Bad Technology Day

Have you ever had one of those days when you just knew you wouldn’t emerge from it with your To-Do list sufficiently vanquished? I’ve had that kind of day hanging over my head for a week now, and there is no further hiding from it.

Granted, my To-Do list is rather extensive. Thanks to a half-month of playing my way through three states of older-generation family members with their all-too-eager willingness to bequeath me with boxes of keepsakes, I have a lot to do—copy, that is. Besides those boxfuls that I am now proud owner of, I am also short-term borrower of another wonderful box of the same.

Sounds like some time at the scanner, you say? Well, it isn’t exactly that easy. You see, after a week of entertaining an unexpected viral traveler who hitched a ride home with me from the airport, this is what I have yet to face: the scanner of preference in this family is a near-antique in technology terms.

It turns out that the best scanner we own is not our newest. While faster, sleeker, and with the right attachments to plug into our newer computer, our day-to-day scanner serves general purposes but isn’t the finest when it comes to capturing details of photographs. For that kind of work, we have to use—believe it or not—our older scanner, a clunker that’s parked upstairs in an extra bedroom.

The sad story of this dejected, rejected piece of equipment is that, while it does an excellent job—and was a great buy in its heyday—it seems (according to my geek-prone dear husband) to require all the wrong attachments. There is no plug that properly connects this prima donna with our current computer; we have to resurrect our old one, cross our fingers and hope everything runs so the two pieces can have a nice chat. Besides, this scanner’s operating system cares very little for any newfangled Microsoft system. Actually, it turns its nose up at any vintage post-Windows 95. Let’s just say it’s temperamental.

And yet, as most artists do, it turns out impeccable work.

My husband usually sighs and submits to the kid-glove handling required. But this week, he was out of town, I was indisposed—and talented procrastinators find wonderful inventions to keep from getting done those things which are required of us.

So, Saturday it is. The day I face my friendly enemy—the talented one. The one that dances circles around those young bucks still wet behind the ears.

It’s gonna be a long day. But hopefully, one with a sizeable collection of photographs properly preserved when day is done.

Drawing, "Position idéale d'utilisation de l'ordinateur (suggestion personnelle)" courtesy Morburre via Wikipedia under GNU Free Documentation License.