Grateful for Books and Technology!

I challenge anyone who reads this to post something on their blog, or send an email, that says something you are grateful for. It doesn't have to be as longwinded as mine...

-Andrew

Since it's getting near Thanksgiving time, I thought I'd talk about something that I recently realized how blessed we are to have: Books and technology!

On Sunday I borrowed an audio book from a friend at church. (I read a lot, but wanted an audio book because I love listening to books as well.) I went to my friend's house, and within a few minutes we had "burned" an entire audio book onto a single DVD. The audio book took up about 1/10th of the space on the DVD. That, to me, is amazing! There has been so much thought and work put into creating such powerful technology, it really is amazing when we step back and think of the incredible technology that we use every day. Modern day technology allows us to know more about the world around us than any other group of people throughout time, through television, internet, radio, Pod casts, Youtube, newspapers, cell phones, etc. We can almost effortlessly find research from great sources on specific subjects on the internet.

Knowledge has been extremely valuable and sought after throughout time. Before the printing press was invented knowledge was much more limited, because books were scarce. The ability to read was once rare, and books were also very rare and valuable. Monks would tirelessly transcribe the Bible and other important books, and owning such a book was a great privilege.

Now, the majority of people in the US are able to read books. Books can be printed in seconds, and the text of thousands of books could be held on the average home computer. Books are cheap, and are actually becoming outdated in many instances as the internet is used more and more.

It's incredible to be alive during such a time, when knowledge is so prevalent and easy to obtain. I am grateful for my education, my ability to read and obtain more knowledge, and the technology that surrounds my everyday life.

Note to self

Grating a huge, deep hole in the knuckle of your thumb with a cheese grater hurts and bleeds A LOT! Buy grated cheese from now on.
-Kim