Well, did your computer crash from the Conficker worm April Fool’s virus yesterday? Obviously not, because you’re reading this. But dire predictions filled the news for the last few days of March about how bad it was going to mess up our computers. It makes me wonder how real the threat was, and how inflated the news media made it.
Bad news sells, and if you were to believe all of the talking heads on your television, we are drowning in a sea of doom and gloom. But somehow things never turn out quite as bad as they tell us it’s going to.
I still remember New Year ‘s Eve, 1999. We were at the Escapees Rainbows End RV Park in Livingston, Texas, and people were walking around telling each other that airplanes were going to fall out of the sky, electrical systems would fail, and modern life as we knew it was all going to come to an end at the stroke of midnight. Guess what? It didn’t happen. It never seems to happen! But who would watch a news program that said “Nothing bad’s happening today, but it rained in Florida.” People thrive on predictions of disaster and news of mayhem.
I’m reminded of a story a friend told me yesterday about an uncle who was a farmer during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Prior to the fall of Wall Street, the man fed his family by raising his crops, and selling whatever excess he had at a roadside stand he had built in front of his farmhouse.
That was before the days of television and computer news. He was illiterate, so he never read a newspaper, and he was stone deaf, so he could not hear a word that was said to him. He just didn’t get the news that there was a depression going on. And all through those dark days, he just kept on doing what he had been doing all along, and he managed just fine. I think we could all take a lesson from that.
Terry and I are trying to decide what we’re going to do today. Kingman does not have high speed EVDO wireless service, so our Verizon air card is working on the town’s terribly slow Extended Network service, which makes it very hard for me to get any work done. To give you an idea of how slow it is, last week in Apache Junction, and before that in Tucson, our EVDO download speeds were averaging 1500 to 2200 kbps. Here our download speed is 12 to 13. Not 12 to 13 hundred, just 12 to 13!
When I tried to post yesterday’s blog, a process that normally takes less than a minute, the task took me three hours! Every time I clicked the Publish button, the system just sat there until finally it knocked me offline. Then I would have to log onto the Internet again, which took several minutes, and then spend several more minutes connecting to the blogging website, only to repeat the Publish process and get knocked offline again.
We’re having a good time visiting with our friend Mike, but we really want to get over to Show Low and see those grandkids of ours. However, according to the weather reports on those same news broadcasts mentioned above, from Friday on, very strong winds are predicted for this region, as well as very cold temperatures in the Show Low area. So do we sit here and wait it out, being frustrated by our internet service, or do we make the run to Show Low and be cold?
By the time you read this, we will have made a decision. Tune in tomorrow for the next installment of What Would Nick Do?
Thought For The Day – The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Hey Nick, compromise, go part way, where the internet works, and the temperatures and still warm. That is a no brainer.
Joe