Unleashing a Torrent of Automation

I have been noticing that I don't have near as much to do anymore. When I get ready for work every morning, my coffee maker comes on automatically and brews up a fresh pot of Maxwell House, as it is preprogrammed to do at '4:30 am'. This is exceptionally attractive to an old war-horse who gradually crawls from his bed and remains in a semi-conscious stupor for what seems to be exceedingly longer periods of time each and every morning. Trying to separate those flimsy filters with the '4:30 am' brain, eyes and fingers is a little too much to ask of this old feller.

As I step out into the garage on my way to work in the morning, I push a button and the garage door automatically opens. Then the cold air blitzes in and I automatically become distressed because I'm reminded that I live in an area that still allows winter to occur every year and because...it is still winter. When I fire up the Torrent (a fantastic example of 21st Century motorized transportation, which recently replaced the ailing Equinox), I don't have to reach up and turn on the headlights, because they come on automatically. And then as I arrive at work and climb out of my legendary chariot, I don't have to do anything to turn off the lights, they are extinguished automatically, just like they came on. And I don't have to insert the key into the lock to lock the door, I push a button and every doggone door locks automatically. The Torrent will then automatically offer up a toot on the old horn, as if to say, "Thanks for keeping me secure, Ol' Simmons". (Maybe I've watched too much 'Thomas the Train'.)

I took a trip across the state line not too long ago and my XM-Radio automatically changed my radio clock from Eastern Time to Central Time. I didn't have to fuss with turning back the time on the clock, it just did it all by itself, sort of...automatically. The same darn thing happened to my cell phone and although I wasn't watching it at the time, it automatically changed to the proper time zone. And when I came back across the line, the cell phone and the car radio did it again, without so much as a gentle nudge from me. Obviously, there is a satellite up there somewhere that is tracking this old boy wherever he goes just to make sure he's on the right time. I'm fairly positive that there is a signal sent immediately (if not sooner) to NORAD, or somewhere else that is very official sounding, which notifies some high ranking military officer that Ol' Simmons has just crossed from one time zone to another. The ease with which these notifications are made is quite a splendid transaction and is one of the reasons that we have become such a great and powerful nation.

Not too awfully long ago, I was cruising in the Torrent and I heard a phone ring. I pressed the miniature green phone symbol on the rearview mirror and someone began talking to me. This is the first and only time this has ever happened to me and it was a wrong number. I don't have the slightest idea what that number is, so if it rings again, I am going to have to assume that it is another wrong number. There are only a handful of folks who ever call my cell phone, so I'm quite positive that this new-fangled automated car phone is an example of sophisticated automated electronic gadgetry which I can do without.

I have noticed however, that when I get a call on my cell phone, I don't have to write down any phone numbers because the cell phone automatically records the number of the person who just called. Now what do you think about that? And if I call someone, that crazy little phone will immediately, without the slightest provocation from me, record the number that I just called. That, my dear friends, is exactly like having an automated private secretary right in your own pocket. Maybe I should have said 'administrative assistant' to have been more politically correct, but I didn't.

Now while I am watching television, I don't need to peruse the TV Guide, I just push a button and a monstrous guide with nearly a bazillion channels, appears before me on the screen and I can select, at my leisure, just about anything that anyone could ever want to watch, right on my TV. I push another button and automatically I am presented with a menu of Netflix movies, documentaries and old TV shows, which have been downloaded straight from my computer. Sweet.

As I was writing this, I misspelled the word 'automatically' and my word processor automatically corrected it. It didn't ask if I wanted the word corrected, it just did it automatically. I've always been a fairly decent speller, but I've never been a gifted typist and my fingers have a tendency to misspell words that my brain knows how to spell. When I get done writing, I always double check my fingers with a spelling and grammar checker (my fingers have never been proficient at grammar either). I have dubbed my spell checker 'the finger checker', for obvious reasons. I just click on this impressive electronic wizardry and my computer initiates a function which checks out the entire document automatically, whilst I sip on my coffee.

Even my coffee tends to automatically trigger other functions, and I do believe one of those functions has now been triggered. There is no automation for this effort though; I'll handle it all on my own.