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ouch!

The "Gay Rights" March
The Gay Rights March

OUCH, I just learned a valuable Mac lesson. In Windows and Ubuntu Land, I pop my camera memory card into the computer and drag the folder with the photos onto the desktop. I did that with The Airness. Then after I take more pictures, I do that again. Well, boys and girls, in PC/Linux Land – your old pictures remain. Not so with the Mac. It REPLACES the old folder with the new one. Completely and totally deleting any other pictures that were in the folder. So, I just lost 15 pictures. I am thinking that 14 of them are in “The Time Machine” – but one in lost forever. It was today’s Fall View from the balcony. No big loss. Big lesson learned at little cost. And, we’ll see if that time machine thingie works.

But, today’s main event was a trek downtown to take in the Gay Rights March. I am sure there were some ugly homophobic protesters somewhere. I only encountered thousands of cheery marchers.

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Fall Watch…

fall - oct 10 - old fx01
fall - oct 10 - from the balcony - old fx01

Four weeks from now – we will be on our way to Kona. But, until then… Let us enjoy fall in the mid Atlantic.

Adventures in technology-land. For years I have used the very simple, very cheap “TaxAct” software. It doesn’t hold your hand. It doesn’t offer advice, hints or tips. It sort of assumes that you know WTF you are doing. It only works on PC’s. Last year’s version ran OK with WINE. I was hoping it would again this year. But, no luck. Not with Linux WINE, not with Apple WINE. So, I’ll just use XP on the big dell box for taxes in the spring of 2010.

I know, I know, I am supposed to be this fan of cloud computing. BUT, I’d rather not have my taxes in the clouds. And, I REALLY don’t want to have Carlton’s taxes in a cloud. Imagine trying to explain to Mr C how “the cloud ate your tax return”. If my computer catches on fire or if it gets stolen – that he could understand. He wouldn’t like it. But, he would understand it. A problem with “the tax cloud” – well – that would be ugly.

Upgraded the iPod Touch s/w from 2pointwhatever to 3.1.2. But, I did decide to leave well enough along and keep it attached only to the PC version of iTunes. The old iPod – it can be the switch hitter. But, like all of my technology decisions – this one is subject to change.

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hawai’i calls

halloween bugs on butterfly weed - with old fx01
Halloween bugs on butterfly weed - with old fx01

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to stop complaining about not being able to sleep at night. So, last night when I was awake, I fired up the Mac and snagged a pair of frequent flyer tickets to Kona. Leaving November 7, 2009 returning March 2, 2010. Actually, the tickets are just on hold until Sunday night – the routing is cruddy. But, the price is right.

Strange day. Warm, even hot. Our President wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Our NASA bombs the moon. A strange day. A good day.

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bora bora anyone?

The Computer Altar is looking a little unsettled
The Computer Altar is looking a little unsettled

Dueling iTunes. The latest version of iTunes makes it really easy for two or more computers to share iTunes libraries and to copy music from one to the other.

Note to Peg: Last night’s Chubby Chicky was really good. I am sure I’ll forget what I did by the time I buy another whole chicken. So, here it is for me.

  1. Wash and dry a whole chicken. A chubby chicky if you will.
  2. In the pot that Carlton found in the trash room – brown up any veggies that need using up.
  3. Stick any herbs that are lying around inside the chicky and season up the out side with pepper, cumin, etc. Lots of seasonings.
  4. Brown the breast side of the chicken. Then turn it over and brown up the backside.
  5. Seal up pot with foil.
  6. Put lid on top, and put in 260 degree oven.
  7. Put iron skillet on top of lid.
  8. Cook 4.5 – 5 pound chicken about 90 minutes.

I am now in tropical mode. Carlton was interested in going to Tonga this year and I was interested in Samoa. But, they have both been hard hit by earthquakes over the past week. Bora Bora anyone?

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mac-ing right along

Mac’s have a thing called the “time machine”. It is supposed to be a wonderful backup system. Well, I have had nothing but BAD luck with any backup system except me personally shipping my personally selected files off to a floppy, cd, dvd, thumb drive, external drive, whatever. No microsoft based “system recovery”, ghosting scheme, backup software ever saved my butt. For a couple of years – I had an automatic cloud based backup system. And, at the very same time as my HP Vista Whore Machine melted the motherboard – taking the disk with it – my cloud based backup system had a massive server failure – and nothing could be retrieved. I was still backing up to dvd and/or the external drive – so, I didn’t lose very much.

Son-in-law encouraged me to give The Time Machine a try. So, I dusted off the external drive that I consider the most trust worthy and turned it into my Time Machine. Sooner or later, I’ll try to get some sort of wireless Time Machine going. Using my existing parts. One can buy a cute little Apple box for $499 that will do the job. But, where is the fun in that?

I am trying to be modern. I started using WordPress – no long doing a roll your own website. Now, I am trying out Time Machine and the whole Mac-thing. Progress.

Chicken for dinner tonight. A chubby chicken is in the oven.

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it’s deja vu all over again

To quote Yogi – It’s deja vu all over again.

In Vietnam we could have gone to ask the French “Hey, how did things work out in the Indochina?”

In Afghanistan – maybe we can round up some old Soviet Generals and ask “Now, how did the Soviet-Afghan war turn out?”

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a little more mac every day

seed pod - nature conservancy lot
seed pod - nature conservancy lot

After a morning designing forms at the hospital – paperwork is my life – I decided that is was time to get The Airness connected to the rest of the computers in the house. It now happily plays with the elderly XP systems and uses the XP’s old HP printer. I did have to download a new printer driver – but nothing to that. I suppose I’ll try to get it connected to the Ubuntu system next.  Should work fine – since the Mac is really a Unix system is designer duds.

Speaking of designer duds. One of the downsides of losing 20 pound is that I now give a shit what I am wearing. What a pain that is! At my time of life, I should be heading off to polyester and elastic waists – or at least The Talbots and Chicos. It isn’t easy to be stylish with my requirement for shoes that you can walk five miles in. And my refusal to frequent the dry cleaners. And my reluctance to shop anywhere except at thrift shops.

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Point and Shoot

Who says that you have to use a $99 camera to Point and Shoot.
The L1 goes to a party wearing  the wrong lens.

girl in the window
girl in the window
gq_carlton
mom
pat

[Show as slideshow]

(click on the images. if you like cooliris/piclens – 3D works best)

As you can see, Carlton did not wear the PLAID sports coat. Fashion note about men. Young men take off their ties when they play dress up. Old men put ties on when dressing up. And, all ladies still look good in black.

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Now, this is disconcerting…

“Everyone”, even the Apple Genies say that if you connect a Windows formatted iPod to a Mac – it will be reformatted and you will lose everything on the iPod. Well, I decided that I was going to connect my old iPod to the Air and reformat, reload, etc… Well, I connected. And nothing happened. iTunes said if was Windows formatted. But, that was all. Everything else worked. It charged. I removed files. I added files. I copied playlists. It might as well have been connected to a Windows machine.

When something works that isn’t supposed to work … it is almost a disconcerting as having something not work that should work. I haven’t tried connecting the Touch. It has lots of data stored on it. I’d hate to lose all stats etc etc.

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pau

Regular flu shots pau. That would normally mean  pau hana time. But, swine flu vaccines are on the way. I am feeling pretty Hawaiian.

Heck, I might even wear my white mu’u mu’u to the cocktail party tonight. Just kidding.

Not kidding about needing a little Hawaii.

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october already?

cart jam @ target
cart jam @ target

Sometimes, sometimes something fun shows up AND have my camera AND manage to get off an OK shot. Here we have the cart caterpillar at Target.

And what was I doing at Target? Buying some really disgusting powdered totally chemical coffee creamer that Carlton likes. I am sure that the stuff is shortening his life – but what the heck? Carlton really doesn’t care if he wakes up tomorrow morning. It is actually a great way to live if you can pull it off.

Tomorrow (if Carlton wakes up) we are going a party given by a girl who just graduated from college with a degree in fashion design. “Cocktail Attire” is the required dress. I am horrified about what Carlton might wear. I told him that when kids are invited to “grownup” parties they have to behave. Well, it seems to me that when you are an old person and you get invited to an important “young people” party – well as an old person – you are expected to behave. And that means NO YOU CAN NOT WEAR THAT PLAID 1950’s SPORT COAT.