I expend inordinate amounts of mental energy making sure all of my devices are sufficiently charged

We live in a world of wonderfully advanced personal technology, at least compared with the largely analog one in which I grew up.

We have mobile phones, tablets, laptops, watches and sundry other gadgets designed to make our lives easier, and in some cases more fun.

You can argue whether these devices achieve their stated purpose, but one thing you can't argue is that they all require some sort of electrical power to operate.

I don't know how much of my brain is used to make sure all of my stuff is fully charged and operating throughout the day, but I bet it's an embarrassingly large amount. I constantly find myself wondering:

• "How's my phone battery doing? 30%? I'll never make it through tonight. Gotta charge it."
• "Will the iPad have enough battery life to last through this flight?"
• "When's the last time I charged my Powerbeats?"
• "Why is my watch always at 5% when I take it off at night? What am I doing all day that drains it so much?"

That kind of thing.

I'm forever looking around for charging cords and complaining that I need a new <INSERT DEVICE NAME HERE> because the battery doesn't last as long as it used to.

Speaking of which, there's a subtle art to prolonging device battery life. In the case of my personal laptop, I try to keep it charged between 20% and 80% because that's supposedly the "sweet spot" that keeps a lithium battery working most efficiently.

Or so I've read. This is one of those areas in which I'm relying on Internet strangers to tell me what I should do. (Increasing battery life and changing various filters on my car. Those are the two areas in which the world's collective online knowledge serves as my guide.)

I used to keep constant mental track of how my AirPods were doing charge-wise back when I was running and walking a lot. I rarely exercised without those little white headphones jammed into my ears.

Now that I go to the gym most days, though, I don't listen to music. And I'm not sure why. I like to concentrate on my lifts and making sure I'm using correct form, I guess.

I'm usually one of the only people at the gym not wearing some sort of headphones, I've noticed. I'm also frequently one of the oldest – if not THE oldest – person there.

I don't think this is a coincidence.

I remember when laptops were magical technology reserved for the very rich and powerful

I started traveling extensively for work in the late 90s and early 2000s, and it was then that I first encountered The Laptop People in airports.

They were always nicely dressed, and they would invariably open their carry-on bags and break out their laptop computers the minute they took their seats on the plane.

Compared with today's technology, these devices barely fit the definition of laptops, as they often took up considerably more room than the average person's lap offered.

But they were all we knew, and to me they were amazing. I worked regularly on comparatively bulky machines tethered to a desk. The idea of a fully functioning computer you could take with you (and operate on battery power alone) was mind-blowing.

The batteries didn't last long, of course, and later when WiFi became a thing, connectivity could be spotty. But you could work on a memo or a spreadsheet 35,000 feet in the air, which I thought was just about the coolest work-related thing imaginable.

I think most of The Laptop People back then were earnest in their desire to be productive. They didn't care that their small (large?) computers could be viewed as status symbols.

But a subset of them were very showy in getting the laptop out of the bag, setting it up on the small seatback tray in front of them, and asking (loudly) whether they could connect to the airport concourse WiFi while the plane was still parked at the gate.

These people have evolved today into The Loud Cell Phone Talkers.

I bring all of this up because I now have my first-ever personal laptop. I've had many laptops before, but they have all been loaned to me by my employers. Terry got me a very nice Asus for Christmas, the first one I can truly call my own.

For what it's worth, while the luster of laptops has obviously faded over time, I'm still very discrete in my use of it in public places. And I don't talk loudly on my phone, either.

I'm more proud of those two things than of having my own laptop, if I'm being honest.

My dad would have loved (and maybe occasionally hated) 2023

This was our living room tech set-up in the 80s, featuring a big old Curtis Mathis VCR and a cable box resting on top of a wood cabinet RCA TV. Displayed on the screen is the 24-hour weather data feed Continental Cablevision used to broadcast. It was a hot, hot day in Wickliffe by the looks of it.

My father was a gadget guy.

He embraced technology, particularly in his later years. Thus, we were fairly early adopters of everything from VCRs to home computers.

Dad hoped to live well into the 21st century, if only to be there for The Next Big Tech Development, whatever that turned out to be. Unfortunately, he died in October 1999, just a little shy of the digital revolution that has irrevocably changed all of our lives.

He would have given almost anything to have witnessed it, I'm sure.

On the other hand, being politically somewhere just to the right of Archie Bunker, I don't know that he would have been thrilled with everything that has happened in the world socially over the last quarter century. And I don't say that judgmentally – positive or negative – but simply as an observation with which anyone who knew him would very likely agree.

As I've mentioned before, we were among the first people in our town to get cable TV in 1980. As I recall, Dad walked a couple of streets over to talk with the Continental Cablevision work crew and find out when they would make it to Harding Drive and what day was the absolute earliest he could sign up.

He bought us a VCR around that same time, and I'm not talking about one of the lightweight, sleek units that would be in vogue a decade later. I mean a big, heavy-duty Curtis Mathis job that could be used equally to watch a movie, record an episode of "M*A*S*H*," or throw at a would-be intruder as a show of deadly force.

We had a home video game system as far back as 1977, when he sprang for a black-and-white Radio Shack Pong console. We also got an Atari 2600 before almost any of my friends. Same with the Commodore 64 and my green-screen IBM XT computer.

The man loved new hardware, and I benefitted from it all as an equally tech-crazy teenage boy.

The first time I used a cell phone was when Terry was pregnant with Elissa in 1994 and I had to be reachable at a moment's notice in case she went into labor. I received the phone on a day I was covering a wrestling match a half-hour's drive away for my then-employer, The News-Herald (which as I recall lent me the phone).

I got into my car, and the first person I called was my dad.

He and I were amazed that we could carry on a conversation while one of us was driving and no CB radio was involved.

Now cell phones are everywhere, and it's sometimes difficult to tell how much of a good thing that really is.

Regardless, if my dad was still around, he would probably own both an iPhone AND an Android.

You know, just in case.

All these years later, I still miss the guy.

We grew up in such an analog world that the digital one can be a little jarring

One of my favorite subplots in the Harry Potter series is Arthur Weasley's continuous fascination with muggles (non-wizards). He is forever impressed by how they manage to live their lives without the use of magic.

I feel much the same way about the 1980s and 90s. How, I sometimes wonder, did we ever get by without today's technology?

The answer, of course, is that we did just fine. But there's no denying you and I have lived through – and indeed are still living through – a digital revolution that has transformed nearly everything. What we're experiencing is historic in its speed and scope.

I often think about the everyday gizmos and gadgets with which I grew up that are all but obsolete now. Cassettes, for example, are laughably ancient. So are paper maps. And the clock you kept on your nightstand with the little flippy numbers. And Rolodexes.

None of these things has completely disappeared, but they have mostly been replaced by faster digital alternatives. Whereas the old stuff was solid and physical, now so much is virtual. It "exists," but not in the same tangible way typewriters and landline phones and VHS tapes used to exist.

I often think about the early part of my career when I worked in newspapers. I was a print journalist right up until the end of the era in which editors would draw page layouts in pencil on pieces of paper. They would give these sketches to back shop folks, who would then take long strips of typeset text, run them through a hot wax machine, cut them into strips, and physically paste them onto large sheets of cardboard to match the editor's vision of the page.

That's how your daily newspaper was created. It seems slow and crude, but it worked.

Just as I got out of the business, it all went digital. I can't imagine how much faster and efficient it is now.

Time marches on and things change, of course, but the speed of that change in recent decades has been breathtaking. Day-to-day existence now is in many ways nothing at all like it was just 30 years ago.

To the point that I think our generation's experience of rapid technological change is unique in history.

I'm all for progress, but I do wish it would slow down every once in a while and let me catch my breath.

Kudos to you, Mr./Ms. Engineer Who First Thought of Cell Phone Flashlights

I get my money's worth from my smart phone, putting it to varied use throughout each and every day. It's an integral part of my existence.

But of all the apps loaded onto that phone, there is perhaps none more handy and none that I activate more often than the flashlight.

It's such a simple idea, really. Once phones started integrating cameras, they needed flashes for photographic lighting purposes. Why not allow users to turn that flash on for extended periods any time they needed to illuminate, say, a dark room?

There's nothing complex about the concept, but like so many things in life, its genius is in its simplicity.

I use that flashlight every morning when I'm up early and making my way around our bedroom as I get ready to exercise, dress for work, and generally just get my life in order. Since I'm always up before Terry, It helps me see what I'm doing without having to turn on the bedroom light.

A seemingly obvious feature, yet brilliant in its effectiveness and ease of use.

I don't know if it was the first phone to include it, but Apple started offering flashlight functionality with the iPhone 4 back in 2010. Somewhere there is an Apple engineer to whom I hope the company gave a large wad of cash for suggesting the feature.

You, sir or ma'am, are almost literally the light of my life.

How long have you had your cell number?

When I joined Goodyear a few weeks ago, I looked into getting a company-issued mobile phone. Communications people always get phones, given that we deal regularly with media and a host of time-sensitive issues.

I almost didn't care what my options were, just so long as I could keep my phone number. I have had that number for nearly 21 years and have no desire to go through the hassle of changing it and letting everyone in my life know. It has been both my personal and professional number for the entirety of those 2+ decades.

Cell phones themselves are marvels of technology, but for my money, number portability (the ability to take your phone number with you from carrier to carrier, phone to phone, job to job, etc.) is right up there in terms of sheer brilliance.

I'm not even sure which is worse: changing your cell number or changing your email address. Either way, you're in for a lot of work and at least a little aggravation.

I'm happy to say that I was able to keep the number. In fact, Goodyear did something I didn't even know was possible: They gave me an iPhone XR, and through the use of a virtual SIM card, I was able to add a second line onto the phone.

So whether someone calls my longstanding personal number or my new Goodyear business number, the same phone rings.

Two lines, one phone.

I like it.