I have just completed the 16th session of “Reaching through the Cracks: Connecting Incarcerated Parents with their Children through Story.” The culmination of each workshop series is the recording of the stories that the participants have created for their loved ones and transferring them to a CD or flash drive to send. Those CD’s or flash drives are then sent to the person for whom a mailer has been addressed. It doesn’t matter to me who they are or where this final product lands. It is their creative work and I have no rights to it or any say in where it goes. I do, however, caution the participants not to send anything should any restraining order be in place.
I am technologically challenged, as are many people over the age of 60. BUT I have never had such a series of equipment failures stalling the mailing of these stories.
I recorded 9 stories on January 21, 2020. On January 22, I sat down and proceeded to download the stories from the audio recorder to my computer. There were only 6 stories that could be retrieved. The other three were no where to be found. I went through every file on the recorder and…nothing.
Great.
I went to my local Best Buy to see if the Geek Squad could help me find the missing story files.
I am technologically challenged, as are many people over the age of 60. BUT I have never had such a series of equipment failures stalling the mailing of these stories.
I recorded 9 stories on January 21, 2020. On January 22, I sat down and proceeded to download the stories from the audio recorder to my computer. There were only 6 stories that could be retrieved. The other three were no where to be found. I went through every file on the recorder and…nothing.
Great.
I went to my local Best Buy to see if the Geek Squad could help me find the missing story files.
The conversation went like this…
“Ma’am, how OLD is this (audio recorder)?”
“I bought it in 2008. It got me through grad school and through 15 storytelling workshops at the detention center and the prison. Never had any problem with it until now,” I said with confidence,
“Ma’am, how OLD is this (audio recorder)?”
“I bought it in 2008. It got me through grad school and through 15 storytelling workshops at the detention center and the prison. Never had any problem with it until now,” I said with confidence,
and just a chard of attitude.
“Ma’am, you might want to retrieve whatever you can and throw this one away. It may not be dead yet, but its close.”
“Seriously?” I said. “It’s never given ME any indication that that it was failing.” (As in, “How dare this audio recorder die! It’s only 11 years old!!! It still has work to do!)
“Uh…yeah...it’s about done.
Just throw it away and get a new one.”
“What!?! Buy a new one?” I was not happy. Did not want to shell out the price of a new one just then. And didn’t my audio recorder know that it was beloved? A valuable part of my storytelling venture? How could it possibly let me down?
Well, I bought a new one. I went with the newest generation of the same brand and model. I left Best Buy a tad poorer than I had been an hour before. While that problem was solved, the problem of the missing stories was staring at me, and left me feeling quite chagrined. An equipment failure. Who knew such a thing was possible? Meanwhile, I made the CD’s for the six stories I was able to download and mailed them.
I had to contact the prison and explain the situation. Fortunately, my point of contact had no problem with my coming back and meeting with the three participants whose stories disappeared into those digital Netherlands. As it turned out, they were actually pleased to have a second chance to record and were most pleased with their performances. Whew!
I came home and sat down to complete the remaining CD’s. Downloading from the new audio recorder was much simpler than before which was awesome. Then I plugged in the external DVD Writer to my laptop. That funny little noise that says, “I’m connected!” was music to my ears. I opened Windows Media Player to burn the drive and….
It didn’t recognize the DVD Writer. My laptop did not believe there was anything plugged into it besides the mouse, and the mouse certainly doesn’t know how to burn a CD! I was confounded, and not very happy. We had spent a bunch of money for the Geek Squad total protection so we would have help for just this kind of situation. So, I called the Geek Squad for help. It took an hour on the phone for me to get to the technician who could perhaps fix the problem. After all, didn’t I know that the DVD Writer could be bad and the agreement didn’t cover that? WHAT?!? It took the better part of that hour to convince him that the DVD Writer was working just fine and that it was my laptop that was the problem. After all, just a week ago it was working just fine.
Finally, there was an agent who diagnosed the problem and fixed it. HURRAY! Turns out that a new driver needed to be installed, which really isn’t a big deal if you know to look for one. I sat down and quickly burned the remaining CD’s and put them
“Ma’am, you might want to retrieve whatever you can and throw this one away. It may not be dead yet, but its close.”
“Seriously?” I said. “It’s never given ME any indication that that it was failing.” (As in, “How dare this audio recorder die! It’s only 11 years old!!! It still has work to do!)
“Uh…yeah...it’s about done.
Just throw it away and get a new one.”
“What!?! Buy a new one?” I was not happy. Did not want to shell out the price of a new one just then. And didn’t my audio recorder know that it was beloved? A valuable part of my storytelling venture? How could it possibly let me down?
Well, I bought a new one. I went with the newest generation of the same brand and model. I left Best Buy a tad poorer than I had been an hour before. While that problem was solved, the problem of the missing stories was staring at me, and left me feeling quite chagrined. An equipment failure. Who knew such a thing was possible? Meanwhile, I made the CD’s for the six stories I was able to download and mailed them.
I had to contact the prison and explain the situation. Fortunately, my point of contact had no problem with my coming back and meeting with the three participants whose stories disappeared into those digital Netherlands. As it turned out, they were actually pleased to have a second chance to record and were most pleased with their performances. Whew!
I came home and sat down to complete the remaining CD’s. Downloading from the new audio recorder was much simpler than before which was awesome. Then I plugged in the external DVD Writer to my laptop. That funny little noise that says, “I’m connected!” was music to my ears. I opened Windows Media Player to burn the drive and….
It didn’t recognize the DVD Writer. My laptop did not believe there was anything plugged into it besides the mouse, and the mouse certainly doesn’t know how to burn a CD! I was confounded, and not very happy. We had spent a bunch of money for the Geek Squad total protection so we would have help for just this kind of situation. So, I called the Geek Squad for help. It took an hour on the phone for me to get to the technician who could perhaps fix the problem. After all, didn’t I know that the DVD Writer could be bad and the agreement didn’t cover that? WHAT?!? It took the better part of that hour to convince him that the DVD Writer was working just fine and that it was my laptop that was the problem. After all, just a week ago it was working just fine.
Finally, there was an agent who diagnosed the problem and fixed it. HURRAY! Turns out that a new driver needed to be installed, which really isn’t a big deal if you know to look for one. I sat down and quickly burned the remaining CD’s and put them
in their respective envelopes.
And Series #16 can be put to bed.
I realize that none of you reading this have ever had such experiences, but perhaps you know someone who has. Please let them know they are not alone!
I realize that none of you reading this have ever had such experiences, but perhaps you know someone who has. Please let them know they are not alone!
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