Losing my tech savvy...

It may very well be only a matter of time before I'm calling my daughter and asking her to come over to set the clock on my VCR.

OK, so there are a huge number of timeline inconsistencies with that opening statement, so before you pick up the phone or e-mail me to let me know I've officially gone off the proverbial reservation, hear me out.

First of all, I don't even own a VCR anymore. I'm pretty sure I chucked out the last of the “just in case” units hiding in the back of my closet quite a few years ago, a rather shining inconsistency considering i still have about a half-dozen milk crates full of VCR tapes and movies in my garage.

I get greeted by the visage of Steven Seagal from the cover of my copy of “On Deadly Ground” every time I walk in my laundry room and the door is open at just the right angle. Hey, it could be worse.

Another timeline faux pas would be me calling my daughter to come over since she's 12 and still lives with me. Bear in mind, I'm well aware of just how close we're getting to 16, at which time the roads of Big Spring — and quite possibly Texas as a whole — will no longer be safe. I wake up screaming often enough, but we're still a few years away.

The biggest oddity, however, would be me asking my daughter — or anyone else, for that matter — for help with technology. I've been a gadget geek since I was a kid. My mother will back me up on this one, mainly because she eventually found just about every piece of electronics I owned as a kid in a shoe box in the top of my closet, all of its parts neatly separated and marked.

My first computer? A Texas Instruments TI-994A. You remember those, right? The ones where the computer was basically built into the keyboard — or maybe it was vice-versa — and you hooked it up to your television set. I spent hours upon hours learning BASIC (Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), a computer language that would basically become outdated a couple of years after I mastered it.

Then came the Internet. I was all over that, let me tell ya'. Learning the ins and outs of information technology and how it was moved from one place to the next, encrypted then decrypted. Yes, those were the glory days.

Most recently, I began working more with my smartphone than my PC, however. It's nothing short of amazing what hurdles have been overcome in computing these last 10 years, as the computers in our pockets begin to surpass those on our desktops, with much of that credit going to the use of opensource software and the hackers-turned-designers who are making it all do things we never dreamed possible.

However, while recently talking to another computer savvy Herald employee I realized how little time I've put into any kind of software work or design as of late. I don't even play games on my PC anymore, opting for the smooth play of my Playstation 3, instead.

Windows 8 is being offered in demos and I haven't even downloaded it yet, much less installed it. In fact, my PC informed me just the other day it's been nearly two months since I sat down and gave it any kind of lovin' — before your mind hits the gutter, that's how we describe updating and cleaning the virtual environment in my house.

Am I simply taking a break from my beloved world of electronics? Or is it something much, much more sinister? Have I begun the same downward technological spiral my parents began at some undetermined point in their lives that soon ended with, “Thomas, get in here and fix the VCR!”

How long before I'm hanging onto some outdated operating system, writing line after line of angry blogs extolling its virtues and downplaying the progress of newer versions? It's the equivalent of hearing my father grip about how much better Coca-Cola used to taste when it came in glass bottles.

I suppose it's bound to happen at some point, but seriously, folks ... at 38 years old? No, I think it's time for me to sit back down and play catch up for a bit, seeing what new systems are hot and getting back in touch with my computer nerd friends.

However, just in case ... I'm gonna' keep my daughter on speed dial.