How Sweet It Is

Having been told to call the Apple Store at eleven o'clock today to see if any of the Mac Pro notebooks had come in, I was fairly proud of myself for holding off until ten thirty. Within five minutes I was racing down the stairs. Mom would have been amazed that I didn't kill myself, I was going so fast. I knocked on John's office door, yelling, "They're in, honey. They're putting our name on one of the boxes!" He swiveled his chair around and gazed at me blankly. "Huh?"

So I guess he wasn't quite as single-minded in watching the clock and thinking about his decision to buy me that computer as I was. Once he figured out what I was talking about, however, he was really great about getting his radios and computer shut down and heading out to the car for the hour plus drive to the Apple Store in Broomfield. 

Getting a new computer was always exciting, but it was also a chore, since it took a couple of days to get everything ported over and all the settings fixed the way you want. Then software would have to be reinstalled, passwords reentered. Drivers downloaded and set up. So much to do. When Apple introduced the Time Machine, though, things changed. I never think about backups, but always have one now. I just have a drive that sits quietly on the desk, and every once in awhile, the time machine feature automatically sends all my changes to the drive. If I've done a lot of work, I'll just go into my menu bar and select the "Backup Now" option. If anything ever goes wrong on your computer, it really comes in handy. That's the purpose. 

Even better, though, is when you get a new computer and find out that you can get it all set up, just the way you like it, software and settings, passwords and drivers and everything, in about fifteen minutes, just by selecting "Migrate from Time Machine" when it first turns on. So cool. I spent that fifteen minutes peeling potatoes and carrots for dinner. That, of course, made John happy. It also gave some company to the corned beef and cabbage in the pot.

Writing my blog entry is my first real task on the new computer. It's sure easier to be able to see, since I can get closer to the screen. Thank you, John. There will be chicken tacos for you tomorrow night.