Curmudgeon gets a new computer

We were in the middle of a conference call and one of the defendant's attorneys began referring to figures on a proposal that was more recent than the last one I could find in my file.

"I'll just email you a copy," she said, and I started to laugh.

One of the other attorneys on the call shares office space with me, so he was able to get the email and print out two copies... while my computer was still trying to start Firefox. I didn't want to call attention to the fact that my colleague and I were in the same room so I said I could follow along from the proposal I had. I looked back into my office. From the screen it almost appeared as if... yes... Firefox was definitely starting up. Or starting to start up. I said so.

"Wow," said one of the other attorneys on the call. "That must be a slow computer."

"It's very old," I said.

"Like us, I suppose," said the retired judge, who was mediating the settlement conference.

Everyone had another chuckle and we moved on. Eventually -- maybe -- possibly -- we settled the case. We'll see. In the course of thanking everyone, including the mediator (whose efforts really were above and beyond the call in this case) I mentioned that my computer was logged on and I could probably get my email now.

Everyone was amazed -- and, of course, they assumed I was exaggerating.

But I wasn't.

Indeed, I had underestimated the time it would take to navigate through the sea of "unresponsive script" messages in order to open the email. I finally got an email open -- not the one in question here, but an email -- about a half hour later.

Moments after that, FedEx arrived with two large boxes.

I'd gotten tired of half-hour adventures every time I wanted to look at an email, so I'd finally broken down and ordered a new Windows 7 computer last week. It had arrived early.

I stayed late getting it mostly set up.

My checkbook program is obsolete and my new one won't import my checkbook data. It is possible my accountant can help on this. But, other than that, I may be able to hit the ground running this morning.

Which -- if you'll excuse me -- I must do immediately. An awful lot of work backs up when 20 or 30 minutes is required to read even one email....