A day at the beach

Seeing as summer is over, which means the tourists are gone, and Chris and I didn't get much of a June or July, we decided to head to the beach today and make up for lost time.  We headed out for Clearwater Beach about eleven this morning and spent the better part of our first hour there looking for parking and walking to the infamous Frenchy's Rockaway Grill.  It's a nice bar on the beach with live music and lots of alcohol.  We stopped in for jerk chicken and jerk grouper.  Chris had a Landshark Lager, Jimmy Buffett's newest entrepreneurial endeavor, and I had a coke because I didn't want to dig for my ID.  I did try some of Chris's beer though, and I have to say, Mr. Buffett has become quite a brew master.  And I'm not just saying that because I'm a die hard Parrothead - Chris agrees, Landshark is a decent island lager.

From Frenchy's we headed to the beach - a whole twenty feet away - and set up camp. There wasn't much surf, then again it's the Gulf, but there was enough to make some noise and excite a few kids, which is always fun to watch.  We did the usual beach thing - laid out, went for a swim, laid out again, went back in.  I'm more of a swimmer than Chris is and I really go to the ocean rather than to the beach, but with Papa Hemingway's, The Sun Also Rises, to keep me company, I did okay on the beach.  After five or so hours we finally headed home.  We almost got run over by some guy in a Camry who saw us, in a crosswalk, but apparently didn't have the complete circuitry to realize that he should stop.  Of course, he looked at us like it was our fault, right.  

And so ended our day at the beach.  We did this last Saturday as well when Chris suggested that we go to the pool at our apartment complex, and not really being one to enjoy laying out by the pool, we ended up at the beach instead.  I have to say, Florida beaches are so much nicer and more fun in September when the summer crowds are gone than they are May through August.  Okay, well that's enough from this beach bum.  Happy Saturday!

Goodbye Microsoft, Hello Mac!

It took 22 years of abuse from Bill Gates and Microsoft, but I finally did it - I switched to a mac...and I am never going back!  It began four months ago when my four year old Toshiba crashed.  I was trying to open iTunes when my computer froze.  I tried the usual control, alt, delete and every other file saving combination known to Windows victims but to no avail, Windows XP had crashed and taken four years of collegiate work, pictures from my semester in Wales, and hundreds of papers that I had spent many a midnight bleeding, with it.  I lost everything.  My hardrive was spotless.  Still in shock, and not fully understanding the nightmare of losing four years of my life in  a moment of Microsoft thoughtlessness, I attempted to reboot.  That was a bad idea.  I got the "Oh Shit!" message, "Windows cannot start."  Okay, I surrender.

I went to find my Windows CD and, of course, after four years, it's missing.  Ok, no problem, I have the restore CD that Toshiba gave me when I bought the computer.  I put it in and it responded with "WRONG MACHINE!" written in X's like a 1980's video game.  I got concerned.

A few weeks later my new battery that I got from my warranty quit working.  Great, now I had a broken desktop instead of a working laptop.  A few weeks later I took it to  Best Buy and they shipped it to Atlanta for a month to be repaired.  Once I finally got it back Chris was able to get Windows XP working again.  Being an English major with a writing concentration it is imperative that my computer have Word which, of course, mine no longer did.  Chris again came to my rescue with a free version of open office.  With Windows and a word processing application my Toshiba would last until I got my student loan refund check from the school that I could use to buy a new computer.

While waiting on the check, Chris began giving me "lessons" on his MacBook Pro, and he made me an account so I could explore and change settings without altering his preferences.  I must admit that when I first began messing around with his mac I wasn't too thrilled.  Then again, I had a bad taste in my mouth, left over from some very frustrating moments with an Apple when I was in elementary school.  My school had some really old school Apple computers in the library and I had to use them regularly.  I had a PC at home, one of the old ones that ran DOS, and the transition from PC to Apple frustrated me beyond belief.  So when it came time for me to learn how to use Chris's mac I was less than eager.  However, after a few lessons I began to get the feel for macs that I had lacked as a child.  The more I messed around with it, the more tolerant I became.  I even liked it.

I got my check last week, but my Toshiba had been behaving recently, and with Chris's mac, I wasn't in too much of a hurry to get a new computer.  Unfortunately, that all began to change a few days ago when the "C" button on my computer began to quit working, then the computer began getting sluggish, and then last night - when it took my computer five minutes to load one web page - I decided I'd had enough.  It was five o'clock and Chris was cooking, but after he finished, and we had eaten, we headed downtown to International Plaza and my, now beloved, Apple store.  I walked in, found someone to help me, told them I was done with Microsoft and wanted a MacBook, and twenty minutes later I had my MacBook, a new HP three-in-one printer, and an Apple protection plan for roughly $1,300.  I set my mac up last night, and I have been a fan ever since.

For two weeks I've been a slave to a broken laptop that functions more as a desktop paperweight.  With two online courses and a very computer oriented technical writing course I was forced to stay at my apartment with my deteriorating, two ton Toshiba, but now I'm able to take my fast, productive, five pound MacBook with me to campus and beyond.  I spent this afternoon with it in the library working on my online course.  The coolest part - I don't have to sit near an outlet as I once did with my Toshiba.  The battery lasted three hours and still had 45 minutes remaining when I quit working.  Now that's amazing!  I admit, I feel a bit like a geek, getting so excited about a mac but, honestly, if you knew what I've been suffering with recently (for at least three years) then you'd understand.  So here's to being a geek - I just wish I'd gotten here sooner.

Okay, I've rambled on long enough about my new mac.  To sum it up, mac is secure, simple, and painless.  It's everything that Microsoft tried to be and isn't, and I love it!  I'm rapidly becoming mac literate which is greatly helping me get over my childhood Apple trauma.  My only regret - people are still wasting their time on PCs and Microsoft.  Trust me, it might be a bit confusing, but it isn't painful, switch today and love it tomorrow.  As for me, goodbye, Microsoft.  Hello, Mac!

This is a MacBook.