I wish I had heard about this earlier, or I might have changed my New Year's plans. It seems Vincennes, Indiana decided to create a new local tradition for ringing in 2009. They created a 500-pound watermelon (yes, you read that right!), which they hoisted 100 feet into the air at 11:59 pm on December 31st. At the stroke of midnight, they dropped nine real watermelons to mark the beginning of 2009 (nine watermelons for 2009, get it?). This is the kind of tradition I could get into.

Most of the coverage of this that I found on the internet was actually pre-watermelon drop (as in this piece here), but there was one local piece today that heralded the event as a complete success, despite a rope-pulling malfunction. And there was this picture for posterity. I'm waiting for the videos to be posted.

Signing off,

Your watermelon correspondent.

Labels: Fun, Life In General

I'm writing this blog entry from my own, beautiful, lovely, working laptop computer. It appears everything is functioning pretty much perfectly, and all is well in the world.

By far my highest level of anxiety during this ordeal (and believe me it was an ordeal!) was about my database/contact management system, which is command central for my life. It's got all my contacts, my calendar, my to-do lists, everything. I realize now that since I depend so much upon it, I need a second system like a PDA so that if I'm ever in this situation again, I can still function.

Thank you to Steve at Riverdale Mac for his expertise and patience (and for cleaning my computer off!). I've spent the whole day playing on my computer and feeling enormous affection for it's little white keyboard and tinny speakers. It's a nice warm and fuzzy feeling. I never thought I would become so attached to a computer, but it's true. I feel like I should name her. Any suggestions?

Labels: Life In General

My computer is still at the hospital. They have been able to retrieve all my data, but they still haven't figured out what went wrong. The hard drive seems to be okay-- it may be a operating system problem or some kind of problem with the hardware in my iBook. I should get a more definitive answer tomorrow.

In the meantime, I've been having a very different kind of week. Since my entire calendar was on my computer, I have to rely on my memory of what I'm supposed to be doing at any given time. It's quite possible I have stood people up or forgotten important deadlines, but if so I haven't heard about it yet.

Every afternoon I have music students. Some days the lessons start at 2 pm, some days at 3 pm. So each day this week I have made sure I'm at home at 2 pm, and then I wait for a student to knock on the door. Sometimes I remember who is coming, but other times I have no idea. There's a certain "happy accident" quality to each afternoon which has been an unexpected treat. I have had to be more spontaneous with each student since I haven't had a chance to prepare for them. Most of them have also been very sympathetic about my computer woes, which helps.

When I don't have students, there is barely anything productive I can do without my computer. So I've decided to give myself a break, and just enjoy the enforced down time (Yes, yes, I know, I could be cleaning or organizing my papers or any number of useful things, but somehow I can't bring myself to do any of those things.)

This is my life by memory. I hope it doesn't last too much longer!

Labels: Life In General

Yesterday my laptop started having weird problems. First I started seeing that spinning rainbow wheel that Mac users sometimes experience when the computer is busy -- except that it was starting at strange times and lasting for agonizing lengths of time. And then finally, the rainbow wheel became a "spinning rainbow wheel of death." My computer was truly frozen. I couldn't close programs, and I had to manually turn the computer off with programs running (ouch!). When I tried to boot it back up again, my happy Mac smiley face was replaced with an ominous question mark, and that was that. No computer. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Ironically, one of the top priorities on my list this week was calling my computer doctor to set up my backup system. I have been trying to regularly back up my data, but I don't have an automatic system, and I'm not convinced I'm saving all the really important stuff.

Needless to say I got on the phone as soon as possible to computer doctor, only to find he's away right now. But being a responsible computer doctor, he's left some other people in charge and I quickly got a call back from Ernie. Ernie came over and plugged in his implements to start diagnosing the problem. But, yikes! None of his software could locate my hard drive. The conclusion? I may have a defective hard drive (I just had this hard drive installed in June).

So, it's off to the computer hospital for my computer. And now I'm waiting for the news. Is it fatal? Will I be able to recover my data? Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I'm a basket case. I've been on the verge of tears all day and I can't stop thinking about my beloved computer. And I've discovered that I am completely useless without my computer. My entire life is on that thing!! I can't even call any of my friends because all their phone numbers are stored in my contact management program. I feel pathetic!

And it's making me wonder: is my relationship with my computer unhealthy? Should I be a little less dependent? Am I turning into a cyborg?

Labels: Life In General