July 2005
Wednesday, July 27
Lately:
An estate sale.
Home improvement.
Nasty heat and humidity (duh).
Burned out power supply in iMac.
Continued return of music passions.
Estate sale:
With additional overtones of a garage sale, the goal was to find new homes for my deceased mother's possessions that none of us cared to keep. Held at our old house, we stashed and packed things in there over the last few months, and with the champion assistance of Louise Murphy, spent three days organizing and pricing everything. The newspaper ad read something like, "books, antiques, Oriental rugs, china, furs, sterling silver, blah blah. House loaded." Absolutely true. Since the ad started running two days in advance, I camped in the house for security...on the living room floor, where I always slept when I lived there, but without Judy dog, among my mother's belongings, neatly organized and priced to move...slightly bizarre. An hour and a half before opening, the scavengers were crawling around outside peering in the curtained windows, all but climbing in. Really gross. My sister, wife, and a family friend worked checkout, information assistance, and watchful eyes. I worked the door, greeting, thanking, lifting and inspecting. (Do not fuck around here, I'm six-eight and I will nail your fat ass if you try to steal something or start some shit.) With one minor, very slimy, but thankfully brief exception, everyone was friendly and cordial.
Home improvement:
The back bathroom, in the master bedroom (god, that sounds so pretentious) needed new sub-flooring, where the shower pan had leaked over the years and rotted the joists. It will result in a whole new bathroom, all new tile, light fixtures, and medicine cabinet. It will be very nice, and I think my folks would be pleased.
Heat/humidity:
Everyone knows this one.
Burned power supply:
As I was working one evening, I started smelling something. It took a while to realize that it was emanating from the air outflow of my computer. I shut it down, laid it face-down on a sofa, and removed the back. I let it cool down, then reassembled and powered up. The smell returned. I stopped for the night. Next morning, I thought I'd just wade forward and see what would happen. And like many people, I thought, well, I'd just better back up that VERY IMPORTANT FILE containing all my usernames and passwords...and right in the middle of backing up, the computer went dark. (Yeah, I know - dumbass.) Off to the shop. That was a week ago, and I got it back yesterday. The technician confirmed that, yes, there was a shortage of replacement power supplies, due to them burning up all across their userbase.
WHAT THE FUCK, APPLE - I love the OS and am a true devotee, but FOR CHRISSAKE, these damn things are already priced a bit beyond reason, and I want kickass hardware that smokes the competition, not itself. Extended warranty to the rescue. In the absence of my machine (with its twenty inch monitor), I used my daughter's Powerbook (with its twelve inch monitor). After connecting my full-size keyboard and Kensington trackball, I thankfully retained internet access and activity. (Thanks, Ellen, for letting me clutter your browser history with Gearslutz.com url's...of course, I DID buy the thing for you.)
Oh, and my data remained intact.
Music:
See the "Recent Listening" section to the right of this page.
Life just gets better all the time.
to top of page