Shiny Things

I do love shiny things and I am

not even embarassed to admit it.

Things that glitter and glow like diamonds, sequins, twinkling lights, cut glass, shiny makeup, gemstones, or anything with a glint will receive my full attention.

But rarely is there a shiny thing that is not only glittery, but elegant and practical too.

And of course today’s story is about a charmingly small Christmas gift from a great friend (Pam).  Pam also loves shiny things.

The little object of this tale is a “crystalline pen” made by Swarovski!  It’s center is filled with tiny little crystals that shine in different lights.  I keep it right where I can see it too.  And occasionally a deep sigh can be heard across the room.  It is a sigh of contentment.

 

Because this sparkling object is not only wonderful to look at,

but is also a smooth and silky writing pen.

And it has a thumbs-free rubber stylus at one end

Did you know I used to be able to type 70 words per minute on a manual typewriter?

And 100 words per minute on an electric typewriter (does anyone remember those?).

But I am woefully clumsy when it comes to texting on a cell phone!

Result:  Typos!  Great Big Ugly Typos!

Forefinger-texting doesn’t work for me because the typos are so horrendous nobody can decipher the mesHvs7& (see what I mean?).

Enter:  The Swarovski Magical Pen.

This wonderful little thing is a real problem solver and a Senior’s Answer to keeping up with social media’s high speed demands.

Like who can match the maddening two-thumb expert young-uns who probably exceed 100 words per minute just before they run into a wall or fall down the stairs?

It’s the stylus I now love…. that little eraser-like thing at one end of my wondrous little pen.

The stylus is like a miniature thumb

and is just the right size for error free cell phone typing.

Now if they would only invent a pen that has twin stylus-es styl-eye? at one end to work like the kids using two thumbs.

Maybe I will write a letter to Swaovski!

In the meantime, thank you Pam for this sweet little gift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Casualties of Modern Technology

In this age of wi fi, texting, smart communications, apps, hot spots and you-name-it technological advances, can there really be a downside to technology?

Yup.

Yesterday I may have been the first casualty since  I couldn’t fill in a formal stock certificate!

Having the dubious honor of being the Secretary of my landowners’ corporation, I am responsible for issuing new stock certificates to new landowners.  Said Stock Certificates are necessarily very fancy pre-printed, and imposingly serious documents and the information is always typed in.

We have two new landowners now so Secretary Dor was all set to fill in and issue their certificates.  The problem was I couldn’t figure out how to type in the names without a typewriter!

Write in the names you say?  Yes, I could do that and did,

But then the back of the certificate required a 50 word paragraph about who is entitled to own the stock, etc.  And I couldn’t type that in either.

“Does anyone own a typewriter?” I asked the other members at our annual meeting.

No response.

“Maybe an attorney could do it for us,” they finally suggested

How ridiculous can that be – not to be able to sit down and type in a few words on the right lines?

Now mind you, there can be no mistakes made on these documents so if we tried to print the information from the computer onto the document we risked a spacing error and having a big mess.

So Secretary Dor simply gave up.

But thank goodness for Bill.  He loves technological challenges and he measured and tested and figured out a way to transfer the paragraph to the right place in the right space.   It looks very professional too.

On the other hand, I didn’t calculate correctly for writing in the names so the last name on one wound up going uphill off the designated lines.

Ah well,  I have heard they are no longer teaching handwriting and penmanship in schools (another loss) since everybody texts.  No doubt the Secretary who comes after me will fill in stock certificates with the letter X!

So go the casualties of modern technology.

Does anyone even remember what a typewriter is?

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