Friday, January 1, 2010

It’s a new day, a new year, a new decade.
Time to erase the blackboard, change the channel, turn the page.

New Year’s resolutions?
Nope. Not me. Not this year.
This year I’m workin’ on last years promises to myself.
This year I’m transforming from dork to geek.

This year, I WILL figure out how to put phone numbers in my home phone so I can push one button instead of a bunch of numbers that are usually wrong.
I WILL learn how to answer the little nuisance of a phone in my purse.
I WILL snap pictures with the digital camera that needs no film.
The GPS thing that’s been on the kitchen counter in a cute little bag for over a year WILL direct me to my destinations eliminating all my wrong turns.
The Bose CD player in my bedroom WILL play the CD’s soon as I figure out what buttons to push.
That teeny iPod thing that’s been sitting atop my music cabinet accumulating dust, WILL accompany me on my daily dog walks bringing music to my ears.
And, I WILL understand this machine that I sit at every day and the huge black cloud of not knowing what is My Space, Facebook, Twitter and Blog WILL lift.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

So far I’ve learned how to place 5 CD’s on the CD player in the living room and I’ve got the buttons down.
I know how to start and stop the music and play my grandson’s favorite song over and over for him; that would be Billy Joel singing “Cadillac yack, yack, yack.”

I’ve got the TV on-and-off buttons mastered and I can even travel SOME of the channels.
Don’t know where all that premium stuff is that we pay $100 a month for but I intend to find it…this year!

But, if my life depended on it, I wouldn’t be able to put a DVD thing in wherever it goes and push whatever needs to be pushed to watch a movie.

I guess I don’t even need to bother with figuring out how to work the obsolete VHS machine.

I hear vinyl records are coming back en vogue.
OK, so I read that in an AARP magazine, and maybe it’s just my generation’s wishful thinking but hey, we didn’t need an engineer’s degree to make the music play.

REALLY OLD PROMISES

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Well, here it is, almost 7 years later.

Let’s see…another new day, another new year, still the same ole decade.

The blackboard is still bare, the channels have been back and forth and many pages turned.

New Years resolutions? Nope.

Dork to geek? I don’t think so.

I hate admitting that it’s even gotten worse.

I spent an entire afternoon programming phone numbers in my land-line phone, (land-line phone? When did it turn into that?)
But I did it and I was so proud of myself.
I put my entire address book in there, never gonna have to look-up another number and it really did take all afternoon but, so what? I did it.
WRONG!

First number I punched went nowhere. NOWHERE!
I tried again and again and again…punch, punch, punch.
Nothing.
I must have missed a step.
That was just about 7 years ago. I haven’t tried since. Maybe this new year.

I actually DID learn how to answer that little nuisance phone in my purse but now I need to figure out how to make it ring more rings because by the time I frantically find it in the bottom of my purse, it’s done making it’s nonsense noise and gone into voice-mail and I can’t find it.
I’ve missed some pretty good messages that found their way into that voice-mail place.
Every once in a while one of my girls or my grandson Bobby will show me how to get there but, well… I forget.

This past summer I got a casting call to come and be part of the crowd in a movie being filmed in San Diego.
A movie now on TV called PITCH.
I really wasn’t interested in being in a movie but my husband was, so what the heck I went with him, filled out all the paperwork, got the snap taken and well, they called ME…how crazy is that?
One day, I accidentally button-pushed and found three messages in voice-mail. They were from the casting person to call immediately.
My immediately was 3 weeks too late and there went my movie career, down the voice-mail drain.

When my husband used to work, he’d leave me a message now and then.
He’d start with the month and the YEAR, knowing it may be months, or even a new year before I figured out I even HAD a message.
Sometimes I notice the teeny number down there but, I just don’t know how to get to it.
Easy, right?
Just push the button.
Hey, I’m an original CONTROL-ALT-DELETE person. I know how to push buttons, just don’t know what to do when I get to where that pushed button takes me.

I upgraded that little thing to a “smart phone.”
Why?
I have no idea.
I couldn’t work the dumb phone so why was I getting a smart phone?
Maybe a dumb person needs a smart phone? I don’t know.

The digital camera?
It died one day. Just stopped working.
I ran across it in a desk drawer last year when we were moving and took another look at it.
It had batteries!
Why did it take me 7 years to think of batteries?
Doesn’t digital mean no batteries?

One of my girls gave me a couple quick lessons on how to snap a picture with the little smart thing. I was doin’ fairly well until one day it stopped and left a message on the screen about it had no more room and go someplace and do something.
If it’s so smart, why do I have to do that? Why can’t the smart aleck do it?

That GPS thing?
She’s about as lost as I am half the time.
Her favorite thing to tell me is to make a U-turn at the next possible spot.
Really?
That leaves me driving in circles.

And that other thing…what’s-her-name…Siri?
I can’t even understand what she’s saying let alone follow her directions.
And, she’s got a sick sense of humor.
When I’m lost (which is often) and in a panic and ask for her help, well…I can’t tell you how many wrong places I’ve pulled up to; a dog groomer’s instead of the beauty salon, a meat market instead of the gym, even a gentleman’s club instead of Book Club meeting.
And what’ the heck’s a gentleman’s club?

Hey, I DID learn how to put CD’s in that little Bose thing and it worked, real well, until one day it stopped working.

That small iPod thing?
I read “iPod For Dummies,” I’m still reading it. My grandson told me to forget it, nobody uses iPods anymore.

And my computer?
Currently as I look down on a place called “dock,” I see a lime green box with a with a green phone receiver in a white circle with the number 18 in red.
I’ve been told that means 18 times somebody has tried to Face Time me.
Face time me?
Um…….?

My Space?
What the heck?

Twitter? Tweet?

Facebook? Well, I was kinda gettin’ it a little bit.
I could do the basics but then this thing kept popping up telling me to update.
Update WHAT?
Where?
How?

And Blog?
Well, I’m having a teeny bit of success with a Blog.
I think I’m being guided by divine intervention on that one.

I DID learn how to work the CD player in the living room.
I can put 5 CD’s on the thing, and I’ve got all 3 clickers figured out, but the TV? Nope!
I don’t know how to turn the TV on or off.
I call it, Clicker Complication.
There’s not that much empty room left in my brain for that kind of crap.

The TV in the bedroom?
Same thing and the bedroom is the only time I’m Queen of the Clicker because Lobo falls asleep the moment his head hits the pillow, quicker than the dogs, even.
Last thing he does is push the buttons so I can watch TV and it turns off by itself at a set time.
This is a good idea but horrible things happen; a dog rolls on the clicker and everything goes haywire, it goes places I’ve never seen, it says messages I don’t understand.

I actually CAN change the channel, that’s no biggie but that’s not the problem. The problem is that sometimes it turns OFF before I’m ready to stop watching.
I have to tenderly tap my sleeping mate to fix it.
He can do it in the dark and half asleep.
I think that he thinks he’s having a reoccurring nightmare.
Me?
I need glasses and a flashlight and, what’s the use?
I don’t know what to push anyways.

Still don’t get how to slip a DVD in and watch a movie.
Too many clickers, too many buttons.
Forget it, I’ll just sit and read a good book. (Know any?)

That premium stuff we paid $100 for 7 years ago?
Well, that’s up to almost $200 now and I have no idea where that stuff is.
I know it’s on there somewhere, but it’s a hidden mystery, only for some to know…not me.

Last month I was forced to pack up my very big, heavy machine and pay a visit to the Genius Bar at the MAC Store.
Who the heck came up with that name anyways?
Genius Bar?
Obviously a Genius did!
And, those kids behind that bar, ARE all geniuses.

And that’s another thing, you walk in and go up the aisle to one of the Mac kids holding a Mac Book thing.
They check off your name and tell you someone will be with you shortly.
Then you kinda just walk around the store and baffle your mind looking at stuff… and all the people in there fooling around with all that stuff.
Within minutes, no matter where you are in the store, your assigned genius finds you.
How do they do that?
How do they know who they’re lookin’ for?
I seriously don’t get it.
I’ve even asked them.
They just snicker it off.
OK, that leads me to believe that the first MAC kid who checked off my name also wrote a little note beside it…maybe something like, “sandals with ugly toenails” or “multiple time returnee, good luck!”
I don’t know.

I DO know that MAC/APPLE stores all look alike inside.

Have you ever watched those kids in jeans, blue shirts and flip-flops go through that EMPLOYEES ONLY door just behind the Genius Bar to the left?

I mean, it’s a constant stream in and then on the right of the Genius Bar, others continue to come out.
Are they mass producing geniuses back there?
They just keep goin’ in on one side and comin’ out on the other.
Watch next time and see for yourself.

Josh was the (un)lucky genius assigned to me.
Josh gets me. He’s been my genius many times in the past. Many!

He’s patient and he’s kind, very kind.
He knows I come with a list of written questions longer than a once-a-month grocery list.
He always manages to understand my problems and just like a genius would do, he fixes them, zip, zip, zip.
He taught me how to upgrade to the latest Mac OS X thing, called Sierra. I only remember that because I have an amazing granddaughter named Sierra.
He couldn’t do it for me, it was gonna take hours.
I was feeling brave, I thought I could do it; I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
Last question on my list…iCloud.
What s that?

I haven’t been able to understand how that little thing called “thumb-drive” holds all my stuff from this big machine.

Never mind, forget that little 3-inch long thing. Now it’s just an invisible cloud kinda floatin’ around with all my stuff in it?
I can’t deal with that.
I’m done.
Time to head for the door.
And don’t think for a moment that Josh isn’t singing Hallelujah in his head, ‘cause I can almost hear it.
I think each time our session is over, Josh goes through that back genius door and there’s a team lined up, all to pat him on the back and share high-fives, and it’s over…..‘til next time.
I think Josh gets to go home after spending time trying to help me understand.

I think he gets a bonus too.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE
and honest….. records WERE easier!