Too Old? Never!

Upgrading my mother's computer had become a necessity. Her computer was well over five years old and so slow to open programs. She would be sitting at the computer for ages just waiting for the machine to chug through its processes. This was not good. The older we get the more we must move around. Our bodies dictate it. Otherwise joints become very stiff. And as my mother is fond of saying, "What you don't use, you loose!"

Why upgrade? Why bother struggling with a computer when you're over 80 years old? Heck, why bother when you are 70, when you are 60! Well, my mother and I did discuss this issue when, in her mid eighties, she first decided to learn how to use a computer and bought her first one. She had wanted to listen to her music, get email from her grandchildren overseas and have a library of information and news, the Internet, at her fingertips. She was also curious about digital technology, wanting to learn about it first hand.

Life, be in it!
What learn new things? At 80? Old dogs never learn new tricks! Well, label yourself an old dog and sit in the sun all day and you won't have the capacity to do anything else! Instead, at 90 or 80 or any age for that matter, take an interest in new people, learn new games, play cards with a group of friends, with grandchildren, do crosswords, sudoko, any puzzles, think, plan, read and do! And you could learn to use that digital tool called a "computer".

Housebound? Fly away via the Internet.
Now, in her nineties, her need to be able to use a computer seems more compelling. She recently handed in her car licence and is now more housebound. Getting out to the galleries and libraries in Canberra is not as easy. She tires more quickly now so a whole day at a gallery is out of the question and having lived through the Great Depression she feels that taking a taxi to the gallery just to view something for an hour is an extravagance. With a computer she can click on to the National Library for instance, and view its exhibitions; all from the comfort of her own chair.

Videos emailed from friends and family.
With more grandchildren moving further a field and getting married in places too distant for her to travel to, digital photographic material whether images or video can be sent to her via email. Imagine the thrill of watching a family video taken on a mobile phone and immediately sent to you via the Internet to be viewed on the large screen of your computer. (Watching movies on the tiny screen of a mobile phone requires the baby fresh eyesight forty plus usually loose!) Actually my mother was unable to receive video on her old modem connected machine. And this was another reason for her upgrade. Broadband, even the poor broadband Telstra supplies everyone in Yass, is much faster to download email with images and video attached as well as Web sites. Broadband puts an end to the Big Wait! And this is more and more important the older one gets because older people must remain active if they are to move around at all!

Music, your choice, 24 hours a day!
Probably the most compelling reason for my mother to decide to upgrade her machine and her computer skills was the fact that the CD player on the old computer was temperamental and she missed listening to music. Furthermore the new machine held the promise of being able to store all her music and she could just turn on the machine and listen to music all day without having to change a CD.

It also helped that the price of laptops has dropped. Instead of outlaying close to $5,000 as she did the first time, she could pick one up for less than half that price. And if she had been happy with a desktop computer she could have got a new one even cheaper. (And we're lucky in Yass that we have good technical support providers.)

It also helped that family and friends can help her learn to use her new computer. And as one of those involved, I love the opportunities it provides for shared companionship.

Games for the holidays

Today as I searched for a topic to write about. I decided that games was where I was spending most of my free time over the holidays and thought you might be also. Then I searched my previous articles and found that four years ago, I had written about games as well so I have repeated some of the information from that article.

Holidays have been special family times for us, often we spent more time playing games than watching TV. You have to admit that it’s much easier to talk during a game than it is during a TV show, and that has to be a bonus for everyone.

This Christmas season we have spent most of our game time on croquet or Chinese checkers. A nice combination of inside/outside, don't you think?

Three dimensional Tic Tac Toe
One uncle, Harold, was a mathematical thinking man. He taught us to draw 3 Tic Tac Toe grids in a line and then to imagine them stacked on top of each other. There's a 4 square grid shown on the Monash site listed below. It's lots of fun and very challenging.

Logic Puzzles
Another uncle, Frank, made the most wonderful wooden puzzles. My favourite was “Who owns the elephant” where I had to follow clues to find a house colour, pet, street number, favourite food, etc for each of five friends. This was special as he used lots of names of my pets, friends, house numbers and favourite foods and it took about 6 months to solve it. Perhaps you could spend some time creating some special family games (and memories!).

I have seen other versions of this puzzle on a number of websites, including the mathsisfun site. It is said that Einstein created it and that 98% or people can't solve it. However, it is a logic puzzle, so it can be solved if you know the rules. Using an grid (similar to the one found at the DavidPace site) can be useful.
Other Puzzles
An easy one to make might be a jigsaw puzzle out of an enlarged family photo printed on cardboard. You could even do the daily zigsaw on the net at the zigsawzone site This allows you to to compete against yourself for time. It took me 16 minutes, and you probably can be much faster. At least all the pieces are rightside up and facing the correct direction.

Car games
Eye Spy was a favourite of my children in the car, but here are a couple of other ideas.

The momsminivan website has some very good ideas for games to play in the car. One is a 4 x 4 grid (16 squares) each with a picture of something you might see while travelling in a car (a red car, school bus, police car, 50 speed zone sign, etc). When you have 4 in a row (across, down or diagonal), you win.
Scavenger Hunt was also suggested by the momsminivan site. Give each child a list of items to watch for while driving. The list can be made up ahead of time and adjusted for the roads you are taking. The site suggests a sample list of items to hunt for!

Board games
My favourite board game as a child was Candyland, then it became Monopoly, and later Risk. Our son, Peter, used to enjoy Stratego with his good friend, James. Monopoly was also Bec’s favourite. This game has entertained generations since it was created in 1934. and is still one of the most popular games.
However Chinese checkers is the flavour of the year with us. My grandparents used to have a game every evening and then set it up again for the next night and placed the board under the sofa.

Poetry
Although, not a game, billboard poetry was suggested as a good activity by the familyfun site. Take turns picking out four words from road signs. Give the words to the other players who have 1 minute to turn the words into a four-line, rhyming poem using one word per line.

Lots more
I’m sure some of you also have some great ideas. I’d love to hear them if you have time to leave a comment. Anyway, enjoy the rest of summer.

Places to visit
http://www.mathsisfun.com/logicpuzzle.html
http://www.davidpace.com/all-else/other-items/einstein-logic-puzzle.htm
http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/daily-jigsaw
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~andyb/NC3D/nc3d.html
http://www.momsminivan.com/