Might be Offline for a While

VISTA strikes again... If this post gets through, it'll be the only thing I've been able to do online since this afternoon... Internet Explorer has decided to block all my favorite sites and not allow me to post ANY comments on any other blog -- I just can't come up with a funny way to deal with this... ask me again after I finish this gallon of ice cream....

I Know my Thoughts Are In There Somewhere….

Along with the new desktop (that continues to be a joy - NOT!), I also had bought a digital recorder, with the logical thought that audio tape was becoming as scarce as blog sites without advertising… and now instead of just a record-stop-play process, I have fallen into Beginner’s Binary Bewilderment, as I push beeping buttons with increasing frustration, looking for the notes that I am sure I taped during my last car trip -- I know I saw a red light at the top of the little machine, dagnabit!! It’s not that I’m computer illiterate, it’s just that I don’t have several hours to learn the many, varied (and I’m sure, delightful) new features of this sophisticated tool that is the size of a pack of cigarettes, (and at $29, costs about the same amount). And there’s also the fact that my own organic “processor” seems to have flaked off enough cells that erasing old procedures and recording new ones takes as many tries as getting this old body out of bed in 20 degree weather. Basically, I forget the damn instructions as fast as it takes to tuck the recorder into my purse, and so when I‘m driving, eyes (mostly) on the road, I‘m squeezing buttons, hearing beeps and feeling like I wandered into Candid Camera.

Back at home, my summer garden grows weeds like the castle in Sleeping Beauty as I waste precious hours trying to get my new digital “toys” to behave. The digital recorder has four virtual “folders” in which you can “tuck” the individual “recordings”. No longer can you just back up the tape and find what you’d said just before screaming and slamming on your brakes… now you have to find the right folder and the right snippet to play back. Supposedly, I can download any/all of it onto my new computer now, and sort it all out with the mouse and keyboard… if only I knew how. Honestly - what I said wasn’t worth all this!! But it’s all part of the Revolution that will Make Our Lives Easier (yes, and there is no global warming…. and the Brooklyn Bridge is still for sale). There comes a time when even the most enthusiastic technie begins to wonder if the digital devices have deliberately created a world where it take 15 minutes to input/read/print a paragraph that could be handwritten in one. Oh, yes, you say - but after it’s input, you can do so much more with it! Yes, but do I need to? Or was that “need” created to fill the existing capacity, just like appliances were made to go obsolete in order to fill the need to sell us more stuff each year? Ah, dang it - I’m starting to sound like a Luddite.

But I know I moved here to live more simply and to spend more time in the garden, or working to make my little bungalow a cozy nest… so I’m gonna give up on whatever witticism is parsed in the tiny bowels of this contraption, and go out and hoe weeds. And I’m gonna bring a notepad and pen. It fits in my pocket just as easily as the digi-taper, and if I turn my back on the sprinkler, it’s not as big a disaster.

Opening up New Vistas

My rural bliss was shattered today with the arrival of the new computer. It had been two years since I’d gotten one, so of course everything was different. Well - not everything: it was still impossible to open the box and wrench the pieces out without using both hands and feet. But opening that box, taking out the new flatscreen monitor and glancing through the instructions made me feel older than watching Goldie Hawn talk about her grandkids! Fogey-hood, here I come! For one thing they have reduced the Quick-Start instructions to four paragraphs, but have written them in five extra languages for a total of six pages, most of which can be cut away with scissors. I also noticed that the machine had 134 gigabytes of memory -- that’s more memory than I have now! (me, I mean - not my old computer). Now, if only I can fit it with a camera so it can watch where I leave the keys…

Second, I was amazed by the incredible ease of the new “plug and play anything” -- color-coded plugs and holes so that even if you can’t read the cartoon directions, you can hook the system together and be up and running in five minutes. Balancing that off, though are the incredibly complex-bordering-on-deceitful cascade of legal notices that you have to agree to in order to get to the desktop for the first time!! By the end of the first ten minutes I was as paranoid as if I’d read an hour’s worth of conspiracy blogs. My brain was buzzing with legal-ese and disclaimers. I wonder if grocery stores would sell any food if the side of the milk carton, for instance, said, “THIS IN NO WAY REPRESENTS THAT THE CONTENTS OF THIS CARTON IS BOVINE OR EVEN LIQUID AND THE MANUFACTURER ASSUMES NO LIABILITIES FOR THE RESULTS OF DRINKING THIS, USING IT IN COMESTIBLES OR FOR ANY USES THAT COULD CONCEIVABLY BE MADE OF THIS SUBSTANCE, WHATEVER IT IS. READING THIS LABEL CONSTITUTES YOUR AGREEMENT TO ALL OUR POLICIES, WHICH MIGHT CHANGE AT ANY MINUTE.”

I was really amused by the fact that the start-up process assumed that the computer was cabled and ready to go online for numerous “immediate updates” (before I‘d gotten to the desktop) -- I was not, and after the first 20 minutes of start-up, I was glad. I haven’t been so patronized since my philosophy professor assumed that a 17 year old girl couldn’t possibly understand logic. I know that teams of really bright people spend years writing these programs and are understandably irritated that we might want to know how they work, but Windows has now made their “details” of their updates as vague as a politician‘s promise. Nothing that might give you any idea of what was being downloaded. I mean, they practically said, “Just trust us, you need this”…

I was less amused to find out the system didn’t come with speakers -- I know I got a low-end deal, but those used to be as standard as a keyboard and mouse… luckily this was a Friday, so my town was full of garage sales. I hit pay dirt on the third one and brought home a pair of speakers for $2. And a half gallon of ice cream, to steel my resolve for the rest of the set-up. I had to convince the delicate modem/ router provided by the phone company that it wanted to talk to the new computer - actually, I played bait and switch - I hooked it into the internet via my laptop and then just moved the ethernet cable to the new box… it worked, and I don’t know why. But just as I could see success looming, I found I was down to exactly one electric plug in the whole room, and two items left to be plugged in! This being an old house, there is exactly one outlet in the office and I had once blown the fuse by trying to vacuum while the old computer was on… so even with the power-surge strip, I was anxious… but a piggyback plug seemed to work.

I finally was able to see my new “desktop” (home screen) and it seemed the system was set up, but anyone who’s started up a new computer knows that half the crap that’s put on there needs to be junked and then there’s at least three hours of transferring data from the old system. This spiffy new one proudly informed me of a fast-transfer option: just bring over your whole old computer, desktop, files, programs -- I actually shuddered when I read that… Not sure how many innocents were burned, but that seems the equivalent of pouring the half-moldy contents of last week’s coffee into the new pot! First of all, it was an entirely different operating system. And why would I want all the fragmentation and random crud from my old computer? Now, I suppose they might have given me some choices about how to port it over, but I wasn’t able to find out -- because it required a special fast-port cable which “you can order online” - and pay $32 to overnight or wait another two weeks to get your system working… gee -- what convenience! So I just used the 1 gig flash stick to bring over what I need for now… My eyes were more glazed over than a Bundt cake, and I had to drag out the emergency crochetting to keep me from clicking too fast with the mouse and double-installing everything. I knew I couldn’t take much more of this. I glanced longingly out the window, where the plants were frying in the heat. Ah, for the simplicity of hoeing weeds, or picking berries!

What finally stopped me was finding the ice cream in the fridge. The topping had made it into the freezer. A clear case of brain-melt. So I gave up the quest and sat down to eat ice cream soup while I played a game of spider solitaire on the new computer.

Everything Is Beautiful….

I have found a new obsession, a new toy. In fact, I think it’s a crime for people to sell these things during the busy season, but that’s one of the dangers of going into the city…toys waiting in every shop for hapless bumpkins. This one is called Kaleidoscope Kreator, and it hit me in an Achille’s heel - I love playing with patterns, and I love to avoid all the work (and skill!) of cutting and pasting. I used to make similar designs by color-copying random bits of images and then repeating them… but this is so much easier that I feel like a rat pressing a bar to get a hit of speed -- press, press, press… :-}

The moment I got home, I loaded it, and starting bringing up all my photos to see how they would slice and dice -- and before I knew it, I had missed dinner (folks - that’s amazing), it was dark, and I had two dozen “to die for” designs that I just had to print immediately!! Of course, the first thing I discovered was that Windows does not understand circles or squares… Picture Manager assumes that anything worth looking at will be in the center of the photo, and crops accordingly. This felt like having bought a candy bar and not being able to get the wrapping off, or hitting a large rock with your speedboat. I could almost feel the whiplash. Grinding my teeth, I searched the computer for software that understood “shrink to fit” and finally found one that had come with my printer. Then figured out how to load the photo paper so that it didn’t go through 7 sheets at a time, and was in fact printing on the right side… and voila! I had four sheets of -- tiny -- mandalas to use for cards, magnets, coasters, frisbee inserts… the possibilities were endless, but my supply of ink and paper wasn’t.

It occurred to me, painfully, that I was gonna have to choose some files to print and leave others… and fairly quickly realized I actually had to choose which to save, unless I wanted to choke my computer! Since my motto since childhood has been “anything worth doing is worth overdoing” I was sore grieved by this… but I’m getting some sense of balance now… it’s been a whole halfhour since I made a kaleidoscope image… I can last until the timer goes off … I know I can…

-- Actually, I couldn’t. Just writing about it brought an overwhelming urge… I tried a couple of new photos, and moved from template to template… backed off a bit after a fairly frightening kaleidoscope of my face popped on the screen… back to Nature images… I started humming that old song “everything is beautiful, in its own way…” It’s almost true… and to prove it, the three images I posted with this blog entry are: an iris, a peony… and one of the mega-slugs in my garden.