Technology...It's Great When It Works!

Ah, computers. I don't have any idea what I would do without one. How did people survive before they were invented? I'll never know. I don't know a lot about technology, but I do know this: it's great when it does what it's supposed to do. My first computer was a hand-me-down from Grandma Iseminger. She passed on into a place where computers don't really matter, so I, a recent college entrant, inherited her computer. It was great to have my own!! And it worked...for a couple of years. It had had a good run, but wasn't about to last very much longer. It was time to replace it.

I bought my very own computer in 2004. It was a refurbished Dell Inspiron 600m laptop. It weighed only 5 lbs. and I carried it everywhere in my backpack made especially for that purpose. I was a rockin' college student...with a wireless network card, I could surf the 'net anywhere wireless was available (in a college town, that meant practically everywhere). That refurbished beauty lasted me for 4 years...until someone stepped on it, cracking the motherboard and damaging the screen. Ug.

2007. I'm married now, and we are computer shopping together. We need a computer that works efficiently. We're looking ahead to seminary and grad school and think that two computers might be better than one. We had the hook-up with a local electric company who was getting rid of their old laptops. We scored two IBM ThinkPads (paying only a fraction of what they would have cost). These both worked for about 1 year. True, Jeremy's still can't download the right driver to hook up to our printer, but mine worked really well until one day that it wouldn't anymore.

2008.We're not sure exactly what happened, but all of a sudden my computer just stopped working...started shutting down randomly, freezing, and generally not letting us do ANYTHING. Ok, at this point we're all settled in our new place. Online classes would be starting in a week and a half and my computer isn't working...we've tried just about everything we can think of and realize that its time to sink some money into a brand new computer. Back to my old favorite company, we ordered a Dell Inspiron 1525 (mainly because they were having a great back-to-school sale). Today we got it in the mail!!!! It is a beautiful computer. I am so happy to finally have a computer that works efficiently (or at all). And you know what's funny? We paid about 1/2 the cost of the first Dell laptop I bought all those years ago. Technology has certainly come a long way.

Anyway, I don't want you to get the idea that I didn't like each of my computers when I had them. I did--and was very thankful for each. The only problem is that when a computer stops working, its completely worthless (kind of like our t.v.s will be if we don't get those digital converter boxes by February 2009). Every time a computer of mine stops working, I wonder how I could have let myself become so dependent on technology--I feel completely lost without it. Recipes, reference materials, classes, e-mail, documents, picture storage, and so much more.

So what is the solution for my computer dependency? The only thing I can come up with is to have a reliable computer. All the time. Not much of a solution, huh? :)