Last week my PowerBook was sent off to Apple for a little repair. I also ordered a nice 160GB drive to put in it after it got fixed. I used a slick little app called SuperDuper! to do a full system backup. With my over sensitivity to security I went a little crazy a removed all my important documents, passwords, keychains, etc from the machine before it was shipped off. I just got it back today and began the process of restoring my full backup and prepping the new drive. I decided to do a new install of Mac OS on the new drive and then a migration of all my data and apps to the new install. It’s working away and hopefully will be ready for the surgery. It doesn’t seem to major to take the machine apart, just need to keep track of all the screws. There are some great guides at ifixit.com.

Thursday I’ll be heading to a retreat with Vanessa and the church staff for the weekend. I’m looking forward to a some hanging out, and getting to know people better. Hopefully Vanessa and I don’t get lost this time. Well, the clock has ticked itself by. It sure feels nice to blog again. I don’t know what my problem has been. I’ll have to take the time to get on here and post some updates.

One more thing, Heroes is a great show! If you haven’t had a chance to check it out watch the episodes online at NBC and get caught up. The new shows are excellent. I can’t wait again for next weeks!

Tags: SuperDuper!, 'Mac, OS', ifixit.com, Heroes, NBC

The first day of youth group begins tomorrow, and we had are first youth praise team meeting today, since Christmas that is. Tonight we just came up with a list of songs we want to do this winter/spring. I’ll be putting together the set lists and get them all the songs. I’ve even created a schedule that will be available online as well. I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things with the youth. We had a really excellent youth leaders this past Saturday that really put some things into perspective for all of us I think.

It finally came to me today, that I need to get back in the groove of the semi-circle, you know from the Life Shapes that I’ve talked about in the past. Life is so much more enjoying when you work from rest. The reality of it all is that these things I have been working on, while they are good things, are not so important in the grand scheme of things. It’s so easy for me to want to give everyone the world, I end up running myself ragged and my life suffers in all areas. I really wanted to get into a regular excercise routine (thanks for the jokes ), and unless I carve out a set time it won’t happen. Also my spiritual growth, specifically my reading and devotions time, has suffered some over the past couple of weeks. I think finally tonight I shall get my body back on the early to bed and early to rise schedule. With any luck I’ll be trying out one of those workout DVDs from my friend tomorrow.

On a good note, I have had some wonderful and amazing spiritual conversations with people over the past couple weeks. That is the kind of conversations I miss having from way back when I was a counselor at camp. I remember many nights sitting in an extra room, or in a hallway, talking about stuff that counts & praying for each other. Those were some wonderful times. It’s times like that, as they come along in life, that I really cherish. God has been working amazingly in my life over this past fall. I know the difference has been taking time each day to spend in His Word, oh how He has blessed that time. This is the key, and I think it finally took an understanding that the Christian life is not meant to be easy in anyway, and if you’re feeling that your Christian walk is easy, chances are you’re not growing much. It’s through the hardness of things that real growth comes, when we get out of what’s comfortable. This is a huge thing for me, even now I’m longing for a return back to a “normal” schedule, but my only desire really is that my time with God doesn’t suffer. If a normal life means a stale spiritual walk, then no thank you.

On one final note. I haven’t talked about eHarmony much, partly cause I haven’t had a lot come of it, except that isn’t entirely true. I have more recently been in communication with a couple of people. At this point I’m going about it with no expectations, nothing more then having an opportunity to meet some interesting people. If something more comes of it then great, either way I think I’ll most likely let my subscription run out. I think I’ve finally come to a point where I can truely say that I’m leaving it in God’s control. I’m not “giving up” as some might say, I’m simply going to take life as God brings it my way. I think I’m getting to the point where I could feel comfortable going on a date without needing it to mean something. I guess I’m finally coming to terms with my feelings of inadequecy. I may have felt that women wouldn’t be interested in me, well if that my feeling why would they want to be with someone who feels that way? Duh. I actually had a perfect stranger tell me how good looking I was, and that I reminded her of a previous boyfriend. I was pretty amazed and humbled by this.

Well, of course I’m back to the long winded posts again. Perhaps this wasn’t long enough to make up for the lost posts, oh well. Sometimes life just gets busy, and some things have to just get left by the wayside.

Before I go…oh how I was envious, and bummed, about the new Intel Macs that were announced today. Wish my ole iBook would have held out a little longer. My new PowerBook has been serving me very well but the possibilities that an Intel Mac suggest just seem too good. Well, perhaps within 6 months they shall come out with a cheap Intel MacMini that I might justify buying.

Well, my eyes are calling me to go to sleep. Until the next post, which should be soon and more often, valete!

Well after continuous looks at the UPS package tracking it appeared that I wouldn’t get my new PowerBook until tomorrow. Well wouldn’t you know it, I got back from lunch and there sitting on my desk was the box, simply amazing. I began the process of trying to get all my stuff I had on the old machine onto the new one. It went ok, but I did have a hang up that I had to resolve by doing a system update/install. It sort of appeared like the system has 10.3.7 installed on it rather than the 10.4 it came with. Well it all got resolved and my system is pretty much back to where I had things before. All my apps seem to be running pretty good. I’m getting used to this new machine nicely.

Well, I had a delightful little IM chat today. And some nice converstations with some co-workers. Youth praise team practice resumed today, however some members I think forgot about it. I’ll remind them all tomorrow, and we’ll do another practice next week before we’ll lead that Wednesday. I think we’ll be taking a break for the rest of December, it’s going to be kind of busy month for me, and probably most others too.

Well, it’s getting a bit later than I’d like, so off to bed I go. Valete!

The Good: Had a good time with my family and got to hang out with two of my best friends growing up. It’s interesting to see where we are all at now in life. John’s all married with a baby on the way. Sounds like they’ll be doing some moving around in the years to come. I really hope John’s finds the job he’s really looking for. Jeff is still as quirky as every. John & I agreed we could see him being one of those eccentric professors, this is probably where he’s headed. And then there’s me, you all know where I’m at. A new 15in PowerBook G4 arrives tomorrow! :-/

The Bad: My iBook is not going to be resurrected by me. The decision this morning, after a quick phone call, was to buy a new (actually refurb’d) PowerBook from Small Dog Electronics. Just what I always wanted more debt. I struggled with this decision for the past few days. I’ve got too many projects that need to be done that this seemed to be my only good choice. Some may ask why I’m not happy to be getting a new computer, spending money I don’t have is not something I like doing. Let’s hope I can get this things paid off soon. So I’ve been sick since yesterday. It took all I had to get through running the projection at church for both services. It wasn’t like I could call in sick on that as I was the last resort to finding someone for this weekend. I basically slept all day yesterday was up for an hour then went back to bed until like 8:30 this morning. Decided it was worth it to use a little sick time, I’ll never use it otherwise. Besides being sick yesterday, the weather was terrible, so no Settlers, grr.

The Ugly: How about this crappy weather. Could it be any nastier. I don’t mind fluffy snow, but not this hard freesing rain stuff. Give us some real winter snow.

Valete!