Delayed Again

I am NOT a happy camper.  Yesterday morning, I found out that the doctor reviewing my records at the Corps of Engineers wanted me to have a couple more lab tests.  I had been told that test results were good for a year, in which case my results from my State screening last June were still good, but the doc decided they weren't.  So I had to get more tests done the first thing this morning.  It has resulted in my reporting date being pushed back another week.  I was ready to go this time, so the delay is very annoying.  Not to mention a bit stressful, as all this stuff is outside my control.

In the meantime, Janis has gotten me started on the honey-do list.  I spent a day mowing our yard, which is not a trivial undertaking since it's an acre on a fairly steep slope.  There are lots of other projects: cleaning out and straightening up the stacked rocks, clearing last fall's leaves out from the bushes, fixing this and repairing that.  I'm actually enjoying doing these "real-life" things again.

I've been working on improving my little MacBook.  It needed a larger hard drive - the original was 120GB and I was rapidly filling it up, so I got a new 320GB drive and put it in.  And, of course, it didn't go quite as planned.  Turned out that a small technical detail made this particular hard drive a bit more of a problem to install.  I wound up taking it to Charlotte Street Computers in Asheville and they got the new drive up and running, but even they had to do some research before finding out what the issue was.  But now it's in and running just fine.

Another upgrade was to get an adapter cable that allowed me to plug in the monitor from my old Dell computer.  This effectively tripled my screen space - pretty cool.  The last time I did something like this was on a desktop PC - I had to take it apart, put in a new video card, install some drivers, and do some finagling before it worked.  With the Mac, I just got the adapter cable, hooked it up, and turned it on.  Voila!  Couldn't have been easier.  I keep thinking that I must be missing something and that either the computer or monitor is going to suddenly explode in a shower of sparks, but no, they just keep working like they're supposed to.

A third project was to get some old vinyl records into digital format.  I have a bunch of old LP's dating back to the late 50's - some were my parents', some were mine, some were Janis's - and I wanted to get them digitally recorded so I could play them on my iPod.  I found a free open-source program online called Audacity that's pretty much like a Photoshop for music.  You can record old vinyl, cassettes, live music, podcasts, whatever you want.  I've recorded several old albums now and have discovered that it's not nearly as easy as recording to cassette was back in The Day.  With a cassette, you plugged in the cables, set your recording level, and hit the "record" button.  With this digital software, you have to do a lot more.  But at the same time, you can do more, like getting rid of the pops and crackles that vinyl always has.  And if you really get into it, you can essentially re-mix almost anything.  Pretty cool.  The learning curve takes a while and the process isn't quick - it takes me anywhere from 20-60 minutes of fiddling to get a vinyl recording cleaned up and converted into something that iTunes will play.  So if all you want is to get your old albums into digital format, it's a lot easier just to find them in CD format on Amazon or eBay and record those.  But if you've got some records or cassettes that aren't available in CD, then Audacity will do the trick.

I watched the President's press conference the other night.  It is SO GREAT to have a President who is intelligent, thoughtful, articulate, and nuanced!  Bush always sounded like a whiny little kid who was trying to wheedle his way out of being caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  Obama sounds like a true President.  He's been criticized for taking on too much - Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, Mexico, health care, education, the environment, Guantanamo, energy, you name it - but all these things have to be addressed and won't wait.  I'm particularly impressed by his call to action to all of us.  None of the old "we'll do this or that for you", Obama has been telling us to get up off our duffs and start fixing our own problems.  Good for him.  Congress, though, has not been anywhere near as inspiring: it seems to be business as usual on Capitol Hill.  It's Republicans versus Democrats, right down the party line.  Both sides said during the campaigns that there would be more bipartisanship, but so far, I'm not seeing it.  Particularly from the Republicans.  C'mon, guys, I want to see informed, thoughtful, inspirational, and reasonable conservative leadership.  The country needs it.  Instead, you're still kowtowing to Rush (who has NONE of the above characteristics) and floundering around with Bobby Jindal (who gave a weak and partisan response to Obama's State of the Union speech), Boehner, McCain (who's not even a "true Republican"), and Palin (an idiot of the first order).  Until you find yourselves a leader, you're going to be the party of "just say no", which won't get you or the country anywhere.

It's a gray, rainy, gloomy day here in Asheville, which means that I'll be spending the day mostly indoors, doing things like writing this blog entry and taking care of Janis's honey-do's.  So now it's time to get busy.