In and out of whack ...

There are times when I absolutely HATE technology. I get so frustrated with it sometimes, that it's the best word to describe how I feel about it.

Many people who know me personally know that I'm a self confessed geek.

Monday night I went to my old church to rehearse with the old band to play for this Sunday. The audio equipment there is in bad shape. A loud, LOUD static hiss shows up intermittently. One of the amps is completely broken and no one has replaced it. Bummer. Sandy brought a camera to take pictures of our rehearsal, but the battery was dead. Bummer.

I teach an Educational Technology course at Cal State University, San Marcos. The other night when I was teaching:
Couldn't see a web page correctly.
Couldn't download files. Attempted over a half dozen strategies.
Could not hear audio on a movie file on my laptop when it has worked fine in the past. Later that night, after class, when I got home, I tried the same movie and it worked fine.
Word locked up, had to re-boot.
Video wouldn't show in class at the time I needed it. Later the same system showed video just fine.

Part of my frustration while teaching (and have technology fail) is the feeling that I'm trying to impress upon my students the importance and power that technology can have in education. Instead, I get the sense that some of my students are making a mental note ... "Reminder: don't use technology in a classroom, it fails, you can't get the lesson done and you look like an idiot."

My work computer is, to sum up, out of whack. My Palm is out of whack. Sometimes, but fortunately not too often, my Macs get out of whack. Weird things that I can't explain. Gremlins, someone with a voodoo doll of my electronic equipment sticking pins in it. Who knows.

Now I'm back from a short vaction. My computer has been re-imaged and other things are now out of whack. I just tried to use a simple USB flash drive to read a Word document. My computer (Windows XP) would not recognize the flash drive. I was told by my tech that I should re-boot the computer to see the drive. How absurd is that? To open a file that would take 20 seconds I have to do through a 5 minute reboot? I hate when my tech stuff is out of whack. Why can't they get in whack? What will it take to get them back in whack so I can get to work?

Just had a new car alarm installed and the proximity sensor is out of whack. I'll have to take it in again to have it adjusted / fixed.