We caved and bought a new PC this week. The constant crashing was driving me insane and that fact that our friend Russell who helps us out as our fantastic IT support from Texas, tried everything he could think of to fix it and even after wiping the entire hard drive and reinstalling, it was STILL crashing, it definitely seemed time for a new machine. It’s very space-agey, matte black with a neon-green light line down the front of the face. I’ve reinstalled all my programs and can now be expected to post regularly.
Hahahahaha!
Well, semi-regularly. It’s such a relief to sit down to work on something and not have to save every two seconds, knowing that even doing so isn’t going to prevent a crash and losing an entire post that I’ve put a lot of time and effort into writing, or hours worth of work on a document or any of the AWC stuff that I’m in charge of. Not to mention, just reading the news or blogs, or chatting with my family or listening to music on Spotify or anything. It’s amazing how dependent on technology we’ve gotten. Last week, Facebook and Instagram were down for hours and part of me was relieved and did other things, but part of me was obsessing in the back of my head (especially about Instagram) about when they’d be back up. GAH.
When I’m on vacation, it’s much easier to detach from social media and online life. But daily routines and checking email are so ingrained now that it’s hard to imagine life before the Internet. I had to laugh the other day, when we watched an interview with Greta Thunberg on Skavlan, where he asked another, much older, guest who followed her on, how he was able to get information back in the day. He sort of dismissed Greta’s ability, like everyone’s nowadays, to use the Internet for instant access and answers. But I found it kind of ridiculous. It wasn’t THAT long ago that we still had encyclopedias in the house, and people DO still use libraries for research as far as I’m aware. Not everyone has easy Internet access, and even those who do might not want to spend ALL their time online.
But the siren call of the tablet or phone is really hard to resist. I find myself reading less, because I’m playing stupid iPad games that provide little rewards for checking in each day. I can easily lose an entire hour to scrolling through my Instagram feed. Or watching an episode of the current TV series I’m immersed in. I’m not on Facebook that much, and I don’t post there very often, but I check it more than once a day. It’s a source of news and headlines and catching up with (some) friends and family. My own addiction to being online is disturbing but I haven’t yet brought myself to do anything about it (she says as she posts on her online blog from her new PC) and I don’t know that I’d be very good at doing something about it even if I tried. Times change and we change with them, like it or not.
I’ve managed to sell a ton of things from my mother-in-law’s apartment instead of just giving it all away to charity and I’m quite happy with the result. Most of the furniture went and lots of the other household items, too. I put up the 21-page (!) list of things for sale, at SUPER cheap prices, on the AWC Facebook group page and the sell/buy site at work. I was surprised that there were very few items that were “fought over”… there were only 2 large sideboards that more than one person wanted, but everything worked out really well and we made a tidy little pile of money for my mother-in-law, only for her to turn around and tell us to divide it between Anders and his sister. I’m still hoping to sell a few more things before our self-imposed Friday deadline. The apartment is on the market and there have been two showing, but I haven’t heard that there’s been an offer yet. I hope it sells quickly so we can be done with the whole giant project.
We’ve talked to Karin a couple of times and she’s having a ball in Costa Rica. She made a point of telling me about some woman she met, also from Scandinavia, who went there for vacation three years ago, had a job land in her lap and stayed. *Don’t get any ideas, kid!” I told her. After just 2 weeks, she’s looking very tan. They are still in Costa Rica for another week and a half before starting their next leg.
Look at that! Half an hour, a whole post and no blue screen of death! Praise be!