The Appliance Revolt Continues.....

So the toaster quit on Sunday morning, and although my machetenister offered to take a shot at fixing it, I went over to Target to pick up the $16 Sunbeam sale special just to keep my FIL in his favorite toast. I had already rethreaded the new string trimmer, so that was working. I mowed, trimmed, did laundry, and changed the linens. All that was left to do was to print a couple of documents and I was done for the day. And then....and then.....

I cannot imagine life without a Mac on my desk. There has been a Mac on my desk since 1989. The first was a little nudge from my husband's wonderful boss, Thea Hodge (z"l), who thought I needed to come into the 20th century with a Mac Plus...complete with everyone's signatures inside. It was a lovely little thing and the first time she sent it over, I sent returned it to her, flummoxed by the mouse thingee and terrified by the itsy-bitsy screen. A year later, when we had moved into the new house, she sent it back with a lovely note assuring me I could master this thing. This time, it was as if the Computer Fairy nestled on my shoulder ...and I never looked back. I became a total MacHead. I could run 'em, cajole them, noodge them...hell's bells! I could program in HyperCard! Since that first little Mac, there have been three others, each one replaced only when the death rattle in the hard drive was louder that fan.

In the 8 years this Mac has been sitting on my desk (and yes, that is her monitor in the WP logo) she has been an unfailingly faithful friend who has never given me a moment's worry. But she is exquisitely old in machine years; time (and probably a fair amount of dog hair since the shedding machine sleeps on the floor below her) has taken its toll. I think I kinda knew what was coming. Little things were getting to Mac and she was slowing down. She could no longer absorb updates on programs that had moved on into newer processing platforms. Considering this seems to be the year of appliance revolt, I was thinking it might be sooner rather than later. 

Sunday night, Mac entered a persistent vegetative loop and refused to wake up. None of my usual Mac tricks seemed to work. I turned her off and decided that perhaps overnight the Computer Fairy would come and fix whatever ailed her.

The Computer Fairy must have been busy elsewhere. None of my MacHead tricks seemed to work. I needed help. 

Help arrived in a hybrid destrier with GEEK on the license plate. My friend Jessica Z. arrived at the house, confronted the Mac, typed a magic incantation onto the screen...and voilà! Mac answered. It wasn't quite the answer we were hoping for, but at least she was awake enough to give us access to the important stuff. Onto a 16-gig thumb drive went all the Word and Excel files….duplicates of files (already pretty much backed up on another thumb drive, but hey! You can never be too careful about that)  along with most of the pictures. We will go back in to get two other picture files that are a bit buried, but I’m not worried now. We know we can at least talk to Mac a little....and I am so eternally grateful to Jessica. 

But the bottom line is that while a laptop is nice and I love having one, I prefer writing a real key board and a big screen. And I like Macs. I like how they run, how the look, and how I relate to them. Silly? Sure...but why choose a Nissan over a Toyota? There has to be something about one you like more than the other. Odds are real good the next episode will be coming to you from my new iMac. 

Now, if the Sub-Zero can hang on a little longer, I'll be a happy camper. 

Wifely Person’s Tip o’the Day

Back up your stuff.