I'm Sure Siri and Alexa Saw All of This Coming

Have you ever noticed how life's significant events quite often don't unfold just the way you thought they would?  I can still remember wondering what world changing developments would manifest themselves in my life and deciding that I had missed most of the big ones.  My grandfather had witnessed the invention of electricity, the automobile, air travel and space exploration, radio, television and motion pictures.  What was left?  When my oldest daughter returned home from her first semester of college she rhapsodized about something called the Internet and explained that she used it for research and term papers.  "That's nice honey," was my somewhat dismissive reply.  While I wasn't paying attention,  one of the biggest game-changers of most of our lives was lying in wait to forever change how we live.  Most industries, methods of communication, and long dominant business models were rendered nearly obsolete in a few short years and the evolution continues at lightning speed today. 

We spend hours every day on our computers and smartphones and take a certain degree of comfort in the fact that we can find the answer to nearly any question we may have with a quick Internet search. If you don't know who is the third cowboy from the left is on a poster for a John Wayne movie the answer is readily available via a quick smart search.  The net has given us the keys to the kingdom.  Who needs college or the library?  The world is at our fingertips.  Of course, like any open source, there is plenty of junk information floating around in cyberspace and it pays to be careful. For example, no matter how far north you are in the 48 contiguous United States, it usually isn't supposed to snow in September, yet it did last weekend here in the Idaho panhandle.  Thanks to the Internet I was able to find that there have been two other September snows in the last one-hundred years and more may be on the way this weekend. Great...

Green leaves and snow right over THERE!

Of course, not all weather forecasts are that dependable.  While I was looking for snow statistics I ran across a previously classified report on climate change commissioned by U.S. defense department officials.  The report, created in 2004, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a Siberian climate by 2020 and that higher sea levels will create major upheaval for millions by the same year.  Uh, maybe there is a reason this report was classified "secret".  Perhaps Al Gore still has space on his ark?

Some things remain fairly constant through all of the technological changes we've seen in our daily lives.  Baseball is still in playoff mode as we head toward another World Series and, even if I can't keep track of all the different channels the games are on, there are three games on tap for this evening.  The Twins, Nationals, and Cardinals will have my undivided attention, as I and other die-hard fans of sub 500 teams stand united in our hatred of pinstripes and Los Angeles. We are prepared to do all in our power to prevent a Yankees-Dodgers World Series.  If that nightmare transpires, may the weather gods of the Internet dump ten feet of snow on both New York and L.A.

Next year, it's Padres/White Sox.  Take it to the bank.