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.