Days gone by.

When I think about how we’re in the year 2010, I no longer say, “Where has the time gone?” I now wonder, “What’s next?”

When I was young I used to watch a TV show called the Jetson’s. I would think, “There is no way we will ever have half of this stuff in my lifetime.” I mean can you imagine a device that let’s you walk in place with your dog? A treadmill. The ability to actually see the person you are talking with through a TV screen anywhere in the world? The Internet and Skype. And the best one of all flying cars? Okay, two out of three ain’t bad.

What’s amazing about the above inventions? They all have come about in the last 30 years give or take a few. Which if you do the math, let’s you know there have been tremendous accomplishments in a very short period of time.

So back to my question, “What’s ahead?”

Recently I saw a video that was both amazing and alarming. It showed a working model of a device you wore on your chest that allowed people to learn about your interests, provided a detailed look through the bar code about a company and their corporate stance on the environment, a virtual watch and phone, plus hundreds of other applications. You are probably thinking, “Yeah but its $200,000.” Actually the working model would have set you back $350.00. Yes you read that correctly.

Now keep in mind it’s not ready for mass production, but when it is, it will be much smaller and a lot less expensive. How will we feel about it? Will we let our children use it? Are there safety concerns? This is more than a technological advancement; it’s a social change that will provide more insight than we might be comfortable in showing. But is this different that Facebook, My Space, Twitter and Google? I am not sure.

Which bring us to the photo above. Not many years ago kids and adults road bikes to and from wherever they were going. Could be the store, a friend’s house, anywhere. But now as we have multiple cars and less time---we do everything we can to make sure we can squeeze anything into our day. From a visit over the phone while we are driving to shopping online to eating fast food for more and more of our meals. The days are gone when a slower lifestyle was the “norm”---hopefully we will one day find a way to bring a piece of the “norm” back into normality.

Thanks for stopping by.