Is This the End?

It should be no surprise that I am not a big fan of the latest technology. My disdain for new technology comes honestly. As a young carpenter, I realized that most times the “new” way of doing things weren’t always the best way of doing things.

My experience as a carpenter predates the use of pneumatic nailers. Oh, we had them; but they were not used to drive every nail like they are today.

My fellow carpenters took great pride in hitting every nail one, two or three times to drive the nail “home”. We made contests of our hammering skills. It made our work fun.

Somewhere along the line, some “brainiac” thought if carpenters would use pneumatic nailers buildings could be built faster, therefore cheaper. Pre-pneumatic nailer houses could be bought for under $35,000. Now the same house, on a smaller lot, will cost $350,000. How do you feel about new technology now?

OK, I know that pneumatic nailers did not raise the price of construction, but that new technology did not make it any cheaper either. I can’t say the nailers made it any safer. I can tell you several stories about construction workers “shooting” themselves in the leg while he was on a roof and had to be carried off down ladders by fellow workers. And the guy who shot himself in the stomach. Fortunately, his belly was bigger than the nail was long. One guy shot himself in the hand. That wasn’t much of a story, I thought I would mention it, because it might have been me and I like to write about myself.

What does this have to do with a yarn store? Nothing! It has to do with me not liking new technology, and now I will tie that to the yarn store. (Ivy, hates when I do this.)

For years I having been writing stories about Your Daily Fiber on Sunday mornings. (OK, some of them weren’t about Your Daily Fiber.) Hey, remember when I wrote on Wednesdays? Neither did I but Ivy did. Sorry, my thoughts were drifting. And I’ve been so good.

Years ago, Ivy and Elaine decided we need a website and someone could write a blog about the store. At the time, I had never read a blog and didn’t even know what they were. I thought websites were new technology replacing the “yellow pages”. Too simplify things for me, Ivy told me, “You just write the stories, Mom and I will take care of the website stuff.”

Ivy, Elaine and someone called a website designer went to work and somehow “poof”, we had a website and I had a story on the internet.

After a while our website designer stopped helping and decided to move on. (I think he possibly moved on to other new technology haters. I don’t know this for a fact, but in this day and age, fact’s don’t matter. Did you see how I slipped that in?) We began having problems with our website, and we didn’t know how to fix it.

With the help of a customer, we made a change of website designers and “poof” our website problems went away. Things worked great for years. People complimented Ivy and Elaine on the website. Some people even liked my stories.

This is where I was going to write that I had been contacted by a couple Hollywood producers about making a movie about Your Daily Fiber stories. But that would be a lie. At least it hasn’t happened yet. But if it happens I want to play myself or maybe I could have Sam Sheppard play me.

Sorry.

About a month ago, we were notified by our website “host” that they were no longer going to be “hosting” websites. They were getting out of the “hosting” business. Ivy showed me an email about what was going on and I said, “Huh!” What else would you expect me to say?

Anyway, we have until March 20th to save over four hundred stories and find a way to get new stories on the internet, or Monner’s Mumblings goes away. Ivy believes she has it figured out.

Just another example of a reason to dislike technology.

Spielberg, if you’re out there, call me.

Our crazy lives!

Monner