Quiet tonight and tomorrow

In our house, the heirarchy in computers starts with Greg. He brings home the bacon using his computers -- he is an architect and does all his drafting on the computer and the other half of his business is web development -- which, of course, means more computer time. So, we spend money on HIS computers! And, we did that about a month ago. He needed reliability and speed. So, we got him a new MacBook -- so he has a Mac and a PC in one little black box. Very cool!

I inherited his old PC laptop which has some quirky -- uh -- features too it. It won't start up with the powercord in but won't hold a charge either. So, you have to sit and watch it carefully during start up and plug it in at JUST the right moment. Then it works fine. Hey, that works okay for me but it was a bit of a problem when Greg was in meetings with clients telling them what a computer expert he was and he can't get his laptop to boot. Hmmmmm.

His G4 is the Mac I'll be getting and I'm thrilled with that. It's an improvement over my old pink iMac. Nothing major but a bit faster and a bit more powerful. So, that'll be good.

Why, on earth, do I need two computers? Much less a PC and a Mac? Well, the first answer is habit. I used to do a ton of web publishing when I worked at Stanford as a trainer/documentation writer and it was just way easier to work on one computer and view what you were doing on another. The other reason is a bit less serious.

Toontown. My family plays ToonTown Online. This is Disney's MMPG (Massively Multi-Player Game). We've played it for 5 years and we love it. It has always just run on the PC platform so I had a PC on my desk solely to play ToonTown (me and the kids). Now it runs on the Mac but not on either my old iMac or even Greg's G4 so I still need the laptop for the game. Silly but true.

So, I'm moving all my files (pictures, music, documents) over to Greg's old computer right now. The computer has come down significantly over it's early estimates of 2400 hours to do the job and is now thinking it'll be done in 6 hours. Hey, I have a LOT of pictures! :)

Getting this computer move done was quite silly. In order to do it, I had to clean up my desk but I couldn't clean up my desk until I cleaned up my office which is really the laundry/craft room (and no bigger than a poorly designed closet without enough right angles to function properly). In order to clean up the laundry/craft room, I had to clean up three of the big storage cabinets in Greg's office. In order to clean up the cabinets, I had to clear out a section of Greg's office. In order to clear out the office, I had to get Greg to help me. I spent all freakin' day doing this job. I don't tend to do well at this kind of work -- particularly when I realized that I had an entire cabinet filled with craft projects that I've bought all the materials for and never started. How insane is that? I have a couple of years worth of projects ready to go. Guess I know what I'll be working on in my copious free time from now on. I also found three boxes of stuff that I'd decided to sell on eBay and then it got buried in Greg's office (not to imply that Greg is a slob -- he's not at all but his office is a bit of a dumping ground for the house). I put those front and center in my office in an inconvenient place so that I've GOT to do something with them.

It's been a long day and I don't have much to show for it yet. I couldn't even get the laundry done -- even though I was working in the laundry room all day. My sad old washing machine (which is only 6 years old) is so LOUD that you can't have it on and be in the same room with it.

The computer still thinks it needs 6 more hours so I'm going to do the dishes, take a shower, and turn on the washer and the dishwasher and go to bed. The end of a long weekend and I think I need a vacation before I go back to work tomorrow!