Ho Chi Minh

It’s damn cold outside. I sit here typing on the Word program of the busted computer while I defrag the old computer that somehow still is able to connect me to the Blogging World. It has been an odd week working with two computers. Using the faster aspects of one to augment the slower aspects of the other. My zip drive has never been used so much. I have never emailed myself so much. I would rely on memory sticks, but the old computer will not recognize them. But you do what ya gotta do to meet the promises made when everything functioned as it should.

If nothing else, I have probably doubled the sum total of my knowledge of all things computerific over this last week and a half. I finally have a deeper appreciation of just how much floppy disks and their bigger brother, zip disks, will not hold. A real awareness of the quantum differences between a computer 11 years old and one only 3 years old has made itself oh so clear to me now. The Internet world does not suffer the older computers well. I cannot view videos, listen to music from the Internet, and google searches that used to take milliseconds can now take multi-minutes. If I do not defrag at least every 24 hours, the machine slows to just barely faster than dead. And this is fine with me. I have figured out how to follow my main credo, my one rule I have had with me as long as I can remember. To go with the flow.

We have become accustomed and programmed to expect a constant series of upgrades in many facets of our lives. From the early 1990’s, technology seemed to have hit it’s stride and was now on an all out sprint to see how fast and how many new gizmos and gadgets they could churn out for us to waste our money on. Communication became so much more than answering the phone hooked to wires hanging from poles or watching TV’s that only hooked into maybe 4 stations via the airwaves. Now we can talk on the phone from almost anywhere. We can hook up to 500 TV channels in a myriad of ways. We have instant gratification at our fingertips.

It is interesting when all this gee whiz stuff is taken away or maybe worse, only partially withheld. Leaving enough to just cripple but not destroy. Dimitri and his computer hacking loser buddies have a sense of humor I think. They tease me with moments of the speedy and reliable computer freedom I had before, and just when I think I have it fixed, they slam the door on my fingers. You just gotta laugh.

Because the enemy inside my computer is elusive and seems to move around, I have learned to do likewise. This has become a guerrilla action. Dimitri and his minions think they have me by the short hairs. But they don't. They have left enough back channels open so that I am still able to conduct business and do what I have to do on a computer. They slam one door, I find another. Meanwhile as each small engagement plays itself out, I become the wiser and better armed foe. Eventually Dimitri and company will lose. I will outlast them. Ho Chi Minh taught me that.

Later.............