It’s been stormy around here lately and maybe a week ago or so the power got interrupted for a second and my old computer went down. That was the Mac G3 my son “loaned” me in 2002 after my junk computer of that day died protesting the paces I wanted to put it through.
They don’t last forever.
Blue really took a beating. When the power went down the other night Blue was over nine years old in my possession, under constant usage and sometimes a little confounded by my requests. The Internet is advancing, Blue’s Operating System was generating lots of warnings almost everywhere: Steve, you’d GOT to upgrade something. Blue had a hard time coming back on that night, and I thought, uh oh, what if………..but it DID come back on and that leads up to the lightning storm of two nights ago.
I thought, THIS time, let’s power off the computer the way it’s supposed to, and go downstairs and sort stuff until the end of the storm, which I did. In fact, I added “watch some television” to that program and didn’t check the computer again until the next morning.
This time Blue was NOT waking up, and I tried every trick I know how to try, and it could be such a thing that it’s as simple as needing a new on/off button I suppose, but the machine just is not today’s machine for (especially) somebody trying to mismanage a business the way I am.
I should mention that Blue’s a Mac.
Uptown I go. I’ve seen a vehicle with advertising: The Computer Shop, which turns out to be Drew and Deb across the street from where Rainy Day Music operated from 1991-1994. Cosmic, I always liked that spot, I bought some Pakistani stuff there once in the mid-seventies that I’ve since given to my daughter.
They have sort of an Adequate Laptop deal for $300.00. I don’t have $300.00, and even if I did, my brakes on my van are destroying themselves and I must fix them. But they ALSO have a $100 Old HP Computer With Free Monitor deal.
Hmmmmmmm.
If it’ll somehow connect me to the Internet, and also edit photos, as far as I’m concerned, that’s worth a hundred dollars a day on half a good day.
I walk out with that. It does what they say it’ll do, and unfortunately, it doesn’t want to install my printer, so this is not a permanent solution but it beats the hell out of the 30 minutes you can spend at the library (that used to be an hour in ’99 when that’s how I DID all this without a computer at all).
The monitor scared the hell out of me, but we got that switched around and I can see colors about the way I know I left them, and a day later, I have in fact launched one listing at eBay just to prove I can do it.
Learning the vagaries of a new machine, a new operating system, new software, new everything on-the-fly has been a giggle. And I’m not sure how I’m going to edit my site yet, there is one hurdle there that I don’t remember how I solved it even when I HAD FTP and text editing software, but fortunately I do know my own code, and if I have to I’ll just do it from a control panel one page at a time like I also did once-upon-a-time.
Some days, my Dad has always told me, “you eat the bear” and some days “the bear eats you”. I’m not sure I ever completely understood that, but today I ate tater tots and chicken nuggets because I didn’t have any Super Burrito budget left.
I should be grateful I can still operate though, and at least my new modern browser solves a few problems that were driving me batty, right after I remember those places’ passwords and convince them that yes, that’s right…..I’m a different computer now………….yes, I remember my next-door neighbor’s middle name………