Another Step into Technology

Connected

I confess. I will be 70 this summer. And one of the greatest things happened to me 13 years ago Christmas eve. I was involved in a ski accident which compressed three discs in my neck and knocked me into my right brain - literally. Witnesses to the accident said I was hit hard enough by a speeding skier to fly into the air and land on my head.

The resultant closed brain trauma CBT or shaken baby head injury turned off my left brain control and let my right brain run completely free. It is why I paint, why I photo edit in such wild colors, and why I do not use manuals to learn technological devices. Hell, I confess, I cannot read manuals any more. Once when I was a technical writer I wrote them. I translated accountants to computer programmers and computer programmers to management. Boy, that wasn't easy.

Since the head injury I have adapted to digital cameras, digital post processing programs, laptops, tablets, and my latest, the ipod. And all without cracking a book. I divine them. If you look at technology as right brain tools to perform left brain tasks they are really simple. Especially since the advent of the mouse and drag and drop (or with tablets swipe and drop).

Meanwhile I seem to be surrounded with left brain friends that have to first download and print out the manuals some nerd wrote. I admit I have from time to time accessed briefly a manual but never downloaded it. It eliminates the search function. Okay, I downloaded my camera manuals to my tablet. But that does not eliminate the search function. The key here is the absolute worst aspect of any technical manual is the Index or table of contents. You are never going to find anything that way.

Today I complicated my Songbird (android ipod) with Amazon Music. But I knew on some totally alien level that the computer would put my music in a common file to be used by both programs. And it did. Back to drag and drop. So America, Seals and Croft, and the Eagles, automatically ripped by Amazon and put in the cloud for me, when I bought the CD's was downloaded today and then uploaded to my Songbird. I totally get clouds. I would not have bought the CD's but just the rips if it was not for Big Blue which does not have a radio with plug in for my Songbird or a USB port for a jump drive.

All of this has allowed me to tune into the songs of my youth before clouds were just those puffy things in the sky. And I think I can access my Amazon Music library in the cloud with my Amazon fire and tune in without downloading. I found the place the ear phones connect.

All of this is in answer to a friend who wants to know how I learned that? A younger sister has helped when I had questions but basically my right brain wanted it to be that easy and my cognitive trainer said, "Why not?"

Comments

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f
Read more

Eagle Nest Dam

Image
Tour of Eagle Nest Dam Eagle Nest Dam is the largest privately built dam in the United States. It was begun by the Springer family in 1917 and completed in 1920. It and the reservoir beyond it one was privately owned by the CS Ranch which recently sold it to the state of New Mexico. Eagle Nest Lake is now a state park, but the dam and the waters in the lake are another matter all together. Water is well regulated in New Mexico especially during a drought. The lake is now at 25% of its normal capacity, and the water in the lake are water right lease holds of Raton, Cimarron, and historic ranches in the area like the UU Bar and the CS Ranch. Game and Fish department also get involved because the Cimarron River is an active fishery of the state. Our guide was a state engineer and the Gateway Museum secured permission of the land owners below the dam for us to gain access to the area. Some 100 locals and tourists attended this rare event. I have lived here almost twenty years and th
Read more