Sunday, February 13, 2005

Wi-Fi

Call me a radical but I’ve changed my preferred writing venue. The shooting pains in my wrists called for a change in ergonomics and a move away from my desk. So I’ve set myself up in the living room on the (rather battered) red La-Z-Boy with my (rather battered) laptop. The elbow support seems quite adequate and by rocking back in the chair my neck is nicely supported. Of course, this position is an invitation for the cat to come and sleep on my lap… we’ll have to work this out.

This new office setup has been greatly facilitated by new technology: I’ve gone wireless. Taking advantage of some Boxing Day sales (in the middle of February) I was able to pick up the required bits and pieces for about $40. I can now use my laptop anywhere in the house. Of course, my laptop doesn’t actually have a functioning battery so “anywhere” carries the caveat that it must occur within five feet of a power outlet. Still, the new setup is kind of nice and allows me to make great scholarly use of a few old trusted tools—namely my laptop and the aforementioned red chair.

I picked up the laptop three years ago as stop-gap measure. I was called up for an engineering venture in deepest darkest Missouri and I needed some tech. Not having the scratch for a new machine, I picked up an old used beater. If destroyed, I would feel no guilt. It’s still with me and currently sports quite an interesting glowing appendage, which informs me that I’m on “Wi-Fi”. I could refer to the adapter as a tail; however, the Latin word for tail—penis—makes the analogy a little more complete.

The red chair has a pedigree. It comes from Princeton University. Both my wife and my brother-in-law attended that esteemed institution. When my brother-in-law left he took a certain red La-Z-Boy that had spent several generations coddling the bums of dozing undergraduates. After a sojourn in Lethbridge Alberta, my wife and I removed it to Winnipeg where we were spending the year [And we had a great time. Never let it be said that Winnipeg isn’t a great place to live. We would have stayed, but other opportunities called… as they always seem to do when you live in Winnipeg!] Finally, big red ended up in my living room where it currently coddles my bum, and lets me type away on my newly retrofitted laptop [which has moved up to my knees to make room for a very bossy cat].

I think this Wi-Fi thing is going to work out. But it’s time to get on to what I really intended to write about: materiality, situatedness, and SCOT.

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