Tips for Old Eyes, and Remembering Names
Yes, I’m getting older, but “THEY” are also making things harder to see and find!
I have a beautiful 17″ laptop with a high resolution screen, –but darnit if I can’t regularly find my MOUSE POINTER on that screen!!! Doesn’t help that I usually have 5 windows open at the same time.
“Duh” Simple Solution:
Set the Windows Mouse Pointer to “large”. (No, it won’t be quite as big as my ridiculous graphic here!)
Open the Windows Control Panel in XP/Vista/Windows 7 and double-click “Mouse”. Then change the pointer mouse ”scheme” to LARGE. Makes the mouse pointer about 20% bigger, and makes me feel about 20% younger.
Now let me also admit one of my favorite Internet Explorer Features: the ZOOM option. I regularly toggle my web browser to 125% zoom. It helps on many sites which have been designed with ridiculously small fonts and faint pastel color schemes. Internet Explorer 8 makes it easy… I just have to click the lower right zoom icon to quickly make the change.
As you get older, you either…
a) Lose your sense of dignity
b) Redefine what’s “cool”
I have finally decided to “redefine what’s cool” and get a rope for my reading glasses, …even though my wife and kids think it makes me look like a geezer. Why? Because there’s nothing worse than forgetting where you left your reading glasses, and desperately needing them.
Note to Young Pastors and Young Church Secretaries… No fine print in the bulletin and newsletters, please. It just makes us annoyed with you, …and jealous.
Speaking of “forgetting”… NPR recently featured the author of “The Secret Life of the Grown Up Brain“. Apparently the latest research says YES, we get more forgetful in middle age, but that our brains are MUCH better than younger brains at certain “higher” functions, like reasoning. Can’t wait to tell my kids.
The researcher offered some GOOD ADVICE ABOUT REMEMBERING NAMES …something I’m increasingly not good at. First, she said the problem as we get older is that we don’t process things into memory as quickly as we once did, we need an extra second. So when you hear a person’s name, you need to pause on it before continuing your conversation.
Second, she said that the BEST way to remember a name was to associate an image or sound with it. So next time you meet “Bob” …think “Bob the Builder” or “Bob Bob Bobbity Bob.” (you don’t say that out loud!) For some reason, the middle age brain loves those kinds of associations and retrieves them more quickly.
Read the story at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125902095&ft=1&f=13
—————-
And Speaking of “BIG”… my good friend Mike owns a print shop here on St. Croix, and specializes in MAKING BIG PRINTS of just about anything. Check out his Large Format Printing website at www.largeformatprinting.vi Mike can turn your photos and documents into posters and banners and ship it to you cheap. His state-of-the-art large format color printer makes it look great. Tell him, “Neil sent me and said you’d give me a discount.”