Humans have questioned “Who Am I” as far back in our history as we first discovered we had a navel and could gaze upon it. Since then, the philosophers and prognosticators and teen-agers everywhere have come to one and only one conclusion:
Do define myself by my relationships? By my likes and dislikes? By the number of followers I have on TikTok (don’t even have an account)? By my past? Future? Hopes? Fears? By my employment? By my religion?
The past couple of months I have found myself adrift in a very strange place: one without my computer. It was crashing like a lead-footed blind man at Daytona! I thought it was a virus, then maybe a windows update snafu, then maybe a windows defender snafu (windows has a lot of snafu’s). I thought maybe I had a adblock issue, then a competing issue with my security software. I couldn’t go on line at all or the computer would crash. I struggled with it for a couple of months until I finally gave up and did a full factory image wipe. And, let’s be clear, I’m not Scottie. When I do a wipe I may as well have taken a sledgehammer to it because whatever that computer was is gone.
There went my favorite websites. My ways of spending time not working – even when I should have been working – were gone. I mean, who remembers all their passwords!?! I’ve got sites I’ve been going to for years that I put on a ridiculous password and saved it on the computer to never bother remembering it again. And they were all gone. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do with my time now! I can’t tell you how stressful this was, and how dumb I felt feeling stressed about it.
So, I started reading more, and I mean a lot more. I went on a diet. I had a lot of work going on at my parent’s place and I started taking care of my own better. I cleaned my kitchen every day, my bathroom 3-times a week, kept caught up on laundry and even sorted through some of the junk I’ve allowed to pile up. I mowed the lawn and got rid of a pile of downed branches I had reserved for “later” (I have a lot of those “later” things – stuff I’ll take care of, ya know, … later). I didn’t even come into my office anymore. I was actually eating at the diningroom table! I know – sacrilege!
So, on Tuesday I began the work of putting this computer back together again, of re-establishing my very identity. Now, today, as I write this it’s Friday, the sink is full, laundry on the floor, dirty towels in the bathroom, I have a dirty plate and cup of cold coffee stagnating on my desk that I keep bumping with my elbow and somehow my life is now “right”. Truly, I found how the other folks live and I didn’t like it!
One thing I did also learn in all of this: I restarted Google and when I signed in I was presented with a number of bookmarked sites that I haven’t seen in years. A good third of them didn’t even exist anymore. Folks, let me tell you – Google Never Forgets! But, it’s nice to visit who I used to be 🙂
Hugs
-randy
Scottie's Playtime 
One of my absolute favorite xkcd comics on this very subject:
also backup, backup, backup!
I’m in the Apple Ecosystem so I take advantage of icloud password storage, all my bookmarks are on every device I use, have a dropbox account that contains a backup of critical information stored as plain text, a OneDrive account with a similar copy, time machine backups of the main computers.
Kinda paranoid about data loss, but like every photograph we’ve taken since about 1996 a digital image only, and that all is irreplaceable, much of our official life stuff exists only in electronic form, etc. All this is way too important to exist only on one computer!
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Hi Bruce– I will admit, and likely unnecessarily, I’m not great for back-ups and especially so with the whole “cloud” thing. I know, I’m a bit foolish on that, but part of it is that I get a paper record of the important things and a flash drive of the less-important. It all seems to work just fine right up until it crashes. Yeah. As Scottie mentions below, I’m looking into the Apple products, so who knows? I may just grow up and take things more seriously. Hate to do that — not the back up, the grow up. Seems somehow like I’m giving up on my hopes of being a Toys-R-Us kid. Again, though, I’m kinda enjoying the trip down memory lane Google provided.
-randy
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I thought you’d been quieter for longer than usual! Wow, after all the stuff you got done, I wonder why you’d even bother going back online! That said, I’m very thankful to see you, and know you’re all right. Scottie mentions you in his comments, too, and it’s sounded as if you’re quite busy. Still, it’s good to hear from you! I hope the wipe solved your situation.
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Hi Ali. I was up until 2am last night surfing and watching youtube shorts. It’s like a favorite drug, and to continue the line, I’m feeling a bit hung-over and disappointed with myself. I did find some stuff that I’ll post later.
-randy
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I almost went into a YT hole a bit ago, listening to Moon songs. It’s easy to do! No need to be disappointed, everyone needs a break, and you never know what you’ll pick up doing that! I think my most fun YT holes come when I watch one of Bee’s shorts, then just scrolling along after one.
But then I don’t get anybody else’s blogs read… sigh ☺
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So many things are, missed out on, when we are, locked in by our, computers, we feel the need to check our updates, 24/7, and, it isn’t until we are, “inconvenienced” without internet connections, our, high-tech devices, we come to reslize, how much extra time we can have, away from, getting, locked in onto that, screen every minute of our, waking, hours. And, when we, get reconnected again, hopefully, we will, change our, usage habits from, before.
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Hi Taurus- As I mentioned to Ali, no- I binged last night. Stayed up late watching very forgettable things. But, you hit it on the head that we do get locked into our electronic passifiers and forget to live. Since I use my computer to provide music, it was even quiet in the house, and that was a bit unsettling. But, especially interesting to me is the way that platforms like YouTube learn our likes and play to our interests. That is great in a way, of course, but it does become a bit ‘confirmation bias’.
-randy
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Hi Randy. Brother I am a bit upset with you. You did tell me you were thinking of getting a new computer, and I did advise mac for you. But I also said please talk to me before buying. But brother why did you not tell me the computer was dead. I ould have helped. When you were having problems I could have helped. A simple reset of windows would have helped and then you could have reloaded your preferred browsers. As for your pass words. First got to the browser settings – passwords. Find saved passwords. Print them even if you have to copy and paste all of them. Then buy your self a rolodex with cards. You have a lot of business cards, so get one that has the plastic sleeves for them as well. I use the wheeled round style where Ron likes the flat desk style. Mine is easier to use and less messy than his. Lastly on the Google account you came up on is it the same one you have been using last, I have several Google accounts and they have different saved places. I use the vivaldi browser recommended to me by Barry. Along with the anti-tracking and anti-ads along with other built in security features it also has a sync function. I have 6 old computers I have it on. The are old and crappy and hardly run but each time I sign on I can sync functions so everything I have been doing on the two main ones is transferred to the one I just signed on with. That way I never lose the saved places and passwords. Call me this weekend and we will talk. Hugs
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Oh, and speaking of Pandora. I got roped into listening to the ‘Jerry Reed’ channel when Dad was in the car and I offered to play whatever he wanted. He said “country” – should have known. So, I told alexi to play country and next thing you know I’m back in the ’70’s again. You may be like me and a sufferer of brain injury so finding the channel enjoyable too. Good luck.
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Hi Randy. You are such a grand son, your parents are very lucky. Yes in my misspent 20s I was a big country fan and loved his songs. I still listen some times to the songs of the 70s and 80s that I grew up with / enjoyed. However I long moved to more easy listening light rock music of that same time frame. Funny story about music. My boyfriend in Stuttgart was a city boy. He loved hard rock which I despised. We were trying to find rock music I could listen to on stormy night while drunk. So half bombed out of our gourds we listened to black sabath and pink floyd while watching the lightning flashing outside our barracks room windows. See I have some good fun memories. It was a some what trancidental moment. So was what followed later. Hugs
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Hi Scottie. I knew this post was going to get me in trouble, but sometimes I just sort of take the “nuclear option” and things go “boom”. I, of course, had some of my passwords and such, but as I found the very comfortable-ness of my computer crashing, and the subsequent rebuild, I found it really interesting that some of my identity was found in what was interesting and absorbing my time. I found that life without Pandora was quiet enough to hear the voices in my head, the cracking of my joints, and I started singing the brain-worm songs to myself.
hugs
-randy
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Hi Randy. I understand part of that. I understand the comfortableness of working on fixing the computer, diagnosing and clearing problems, and finding new programs that work better. I am going to teach my self the windows 11 now that Ron’s sister gave him a small laptop that has it for an operating system. At first I said I wouldn’t have Windows 11 because Microsoft was insisting that people sign into their Microsoft accounts to even use the computer offline. I hate that. I would switch to a Mac product instead. But now I found out when I looked into it again that they have rescinded that and you can go to a local account like on windows 10.
As for Pandora and hearing the voices in my head you have had enough phone calls at odd hours from me crying due to the voices in my head. It’s not good for me not to drown out the voices and the memories. On that note I meant to tell you. Remember the earbuds you bought me and Ron. We pestered you until you told us the make of them as it is not labeled on them. We now have about 15 or 20 pairs of them between Ron and I. Good thing they come in so many different colors. Ron has four sets for his apple box and a set for his phone. I have a set for every device I have and a set for the the kitchen TV apple box. They are the best, very comfortable, and not expensive. They beat the apple airbuds which cost at least $100 plus more in price in every way. Hugs
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