There’s nothing like opening the mail during the month of a big, round birthday and finding out you have an amazing offer from AARP to join for only $16 a year and you can get a Bluetooth speaker for free! It’s like I don’t need any other present! (The truth is a Bluetooth speaker might be kind of cool. I don’t know. What would I need it for? The ad didn’t suggest why I would want it, only that I would want it.)
So far 2019 has already been a year of growth and new learning opportunities. I thought long and hard on how to express that in a positive statement, because half the battle is not conceding before you begin. And when it comes to technology and change, it’s best not to let it be known that you are nervous.
As an early birthday present we decided to replace my aging laptop. (We are practical folk.) We wandered around the laptop zone at BestBuy and looked at features and listened to the smart guy and finally made our choice. A few of the defining features that sold us: a huge screen (see “big, round birthday” above); a DVD player (that is not called that anymore, FYI- it’s an Optical Reader, now); and the combo keyboard/touchscreen technology (which we both saw could reduce ergonomic strain from reduced mouse use). There are some features I had no idea existed outside of a James Bond movie– like a voice dictation option for documents and a thumbprint security reader—and I’m sure there are a thousand other things I will either discover or continue to never know exist.
One of the factors that led to replacing the old laptop now is that I have a class coming up at the JC on Microsoft Word, and we wanted to make sure I had a recent edition of the software. I use Word—I’m typing up my column on it now, and I write plenty of other stuff—but I know that I’m using a ridiculously small percentage of the capabilities. Someone will show me something new and I’ll go, “OOOOH!” I can’t wait to spend a lot of time going, “OOOOH!” and then being able to use all those cool new things.
My husband and I are smack in the middle of the technology minefield. Our kids are fearless and light years ahead of us, and our parents are fearful and light years behind us. We reach out to the teens to help us learn to navigate the features of our phones, and then we go help our parents set up Wi-Fi or a Netflix account. In some cases the generations skip us altogether—my niece set up my dad’s new computer and email account so he could deal with official stuff related to the fire, and our daughter is on retainer to go clear out Matt’s dad’s email. (Each time she says, “Look, Grandpa, all you have to do is…” and he replies, “No, I’d rather you do it. I might do something wrong!”)
We wanted to get Matt’s dad a streaming device so he could watch movies on Netflix, so we got one for ourselves to practice on, first. It worked great—we’ve already gone through two seasons of a show on Amazon and a few movies on Netflix, ourselves—and Matt successfully installed Dad’s.
Then ours started shorting out. The home screen would come up, and then it would restart and a “no signal” screen would come up. We troubleshoot-ed a few things, then contacted a tech person at Amazon for more help. These poor saints! She’d ask something she considered perfectly simple, like, “Is the auxiliary conductor connected?” and I’d be lost after “the.” (Thankfully, Matt knew what she was saying, or we’d still be on the phone.) The upshot was that we are sending the device to them to test, and either repair or replace…which means it wasn’t user error! (Whew!)
I guess we can use the waiting time to get to know the new computer…like what does this button do? And what happens if I—hey, kids, I need a little help here!
Juliana LeRoy wears many hats, including wife, mother, paraeducator and writer. She can be spotted around Windsor gathering material, or reached at ml****@so***.net.
