I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic (Electronic) Blues Again

With apologies to Janis and Big Brother of course. A ‘60’s reference which I am afraid many who follow this blog will not understand. Oh well… as it has been said, "if you remember the 60’s, then you weren’t there.” Or you were rather young with a good memory, as I was.

The electronic blues. This will be the last blog entry written on a magnificent computer that Justin and I (mostly Justin) built a few years ago. It has served me well, but for about 2 months now I’ve been getting the periodic Blue Screen of Death (L’Ecran Bleu de Mort for those living in officially bilingual countries) with a cryptic “Error (insert hexadecimal number here) on DRAM Channel (insert another hexadecimal number here)”. Meaning the CPU and the RAM are having difficulties communicating. Maybe it was something I said. Or it said. Or maybe I need a breath mint. Who knows?

Also, a few years ago I thought it would be nearly impossible to fill a 500 Gigabyte hard drive. Well, I only have 2% of that capacity left right now. Anymore, I’m dealing in terabytes. That’s 1,000 gigabytes. My new machine has that much hard drive space. When I rebuild this machine (yes, I already have a new motherboard to install), it will have either 2 or 4 terabytes of hard drive storage. I’ve learned over the years that some computers are like Jeeps – you can rebuild them over and over and they just keep cranking away. So it is with “The Machine”, as it was christened on its maiden boot up.

What takes up 500 gigs of storage? Only my life for the last four years. Well, at least the edited, abridged version of it. Music, writings, correspondence, pictures, videos… lots of stuff there.

And the bridge in this ballad of electronic blues is my cell phone. I am unabashedly loyal to electronic gadgets that actually work for me. This phone, which I have carried for 2-1/2 years, replaced a Motorola Star Tac that I carried for nearly 7 years. Yeah, a flip phone that had a monochrome green screen, no web browser, no camera, a rudimentary phonebook, and your choice of ringtones were loud, soft, or vibrate. But it worked, and in a lot of places, it worked better than the fancier phones around me. But it was phased out, leaving me no choice but to replace it.

So I have this phone with service from Qwest (yes, my former employer). Then Qwest sells a portion of its wireless network (my portion included, of course) to Sprint. Then Qwest sells their remaining wireless network to Verizon. Once again, my service is being phased out. “End of product lifecycle” is the correct term for all you business/marketing folks out there. And I get a letter telling me that I can’t upgrade my service, and when all obligations to Sprint have been met, that service will no longer be supported. A nice way to say “your time’s about up, buddy.” So I have to switch to Verizon or AT&T or Sprint or Joe Schmoe’s Cellular. Sheesh.

Tomorrow I switch to Verizon. My number will not change. My phone will and it’s practically a computer itself. It’ll take some getting used to, but we’ll muddle through somehow.

An aside and a bit of a consolation – TLMK has to get a personal cell phone now as well. No more personal calls on agency phones except in emergencies is now the rule. Seeing as how she made the rule, it would be disingenuous for her to break it. A pre-paid “burn” phone for her personal use now, albeit a rather sophisticated one. Welcome to 2009.

Tempis may fugit, but it’s got nothin’ on technology.