Unintended Consequences Google Style

As long as I’m here, I thought it might be fun to be a guest lecturer for my folks condo’s computer club. A few years ago I spoke to the camera club.

This is an active community. There’s a club for nearly everything.

The meeting was set for 1:00 PM, but as is the Florida tradition, everyone came early.

The computer club meets in the clubhouse. It’s the air conditioned town square for this complex. The club has its own room with banks of computers and monitors. They are wired so each can be independent or they all can watch what’s going on at the head of the table. It’s pretty clever and put together on a shoestring budget.

My talk was about blogs. What the hell – I have some expertise. Many of the participants had heard the word, but had no idea what it was. These are computing neophytes.

I spoke and demonstrated and answered questions. It was pretty nice. They are really anxious to learn.

Someone asked about finding old friends. Actually, the question was asked a few times in different ways and I realized to the people in this room, this was a big deal

I used my folks as an example, entering my father’s name into Google. Then I entered my parent’s phone number and watched Google cough up the address.

I was a hit.

We talked about how couples will check each other out online before the first date. Google has spawned the act of googling.

Then a woman threw out her daughter’s name. It was a little unusual, so she spelled it and I entered it letter by letter. Within a few seconds Google displayed a page full of results.

The woman looked on her screen, recognized her daughter’s name and another, the daughter’s boyfriend. Meanwhile, I was reading ahead. Each of the six or seven entries on the page referred to the couple’s arrest in Miami on smuggling charges!

If this poor woman knew, she wasn’t letting on. I changed the page quickly, hoping the rest of the group wouldn’t catch on.

Good grief! That’s not what I want to get when I Google a name. I was turned tomato red.

I stayed a few minutes more then beat a hasty retreat. I’m not sure how long they’ll remember that nice young man, Harold’s son, who spoke to their group. I will never forget meeting the mother of a smuggler at the condo’s computer club.

One thought on “Unintended Consequences Google Style”

  1. That is LOL hilarious!

    Also, the whole showing up early thing. I remember my grandfather (of blessed memory) telling me that how ironic it was that in a phase of life where everyone around you had a lot of time, a premium was placed on arriving early to everything.

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