Wednesday, July 4, 2007
I tried configuring an iMac for home the way I wanted it and it turned out to be $3,030 after the university discount. Yikes! Then I configured a Mac Pro for home and it turned out to be $4,381 after the university discount (or $3,582 without the 23-inch cinema display). I suppose I could do the iMac, but I think we can wait until Leopard is out. By then, the rumored new iMac should be out, and I can have the latest and greatest. I'm looking forward to the webcam to chat with Tina and show her how to do new things with her MacBook by taking temporary control through iChat A/V, and I'm also looking forward to the silence and the energy savings and the freeing up 6U of space in my rackmount and the getting rid of the Dell 2005FPW monitor that fails to sleep properly and has a Kensington lock connector in a location that's too close to the VGA connector. The printer and telephone might then both fit inside the rackmount, leaving the top open for plants that like warmth (orchids?) or something else. The Mac Mini I bought in July/August 2005 is still going strong, and I've had very few problems with it. I think it should still have at least 2 more years of life left—possibly longer since it's used mostly as a web server. Today's the fourth of July—a holiday. Slept in. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Chatted on the phone with Nate. House chores: washed garbage and recycling bins, cleaned in the bathroom. Archived documents. Cut my hair. Set up Patrick's new USB sound card. (More later on that.) Began investigating problems with Aaron's laptop. Patrick and I drove to Mom Ryan's. We picked her up and then walked to Jonathan and Adrian's for a potluck fourth of july dinner with Alona, John, Todd, Mark, Jason, Ryan, Paul, Carmen, Jonathan, Adrian, Yuki. Adrian's parents were in town visiting from Sydney. All the food was very delicious. Hot dogs, bbq chicken legs, cheese and crackers, seasoned peanuts, bbq corn on the cob. Jason and Ryan made a spinach salad with cranberries, blue cheese, and bacon. They also made a ginger-peach-strawberry cobbler. Patrick made macaroni and cheese. I brought 3-layer (red, white, blue) cupcakes with white frosting, red stripes, and blue stars. Mark brought pecan pie and peach pie from Sweet Inspirations. We saw some fireworks from the balcony but the big show in San Francisco was out of our sight range so we went indoors and watched the fireworks on the television only realizing after it was over that we had been watching San Jose's fireworks instead. We had plenty of fun nonetheless—it's always a good time at JY and Adrian's.