Technology Is Not A Friend of Mine

I planned on posting a series of photos for you today. As you can see, there are no photos.

Yesterday I had to drive down and back to Key West twice. In one day. Coincidentally, yesterday we had the most horrid weather we've had here in months. Windswept, driving, pounding rain. It was most unpleasant. I had no idea the weather was supposed to be so skunky. When I left here in the late morning, it was overcast, but not a drop of rain. Admittedly the night before we had torrential downpours, and a blazing lightning show. But, that had no impact on the day as far as I was concerned.

I packed up the car, planned my stops, and hit the road. Halfway to Key West, I saw "it" coming before "it" hit. The skies ahead were black as night, and I could actually see the swift movement of the storm as it moved from one side to the other. Looking one way was overcast, but no rain, in the sky. To the other side, those dark ominous skies.  Curses.

There was no turning back, I had a schedule to keep and I plugged on. Within 5 minutes of my observations, the gates of Hades opened up, and I was completely consumed by close to whiteout conditions, which only worsened the closer I got to Key West. By the time I got into the city, flooding was already in progress. Thanks to the ridiculous, behind schedule, construction project at the mouth of the city, the bike path was flooding over, and one of two traffic lanes was impassible due to flooding. Of course I simply continued with traffic, literally going with the flow. I did note that the boats to my right seemed to be floating at a higher level. Eep.

By the time I got into the heart of Old Town, the water was up past the door jambs of my electric car. I never drove my car through such flooded conditions, and honestly electric or not, I'm not a fan of driving through flooding. I've seen those stories where a car begins to float in a few inches of water, and blah blah blah. Since I was past the channels and bay at this point, I knew at least I would not be carried out to sea. At every single stop sign and red light, I grabbed my camera and began taking photographs. I took photos of scooters knocked down due to wakes in their parking spots; photos of drenched bicyclists trying so hard to get where they needed, in water half way up their spokes. I took photos of cars rounding turns where headlights were swallowed up by water, and took photos of wakes rushing into businesses (a curse upon every single driver who drives fast enough to create a wake which drives water into someones home or business in Key West---there is NO excuse for that, EVER!)

In the 3 hours that it took me to go round trip and back on my first trip to Key West yesterday, I shot at least 50 photos.  Then, when I got home, I shot another round of photos that I thought were interesting on my street and property.

Last night I went down and back to Key West again, but did not bring a camera. I knew I had some great shots stashed on the memory card, and since the deluge was ongoing, there was no reason to risk a drenching of my camera.

This morning as I worked on my computer, I noticed my spare memory card on the desk. Not where I normally keep it, but I figured I forgot I left it there. After a few minutes I retrieved my camera, opened it up, and to my horror once again found an empty space where the memory card belongs. When, oh when, will I learn?

So, obviously the "spare" memory card wasn't the spare at all, and obviously there was again serious operator error.

When Peri comes over, I am forced to deal with the giant TV in the other room (come on, you DO recall this happy vegan being an insomniac who lies in bed all night long with the TV on, grabbing fits & spurts of sleep....) well that giant TV is so ridiculous, it has a mind of it's own. Apparently it is programmed to auto shut off after a certain period of time. In the dark, with Peri by my side, I'm fidgeting with an enormous remote control, trying to figure out the magic combination of buttons to press to get that television back on. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. When I don't, things get ugly.

My cell phone is a 9 year old flip phone (recently disclosed to you here on the blog in one of my other rants on technology), because I cannot for the life of me figure out those fancy new phones. Oh sure, we have one for business, and that is a cause of almost constant anxiety for me.

I about fainted when I saw our washer/dryer has a computer I'm supposed to program to do a load of wash, and now that I have a new oven on order, my lip biting is starting to ramp up.... what if that too has a computer I need to contend with?

I tried to use our emergency radio the other day, and couldn't figure out how to turn it to FM. Yes, it's always set to "alert" but geez, forget about using it for every day.

Down here, gas pumps are computerized.  Not only do Jersey Girls Not Pump Gas, but happy vegans don't pump computerized gas. Oh yeah, when you see a female driving a hybrid in the lower Keys pulled over with hazards on... unless she's chasing around an injured animal for rescue, assume it is me, and I'm out of gas. That's always a special humiliation indeed.

Two things to sum this all up:

1. No memory card in the camera = no photos for you.

2. I'm having Peri over for a slumber party tonight, which means it's me vs. the Giant TV. Insert frowny face here.

Basically, here's all you need to know: it rained a lot in the Keys yesterday, and I will not be sleeping tonight, boo hiss. Enough said.