Be still, my heart!  New PC's don't have floppy disk drives! What's that all bout? Yeah, so the average appraisal doesn't even fit on a floppy anymore. So what? Yeah, floppies are hard to keep track of and go corrupt too often. Who cares? They are a part of my digital heritage! The good old days. EVERY computer should have a floppy disk, right?

It's blasphemous and preposterous. Who cares if technicians can boot Windows repair disks from CDs and jump drives. I want my good old 3.5" coffee-stained, dented metal 1.38 megs of storage floppy drive.

Ok, so I have not actually used one in a few years. But that's beside the point. Isn't it? It's a matter of principle. In fact, it's the principal principle.

Oh—hold on, it's my therapist on the other line... Let me get that and I will pick this blog up in a few mins.

Hi—I'm back. My therapist says I am hiding from the future. She says I am hanging on to the obsolete in my life. She says I need to let go of the things that have been superceded and updated. Embrace change. She also said it's time to turn off the night light, but that's a whole other issue.

How many of us have an 8 year old digital camera? You know, the one with SIXTEEN WHOLE MEGABYTES of memory on board. You may not even be using it but it sits there in the back of the drawer, cluttering your space. Who's got Street Atlas version 7 installation CDs rattling around? Or fourteen old ACI install discs? 

Who's got Win98 and is afraid to update to XP or beyond? Why do we do this? There's a level of comfort in sticking with a known evil. But there's a point where you have to clean house.

So I took a look around: I'm still hanging on to frustrating problems long gone. I'm still hanging on to bad habits that I should have outgrown. There's an ancient Zen parable (or maybe I made it up? Who knows?). Two monks were walking along a road. They approach a river, and as they are about to cross, an attractive young lady approaches as well. One of the monks, in a manner MOST unacceptable, swoops her up in his arms and carries her across the river. The other monk watches in horror as almost every vow of temptation and reservation is shattered by this intimate act. They get to the other side of the river and the young lady parts ways. The monks continue on.  Secretly, the stodgy monk is FUMING at the other.  How could he do this?  How dare he?  Finally, he can't take it anymore and says "Why, brother, did you pick that woman up and carry her?" The helpful monk looks at his angry brother and says "I set her down on the far bank... why do you carry her still?"

And then they were enlightened and Andrew took another call. Anyhow, you can see where I am going with this. It helps to clean house (mentally and stuff-wise) and set down the past, march cheerfully into the future, and keep on keepin' on.

I'm going to go throw out my old DC40. Have a good day...

Andrew