Tag Archives: Technology

The Fountain of Youth Sucks

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I have found the fountain of youth. And it just may kill you. I now know how to turn a 60-year-old into a 22-year-old.

I crashed my website. On purpose. It looks somewhat the same to you, but trust me, all this recreation makes me think I understand what God did in seven days. As so many are finding out, things we’be never done before, “are much more complicated than I thought.”

I also added a new page to my web address, with an additional WordPress Theme, new widgets, videos, photos, icons and things I don’t even know what they’re called.

I’ve had to contact my hosting company forty thousand times. By telephone. Which freaks them out because no one in this age group solves problems on the phone IRL (In Real LIfe…which also took some critical thinking time to figure out IRL).

Each time I call these poor guys, I explain to them that I am a Baby Boomer with no real skills.This conversation should be explaining how you’re going to teach a 5-year-old to do this. I don’t get a chuckle, a soothing response or an ‘atta’ girl’. They just jump right in going to

What I’m doing…

dashboards and domain thingies, and install buttons……. oh, good lord. And even when I have done every single thing they’ve told me to do, step-by-step, the problem we are trying to fix persists. In the meantime, I myself have figured out the following:

I have actually written HTML code with some help from my millennial kid to get cute icon doohickeys on my new web page.

After fighting with a widget for three hours, I just got ballsy and created my own custom widget that actually worked better.

Then, because either I think I’m invincible now, or I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided to try and create a 2-minute video for this website from an app I put on my iPad. It took me three hours to figure out that I couldn’t keep two minutes, I had to delete 58 minutes.

What I want to be doing….

Sixteen hours later, I called in the cavalry.

After crying to my daughters about the literal pain of technology (my headache was now slicing a rivulet through my cortex which met the pain searing down my neck and shoulders) they told me I was stupid. “Call your brother.  He does this for a living. He’s supposed to help you.” Which he did,  in no time. But I’m still taking credit for scrapping 58 minutes of unusable footage.

If I haven’t lost my mind by the end of this week, I’m sure I will live an earthly existence with all my marbles and some of other people’s marbles, too because I will know how to code them into my DNA.

I have not had one drink since I started because I have to create and finish a PowerPoint presentation for a client before I go to the Kentucky Derby.  If you watch the Kentucky Derby on TV, look for the red hat laying on the ground, I’ll be under it with a smile on my face and a mint julep in my hand returning to middle age with a big swig of gratitude.

Here’s the link if you want to see where all this has taken me…go ahead, you can be honest. In fact, send me an email from the “Contact” box, at least I’ll know it it’s working! You can’t say anything I haven’t already said to myself every single day.

www.cathysikorski.com/Speaker

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

©2017 Cathy Sikorski

Prequel, Shmequel…just stick to the publication date……..

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Sometimes I think we forget how the generation above us made a sensible life for themselves.  We fail to give our moms and dads credit for having figured out how to well…figure it out. Life has always been complicated, the addition of technology as not only a tool, but our new best friend is  making it worse. And yes, this flummoxes people like my 88-year-old Mom. But let’s not pretend it doesn’t do the same to us too.

I was trying to explain the concept of a pre-quel to my mom the other day.  My mom and sister and I have become rabid fans of the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child. There are like 20 of them and I’m happy to read them in whatever order the books come into my life. Some I get from the library, some I get from my friends, and I read whichever ones I haven’t read yet. And then I pass them on to my mom and my sister.

The one thing that was bugging all of us is that all of a sudden (Spoiler Alert, but probably not really if you’re a fan) is that everyone was talking to Jack about how sorry they were because his brother died. What? When did that happen? He was just alive two books ago. And how did he die? Nobody (at least not the characters) is talking.

So my mom and sister decided  to put an end to this. They are both Virgos. They cannot abide this frivolous lack of organization. My sister finally put her foot down.  We are going to look in the newest book we have, get a list of all the titles and start from the beginning.

Okay, fine.

Turns out not one of us ever read the very first book by Lee Child with Jack Reacher as his main character, the Killing Floor.  That’s where his brother, Joe Reacher dies.

Now my mom is confused, outraged and refuses to accept this.

“I ‘ve read dozens of these books, so far,” she said, “and the brother is alive in some of them. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well,” I told her, “perhaps the author wanted to go back in time with Jack’s life and talk about  where he came from, his mom and his brother and their life together. So he had to create a pre-quel.”

That seemed to be the end of the conversation, until a few days later when we were going shopping.

“I need you to give that book, “The Killing Floor” back to me, ” she said.

“Okay, but I’m reading it. Can it wait?”

“Well, okay, but I wrote down the publication date as 1997, and I just want to see if that’s right because I’ve gone through all the Jack Reacher books I have at home and none of them are before 1997. I just don’t understand it. I must’ve written it down incorrectly.”

“What are you talking about, Mom?”

“It just can’t be right that that book was written in 1997 because his mother and brother are dead and they are alive in other books.”

Now, here’s the thing. Do not try and use Star Wars as an example of a pre-quel to your 88-year-old mother. I tried. She’s never seen any Star-Wars-anything.  Princess Leia sounds naughty, Yoda sounds like exercise and Obewon Kenobe sounds like sushi, all of which she detests.

Since pre-quels didn’t seem to exist before  Star Wars, well, you’re just going to have to figure it out.

I’m not finished The Killing Floor yet, but I’m thinking about ripping out the copyright page and dummying up one that says 2016. For my mom, for my sanity, for senior citizens book clubs everywhere, and for all readers born before 1983.

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

©Cathy Sikorski 2016

A Rose by Any Other Name………..

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One can never have too many friends, or that ‘s what I used to think.

I was lucky enough to spend the weekend in New York City with my great husband and dear friends. We took full advantage of our time there. We made plans to have dinner, see an intimate venue magic show at the Waldorf Astoria, spend the next day at the Chelsea High Line, Chelsea Market, have dinner yet again at a great restaurant and see the IMG_4139Broadway show, An American in Paris.

Sounds great, right? And it was, but logistics had to be implemented every few hours.

These particular friends are great for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that down time and private time is always built into our joint ventures. So, we are glad to have cell phones and texting at our fingertips to make plans to meet up after we go our separate ways.

Just to make sure everyone was on board, I sent a group text to each of our friends with our meet up place and time in a few hours after breakfast. Weirdly, I kept getting a text from the gal asking me things like:

“Who is this?”

“Am I supposed to be somewhere?”

“I don’t know, what this is about?”

Since her guy was the typical texter, I thought, “well, maybe she doesn’t have my cell phone number in her phone.”

So I’m texting her back with polite messages like:

“it ‘s me, Cathy. ”

“We already made plans, I’m just giving you the time.”

“Just meet us in the hotel lobby.”

But I’m thinking, “geez what the hell is wrong with her? Obviously, it’s me and where and when we are meeting should make perfect sense to her.”

I keep reading  these messages from her and it hits me.  Her name is Terri. I have three friends in my phone named Terri. Terri K, Terri N and Terry R.

Terri K. was not the one I was in New York with. Terri K was at least two hours away in Pennsylvania losing her mind wondering why I was insisting she get her ass to New York City in half an hour.

Terry R was wondering why her boyfriend’s cell phone was texting incessantly with a group text message from someone neither of them knew.

I still think I could always use more friends, but Terry R’s boyfriend said I’m not allowed to add any more people named Terri  or Terry to my catalogue.

IMG_4138When Terri K saw my Facebook pics from the NYC trip, she was disappointed she didn’t make it on time, but hey, I gave her plenty of  notice.

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

©2016 Cathy Sikorski

 

Stay tuned for an important message…..

Brain Injury, Caregivers, Humor, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

My friend. Lisa sent me a Facebook message this morning before 8:00 A.M. I happened to be up and reading the newspaper (yes, I still have an actual newspaper delivered). It was a bit odd, both for the time and the message as it was one of those ridiculous cat videos. Neither Lisa nor I have a cat, nor do we share any cat videos, as a rule.

But okay.

I responded with something like: “Hahah. Oh that’s cute.”

To which she responded: “Fuck. that was a mistake and I sent it to someone so wrong. HELP!”

I said, helpfully: “Haha. You and technology. You do have a brain injury, you know.”

She messaged back: ” I meant to send something else, this video is STUPID. Help me delete it.”

I gave her instructions on Messenger how to delete the message that went like this:

“In the messenger box at the top is a circle that looks like a sunburst and it says “options”

and then if you click on it it says delete conversation.”

 

To which Lisa replied:

“What’s the Messenger Box?”

 

Now, I’m thinking: “Oh, boy, we are in trouble” Since we are typing in the Messenger Box.

So I reply:

“When your are on your iPad in Facebook and you send a message to someone it comes up in a box. The message box to send a message is next to the word HOME after the silhouettes of the people…its like a bubble of conversation.”

To which Lisa replies by calling me on my cell phone so we can have an actual conversation…much like an actual newspaper.

“Help me get rid of this stupid video!”

“Okay,” I say, “get off your android phone and go to your iPad, it will be easier there, because I have an iPhone and the screen isn’t the same.”

After a minute or two as two middle-aged incompetent Facebook users try to communicate about things that look like bubbles and sunbursts and silhouettes of people and gear-thingies and where to click on them and see what it says, I finally get off my computer and revert to my iPad so we can be looking at the same screen.

We somehow manage to both get into the Messenger app and find a screen that had options on my computer but doesn’t come up with options when you click it on the iPad. Ugh. How can this be? Why oh why do they keep changing the options?!?!  And then I see and owl icon and it says “help”. So I type in:

How do I delete a message?

Up comes an FAQ:

 How do I delete a message?

Put your cursor on the message and hold it down and the message will be deleted.

All of that took 45 minutes and a lot of swearing. I never did get to finish “Dear Abby” in my

actual newspaper.

“You Just Have to Laugh…..”

©Cathy Sikorski 2015

Here’s the “stupid” video for your viewing pleasure:

Stroke of genius?

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I called my 86 year old Mom for help.

“Hey, Mom, I need a picture of your cabin in Canada.”

“Okay,” she said, “come over and get it.”

“No,” I told her, “I want you to get it off your computer, and email it to me.”

“Oh, ummm….where is that?”

“Where is your computer?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous. Where is the picture on my computer?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you?”

Maybe I did have to go over there and get it.

“Okay, let’s start at the computer. Are you on your iPad or your desktop?”

“Let me go to the big computer, the picture has to be on there because your

In folder marked "Canada"
In folder marked “Canada”

brother-in-law made it my screensaver.”

I hear her sneakers tweak around the kitchen floor, her bedroom door makes a little squeak as she opens it, and the whirr of her desktop hums through the phone line as she boots up.

“Okay, now what do I do?” she asks matter-of-factly. She calmly clicks on all the buttons I direct her to. We get all the way to the photos stored on her desk top and we are at an impasse.

“Mom, do you know where the photo is stored? Like, what folder is it in?”

“Well, I guess it’s in the one marked ‘Canada’, does that sound right?”

“Just try it. See if it’s in there.”

For some reason, I don’t hear any computer buttons clicking on the other end of the line. Silence, with a little breathing is the only sound coming through.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing? I thought you were looking in the file marked ‘Canada’. Did you find it?”

Now she’s exasperated. Technology has won again. She is frustrated and annoyed, and I have no idea why.

“Ugh….I have been waiting and waiting for the keyboard to come up so I can look for the picture.”

“Wait…what? I don’t know what…..Wait….are you on your iPad or your computer”

“I’m on the computer. I told you that’s where the picture probably is.”

I realize that this octogenarian is trying her best to be in the 21st century. She has willingly taken on a desktop and an iPad. She puts up with her children trying to train her like an organ monkey over the phone, and sometimes it’s just too many things to remember. Plus naming every button as a “square thingy that looks like a tv,” or a “the blue e thingy,” usually ends up with a trip to Mom’s house anyway.

” Um….Mom, look down at your fingers, there’s your keyboard. It doesn’t come up on the screen like the iPad. You’re using the actual keyboard.”

“Oh.”

We both burst out laughing. She does indeed send the picture.

Caregivers need to give credit where credit is due and…..

“You just have to Laugh….”

©2014 Cathy Sikorski

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder……

Caregivers, Humor, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

This is a warning and a blessing for those of us who are aging….which is all of us………..there are some upsides to technological ignorance.

My husband and I took my Mom, who is a very “with it” 85 year-old, who uses her own computer and iPad, to an orchestral pop’s concert yesterday afternoon. What intrigued me about the ad I read in the paper (yes, I do still read an actual newspaper) was that the theme of this concert was Ellis Island. The concert would include live performance pieces and a series of photos on a large screen to add to the music accompaniment. It was a new piece and had been around the world and shown on Public Television. “Wow!” I thought, “this would be great for all ages!” Honestly, though the average age in that audience was easily 90 or above.  I guess Ellis Island has a certain age appeal. Now that I think of it,  most of the ads in the program were for home care and assisted living. Not kidding.

The concert is held in a beautiful fairly new theater in a local public middle school. This theater is pretty darn magnificent for 11 to 14 year-olds. My theatrical-career-yearning heart is sobbing over the cafegymatorium we used for our productions in my high school in the ’70’s. Nonetheless, I am impressed and happy to be in a theater this beautiful and with all kinds of groovy acoustic equipment, lighting panels and comfy, cushy seats for this Ellis Island extravaganza.

I tell the ticket seller that I’m excited for the concert. And he, appearing to be a long time volunteer for the orchestra says” “Well, it’s different, hope you like it!”

But, not so different from any other Pops, I think. The first half is music from Fiddler on the Roof, and a tribute to Louis Armstrong. It’s wonderful and fun to hear. Then a short break and the Ellis Island themed presentation begins.

A huge projection screen slowly decends down from the ceiling, the maestro appears, the audience claps heartily and the music begins. It’s lovely. the screen projects a million dots in gray, black and white and then ‘pulls out’ so that the photo you see is actually millions of people on the deck of a boat. There is not an empty space between any of the heads. It’s overwhelming. The photos continue with individual pictures of immigrants and places on Ellis Island. The change in each photo is timed perfectly to the music. It is grand.

The first actor appears. She reads a charming account of an immigrant from Rumania, all the while beautiful music is lowly playing behind her. When she is finished, she leaves the stage and the music begins again in real earnest. The projection screen lights up and an error message appears….”NO SIGNAL.” Again, the screen goes from gray to the cursed blue of noncompliance, and the same error message appears. There’s a tiny little groan in the audience….mostly from people under 60, I think. We all know what that error message means. And, that’s it for the photo display. The rest of the concert takes about 40 minutes and never another photo is shown.

Six more actors appear. The music continues, and it’s really quite beautiful. But the whole time now I am literally having an internal boxing match with myself about why this stupid technology isn’t working, and can’t they fix it, and just put up some pictures, and hasn’t this ever happened before, where’s the back up plan and just UGH!!!! So it’s a good concert…..no really, it is…..but I’m  a victim of my techno-google-pc(that’s private computer not politically correct)time, and I can’t get this dumb error out of my head. I’m feeling cheated of half the performance.

The show ends with all seven actors reciting Emma Lazarus’ poem that is engraved on the Statue of Liberty. When they finish the recitation they all raise one arm to the screen, where I imagine the Statue of Liberty is supposed to appear. Nope, just a blank screen.

The crowd goes wild, struggles with their seat handles and their coats and programs to raise their sweet bent old bodies for a standing ovation. And then it hits me. Maybe 5 per cent of this audience knows what went wrong. So I do a survey of one, to my Mom:

“So, how did you like it?” I ask

“It was wonderful! Thanks so much for bringing me, it was really beautiful. The music was beautiful and the actors were great. I really enjoyed it.”

“Did you notice anything wrong?”

“No, what? It seemed fine to me. What?”

“After the first actor the projector didn’t work, there was an error message and no more photos. And at the end the actors raised there hands to indicate something on the screen, but nothing was there. You didn’t see that??”

“Nope. Loved it. It was beautiful.”

See….there are distinct advantages to aging…

You just have to Laugh……

Cathy Sikorski