Wired for…everything but sound

My husband bought me a new laptop about a week ago; he’s hoping it’ll streamline my work so he can see me more. (A possible sign of mental illness, if you ask me.)

I’ve resisted this move for some time now, thinking I didn’t need one more thing to carry. At least not after injuring my back last year. This time he was relentless; I acquiesced with the understanding that I can take it fishing. That’s a story for another day.

As I was getting acquainted with my new sidekick, a friend said she’d also been resisting buying a laptop.

“I’m waiting for the whole world to go wireless,” she said.

“Huh,” I thought. What a world that be. But I looked around my desk and thought, ‘Hey…one power cord and Ethernet cable aren’t so bad.’

The next morning, I lost a granola bar in my purse (earmarked for Hamilton Supervisor Walt Jaquay…another story yet), and started pulling stuff out of that and my briefcase.

First there is the USC-The Business College lanyard with my cell phone attached. My daughter’s brilliant idea to help me find it in a hurry (except when I drop the lanyard into the bag after the phone). The phone, a Christmas gift, I have not been able to find a car charger for, by the way. So I must carry its AC adapter to occasionally take advantage of an outlet. For vehicle and traffic law compliance, I also have the hands-free device.

Then there is my digital recorder. A USB cable hooks it to my computer to upload my recordings of meetings. It is accompanied by an AC adapter and telephone adapter to record interviews.

The digital camera comes with a bevy of cords I have yet to figure out. It doesn’t much matter now, as the new computer has a slot for the digital camera card, eliminating a step.

As a backup, I also have a handheld microcassette recorder.

The recorders, camera and my car keys all have straps on them, and between those and the other wires, it is not unusual for me to tug on something only to have a spray of pens come flying out at me. This is as dangerous as it is embarrassing.

I hesitate to mention the personal digital assistant the kids got me for…was it Mother’s Day?...last year.

Of course, none of this technology would be worth its weight in scrap metal (or plastic or alloy) without a full complement of batteries on which to power it. Gott carry backups of those for everything from button batteries to power my lighted pens that allow me to take notes in the dark to AAA and AA cells for those other devices.

Other backup media include flash drives, digital camera cards, CD-ROMs, microcassettes and the archaic three-and-a-half-inch floppies.

I think about the increasing ease of having all my work in one place instead of three or four I had to use to do all the tasks I had to do. Of course, if anything happens to my little black box, ALL my work is gone, not just a fraction of it. I make a mental note to backup all my work to a jump drive (which comes with a handy wrist strap).

But back to those pens that get caught in all the straps, cords and cables. I still prefer to reach first for one of those with which to pen my columns and editorials…with a little help from a spiral notebook.

My friend is right. The simplest things are reliable and have no strings attached.

Reprinted courtesy of Eagle Newspapers, Syracuse, New York.