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Broken Kinesis, Part 1

Published at 12:34:56-0700 Updated

It's been a frustrating day. My beloved Kinesis Advantage keyboard, that stalwart defender against repetitive strain injury, has developed an intermittent problem where it completely fails to function.

I've managed to do some computer work today anyway, but I had to use the horrifically non-ergonomic keyboard of my Macbook Pro 2012, which causes me wrist pain after an hour or two of use. It also has the tiny little problem of a nearly-dead "e" key. The most common letter in the English language is currently unavailable to me unless I press hard, in a manner most non-ergonomic for my left middle finger. And, every time I stab the "e" key and it doesn't fire, I get a little more frustrated, a little more ticked off at my equipment, and a little less able to take things easy and get work done.

One day I will be able to type at a luxurious setup which does not destroy my body during use, so let me focus on the positive and try to dissolve some frustration.

The day of the luxurious setup is getting closer. For years I've typed while hunched over because a laptop was all I had, but I have a cable coming in the mail that will let me hook up a monitor, thus blessing me with improved head, shoulder, and arm position for typing.

Furthermore, of all the people I could possibly know, one of my local friends is an expert on keyboard design and repair. I'm helping him paint a building soon, and I bet he would be willing to fix my Kinesis in return.

Problem solved -- in the future, at least. Until then, I'll have to find some other way to type: job applications and translations won't write themselves.

[2019-12-22: Shortly after this writing this post, I found a backup Kinesis to use until the original was fixed. On 2019-12-22, I repaired my keyboard, and so far it's working fine.]