man, what a whirlwind it’s been.

we are so very close to meeting our second daughter. I am incredibly excited about this….I think we’ve done a great job so far with our first and can’t wait to welcome another. About three more weeks probably. Wow, will that be a big day of change. I can’t hardly wait anymore. I am so excited to see her finally. My biggest challenge will be being able to love them both with all of my ability. I sincerely hope I can share all of everything I want to share as a father with both of them. Man, I love my family. My girls - my wife and daughters. daughters. Boy am I in for it.

work…wow. plenty of work to do to keep me busy. this is the time of the year when I work on my biggest project, one that spans weeks and weeks and requires almost undivided attention. the ‘final’ files are uploading right now.

I DJ’d my first real party. I guy I do some work on the side for threw a holidaze party..where he decorated with all sorts of different holidays’ trimmings. You were to dress as your favorite holiday. Obviously, I wanted to be Billie, but that would have been way too much work. So I went as Doc Holiday, and made myself a t-shirt and poster for the gig. yes, I am that kind of dork. I got to play all sorts of shit to, prom breaks, to house to hip-hop to jungle to lounge. And despite some fuckups, the people never talked shit or anything. It seemed to be received pretty damn well. Check it:

Also, I am working to kick the PC habit. I traded in my Thinkpad T60, which was an absolutely flawless XP machine, running swimmingly on the factory XP install for an entire year of what I would call major use. Not any more travel than back and forth to the house and office, really, but through installing all kinds of shit to try to solve all kinds of different tasks, from graphics and web stuff for work and even Guilded Silence mixing tasks. But yeah, though I loved it, I am now running a MacBook Pro…the high end 15″ config. Damn. I think I could get used to this. I only hope I can complete my PC-centric tasks using my Parallels install. ThinkPads drop the IBM logo and I am dropping them. This MacBook is hot shit though. I am not missing the ThinkPad at all right now.

-end ramble

Interesting. I haven’t posted anything for over a year.

But we moved all of our tribeness on to a new server, so I figured I’d upgrade Wordpress to current and post something.

So, for s’s and g’s I installed OSX on the T60.

I used some easy to find information to get video, sound, and power management working. I used a dedicated drive installed in the HD bay to install, then moved it to the ultrabay drive. I’m using BIOS for a boot loader. I’m running it right now.
It’s been really really easy to get working and It’s really nice. I enjoy the trackpoint navigation so much more than a trackpad. That’s always been a bummer about PowerBooks and even the MacBook. The easier right-click makes things so much better.

I think that OSX works better on the ThinkPad than XP works on the MacBook. Probably not a huge surprise, but perhaps a wake-up call for Apple. Now that this stuff will run on intel, how do they keep their advantage?

apple, you prick bastards.

Many tracks that I have paid for (yes, I sometimes get drunkenough and buy stuff from iTMS) are unavailable.

Why? This laptop is not authorized to play them. And I can’t authorize it because I have already authorized 5 machines. Apple lets you deauth all once a year, but it seems Nov 18th, 2005 was the last time I did that. So I’m close, but damn.

give me back my music.

I alluded to the fact that my new ThinkPad exhibits some troublesome new trends with the ThinkPad line.

Right off the bat I found a big trouble spot. The simple RAM upgrade process of the old ThinkPads (remove one screw, lift panel, pop in new RAM sticks, replace panel, replace screw) has vanished. Now, on the T60, one must remove 5 screws and the entire palm rest plastic. Lame. I hated unclipping that plastic panel on my minutes-out-of-the-box, spendy new ThinkPad. Not a terminal problem here, but this was SO MUCH BETTER in my old T30 and T42.

Next up: Battery. I purchased the 2326-D7U, which ships with a 9-cell battery. Excellent battery life, but it sticks out the back of the machine, not looking cool, and not fitting nicely into my Timbuk2’s laptop slot. No big deal, I’ll just order a 6-cell. Only there was no listing for a 6-cell T60 battery anywhere reputable (cdw, newegg, amazon). CDW has them now but they did not when I bought mine.

I bought my 6-cell from the Lenovo site, where it was listed as a T60/Z60 battery. I have a Z60 in the shop too, and the 9-cell battery in it has the same strange shape as my T60s (and it worked in the T60), so I ordered it. But when it got here, I find out that there is a little notch on T60 batteries to make them fit (apparently only on the 6-cells though). It was a tiny bit of plastic that I notched to make the battery I bought fit, but damn. Come on Lenovo!!

Third gripe: Power supplies. The sweet, ubiquitous 72w brick that I’ve come to know and love (and own like 6 of) has been replaced by a 90w unit with a new plug. Fire sale on 72w IBM power supplies!

Now, those are three pretty “every-other-laptop-except-thinkpad” traits, but I have been a ThinkPad fanboy in large part due to the interchangability of power supplies and ease of upgrading. So come on Lenovo, don’t make me start shopping HPs or some other bullshit.