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Like Christmas! In April!

The title of this post succinctly covers the conversation between myself and an Apple store "specialist" this afternoon. I was the one proclaiming Christmas. This feeling has continued to last all day. Let me enumerate exactly why today was my Christmas in April day.

When I bought my macbook, almost two years ago, I bought one of the very first ones. They always tell you not to buy the first generation of anything mac, but I loved the macbook and wanted a computer before heading to grad school. Within a few months, I was struck with the dreaded "browning." In retrospect, I should have taken a picture; when I opened up my computer, the techs all agreed that mine was exceptionally bad. It's been like that for ages, and I have just been really lazy in bringing the macbook in, as I didn't want to go without my computer.

In January, I started having more problems; in addition to the browning, my case started cracking at the point where it closes. The cracking isn't surprising, given the architecture of the macbook, but it was a pain. Still, though, I didn't want to part with my computer for any length of time, so I slapped some tape on the cracking and called it good.

The final straw was my recent battery problems. It's natural for battery life to diminish over time, but I was down to 10-15 minutes. Even if my battery wasn't covered under warranty, I was willing to pay to replace it.

Now that school is done, I figured I could part with my laptop for awhile to get the fixes done. I backed up my computer (two times!), and I took my precious little computer down to the Apple Store today. Pleasantly, I found it would only take two hours to fix my computer. The case fixes were free, since I have apple care, but the tech did let me know that I'd have to pay $99 to replace my battery. No worries; $99 is well worth it to have a fresh battery and make my macbook just like new.

Now comes Christmas: when I went back to the store to pick up my macbook, I opened it up before signing the final papers. It is beautiful! It is soooo white and lovely, and everything is perfect. Since the keys and trackpad and everything are all part of the top case, I basically have a cosmetically new computer. Furthermore, they replaced the battery for free! I'm using my computer at this very moment (obviously), and I still get a giddy feeling every time I touch the new plastic.

My computer has always run just fine, and it's just as speedy as when I first got it (mostly thanks to the extra RAM I installed, I think). With a new battery and a snazzy new case, I see my macbook and I being buddies for a very long time. And I see myself and Apple being friends for an even longer time. As someone who has owned several PC computers (and enjoyed Windows just fine -- I really have no qualms with it), I am amazed at how simple the service process was at the Apple store here in Ann Arbor. Since I was expecting to have my computer gone for a week, and fully anticipating having to reinstall everything, it was such a pleasant surprise to know that I only had to part with my computer for a few hours. Last time I had a PC serviced, it did take forever, and the techs somehow erased my harddrive while installing a new fan.

Maybe the secret to Apple's new success is that lots of people have low expectations. Again, I'd like to reiterate that Windows and I get along just fine, and I'm not one of those mac evangelists. But I must acknowledge that Apple has a smooth service process, and I certainly hope that they are able to retain their efficiency and service quality as they gain further market share. In an age where computers are constantly changing and many don't know how to service their computers themselves, it is pretty awesome that Apple provides such strong support.

P.S. For those interested, I also found out that Apple stores do one-on-one education in using their products, and a lot of Apple stores also offer classes in using various pieces of software. Definitely awesome.

101 things: month 1

Well, I've now got one month down of doing the 101 things. Let's check in with my progress:

33. Do 5 video posts on my blog

Video Post #1

#19: Attend three concerts/dance shows: 2/3 completed

I blogged about the Pittsburgh symphony, and I also went to a Bobby McFerrin concert that I never got around to blogging about. The McFerrin concert was really awesome. He played with Chick Corea and Jack DeJohnette, and this tour is the first time they've played together. They did two hours of improv jazzish music, and the threw in little bits of lots of other styles (including bluegrass, reggae, and opera). The neatest improv part was when Corea and DeJohnette started having fun with the drumsticks on DeJohnette's drum set. If you hold the base of a drumstick against a drumhead and pull your fingers tightly down the drumstick, the friction makes some awesome noise. The also started just dropping drumsticks on the set.

For the second encore, they came out and answered questions instead of playing another piece. That was also wonderful. McFerrin said that each concert is truly unique, and they don't talk out anything before starting the show. Their one agreement is that they won't play any recognizable tunes.

46. While living by myself (or if I have amenable roommates), switch to purchasing renewable power for at least three months

I have signed up for Green Currents. I'm going to be here for May, June, July, and August, so that should cover my commitment. I wasn't going to do it now, but I calculated that this will actually only be another $5 a month (2 extra cents a kwh), and I figured that wasn't bad. Plus, I don't know if every place offers green power. I saw a flyer for Green Currents on my friends' fridge, and I decided to give it a go.

68. Learn how to polish leather shoes

I learned how to polish shoes so that I could go to the symphony. I polished both a black pair of dress shoes and my brown Danskos. It's about time to polish them again; that stuff wears off fast. Polishing shoes was much easier than I realized. I think there is a more fancy way to do this, but I just used a Kiwiwax container with a dispenser built in. I buffed the shoes after I had spread the Kiwiwax solution on them. They looked nice, and I think that's the part that counts.

79. Write “how to do a video post on a mac” post

Done!

81. write on my blog every day for a month

Was I so stealth that people didn't notice my greatly increased posting frequency for April 2008? Maybe not. In any case, I blogged every day this month. It definitely got difficult near the end. I will try to keep up good posting frequency, but I think I scale back a touch from the every single day. I felt guilty every single time I posted a day of just pictures, even though I usually just wanted to share the pictures.

Tally:
3 in progress
3 completed

Not too shabby for a start! And I'm really in progress on more of those, but the progress is less tangible, so I'll wait to post on that until later.

Start of a new term

I know I just graduated and all, but I'm teaching spring term to bring in some extra cashflow. And, surprise, spring term started today! It's a bit quick, but they like to turn things around promptly here at Michigan.

For this spring term, I'm teaching the introductory biology lab for a month and a half. It's a pretty sweet deal; I teach two labs each on Tuesday and Thursday, and we are done in 7 weeks. This leaves me some nice open space in the MWF block, and I'm still getting paid "full time" graduate wages.

One of the most interesting items of teaching a different class for spring term (I normally teach intro bio discussion) is that I have students for the second time. This is the first time this has ever happened to me, and it used to be fairly rare at Michigan. Now, though, I'm just teaching the next step in the sequence, so people flow from one class into another. I have three returning students between my two lab sections, and several of my students from last term are also in other labs. It's nice to have a few less names to memorize, and I know I'll be able to work with these students in my office hours and potentially improve upon their progress made during the semester I taught them.

Views of Tangier

A few shots from our (very short) daytrip to Morocco last Thanksgiving. While in Spain, we took a ferry over to Morocco. We were supposed to spend most of the day there, but a storm on the water cut our trip short; our guide hustled us to the ferry as soon as he discovered that the last boat was leaving at 2 instead of 5. Even though we only got a few hours in the city, I still have a few lovely photos to share.

My two brothers:

I left my power cord at my friend's house, so this'll be short. I'm done housesitting (woot! get to sleep in my own bed), and I start teaching spring term on Tuesday. My roommate is leaving in the morning, and the house is strangely empty (at least for a few days until the subletter moves in).

We won our frisbee game today, but it was an odd pattern. We started out down 5-0, and then we rallied for 6 points. We then gave up a few, got to half, and started out a little slow. Somehow, we still managed to eke out a win. Interestingly, I noticed the amount of fun I was having change over the course of the game. Normally, I end up on losing teams, and it is typically fine with me. However, the initial 5-0 streak totally bummed me out. I think it was correlated to my team; we played really, really poorly for the first few points, and the other team just had everything all together. Once we started to come together, I felt fine, even though we went through another little losing streak before finally pulling ahead; again, I think it was related to game play. We actually played pretty well, and we were just a little outmanned on a few of those points. In any case, interesting sports psychology.

Off to sleep now. Hopefully more rousing posts during this next exciting week in my life :-)

Graduation

Hey blog readers! I graduated! It was pretty snazzy.

The graduate ceremony was yesterday, and my parents even came into town to watch me walk across a stage and shake the university president's hand. Since Michigan is so big, they didn't call individual names for master's degree (but that's really for the better, as it would have taken so much longer). Today, I sat with my parents for the official commencement so that we could watch Bob Woodruff speak but not have to sit through the conferring of degrees. That turned out to be a good decision, as we were able to leave a half hour early and have a nice, quiet lunch at my favorite cafe in town (Sava's Cafe). Bob Woodruff was good; he's quite an interesting guy, even aside from the being blown up bit of his history. He was a lawyer who decided he really wanted to be a TV news correspondent, so he quit his job and worked his way back up the ladder of a new profession. Definitely an inspiration!

My parents' trip to town was really short, since they're preparing to move and all. They're already back home, but it was great to have them in town to celebrate my graduation, and I had a fun time showing them around all my favorite spots.

Happy Arbor Day!

This is a nifty tree I found at a rest stop in middle America (during my cross country drive to Michigan).

And for your reading pleasure, a funny little poem I wrote about trees during my sophomore year of college:

Twigs Stick in My Ears

If everyone was like me,
they’d sleep in a tree:

the branches are pillows,
the leaves are my blankets,
the squirrels
are my cuddly friends.

The soft wind is my mommy,
gently stroking my back and singing
a lullaby.

If everyone was like me,
they’d know how great it is
to sleep in a tree.

Where you keep your "stuff"

A few weeks ago, my dad got a new job in a new city. They'll be moving to Portland, Oregon, so I'm excited that the Pacific NW will still remain a part of my life. Since he accepted the job, my family has been in massive packing mode. Obviously, I am in Michigan, so I haven't been able to pack my room myself, and I have relied on the good will of my little brother and my parents.

It turns out that I have about ten boxes of "stuff" at my parents house. This includes books, a foreign doll collection, my barbies, and a collection of Beatrix Potter figurines. I'm proud to say that I did get rid of about half my books over the phone (three+ hours with my little brother), but almost everything else went in to boxes.

I have mixed feelings about the boxes. On one hand, I shouldn't have left so much stuff at my parents' house. If it's so unimportant that I don't need it for two whole years, why bother to keep it? On the other hand, several of the items that were packed mean a lot to me, but I just don't have space for them out here. When you're confined to a 9x10 room, you just can't bring every little thing with you.

How many of you still have boxes at your parents' house? (or, for those who have long since moved from their parents' house, how long did you keep some of your stuff there?) I suspect this is probably normal in this day and age; it seems like a lot of kids continue to depend on their parents years after turning 18. But has it always been so common?

Keepin' it in the family

My brother is still vending at Safeco Field (the Mariners' stadium), and he made it into the paper this year.

Just wanted to share this quick photo, and now I'm back to grading. I have a few more hours left, and we have to turn grades in tomorrow, so it's going to be a long night.

Happy earth day! and other random notes

So, apparently today is the day where we celebrate earth day. Yay for planet earth! I've given out lots of green tips in the recent past, so I'll spare you guys today, but know that you can always read up on past posts in my saving the world archives.

Today, I was sort of green. I took the bus to school in the morning. I'm at school now proctoring a test, and I'll be here later than the buses run, so I drove my car to my apartment and walked in to school for the evening. So, I did less driving than I could have done, but I did drive. I also noticed that the price of gas in town went from $3.59 in the morning to $3.69 by the afternoon! This is craziness. I'm glad I only fill up about once a month. My last fill up was actually at the very beginning of April as I was returning from Pittsburgh. I'm at a half tank left, so we'll see if I make it through the end of the month or not.

In a completely unrelated point, my roommate is actually moving out over this weekend, and I never really realized quite how much she had brought to our apartment. Once she's gone, we won't have a TV or a microwave (tho I bet I will save some on electric bills). There are also lots of little decor items that will no longer be here, and I never quite realized that.

In terms of Ann Arbor, spring has definitely sprung, and it's practically launched into summer already. Today was a hot and steamy day, and I worked up a sweat with lots of walking (went to and from school twice, and I also took the dogs for a half hour walk).

Not much more to report from here. My students took a test tonight, so I'll be a bit busy with grading for the next few days. I'll try and post something, but it might just be a few more pictures. I'm finally catching up on the backlog of things I've been meaning to post.