I was able to buy a laptop last week-end.  Nothing fancy but it’ll do what I need to do… lots of writing, a little bit of web-surfing, an occasional game of Majhong.  Anyway, there’s always a transition when I get a new computer, and this time was no different.

I subscribe to Carbonite and found that transferring the files from my desktop to my laptop was a breeze.  I’m in the process of familiarizing myself with Windows 7.  All this is a distraction, taking me away from the art of writing.

For example, I wrote a short screenplay and was converting it to PDF format, something I did all the time on my old desktop.  So, I press the commands to save it to PDF and I get some stupid message that tells me the computer can’t find my printer.  What the– ?  Anyway, I emailed the SP to myself at my old computer and did what I needed to do there but… it’s a distraction.

I remember my first computer back in the early 1980s.  No hard drive.  One floppy disk (yes, floppy disk) drive.  A printer that looked like a converted typewriter. I remember sitting at the computer and crying.  Oh, we have come a long way…  I think I’m on my sixth or seventh computer, couldn’t tell you for sure.  I know it’s my second laptop.  In fact, I’m using my old laptop backpack and I had to shorten the strap that holds the computer in place.  My old laptop was much bigger than the one I have now.  The old one weighed over 20 pounds.l  This one weighs only 5-1/2 pounds.

So, this week, I haven’t gotten too much writing done but I think most of the distraction is behind me.  Just have to figure out how to convert the files to PDF without getting a printer message.  It’ll all work out in time.  It always does.  I just hate being distracted!