October 9, 2019

I was off the grid for most of Wednesday last week, because right after I posted my essay, I began to install my new computer. I did have “on site” help in the form of my daughter. She plugged everything in, realized I didn’t have a whatsit cord for my monitor, and went out to the local store to get one for me. So she did all the connecting of the new machine. When I’d purchased the computer, I left it at Best Buy, so that the Geek Squad could actually "set it up", complete with Firefox and Chrome as my internet browsers, with Skype and of course their awesome antivirus installed.

But there was still a lot for me to do. I needed to install my most important bookmarks, sites I go to on a regular basis. I also had to log into Microsoft Office, Drop Box, and a few other facilities and sign in and tell this machine to remember me. Then I opened a word file and prepared to change the name of it. 

Imagine my surprise when my brand-new system, which I had purchased with my own, hard-earned money, and which would only ever be used by me told me: “You are not authorized to make this change. Please contact your administrator.” 

My administrator? Well, okay. I can do that. I took a moment for prayer and realized during that process that He was not the administrator to which the machine was referring. So I double clicked on the Geek Squad help button, and let them fix that issue, as well as the issue of everything being too small on the screen. They took remote control of my computer and made the changes needed—I didn’t follow it all, but soon discovered that mostly, for the “administrator” problem, it was a simple fix of going into some locations and noting that this computer is a home office computer, and not a computer on a company network of many.

Now here, for a moment, I’m going to digress. A friend advised me that the Geek Squad was a form of “big brother” and has been known to report users to the police for prosecution. That had never occurred to me. I would assume he meant reports for such things as…what? Child pornography? The plotting of terrorist attacks? I had never thought about that, in fact had never considered that this could be a “thing”. Once I thought about it, though, I decided that in all likelihood, by law, these services are required to do such reporting the same way that, by law, teachers, or medical personnel must report when they see evidence of child abuse. That is as it should be. Now, I do sympathise with the whole “desire for privacy in a free society” school of thought. But that desire, taken to the extreme is the best tool ever for those who would subvert our free society. I will admit here and now that if I was in my twenties or thirties, I might very well take a course or five and learn how to do all the necessary changes/fixes/repairs to my own computer myself. But I’m 65 and I am happy to leave that task to others.

So the Geek Squad technician fixed all my issues, and by supper time on Wednesday, everything was set to go except my printer. I darn near clicked on that help icon again, but instead decided to see if maybe I could get it working on my own. And I did, so yay, one victory for the old woman.

I don't know about all y'all but this kind of exercise stresses me out more than a bit. I'm so darn anal that I like things to go according to how they're supposed to go, period. In a way, it’s the same with my car. I take it in regularly for oil changes, and small repairs. But as my car gets older, and noises crop up, I become stressed. I want it to function and function well, so I don’t have to worry, and I don’t have to go down that horrid, awful path of “what if”. Just so y’all know, I am knocking on wood right at this moment and I will not even name the byways along that cursed path, “what if”.

I also had to get a new keyboard and mouse, as mine were worn out. For the keyboard, it was missing the white on some of the keys. Now, when I’m working and not thinking too deeply about things, just letting the story emerge, my fingers are on the correct keys and I am keying away. But when I’m not doing that I sometimes have to think about where the keys are, and that can be a problem if I can’t see the markings.

The set I just replaced was a wireless set, as is this new one, and as you know it uses one thingy for both keyboard and mouse. I had retired my mouse a couple of months ago because it was double clicking every few clicks, which is not good at all. So I’d had to use a second USB in a second port for a separate, second mouse, and that caused me to have to find other ways to charge my devices. I guess there are ports on the back of the tower, but it’s the two on the front that I can most easily use.

The new keyboard of course takes a bit of time to get used to. My biggest new keyboard challenge? Overcoming my fingers’ confusion between the backspace key and the back-slash key. The former is above the latter and I cannot tell you how many times I hit the latter instead of the former until my fingers learned the correct spacing and placement.

From reading this essay, you might surmise that I really don’t like change. I would tell you you’re right, and then assert that truly, the only humans who really like change are babies wearing diapers. Change, when necessary, is necessary, and I may grumble, but then I just get on with it. If I stress, it’s not for long, and for one very good reason.

Letting any inanimate object or accompanying minutiae prevent me from being the best me I can be is a waste of time, energy, and potential.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury