Romance and Technology in Everyday Ramblings

This romantic looking building (across from the bus stop I wait at on my way home from the place where the coffee group is currently meeting) is for sale. Just in case you are interested.

I haven’t investigated its history yet but that would be a fun thing to do. If one had world enough and time.

My League group is talking about our New Community Board for Police Accountability next Tuesday.

Many people have put an enormous amount of work into this. It was something that we voted for. It combines 4 current groups and expands their authority giving them both subpoena and disciplinary authority. 18 months, a group of volunteers working on the design. There is a timeline for implementation.

Last week we had a Zoom panel discussion on it that included three of the volunteers and a guy from the Department of Justice talking about how this is going to work with the Consent Decree we have in place with the Federal Government. These are some committed people who care deeply about how the community and our police department interact. Even the DOJ guy lives here.

That is the problem with democracy. It is hard work.

I need to prepare a topic list to keep the discussion lively and snacks and moving the camera to keep everyone visible to everyone else. I am bringing an extra camera this time, which I hope will make the process easier.

I upgraded my laptop to Sonoma this week without knowing that the new upgrade doesn’t support my expensive Rode microphone. Much stress ensued for a while there as I was trying to figure out what to do before class.

The answer? Give up, go back to using the built-in mic and wait for the next patch.

There is never a dull moment when it comes to technology these days is there. Mrs. Sherlock is organizing three separate memorial services at church, and she is finding it frustrating because most of the folks she is interacting with are older and each of them is on a different spot on the technology continuum. Some people only use email, some only text, some only manage voice calls, and they all have their preferences. Mrs. Sherlock is a texter. She uses emojis and a kind of shorthand. It is like a particular language that one learns over time.

I was thinking about this as it relates to my old guy’s group. This group would not work if one were not comfortable with email and Skype and Zoom and the occasional text. There is much emailing. Forwarding of things. That is kind of a prerequisite for being in the group.

One of the guys, who is Jewish, forwarded us a touching 18-page letter he sent to his 3 adult children about the war between Israel and Hamas a few days back. Before that he forwarded us a Christmas (his wife is not Jewish) video he made back in 1987 when his children were small, and they were staying at a place in the woods. We get jokes, poems, commentary, and announcements all via email.

I have two beloved friends that don’t ever email. I feel sad because they miss out on things, but it is their choice. One of them texts but the other doesn’t. I wonder though if these upgrades and new ways of communicating are going to plain become too much for me someday.

It sure felt like that when I spent a half hour trying to figure out how to access my apps after the upgrade. That was before finding out the microphone wasn’t compatible.

I was listening this morning to an author who has a new book out about women in the CIA and the skill set they were looking for when they finally started recruiting women were in people who had a highly developed propensity for figuring stuff out.

Calmly figuring stuff out. That is the part I am not good at. I can eventually figure stuff out, like with the potential hacker scam last week. (… and currently, for instance, Carlo lying on my wireless mouse and the screen acting wonky.) But I am usually not calm.

I guess it is all just the way of things here in the modern world of the future.

Last updated October 21, 2023