“I love sports. Whenever I can, I always watch the Detroit Tigers on the radio.”
The day is gray and windy but is 55˚ so I’ll take the drab and the windy for the warmth. This has not been the best of days. Whatever I do to make the computer screen black I did again. I also fixed it, and I have no idea how I did it. I just know it took a couple of tries. Next came the blasted keychain requests for passwords, one request after the other. It didn’t like my first password though I knew it was the right one as I had broken a computer commandment and written it down. I kept forgetting the newest ones of the last two days so I needed a constantly updated list. I believe all is settled because no new boxes are asking for my attention or my password. I’m exhausted, and my two typing fingers no longer have fingerprints. I wore them off.
When I was about nine or ten, I got a typewriter. I think the body was red and I remember it was part plastic and part metal. I loved the sound of the keys clicking one at a time as I typed. It was slow going as I had to hunt for the letter I needed by going up and across the rows. After I’d found the letter, I’d hit the key then go hunting for the next letter. A mistake got X’ed out, and there were so many of them you’d think my message had been redacted. I think it was only a few months of hunting and pecking before the typewriter stopped being entertaining for me.
My favorite gift was my first transistor radio. It was a square leather box with holes across the front for decoration I suppose. It had two controls on the top: one for off and on and the other for choosing the channel, all AM channels. It wasn’t all that small but it didn’t need a cord and that was the best part. It could go anywhere. I even sneaked it into school and listened with the headphones. My next radio was so much smaller you could hold it in your hand. It was totally plastic. On the front was the tuning wheel with the channel numbers around it, still all AM. I don’t remember the color, but I do remember everybody had one.
I listen to the radio still but only in the car. None of my favorite channels are AM.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: clicking keys, computer problems, gray, keychain, passwords, transistor radio
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
April 7, 2016 at 1:36 pm
Bright. Sunny. A bit windy, but not so much. Could be chillier, but I’ll take what the Weather Gods have put on the plate for today. Which flavor of OS X are you using, Kat? I’ve never seen the need to move beyond ‘Snow Leopard,’ mainly because I need its ‘Rosetta’ emulation to run many of my ‘legacy’ programs. The reviews and complaints I read about have mostly to do with OS X versions beyond ‘Snow Leopard.’ Yosemite and El Cap seem to be particularly obnoxious insofar as the ‘user experience’ goes. I would like to get another of the flat metal keyboards with white keys … that’s one of the best things Apple’s come up with in a long time. It’s a pleasure to type on it. The ‘Magic Mouse,’ with the exception of its extremely poor power mangement, is also the best mouse I’ve ever used – but it sho’ nuf lubs it some battery.
Typewriters were always cool. The older they were, the cooler. I learnt to type on those ones, and the skill remains the same no matter how much easier or prettier they get. The Army taught me touch-typing, so I never look at the keyboard. That’s an amazingly useful skill when you’re setting type.
I think my transistor radio was a Zenith, but I could be mistaken. That’s way back in the dark fog of memory, and those can always be subject to – let’s be kind here – ‘re-interpretation’ … The radios that were really cool were the shortwave ones … a high school friend was really into it and had his own transmitter out in the country hidden in a metal shed on acres ’n acres of land. He took me to see it once, and we had to ride the ferry across the Mississippi River to get to the West Bank and then take several buses to get near the property – the rest was all walking. After that, I decided shortwave might be cool, but I wasn’t gonna invest that kinda money or energy in it … guitar was more practical.
There are two – count ‘em – two amazingly wunnaful things today – one to listen to, one to get us all ‘learnt up’ on how to properly use those li’l paper ketchup cups in fast food places …
Steven Stills … ‘Treetop Flyer’ … great music and one amazing aircraft … say ‘P-51’ …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfkR0U2VnSs
And now for the Ketchup Instructional …
April 7, 2016 at 3:27 pm
Richard,
I’m using El Capitan. I only just started to have problems with it, and I know I must have stumbled and inadvertently done something. I haven’t bothered to upgrade my system at all.
I still have the typewriter I got as a present for high school graduation, but I never learned to type. In high school classes, college prep tracks didn’t take typing, only business tracks did.
I didn’t know anyone with a shortwave radio. I’d see them on TV, and they looked cool. How neat to talk to people in other countries.I actually think mine might have been a Zenith as well.
A Stephen Stills fan here, and I actually think I’ve posted this song some time back. My uncle had a similar plane and flew me home to Hyannis a couple of times. He’d take any excuse to fly. I remember flying over the city of Boston. I swore you could touch the tops of buildings.
I don’t know if I’d want to take the time to open up the ketchup cups. It never occurred to me what the folds were for.
April 7, 2016 at 1:43 pm
The rain has been pouring down for two days and I feel thet it is enough now. It even filled up my 53 gallon water barrel.
I remember my first transistor radio, it was red and all plastric too. It had both AM and FM and I even could get Soviet radio. I didn’t understand a word but it felt exiting to be able to listen to the bad guys 🙂 I remember that they had very little music and that it was really bad 🙂 🙂 I had it with me every where and I think it was the sand from the beach that finally killed it. I can’t remember the next one at all 🙂
So far I’ve had very little problem with my computer, knowck on wood! I always have some when an upgrade comes along but nothing else so far. I hope You won’t have any more problems!
Have a great day!
Christer.
April 7, 2016 at 3:30 pm
Christer,
We’re due to get rain again today, and it is beginning to look like we’ll get it soon. The wind is blowing, maybe raging is an even better word, and the sky is getting darker and darker.
We didn’t have FM stations when I was young. I remember when they started to appear on radios and they had very few commercials compared to AM. The best DJ’s were on AM. They had followings like movie stars did.
Everything seems okay, knock on wood!
Have a great evening!
April 7, 2016 at 2:38 pm
Here in Tiger Town we had a few chuckles at today’s banner – yesterday’s game kicked off just before 5 so I watched it on the computer, jumped in the car around the 3rd inning and watched it on satellite, got home around the 6th and watched it on cable TV.
We like our Tigers
I loved listening to sports on the radio as a kid, an evening match from some obscure place like Manchester or Leeds and every play of my Tottenham Hotspur crossing the airwaves and creating an image in my mind. Heck I loved the Muhammad Ali fights on the radio and even cricket matches.
The Detroit Tigers are two and ooh, but our new closer does not have a fastball – how do you close on sliders and off speed pitches ? We shall see
Meanwhile I had at least a cackle at the track list for a forthcoming release
1. Young At Heart
2. Maybe You’ll Be There
3. Polka Dots and Moonbeams
4. All The Way
5. Skylark
6. Nevertheless
7. All Or Nothing At All
8. On A Little Street In Singapore
9. It Had To Be You
10. Melancholy Mood
11. That Old Black Magic
12. Come Rain Or Come Shine
Brutal, its going to be Brutal
April 7, 2016 at 3:36 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I used to go under the covers and listen to the Celts play on the West Coast. I loved listening to Johnny Most. He made every game electric and had nicknames for all the players. Jumping John Havlicek being one of them. I remember the play-off game when Johnny yelled, “Havlicek stole the ball! It’s all over!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4fTjcJwImw
That is one strange combination of songs!
April 7, 2016 at 5:27 pm
That would be ol’ Bob Dylan crooning for us
April 7, 2016 at 5:30 pm
MDH,
Scary, pretty darn scary!
April 7, 2016 at 8:29 pm
I’m slumped on the sofa, with rather large headphones ripping in to the new Bob Mould – BOB !
April 7, 2016 at 8:35 pm
MDH,
You have risen in my esteem by being slumped on the sofa. I expected head phones but slumping is over the top!
April 8, 2016 at 11:09 am
A good slump in the early evening is much enjoyed – Mrs MDH was watching Survivor and I was blowing out my ear drums
Today I intend to post the new Dylan at the risk of incurring a lifetime ban (well deserved I might add) from KTCC
April 8, 2016 at 11:26 am
MDH,
I watched DVR’ed programs last night and hunted for a new food processor. Big evening it was!
You have risked banning many times. You are walking on the edge!
April 7, 2016 at 2:39 pm
I had to laugh when I saw your title quote. My evening entertainment will be watching soccer on the webradio. Euro League Dortmund-Liverpool, it will be interesting because Liverpool’s coach is Dortmund’s former coach who was very popular here.
I’m an avid radio listener for all my life, best source for music and political background information here as long as you avoid public mainstream and private stations. My first radio was my mother’s old car radio which also ran on batteries. Batteries were too expensive for my pocket money so I took wires, tape and an old transformer and made a power connection. Don’t tell electricians, it was hazardous but it worked.
Back then I’ve often listened to British Forces Broadcasting, they had interesting music, unfortunately AFN wasn’t available where I lived.
Now I’ll have to prepare dinner, soccer starts soon, I’ll listen to Joni and Harry later…
April 7, 2016 at 3:44 pm
Birgit,
When there were no TV’s people sat around the radio to listen. It was just like watching it from the picture I’ve seen.
I listen to the Sox in the car if I’m on the road during a game.
Mostly I listen to NPR (National Public Radio) in the car. When I’m going any distance, I try to find the local NPR or a local bak station. I find them entertaining.
Enjoy your dinner!
April 7, 2016 at 2:44 pm
Hi Kat. First of all the first memory i have of radio is from the son of the couple we used to go camping next to. They would always have a transistor radio on classical music. I also remember his cool bike. Back home we used to have a Hifi, now we did not used to we have. I have this 70’s HiFi connected to my Macbook.
speaking of mac I kinda relate to the problem you are refering. Once reinstalling the system i had the same problem. Now to keep it from happening to you overtime you open your mac try this: let finder appear as option on menu bar, search for a menu item called go click on it using the alt (option) key, this is very important. its the only way to access the user library. inside it the are many folders. do not let yourself get alarmed. Search for the keychains folder. inside you’ll find another one. This folder is the historic of keychains. save it to the desktop and delete it it will ask you your user password. restart your mac. You probably are now worry free. These were the steps i was taught trough apple care line :D.
April 7, 2016 at 3:50 pm
Hi WT,
My family never went camping but if we had, I’d have wanted to bring my transistor and some extra batteries with me. My mother got a hifi in the early 60’s. It was a gift from my dad. We were one of the first in our neighbor to have one. I still wax nostalgic about vinyl.
Thanks for the help. This is the second time I’ve had the problem with the boxes constantly appearing for a password. I can’t remember how I solved it then but now I used an old password, and that seemed to do the trick.
I will make sure to copy this down for when it happens again. Thanks!!
April 9, 2016 at 9:08 am
you can call me Ricardo. I just remembered my brother’s transistor radio. I used to listen to it in bed while he would type his assignments for university in a typewriter at night
April 9, 2016 at 10:42 am
Ricardo,
You just described the early 60’s. I loved having a typewriter, and I took my radio everywhere I knew there was downtime. I guess those little radios were the grandparents (or great-grandparents) of the iPod.
April 7, 2016 at 4:16 pm
Hi Kat,
My first transistor radio was a Philco that my Uncle Jimmy had passed along to me because he didn’t want it any more. It was in a thin,soft leather case that had holes in it for the speaker, the dials and the buttons. I forget what color it was and it probably was only AM, too.
My first typewriter was a really old Underwood. A very heavy, very large thing that was metal painted black with gold Victorian-ish scroll work all over. Nowadays it would be called Steampunk. It had round keys that needed to be pounded quite firmly and if you typed too fast the keys would jam up as they tried to pass each other to and from the bed to the paper. I kind of miss that old thing, though.
It’s pouring buckets up here.
Enjoy the evening.
April 7, 2016 at 6:14 pm
Hi Caryn,
My radio’s leather case was hard and was actually the radio. You could unbutton the case but not really take it off. It was an early radio and larger than what came next.
I don’t remember what kind mine is. I know it is in the cellar so I should take a look next time I go there. I know it didn’t have round keys. It was easy to get the keys to work. I used it all the way through college.
Have a great evening!
April 7, 2016 at 11:10 pm
I understand your frustration with the endless keychain requests for the password. I’m running Yosemite and the only frustration with OSX is the keychain password ordeal. 😀
The pocket transistor radio was the marvel of my youth. The sound was horrible from either the little tiny speaker or earphone. It was the beginning of portable personal music that has brought us to the iPod. I still have the original Sony Walkman that was only slightly larger than the cassette tape it played. The tranistor radio ran on a nine volt battery and the Walkman used a AAA battery. I’m amazed that AM radio still exists.
My cousin had an old black Royal portable typewriter when he was in High School which weighed as much as a concrete block and required strong fingers to mash the keys. When I went to college my father bought me a Hermes Rocket typewriter which I hunted and pecked on to produce the reports and term papers that kept me out of the draft during the mid 1960s. When I bought my first Mac in 1985 I bought a learn to type program and taught myself to touch type. Unfortunately, my iPad has ruined my touch typing skill. 😃
When my son was nine he liked to type on the old Hermes and called it the ancient word processor.
Another clear day with temps in the upper 80s. I drove home with the AC on in the car. Summer is coming quickly.
April 7, 2016 at 11:32 pm
Bob,
Somehow I solved the problem today using an old password. I tried so many I lost track. It wouldn’t take the newest so I went back in time.
I also still have my Sony Walkman. I thought that was a miracle when it came out. I loved listening privately to music.
I never bothered to learn to type. I got fairly fast using two fingers and got some familiarity with the keyboard from typing so often.
I enjoyed trying but didn’t enjoy correcting mistakes until the white paper tape corrector came out then came the miracle White Out (invented my Mike Nesmith’s mother).
The computer gives making mistakes a good name-whoosh and they’re gone.
It was warm at 55 then the torrential rains came.