I have decided to quit.
I am tired of progress.
This gift is another very special thing that must be learned.
And I am tired of learning.
The school room was the place for that along with a younger more receptive mind. And if you learned something well and once, it was good for a lifetime. Well mostly.
When I was 17 I had a job as a gopher (go-fer this and go-fer that) and they told me if I learned to clean and operate an Ozalid machine, I would have some invaluable knowledge for life. Noone I know today has ever heard of an Ozalid machine, have you?
Nowadays, however, if you learn a thing and think you have it stored and always ready to draw upon “you have another think coming.” Nope. If you learn one part of a computer it may be useless in a matter of hours.
Here I am with a shiny new computer I am calling Ogar (short for Ogre) that was given to me for Christmas with great love by my whole family. I am truly grateful since the old object of their affection, which I had partially learned after 5 years of struggling was showing signs of ultimate collapse.
Groan. How can I disparage such a thoughtful wonderful gift?
Well, the process of transferring all the old stuff to the new Ogar may sound easy but HA! Not so. The process is more like a pulling a tooth. You mindlessly explore with the tongue for a ghostly apparition of what might still be there, but in the end all the exploration yields only a gaping empty space.
My sweet family saw this sleek new marvel would not only replace the 5 year old relic, but it would also keep me busy whilst waiting for a Covid-19 vaccine. In addition to proving how warm hearted my family is, there is also an element of logic there.
Ogar is definitely a time guzzler.
And better Ogar than Covid right?
Ogar is certainly keeping me busy too, creating a roadmap of wrinkles upon my brow. Thankfully I call upon my son to guide me through all the myriad options chasing an insane cursor through a maze of intricate maneuvers over an increasingly insane canvas. And only my son really knows where the mercurial sensor is going or why.
“You see that thing that looks like a cog?” he asks in his effort to guide me through all the symbols.
A cog?
How do I know what a cog looks like?
Where on this page of icons, symbols and totems is there a cog?
“Settings?” “Oh, you mean SETTINGS!”
I am definitely retiring from Progress.
Virginia Views 
You are smart Dor.
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What a gift you have – writing about extreme frustration in a jocular manner! You have my sincere sympathy. Getting a new computer to do a few things takes an inordinate amount of brain power. Shouldn’t setting one up get easier, not harder? I hope this phase passes quickly and you will soon feel confident of your abilities. Good luck!
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Retire from progress if you must Dor, but please don’t retire from blogging.
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Oh Dora this is hilarious, no not really!! because I can relate to this as my other half wants to buy me a new computer,the old one is older than yours . I keep putting him off because I dread having to down load everything from the old one to the new one You have no idea how much I have from saving everything to do with my study of Linear B and their translations I’ll never remember what I need to keep and what not to keep.Good luck with the transfer to your new computer Dora and stay safe!!
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I am right there with you. I have a cell phone with a terminal illness. I am nursing and coaxing it along because a change requires work. Learning, transferring and just plain old figuring out how to quickly do something.
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I hear ya, Dor. But kudos for attempting the learning curve! Lots of naps required, of course. 😉
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As the saying goes, I feel your pain. Adobe’s no longer supporting flash. I don’t fully understand what that means, but I do understand that a couple of websites I’ve gotten used to and depend on have had to change things around. A lot. They’ve tried to be good, and provide plenty of guidance, but somehow the questions I want answers to never are in the manual. Ah, well. Life is change, or something!
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Good luck! I hate having to break in a new computer too. Fortunately, I have kind Husband to sort it out for me. And he is my in-house tech department. It is good you have your son to guide you. What would we do without our computers? And families to give us new challenges?
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I’m with you – progress is weird.
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Good luck! My son helps me with most of my computer questions, too. Just tonight, I tried to create a draft for tomorrow’s blog post, only to get the message: “updating failed”. After researching all the options, which were all GREEK to me, I tried the simplest solution: clearing the cache on my computer. Thankfully, that worked! If it had been more complicated than that, I would have been LOST.
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I have forgotten how to do that! You are ahead of the game Dianna.
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Yes, especially when I perceive it is going backward. 🙂
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How right you are and thanks for the good wishes on breaking in my new computer.
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Hmmm. Things get more and more perplexing. I have never heard of Flash. I admire your adventuresome spirit in trying new “outside” things!
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Yes! The learning challenges actually bring on surprise naps. A message is there I think, or maybe it is subliminal. 🙂
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I love it that you have a terminal cell phone.
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Oooooh, I think you may have to keep the old computer just to store the Linear B studies. My son says I should just keep the old computer in the closet in case I want to charge it up again and look for certain things.
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How I do love you Judith for always saying just the right thing to make me smile. Thankyou.
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Thanks for that opening comment Anne! We have come a long way since typewriters huh?
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🙂 How sweet you are!
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🙂
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Yes and no. I don’t remember typewriters causing anguish!
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Good Idea of yours Dora…….to keep the old computer just to store Linear B documents on. Why didn’t I think of that. Thanks !! New computer for me now then.
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I think it went on life support this morning.
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Oh Dor. I feel your pain. We also got a new computer for Christmas since our 8-year-old one was showing signs of biting the dust. The new one has too much of a new learning curve for me and is driving me crazy (as if pandemic life isn’t crazy enough!), sucking up WAY too much of my time, and is making me frustrated. Hubby is better at figuring it out than me, but it’s because I don’t have the patience he has. Dare I say it?? I hope both you and I make some “progress.”
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Let us chant together Cindy – “We can do this. We can do this.”
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Good luck with the new one Rita!
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No going back I guess – unless it is to pencil and paper?
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Ha! I d get a lot f subliminal messages to doze off! 🙂
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Going back to pencil and paper wouldn’t work for me. I can’t read my own handwriting.
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Hahahaha!
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