I’ve been home puttering around. Yesterday a fellow came to start the job of taking down a large poplar tree that is right on my driveway. He did more than I expected and much sooner than expected which is all good. I wasn’t really doing this in the face of the incoming hurricane but more towards the coming winter and ice storms etc.

Today has been grey and eventually the winds started being noticable. Around 2:00 I went out to fill the car up with gas and I stopped for a bit of late lunch. The wind really started picking up and the rain started.

Just as I was finishing my lunch the power blipped. I paid and was on my way. The new computer was off but nothing else was blinking so it must have been a short one.

I got news that the head to head haiku event is cancelled for tomorrow. That frees me up from reading out loud tonight. Guess I will have to find something else to do.

The catcam has been moved upstairs to watch the trees wave around, but here’s a bit of more meaningful footage.

View From the Upstairs

Saw this funny ecard on the interwebs that had the caption: “‘I have all the fabric I ever need’, said no quilter, ever.” It triggered a bout of comments about stash and all and before I knew what had happened, I’d looked up the availability of a domain and plopped my money down.

I do have a stash, a sizeable stash, of fabric. I am guilty of a slight addiction to domain names as well.

Wait – is there really such a thing – a slight addiction? I mean, no – I can quit whenever I want.

Now I just need a few weeks of time to put all my domains into the most über site ever.

So yesterday I came home with a newly-old iMac to replace the nicely aging (and quite OK) one on the desk. It was a combination of pricing and circumstance, nothing too planned, which isn’t all that usual around here but there you go.

Anyway, when asked if I had another computer or back up to move files from to the new computer I said “yes”. When I’m setting up a new computer or device I like to really follow the directions so I can see what the process is like for the “not so-on-the-inside” person.

In any case, I wondered why the time machine hard drive didn’t show up and tried not to be impatient but I finally looked again and what do you know, I had plugged in the webcam rather than the hard drive. Oopsie. Well, these things happen. Anyway, plug in the correct USB and blam! there’s the hard drive and I click yes and it starts right up doing the transfer.

Two hours later there are is the next screen, just before the last couple set up screens. Done and done. Couple more software updates to do and it’s seriously done. Everything’s just like it was on the “old” computer.

It just doesn’t get much better than that. And folks, I’m going to tell you that if you don’t have a back up, I can’t help you. Technology is a great thing but some things you just can’t plead ignorance of. And, look at this: how easy it was to move to a new computer because I had a good back up.

I’ve been pondering what to do about the iMac. Nothing particularly wrong with it except it being from 2007 and all, it was growing a bit long in the tooth and a little slow on the hoof. I found myself using the laptop more but frankly, it’s just not as comfy for long periods of typing as a desktop.

Anyway, Tim Cook and the boys announced new models of all sorts of things this week and I took advantage of a convergence of circumstances to bring home a newly-old iMac. Took about 5 minutes to pay for it and another few to have a nice young co-worker Eric put it in my car. Normal drive home, bring it in the house. Shut down and unplug the “old” one.

Open the box, set up the “new” one in the same place, plug everything in and start it up. Do I want to transfer files? Sure thing. Waited a few minutes before I realized that the black USB cable I’d plugged in wasn’t the time machine drive but the webcam, LOL. Plug in the hard drive and poof! sure! transfer everything!

Two hours later it’s all done except a final software update and it’s all good. Amazingly fast – sorry “old” iMac.

While the transfer was going I ordered a bunch o’RAM from Crucial so I can revel in geek-extravagance and that’s that.

I have to say, if I could just remember a fraction of the great words that the OED posts and explains… well I probably wouldn’t have been so over the moon that the word specious had been used in the TV show Elementary last night. Just a fraction and I could be über… For example, today’s:

Sloothering: an Anglo-Irish term for cajoling, wheedling. Earliest ex.1892: “There do be girls will get round a man wid their slootherin’.”

Seriously want to use that this afternoong