Where the Sidewalk Begins ...

Yay! Oh happy day!

All sorts of good things today:

1. My iBook arrived!  Yay!  I'm charging it up and will install the additional memory tonite after I run some vacation-related errands.

2. The medicine is kicking in and my wrist/elbow/fingers feel better. Okay the fingers are still tingly and kinda numb, but it's a start.

3. I've spent the day wrapping up some work and meeting with other clients for a year-long project. Yay! Steady work!

4. We leave for vacation tomorrow!  Yay! 
For anyone who hasn't been paying attention:

• We're driving to Rochester, NY, where we'll stay with Kevin's godfather, Uncle Steve.
• While in the area, we're hitting a museum or two, and spending a day at some of NY's Finger Lake wineries.
• We're then driving 2 hours north to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. We'll spend a day putzing around there, eating at the revolving restaurant and riding on the Maid of the Mist. You know, being typical tourists.
• We're staying at a B&B at Niagara-on-the-Lake, which is a town built around a huge George Bernard Shaw Theatre Festival and a bunch of B&Bs. I think the whole town is B&Bs.
  
• We're going to spend another day driving around to the Ontario wineries, most of which specialize in Reisling and/or Icewines.  We know I love my sugar. :-)
• Then we head home, but we're taking the scenic route through Canada. We'll be back by June 1st.

I sincerely doubt that we'll have any access to the Internet at any point on the trip. I'm bringing my Mac, admittedly, but more to get to know it in any down time we might have than anything else. But I'll have my trusty mini-Moleskine with me and I'll handwrite my blog entries to enter when we return. This is a different sort of vacation for us, as it involves a car instead of a plane. I'm so used to flying everywhere but Chicago. When I was a kid, we would drive 17 hours to Florida every year. If I can do it then, I can do it now.

I can't wait! I could use the relaxation/non-work time and based on my hand troubles, my body could use the break too.

See you in June and have a happy Memorial Day weekend!

Enjoy Every Sandwich

Received Enjoy Every Sandwich: The Songs of Warren Zevon today. It's a really great tribute album - everyone should run out and buy it.  Seriously though, it really is a great CD with a great range of artists (Bonnie Raitt, the Pixies) paying tribute to a great songwriter. All the songs seem much more poignant now that he is gone. Bob Dylan performs "The Mutineer", and I think it is only the second time I have heard a Bob Dylan song that I like. (Sacrilege, I know. But as a rule, I'm not a fan.) This song is made for his voice though.  The whole CD is great.

Ergonomics

So this whole cubital tunnel pain thing made me take a good long look at my office setup. The potential for good ergonomics was there - I just wasn't taking advantage of it.
I now have the desktop machine on desk A, with a wrist rest in front of the keyboard and mouse.  The keyboard is on the lower keyboard tray.
I re-installed the keyboard tray under desk B and stuck it next to desk A, in sort of an L shape. The laptop is there, with the external mouse and keyboard on the tray. One of my biggest mistakes previously was not using the external keyboard with my laptop. It has a huge screen - using an external keyboard is not a problem.
I bought a PodiumPad to both allow for cooling of my giant laptop and to raise up the screen so that I'm not slouching or looking down at the screen. It's great.  I also bought an iCurve, but it made the screen too high. I'm returning it to the Apple store tomorrow and picking up a second PodiumPad for the iBook.

Big Sigh of Relief

A huge sigh of relief went out from me today on the top three stress-inducing items in my life.

3. My iBook shipped today from Amazon.com.  Yay!  I should have it Wednesday morning!  Yay!  I'm very happy it wasn't delayed.

2. My cubital tunnel syndrome was re-diagnosed today as I went to my regular physician. He says the ulnar nerve is like a garden hose from my elbow to my pinky and that my garden hose is kinked at the elbow and at the wrist. We just need to un-kink it. He proved his point by touching my elbow in a certain spot and sending what felt like electrical shocks up my arm.
Anyway, he said that he believes the situation is temporary and I'll be all fine as soon as I can stop typing and putting stress on my elbow/wrist/nerve. He took away the irritating brace from the urgent care and prescribed some cortisone pills and some anti-inflammatories. I also stopped and got some cycling gloves (with his approval) that support the ulna nerve and help reduce numbness. I'm typing in them. These are WAY better than the brace.  The good news in all this is that my condition is temporary. Yay!

1. The number one worry and the one that kept me up last night - my sister's decision to get herself engaged two days after she graduated high school. My dad had a little talk with the happy couple. They aren't even going to set a date for two years and don't expect to plan the wedding until her senior year in college.  Thank god.  Maybe they'll make it - if so, all the better for them!  But you never know - she'll be on the volleyball team, travelling, making new friends. Her whole world may change (if she lets it).  I feel so much better knowing they're not even setting a date for two years.  Whoo! Crisis averted. All is well. (4/2006 Update: This didn't work. They're getting married in August of this year so they can have sex. There's a good reason.)

Technorati: elbow, ulnar, ulnar nerve, elbow surgery, cubital tunnel

Apple Battery Recall & Exchange

Just an FYI for all my friends with Macs - Apple has issued a recall on iBook G4 and Powerbook G4 batteries. It's an easy exchange program. They send you a fixed battery that won't overheat or spark and then you send them the potentially bad battery you already have. Perhaps we just discovered part of the reason my original iBook order was delayed.

Wedding Bells?!

This is really weighing heavy on my mind.
My sisters graduated from high school this weekend. (Yay!!!) They're attending Thomas More, a local college that's small and high-quality. I'm debating on an MBA from there myself, to tell you the truth.
My sisters are gorgeous (twins) and I'm very proud of them. But I didn't even get to know them until the late 90's. I'm the much older stepsister, although I've tried really hard to be a regular cool, older sister. I probably tried too hard and I'm not as close to the girls as I would like to be.
Dad called today to tell me that one of the twins is engaged. Yep, engaged, to her 25-year old boyfriend, who is really the first real boyfriend she's ever had. And I got really upset. And I yelled. And Dad and I fought. I feel so passionately that they should wait. They want to wait two years for the wedding, which is good, but when you add in engagement euphoria, starting college (including a spot on the volleyball team), and planning a wedding - 2 years is not a very long time at all.
With my off-the-cuff reaction (reacting before thinking), I'm sure I morphed into the wicked stepsister. I'm sure Dad told my sister how I reacted. I'm also pretty sure that I'll be the only family member who reacts this way - at least publicly.
Sigh. What no one understands is that while she may be happy now, I want her to be happy forever.
Even though I'm not capable of speaking to Dad right now (I'll get upset and I'll cry), I did email him. I told him how I felt, calmly I think, and why. I'm going to relate some of what I suggested to Dad, and I'm also going to try to work through this myself. So have patience and understand I'm just really trying to come to terms with all this. (Read more after the jump.)

Bad Apple

So I'd talked to Apple Customer Service more than 4 times since last Wednesday about when my iBook was to ship out.  The date kept getting pushed back.  Since I already had received the memory, some software, and the Apple Protection Plan, but no iBook, I was getting irritated. Oh, and because I'd paid for 2-day shipping. Kevin & I go on vacation this coming Wednesday and if the package hadn't arrived, there would be no one to sign for it. At last check, it wasn't supposed to ship out until 5/25! 

I cancelled the iBook. BUT, I found another one at Amazon.com. I should, in theory, have it on the 25th, before I leave. From what I can tell, it's shipping from Amazon and not from Apple, which is good.  The really good news? The price difference is only $20!

iBook viaApple	iBook via Amazon.com
Refurbished	Brand new
Loaded with Panther, no iLife, not eligible for Tiger up-to-date kit	Loaded with Panther, iLife '04, eligible for Tiger up-to-date kit
1 Ghz processor	1.2 Ghz processor
Airport card additional	Airport card built in
Ships on May 25, possibly, after I am gone and unable to sign for the package	Ships on May 24, arriving May 25, before we leave

So for exactly $20 more (the Amazon offer has a $100 rebate), I'm getting a newer machine with a faster processor. Yay for Amazon!

I've also ordered Adobe Acrobat Pro for the Mac and iWork. I should also be "receiving" a lot of other software, including Office, iLife, and Tiger.  This computer comes loaded with Panther, so I'll be installing Tiger when I get back from vacation. It also comes with an older version of iLife. I'll be loading iLife '05 when I return as well.

Although the whole experience has me a bit wary - I fully expect the Amazon order to be delayed just because we're leaving town..

UPDATE:
I feel the need to make something clear. I love Apple and always have. I'm the proud owner of a tangerine clamshell iBook and now I also own my Mom's blueberry iMac. However, I'm not particularly fond of Apple's Customer Service. The CSRs could not get anything straight. The last two times I called (times 5 & 6) I was lucky enough to end up with the same kind person. Once I got the same person, I recieved consistent answers. Whether right or wrong, they were consistent. The first four times, however, I got completely different and contradictory answers to everything I asked. That is not helpful. Gang, my problem is not with Apple - it's with the training given to the CSRs.
Next, I am thrilled with my iBook (or I will be). I don't care that it's not the latest and greatest. How often is a computer the latest and greatest? Everytime I've bought a machine it's only been the latest and greatest for about 6 months, tops, before something new is late and great instead. I'm more than happy with my purchase. This is not going to be my primary machine. It's a third machine - one that's portable that I can take with me on leisure travel or on non-training work related travel. It's not a machine that I can run RoboHelp and RoboDemo on - which happens to be a large part of my work. It's not a machine I can show to my clients, who would never understand "Virtual PC." But it satisfies my need for a new Mac and for a tiny laptop. :-)

Cubital Tunnel

Yesterday I woke up and my left pinkie was tingling, as if I'd slept on it wrong. As the day wore on, it continued to tingle, going numb occasionally, and spreading at times through my palm to my wrist then my elbow. I took much aspirin.
I woke up this morning and the tingling/numbness sensations had spread to my ring finger. I freaked out. This could not be normal. I refrained from researching it though, as Internet diagnoses tend to scare me a lot and be worse case scenarios.
It hurts, for example, when I apply pressure - such as when my fingers hit a keyboard.
We went to Urgent Care. The dr instantly knew what it was: Cubital Tunnel Syndrome. Carpal tunnel affects your thumb, second and third fingers. A different nerve - the ulnar - is irritated in cubital tunnel. I think it makes it sound like I spent too much of my life in cubicals. ;-) (Not true - for at least 80% of my career I had my own office, although sometimes by chance.)
So I currently have a brace on my wrist and I'm supposed to refrain from typing. (Yeah, I know.) It's a good thing we leave on an Internet-free vacation on Wednesday.  I'm going to try to get in to see my primary care physician on Tuesday and see what he has to say.
Since I've had the brace on, I've had alternating sensations of a dull pressure and of an intense tingling, as if my hand is "waking up." It's all very strange.
I'm going to be rearranging my office and purchasing an ergonomic keyboard to use with my laptop as well.  I use both my laptop and desktop machines equally, but the laptop does not have a larger, ergonomic keyboard.

Technorati: elbow, ulnar, ulnar nerve, elbow surgery, cubital tunnel

An Apple lesson

My .Mac membership costs me $110/year. It includes my iDisk (which hosts kevinandshel.com) and it includes my mac.com email address that I've had for years and years (I got it back when it was free and we were all encouraged to "think different"). It also includes an email-only mac.com address that my mom has used for about 5 years, which is an additional $10 charge. Every year the membership comes due on Sept 30 and Mom and I split the cost. I always muse over the expense - really, $110 is a lot of money for 2 email addresses and some web space. Actually, $80 is too much as well, but it's cheaper than $110.
I ordered the .Mac kit today from the Apple Store. It's on sale for $70. Apparently I get the kit now, at this price, and then when my membership comes due, I use the activation number in the kit to renew my .Mac account. So if any of you have .Mac memberships, this is the way to do it.

UPDATE: Oh - and Amazon has it even cheaper, so I'm switching my order there. From now on, I'm definitely finding the cheapest retail box possible to renew my .Mac subscription.

An Apple a Day ... keeps Shel happy!

I broke down and ordered an iBook today (for my business, of course). I woke up thinking that for all the trips we have coming up, I'd really like to have a small, lightweight laptop to take with me.
I priced brand-new iBooks and once i spec'd out everything I wanted, it came to $1450.  So I priced Dells, but I wanted a smaller laptop than what they offer. The 12.1" screen is perfect for a coffee shop/travel laptop sort of thing. Back to the Apple Store (online.)
This time I checked out the refurbished iBooks. I found one - a newer 1.2 Ghz machine that came with everything I wanted except bluetooth for $899. I decided to hold off on it for a few hours and investigated memory upgrades for it online.  About 3:30, I surfed back to the Apple Store - and it was gone! 
I called them. Apparently it had only lasted about an hour. :-(
Not to fear, said the nice Apple guy. They had a 1 Ghz iBook, without the Airport Extreme card, for $799. Add in a $50 Refurbished Extreme card and I've got just about the same machine. The only difference being the 1 vs 1.2 Ghz.  I'll survive. I grabbed it while I could. I also bought the Apple Protection Plan for iBooks (3 year warranty).  I've learned the hard way that I should warranty all my electronics.
So within a week I'll have an iBook sitting here. Yay! I need to upgrade its memory. iBooks only come with 256 mb included, which is ridiculous. I need to add a 512 stick.
Now, I just need to get my hands on Virtual PC and Office 2004. Maybe Photoshop Elements for the Mac and Photoshop CS for the Mac.
In case you're wondering, I'm not overly worried about the "refurbished" products either. My first Mac was a refurb, I think, and so was Kevin's oroginal iPod. My first Mac, Maxine, from 1996 or so, still works. The iPod now owned by Kevin's sister works great - better, in fact, than my old iPod that Kevin now uses.
Happy now. All is right with the world.

Home Improvement

Friday night we drove up past Chicago to Sycamore, IL.  Saturday morning we picked up a bedroom set (2 dressers and a mirror + a nightstand) from Kevin's uncle's home. The set used to belong to Kevin's grandparents.The furniture is nice. I need to invest in a nice sander/router and I'm going to refinish it all in pine sometime this summer.  The dressers are huge, which is great!
By 1:30-ish we were parking our rented Monster Van in front of the Chicago area IKEA.  I love IKEA. 
4+ hours later we left IKEA with a watering can, a gift for a friend, DVD racks, and a bed (sans mattress). When we finally got home Saturday night, we came home to a waiting persian rug shipped by a friend stationed in Iraq who got a fantastic deal on the thing. It's beautiful.
Sunday we moved out the beat-up old dresser set and took that to Goodwill, along with the old Queen bed frame. We moved in the new stuff and put together the bed. It's an awesome bed that has storage both in the headboard and space under the bed (our old queen frame did not allow for storage).
The evening ended in the hot tub - we were exhausted!

I am already was strict about the "no shoes unless they have rubber soles" rule on our new hardwood floors. Now I'm enforcing "no shoes period" due to this beautiful rug. You can't tell in the photo, but the green in the rosettes of the rug is really enhanced by our green wall. We're getting a white couch/sleeper sofa soon from a friend of ours. The couch will live in the living room until I get a new set (Hopefully by the end of summer from IKEA) of a couch and chair, plus a glass coffee table (I saw it at IKEA as well). Then the sleeper sofa will move downstairs and I'll pick up another chair from IKEA. I mentally furnished the whole house at a very low cost this weekend. I just wish IKEA was closer than 5 hours away.
Here are some photos. (after the jump)

No booty shakin'

I saw this on the Daily Show a few days ago and looked it up for myself.  Texas, a state that is horribly behind in education yet sets educational standards at the same time, is trying to pass a law banning sexy cheerleading moves.  They never strictly define what "sexy" is though. 
This is ridiculous.
But it hits close to home.
Last year in Parker's, which is at an Ohio high school, I had one of my more energetic girls with great stage presence shimmy as she was carried off stage. She is on the busty side and the parents made me cut the move. She waved and blew kisses instead. I was shocked.  A shoulder shimmy was taboo? This year, some of our girls were telling us that they aren't allowed to shimmy to certain songs the band plays during football games. Parents said they looked like strippers.  The song they shimmied to is Birdland, I think, and I was shimmying to that in the football stands 15 years ago.  What the hell has happened to parents and teachers that even a simple shimmy implies stripping and sex? I am absolutely aghast.
My biggest fear is that this Texas bill will pass, and the idea will spread.  I guarantee that if Texas passes that bill, Ohio will jump on the bandwagon so fast that it's ridiculous. The drill teams, the cheerleaders, the dance teams - they'll all suddenly be unbelievably limited in what they can do. The cheerleading and dance camps will really have their work cut out for them, trying to choreograph dance routines that don't use hips or butts or shimmies. Parker's has had a girls kickline in the opening number for 60 years now.  I wonder if they'll make the girls cover their legs.  Kate and I are already shying away from blues lindy hop for next year because we're afraid it's just too sexy.

New Music Monday

First off, let me say that I'm posting this from Ella the iMac. Still on OS 9, but happy to be on a Mac nonetheless.
Today we received a bunch of CDs that run the gamut of the musical spectrum. I'm ripping them to a PC right now, soon to be placed onto the iPods in the house ...
The Cure: The Cure (2004) I ordered this because The Cure brings back some entertaining memories for me and hey - if I can help support them in their old age, I'm all for it. Just something about the Cure.
Simply Mad About the Mouse: This is a compilation of great folks singing Disney songs. I owned it in college on cassette and I loved it. Billy Joel singing When You Wish Upon a Star (I love Billy Joel) and in particular, Harry Connick, Jr doing a swinging rendition of The Bear Necessities.
Mary Had a Little Amp: Okay, so I love compilation CDs. This has big names singing little songs. I'm particularly enamoured by the Maroon 5 rendition of Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka.
The Killers: Hot Fuss: The Killers remind me of a harsher Cure, if that makes sense.  A new type of Cure for the new kind of world we live in. 
Tony Bennett & kd lang: A Wonderful World: What a great combination of voices singing some wonderful duets! I'm a sucker for show tunes and standards.  kd lang has a great torchy sort of voice ...
Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway: because I'm a big dork. Actually, I'm not ashamed to admit I like Kelly Clarkson. I only got into American Idol that first summer, as I was trapped at home after back surgery. So I don't have much of an opinion on the others, but Kelly will always be the first and I think she has an incredible and big voice.
VH1 Storytellers: Acoustic pieces from David Bowie to Natalie Merchant to Sheryl Crow.
Good Rockin' Tonight - The Legacy of Sun Records: Really great folks likePaul McCartney and Tom Petty performing old Sun Records pieces, like Blue Suede Shoes and I Walk the Line. Elton John pulls off a great rendition of Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On.

We also received the soundtrack to Spamalot. The soundtrack is almost as funny as the musical itself!

Serenity

Jason pointed out the new trailer for Serenity. This is the Joss Whedon movie that continues the story of Firefly, a sci-fi western with an all-too-brief run on Fox. It's a great show. If you haven't seen it, get yourself to the local library or video store and rent it.  Or just buy it. But it's awesome. Very Whedon-esque. Incredible characters and great one-liners. If you're a Buffy or Angel fan, you may recognize a couple of the actors from the last couple seasons of Buffy & Angel.
Check out the trailer!

City Search ...

Stole this from Kara.

American Cities That Best Fit You:

60% Miami

60% Washington, DC

55% Austin

50% Atlanta

50% San Francisco

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

 

I have to say that these answers don't completely surprise me.  Plenty of sun and culture in all of these cities.  Hmm ... maybe I can talk Kevin into Austin - the liberal stronghold of Texas. The only one that surprises me is Washington, DC.  Gotta say - having lived around there, I'm not that big of a fan. I need less cold weather and lower cost of living. The DC area is pretty darned pricey.

Back in Mac

Well, I'm re-entering the world of Mac, albeit slowly. Now, my heart has always been with a Mac, but practicality dictates otherwise. So this is a good start for me.

We gave my mom a PC for Mother's day and I acquired her blueberry iMac DV. I think it's about 5 years old. 

I have ordered a stick of 512 Mb RAM for it and a 120 GB Seagate hard drive.  We're upgrading this week. The processor is only 400 Mhz, but it's quite costly and difficult to upgrade and I couldn't go much faster than 500 Mhz anyway. I'm holding off on that to see if I need it.  At the moment I'm running OS 9.  After I install the hard drive, I'll probably re-install OS 9, partition the drive

I'm also debating on an Airport card, but only if I can find one on eBay. I'm having an impossible time getting the iMac to talk to the PCs and vice versa.  Heck, I can get online but I can't even connect to my iDisk.  I don't know why!  The whole networking thing is fairly wonky at the moment.  Any thoughts or ideas are welcome, as I'm quite frustrated with it.

Finally, any one with any further ideas on how I can soup up this ol' iMac, let me know. I hope to install OS X.2 (I don't have X.4) and use this machine as a repository for all my photos, organized in iPhoto.

Oh, and I finally got around to naming my Apple products.  My iPod is Keiko (since she wears the kimono and is very feminine). My new old iMacDV is Ella since she is blue and Ella sings the blues.

Another busy work week ahead for me, and also a busy weekend ahead.  We're heading to Chicago - an up and back thing - to pick up some furniture. 

Parker's last weekend was a great success. I'll post photos when I have time to create the web page.  Suffice it to say that despite all the stress and frustration, the payoff is worth it when the kids really succeed and do well. They're all really great kids and I'll miss the seniors. I seem to have committed myself to this (and Kate too I think) for another two years.

Veronica Mars

Not so long ago, I never missed an original episode of Buffy when it aired. I was crushed when it went off the air (yet pleased wit h the final episode). Now there's a new little TV show that I'm quite addicted to: Veronica Mars. This is a great show. It airs Tuesday nights, 9 pm EST on UPN. It conflicts with House (FOX), and Scrubs (NBC). Thank goodness we have two Tivos! I never miss an episode of Veronica. It's not so much that she's a crime-solving high school student - it's something about the way the show is filmed and something about Veronica's awesome down-to-earth, overly cynical attitude.
There are only a couple of episodes left to the season - I am assuming (hopefully correctly) that UPN is giving this little show time and renewed it for next season. It's one of those critically acclaimed but under-watched shows. It's my new Buffy.