It's About Time!

My iMac died like 2 weeks ago. It was working more or less fine. I was surfing the internet, when suddenly I got caught in one of those insane popup loops.  They kept telling me I had a virus.  Now, I didn't really believe there was a virus already, but I was afraid those popups might have put something on my computer.  I hadn't gotten around to reinstalling my virus protection after the last time the computer was "fixed", mainly because DS keeps telling me it's pointless on a mac, and here lately I'm suspect of every little thing breaking my computer.

So I decide, just to be safe, that maybe these popups mean it's time to install the virus protection.  It seems to install fine, but wants a restart.  I tell it I'm busy, go away.  Later when I have time, I restart.  And that was all it took.  The computer went on a never ending restart loop.  I did all I knew how to do, and gave up.  Unplugged it and went to bed.  A week later I decided to try again.

DS and I found out how to eject the virus protection disc, since that was still stuck in there.  Then we figured out how to boot from a disc on a mac.  This let me attempt reinstalling the OS.  It promptly told me that it could only wipe the hard drive and start over.  I am SOOOO glad I bought a backup hard drive for this thing, because this is like the 10th time I've had to do that.  Normally, it lets me archive the old OS and start fresh, but it leaves all the existing data.

The install failed a few times, and then finally took.  I was excited to finally use this baby again!  But that was short lived, because the stupid machine wouldn't take my password.  After putting in every password I've ever had, caps and no caps, I again gave up and went to bed.  I finally got around to looking up how I might reset the password without wiping everything again.  TADA!  I am BACK!

Now I just need to meet someone who knows something about macs, because the dudes at the store have "fixed" it twice.  

melting

We're experiencing a heat wave here. It's supposed to be short lived, but it's far from the "75 degrees year round" I was promised upon moving here.

Yesterday's weather:
Actuals: 84 | 46
Averages: 70 | 48
Records: 86 | 39

Do you see that? I mean, really look at it. We had nearly a 40 degree night/day difference in temperatures yesterday. Right now weather.com tells me it's 90, and DS says Google is telling him its ~100. There's no breeze. My ceiling fans feel like the hot air blowing out of a furnace. I have no a/c. Hell, I barely have heat. This crazy weather is supposed to be gone in the next day or so, but it makes me very fearful of the summer. Could it be that they lied to us? Is it really not perfect all year? Will I regret not getting a place with a/c? I'm very fragile when it comes to heat. Put me in -20 with proper clothing (which I have), and I'm all good. Happy as a clam. Put me in anything over 75, and I'm crying. Sometimes even physically ill. I'm like a reverse lizard. or something.

One of the things I find incredibly funny about the weather here though, is how differently its covered by weather.com. This heatwave has had several severe weather alerts on weather.com. It's not just that the heat is odd for the season. Santa Barbara's weather alerts are highly detailed. They actually sound like a human wrote them, and cares. Every other place I've lived had weather alerts written in all caps that basically told you hail was coming, or some other very vague description of the forecast you already knew about. Here, we get like a 3 page dissertation on the potential of 1 inch of rain.

Example:

Issued by The National Weather Service
Los Angeles, CA
4:24 am PDT, Mon., Apr. 20, 2009

... UNSEASONABLY HOT WEATHER EXPECTED TO CONTINUE ACROSS MUCH OF SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA THROUGH TUESDAY WITH POTENTIAL RECORD HEAT...

A STRONG UPPER LEVEL RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE COMBINED WITH OFFSHORE FLOW NEAR THE SURFACE WILL CONTINUE TO BRING THE THREAT OF RECORD HEAT FOR PORTIONS OF SOUTHWEST CALIFORNIA THROUGH TUESDAY.

OFFSHORE WINDS BROUGHT SIGNIFICANT WARMING TO MOST OF THE REGION SUNDAY... WITH MANY COASTAL AND VALLEY AREAS SOARING WELL INTO THE 90S. TODAY... TEMPERATURES WILL LIKELY BE A FEW DEGREES WARMER IN MOST INLAND LOCATIONS. IN FACT... SOME OF THE WARMEST VALLEY LOCATIONS COULD REACH 100 DEGREES. LOW TEMPERATURES ACROSS MANY FOOTHILL AND LOWER MOUNTAIN LOCATIONS WILL BE QUITE WARM TONIGHT... WITH READINGS REMAINING WELL INTO THE 70S THROUGH THE NIGHT.

WHILE SOME COOLING IS EXPECTED ON TUESDAY... IT LIKELY WILL BE CONFINED TO THE COASTAL PLAIN. MOST LOCATIONS INLAND WILL CLIMB WELL INTO THE 90S AGAIN. THERE WILL BE A CHANCE OF A FEW MORE HIGH TEMPERATURE RECORDS BEING BROKEN ACROSS INTERIOR AREAS ON TUESDAY.

MORE SIGNIFICANT AND WIDESPREAD COOLING IS LIKELY ACROSS THE ENTIRE REGION WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY AS OFFSHORE FLOW TURNS ONSHORE AND A MARINE LAYER DEVELOPS.

PEOPLE PLANNING OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES SHOULD TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THE EARLY SEASON HEAT. WEAR LIGHT WEIGHT... LIGHT COLORED AND LOOSE FITTING CLOTHING. STAY HYDRATED BY DRINKING PLENTY OF NON-ALCOHOLIC DRINKS... ESPECIALLY WATER. TRY TO AVOID STRENUOUS ACTIVITIES DURING THE LATE MORNING THROUGH EARLY EVENING HOURS.

NEVER... EVER LEAVE CHILDREN... THE ELDERLY OR PETS IN ENCLOSED AUTOMOBILES... EVEN FOR VERY SHORT TIMES. TEMPERATURES QUICKLY RISE TO DEADLY LEVELS... EVEN IF THE WINDOWS ARE PARTIALLY OPEN.

I believe that is one of the shorter ones.

Anyway, if you're not cursing me for having "awesome weather", as I'm sure some of you are, then wish me a little cool weather. Or an a/c unit. Either way.

Belgium gets cool points

I shed a tear of pure joy watching this. I love that a group of people would decide to do this seemingly random act in public, and even more, I love watching the bystanders react. They start out shocked, and by the end, people are dancing along. Just awesome.

Learning Japanese!

Image via Wikipedia

I'm so excited!! The local community college has adult education courses at very reasonable prices. I really want to take some of their fiber art and jewelry classes, but as today was the first day of the quarter, they were full. Instead, DS and I are taking beginning Japanese! That's right, starting tomorrow night I might know 3 or 4 words in the anime I'm always watching. Huzzah!

Distractions

It's been several weeks since I've posted anything. Part of me feels like I haven't done anything worth posting about, and part of me feels like I've been too busy to post. Truth be told, I've been very distracted. There are lots of pictures I need to wade through so I can post stuff (be on the lookout for back posts in the near future). I've been making a meager effort to jot down small reminders of my more interesting days so that I'll have some kind of reference when I finally do get around to posting again.

Life is in disarray. Not bad. Not bad at all. Kinda good actually. But very much not organized. I had plans for life here. Work part time in the real world, part time for myself. Get chores done somewhat regularly, do some exercise, actually experience the outdoors from time to time. The only thing I'm consistently doing is working part time in the real world, and I think we all know why I'm doing that... Certainly not because it's the thing I want to do most.

I'm finding that I have a habit of obsessing over things, and then only really being able to do that one thing with any sort of discipline. The rest falls by the wayside and hopes I'll remember it and re-obsess soon. After I picked up Animal Crossing for the Wii, I did that for 2-3 hours everyday. I spent a lot of time setting up the craft room. Then I bought a loom, and spent a couple of weeks weaving. Last weekend I was starting over with Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness, and the past few days have been split between crocheting a bunny and reading The Time Traveler's Wife (this book is AWESOME, btw).

Meanwhile, I haven't posted new jewelry to my store since 2/18 (though I have made a few things, and shipped some other things to a solid store), I'm not getting around to laundry until I have enough for a whole day's worth of washing, and the mail is in an ever-growing heap on the kitchen counter. I don't remember the last time I rode my fancy bicycle. I think it was early March.

Image via Wikipedia

So what's the deal? I'm young enough to be able to have energy to do things, yet 2 things a day seems to be my limit. And I'm sleeping like 8-10 hours every night. How do I get motivated? Any ideas? I need some kind of schedule that's flexible enough to allow my imagination to have room to come up with new ideas and keep me feeling fresh, but rigid enough that I'm actually getting something done.

Oh, and can anyone clean my apartment before this Firefly marathon we're hosting on Saturday?

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Seriously though, life is awesome. The weather is beautiful, we're seeing friends, and I'm happy. Just not productive :)