Tag Archives: computers

Jul24

Three Things

Posted on by
Standard
Three Things

This past week flew. I’ll touch on three things that stand out.

I spent some time visiting with my son. And that is definitely the highlight of the week. He is also storing seven Rubbermaid bins in his home for me. They are predominantly family photo albums. But I did find a few other treasures in them, such as the outfits my mom crocheted for them when they came home from the hospital when they were born.

On Friday I spent some time wandering around the Shaarey Zedek Cemetery. My friends usually take me there but I wanted time to visit other family members and not just my parents. It was very peaceful and brought back a flood of memories.

The third thing that stands out is that my friend Laura and I went computer shopping. She is my computer guru and yesterday she set it all up for me. My old laptop died two years ago when I was stuck in Mexico during Covid. I adore my tablet and just never made it a priority to replace the laptop. Until this week.

BTW the featured photo is yours truly with my daddy several decades ago.

Jul20

Happy Humpday!

Posted on by
Standard
Happy Humpday!

I thought I was back in Mexico yesterday with hurricane season. Torrential rain, flooded streets. Nope. I’m still in Winnipeg.

I’m staying with my son for a couple of days. I don’t think he quite gets it when I tell him we need to get together more often. Kyle has no family here in Winnipeg and I live in another country. Over time you get used to being on your own and then it does feel rather strange when you get bombarded with family. But it’s a nice kind of strange. And I think that the older you get the more you value that kind of time.

My WIP is going well. My characters have been quite talkative lately. And they’ve had some interesting adventures. I am definitely enjoying writing fiction.

Because I’m constantly flipping back and forth in time when writing, I vary my background music. For a while there, The Stones were inspirational, especially Voodoo Lounge. The Beach Boys and The Byrds are also favorites, as are John Denver and Elton John. But last night it was Handel’s Water Music.

Computer shopping with Laura is on the agenda for today. I was a tad overwhelmed looking in Seattle and Wenatchee didn’t have much to offer. I know. There’s always Amazon. But I want to play with a laptop before I buy it. And Laura is my computer guru.

Happy Humpday!

Aug1

Technology Today

Posted on by
Standard

As a child technology consisted of occasionally answering a telephone or watching the odd television program on one of the three available channels. Cable didn’t arrive in Winnipeg until I was a teenager.

My children grew up with cell phones and computers. And let’s not forget all those videogames. Records? 8 Tracks? Cassettes? VCR? CD? DVD? All dinosaurs now.

My granddaughter was just over a year old when I bought her a tablet. Okay, admittedly it was Fisher Price, but a device nonetheless.

On Thursday I decided to track my device usage, just for fun. Although I do have a tablet, I have not yet replaced my laptop that died in Mexico back in April of 2020. So how much do I actually rely on technology? Apparently quite a bit more than I thought.

Alexa. Short conversations. Good morning. Weather. Tell me a joke. Trivia. Play music. Hmmm, it all adds up.

Actual tasks. Renewed travel health insurance. Updated info on WordPress. Paid credit card bills. Worked on a blog post. Emails. Revised SAIL exercise routine.

Stress relief time. Candy Crush and Word Cookies. Social media, although at times it seems to add to the stress. Playlist for meditation.

Only television time is maybe a half hour of Olympics. No Netflix today.

Phone calls. Voicemail. Texting, Messenger, Google Duo and thank you God I only use What’s App when I have my Mexican chip in my phone. And then there are all the photos I take with my phone.

Time to practice Spanish. Love my Duolingo! Average of 115 XP every day.

I haven’t tracked the time, only the activity. I don’t think I want to even know how many hours a day I am consumed by technology. But I’m sure it’s still much less than the younger generation whose ear buds are permanently attached to their bodies.

I’m done writing this post now. I’m going to read a book. And I’m not going to read it on my tablet. I’m going to read a real book with pages that you actually hold in your hands. And I can do that without even searching through a frustratingly long list of passwords!