Technology.
Some days it makes my life so much easier I could hug on my
computer. The manual typewriter I learned on—mercifully banished. The tether of
a corded telephone—a distant memory. Spellcheck. Cut and Paste. Autocomplete. Score.
Score. (Mostly) Score.
But some days, the server is down, cell phone service is
spotty, and the “spinning ball of death” (the high-tech term used by our IT
staff) squeezes countless minutes from my day.
Whose fault is it anyway? Of late, there seems to be enough
blame to pass around.
***
I’ve gone quiet in this space over the past few weeks in
part because of an amped up schedule with the beginning of the school year. But
before that, my absence was the result of Microsoft Word effectively disappearing
from my laptop.
I don’t know why it left. And frankly, it would have been
easier if it had actually left me. Instead, one evening, I turned on the
computer, doubled clicked Word… and got a Program Failed to Load notice.
Program Failed to Load? The hell? The program in question has been on my
computer for over a year. Why would it choose a bright August day to forsake
me? Technology Fail.
After repeated attempts to start the program and restarting
the computer several times, it was game on. Mano a Keyboard. I paid for that
program, and I wasn’t walking away until it worked again. I’m smarter than a
computer. If Word wouldn’t work, I’d just Uninstall it. Except… it wouldn’t
uninstall. No matter how many times I tried, that process failed. Over a
handful of days, I attempted the Uninstall several times to no avail.
So I turned to the Internet, where the solutions to all the
world’s problems reside. I found a Microsoft patch to repair the program. No
luck. I returned to the website where I purchased it to download the program
anew. No luck. I had downloaded it once, and since it remained on my computer
(albeit non-functioning) I couldn’t download it again.
Finally, sometime during week two, I found a different fix,
one to allow for the program Uninstall (although I did not know definitively
that I would be able to Reinstall.) Regardless, it wasn’t working, and inaction
isn’t my style, so I downloaded the fix. Within 15 minutes, the program was
Uninstalled. A handful of clicks and after retyping the software key, I was
back in business. Microsoft Word was once again my bitch. Score.
***
There are many hallmarks of a University town, among them a
simultaneous increased awareness of the world around us and an utter lack of
regard for anything outside our own tiny bubble. There lives the Toyota Prius.
Really, the Prius is a delightful little car. We rented one
a couple of years ago over spring break and found it perfectly serviceable and
rather fun. Any car that turns like a ZTR mower is a hoot. Comfortable, it
boasts an appropriate amount of power to drive on any public road one might
encounter. The dashboard display is reminiscent of a video game, with its
details regarding battery charge and gas mileage. It is wonderfully
environmentally friendly, particularly in locales where the traffic spends as
much time stationary as in motion. That is not where I live. Still, there are
more than a few Priuses on the road here.
There seems, however, to be a fair segment of the Prius-owning
population who are more entranced with playing the battery-only game than
actually driving like a lucid person to their destination. User Error.
Folks, newsflash, if you are driving on a public roadway,
the point is not to keep your speed so low that the gas engine of your Prius never
turns on and traffic backs up behind you. Some of us have places to be and
would like to drive 30MPH to get there. If you can’t manage to drive with the
flow of traffic, may I suggest the bike lane as an appropriate place for you to
stick your Prius?
***
GPS.
There may be no greater gift to business travel. (My iPhone
ALWAYS excepted, it is my special companion.) In many new cities for the first
time over the past eight years, the GPS Lady has guided me safely to various
locales. (With only the exception of a few rather frightening route choices—I’m
still waiting for the Single Ladies Shouldn’t Drive Alone Here at Night
option.)
She admonishes me a fair amount of the time, urging me to “Return
to the Highlighted Route” and to “Make a Legal U-Turn.” Recently though, I gave
her a run for her money.
A trip to the northern part of the state found me on a
newly-completed highway that opened after our GPS was first removed from the box.
As I embarked upon my drive, I was curious to see what the display would offer
along the way.
It was less than half an hour into my trip when I turned
right onto the new roadway. Almost immediately, it diverged from the path of
its predecessor, much to the horror of the GPS Lady. In minutes, she was “Recalculating”
and with increasing urgency directing me to “Return to the Highlighted Route,”
quite certain that I was now plowing through acres of cornfields and not paved
highway.
Best of all, though, was the GPS display, captured here.
Seriously, that’s what it looked like when I played driving
games in arcades as a kid just before the game ended and my quarter was spent.
Technology Fail. But also, Score.
Thanks for the laugh, GPS Lady.
