When the average person entered the computer age it was either enough to get you committed or totally hilarious. Some business men were offended by such things as graphics (other than pie charts), a 12 year old who could write code and being forced to deal with the guys with the screwdriver in the pocket protector. Color other than green was strange. I always figured it was because it was the color of money. I think it was Word Perfect that come out with a blue screen and I had several people that thought something was wrong. Programs came with huge instruction manuals and they always had glitches. I would get weekly updates for one program that had 12 books. Sometimes the update would be 20 or 30 pages long. Then the update got updated. I had a six foot long bookcase with 4 shelves devoted to the hardware manuals and I read them all. Those got updated too. There were memory upgrades that couldn't be accessed except by turning off the programs that needed the data that was stored on the upgrade. Not all floppies were 5.25. There were also 8 inch. I think I may even have a few somewhere. The computer is long gone but DH keeps taking them out of the trash. There's even a partial roll of flat rainbow wire for making cables to connect anything. You had to make your own because there were no standards between manufacturers. To change printers or add stuff you had to know which of a half dozen or more toggles to flip inside the CPU. And that was after making a cable that had up to 64 wires on each end to hard wire. Clip on type connectors were a great time saver. Do they still sell diddle sticks? A common practice was to protect a program from being copied by changing the speed of the disk drive to the point where the data was read only or insert so many blank areas on the original and the copy would automatically eliminate them and make the copy crash. All a teenager needed to pirate a program was a diddle stick (you couldn't use a regular screwdriver to adjust the screw that controlled the speed). If the case covering the drive was missing the screws that held it on you knew you had a pirate. Are you bored yet?

I never considered white cabinets for the kitchen in my forever house either because I once owned a home with oak cabinets, painted white, by the prior owners. When it was time for me to sell that house, the housing inspector hired by my buyers rated the kitchen cabinets "substandard" due to the lack of a factory paint job. Ever since that experience, I've been a fan of wood-stained cabinets. I also think a preference for wood-stained cabinets over painted cabinets is a generational thing. My parents (in their 80s) think the only reason to paint wood is because the wood is of such poor quality that it doesn't stain well. Not necessarily true but that's how they think and their home (as well as the homes of all of their friends) is full to brim with stained wood--stained wood doors and moldings, stained paneling in the den and stained wood cabinets on the kitchen and bathrooms--and the end result are dark and dim houses by today's standards. Lots of people, me included, wound up painting the paneling in the den to lighten things up a bit!

Hmmm, so I fuss over "girl" AND "guy" stuff. When it came time to have our electrical box upgraded from the old 100 amp service to the 200 amp service...I was the one asking the questions to the electrician. When our electrician was here this weekend to replace an old light switch that sizzled and fried (littlerally...black smoke coming out and everything!), I was right there, asking him about it. And I LOVE that he explained it to me as a human and not as "okay, little lady, here's what's up with it." When we were getting ready to build a house a few years ago...it was me that fussed over the dual zone heating. And me that fussed over the geothermal heat pump. And me that was asking about the relative advantages and disadvantages of Superior Walls vs. standard foundations. My husband came along for the ride on most of that. In our house, in many cases, I do the research (be it "male" or "female" based. Narrow down the choices to what I find acceptable. Present findings to DH and then we work on finding a decision. But, me, heck yeah, I'm going to be SO excited (seriously!) when it comes time for us to have the HVAC people in to replace our old furnace. But, I'm a little odd like that.

Woodchuck, I don't necessarily bring my gravy to a boil when I do the method where you add the flour to the grease in the pan. The reason for boiling gravy is to cook the flour. If you don't cook the flour it doesn't taste right. When I add flour to the grease in the pan, I stir it there (cooking it in the grease before adding the liquid) for a period of time, then I add the liquid. Usually the gravy boils at least at some point while I'm adding liquid, but if not, that's ok too because the flour is already cooked. I guess I just continue to add liquid and stir until it 'looks' like gravy and is the right thickness, then I dish it up and enjoy :-) I've never used a recipe for gravy, but I went out and looked one up for making this type of gravy - it's called Roux Gravy. Here is a link that might be useful: Roux Gravy