Technology Blues

(Sung to a sad blues beat)

I need somebody

To write my song

It’s gotta have meaning

But not too long

It’s about technology

That’s done me wrong

“Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.”
  - Ogden Nash

We’re surrounded by technology, a lot of which we ignore or take for granted.  We have desk top, lap top and tablet computers.  We have cell phones, smart phones and land line phones.  Every appliance has technology from thermostats to timers.  We have televisions, smart televisions and high definition televisions. We have home security systems and in-home cameras.  We have timed lights and motion activated lights.  And let’s not even get started about automobiles and self-driving vehicles.  We are surrounded.  And we expect that all of these devices will give us little or no trouble.  But what if they do . . . seemingly all at once?

“If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticize it.”
  - Pierre Gallois

It all started a while ago when I got a back-up drive for my lap top computer, the computer that’s writing this story.  That drive never seemed to work properly so I went out a week ago, and bought a new one.  This one was supposed to be top of the line.  But it too didn’t seem to want to back up my data as it was supposed to do. It also seemed to slow down my computer to an unacceptable speed taking, for example, 4 minutes to load Microsoft Outlook. I returned the back-up drive. I didn’t need two that didn’t work properly.  Thinking that problem may reside in my computer, I took it in to a technician who kept it for a couple of days and ran a lot of diagnostics.  He said he didn’t detect any problems.  So I brought it home and reconnected it to all its external connection including a computer monitor that I use for my tired old eyes. When I turned on the monitor, the picture was so unstable I could not read it or do anything.  Since I had it set-up that I could only see the picture on the monitor when it was connected, I could do nothing to fix the problem.  An hour or two searching web sites for the monitor, I finally found a help line that would assist me.  The very nice lady on the other end of the chat took charge of my computer, unstable monitor and all, and adjusted things so that I could finally see clearly. One problem apparently solved.

The same day that the monitor problem was solved, we started to hear continuous beeping noises from our home security system key pad. We found that we could silence the beeping by keying in the alarm code.  But the beeping kept coming back every few hours including in the middle of the night.  Now I wear hearing aids (which are working okay) which I take out when I sleep.  So in this blissful state only my wife can hear the beeping and has to get up and attack the key pad. This went on all weekend.  I called the company that installed it some years ago.  They have someone coming to look at it on Thursday.  The key pad hasn’t beeped since Sunday night.

On Saturday, we started to get error messages on our land-line phone.  The messages said that there was no line connection.  After a while, I noticed that the condition came and went as it did throughout Sunday.  I called the phone provider, on my cell phone, and made an appointment for a tech to come on Wednesday.  The condition has not shown up again since Sunday afternoon.

The only thing I seem to be able to rely on these days is my 30 year old turntable and stereo system.

It’s now Tuesday.  I’m waiting for the fourth boot to drop.

“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”
  - Douglas Adams