This 1940s Royal typewriter was my original desktop. Purchased in the early 1980s from a neighbor of my cousin, it served me well through college and a little bit beyond. With a fresh ribbon, and a stack of onion skin paper, along with an eraser, I banged out most of my college papers on this machine.

The action was always solid and dependable. This typewriter started off as a true office machine and has the dates of service inscribed on one side, all from the early 1940s.

As I understand it, the neighbor who I purchased this from was the one who actually used it in the office and was allowed to purchase it for home use. By the early 1980s, she was ready to depart with it for the sum of $40.00, which I gladly paid.

In the late 1980s, I had the platen resurfaced which cost (as I recall) another $80.00, but otherwise, this machine worked reliably, and still does. The current ribbon is a little dried out and the backup one I purchased about 10 years ago is looking a little sketchy. But the machine itself still types reliably with that solid, tactile feel of hitting the keys and using the return.

Alas, in keeping with letting go of older technology, now is the time to let this one move on and into other hands. We donated it to an eager new owner this week, and while it was a nice reminder of the past, it feels good to let it go.

This device is a late 1990s era electronica measuring tool, which I bought and used during a period of dabbling in real estate. It’s outstanding for measuring straight distances up to 60 feet. So ideal for taking room measurements quickly.

Needs a 9-volt battery and you simply place it against a wall and aim it towards the other wall that you want to measure, press the button and it provides a digital number of the distance. It has other features which I never used.

What’s interesting about this device is, once I was done with it, I gave it away (several times) but it kept coming back to me. Now it’s time to let go — if anyone will even want it. Will update with the results.

In some ways, 2006 does not seem very long ago.

We had the internet, cell phones and lots of tech.

We didn’t have the iPhone — that would come a year later.

But still, 2006 was a good year for technology. In my own case, I purchased this 2006 Impreza Outback in August of 2006 at a dealership in Baltimore, trading in a 2003 Mini Cooper. My rationale for getting the Subaru was multi-faceted. On the one hand, the Mini was approaching the 50,000 mile marker, after which all repairs were on me the owner. On the other hand, I was now planning to be married with a child, not conducive to Mini Cooper constraints. A third factor was the job I was doing and a January 2007 big bang go live and wanting an all wheel drive car to be available, in case of snow and other weather.

Plus the 2006 Impreza was sporty and had other features that I liked.

Knowing I was going to be doing a lot of driving between Baltimore and Reston, in those pre-podcast streaming audio days, I was looking forward to listening to music CDs but also educational CDs. And this baby had — still has — a six-capacity CD stereo. Six!

This has been a lovely car for us for many years — it is in fact the one car that I’ve owned for the longest period of time: a few weeks from 15 years.

We have had other cars in the years since 2007 but the Impreza was a steady, solid friend of a car. We had a 2006 Subaru Outback, that we replaced with an Toyota Cienna minivan in 2010. We replaced the Mini van with a 2014 Chevy Volt in 2014. Later we replaced the Volt with a 2019 Subaru Forester.

But the Impreza chugged along. Still chugs. It has 130,000 miles but has been garage kept for most of its lifespan and we have kept the car up to date in terms of service and repairs. This car has a lot of life left in it.

From a technology perspective, as the years wore on, the 2006 tech began to seem antiquated more and more. This car doesn’t have many sensors and certainly doesn’t have blue tooth connectivity or a back-up camera. The cruise control works just fine but it won’t adjust speed according to the car in front of you, like the 2019 Forester does.

It’s a great car and we are sad to part with it, or to be more precise, I am sad to part with it.

Time moves on and while we could keep the car going for another 100,000 miles easily, we want a pickup truck for other reasons, like being able to throw paddle boards and the kayak in the back and pop over to the lake. The Impreza is not well suited for easy carrying of paddle boards and kayaks. Possible, but clunky and time consuming.

With the new truck we have purchased, it’s a breeze.

So we are donating this 2006 technology, hoping someone will enjoy a solid car for however long it will last.

In 2018, I tried to go back to the future in getting a Blackberry KeyOne — a modern smartphone but with the “Old Timey Days” keyboard. In 2012 when I got my first iPhone, that was an adjustment. And part of me always longed for the “good old days” of the Blackberry keyboard, the one that I used to thumb out so many trenchant emails.

Alas, despite my nostalgia, the Blackberry KeyOne was a dud. I attempted in good faith to use it as my primary work/life phone for a few weeks but there were too many problems. Part of it was attempting to leave the faith of IOS for Android. I am not beholden to either Faith but when simple things would not work easily on the Blackberry, my interest waned quickly. Case in point — zoom meeting one-touch dial in. On the iPhone, I could click the one touch and it would dial into the zoom and also automagically enter in the passcode. With the Blackberry, it didn’t work — so I found myself fumbling to enter in passcodes.

And the keyboard — the thing that I thought I would love, like a long lost relative or a dog or pet that had gone missing — no! The keyboard was not that great, especially since (as I recall) the original Blackberry phones had the roller ball. The roller ball — once mastered — was transformational.

So, the Blackberry KeyOne — for me — was like half a car.

Admittedly, I am on high on the impatience spectrum and could not see the benefit of attempting to make it work, when I still had my old iPhone that worked so much better. The Blackberry KeyOne became a glorified small tablet for reading/watching video. It sat most of the time unused.

Thus, I have let it go and donated it to a charity that supports veterans. It is a nice phone for someone.

This bit of technology was a gift and is a battery-powered adjusting wrench called the “AutoWrench” and made by Black and Decker. In my set of tools, this was an interesting addition. Seemingly it can help you easily adjust the throat size of the wrench by pushing a button. It does do that, but I never found that time savings to be worth the effort or concern of keeping fresh batteries in the thing. I imagine if I used crescent wrenches all day every day, this might be more useful. With an array of non-battery powered crescent wrenches, and in the spirit of letting go of old tech, this one is being put up to be taken by a new owner.

6,759,939 Steps

Hiding in a drawer, beneath last year’s Christmas cards, various charge cords and
other random bits and pieces, was this old guy — a vintage Fit Bit. Once I put a
bit of charge into the old friend, I am greeted with, “Go Glenn,” and
“Hey Hey” and “ucandoit.” Feeble cries from the digital
beyond. But sadly, your day has come and gone, Ye Olde Fit Bit. You are not
even the original one, which was bought around 2011 and lost in 2012. And you
began your drawer time once your owner upgraded (ha, so he thought) to a
so-called Fit Bit “Smart” watch, which was way more expensive than
the Fit Bit and not a very good watch. So, the watch was given away sometime
around 2015 and you, Grandpop Fit Bit, have been sitting around since then.

Originally, I believe we kept you around, thinking someone else in the
family might like a Fit Bit. It still seems to work simply fine, but the time
for Fit Bit has passed. It is time to let it go, just like the Pebble Watch. In
keeping with the spirit of this blog, let me tell you what I liked about the
Fit Bit. It seemed to keep reasonable track of steps and was motivating to see
if you could sustain/maintain a certain amount per day. My goal was 10,000
steps a day and once I had several friends and family connected via the Fit Bit
web site, we could each see how we stacked up against one another, so I liked
the gentle friendly competition that came out of that. And I had some big days.

According to my stats in my very dormant Fit Bit account, in October of
2013, I walked 12.16 miles or 24,434 steps. My profile stats do not give me a
top ten of days I hit a goodly number of steps, but I will take this in any
case, or “in stride” as it were. Overall, the thing tells me I
collected over 6 million steps or 3,200 miles walking during the time I was
FitBiting. And I like all of that, it is fun to believe in that and to think it
really happened and maybe it helped provide some additional exercise I would
not otherwise have had. All to the good.

Bad Fit items included: one, the feeling that it really wasn’t capturing my
steps accurately, ever. One reason was that when my wife and I would walk
together, we always had quite different number of steps and total miles. I also
did not like that it was easy to lose or misplace. I would typically carry it
around my pocket, and it got lost quite a bit. The charging was fine, it could
go for days without needing a charge and in charging it, the thing would synch,
so that was all okay but now as I think back on it, the Fit Bit was a transitional
technology.

Looks like they are still in business and still selling the trackers along
with an array of more sophisticated gear but it is all so 2014 now that I don’t
see myself going back to the Fit Bit. So, I am going to see if someone else
would like this guy and will update the blog once I have found a final resting
place for him.

Update: Posted it on Nextdoor and got someone interested to come get it pretty quickly. Hope it continues happy tracking for a long time to come.

A New Plan for Old Tech (and other items I should get rid of)

The Pebble watch. In the fall of 2012, I supported the Pebble watch Kickstarter campaign for what promised to be one of the first “smart” watches. I believe I received my Pebble in January of 2013, when I was knee-deep in a project at Health and Human Services. I remember feeling pretty cool when my phone would ring, and I could see on my watch who was calling me. I could answer the call from my wristwatch, or decline it. I would also get text messages on the watch from the phone, which was also cool. I could use it to control the music on my phone, which at first seemed cool but later not so much. Probably the most memorable episode with the Pebble was when I was at HHS, and my colleague (name removed) asked to borrow my phone to make a call, as she had left hers at home. I said sure and gave her my personal iPhone. (I had a work iPhone as well during those days.)

A bit later, while I was in a meeting, my Pebble watch buzzed me a few times, that someone was attempting to call my personal phone. I had already forgotten that I had given the phone to my colleague and a part of my brain possibly thought she had called out on the phone or had completed the call, not thinking that someone would be calling her back on my number; so at least twice, I  declined the incoming call by hitting one of the buttons on my Pebble. As I recall, I figured out what I was doing and stopped declining the call, but the moment had landed. It was annoying for her and embarrassing for me, but we had a laugh over the incident of the “smart” watch.

Ultimately the watch proved okay for daily use and I used it for a couple of years, even going through a couple of bands. The watch still works today but I have not used it in years. It sits before me in a yellow plastic baggie, like a tagged piece of evidence in the case against technology. The watch I ultimately settled on and wear regularly after trying the Pebble and so many others (but not the Apple watch, and that is another story) is a plain, analogue Timex Expedition. The Pebble cost me $150 or so (can’t remember the exact amount) and this Timex was about $43.00. Between the Pebble and the Timex, I think I spent quite a bit more money on several so-called smart watches, including a Garmin and another one that quote never needed a charge unquote because it charged up via your arm movements.

The Garmin was kind of good for exercise and tracking but clunky. The other one worked well for a while but then stopped working. I got rid of both of them. But I kept the Pebble and I tried to give it away several times, but it is now like a piece of floating space junk, a sad and quaint bit of technology that nobody really wants any more. Should I keep it or toss it? I have decided to compromise I will toss it after I have written its story. And now that I have, goodbye Mr. Pebble.