Monday, 18 August 2003
back from detox
I’m back from my week with my family at White Lake. It was a wonderful trip. While I did bring the computer, and dial-up information, I logged on a total of two times all week, both times for less than an hour.
The first time I went online was Friday morning. We’d heard some strange conversations on our walkie-talkies Thursday about a brownout or power problem, and I thought I’d try to find out what was going on. So I (we) didn’t even know about “the great blackout of 2003” until after the worst of it was already over. Up in our little rural corner of the world, the blackout had no effect. (In fact, as I was writing this I had to go onto CNN’s site to find out what day the blackout was, because I couldn’t remember what day I went online.)
The best part of the trip was that by midweek I’d stopped blogging things in my head. I hadn’t realized how much I’d begun to detach from real life, always running meta-commentary in my head to save for later blogging. Letting go of that was very refreshing. It’s not that I don’t want to blog, it’s that I don’t want to do it all the time.
I’ll try to post photos of the trip later today or tomorrow on a TypePad photoblog. But since my new 17” Powerbook arrived while I was gone, that may get delayed. Priority will be on switching machines, installing new software, and seeing what the online world looks like when you hook a 17” powerbook up to a 23” cinema display. (It’s good to be a funded researcher.)
photos from white lake
I tried to post my vacation photos in a TypePad photoblog, but got frustrated. I can’t figure out how TypePad orders the photos, and I can’t find a way to reorder them. So I gave up, and uploaded the files to an Ofoto album instead. The photo to the left is a preview version—it’s the view of the lake off the back deck of the house, taken early Friday morning.
I set the album up so it doesn’t require you to log in. I don’t get charged for bandwidth. And family members can order prints (though I’ve found they tend to print a little dark, unfortunately…).
The new computer is up and running, and I like it. A lot. More on that tomorrow, when it’s hooked up to the 23” cinema display again!
