What I Do For Fun

Like spending the whole day at the Apple Store! I love that place, but really, not the whole day! Here's the story:

I was having problems with my computer. It was so slow and not responding like it should. It would think forever, the mail wouldn't throw away and end up back in my inbox. Sometimes I couldn't get applications to quit. Anyway, I made an appointment at the genius bar. They don't call those guys geniuses for nothin'!

I made my appointment for the day after Christmas for 10 a.m---first appointment of the day. Then I remembered---IT WAS THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS!!! What was I thinking? Okay, I just decided to revise my plan. I've been messing around with this computer for months now since I was laid up and couldn't really deal with it (remember the "expert" I had out to the house that messed it up more?). So, I made a plan. I left the house at 8:30---thinking it could take me an hour to find a decent parking place with all the "after Christmas shoppers." I had my book with me, so I'm never worried about sitting around with nothing to do.

I arrived at the mall and was able to pull right in to my favorite, best kept secret, parking space. I sat there and read for about 45 minutes. I decided to go in about a half hour early in case they could take me early. Well, that was a good idea. I got right in. Turns out that all of my problems stemmed from my most recent update to El Capitan. Apparently, Apple had not worked out all of the bugs. I was told that if I left my computer for 2 hours, they could have me all fixed up. Okay, that was fine with me. Rather than leave and come back, I decided to just stay put with my book.

I decided to have lunch at 5th and Pine in Nordstrom's. They have this diet black cherry soda that I love. They also have my favorite salad in the world---Shrimp and Crab Louie. Imagine my disappointment when I was told they didn't have either one on the menu any more. Turns out, it had been over a year. Yeah, I don't go to the mall much.

After a second rate salad, I walked the lower level of the mall. I need to start building my strength for our upcoming trips. I checked back with the Apple store---not quite ready yet. At about 12:30, I met with a different genius. He said they were unable to do what they needed to do so they wanted to try something else. It would take another hour. Okay, I'm here now, why not. I sat outside with my book for another hour and a half. I was then told by, yet another genius that there was not enough memory to complete that idea. My choices at this point were basically to erase a lot of stuff on my computer or buy another with more memory. The upgrade to El Capitan took all of my remaining memory. I didn't really have enough stuff to remove to make a difference.

I decided to just go ahead and get another computer with more memory. I always replace my computers every five years so this one was due. And, I get a nice little inheritance every January from my mom's IRA, so I could justify the money. Last spring, I had spent $300 replacing the logic board which made this computer brand new. In fact, two of the genius' couldn't believe the pristine condition of my 5 year old computer---nary a scratch. I baby my computer. I was told that I could easily sell my old computer for a really good price.

Once I made up my mind, they asked me if I wanted to erase the old computer---as long as it was backed up. I'd need all of my information to re-load on the new computer. Yes, of course, my computer was backed up---10:25 the night before to be exact. I waited another hour while they erased the old computer.

Finally, when I got home, it was 4:00 p.m. I'd spent the whole day!!

My first task was to get the new computer up an running. When I went to load my information from my time capsule, everything showed up just like it should. But when I clicked on "Barbara's Macbook Air"---I got a message, "data not found." What!???!!! Oh. My. Gosh! I tried to stay calm. I didn't freak. I told myself, "okay, it is what it is." I lost just about everything. Probably what I was most worried about were my photos---but luckily, I have ALL of the old ones on my desktop computer, so that wasn't the end of the world. And, since I'm pretty faithful about printing out my photos, I was in good shape there.

Next, I was worried about losing my calendar. There would be no way I could remember all of that.  I was afraid that all of my contacts and internet bookmarks and Bloglovin' information would be gone. But, thank God for the Cloud. ALL of that information was there immediately.

The most important and valuable information that I lost was ALL of the wedding information. Luckily I'm old---and I NEVER say that with regards to myself. But in this instance it's true. I had printed out all of the contracts with the wedding vendors. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have even been able to remember half of them. If I were young, I would have never printed this information out. They mostly live in a paperless world. Still, it was quite a setback as I had done most of the work already. Not the end of the world.

Here she is in all of her glory---slightly smaller---about an inch---than the old one.

Now they come in a few colors---the standard silver, gold and this one---a bronze-ish brown. I love it! I've already re-organized all of my fonts into their respective folders (lost the nearly 1000 that I had). A sign of the times---5 years ago when I went through my fonts, there were maybe 30 foreign ones. This time there were equally half as many foreign fonts as English ones. I guess most of the third world countries now have computers---and Macs at that!

Anyway, I'm back in business. Justin is the recipient of my old/new computer. He's happy since he didn't have one---just his iPhone.

It's been a period of adjustment as I get used to the new. Although I had Pages for years, I never used it---just Word. Now I only have Pages. That's really taking some getting used to. I'm not happy with Photo (they took away the "i") as I really liked the format of the old program. Plus, I learned that now, when I delete photos from my phone, they delete from my computer. Ugh! Not happy about that. Maybe it's a setting. I'll have to find out. What the heck. I'll just spend another day of fun at the Apple Store.