I Ain't No Techie, But...
10/15/2011
In just another 34 days I will join the ranks of those living on a “fixed income.” To say I can hardly wait would be a huge understatement; so I won’t say anything to that effect, except for the feeling I get each morning as I wake up these days is very much like that which is felt as a rollercoaster crests the largest hill. I am ready for my last day, almost.
One of the things I have done to prepare for retirement is the purchase of a new laptop, a Dell something or other with Windows something or other and an Intel processor i3, whatever that means. As with the laptop contraption my company supplied to me, I have no idea what all the gadgets on it and programs are for or do. Dell no longer sends an operator’s manual, though I suppose I can access one on-line, if needed, though I probably wouldn’t read it anyway, and if I did read it I probably would not understand it. If you have ever read any of my Hell-of-a-Guy posts you know I could screw up a one-car funeral. As a kid I needed help with a Slinky and Silly Putty, and the thought of my hands holding a Rubik’s Cube still sends shivers up my spine.
There is a lot of my personal junk on my company laptop, and as most might be, I am a tad leery of turning it in with all my crap on it. In the little pamphlet that accompanied my new “Univac” is information about a gizmo that allows files from one laptop to be magically transferred from it to another. I bought one of these at Walmart (an experience worthy of its own post) for $19.95. To me the gizmo looks like a wire with a little black box in the middle and a couple plug doohickeys on the ends, but it came with a booklet that has pictures and simple (for some) instructions on its use. I think for a semi-intelligent being with a smidgen of technical ability this process might go smoothly. Note to self: I do not fit into that category.
Having thoroughly perused the directions, I hooked said gizmo up, meticulously following them. I pressed the appropriate buttons and clicked on what the screen indicated I was to click on, and exactly nothing happened. After re-reading them, and starting the process over a couple of times, lo and behold, shit started happening, but I am not sure what. One laptop had a view that said it was transferring files, while the other showed boxes with green lines slowly moving west to east. It was a miracle!
After about fifteen minutes the transfer was complete. I began looking for my files to see what transferred, and it appears everything I wanted to transfer is now on my new laptop. How cool it that?
I think I may change my name to Bill Gates!
And that is all I have to say about that…