While not opposed to gadgets, I have realized I am approaching a certain comfort level with my amount of stuff. That might be an admirable realization except that it arises out of concern that things won't last. In a little over one hundred miles, my trusty Element will have accumulated 100,000 miles. I took it into a local shop for a careful going over. The few hundred dollars they charged to replace parts that were flabby, wrinkled or cracked was a great investment. And with their recommendation, I had 4 new tires added at another joint -- all for less than $1K in total.
It isn't that I don't like new stuff. A box of equipment from CampMor arrived earlier this week. There was Christmas-like exhilaration as I pulled each item from the box, even though I had been quite deliberative in selecting in which before ordering them online. I now own a mismatched rainsuit (blue top, black bottom, both discounted!), an equally unstylish broad-brimmed hat, a frightfully sharp knife, a too-cute set of eating ware, a bottle of nature friendly camp soap, and a vial of pest-unfriendly bug juice. Oh the joy this stuff brings me!
But I may have believed that one day I will no longer be bothered by needing to master a new gadget. For example, in my favorite mug I can reheat coffee to the perfect temperature by setting the microwave to power up for 2:22. The coffeemaker, in turn, produces perfectly strong brew with 6 heaping scoops from a wooden spoon and with the device set to slow brew (the 1-4 cup feature). Unfortunately, the plastic lid on the coffee mill is acting up. When I press it down to activate the grinding mechanism, the lid snaps as if it has a crack in it. True, this was a castoff appliance from my mother-in-law a few years ago when she realized she did not need to grind spices. But if the lid fails, the rest of the device is rendered useless. This, in turn, destroys a vital link in the coffee production process that has worked so well for me.
Maybe this is a companion to the sense of needing a makeover. Certainly there are times when things need to be upgraded. But for very basic life functions, which includes coffee brewing and basic transportation, I would be perfectly content to allow objects and actions to continue operating as they have up until now. No, I don't want to learn how to make a new printer do its thing. Yes, I was actually quite content with the previous version of MS Office because it did all the statistics the new version has eliminated. No, I do not enjoying trying to make the new module play nicely with Excel -- it is only a simple ANOVA: why can't you do the calculations in your microprocessor that I once did with a calculator back in grad school?!
No, I don't think this all sounds cranky and stodgy -- everything was going just fine until some idiot thought they could make some improvements. Bah! But wait. This looks cool. All I need to do is a Händler suchen and then this could be mine. I think I have an app for that.
It isn't that I don't like new stuff. A box of equipment from CampMor arrived earlier this week. There was Christmas-like exhilaration as I pulled each item from the box, even though I had been quite deliberative in selecting in which before ordering them online. I now own a mismatched rainsuit (blue top, black bottom, both discounted!), an equally unstylish broad-brimmed hat, a frightfully sharp knife, a too-cute set of eating ware, a bottle of nature friendly camp soap, and a vial of pest-unfriendly bug juice. Oh the joy this stuff brings me!
But I may have believed that one day I will no longer be bothered by needing to master a new gadget. For example, in my favorite mug I can reheat coffee to the perfect temperature by setting the microwave to power up for 2:22. The coffeemaker, in turn, produces perfectly strong brew with 6 heaping scoops from a wooden spoon and with the device set to slow brew (the 1-4 cup feature). Unfortunately, the plastic lid on the coffee mill is acting up. When I press it down to activate the grinding mechanism, the lid snaps as if it has a crack in it. True, this was a castoff appliance from my mother-in-law a few years ago when she realized she did not need to grind spices. But if the lid fails, the rest of the device is rendered useless. This, in turn, destroys a vital link in the coffee production process that has worked so well for me.
Maybe this is a companion to the sense of needing a makeover. Certainly there are times when things need to be upgraded. But for very basic life functions, which includes coffee brewing and basic transportation, I would be perfectly content to allow objects and actions to continue operating as they have up until now. No, I don't want to learn how to make a new printer do its thing. Yes, I was actually quite content with the previous version of MS Office because it did all the statistics the new version has eliminated. No, I do not enjoying trying to make the new module play nicely with Excel -- it is only a simple ANOVA: why can't you do the calculations in your microprocessor that I once did with a calculator back in grad school?!
No, I don't think this all sounds cranky and stodgy -- everything was going just fine until some idiot thought they could make some improvements. Bah! But wait. This looks cool. All I need to do is a Händler suchen and then this could be mine. I think I have an app for that.