It’s the end of the year, so now’s a great time to choose a nonprofit to donate to. Here’s one to consider:
Even though I have always admired the weapons that the military uses, I have never really had the urge to join the service. Perhaps it is the fear of commitment, or the fact that being in the army can put you in dangerous situation each and every day, but the army wasn’t going to be for me.
But that didn’t mean that my fascination with automatic weapons went away. No, it meant that it was going to be even more of a challenge for me to find a way to pursue my hobby without buying illegal weapons. I could live with that since I really didn’t want to go to prison, but I was sure there was an alternative.
In fact, I found the alternative in the most unlikely place. While out at a big box store, I happened to browse through their hunting section where I found life-like replicas of some of my favorite assault rifles. It was at that moment that I was introduced to airsoft rifles, and I fell in love.
I bought myself an Echo1 airsoft rifle at that moment, and it has been one of my most prized possessions ever since. I take it out to the rifle range that I made in my backyard whenever I have the chance, and you can find me out there hours on end with a big grin on my face.
Sure, it isn’t the real thing, but it is damn close, which is good enough for me.
One of the most frustrating things about keeping up with the Jones’s when it comes to technology is that you end up with a lot of different things. It seems that each new generation of gadget (especially digital cameras) uses something different, and therefore you seem to end up with a lot of “extras” that you never thought you would end up with.
For example, I look at the past three years of buying and upgrading my digital camera. Now, I guess I was suckered with the latest and greatest things (you know the “more megapixels the better” mentality) and I had to have the latest and greatest.
But the one thing that I didn’t really consider was the number of memory cards that I would collect. I guess with most of the cameras that I have purchased, they all came with a teaser card (you know a really tiny one that lets you take 3 or four pictures), and it seems that I have a little collection now.
I worry about my cell phones as well, since my newest one uses a microsdhc card. Does that mean that I will end up with a stack of memory cards I can no longer use in my phone?
Needless to say, I wish there was something that I could do with all these old cards. Heaven forbid I actually throw them out.
A big group of us got together late last night to open our Christmas presents together. We always do this on Christmas Eve right around midnight. We had a great time. This morning I woke up thinking about the fact that so many of us ended up getting computer-related or web-related presents this year.
Some of these presents make perfect sense. A friend of mine works for a Tampa internet marketing company doing Tampa SEO and blog content writing. It completely makes sense that she received a lot of books and software related to blogging and SEO work. After all, this is what she does.
However a lot of us actually got web-related presents even if we don’t do work that has a lot to do with being on the Internet. Someone got a copy of Peep Diaries, a book about today’s Peep Culture which has a lot to do with the culture of the Internet. Someone else got a new wireless keyboard and mouse for home computing and gaming. Even the homemade presents were computer-related this year; one aunt made knitted cozies for everyone’s computer monitors!
Did you get any presents this year that were related to computers or Internet work? Did these gifts make sense in the context of your work or daily life? Is this something that is becoming a bigger and bigger trend? I’m curious! Merry Christmas!