LEARNING NEW STUFF

Wow! This is exciting and also a little challenging. I'm still learning my way around my new laptop and Windows 2007 (trial version). I sometimes feel as if the technology bubble has passed me by. Just finding out what I can possibly do is mind boggling. Even though I have always thought of myself as a techie, my husband and I seemed to have reached the age when it is easier to get our son to do everything for us than to try to figure it out ourselves.

It is really kind of karmic that I would find myself struggling with technology. Dad went through a period after he retired when he wanted to play with his computer all the time. By that, I mean he wanted to dismantle and reassemble the computer, change all the settings and then watch me spend all of my Saturday putting it back together again. I complained vehemently to my mother, who was never on my side about anything in my entire life, and she chewed me out, telling me that I would indeed spend my entire weekend putting this together for him because I owed it to him. I left their house every Saturday stressed to the max.

Turns out that Dad had dementia. Every person seems to experience it differently. Dad apparently delighted in taking things apart and then couldn't put them back together again, although he gave it his best shot. We shouldn't have been surprised of course. Growing up, we used to laugh and tease Dad that he always had plenty of spare parts left over whenever he tried to fix something. We'd have to put the parts in a safe place so we could give them to the repairman when Dad would finally cry uncle and call in an expert. Still it made going over to my parents' house even more of a chore than normal.

At work, I am the person in charge of technology. I still have my "day job" however. Lately, I've been so overworked that I tend to stay away from new things because I know I will end up taking care of them. I keep trying to hire people who say they are computer people, but they usually end up knowing less than me. Fortunately, I outsource the really technical stuff. Over the years I have developed a relationship with "my computer guy" so that I just call him up and let him talk me through it. When we went to the Window 2003 server, I basically handed admin over to him. Sometimes, though, he gets a little touchy. And sometimes lately, he gives me the feeling that I'm pushing it with him. My take on it though is that I pay him well for every hour of his time, so even if I could fix it myself, I want him to do it.

But, I got this fancy-dancy new machine and I need to learn how to use it. I also told myself that the only reason that I didn't post to my blog regularly was that I had to go down to the den and fire up the ole' desktop. So I shall learn. Maybe there are just enough brain cells left for me to learn a new trick.