A truckload of bribery beer...

Well, my brother-in-law came through with flying colors.  See my previous post about the computer recovery project.  And the post before that about the unfortunate need for the recovery project.  I can now report that the data from my old Mac Powerbook G4 resides in my new MacBook (with some inner urging to get that backup hard drive ASAP as I heard a story about a woman who lost the hard drive on her brand new computer--not a Mac however!  As if that means anything really).  My brother-in-law Luke is officially entitled to his truckload of bribery beer.  I look at this as nothing short of a miracle.  It is all the sweeter as I had written off the data and moved on with my life.  Now I have the chance to go back and make use of those thousands of pictures, and I don't have to rewrite all those pesky things like a current resume (NOT that I expect to need one any time soon), not to mention all the electronic copies of work documents I didn't have and was going to need at the end of the school year.

I decided after a lovely invitation from my sister's mother-in-law followed up with enthusiastic entreaties from my sister to go up to Colorado for the Easter weekend.  I'm not much into looking for easter eggs (unless there is a borrowed child involved), but I am really into chocolate... and of course I love to see my family.  So I cancelled a sacred weaving day and drove up there in a snow storm yesterday.  I got to paint trim in an old dance hall, admire my mother-in-law's LOVELY naturally dyed easter eggs, eat a fabulous Easter brunch, sleep in a fabulous bed while it snowed outside, and the photos below tell you the rest...  Actually, I'm not in this first photo, but the use of the heat gun to get the fire going is legendary in this family when electricity is close enough--especially when you're grilling with wood not charcoal...

That is Luke, Olin, Laura (manning the heat gun), Lynn (BBQ queen), and RuthAnn.

Then I visited this apparent used car lot... which is suspiciously close to my sister's house.  She is quick to point out that not all of the 8 cars in this photo actually belong to them. 

Laughed at Luke's "solar four wheeler"...  long story involving a phone booth and a yurt.

And returned to the Land of Enchantment.  I didn't do one single weaving-related thing until I typed this sentence.  But tomorrow I will!

Brother-in-law to the rescue

I posted awhile back about the death of my trusted Mac Powerbook G4.  I had pretty much given up getting the data back, and stoically refused to think about the loss of all those little bits and bites of data I generated over several years that were gone in a puff of electronic whimsey.  BUT I have an absolutely amazing brother-in-law who despite my frequent abuse of his incredible brain power, continues to help me out with fixing just about anything that could possibly be fixed (and I believe he lives by the mantra that anything can be fixed somehow).  Seriously, this man can make anything run again.  For goodness sake, he replaced the head gasket on my sister's aging Ford Escort (incongruously named Red even though it is bright blue in color) TWICE!  He can fix everything from cars to washing machines to plumbing.  So it wasn't too far off to think maybe he could fix my defunct computer.  He volunteered to give it a go, really he did.  The thing is, it looks like he actually might recover that data for me.  Now it is clear that I worshiped the ground he walked on before this feat, but if he actually hands me a DVD with the contents of my hard drive on it, he will have earned a place in my pantheon of worshiped beings--or at least a whole truckload of bribery beer.  Here are the photos of the gutting of my Powerbook.  I couldn't look.  We started by nesting my computer with my sister's identical computer in the hopes that some sort of electronic synthesis would take place and jump start the ailing computer.  No dice.  So Luke started doing what he does best--he took the whole thing apart.  And there is my hard drive.  Turns out there was probably some electronic glitch in the thing and he actually did get it to spin again... lets hope it spins again long enough to transfer my photos to a DVD.

Rest In Peace

I had a HAPPENING last week Thursday night at about 8 pm as I was trying to send an e-mail with an evaluation I had finished writing attached.  I was in denial that this event was imminent for about 4 days prior to it actually occurring.  The power of denial is truly very very large.  My hard drive crashed.  I have used my little Mac Powerbook G4 with the sexy titanium case for 4 years... and it was a powerhouse.  It never failed me (except when the disk drive stopped working, but I forgave it and bought an external drive) until Thursday when at 8:23 pm the hard drive crashed.  I said a few hail marys (and I'm not Catholic), turned the power off, let it "rest" for an hour or so while I had a glass of wine, and then turned it back on.  I got the spinning blue wheel of death.  I was later told by the computer technician that that means it doesn't recognize the hard drive.  But I was hoping it was just temporary insanity and I turned her off again and let her "rest" until the morning.  

Well, the spinning wheel of death was there again, so I carted her off to the computer doctor (really, their business is called computer medics--unfortunately all I came home with today was a body they drug up from the morgue).  I was gently and soundly reprimanded for not having my stuff backed up (she hadn't failed me before!  Why should I take time to back stuff up?) and told that the files were irretrievable and that I should start shopping for a new Macintosh.  This seemed a little harsh, but as today is Wednesday and I had people breathing down my neck asking for those lost evaluations (which I shall have to rewrite as soon as I finish the current glass of wine), I had to find myself a new computer.

And about the power of denial?  The computer had been slowing down exponentially for about 3 days and was starting to make ominous whirring sounds.  I did get a little alarmed at about 8:21 pm on that fateful Thursday and started thinking about backing up things... and then 8:23 came around and the chance was lost.

A few seconds of silence please for the dearly departed...  I really did love this computer.  I didn't have a cross, so I used three little goddesses.  I'm sure it is all the same to the computer.

And perhaps that will help me find the genius who is going to recover my data, eh?

The new MacBook that I bought today is still sexy and oh-so-Mac.  I love the Mac--the little icons that jump and look like they're three dimensional, the programs which are intuitive and don't require me to remember where things actually are, the plug-n-play aspect which doesn't require me to read instruction manuals... you can't beat a Mac.  This new Mac has something called a Time Machine which I really hope might help me correct some errors I made in the last 36 years.  

But being without a computer for 6 days opened my eyes to just how much time I spend on the thing.  Life would be simpler without this technology and we would have more time for watching the clouds.  Honestly, the first thing I thought when it died was, "thank god I don't have to work any more tonight."  

All I have to say in the final analysis is, if you don't have a backup for your computer, DO IT NOW!  I will be purchasing an external hard drive onto which I will place all the junk I want to sort through until technology changes so much I can't access it anymore... just in case this new machine decides to let me down one day.