CRASH!

I had my computer crash this week. It wasn’t just a crash, it was more like a 20-car pileup kind of crash. Yikes, all my data, all my “stuff” was in jeopardy. You never know how much you miss something until you have it taken away from you. My computer is my livelihood and my lifeline to the outside world. I write, I research, I plan, I study, I play … all on my computer. I have three monitors staring at my right now and I am wondering if I should buy another. You just can’t do what you need to do on only one monitor anymore. How can I keep my websites updated and my stock portfolio in check with only one monitor? The worst part about my computer crashing is the fact that I don’t know what is behind the black box. I have a pretty good idea of the capabilities of my computer but I have no real idea of what actually IS my computer. The only thing I recognize is the fan that cools it, everything else is green and glowing like some tamed monster ready to pounce once the black box is opened. My computer geek assured me that the monster was back under control and some geek-speak about DIMMs, BIOS, RAM, and drivers. All I could do was look at him with a slightly dull expression and say, “I don’t know what that means?”

There used to be a time when I could open up the hood of a car and tell you everything that was inside of it. I couldn’t always fix it, but I could come close. Now I open up the hood of the car and I cannot even find the battery any more. I had to go to the Owners Manual to find out where to attach the jumper cables. It directed me to some bolts and body parts of the car that somehow, somewhere connected to the battery. I find myself reading the manual and saying, “I don’t know what that means?”

Kids today laugh about TV’s that weren’t in color, only had 3-4 channels on a dial that “clip,clip,clipped” along as you turned it, and you had to actually get up to change the channel. LP’s have turned to 8-tracks, which turned to cassettes, when turned to CDs which now is MP3 and iPod. Kids now have buds in their ears from their iPod as the text messages to each other while at the same time doing their homework on their computers. Technology is crazy-good , or crazy-bad (think Al Qaeda) and we are all going to be confronted with it whether we like it or not. It’s here to stay even though we might not be. Be informed, be aware and be prepared. I think I’ll still plant a few things in the planters I have outside just in case the grocery store crashes.