Bad Blogger!

Isn't it amazing how quickly time flies when you've got a lot on ... or when you have a new MacBook to play with!!!!

The Wednesday before Easter, I was checking the account for the delivery dates and noticed that they had suddenly leapt from 29 March to 20 March!  Thankfully, working in IT makes it a little easier to work from home when necessary, so a quick email to one of my colleagues* and I was all set for the delivery.

As usual, the wait was unbearable: every car or van that went past got me out of my seat and peering out of the flat to see if it was the delivery guy.  Finally, at 11am, it arrived ... woohoo!!!

I have to confess that I always get nervous when I order something expensive, so I only unpacked the boxes to make sure that everything was there, using the excuse that I was still at work so I shouldn't be playing.  I can be far too anal good sometimes!

So, with a mixture of excitement, sadness and nerves, I left everything packed up and trotted into work to finish the day.  As much as I wanted to head home for a play, I couldn't because of rehearsals and, as luck would have it, they over-ran by an hour.  Typical.

However, with Good Friday giving me time off work, this meant that I had the chance to play with my little white box of fun ... oooooooooh, Tim, you were right, I love my MacBook!!  

I've still got a lot of learning to do with it, but its so much classier than a Windoze machine.

I did have a little trouble getting connected to the wireless network at first, but that was more a problem with my router which has a tendency to get confused, so a quick kick in the backside and it was back on track.  And what do you know, I could immediately see my PC and access the shared folders ... how easy was that?!?!

Could I get the PC to see the Mac?  Could I buggery.  Okay, I didn't exactly spend a lot of time trying this out but I have a feeling this could take a little fiddling with to get working.  I could be wrong, of course...

So, with the Mac all set up for the Easter weekend, I started packing to go visit the folks, the intention being to arrive Friday night and head out over the weekend to find something for my Dad's birthday.  Not so.

Whenever I visit the folks, I always go over the car, cleaning all the windows and mirrors, making sure there is enough screenwash and oil, and checking the tyres are all at the right pressure.  The last thing I expected was one of the tyres to start hissing at me as I took the cap off.  Bugger.

So, travel postponed until Saturday, I did what any sane person would do ... pulled out the MacBook :-D

First thing Saturday, I popped down to the local Kwik Fit to get the tyre sorted and I have to say a HUGE thank you to the guys there.  I was expecting to have to fork out for a new tyre at around £75 because of the valve going but was surprised when the guy had it all fixed within 5 minutes ... and didn't even charge me for it.  Apparently, the valve had only come loose and just needed tightening.

So, with the car all sorted and a large sack of clothes dropped off at one of the charity shops**, I finally loaded up the car and headed off to see the family for the remainder of the Easter period.  As most of the population had done their travelling on the Thursday and Friday, it actually turned out to be quite a good journey ... apart from the hailstone blizzard that hit about halfway.

Unfortunately, my sis and her family weren't around, so I wasn't able to catch up with them over Easter.  However, I did manage to get down to Castle Combe with my cousin for the start of the racing season, to try out my new 50-500mm lens.  Despite taking over 400 pics, you won't be seeing any here ... I need more practice!!!

The rest of the week has been taken up with work, designing a new web-based interface for our customer's new CRM system and creating my first ever glass icons ... okay, I'm only a few years behind the rest of the world!  But then, I'm not a designer, I'm a programmer, so it only becomes part of my job role when the company can't afford a proper designer to do the job.  Whilst it is fun to do, I dread a proper designer seeing what I've done and tearing it to shreds ... or even the customer's marketing team...

I had planned, this weekend, to do something a little special blog-wise.  Why?  

It seems that yesterday (Saturday), was the second anniversary of the start of this blog!  

Two years ago, I signed up for the Great North Run and decided to start a training blog in order to keep track of training and fund-raising progress.  Two years later, the blog has morphed into something quite different ... and I have started a second training blog to run alongside this year's application to the GNR!

Anyway, what with not blogging for nearly two weeks and having so much going on, I was totally ill-prepared for the anniversary, so I'm afraid you're stuck with this rather lengthy dull rambling.

Sorry about that!  I think I might leave this weekend's details for another post ... and try to be briefer about it  :-)

And yes, this is my first Mac post :-D




* The boss isn't there most of the time, so what he doesn't know can't hurt him!  Right?!
** If you ask me, they could have been a bit more grateful, rather than just grunting and pointing to the back door when I walked in.  They won't be getting anything out of me again.

Comments

RoadRunner said…
Can you blog a bit more often please? It's took half my lunch break to read that epic posting!! :P
As for the icons, we'll be gentle - honest *evil chuckle*
OddThomas said…
Yeah, sorry about that. It was a bit long and tedious, wasn't it?! In my defense, by the time I posted it, it was gone midnight and I couldn't be bothered to go through and edit it!
Tim said…
Wahay! Glad you like the Mac - good choice!!
OddThomas said…
Absolutely!

And I felt suitably smug when I connected so quick to my parent's network whilst my Dad gave up after a couple of hours with his new Vista laptop :-D

Got any hot tips?
Tim said…
Um, don't ever go back to a PC?

Ha ha!

Um, not off the top of my head … Oh, I would recommend using the native software - Appleworks is about 55 quid, and gives you Page, Numbers, and Keynote, which are the equivalent of MS Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. I made the change on my latest Mac, and they're really good.

Also, if you're not using Mail then I'd say give that a whirl instead of Entourage or Outlook - it appears a bit simplistic, but there are hidden depths!
OddThomas said…
Can't argue with that tip!

I have to confess I have avoided the Microsoft stuff - don't want to clog it up with rubbish!
Good advice do not used Microsoft if there is a cheaper and better software out there to many people used IE and office when there are much better alternative programs
OddThomas said…
For the first time ever I can say that I am intrigued by Windows with their up-and-coming release. That said, I'm still keen to get a Linux build sorted and since my MacBook now seems to be falling apart, it seems like the right time to get a replacement machine ... only trouble is, nowhere sells Linux machines, you have to buy MS and replace the install ... so much for freedom of choice :-(

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