Note: Certain portions of this article were separated into their own standalone post, here. If you’re looking for The Mothership, that’s where you need to go . . .
1. Marcia and I purchased our first home computer nearly 25 years ago. Since then, I have been very good at maintaining and updating Die Maschinen, I always practice “Safe Surf,” and I am averse to technological change for change’s sake. This means I’ve managed to do everything I’ve ever done on computers at home while only owning three Maschinen. (That number could conceivably have only been two, actually, had not my spawn melted down Das Maschine Nummer Zwei accidentally during those awkward early teen years, enticed by the dangerous computer-eating wonders of the early social web). My current Das Maschine has been running like a champ since 2007, but Microsoft, Mozilla and others have announced that they are ending support and upgrades for its operating system (MS Vista), and I’m not willing to maintain an unsupported system for very long once that goes away. I researched updating the OS, but the economics of doing so didn’t make sense, so I finally succumbed and bought a new Das Maschine (Nummer Vier) last week. It arrived yesterday, and last night I went to break the news to Ol’ Yeller 9000 (Das Maschine Nummer Drei) that it was time for us to take a walk out behind the woodshed to talk about stuff, just the two of us. Things went downhill from there, though . . . negotiations are ongoing . . .
Ol’ Yeller 9000 doesn’t believe in fiat currency, so we’re negotiating in precious metal and booze . . .
2. I had hoped and planned that 2017 would be a bit less travel-heavy for me than 2016 had been. Looking at my first quarter route map, I’m thinking this may not actually turn out to be the case:
Upcoming stops: DC (again), Cleveland, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis . . .
J. ERIC SMITH 
I feel your pain on the computer front, as I’m currently running an 8 year old MacBook Pro to which I added a solid state drive and maxed out the memory. It still does the job, but it has a tough time rendering modern web pages, and Lightroom makes it sad. It too is no longer eligible for upgrades to its OS, which I consider unfortunate.
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iTunes was the one program that Ol’ Yeller 9000 had a problem running toward the end of his run . . . lots of slow responses and hangups and forced shutdowns and the like. So thus far, I will note that the new Maschine is doing a better job on that, but with much less character. Microsoft and its partners seem to have gotten more subtle and clever over the years about automatically linking or logging or connecting things that I’d prefer stay separate, so I am having to be vigilant on that to keep things as locked down as I like, but other than that, the transfer has gone surprisingly smoothly thus far!
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Always great to read your news Sir, thank you so much.,
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Thanks, Mellie! If you’re still romping and stomping over in Facebook, tell the Xnet2ters I said “howdy!”
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