Computers and Me

Computers and me go way back. I started studying them in 1967. My freshman year at the University of Detroit. They were as mysterious then as they still are today. I don't know why. Of course our computer back then was the whole first floor of the Admin building. It was huge. And hot. You have to remember back then transistors were not readily available so they used vacuum tubes. Like they used in old radios and TV sets. I don't know do some of you even remember them? Musicians especially guitarists know about tubes in their amps. Anyway the whole room was always very hot like 90 degrees or something even with a/c and fans running constantly.
We were told that computers were what the future was going to be all about. We knew that. In sixth grade we were told that by the year 2000 we would all have flying cars to go to work in too. I'm lucky if I can afford to put gas in my car today. I guess some things were more important than others. Now we were learning how to program this monster. There was no monitor. We programmed it by keypunching on cards. That means we had to learn the computer languages we needed for the type of program we were running. COBOL, BASIC, FORTRAN etc. To run the simplest program required hundreds of these punch cards. They had to be in exact order. If even one card was out of order your program would "bomb out". You would actually get a printout of a huge picture of a bomb as an error message. This was a most horrendous occurrence. Especially if it was an assignment that was due that day. You were in trouble. That meant you had to go through hundreds of keypunch cards to find which one was out of order. Or worse maybe you program was not logically well written. Yikes. If a card was out of place I never would go through all those cards. It was quicker just to re punch all of them! Tedious I know. And talk about wasting paper!
So down through the years I've taken many courses in computer training. Some on my own and some at the university level. I always ace these courses. So why is it that I'm so conflicted using them to this day? If the power goes out suddenly I do know how to turn the computer back on. But as far as unleashing the full potential of this beast I'm totally clueless. I mean I do still shave with a brush and double edge blade in a razor that was made during the war. That would be the Second World War. I don't know if that completely explains it though. It might have something to do with that time during my Freshman year that my buddies and I decided to try out this new thing called computer dating! Now there's the ticket! Just fill out the 10 page questionnaire of who you really are- your likes dislikes etc. and let the computer match you up with your perfect date! It's scientific! God knows we weren't doing so well at all the mixers we went to. So it couldn't hurt.
Two weeks later we were all excited to get our results. I just wish I could remember all the details. I know I asked a young lady out on a date. What her name was I can't remember. Where we went to I don't know. How it ended -blank. All I remember was that we had absolutely nothing in common -she wasn't at all like she was described as. That's it- we had a terrible time. It's all coming back to me now.
My buddies all had similar experiences. The whole idea of computers deciding something so personal as someone to date just seemed not right not organic enough. We decided that maybe the mixers weren't that bad after all and besides the music was usually good. I guess I just don't trust computers. It's all that garbage in garbage out stuff. 
Stay tuned.