Flamingo Musings » Technology http://flamingomusings.com Just another WordPress site Wed, 09 May 2012 12:57:54 +0000 en hourly 1 Weighing-In http://flamingomusings.com/2009/04/weighing-in.html http://flamingomusings.com/2009/04/weighing-in.html#comments Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:42:00 +0000 admin http://flamingom.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/weighing-in

The initial trauma – the shock and awe, if you will – has passed. For now. Thanks, you guys, for your support and commiseration. It helps.

So, I just blew eighty bucks for nothing by replacing the keys on my “old” Powerbook. The Mac gods’ minions turned it on, and it died in their arms. Hard drive failure – DOA. Having just spent around $200 to get the power connection doo-hickey replaced about – what? six weeks ago? – another $300 + to replace the hard drive illuminated the writing on the wall. Back to the Apple Store and time to dive into the wonderful world of Leopard and the MacBook Pro. Thanks, Middle Niece, for lending me your student discount. Every little bit helps.

Fortunately, pretty much everything had been backed up fairly recently (see? I keep telling you people – back up and back up often!). The only thing is that I have to completely reconstruct my contact list/address book and iCal on the new machine. The new operating system won’t read the old ones. Sucks.

MJ takes his meds and waits to see if any of the half-dozen or so possible side-effects are happening to him. We know and are operating on the rationale that weight-loss will ameliorate, and probably cure the kind of diabetes he has. It certainly won’t hurt me any to lose a few pounds, so I’m right there with him.

He keeps threatening to throw out at least half of our nearly 200 cookbooks, because “It’s pointless. I can’t have any of that stuff now.” Which is bullshit. It’s all a matter of portion-control and balance. And Common Sense. Words that I’m going to have tattooed on his forehead if he doesn’t calm down.

But here’s the really traumatic thing for me – we bought a scale. A bathroom scale. Wow. We haven’t had one of those things in the house for probably 10 years. A scale! A warden. An accusing eye. A cold, hard, unflinching judge of failure or success. I put it in MJ’s closet. I don’t want it looking at me.

]]> http://flamingomusings.com/2009/04/weighing-in.html/feed 4 At The Dawn of Technology http://flamingomusings.com/2008/04/at-the-dawn-of-technology.html http://flamingomusings.com/2008/04/at-the-dawn-of-technology.html#comments Sat, 26 Apr 2008 03:46:00 +0000 admin http://flamingom.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/at-the-dawn-of-technology
I was on the Metrorail heading to work the other morning, earbuds on and listening to tunes on my iPhone. I chanced to look around at my fellow passengers and realized that I was surrounded by iPhones (This is how you tell – look at the wires coming down from the earbuds. One of the wires will have a very small, slender, rectangular bit on it near the mouth of the wearer). People talking on them, listening to music, and most astoundingly – checking their e-mail and the internet – not connected to a computer or a network or WiFi – while traveling on public transportation! What an age we live in!

I couldn’t help but think back about 25 years ago, when the Gadget Of The Day was – are you ready? – the Answering Machine. Oh, how I resisted getting an answering machine. I thought them impersonal and rude. And then I had to get a new phone number, and the wrong numbers started pouring in. I got tired of answering my ringing phone, interrupting my life, only to find someone who didn’t speak English on the other end, asking for Jose. I bought an answering machine.

I recorded an outgoing message in a bad English accent, that went something like: “You’ve reached xxx-xxxx. This is the invisible maid speaking. I’m sorry we can’t take your call at the moment, but if you’ll leave your name, number, and a brief message, someone will get back to you as soon as possible. Oh, and there is no one here by the name of Juan, Pablo, or Jose.”

One Friday night I came home from work to hear a woman’s voice and this message: “Ron, it’s me. Call me.” Saturday morning, I came home from shopping to: “Ron, it’s been hours. I neeeeed you. Oh, hahaha, funny outgoing message. Who recorded that for you?” Later that day: “Ron, omigod, what happened to you? I’m desperate!“

OK, so now I’m freaking out because I think someone’s dying and I don’t know who Ron is, or Ron’s friend (no caller i.d. in those days). You know, like Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”? A couple of days later I came home from work to this message: “Hi, this is Ron. I’m sorry my friend had the wrong number and probably made you crazy over the last couple of days. I just wanted to let you know that everything’s okay.”

That wasn’t the punchline. Here’s the punchline: About a year later, I was office manager at the small law firm I had been working at, and we had placed an ad in the local business newspaper for a legal secretary. Guess who came to interview? It was Ron. No kidding. He had (almost) the same last name as mine, but for one letter. And of course, the same first initial. He was also a legal secretary, just like me.

Ah, Technology.

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