office/man-cave.
I had a blog post to write for OfficeforMacHelp.com and thought this would be a good time to check out Snagit for Mac, which I’d read about on TUAW, for screenshots. We geeks luvs us some new computer utilities!
After watching the video tutorials for a while and oohing and aahing over my newly found toy, I finished the blog post and then went downstairs where we caught up on the latest Supernatural episode while eating dinner. Let’s hope for Dean’s sake that Sam finds his soul, huh?
While cooking dinner, I thought about how I spent Saturday nights when I was younger. My social life was much more active but even 15 years ago, I realized, some Saturdays were spent in front of the computer. However, I wasn’t alone.
When we didn’t have anything else to do on a Saturday night, my buddy Bryan and I would buy a 12-pack of Bud and hop onto AOL for the evening. The two of us would be sitting staring at a 15-inch monitor reading the chatter in the Oklahoma City room. I did the typing most of the time because I was a touch typist and together we injected “witty banter” of our own. You have to realize that this was a whole new and unexplored social avenue for us! AOL was charging per minute at that time rather than flat rate but the entertainment value was worth it.
We’d check out every profile of every person hanging out in the room. If we saw someone who looked interesting then we’d throw caution to the wind and instant message her. I’m pretty sure it was always a her. Two dudes and a few beers make for great online conversation. Some Saturday nights, we had one or two more buds with nothing do who’d join us and even Bryan’s sister Melinda would come over. Extra people required moving the couch in front of the computer where we could all be comfortable.
This went on for a few months and then eventually Bryan got a computer of his own. We didn’t hang out as much in my apartment but we were both still in the Oklahoma City room many evenings. And we started meeting people in person too. Remember, Chelé, Bryan? [Shudders!] Good thing we didn’t let that stop us. We had some great offline AOL parties later.
The rest of my evening today was spent writing a quick second blog post for OfficeforMacHelp.com and finally this one. About time I paid attention to my own blog. Next Saturday night is game night at a friend’s condo and also a small gathering for her birthday.
Remember the Human 