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I just thought I'd pop in and wish everyone a happy new year, so:
Happy 2007 Everyone!
I've been really busy, but I hope I will have more time and inspiration to post in the new year.
Oh, and thank you Aardvark Alley for adding me to the Confessional Lutheran Blogroll. I greatly appreciate it. :-)
I'd like to wish everyone a happy, holy and safe Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!
Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows the continuing saga of my iBook. Basically, the thing is a lemon. I have still been having problems with the thing refusing to boot from the hard drive. When it does work, it doesn't work for long. The thing hangs or starts acting funny (like refusing to save files or empty the trash). If it starts acting weird, I immediately shut it down. I cannot just restart it because if I do so, the hard drive will be trashed and I will have to recreate the partition and reinstall the operating system.
Over the past week, the problems have gotten so bad now that I can rarely boot from the hard drive and when I do, the thing hangs within minutes. (Macs don't have a blue screen of death but rather a spinning, multicolored beach ball of death.)
However, I have found a way to use this iBook. I have a Maxtor One Touch firewire drive. I could never get the bootable backup to work, probably because of the problems with the iBook. However, I have taken the partition set aside for the bootable backup and made it my main hard drive for the iBook. I installed Mac OS X, installed all my programs, moved my iTunes library there, the whole deal. It works great -- I just attach it and press F while booting to make it boot from the firewire drive.
The thing is, the main hard drive is accessible. I run the disk utility on it and it seems to be okay. I'm thinking that there may be a controller problem, but I know very little about Mac hardware, so who knows.
I guess I will be taking this thing to be fixed, which I dread. The problem is, the service people don't really listen to you, treat you like you're dumb and if they boot it and it comes up, they assume it's okay. They don't spend time investigating the problem. They may replace the hard drive and declare the problem "fixed", but I don't think the problem is the hard drive itself.
Anyway, I'll probably take it down Friday afternoon, since I have a hair appointment close by on that side of town. Until then, I will use the firewire boot drive. While it makes the iBook considerably less portable, at least I can use it.
Update: I decided not to take the computer to be fixed on Friday because I just didn't feel like it. I can get by with it for now. When I get some time, I'd like to research the problem, find out exactly what's wrong (I suspect a controller problem) and see if I can fix it myself.
...if I would have joined the military, I would have been this type of soldier:
| You scored as Engineer. Military Engineer. Your job is usually overlooked, but without you nothing gets done. While you sometimes annoyed at this, and you know the only time people come to you is when there's something wrong. You understand that you are the heart and soul of any organization with honesty and nice work ethic to boot.
"I need more Duct Tape!!!"
Which soldier type are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
(Via MVRWC.)
The Gates of Vienna has a very sensible post that is a must-read, particularly for Christians and Jews: The Ten Righteous.
I can certainly understand caution when it comes to individual Muslims. As Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify." But there are Muslims who are "the good guys".
Here she slaps down the usual "But the Old Testament..." nonsense.
In addition:
The problem with hearing the word 'Allah' just before you get on an airplane is that that is the last word hundreds of innocent people heard just before the plane they were on smashed into a very tall building. So, oddly enough, "fearful, ignorant" passengers (i.e., normal, unbrainwashed people with functioning congnitive abilities, not to mention the airline's experts in terrorist behaviour) decided hey, that's a red flag.Americans know more about Islam now than they ever did before 9/11. And you know what: the more they learn, the less lots of 'em like it. "Education" doesn't always go your way Earl.
I've never said every Muslim is a terrorist. But again, someone with normal cognitive abilities and a functioning television set, internet connection and newspaper subscription is obliged to conclude that most terrorists happen to be Muslims.
Only an incurious dolt wouldn't wonder why. Again, the problem isn't RightGirl and I taking the Koran out of context -- it is the way radical Muslims "take" the Koran that worries me, and should worry you, but you are too busy worrying about the coming to life of The Handmaid's Tale or global warming to see the threat right in front of your face.
Not to mention a "Handmaid's Tale" type society would be far more likely to happen under Islamic sharia law. The idea that orthodox Christianity could produce such a society is ridiculous.
Remind me not to get on Kathy's bad side...
Well my goodness...it's been a while since I last posted. Sorry about that...I just haven't felt very outgoing lately. Behind the scenes, I have been working on a very lengthy post about something that has recently become important in my life. Or rather, it has been important, but I did not realize it until the past week or so. I will publish the post whenever I finish it. I hope it will be soon, but I find that I don't think on my feet as well as I used to. (That has something to do with what the post I'm writing is about.)
Anyway, my Christmas season this year is shaping up to be...not awful. I hope it will continue to be not awful. That is entirely up to other people in my life. I am perfectly willing to have a nice Christmas. However, that has not always been the case with certain family members.
Speaking of Christmas, I want to take this opportunity to remind you that there are two Christmas skins available. I have set the second one I created as the default for right now. The two skins are Christmas 2003 and Christmas 2005.
Well, that's all for now...later!