Hello world! and Tech Nightmares 1

Someone I know, likes to write a sort of diary on a typewriter with no connection to the internet. That is to assure that no one reads what she writes. She assures me that there is nothing embarrassing or scandalous or even interesting in what she writes. The purpose of this enterprise is to order one’s thoughts and thereby server as a form of psychotherapy. I get it. It works. But that’s not how I’m made. Writing, for me, is always for someone else regardless of its therapeutic benefits for me.
While reorganizing things I encountered something written in small type dated 1987. It was fairly good writing, although it had some to criticize and cringe at. I had a lot of practice getting to that point. I had read Stunk and White’s The Elements of Style and other books on how to write. It was about five letters out of a series of 25, not sure if the rest still exist. They averaged 10, 8×10 pages each of typed, single spaced. I had sent them to individual addresses, about 10, I think, maybe more. It was a way to connect in the days of expensive long-distance calls. Most of the friends that I had grown up with were living in another city. It was my first blog of sorts.
Next came email. Cass, a friend for a long time and sometimes wife up an emailed me in the “You’ve got mail days.” She was in Houston, and I don’t know where I was, some travel nursing assignment. It was an email, short, humorous and poetic. That started a frequent exchange of emails. I remember she was so clever in her writing that I really couldn’t match, but I enjoyed the process, nevertheless. Once we were together, she suggested that to communicate, we should regularly retreat to separate corners and write to each other. Ironically, that was excellent advice, that I never followed.
Next, we enter the era of Facebook. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a wonderful tool. I spend a lot of time on it. I love to see photos of friends and acquaintances. I can share each one’s triumphs a little bit. But, recently it’s been plagued by hackers. A couple of days ago I got an email saying that someone had requested a change in password, but it wasn’t me. Routinely, I get requests from friends of friends who I don’t know. It took me more time than I care to admit to figure out that these were hackers. I unwittingly infected other accounts by clicking on a link in Facebook Messenger. Besides that, someone can leave an embarrassing or hurtful comment to a post on Facebook, which the person who posts can do little about. This has caused some of my friends to leave the platform. Then there’s the chasing after likes. Also, it tends to be photo based, and doesn’t fit me. I like photos, but I’m looking for a place to express myself in writing. I’m the guy who writes whole paragraphs of words. Facebook is not the platform for that. There are others like me, mostly over-educated boomers.
I never even considered Twitter, now known as X. Even before Elon Musk, I thought of Twitter as a cesspool. Limited to 280 characters, it attracts people who have trouble managing a sustained coherent thought.

I have a recurring nightmare. Usually, it has to do with a smartphone. The scenario varies, but in all of them, I need to make a phone call and I cannot. The Icons on the display are different from what I am used to. Whenever I tap an icon I don’t get anything I can use, just an advertisement, a movie preview, or just a confused mess of images. For some reason I need to make a call urgently but find that my phone is useless for that. In one dream I try successive technologies starting with the old-fashioned phone with the separate earpiece, next rotary dial, next push button, next cell, then the smartphone. None work. I relive the pain and frustration in everyday life whenever I need to contact customer service, or set up a WordPress blog.
Recently on a trip to my hometown of Minneapolis-St. Paul, I encountered a dear old friend who spent her career as a hospital unit clerk for something like 50 years. That is, she saw the transition in health care from paper charts to electronic charts. That came late in the game. There was a lot of resistance from some of the older MDs, but it came. It started with labs, which lends itself to the digital approach, then, only recently, it took over all charting. It has been a mixed blessing, naturally. Computer systems tend to go down at inconvenient times. They don’t do well with trauma or other emergency charting since selecting menu items on an application takes critical time away from the procedure at hand. Not only that, but medical institutions also like to buy the cheapest software they can find, which is usually way less user friendly than your average web page. Hospitals I’ve worked at almost always retain some program from 40 or more years ago, for some function like incident reporting, that require detailed instructions to use, are nearly impossible to correct, and in their use are like programming a VCR.
This woman only owns a flip phone. She has sworn off computers, almost entirely. I fully understand why anyone would feel that way, given what I’ve just told you. I don’t think she’ll be reading this blog. My frustration with computers is real, but my aversion to stacks and stacks of paper is greater, so it’s the lesser of two evils for me.
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What do I have to blog about? This is largely a blog for family and friends. I don’t expect a large audience. So, some of it is bound to be journaling, covering topics only people who know me would be interested in. The one subject I can speak with any kind of authority on is bicycling and maybe a little basic healthcare. There’s bound to be some of those things.
Otherwise, it is likely to be my journey of discovery as I learn more dance, specifically Zumba. I’m also on a journey to Spanish fluency. Maybe I’ll get there one day. To that end, I’ll be going to Spain in March. So, this is bound to be something of a travelogue.