27 Seems So Much Older Than 26

It's my birthday this week, and when someone asked me how old I'm turning, I had to stop and think for a moment. When I realized that I was turning 27, I was a bit surprised. That seems super old (no offense to anyone who is older than that.)

Look how much I've grown!

I thought about it, and I think it is because 27 is now in the late 20s, while 26 was in the mid-20s. Regardless, I don't feel any different, and I never have after a birthday, but it is still kind of crazy to think about.

In my life, I've witnessed some pretty crazy events. When I was a kid, we had a computer, but only because my grandpa is a computer guru. My Grandpa is now in his 70s. Most 70-year-olds struggle to turn on a computer. My grandfather still builds and repairs them. He is the only person I know that if your computer completely crashes, he can restore the lost information. He owns a computer store, so we always had the latest technology at our house. Many of my friends who are my same age didn't have computers until they were a little older.

We didn't have internet in school until at least late middle school to early junior high school. I remember in 4th grade, if we didn't want to go outside because it was below zero, we could stay inside and play typing games on the computer. I attribute this to the fact that I can type at a fairly decent rate now.

When I was a kid, our military was not at war (that I knew of). In High School, I witnessed the attacks on the Twin Towers, and saw our country go to war. That was a pretty intense time period.

In my short life, a lot of things have happened, but life has gone on. There have been scary times, crazy times, and downright awesome times. I'm grateful that I was able to come to this earth and to meet so many wonderful people. For those of you who are reading this, thank you for your continual love and support. I really appreciate that you are involved in our lives. We love you!

Kevin hugging his red panda.

How the Internet has Changed!

I was just watching a commercial on youtube, and suddenly there was a hashtag at the end of it. What?  Businesses are now using twitter?  That blew my mind a little bit.

I remember a few years ago, when I came home from my mission, I was startled to see facebook pages at the ends of all the commercials.  I've been on facebook since the very beginning of facebook.  I liked it because it was so much more private than myspace, and it was a good way to stay in touch with my college friends.  When I first got on it, only college students could use it. You had to verify that you were an actual student with you college e-mail before they would let you join. 

However, in 2010, thing had abruptly changed!  Suddenly, everyone (including Wal-mart) was on facebook.  My nifty little college social room had become a world-wide social network.  That was a little bit of a mental adjustment for me.

Then came twitter.  I still am not a part of twitter; I just don't see the point.  If someone wants to tell me why it's a good thing, I'd gladly like to know.  It just seems like a way to tell people what you are doing ALL THE TIME. 

Just now, I looked up the top 15 most popular social networking sites.  Crazy.  I'm surprised that myspace is still on the list.  I didn't even know anyone was using it anymore.

I remember when I was in fourth grade, we had computers at our school.  However, there was no internet on them.  They had some typing games and learning games, but that was it.  That was the year Accelerated Reader was introduced as well.

Then, sometime between then and sixth grade, the internet really began to pick up steam.  I remember a time when I wanted to learn something, I had to go to the library, dictionary, or encyclopedia to find it, and often there wasn't much information about it.

I love wikipedia.  That's one of my favorite parts of the internet. 

I'm not that old (at least I think), but the world has changed during my lifetime.  When I was a kid, we had a computer in our house, but that was because my grandpa owned a computer store and had kept on top of current trends.  We've always been very electronically minded.  The games were simple, but fun.  Now there are games so real that they use so much ram they cause your computer to crash.  The graphics are extraordinary and the CGI in movies is incredible!

It will be interesting to see what happens next.  I'm sure there will be bad changes, but I am also sure there will be wonderful changes coming, and those are the ones I'm excited to see.