Random Wednesday Night Thoughts

    So, I have to create a blog as part of a web 2.0 course offered at work.  Gee, I've had this blog quite a while, I don't write in it often, but I've had it going for several years now.  It is yet another neglected writing journal of mine.  (Most of them are hard copy and even more neglected than this is.)  Also, I have been working with computers longer than most of the kids I work with have been alive.  (Applesoft BASIC, anyone?) 
We bought our first computer in 1985.  It was a Commodore 64.  Before we broke down and bought our first PC, a 286, one of the first built by Gateway, we had acquired every possible add on for the C-64.  We had a hard drive, two disc drives, and a 1200 baud modem.  We thought we were hot stuff.  These days, my refrigerator has more computing power than that C-64.
  Heck, my Android phone is probably a more advanced computer than this desktop unit.  I guess this is all by way of saying that I undoubtedly need to learn more about the newer uses of the Internet, considering that when I first heard of it, it was called DARPA Net, and my oldest brother used it to converse with other engineers and scientists who were building stuff for the DoD.  Our first web-like experience was on Quantum Link or QLink, a dial-up service that was primarily a BBS for Commodore users.  I think I would probably perish if I had to go back to the days of waiting for dial-up to connect.  U-Verse has spoiled me even for the high speed cable that we used to have.  U-verse is always there, and I can connect almost instantly to it via the wi-fi on our secure home network with any of my wi-fi capable devices.  And yet I can remember thinking it was amazing that we could just dial a number on the phone and connect the computer to other computers.  We didn't know it then, but it was abysmally SLOW.

My other new adventure this week was ordering new eyeglasses.  This process now involves far more choices (and expense) than ever before.  I think I will really like my new glasses, but I have to wait a few weeks to get them because the lenses have to be ordered.  The sun glasses I already picked up, and they are very nice.  I think this prescription, and the quality of the work by the eyeglass makers, will be a big improvement over my last eyeglasses. What I want to know is why it should cost close to a thousand dollars for new glasses.  (Two pair, but still, I don't have insurance that  covers eyeglasses, so I get to pay the whole thing.)  The cost of anything remotely related to medical care or equipment in this country is just insane.  My great grandfather would be appalled.  People paid him in chickens or apples on occasion.  He wasn't in medicine to make money.  He was in it to help people.  Probably why he practiced in Washington County, Arkansas for more than 60 years.  Yup.  He was 90 something when he died, and he was still practicing not long before he died.
  Why isn't education as lucrative as medicine?
 I mean, most people who go into teaching or into library work do so because they love helping others learn and discover new things.  It is a holy calling, not a mere profession.  Medicine should be that way.  Of all the so-called professions, it would seem to me that the desire to heal people and keep people healthy would be a motive to go into medicine, and that it would be a holy calling, not just a way to make the big bucks. 
Oh, well.  I am just rambling, not constructing a cohesive post, I am afraid.  Time to quit.