This morning as I lay trapped by a cat on our couch, I got to wondering. Not about anything specific, but about things in general. I find that life is much less stressful if I generalize everything and don’t dwell on specifics. Specifics require concentration and knowledge about actual “stuff”. It’s much easier to just make up things … for instance …

I was released from the mother ship just a few days ago and when I got home I couldn’t wait to get to my computer to tell everyone about that incredible experience. It was really awesome. But, as soon as I touched my computer things started going haywire in the electronic world and finally ended in the demise of my treasured Apple iMac computer. I fiddled with it for a couple of days before giving up and seeking the help of the Best Buy Geek Squad. I was so distraught (ask Diane) that I took the old iMac to the store without first making an appointment, like Apple Folks do at the Apple Store, but they took it in hand with the promise that they would extract all the data they could find and export it to the 1TB drive I provided. Knowing, deep down in my heart, that I’d never see the old iMac run properly again, I purchased a new one to take home. Like all Apple products, it wasn’t cheap, but it’s really nice and I’m used to it. So there.

Anyway, once home I extracted the new iMac from its box, found the new keyboard and mouse, got new batteries for both and proceeded to get it all set up. The first problem I encountered was with the keyboard. It’s wireless, but there’s no place to put the batteries. As a matter of fact, the HDD is about half as thick as a AA battery and just a little thinner than a AAA battery. Discovering this prompted me to turn the mouse upside down, which I did, and noticed right away that there isn’t a battery cover on it, either. A mystery, but quickly solved when I noticed the Lightening port which indicated I was dealing with a futuristic mouse like the ones the aliens use. A more thorough investigation of the keyboard revealed the same port on it. That would, I surmised,explain the presence of the brand new lightening cable that was packaged with the keyboard and mouse.

Setting those two items in front of the new iMac I turned on the power, trusting that the keyboard and mouse were truly already paid like the instructions said. They were and things worked just great. All that’s missing is all the data I had on the old iMac. It’s gone into the ozone, headed for a fiery demise on a journey to nowhere. Sad. I had 42,000+ photos on that computer, as well as about a ton of documents, that I’ll never see again. Thankfully, I uploaded all the photos to my iCloud server a couple of weeks ago, but just hadn’t made it to uploading the documents. I know, however, that those documents are lurking around here somewhere on a wayward thumb drive, or on the My Cloud drive I used to use for backing up the old iMac. Regarding the latter … it quit backing up recently and apparently convinced this 4TB drive that there wasn’t anything on it. I know that’s a lie but I can’t yet prove it because of login issues. Yes, I’m having those. Something about not knowing the password. That information, of course, was on the old iMac.

Now I’m sitting at this new computer that’s really, really fast … mainly because there’s really nothing on it. Yet. I do have it hooked to my iCloud, wherever that is, and you’ll all be happy to know I can see all those photos. They are safe. The really big item I’m missing is the spreadsheet I made using Excel that provides all the details I need to be debt free in three years. It took a while to make it because it has a bunch of formulas in it that I’ve added over time. If I can’t recreate this thing then I’ll never get out of debt.

I was going somewhere more interesting at the start of this but it’s gone, now. So, I’ll stay with the computer for a while.

Diane took me to Portland yesterday to give up the old iMac for the work described, and on the way home we were stranded on Highway 30 for a couple of hours to accommodate the actions of an idiot driver who thought it would be OK to pass a bunch of people in the center median – a big no-no. When trying to regain the lane he apparently hit a van and caused it to flip over. For those of you familiar with Highway 30 this happened near the weigh station. We learned today that no one was injured in the accident except for the hundreds and hundreds of motorists trapped in the requisite traffic jam going both ways for miles. Nifty. Thankfully, both Diane and I are retired, and it was a bright sunny day, so we just relaxed and enjoyed the view, one of which was a flock of geese that landed in the overflow lakes from the Willamette Slough. We watched them paddling north, our direction, and we couldn’t keep up. It was OK. We finally made it through and made it home. The dogs were glad, but they’re glad to see us when we come back after a 3 minute walk to get the mail. It’s like they thought we’d be gone forever.

This morning the Geek Guys called to report that they were unable to extract any data from the iMac because it looked like it had recently been restored. I’m pretty sure that’s something I did while fiddling around trying to figure it out on my own. That’s what I get for thinking I know stuff, ya know?

After absorbing this information we made another trip to Portland to retrieve the failed unit and get the $80 refund for the fee charged to transfer data to the new HDD I mentioned earlier. That drive, by the way, is really tiny and it hardly weighs anything. But, it’s got enough room to make continuous back ups on this new iMac. It’s amazing.

Going back to last week, there’s more fun stuff that happened. The 37th Annual Quilt Show was hosted at Bethany by the WELCA ladies. It’s quite an event and this year was the best in many years. Here’s what our humble little church looked like for last Friday and Saturday …

These photos were taken before the doors opened to the hoards waiting for access. Sadly, I wasn’t around to get photos of those folks. I think I was home sleeping. No! I was home trying to get that iMac to work. That’s it!

This is Angela and Diane (my 1st wife) working hard to wrap things up so the drawing for the quilt winner could commence.

To end, here’s the BLT Diane made me for lunch yesterday. It was awesome.

Now I must quit because my eyes burn. A lot. I need eye dropsThe font size on the new iMac gets way smaller than the old one. Really, really tiny. I like it that way so I can get lots and lots of open windows in view.