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Reset Forty-One, Day Ten
Jun. 3rd, 2022 04:24 amIt was quite a surprise Thursday afternoon when I went to open a web page and a popup appeared saying I had no Internet. Sure enough, the little icon in the tray had reverted to its offline form. I checked my phone, which serves as an Internet hotspot, and the screen was blank. The battery had been at 97% just a couple of hours earlier, so I thought something had gone seriously wrong with the battery. I thought this was confirmed when I plugged it in to charge and nothing happened.
Well, crap. The battery was only a bit over a year old. I went next door to borrow a phone to call a niece or nephew to see if they could pick up anew battery for me. The calls went to voice mail. I left messages, but without much hope for a speedy resolution to the problem. Then the neighbor whose phone I borrowed suggested simply taking the battery out and putting it back in. I tried this, and when I plugged it in the little charging icon appeared, and within seconds had risen to show a charge of 74%. So it was the phone, not the battery. It had somehow lost track of the battery and gone dead.
I'm not sufficiently conversant with the technology to know how many times I might be able to pull that trick of taking the battery out and putting it back, but it makes me a bit gun shy. I think maybe I should replace the phone. It's about three and half years old, which in human years is apparently about a century, so maybe it's time. I suppose I'll just go back to the T-Mobile store to get a new one, probably another cheap Samsung, since I don't need any more bells and whistles than this one's got (I'd actually prefer fewer, but there seems to be a minimum.) I did take a look at Samsung's online store, and they appear to be having a drastic sale, but a more expensive phone would probably demand a higher insurance payment (I have Klutz Insurance, at seven bucks a month, in case I drop the damned thing with my aging butter fingers or somehow cause it to explode by pushing the wrong virtual button.)
It's another bother I didn't need, but reality doesn't give a rat's ass about what I do or do not need. Were I a few years younger I'd likely be all excited about getting a piece of new tech, and I'd be poring over web sites and comparison shopping, but such things make my brain glaze over. It's one of the burdens of having been born the year before the baby boom even started. We are the Silent but Deadly Generation, and get your fancy gadgets off our lawn! I'm just young enough to know that the cloud I'm yelling at is virtual, but not young enough to easily understand it. I grew up with a radio, and it had tubes in it that had to warm up before it could function. I think my brain has tubes, too, and mine are wearing out, and nobody makes them anymore. Listen to that buzzing! I hope they don't overheat and set my coffin on fire.
But even though I was born when Hitler was still alive, I'm not entirely stuck in the past. I'm quite fond of Gen-X and Millennial music, and watching their videos on YouTube is one of my main motivations for at least trying to keep up with technology. Here is something by a young Hungarian pianist named Peter Bence (pronounced something like ben-tze) who uses a looping piano that allows him to layer parts so that it sounds like a whole band. The song is called "Blinding Lights" and is by a 32-year-old (young enough to be my grandson!) Canadian singer-songwriter-producer who goes by the name The Weeknd. I'll post his original version of the song too. I have to say I really love the music a lot of the kids are making. They are quite welcome on my lawn.
(Readers on LiveJournal will have to wait, as the site is down for maintenance- unless it is gone.)
Well, crap. The battery was only a bit over a year old. I went next door to borrow a phone to call a niece or nephew to see if they could pick up anew battery for me. The calls went to voice mail. I left messages, but without much hope for a speedy resolution to the problem. Then the neighbor whose phone I borrowed suggested simply taking the battery out and putting it back in. I tried this, and when I plugged it in the little charging icon appeared, and within seconds had risen to show a charge of 74%. So it was the phone, not the battery. It had somehow lost track of the battery and gone dead.
I'm not sufficiently conversant with the technology to know how many times I might be able to pull that trick of taking the battery out and putting it back, but it makes me a bit gun shy. I think maybe I should replace the phone. It's about three and half years old, which in human years is apparently about a century, so maybe it's time. I suppose I'll just go back to the T-Mobile store to get a new one, probably another cheap Samsung, since I don't need any more bells and whistles than this one's got (I'd actually prefer fewer, but there seems to be a minimum.) I did take a look at Samsung's online store, and they appear to be having a drastic sale, but a more expensive phone would probably demand a higher insurance payment (I have Klutz Insurance, at seven bucks a month, in case I drop the damned thing with my aging butter fingers or somehow cause it to explode by pushing the wrong virtual button.)
It's another bother I didn't need, but reality doesn't give a rat's ass about what I do or do not need. Were I a few years younger I'd likely be all excited about getting a piece of new tech, and I'd be poring over web sites and comparison shopping, but such things make my brain glaze over. It's one of the burdens of having been born the year before the baby boom even started. We are the Silent but Deadly Generation, and get your fancy gadgets off our lawn! I'm just young enough to know that the cloud I'm yelling at is virtual, but not young enough to easily understand it. I grew up with a radio, and it had tubes in it that had to warm up before it could function. I think my brain has tubes, too, and mine are wearing out, and nobody makes them anymore. Listen to that buzzing! I hope they don't overheat and set my coffin on fire.
But even though I was born when Hitler was still alive, I'm not entirely stuck in the past. I'm quite fond of Gen-X and Millennial music, and watching their videos on YouTube is one of my main motivations for at least trying to keep up with technology. Here is something by a young Hungarian pianist named Peter Bence (pronounced something like ben-tze) who uses a looping piano that allows him to layer parts so that it sounds like a whole band. The song is called "Blinding Lights" and is by a 32-year-old (young enough to be my grandson!) Canadian singer-songwriter-producer who goes by the name The Weeknd. I'll post his original version of the song too. I have to say I really love the music a lot of the kids are making. They are quite welcome on my lawn.
(Readers on LiveJournal will have to wait, as the site is down for maintenance- unless it is gone.)
