“I JUST HATE THIS!” Alice said in a loud clear voice to whoever happened to be in hearing range (possibly including up to half the population of the UP of Michigan.) This would have been about 25 years ago when we were commuting to and from home in a small Chevy S10 pickup we’d inherited from her Dad. It was 4 wheel drive, and we chose to take this vehicle when the weather was bad, or when logistics dictated it (our other car was being serviced, for example.)
The pickup worked out well for us at the time, but as Steve was getting bigger, and we were attempting to carry things like band instruments, bookbags, and other miscellaneous gear, the three of us were packed into that little pickup like sardines. Alice stood it as long as she could, and then told the world all about it. Shortly after this event, the wheels started in motion, and we traded in the pickup for a brand new Dodge Caravan with seating for 7. Its front-wheel drive was pretty good in the snow, and there was plenty of room for all of us, our gear, and allowed us to haul boy scouts to camp year after year. It was a good move, precipitated by Alice speaking in capital letters.
Fast forward to about a week ago. Alice, who spends quite a bit of time on her little Samsung Chromebook using Netflix with her headphones on, needed to shut things down and do something like answer the phone. Her headphones were plugged in to one side of the little laptop, and the power cord (for charging the internal battery) was plugged in on the other side. Disentangling herself quickly and with style was not an option, and as she was working through this puzzle, she said, “I HATE THESE WIRES!”
I guess everyone is entitled to hate one thing or another every 25 years, so I went to work in my own quiet way. I’d heard about the wireless protocol bluetooth, but never used it for anything. I’d also heard there were bluetooth headphones, which hopefully allowed one to listen to Netflix with headphones, with no wires.
I did some research, and found a used pair of Sony bluetooth headphones on eBay which I won and had shipped. Never having “paired” a computer with a bluetooth device before, it took some head scratching and the watching of a youtube video, but I finally got it to work. The next challenge was marketing this to Alice. If the solution was more complicated than the problem (this occurs frequently with my solutions,) then it would have been back to the wires. Fortunately, the headphones and computer did their job, and after being shown how things work once, there has been nary a raised voice coming from the Chromebook corner of the house.