I used to really love new technology and what it could do to make my life easier. We had the fun electronic toys from Atari. Spent many hours bouncing a square of a rectangle to break other rectangles. (Breakout)
We moved up to a small “personal computer” that could access the internet via a modem. It had an “i” in the name but I forgot what it was called, (not IBM, not iMac) and it was small and cheap. Visited a lot of bulletin boards in those days.
I advanced our family to a Commodore and then progressed through the Apple Macintosh lines to the iMac.
At work, there was a Radio Shack TRS 80 that the guy I replaced bought and let sit in the corner. I taught myself VisiCalc and wrote a spreadsheet to figure out commercial printing quotes and handle billing to put the computer to work.
Soon after personal computers were SOP in business and I marched through the Macintosh line because the owner of the newspaper LOVED Macs. Then Windows personal computers took over the business office. I loved it. I tried to learn as much as I could – or had time for- there was always somebody else that knew more than me, so I didn’t feel the pressure. As soon as it became a “chore” I just handed my problem off…
I learned HTML so I could “build” websites… I started this blog and changed the code in plugins and themes just for kicks. I eventually screwed that up so bad, I got a guy in Ireland to hand off too.
I enjoyed new technology.
Until recently.
Now I don’t like technology – it’s too hard. I just want simple these days.
I’m using an old Dell desktop running Vista, a HP lap top running Windows 7 powers our tv and I have an Android phone. Nancy has a Apple iPad mini, Apple iPad, and Apple iPhone. I have two netbooks – one with Windows 10 installed that are just gathering dust.
I spend too much of my time updating operating systems and apps. Much of my frustration can be related to the sometimes painfully slow internet in Costa Rica – about 4 megs down, 1 meg up. And the age of the computers I’m on.
Yeah, it’s all related to age.
I’m ready for a personal upgrade.
(Best of BoomSpeak, 2016)
Mark Van Patten wrote a blog called Going Like Sixty and has been married to the same woman since 1968.
