Last year about this time, I traveled to the Kansas Speedway to cover two NASCAR races for a publication. I'm usually meticulous in making sure I have everything I need before heading into an interview setting. I guess I wasn't so meticulous for the first race because when I went to grab my digital recorder before heading into the track, I couldn't find it. Apparently, I left it back at the hotel. So I ran across the street to Target and picked up another one. Turns out, I liked the new one better because it allows me to save files in mp3 format and that comes in handy when editors ask for the audio interview.Recently, I picked up a new PC. It's a 64-bit windows machine. I try to stay away from 64-bit machines whenever possible because they are often incompatible with some of the software I run, but finding a 32-bit PC is getting tougher. In fact, the store I went to doesn't carry them any longer, so I was stuck with the 64-bit version. It's a nice machine and all, but after doing a phone interview the other day with a subject for a newspaper article I'm writing, I discovered that my one-year-old digital recorder is incompatible with my new PC. So I had to transfer the file using my 32-bit laptop to an external hard-drive and then I had access to it on my PC.
Before you tell me to go get a Mac, let me just tell you that Macs aren't the answer for me. I've never used one, with one exception. I was at a writer's conference last year and I needed to access a file from my external hard-drive, so a woman I know let me use her Mac. I was completely lost. It took me 20 minutes to find my file. And besides, Macs are too expensive for my blood.
So, back to my story, I guess I'm in the market again for a new, inexpensive digital recorder. I checked around online and so many of them are not compatible with 64-bit machines, which is hard to understand. But it sort of reminded me of what human relationships are like. We can't always know if we are going to be compatible with one another. We can't look on the back of the box for the specifications. We simply have to interact and see if we get any error messages. Even if we do, the nice thing about human interaction is, we don't need to be 100% compatible to be in relationship with one another.
Oh, in case you were wondering . . . the picture above shows my hand, the digital recorder I purchased, and NASCAR driver Morgan Shepherd, whom I was interviewing for this article that appeared on the Baptist Press Sports website: Morgan Shepherd's mountain trek provides Christmas blessings.
