Meet the "Lucysaurus"

Hello, I’m Lucy Biebel. 

My very favorite things include: Texas Renaissance Festival, kitties, Michael Jackson, watching movies, reading books, writing stories, nature, comedy, fashion, coffee, Def Leppard, and wearing costumes any chance I get (pictured here)

For a long time, enjoying the things I love did not really require that I embrace hi-tech stuff. 

It's always been a running joke among my friends and family that I’m somewhat of a dinosaur,  which has enabled me to maintain my distance from technology for so long—it  was charming/amusing that Lucy was always struggling to do basic things with electronic equipment, like burn a CD, pay a bill online, or make a decent pot of coffee.  So everyone would gladly step up and help me, making little jokes at my expense. 

I didn’t have to deal with the equipment myself, so psh.  Joke was on them.
Since beginning college, I’ve been forced to reluctantly join the rest of my generation and become more tech-savvy…though it hasn't been easy, because I've hung on to my bad attitude about technology as long as I could get away with it.  Attaching files to an email was something I struggled with for three semesters. 

But, having been a member of the degree-bearing workforce and now that I'm working on degree #2, the time for my pitifully charming techno-ignorance has passed.  People who do NOT know me do not find it charming…they find it aggravating.  They find it inconvenient, confusing, distressing, disruptive….

And it is.



In this technoliteracy memoir, I have been forced to look back over my shoulder at my evolution alongside technology since the beginning, to which I discovered did not really get going until I was about 15…and continued to move slowly until I was 23.  Now, with my 25 birthday approaching, I am finally starting to understand technology.  But now that I know why I was reluctant to it in the first place, I am much more open to evolving alongside it. 

Jurassic Mac

The first piece of technology I can remember having a great affection for may have perhaps had the most lasting effect on me. 


...It didn’t work.


When I was four or five years old (circa 1990) I went to a babysitter who had two children that were my friends, Michael and Kristen, both of who always had the coolest toys (my dream was the life-size Barbie Jeep/GI Joe Jeep, they each had one).   One day, a computer was sitting in Michael’s room and it looked like this.

At this point, home computers were very off limits most of the time to kids our age.  So, when this was placed in his room and we had free reign – we didn’t even want it to work.  Well, Michael did. I was relieved it didn’t, because we could play how we wanted. 

My imaginary games revolved entirely around this computer.  I was always an archaeologist doing research for Jurassic Park, furiously “typing” on the keyboard as though my pounding keys at random would change the world of modern dinosaurs.

At this point, I feel I had what could have become a very open, exciting relationship with technology – perhaps if I had soon encountered some interesting thing that worked.

Movie Magic

After bonding with an obsolete, dust-laden processor, I was not really introduced to much in the ways of hi-tech gadgets from kindergarten to about 4^th grade.  An only child in a single parent home, I became incredibly attached to our cable television set and VCR.  Movies on HBO, renting movies at Blockbuster, going to the movie theater was the coolest thing in the world, and that was more than enough for me.

There is a negative stigma that seems to have always followed TV; critics (who have always been synonymous to elitists in my brain) claim that cable television inhibits creativity, poisons the mind, some will even argue that television is directly responsible for elevated crime rates.  To those elitists, I have to go ahead and share the sentiments of Cher from the movie Clueless:

 

“Until mankind is peaceful enough not have violence on the news…there’s no point in taking it out of shows that need it for entertainment value.”

I encountered a great deal of creative inspiration from things I observed on television.  The following video captures the anticipation I still feel when I sit down to watch a movie: 

 

HBO Home Box Office

HBO Intro

Lame Games

Though I enjoyed Atari & Nintendo video games at friends' house (and as I got older, the way super-cool Sega Genesis with a JURASSIC PARK game) I was not allowed to have a game console at home because my mom said it would mess up our television set. 

That was a theory I was NOT willing to test.

But when my mother began dating my step-dad, he let me play a game on his PC called Kid Pix.  And for me, that was cool.

When we moved to Texas and my stepbrother would come visit, we got a new game that kept me entertained from 5^th grade to, like, 7^th grade.  A game called Troggle Trouble Math.

(stop video at 2:26)

 

Troggle Trouble Math

….And for me, this was awesome.

We then got a Nintendo 64, where we got to play games that were a little more up to date…starting with Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  I stuck to it, but I was overwhelmed by the 3-dimensional world my little dude was supposed to find his way though, and I would literally get LOST in the game.  I stuck to Zelda because this was more my taste, with the forests and fairies and things floating around, but I spent two years on the second level inside of some giant tree before I finally made my way on to a farm, where I spent most of my time just milking cows and catching ghosts.  I consulted my male classmates who were avid gamers for some advice, and I was promptly laughed at.

When I turned 15, I’m pleased to report, I beat my first video game: Spyro the Dragon for the first Playstation console. 

So there.

 

Social Petworking

My first media writing was Xanga, which I wrote on until everyone moved to Myspace, which I fooled with until everyone flocked to Twitter, which I loved until I forgot my password.

I opened a Facebook page after getting hired on at a newspaper, only because so many sources would refer me to their Facebook pages for pictures, contact, etc.  And now, I have a Facebook.  And so does my cat--who passed away after his Facebook was created.  :(

go figure

Here Lies the Facebook Page of Henry Tudor

THE Media

I had a brief stint as a videojournalist in high school, where I would could choose between two cameras: a small, silver sleek digital camera that had a collapsible screen so I didn’t need to squint, or a 12 year old, 8 pound hunk of junk that I literally had to insert a VHS tape into for recording.

I opted for the VHS monster.  It looked like the ones folks carried in the movies, and I felt more cool looking with that thing around.

We operated on Adobe 5.0 which was shown to me once and I got the handle of it.  My junior year in high school, they upgraded to Adobe Premier, and they also lost who was in my opinion, their best eye on the field/court/etc. 

(Since we graduated in 2005, I heard they now actually have a live-streaming news show they air every Friday morning.  Show offs.)

Flash forward five years later, I am a college graduate and hustling for a job with an English degree: I am hired on as a writer/reporter and I am PUMPED, determined to do whatever it takes to keep the job and excel to the top.

I am willing to do everything they want me to do: Work late, work early, work weekends, work holidays, write extra, shoot pictures, shoot more pictures, shoot MORE pictures…

But that darned Mac I was working on…there was always “something” wrong with it. 

After my pleas for a new computer, the machine I was working on was examined; there was nothing wrong with it, I just needed to suck it up. 

The machine was over ten years old, but I was very impressed by the fact that considering how many “identities” it had, it was still able to even function.

I then decided it was time to go ahead and step it up, and make peace with my longtime frenemy: Techzilla.  A YEAR into my job, my mother bought me a 27 inch Mac for me to format my photos and be completely up to date with no issues.

As we updated our web site at work, I realized that if people were going to be reading my stories, they needed to look great, have great photos, and even a few galleries.  I am proud to say that I was THE first person to publish a photo gallery accompanying a published feature:

"Paranormal Activity" by Lucy Biebel - The Examiner


I got so excited about this, I really wanted to continue with the photo galleries:


"Where the Wild Things Were" by Lucy Biebel - The Examiner

Update: The Lucysaurus adapts to her environment

When I catch myself being a stick in the mud about technology, I don't indulge the stubborn little dinosaur inside that prefers to watch movies and play with kitties all day.  I grit my teeth and open my brain up, and 9/10 times I solve the tech problem myself.  It's rewarding, it's fulfilling...it was quite frankly, one of the biggest personal struggles I've conquered thus far. 

The fact of the matter is, I had to accept that whether I liked it or not, I absolutely had to know how to function in the changing world I lived in if my creativity and potential would not be left behind.  After all, it is a survival of the fittest out there, and I'm too young to go extinct.

I still can't make a decent batch of boiled eggs though. 

LB