Well, dear readers, I am very tired, but very happy to be in the City of Studio firmly ensconced in the home environment, after my fun trip to Washington, DC. Before we get to anything else, let us tell the story of The Computer Ordeal. The helper picked up the computer at ten. It was indeed the hard drive that was replaced and so the big boy computer had been wiped clean, which was a very scary thing. The helper had the Apple Man show here exactly how to begin the transfer of the Time Machine backup of the whole computer. She wrote everything down, then brought the computer home and plugged it in. At my suggestion, she then fired it up, got Apple Care on the phone and had them there as she went through the easy steps. Right off, there was one hiccup because they needed my wireless password – she texted me, I saw it instantly, and sent it to her – once that was in, the transfer of data began. The Apple Care person said it could take up to nine hours. That was news to me, since the guy who I spoke to at the Apple Store said this entire thing was a breeze. Note to Apple Store Man: Nine hours is not a breeze. I really didn’t think it would take that long, since there’s not all that much on the computer. The helper came and went but it was taking that long and she finally had to go attend to her evening plans.
I was up at ten, and I joined Sandy and Lanny at Range, a trendy jernt in the hotel complex. I had a shrimp cocktail (awful) and we all just schmoozed for about ninety minutes. At one-thirty we left and Sandy kindly drove me to the airport. Traffic was terrible and I didn’t get there until two-fifteen. Then even though there should have been a Priority line for security there really wasn’t – but there was no line at all, so I got right through. Reagan airport is very small, rather like Burbank. But they did have the Admiral’s Club and I still had my day pass and I went up there and relaxed. I got to the gate about ten minutes before boarding, they boarded quickly, we actually took off five minutes early, and I was homeward bound.
It was a LONG plane ride, but pleasant enough. I had a teeny-tiny steak, maybe four ounces – using what I had the other night as a guide, which was four ounces more than that, this must have only had about four-hundred calories. There was a small starter salad (balsamic vinaigrette), an appetizer of two tiny slices of chicken breast over a corn relish – not bad – two slivers of roast potato, and some veggies. That was about it – pretty low-cal all the way down the line. I didn’t have the sundae they offered for dessert – instead I had fruit. I did some work on the plane and wished I could have nodded off. We got into LA about seven-forty and I was home by about eight-ten. I went directly to the computer, which was asleep. I tapped the space bar, it woke up, and it was JUST completing the transfer – literally in the final minute. The computer restarted automatically. I paced and paced while it came to life. It asked some question I can’t recall, I clicked an answer and then the background for the desktop appeared – about twenty seconds later, my desktop was just as I’d left it – almost.
A lot of windows popped up immediately. Mail had to download a ton of stuff and reset itself. iTunes had to be downloaded from scratch – not sure why, since that was all saved in the backup. Why no one apprised me of all this stuff is anyone’s guess – I found it completely irritating, but was just thrilled everything was there. But normally on startup, the Word docs I had minimized should have all popped open and appeared on the screen, but they weren’t there. I clicked on the Word icon, and in order to launch Word I was asked for the Product Key. Why? If it’s all on the hard drive, why? It took me thirty frustrating minutes to find the damn Office box, but I finally did and typed in the product key and that launched Word but not my documents. I then remembered how to choose that option, which I did. Why it got unchosen is anyone’s guess. Then the printer icon began bouncing and that required downloading some stuff to get that up and running and to have the computer recognize it. Then I found that Time Machine wasn’t on – why? It was when it saved to the hard drive. When I clicked it said Time Machine had to be configured. I was going to leave it until morning, but I nosed around, figured it out, configured it, and then that worked. So, we appear to be up and running. I’ll call Apple Care in the morning and go over a few other weirdnesses, like my wireless network not automatically connecting on launch, which it always has. I had that problem a couple of years ago, but can’t remember how we fixed it.
So, most of the evening spent with that. I also opened the packages that arrived, and checked the mail. One package that should have been here a week ago, still hadn’t arrived and I was so irked about it that I wrote a rather terse e-mail, since the idea was that I have it in a timely manner. If I don’t have a response by Monday, I’ll file a paypal claim and just get my money back. And that was my day and that was my evening and I’m just relieved that my big boy computer is alive and well and living in the City of Studio. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because boy do I need a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, the only thing I have is a noon lunch. After that, I will relax, talk to Apple Care and square away the little anomalies, and then I’m just sitting on my couch like so much fish.
Next week, there are a lot of meetings and meals, a couple of shows to attend, a work session with the musical director, and I’m hoping to have word about when CDs are arriving.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, talk to Apple Care, have a lunch, maybe jog, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to be back home in the City of Studio with a working big boy computer.