If there is one lesson I tried to teach my kids it was that they should use the railroad crossing test before jumping into anything important: Stop! Look! Listen! I think that discussion fell on deaf ears most of the time, just as when my father taught me how to teach it. Dad was right. If I allow my impulsive side to take over there is no telling where I would go. Some aspect of that expectation of instant gratification needs to at least be given a few seconds of thought to consider second thoughts. Maybe that’s why they are called “second thoughts†because we only usually give them a few seconds to live.
Listening to all the good stuff about iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S was too tempting to resist. Forgetting my disappointment about the cruel practical joke that there was no iPhone 5, I never stopped. I didn’t look around. I listened to nobody. I drank the Apple Kool-Aid. After ordering the new iPhone it wasn’t long before I began wondering if I should upgrade my iPad 2 to the new OS. Unfortunately, I began this episode of wondering soon after going to bed, so after a few minutes of my mind stirring up all kind of questions I gave in and got up to “fix†my iPad even though it was never really broken. After plugging in and launching iTunes I was informed that I couldn’t do that without upgrading iTunes first. Oh well, I’m a classic insomniac anyway so accomplishing two things instead of one should grant me a peaceful night’s sleep.
After what seemed like hours (not really…it’s late) I had iTunes reloaded and running well. Now I could move on to the task of upgrading the iPad. There were the usual agreements we all half-read and click “accept†on any software product, but this time there were a few other message that crept up in the initial phases of the process. Paraphrasing: “Dude, this is going to take a long, long, LONG time too. Don’t you dare unplug anything!!!†After a long, long time (one more LONG to go) I started seeing messages saying “Error†and that the download had failed. Now I had to jump start my sleepy synapses into thinking about what to do next. The download stopped…it did not restart…so I unplugged/replugged the iPad to get it going again (I know, I know…the warning. But they never told me about the error thingy and I’m tired). Now the long, long, LONG wait starts anew. That is, until a SECOND error message appeared telling me that there was another problem. Paraphrasing: “You are sooooo screwed. We are about to erase all your shit!â€Â After tweaking, cajoling, lighting candles and praying SOMETHING started happening. That happening was followed by a message informing me that they had in fact just erased all my shit.
I began restoring from backup…something I had never done before…and apparently it didn’t work. The memory bar showed that my active, vibrant, right-hand-man trusted partner had now become a door stop. Oh well. At least it isn’t smoking, so I’ll register all over again and try to breathe some new life into my old friend. After being rebuked for not having an email address for a user name, I entered an email address and then went to Outlook to activate it. There was a message waiting for me there saying I didn’t have to change anything because my iTunes account already had an email address ID. Whaaaa? I’m too sleepy to argue. After the last keystroke, or whatever you call it on a touch screen, the memory bar went “YEE HAW!†(not really…that was me saying that) and it now showed that it was again full of all the stuff it had before. I’m more than happy and quickly forgot that Apple had just played another cruel practical joke on me. And I was also happy that I didn’t have to remember how to cash in on the AppleCare iDoorstop Protection Plan, my iPad is on iOS 5 and I think I am now on iCloud Nine.
Oh, and the iPhone 4S is running. Still have to do some tweaking to get everything where I want it, but I am now having an affair with Siri! She takes me where I want to go and has such a sweet voice. “Hello, Siri. How are you today?†She answers, “I am well.†And so she is…but no nonsense. “Siri, Do you like Apple Kool-Aid?†gets this reply: “I found 6 places matching ‘Apple’…3 of them are fairly close to you.†I now know that the Aspetuck Valley Apple Farm is only 12 miles from here.
Maybe “Stop! Look! Listen!†isn’t necessary after all. Want some Kool-Aid?