The Crotchety Old Man

Category: Technology and Me

  • Old Habits, RIP

    Change is a fact of life. No, I don’t mean nickels, dimes, and quarters. I’m talking about things being different than they were before, largely as a result of progress. Thinking about changes in my own life, I came up with ten things I don’t do anymore — some thanks to progress, others due to…

  • Birthday Presents

    For my 57th birthday earlier this month, I gave myself a new car and a trip to Orlando. The new car was somewhat of a requirement. The PT Cruiser I bought in 2005 had enough miles on it to make me nervous about driving to Florida. I’ve known for months what kind of car I wanted to…

  • My New Steam Mop

    Buying gifts for me is a challenge. I don’t want much, and am perhaps a teeny bit hard to please. When I do want something, I tend to just buy it myself. If I’m not happy, it’s nobody’s fault but mine. Devoted readers of this blog may recall I get off on clean floors. My vacuum cleaners…

  • Social Network Fatigue

    Once upon a time, the only social networking options were snail-mail, rotary dial telephones, and face-to-face. Travel costs and long distance telephone charges made letters the preferred means for keeping up with out-of-town friends and family. When not in class or hanging out with local friends, I spent hours on the telephone talking with them. Yeah.…

  • Real Time

    Time is my master. I’m a slave to the clock and my calendar. Whether I go to work or get the day off, my schedule is full from the time I get up until I go to bed. The time change twice a year totally rocks my world. Smartphones, computer displays, and cable boxes are arbiters…

  • My New Brand

    A couple of years ago, I naively believed an author’s only job was to write stories. The lucky few who hit the big time could add interviews and appearances to the job description. Turns out, I was wrong. <gasp> There’s more — a lot more. Promotion is a labor-intensive, time-consuming, and expensive part of the job I’ve…

  • My Cable Bill

    The ability to retire a few years earlier than planned has provided an incentive to pay a lot more attention to my monthly bills. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always been vigilant. But the emphasis has shifted from checking for errors to looking for (painless) ways to cut back. As they’re based on usage, I expect bills…

  • Ten Things I Never Do Anymore

    Change is a fact of life. No, I don’t mean nickels, dimes, and quarters. I’m talking about things being different than they were before, largely as a result of progress. Thinking about changes in my own life, I came up with ten things I don’t do anymore — some thanks to progress, others due to…

  • My $85 Watch Battery–Revisited

    The watch I wear everyday stopped running again. The battery lasted from March, 2010 to just the other day. I call that a good value, even at $85. This time, I went straight to the watch store. Here’s the story, reprinted from 2010, of how I came to pay $85 for a watch battery. Almost…

  • Goodbye Windows!

    I bought my first desktop computer for home use back in 1996. AOL was the rage. Other than AOL, the only other program I used was Microsoft Money. Like AOL, it came preloaded on the computer. Fast forward to about 2006. I was on my third or fourth home desktop–a machine that occupied a ton…