life in the old lane

Yes, I was a cat today. Napping, eating, looking out the window. And, not much else. 

At dinner tonight, a friend suggested that maybe it is time to go through the stuff that we brought with us to The Asylum and consider getting rid of things we have not used. Another friend said that our in-house thrift shop is taking donations this week. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do a little culling. 

I was showing a new couple the Old Bat Cave this morning. It seemed a little small to them. But, I have a media/library area, an office, an origami space, a living room, yoga studio, dining room,  bedroom. Not to mention a kitchen, bath, and dressing room. A mansion! 500 square feet of everything I need. And, I have plenty of space for my giraffe, Gingerbread. And Alexa, of course. 

Faithful readers may remember Gingerbread. I figured I could blow the mental part of the entrance exam if I had an imaginary giraffe friend.

The Orange Lord says he has the “complete power” to pardon people, amid reports he is considering presidential pardons for family members, aides and even himself.  Isn’t this a little like Napoleon who I believe crowned himself Emperor thereby refusing to acknowledge the authority of the Pope? 

Making sure that Forbin could read the Airness 2’s Time Machine drive – I scooped this nice frosty image from Jan 3, 2014 off the drive and over to Forbin, the new MacBook Pro. That Time Machine drive has been labeled and stashed away in a ziplock bag. Knowing me, somewhere there is a Time Machine drive for the original Airness from 2012. Resolved to do something about my digital clutter. Soon. Honest.

Forbin? Yes, I decided to call the computer Forbin. Colossus by DF Jones(1966)  was one of my favorite old school computer scifi stories. In 1970, it became a movie Colossus:The Forbin Project. Colossus being the computer and Dr Forbin being the creator. 

 

Just hot today. Nothing but hot. Nothing accomplished. But, nothing damaged either. So,  it was an OK day.

I did go outside. To work. Back home. To water garden box and finally to eat dinner. It made it to 98° today.

I continue to be happy with my MacBook Pro’s setup. I am glad that I took the time to do a complete from scratch installation. I made all the tweaks that I consider “essential” for a proper machine. I just have to give it a name. Every computer that I have ever used regularly had a name. My first computer was called Fluffy. (Fluffy was a film about a lion of the same name.) The last two were Airness and Airness 2.  Maybe I should close the circle and call this one Fluffy. 

It’s a damn shame about Senator McCain. I don’t agree with him on a single thing. But, I do count on him to be a voice of rationality in the Republican Party. 

Since the new MacBook Pro is all nice and usable now – I was a little too impatient  to get it backed up. So, never mind that it was 96 degrees today – I head off to the Apple Store – where the only “suitable” backup drive is PINK. 

House rules. Every new machine gets a new backup drive. It’s that digital hoarder in me. 

Thinking about the PINK 2TB disk drive. The first disk drive that I personally used was an IBM 1311. It held 2 million character on 4 platters. And the disk weighted in at about five pounds. The whole contraption was about as big as a washing machine.

After I got home, I started up Time Machine and took a long summer’s nap. When I woke up – Time Machine was done and I worked on my Last Great Photo Shoot images. Got the original 496 down to about 150. TIme to get out and do some more shooting.

Overheard at The Asylum: I didn’t hear much, but I got to talk a lot.

 

Well, in my new computer – everything is working. (Can not say the same thing about my country – nothing is working here anymore.) And, I have the software that I use installed. The scanner scans. The printer prints. My iTunes are on board. 

And all the papers and crap are cleared off of my desk. I can actually see my desk. I had to go to work late this morning to get my desk cleaned off! Have you ever called out “messy”? Kind of embarrassing. My table is still messy. Littered with computer cables, connectors and thingies. But, I’ll get to that tomorrow. While rummaging around – I found a large cache of old small USB drives. And, more than a few old external drives. (Have I mentioned that I am a digital hoarder. I could be a reality tv show.)  Something has to be done. I need to do an intervention on myself.

But, I did find an old AA talk that Carlton gave in 2004. You know, I have started to forget his voice. 

DONGLES: I collected 3 kinds. The very expensive Apple one. A very chic looking nonda, and 2 really cheap Aukers. Gotta say the Mac one is the best and at $19 it should be. The nonda looks really sweet. The Aukers are serviceable and I think they will be OK with the printer and scanner. 

The only thing that I need to decide on and get set up is – backup. Yes, I back up my computer. Yes, I have had to get things from backup. 

If I had real internet – I might wing it w/o backup and keep more stuff in Dropbox. But, I don’t have real internet. And, how hard is TimeMachine anyhow?

That is all that was left of the dessert table from yesterday’s buffet. I took almost 500 photos. Hope to get about 40 shots of employees and maybe 10 filler shots. Don’t think this one will make the final cut!

I am positive this one will never see daylight, except here on the Old Bat Blog.

Speaking of bats. I found a dead bat on my walk to work this morning. That made me sad. But, it made be happy to know that we still have bats. 

The new MacBook is getting doing great. Today, I managed to round up an installation file for Mac Office 2011. Seems like waybackwhen I paid an extra $12.95 for “forever download rights”. And, what do you know – I downloaded it and fired up Mac Office 2011. I even saved the “Purchase Key”. Thanks to Gmail for saving all that good info for me.

I got Virtual Machine up and running just now – now the smoking hot MacBook can channel a 2009 PC. I hate it when my Mac makes Windows sounds. But, that way I can legitimately log into my work system. 

On a move frivolous note, I most my little “toys” working. Stuff that makes my computer feel like my computer. And tonight’s last adventure will be trying to get my little scanner working. I’ll try once. And if it fails – I’ll just toddle off to bed. 

 

 

Spent 5 hours shooting and about 3 hours tagging photos with names. I had hoped to finish the tagging today – while I could still read my own writing. But, it isn’t happening. 

And that is about all I did today. I did go to a little “artist talk” – the assignment was to photograph the artist. That didn’t take long, but I took the opportunity to take the load off and scarf up some snacks – since I was photographing lunch not eating lunch today. Even missed my nap. 

Tomorrow – Back to work at the hospital to get some rest!

I decided to do the old school thing and start with a clean installation. So far: I have migrated my photos and Lightroom and Photoshop. Also have 1Password, Dropbox and Evernote going. That is basics. No printers, scanners, mices, MS Office, VM, or tax or investment software running yet. 

Need to decide how I am going to deal with these 4 USB-C ports and nothing else. Well except for the single USB-C to regular USB dongle that I ordered. I’ll at least need a couple more dongles.  

SpeedTest is on board. And, the new Mac seems to have a better radio. 

Enough with the computers today. Time for a shower and then dinner with some of the Asylum Sisters.

 

Went to work “late” today. I usually leave the Old Bat Cave at 6:30. But, I was going to the dentist today – so I didn’t leave until 8:00. The Old Bat’s teeth are “stable”. 

Then late this afternoon, a big thunder storm came roaring through. It was sheets of horizontal rain. Apparently it made it’s way into some of units around the windows. I was on the lee side of the building – my windows didn’t even get wet. Oh, and there was hail. But, it was being being swept back up – I seem to recall that that is how hail gets bigger. In all my years living on the upper floors – this is the first time I saw hail going up. 

After that, Happy Hour with the Bar Belles. Bastille Day dinner with friends. And then – it arrived:

My not new MacBook Pro – late 2016 – arrived. 16gig. 512 SSD. 4-USB 3 ports. No ports that fit anything that I own. Money saved by getting a used one will be spent on dongles. lots of dongles. 

Trying to decide – do a clean install or just clone the Airness. I am really tempted to just let “migration assistant” – install everything from TimeMachine. Then someday, when I get old and have lots of time – then I can do a clean install.

I can not remember if I did a clean install when I got Airness 2.  That was in September 2012. If I didn’t then my current build goes back to 2009. Oh well, this is a pretty upscale problem. 

 

I am never happy to find the Brinks truck outside my building. Especially when it is time for our monthly statements. The Asylum gets so much money that they haul it out in sacks? Don’t know. There is a so called bank in the building, but it doesn’t have an ATM machine. So, what’s the point of having a bank if it doesn’t give you money? 

But, I digress.  The Orange Lord is in Paris. Sorry France. Please forgive us. Methinks  he went to see the Bastille Day Parade. Don’t think he was at the top of his World History class. I seem to recall that the successful storming of the Bastille was the turning point of the French Revolution. Which, Note to Orange Lord, didn’t end well for the First Estate and that would be you. 

Found out today that we have 800 employees looking after our 500 residents. Thats a lot of photographs. One hell of a lot of photographs. 

I’ll make another pass a tweaking the header. It isn’t very good, but, I had to try.

Sort of practiced for retirement this morning. I am not sure I am ready for it just yet. I have a pretty sweet deal where I am. And, I have darn near automated myself (and the administrative assistant) out of a job anyhow.

Started getting serious about my massive “environmental portraits” project late this afternoon. Planning almost done. Time to spring into action. It is just way outside of my comfort zone of insects, flowers and the odd street shot. Bees don’t complain about the product. People – not so compliant.  

Going to putter around with the header tonight. We’ll just have to see what happens. Maybe nothing. I am guessing nothing when you consider my upload speed!

Every now and again, an entire day goes by with no new photos – So, it’s a random photo or two from the past. Today – I landed in early march – on the train home from Grand Canyon. 

A pretty ordinary day. Work, yoga, lunch at hospital, home, read, nap, dinner at asylum… With periods of outrage over current state of affairs. 1288 more days until Inauguration 2021.

At dinner we fondly remembered the Presidents Bush. That is how bad it has become.