Today, I had opportunity to spend time with some computer guys  in their twenties!  I’m a grandmother, for goodness sake but I felt right at home talking computer lingo except there was a lot I was out of the loop in understanding.  I tried to hold my own though… I mean, I was personally invited to the 35th internet birthday party by one of the guys on the team who put the two computers together at UCLA so I have something to say about computering! (True story!)  I was at this historic party at UCLA when Leonard Kleinrock told of this event “back in the day”. At the UCLA end, they typed in the ‘l’ and asked SRI if they received it; ‘got the l’ came the voice reply. UCLA typed in the ‘o’, asked if they got it, and received ‘got the o’. UCLA then typed in the ‘g’ and the darned system CRASHED! Quite a beginning. On the second attempt, it worked fine!
– Leonard Kleinrock, The Birth of the Internet.  (Yes, I was there (Not at the birth but at the 35th party! For real!).  Anyhow….

Although I had some experience with early computing and internet history, I’ve been out of the loop for some time so in listening to them, I had to strain, not to hear-(I’m not that old!) but to wrap my brain around the technical sentences being thrown out!  They are young and knowledgeable.  They have fresh ideas and can figure out the computer situations at hand. Their words and phrases were in depth and brought about jargon, much of which was new to me or some of which I had heard but did not understand. ( and, still don’t!)

I had put out a request on Facebook for geek help and a friend of mine offered her son, Zachary, as the expert. And, expert he was!  Not only that, he came complete with a back-up team; Michael and Michael.  There were three guys looking at the computer screen and sharing their thoughts and ideas about my project.  And, not only was the expert and back-up team full of information and knowledge, their very conversation was computerish!  (Is that even a word?)  They spoke of PDF files, uploading, downloading, zip compression and more. My head was spinning but I was loving it!

I’ve had quite a run with the computer and internet over the years.   I’ve bought and sold domain names, developed websites, sold websites, bought and sold on eBay, Craigslist and more.  I’ve had a good time over the years  trying to determine what I wanted to accomplish on the computer but for at least a decade have taken a break.  Now, though, I’m back in the saddle and want to regroup with new and different ideas and I have a new project on my mind.

I need help though. What I realized today is that the help can be found easily in the younger generation.  They know and they have had  experiences  in school that have opened their awareness to the new and improved internet jargon and actions. They have created various projects in school and in their work places that make them experts to someone who’s let the internet surpass  knowledge and understanding by not keeping up!

This was a new day for me and I’m hoping to get another selfie with these guys.. Maybe we could be the “Grandma Squad”.  LOL (I can hear my own kids say… “Mama!  They will never go for that!” but who would have thought Kleinrock would invite me to the 35th Internet Birthday party?

Josie