Tag: internet

When the Planets Align

June 25th, 2026

Years ago, when I was still working third shift at a trucking company, there was an unusual astronomical occurrence. Three planets (Venus, Mars, and Jupiter) lined up in the predawn sky. I remember taking a break from my work to go outside the building to gaze into the eastern sky and look at the light show. Venus was low near the horizon, a ruddy Mars was slightly higher, and Jupiter was shining just above the other two planets. I thought about what a rare and beautiful event is was. I had never seen anything like that before and might never see anything like again.

I am reminded of the alignment of the planets now because I now find that meeting with a friend has become a rare and beautiful event. It seems like it is getting increasingly difficult for me to get together with other people. Perhaps I am engaging in selective memory, but I recall back in my twenties being able to call somebody on the spur of the moment and then hanging out with that person. Sometimes my friends were busy with work or other commitments, but it was not unusual to hook up with somebody at a moment’s notice. People were more available then. I’m not sure why.

Part of my problem probably stems from the fact that I don’t fit neatly into any particular social group. I have been retired for a decade, but I seldom participate in senior activities. That is because my wife and I are busy raising Asher, our five-year-old grandson, and we don’t generally have time for the things that most old people do. Our schedules are not usually in synch with our contemporaries. On the flip side of that, I don’t necessarily fit in with the young parents of Asher’s classmates at the Waldorf school. I am, like these younger caregivers, focused on raising a child, but the members of their generation are also preoccupied with their careers, domestic relationships, and future plans. My schedule seldom matches with theirs. The planets don’t align.

There are other factors involved. I blame the Internet to some degree. We are able to connect electronically and instantaneously with people all over the globe, yet we are losing the ability to actually talk to another person face to face. Humans are social animals, but social media has paradoxically made us less so. It is far easier to doom scroll than it is to set up a time and date for having coffee with someone, and then actually getting up and going someplace to meet the person. We tend to avoid physical interaction with others. It is more convenient to sit around the house and stare at a screen, which of course is exactly what I am doing now. My wife and Asher are doing something similar in the living room while I am writing this sentence.

I have been trying to set up play dates for Asher with his kindergarten compadres. I have found this to be a frustrating process. Many of his classmates are almost constantly in some kind of summer camp. I understand why that is. Almost all of the parents are working fulltime to pay the bills, and they are not available to watch over their kids. My wife and I are unique in the fact that we are home with Asher. Once again, scheduling becomes difficult. Asher has managed to have a couple play dates since the school year ended, but they have been for only short periods of time. These meetings have often felt rushed, with the adults acutely aware that they need to be somewhere immediately after the play date ends. It is good for Asher to meet with his friends, and it is good for me to get to know the other parents better. However, it is sad that these gatherings seldom feel relaxed. That bothers me.

You might ask, “Why doesn’t Asher just play with the other kids in the neighborhood?” That’s a good question. The answer is that there aren’t any children his age on our street. That is not to say that the area is completely devoid of children, but there are not many of them. It is not like it was a generation ago when our kids could go a couple doors down the block and hang out with their buddies. There simply are not very many kids. Period. It also appears that whatever children are in the neighborhood spend much of their time indoors. The curse of the computer age. Why play outside when you can binge on video games for hours on end?

I am by nature an introvert. That is one reason I write. It requires real effort for me to reach out to others. For me, arranging a meeting with friends is work, but it is necessary work. These planets won’t align on their own.

Involuntarily Offline

November 9th, 2025

Ten days ago, my laptop took a shit. I was kind of expecting this to happen at some point. The laptop was already six years old, which meant that it was well into obsolescence. In addition to that, I had dropped it a couple years ago creating an ugly crack at the corner near the on/off button. The crack had increased in size over time. Finally, the computer refused to allow me to type on the keyboard. I was required to do something if I wanted to go online.

I took the ancient laptop to Best Buy. I have total coverage with Geek Squad, and I planned on using it. It should be noted that it is nearly impossible to go into a Best Buy and physically talk to a Geek Squad agent without an appointment. Just getting an appointment is no easy task either. A person either has to do it online (which is not possible if the device, like mine, doesn’t work) or do it on the phone, which requires a number of long and unpleasant steps. In any case, I had an appointment, and I did in fact speak with a human being.

I turned in the computer for repair, and I was informed via text that the work was completed a day later. I went to the store to pick up my resurrected laptop. I should have had an appointment for this, but somebody handled my issue anyway. The man explained that they had not been able to replicate the problem with the keyboard. He told me this as he played around with the computer. Then he realized that, yes indeed, the keyboard did not work. The tech sighed and said,

“This always happens during check out.”

He gave the crack in the corner a hard stare and told me,

“That may be the death sentence right there. There is lot going on underneath that crack, and the mother board might be damaged.”

I asked him, “So, you are telling me to buy a new one?”

“Well, you could…”

I interrupted him, “Never mind. Where do I go to buy a laptop?”

He pointed across the room. “The salesperson will help you.”

The sales guy did help, and then he took me right back to Geek Squad, so that they could transfer the data from the old computer to the new one. The bottom line was that it would take at least two days to transfer the data from the memory. I bowed to the inevitable and left both computers in their hands.

After two days, I once again went to the store. I got my brand-new Hewlett-Packard Omni Book and proudly took it home. I plugged it in and got online. It worked splendidly for five minutes and then it didn’t. It froze up completely every five minutes.

Fuck.

I restarted it and rebooted it and I finally went to the Best Buy site to chat with a Geek Squad agent with a multi-syllable first name. He did a complete tuneup on it. I tried it again. No change. I contacted Best Buy again, and this time the agent threw up his hands in despair and gave me an appointment to visit another store.

Nice.

I had to wait two days to go to the store. In the meantime, I tried to write on my blog using the partially incapacitated laptop. That was a bitch. I had to restart the computer several times and find the page where it locked up. I finally finished the essay (my previous post on this blog), but it cured my desire to go online.

As this saga continued, I came to understand that I really only need to go online for maybe a few minutes a day. The rest of my time was wasted reading articles on the Internet that either depressed or infuriated me. I had been trying to ween myself off the computer before it quit on me. I never take the laptop with me anywhere. It stays at home. I don’t have a tablet or a smart phone. I am attempting to avoid being a prisoner of the Matrix. I actually want to be part of the physical world in all of its beauty and horror. This takes a certain amount of effort.

I took the new but broken laptop to Geek Squad. A pleasant young woman asked whether I had gone online for help. I assured her that I had already jumped through all of the required hoops before coming to her. She determined that I was right. The piece of shit was broken. Fortunately, my coverage allowed me to swap out the new/old laptop for a new/new laptop. Of course, I had to let Geek Squad transfer the data again. That took another two days and required yet another appointment.

This afternoon, at long last, I went to the store, and the young lady presented me with a fresh, data-infused laptop. I took it home. Miracle of miracle, it works just fine.

That’s why I am writing to you now.