I am vey much a sci-fi and tech geek.  I am a gadget guy and many of the TV shows that I follow are found on the SyFy channel.  I love to have the new toys (though I usually wait for the second generation of new devices) and I do try to find a use for them in my life.

Recently I dug up an old Sci-Fi show that competed with the likes of StarTrek:TNG for three-and-a-half seasons.  It was a show that many criticized, though I watched it religiously when it originally aired.  What show you ask.  SeaQuest DSV.  Set in the “near future” which happens to be only a few years from now.  I thought that it had more potential originally, and I think that the concept could still be viable today, but there is probably a reason that I don’t make such decisions.

What I did notice while re-watching the show is how they predicted technology.  It has been a recurring theme recently that many tech blogs have talked about, how sci-fi shows may actually drive the R&D on some of the pieces of technology that we use today.  Looking at SeaQuest, one of the things that stood out was from an episode where they visited one of the main communications network hub.  They talked about the great potential that fiber-optic networking had.  Fast forward to today and we now have companies that are bringing fiber right into our homes.  We are now piping huge amounts of data including HDTV, high speed internet, and voice communications into homes over tiny pieces of fiber optic cable and we are far from the bandwidth limits.

Watching SeaQuest today, though I don’t know much about submarines, much of the technology is believable.  All over the ship you see large, wide-screen displays which, at the time were probably created using a rear-projection technique.  Yet today it is commonplace to see large flat panel video displays.  Much of what they use on the show doesn’t seem like it is far out of reach from where we are today.

Then look at the birth of the tactile tablet computer like Apple’s iPad.  I know that I have seen this mentioned on some tech blogs, but it is basically a working version of the PADDs (Personal Access Display Device) used on StarTrek:TNG.  All thing considered, iOS might almost be a little more sophisticated than anything we actually saw LCARS (Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) do aside from fly starships (though I am sure there is an app for that!).  The groundwork is being laid though and we may meet or surpass some of the technology like that imagined for shows like StarTrek:TNG and SeaQuest DSV.

The here and now is certainly an interesting time to be living in given the current rate that technology is progressing.  While we may not quite be at a place where we can just slide data from device to device like in Minority Report or Avatar, but we are getting there.  With apps like “Bump” you can literally bump two iPhones together to send information between them.  It isn’t quite perfect, but it works.  Do we need the level of connectivity we are headed towards? Who knows, but the ride is pretty cool.

The other day I was riding up a chairlift at Alta with a couple of guys who were having a discussion about life.  It is very cliché to say that the discussion was about living life to the fullest or living for the moment, but that was pretty much the jist of the discussion.  What struck me as interesting was the angle that they were looking at it from, not just live life to the fullest, more like live fore the here and now.  They talked about how so many people live life waiting for retirement.  Planning to do all the things that they wanted to do as soon as they retire.  I never really thought about it, but it does seem like there are many people who do have a similar mentality.

The point that the guy was trying to make was that there is little point int waiting until you retire to start doing the things that you want to do.  Sure, there may be obstacles in the way like work and family, but should you really put off doing the things that you want to do.  You may have less holding you back when you retire, but do we really need to let these things hold us back in general?  Do they actually hold us back at all?

I come from a family where we pretty much just do the things that we want to do.  My mother has done some very interesting adventures including a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.  She also has a trip to somewhere in Africa planned in the coming months.  We have done various river rafting trips including a “Dad’s and Kids” trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.  I get to do a whole bunch of skiing, and hopefully now that I am a certified SCUBA diver I will be able to work in some dive trips.

I am certainly not rolling in money, but I try to find the means to do the things that I want to do.  Sometimes that may just be getting tickets for me and Ruth to go to show and sometimes it is taking SCUBA classes so that I can go dive with her.  Sometimes it is doing things just for me, and sometimes it is doing things together.  It isn’t always easy to find the time and the means to go do everything when we want to do it, but we certainly try.  I don’t want to wait until I am 65 to start doing things that I want to do.

What would we really be if we waited to do the things that we want to do?  Can you even do everything you want to after you are 65?