The world has changed a lot in my lifetime

I'm starting to feel my age. Few things make you feel older than trying to think of all of the things that have come into existence since you were a kid.

Home computers. Compact Disks. The battle between VHS and BETA for supremacy, which was recently replaced by a battle between DVDs and Blu-Ray. Atari was replaced by things like Nintendo that have been long since replaced by multiple incarnations of things like the Playstation until I have the Wii - that has recently seen competition from other systems that sense a person's movements to control the games.

Gene Splicing was began within my lifetime. As was the disposable lighter. And Post-Its.

I remember as a kid when the pull off tabs stopped being used (because kids dropped them into soda cans), and we saw the first push in tabs on soda cans. We were at a park somewhere and it was a fascination of sorts that the tab no longer pulled off the can.

Then there were things such as the Walkman and cell phones. And who can forget the 80's phenomenon of the Cabbage Patch Kids? That were quickly followed by the Trading Cards "The Garbage Pail Kids".

The world has changed a lot over the years. The Space Shuttles have come and soon will be gone. Private corporations are sending people into Space. The Berlin Wall came down and the world shifted focus from fears of World War III to watching out for terrorists.

I look at just a few of the events that I have seen, and think of the things my parents had seen, and I can't help but wonder what I'll see in the years to come and what later generations will see in the years that follow.

I just hope that I live long enough to be able to buy, and enjoy, a full room sized virtual reality game room like the Star Trek holodeck. That would be cool.