You’re as Young as Your PC

My computer has reached middle age.

I have a laptop computer issued to my from my employer, which is really a way to eliminate any possible excuse I have for not being able to go to work. No matter how sick I might be, no matter that I might have the next pandemic gestating in my lungs, I can still get on through the internet and work. I blame Bill Gates, but that's by default.

A programmer's computer is like a mechanic's truck, it gets no maintenance and little in the way of attention, but it does get the damage so that I may spare such burdens to others. When you create a program from scratch, there are bound to be errors, omissions, "memory leaks" and typos. These are minimized by trying to make the system crash on your own PC before they're released into the world.

Thus the programmer's PC is the ground-zero for all the bad programming and lazy short cuts that blow up and create waves of electronic shrapnel. A programmer's PC doesn't last as long as most.

Apparently, only programmers know this axiom. The infrastructure people have a list of purchase dates and aging graphs that make an actuary table look like a child's crayon wanderings. All machines will be replaced IN ORDER and ONLY when their number has come up on the now-your-computer-is-dead list.

In the meantime, my laptop can no longer run as fast as it once could, it can't process as fast, and it's memory is cluttered with useless bits of trivia from so long ago, there is no way to know where the data originated.

It's battered, weathered, and the case has more creases and dings and scratches than ever before, yet according to the hallowed halls of administration, it's nowhere near early enough to retire. It's starting to sound a wee bit familiar.

But, as cluncky and slow as it may be, and as long as it takes to get going in the mornings, there are some things I will say in its defense. There are applications on there that took literally days to load, and even if I reloaded them on a new PC, they wouldn't have the history where I can simply select a project I'd worked on four years ago from the list of experience. It still runs the newest programs and the latest operating systems, and if it can't quite handle the newest version of Windows, well, from what I've seen, neither can I.

The dings and dents and scratches, yes give it character, but more importantly they identify the machine as mine more than any label could. Every mar on its surface was hard-won and placed there by me over the years. There are scratches that are the souvenirs and memorabilia of many business trips, there are dings and dents from a working vacation I took to Dallas when my step-father got a heart transplant.

The screen is as crisp and unblemished as the day I got it, though there are some spots that I cannot seem to clean off no matter how hard I try. One of the spots looks like a comma and I have incorrectly corrected may a grammatical error when a word landed on that spot.

It would be nice to have the big monitor, the dual processor, the memory so big and glorious that even the computer can't tell how much it has, but I'm really not ready to give up this one yet.

It may be middle aged, but so am I, and I still work every day.

Of course, there is the matter of the clogged processes, but I blame Bill Gates and everything falls into place from there.

 

Saw this - had to share

Just ask me

I bought a movie today, Monty Python's
Life of Brian. It was on the 5.50 rack, it is nearly 30 years old (1979). Still the movie does have an R rating, so the register at the grocery store where I bought it automatically prompted the cashier: "Is customer over 17?"

When I buy wine or beer, which does not happen too often, but once in a while, the message comes up again, this time asking about being older than 21. IN either case, the cashier usually does what the woman behind the counter today did. She reached over with a huff and smacked the "yes" button as though it should be obvious even to the machine that I was well over 17.

In any age restricted purchase or admission – again not often, but there are some R movies I'll see at the theatre and I have a fondness for a good White Zinfandel – I am passed through unasked to prove that I am an adult.

By the time I was 16, I had already surpassed most people in height and weight both. I had a full bushy beard I started cultivating at 14, and I just looked older than 18, which was the legal drinking age at that time. When my then best friend discovered that most people mistook me for much older, we began the Buying of the Beer. Each and every time I walked to the counter and placed a 6, 12 or 24 pack of beer down and pulled out the wallet, I sweated and feared I was going to be carded. I never was.

These days, I sweat and fear that I WON'T be carded. Looking a lot older than my physical age was one time a goal, now it's … disturbing. There is a hassle to being carded, pulling out the driver's license, going through the rigmarole, but it would be nice if maybe it just wasn't quite so obvious that my teenage years are so far behind me even a cash register should be able to tell.

I don't qualify for the discount meals at Denny's yet, I've thought about going in there and ordering senior special just so someone would card me, but there is a two part issue with that: 1. I'm afraid that I wouldn't be carded there either and 2. Denny's food.

Maybe I should try it the other way around. I think the next time I go to see a movie, I'll claim I'm under 12 to get that children's discount. I can't imagine it would work, but imagine the ego-shot if I could pass it just once.

Of course, I'd have to try it at a G or PG movie.

 

 

CD and Tea

There are certain undeniable, physical signs that I am reaching a stage of “heightened maturity”. The hair appearing in the ears, the effect of gravity on certain areas of the body, a quest to get healthy and the lack of energy to go with it.



But there are other, less distinguishable characterizations too. For example, I have …



OH, this is so hard to say …



I have been –



Drinking … tea.



There, I said it, and I feel better now for having confessed.



The brew I’d always referred to as “strained lawn clippings” is starting to taste good to me now, and I’m not just saying that because it’s free at work either. Earl Grey and Vanilla Chi especially are finding their way into a mouth once dedicated to coffee and diet soda.

I still can’t bring myself to drink it in front of too many people, so I drop the string into the cup and pretend it’s week coffee.

I have my pride.

On another note, I just bought an album by one of my favorite groups. I paid $5.00 for it in a discount bin under the title “olden goldies”. That was a little embarrassing, but on the other hand, it was only 5.00 and I already had all the songs memorized.

Finally, the last indication of my rapidly approaching geezerhood is that I just said I bought an ALBUM. It was on CD, of course, but it’s still an album. The language hasn’t changed.

Bob Hope once said that he had an acceptance speech written in case he ever won an Oscar. He said he wasn’t sure how old the speech was, but it was written in Latin. It’s up to us older guys to keep the ancient languages alive, so in that vein, let me just say - “TUBULAR!”

Drop back

“Having a stiff one” used to mean going to a bar and having a scotch – neat. (Yes, I realize there are other connotations of that phrase, but it’s not that kind of BLOG.) These days, it refers to one or another knee. Or my shoulder. Or my lower back.

Today is a good example. My lower back is stiff and sore: it’s a reaction to being in sharp pain all day yesterday. Before you ask, no, I didn’t lift anything, nor did I try to crawl around on monkey bars or swing on a swing set. There’s no point in going through all that if you can accomplish the same injury by sitting quietly. That’s efficiency!

I went to visit friends – that’s all I did.

It was a wonderful visit, though a bit rushed. The food was incredible, the conversation was witty and fun, the fellowship was amazing, the dining room chairs were torturous. Straight back wooden affairs, they were cute and quaint early-American killers.

After dinner, we went out on the patio with glasses of wine to chat. Beautiful patio, pool, two friendly dogs chasing each other across the yard. And a metal, straight-backed chair.

It used to be that such things might cause a minor momentary stiffness, something that would work its way out as I got up and moved a little. This time it caused a major pain that woke my wife whenever I rolled over in bed and manfully whimpered throughout the night. I might have slept better had I had one of those aforementioned stiff scotches.

I injured my lower back fifteen years ago; I had surgery and all the rest. It seemed like a wise move at the time, but now I realize it was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Well, maybe in the top ten, anyway. There’s some impressive competition for the number one spot on that list.

This is why wisdom comes with age. The problem is that by the time you receive wisdom, it’s too late to use it.

Up All Night

When you’re nine or ten, staying up all night is an adventure. The silence of the house, trying to read lips on a small black and white television flickering shadows on the wall behind you as rubber monsters crush Tokyo yet once again, the thrill of being awake through the “witching hour”, even when you didn’t know when that hour was.

When you’re in your late teens and early twenties, staying up all night is a matter of course. Whether you’re cramming for the exam, dancing the night away or finding some other way to party, the night time is simply the better part of the day. Sleeping can be done in fits the next day or the day after that, as long as you can grab an hour or two here and there, no big deal.

When you’re living in the middle ages, staying up all night is a particularly severe form of punishment. This is what happens to bad little boys who still eat the spicy foods they could easily handle twenty years ago when they could sleep the entire night without having to make a midnight trip. Heartburn is a self-inflicted inducement to show up at work with bloodshot eyes and an almost vampiric need for coffee.

The rubber monsters on the old black and white are now replaced by selections on cable TV. No longer content with family fair and 1950’s science fiction, the late night viewing is aimed much more for the adults who can’t stay up to watch in the first place. In a strange continuity, the rubber has turned to silicone, but there are amazing similarities.

My last night of torture was the direct result of a meal of bacon, ham and eggs much too close before bed. I understand that there are those vegetarians who will say that I got what I deserved from such unhealthy fare, I’ll only nod and acquiesce the point. I still had a small bon fire in the bottom of my throat the next day at work, but I was so wiped out from my heart-burn induced insomnia that even the burning couldn’t keep me awake at my computer. I have no idea what I typed, what code I wrote, or what I may have said while on the phone, but I was still employed the next day, so I must have done alright on autopilot.

Pouring coffee down my throat probably didn’t help the indigestion, but the artificial consciousness made the burn worth the effort.

When I got home, I went to bed and slept soundly and deeply.

Except for a little midnight trip, anyway……