Hey There! It's 8:39 AM EST
Wow, what a day yesterday turned out to be. Although I did very little of what I would call manual labor, my shoulders are aching as if I'd been using a shovel all day. I don't know where all this aching is coming from, but I have to assume that it's partly from sitting in front of monitors for the last two days. I probably am hunching over too much.
Yesterday's walk was windy and chilly, but I got it in. The park is definitely less populated these day, mostly dog walkers. Today is starting off very pleasant, with sun and little wind. But it's a recovery day. We'll see how it goes, I would like to head up to the campsite today and finish a few things off, but I fear being in bad shape for class tomorrow, so I am probably going to hold off for another day. Tomorrow is the last class, so I think I can wait.
I tried Lubuntu on that stick PC I found, and did not like it all that much. I think I am used to other UIs, so I scrapped it and replaced it with Xubuntu, which has XFCE as the UI. I decided to put on a minimal install, which led to a few unexpected challenges, least of all getting a decent web browser installed. But I finally managed to get Brave installed by looking up its one-step command and typing that into the terminal. I don't expect I will have much use for the computer, but I added a copy of AbiWord, Only Office, VLC, and I think that's it.
In between all the screen time and hunching over the keyboard, I went over for my weekly meeting with my senior tech student. It was a bit of a disaster IMO. She wanted an app called Calm for her phone, so I installed it. The problem of course is that she can't use apps, so it's no use to her unless I can devise a clear routine to be able to have her get exactly what she wants. And she doesn't know what she wants. So that was problem #1. Problem #2 is that her cell phone service is quite bad in her house, and at 84 she can't just step outside when she needs to make a call in the winter. So I am having all her cell phone calls forwarded to her old land line for now. I have to get her a phone that will show her who's calling. Hopefully this will give her time to get to the phone and answer it. I am not sure this is going to work either. She might become too confused. The real issue, of course, is her Parkinson's disease. When she handles her phone or any other object, she shakes, and she can't accurately use her phone. I think the time has come where her assistant needs to deal with her technology on a daily basis. I am also trying to get her to use Alexa more, so she can have stronger voice control. All in all, it was a frustrating 2 hours for her and me.
Technology is wonderful, but this experience is telling me that, as people age, they will not be able to use technology well for various reasons, and it will become similar to taking away the car keys; someone will have to take away their technology. I remember my mother, as she aged, wanted every single new piece of tech that came out - iPads, iPhones, Kindles, you name it. She would buy them, and then when they arrived, she'd have no idea how to use them. She ended up playing Candy Crush and Solitaire a lot because that's all she knew how to do.
Anyway, it was a tech-heavy day. The stick PC project took me well into the evening, and I think I spent a bit more time with YouTube before bed. All this, of course, is for fun and to keep me busy. I don't have a use for all the tech I own, but I enjoy the process. I keep thinking I will set up one of these computers as a server, but I don't need to serve files anywhere, so what's the point? Maybe I'll figure it out over time. For now, it's sort of a hobby.
'Til We Meet Again!