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Friday, March 2, 2012

My Brag Book

There are so many things I could brag about. I mean my children are all geniuses and model material. (I see you rolling your eyes).
My 9 grand daughters are perfection in pink with IQs off the charts! My one grand son, well, there has not been a more handsome or brilliant boy ever born. (Again with the eyes?)  And my brother married a beautiful nurse who managed to nag him into work side by side with him to build a chain of three reputable pet stores which they eventually sold and are now retired and living nicely in their Chicago area home AND their Florida home. (No soup kitchen for them, yet.)  And my beautiful sister who my children think walks on water because she always has lovely and loving things to say about all of our kids and their babies both to their faces and behind their backs. (No, really, she IS that nice!)
And I've spoken of Momma often here so most of you already know what an amazingly loving momma I have. She is the my buddy, my shopping partner, (neither of us like to shop, but have to sometimes) and she loves me unconditionally almost all the time. (I'm not as nice as my sister.)  My husband is just about the best ever was, except for the not picking up after himself thing, but I'm still working on that. It's only been 29 years, 11 months, 2 weeks and a day or so.  There's still time for improvement.

But, you know what I want to brag about?  ME.  (eyes, again? stop it, right now).  Yep, me. I'm gonna tell you one of the things I accomplished on my own, pretty much and I use it everyday.
I wanted a computer back in the early '90s.  They were expensive and no one I knew had one in their home yet.  Then my brother (the store owning one, oh, that's my only brother) bought one. He connected it to his stores and could then check in on their receipts at the end of the day. How cool is that?, I'm thinking.   So I start looking around and talking to the one person I know, one of my clients, who owns one and has 2 sons who know how they work, kind of. They were learning quickly and they were kind of excited to teach me how to compute.  

I get an inexpensive used IBM.  I don't even know how to turn it on. Seriously. I wait a few days until my client and friend comes to the salon and helps me get it all set up. I'm going to use it at work for now and later I'll try that two computers talking to each other thing with my home machine.  She did get me started with a great afternoon of learning the basic DOS language and making me cheat sheets to refer to until I was comfortable with my software. In a couple of months I was keeping my own books on my Peachtree Acct. program.  Running my schedules on the word processor and writing on the same.  I was loving this machine and I wanted to know all about it.

It was about 2 years before I first saw 'windows'. WOW!  No more DOS?  Well, only for fixing. I wanted to know how to fix so I started reading manual and books and talking with the sons who knew how to fix minor things and add memory and do a lot of things I thought I could do. I added more memory to my IBM and to my first home computer all by myself. I put a new motherboard in my first computer when it was about 6 years old. I replaced the floppy disk drive in that same machine when it just quit working.  I did all of those repairs by reading the manuals and the packaging of the replacements.

I learned and I studied on my own and finally, I GOT THE INTERNET! My learning was unstoppable now!  The world was at my finger tips.  IF I could just learn to stay on task.  That internet led me in a million different directions and hours would pass and I would have forgotten what I started to research.  (You have, too and you know it!)  But I did learn a lot of basic fixes.  

I am bragging about this because I am not a young 'un and I wasn't  then. I am bragging because now at 62 I am probably more computer savvy than my kids.  I'm bragging because I think it's super cool when my techie kids call me and ask me how to do something!  Or they're going to get a new laptop and call to ask my opinion before they shop.  Oh, yeah!  I'm kewl like that.  And I have not lost my love of tappity tapping on these keys!

In my next life, I'm gonna be a Best Buy Geek.  I'm gonna drive one of those little black and white Geek Mobiles.  Oh, yes I am.

Jo 

24 comments:

  1. Wow! I never knew you were a self-taught computer geek! That's cool! I'm impressed! ♥

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    1. See? You gotta toot your own horn sometimes! LOL
      Thanks for stoppin by KAT ♥

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  2. Jo--I loved it!! KUDOS to you x10!! I am a self taught computer geek too!! My first computer was a Commodore 64 and I remember DOS and Dot matrix printing (any other way?). What a fun post. I firmly believe you are one who can do anything you set your mind to!! Cheers, Jenn.

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    1. How cool! I didn't know you floundered around and figured out stuff on your own! I love doing that and feel so accomplished when I manage to do it right or even nearly right.
      Thanks for comin' 'round...Dot matrix printers ruled! And tearing off the edges of everything you printed! Oh such fun. ♥

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  3. This brought back happy(?) memories of DOS which s how I first started. I've not progressed to be a geek, although I probably know more than many of my peers. Computers to me are a bit like cars - I know how to drive one but don't really understand how it works and I leave the inner 'fixing' of things to someone else!

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    1. I know what you mean! I love being able to tackle the simple stuff, but I do use the pro's for big stuff! I sometimes can't isolate a Trojan or a worm and then I hand it off to a real Geek! I do lots of little fixes myself though and I love being able to keep them working at peek most of the time.
      Thanks Paula and I'm always happy to see you're reading! ♥

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  4. That is worth bragging about Jo, my kids only ask for money.

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    1. LOL...my are beyond that, they make more than we do. ♥

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  5. Oy. my brain shuts down with this stuff. i get frustrated, and my geek husband walks away teasing, "Ignorance is nothing to celebrate,"

    Humph!

    He's so right, and so are you.

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    1. Frustration is the downfall of most wannabe geeks. It takes patience and determination to follow up on every possible cause of every possible problem. Geek husbands are good to have around.
      I think you have enough on your plate without worrying about why your puter suddenly doesn't recognize your password.

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  6. Jo, you would make a perfect addition to the "Geek Squad." I am very proud of you for reading those manuals and figuring things out for yourself. As a matter of fact, I applaud you! I don't think I have the patience or brains for that. I would be one of the people that is calling someone like you with techie questions. This was a fun post to read. "Compute on, Jo!"

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    1. Maybe in my next life, I don't really wanna work now, so they'll have to carry on without me! The manuals were written in geek-speek and it took me a lot of re-reading and looking up to be able to make sense of them, but the info was there and a huge help in learning the little bit that I know.
      I only dabble in little stuff, though.

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  7. Cheers for you.. So many give up (and I don't blame them) but as you have proven, look how far and much you have done. Yay for you. I remind myself daily, I am only as young or old as I want to be. Never stop learning or being open to the possibility. You always make me smile, Jo.

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    1. That's so nice to hear! I love that I make you smile. I'm feeling about 17 right now, so I'll probably do something really irresponsible shortly.

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  8. Good for you, Jo! I am so opposite. I know practically nothing about this #%$* machine except how to swear at it. If everything goes smoothly I can use Word and email and the Internet and Facebook. If not, I call my husband (who does it for a living). I wish I knew more, but unfortunately I don't care enough to spend a lot of time learning about it when there are too many other things I'd rather do. I admire you for being able to do this--and what's your phone number? I might just call you...(big evil grin).

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    1. Another good geek husband, if mine was even remotely interested, I probably would have defaulted to him, but he is completely tech illiterate. I do the cable, I do anything even sort of tech related. (Including the microwave).
      About that phone number...well, I'm not THAT good, if I was, I'd be a lot busier than I am. I just mess with my own or help a friend here or there to clean up their machines. I am good at the file cleaning and background stuff removal. I do pretty well with slow runners and hesitation problems. Otherwise, I have to do a lot of investigation and on the phone, I'm useless. I have to DO not TELL. Very poor training, I'm guessing. lol


      Thanks for the kinds words. ♥

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  9. Right before Christmas 1990 or '91. a systems guy came to my office and set up a computer. I knew NOTHING about windows, word, excel, etc...NOTHING! We had computers for our payroll, but it was just for payroll input. No windows, email or anything. I asked my boss what the heck I was supposed to do with that. She said just play with it and I'll get you in a class asap. So, I played. I taught myself by trial and error. By the time the class rolled around, all they taught us was email and Word...both of which I had already mastered. So...I kept playing and I never stopped. I admire that you worked on your computer. I bought my first home computer after Windows was already out. I know nothing about DOS. But, I can do just about anything on my computer now.

    I love this blog. So much fun!

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    1. Thanks Darlene. It's fun to mess with my own and it's fun to help someone else now and then with a minor problem. I do love my puters and I'm on them on and off all day, so being able to fix little stuff does help. ♥

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  10. May I call on you when my hubby won't fix my computer anymore? LOL! I think you're pretty awesome and I'll brag about you all the time!

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    1. I'm useless with phone fixes. I gotta "dO" it.

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  11. Being more computer savvy than your kids certainly is something to brag about. I've heard that the younger you are, the more you are a native to technology. We, however, are the immigrants.

    Joyce
    http://joycelansky.blogspot.com/

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    1. I didn't say I was more savvy than my grand kids! LOL

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  12. LMAO!!! You really are cool! Their really are few greater feelings of accomplishment then the one you get when you figure out how to do something you've never done before and then excel at it! I love that feeling! I'm the self-taught kind of learner. I work best when I'm given a problem and then left to my own devices to figure out the best way to solve it.

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    1. Exactly! The feeling of having learned something on your own and then continuing on with wherever that leads you. It's good brain exercise.♥

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