Banging My Head Against the Keyboards

I'm talking computer keyboards here, not the musical kind. The Mini wasn't fixed, after all. It seemed to work for awhile, then started getting slower and slower until it would freeze up doing the simplest tasks. Diagnosis, as far as I can tell, is that is needs a new hard drive. Oh well, I kind of wanted to expand the space anyway. But it will be awhile before I have time to install it and put everything back on it. Sigh.

So I'm writing this on the Dell PC, which is not my favorite computer in the world, but I have to do something to stay connected for job searches, Website work, and coordinating the next theatrical production.

I probably haven't mentioned it here, but I am directing this year's First Night show, Truth and Consequences. We start rehearsals this Sunday, and with only about five weeks until the show, it's going to be intense. But I have a great cast and I know it's going to be a very funny show.

Cinderella was brilliant. It's been one of my favorite musicals since Lesley Ann Warren appeared in its second television production in 1965. Our production was full of life and energy, and made our little twenty-foot-wide stage seem bigger. I was up in the lighting booth, and so I got to watch every performance.

Meanwhile, life at the Brooks Bunch household is anything but dull. Karen is managing a new schedule (which will change again soon) which keeps us on our toes, what with scouting and skating and my theater schedule, not to mention the many extra events which come up at this time of the year. Good thing I keep a planning calendar!

And, of course, the house itself is a never-ending project. I'm trying to basically start at the front door and work my way back, then up, and then finally to the basement. But something always wants to jump to the head of the line. For example, I need to dig footings for the deck and pour before the ground freezes, or wait until the thaw to start on the deck (and thaw around here can be as late as May).

And before I can start the front room, I have to install the glass door we're putting in the first floor bath because it's currently taking up space in the front room. And so it goes.

And so must I, because we're having company for Thanksgiving tomorrow and there is still work to be done, and so it might be a good idea if I got a little sleep.

Almost There

Well, I finally seem to have worked out how to get my Mac back to its old self. Well, almost. Having completely re-formatted the drive and installed the operating system afresh, I now have a like-new Mac Mini. Problem is, that I added a lot of software and settings and upgrades and updates to that over the last five years, and I have to get a lot of that back. Perhaps not all of it, but a lot of it.

And I'm not entirely trusting of the hard drive even after the formatting, so I'm considering putting a different one in before I go to all the trouble of recreating the workspace I've grown so accustomed to.

It's made me rethink what I need on my system, and fish around for alternatives so that I can get my work done while I'm waiting on the fate of the Mini.

The practical upshot of that is that I'm going to figure out how to do my Website updates (The Brooks Bunch and others) using the computers that are currently working, rather than waiting for the Mini to be the computer it once was. So stay tuned, and thanks for your patience.

Still Suffering a Mac Attack

Fixing my poor Mac Mini has been harder than I ever thought it would be. Although the hard disk does not appear to be trashed, the part of the data that tells the system where everything is located has major problems. This means that copying the old files to a backup drive is hit and miss. Mostly miss.

Fortunately, I have most of the files on an earlier backup, but I'm trying to recover some of the recent changes, which include some Website redesigns (not for TheBrooksBunch.com, but for others) and recent email and notes on the next show that I'm directing. There are also some pictures from my camera to recover.

I don't want you to think that the computer has dominated my life for the past week, though. There has been a lot going on, including the opening of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella at the Village Players. I'm handling the lighting booth, and it's my first time. For a couple of days leading up to the opening, I was worried that I wasn't going to do a good job, but dress rehearsal went well, and opening night went, well, almost perfectly (I did have two glitches, but no one in the audience noticed). We have performances tonight and tomorrow afternoon, and then we get a break for a couple of days.

Today the boys and I are joining the Cub Scouts for a rocket launch. Daniel wants to add some extra decoration to his rocket, so I need to cut this short and set him up to do that.

The Web site will be closer to normal within a few days, and more pictures will be on the way.

Un-Mac'd

The Mac Mini that I use for 90% of my computing is out of commission. It's not permanent. At least I don't think it's permanent. Anyway, I'm working tonight and tomorrow morning to try to fix the problem. Meanwhile, there won't be any updates on the Web site, although I can still write blog entries.

Email will be a bit of an issue, too. I can still send and receive email, but I won't be answering anything sent to me before this morning, since it's on the machine and I can't get to the email stored there. Yet.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Active Weekend

It was a full schedule this weekend. Starting off Saturday morning, Daniel and William and I went off with the Cub Scouts to clean up a large section of the Bridge Falls Path in Wolfeboro. A lot of scouts and parents showed up, so it took less than an hour to clean the Autumn leaves and trash from a long section of the trail. Actually, much to the credit of those who use the path, there was hardly any trash at all.

Saturday afternoon we went to see the Kingswood High production of Little Red Riding Hood and the Power Mutants, a lovely tongue-in-cheek play for the whole family, and the whole family loved it. The Kingswood students know how to put on a show.

Sunday, after Karen had made a few fixes to Halloween costumes, she went off to the theater to help paint the set for Cinderella. We met for dinner at a local Chinese restaurant and then took the boys trick-or-treating in the nearly-freezing night. While Karen took the boys home to bed, I went to the theater to do some last minute casting for the First Night show, which I'm directing, and to take care of a few little issues that are my part of Cinderella.


All in all a very busy, and theatrical, weekend. We actually ended it, more or less, early this morning when Thomas went off to orientation for his new job (a week later than expected); he's staying on in Ossipee now, so it's just the four of us, though Tom will come back to visit on a regular basis. I'll try to keep you up to date, if he does the same for me.