About a year ago I learned what a flash drive was. It was one of those light bulb shining moments for me. It came about in such a strange way. I had to send some pictures to an editor. Before I sent them off I sent them to a friend to make sure they met with her standards as she was the one who recommended me to the editor. I attached a few pictures to an email and zipped them off. You know that even though my pictures filled the screen on my laptop and looked wonderful, when they flew through the air and landed in her plastic box they magically shrunk to something called thumbnail size. That is how I learned about resizing and putting pictures on these cute little do-hickeys called flash drives. Then when I sent my photos out they would stay regular size and not be something you need an eye loupe to see. All very magical.
Moving forward I learned more about my new discovery… Yes it’s MY new discovery. Come on everybody couldn’t know about these little things and not tell me. They had to be new and undiscovered by the masses. I’m always on the cutting edge. Well, not quite. Seems these little gems are not all that new. They’ve been around a while. Yes I felt like an 8-track tape in a cassette driven world. Even with my revelation of learning this new type of technology I was still apparently living in the dark ages according to my laughing friends.
I didn’t care. I started to use flash drives to save stuff that was filed away happily living in my documents and pictures files. I found some really cute flash drives. One looks like a little hammer and one is shiny like a chrome wrench. One looks like a folded pocket knife, an advertisement from a knife vendor at a product show. It was stuffed in a kitchen a drawer for years because I didn’t even know what it was. But! Yes a flashing “but.” I remembered seeing it years ago so I dug it out and like magic plugged it in and started to fill it up with pictures I had taken of some guys shearing sheep. I was in flash drive mode for sure. I went to a store and looked at all the different flashers available and bought a supply so I would never be without. You know like we all did with Floppy Discs and CDs. Yes I still have a nice supply of those that never got used because the memory on my laptop was so huge I didn’t need to save to floppies anymore. But these flash drives are so much easier to use and they can be carried in my pocket!
Then someone smarter than I just had to burst my flash drive bubble. Couldn’t stand that I felt I was on the cutting edge of saving my stuff to my little hammers and my favorite one that looks like a teddy bear. I was looking for a specific story I had written and I knew it was somewhere on one of my little magic sticks. I had a few, okay like ten drives scattered on my table where my lap top resides. I was talking with a friend on the phone saying I couldn’t find what I was looking for because I haven’t kept track of what was on each little flasher. My friend says to me, “What? You don’t save everything to your cloud?” From my end of the phone? Crickets! I had no idea what my friend was talking about. “Hello!” she said. “The cloud. You have heard of the cloud haven’t you?” I laughed and said. “Nope. Not unless you mean a cloud that is fluffy in the summer and I watch to see animal shapes in them as they float lightly over my head on warm lazy days.” Then from the other end of this enlightening phone conversation? Crickets.
It took about ten minutes of conversation for me to now know I still do not know what the cloud is, where it is, how to get to it, how to use it or how it doesn’t cost anything. There is no way that I can see using something I cannot see or touch. I am afraid of sending my stories which I call my do-dahs, or my pictures of friends and flowers off into never-never land. Nope, I’ll stick to my little flashers. At least I can touch them. I can lay my hands on them, uh anytime I can remember where I put them.
Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Her new book, “They Call Me Weener” is available on Amazon.com or email her at itybytrina@yahoo.com to find out how to get a signed copy.
Really!
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