Get Out

We’re going to get to this power bank, I swear. But first, allow me to get a little wistful.

Recently, on a music Subreddit I follow, there’s been a parade of threads announcing that albums I listened to in college have turned twenty years old. And while I mostly roll my eyes at posts in the genre of ‘wanna feel old?’, some of these have gotten to me. How is it that time can be linear yet two decades can come crashing down on you all at once?

Not everything is twenty years, though.

I don’t know how many times I’ve referred to something happening ‘the other day’ when really it occurred weeks, if not months, in the past. Certain ‘recent movies’ I’ve seen came out in 2018. And then there is the laptop on which I type right now. In my mind, this is a ‘pretty new laptop,’ in that it is not a total clunker like the one it replaced.

But this thing’s getting older. And while it still functions nicely, I do notice signs of age. Mostly, the battery life, while solid enough, isn’t what it used to be.

This will only continue to get worse over time, and soon enough, the low battery warning will transform from something sigh-inducing and shoulder-slumping into an emergency distress signal. I won’t be able to wrap up what I’m working on and then get up to find the cable. I’ll have to plug in post haste.

After this will come a period of permanent life-support, when unplugging for five minutes means Mr. MacBook going night-night (and taking roughly twenty minutes to get back up to speed once he’s plugged back in again). And then, after that, it will be time for a new computer.

Such is the cycle of life. I’m not there yet, though. I’m not really even close.

But there’s some other evidence of time’s progression that I’ve taken note of recently: the shift in seasons.

What does this have to do with my laptop’s slow march towards the grave? Well, because as I see the temperatures climbing and the buds coming up from the flower beds, I think about shifting my workspace from the kitchen table to the deck. Fresh air makes the work feel fresher. The only problem: when I’m really getting into the flow… and I get that battery warning. While not a catastrophe, it does set a countdown for when it’ll be time to go back inside.

Unless, that is, I had a robust, power bank capable of charging stuff fast. Like this one. Then I’d essentially have an outlet anywhere capable of keeping my laptop (or phone, or earbud case, or whatever) alive. Would it sustain my stuff all day? Almost definitely not. But with a solid 27,600mAh capacity, it could keep the party going for a decent while longer, that’s for sure.

And by ‘party,’ I mean sitting out on the deck with my laptop to do some work.

Man, talk about feeling old…