My New Magic Trackpad

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My brother next door bought an iPad. The largest capacity one, of course, that's the way he is. Why mess about with something that just gets you by. I was surprised he could use my wireless router to hook up to both of his networks and use them just like they were sitting in front of him from my house. I had no idea that could happen from an iPad. He's extremely pleased with it. No blame.

I bought into the Trackpad myself. It was certainly an impulse buy. I picked up my iMac from the Genius Bar at the Apple Store, took it out to where my car was parked and locked it up in the trunk so that I could walk around a bit inside the air-conditioned shopping mall.

The Apple Store had run out of Trackpads when I first brought my computer in to get the Ethernet circuit board replaced. While I was walking around the mall, I impulsively decided to go back to the Apple Store to see if they had received a new shipment of them, and sure enough they had them in stock again.

It's gonna take some getting used to. The one aspect of the Magic Trackpad I don't like is the same thing I didn't like about the Magic Mouse. It's too difficult to mash down on the surface to get them to click. Double-clicking should be easy with two successive taps, but I need a small hammer to get it to click at all. Maybe it'll get easier over time.

The odd thing to me is that I used my arthritic hands as an excuse to buy the Magic Trackpad because I thought it would be easier to use than a regular mouse, but it's not, so I'm using both. I downloaded a software program that would allow me to use two mouses for input. I don't even remember the name of it. It got transferred over to my new computer when I transferred the old stuff from my Mac Mini to my new iMac. It works.

I'm seriously pleased to get my iMac back from the shop. Finding out from the technician at the Apple Store that the reason it was so slow in booting up was a relief to me. It also prepared me to have even slower boot-up times if I add more memory. I can add up to 12 gigabytes more than the 4 gigabytes the computer came with.

I probably won't add any more memory. The 4 gigabytes it came with is twice as much DRAM as I've ever had on any of my previous computers, and I have less stuff on the hard drive than I've ever had. I got the first video card I've ever had with the iMac. I thought it would help if I decided to play more complex games over the internet. It's not fast enough though. The extra DRAM could be a big help, but this slow video card won't process fast enough.

The three trips I've made to the State Capital during the last two weeks have caused me to feel my age. The arthritis is actually a little better. I'm not having near the aches and pain I had during the time I decided to stop taking the prescription medicines one at a time to find out which one was causing my lips and tongue to swell. I can't say I'm really sure if I found out which one. It could be any of them.

What I noticed that has plagued me a bit and that I attribute to getting older is apathy about what happens in the future. No matter what does happen, my ability to wait for things to get better if I'm just patient enough ain't gwine happen. It's like with RA. It's a progressive disease that there is no known cure for. I can't just take to my bed for a couple of weeks, eat right, and heal. The healing part is real iffy.

Another thing that causes me to dismiss the future as bright is watching and witnessing the activities and behaviors associated with procreation. Since I can't procreate because of the vasectomy I took all those years ago my attitude toward those activities and behaviors has become complacent to say the least. Cynical at best.

Women who can't have babies anymore probably understand this angle better than me, but not much. The first temptation of recreational sex is partially driven by social needs. The second temptation, that of biologically creating a child seems more species driven and instinctual.

It's the instinctual part of the mating deal that leaves me with a loss I can't logically explain. When a fertile, impregnable young woman appears on the scene, even though I can't get her pregnant even if we have sex together, my old habits cause to check her out anyway, then I notice myself doing it, and wonder why those kinds of habits are still around.

The most intriguing thing about this is that people who are obeying their instincts don't consciously know it's the cause of the behavior. The older they get, the less they indulge, but they still don't know they're doing it because of instinctual impulses. That is how they get manipulated by people who do realize they're behaving the way they do illogically. That makes them vulnerable just like it made me vulnerable, back in the day, but it doesn't make me wanna take advantage of them. I guess I'm too soft. That's apathy.
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