Category: Personal Reflections and Diary

(diary, update)
offline while I go to see if apple can fix this battery before it lights my house on fire. 😉

(diary entry) (ironic humor) (life lessons)
So I have a court hearing monday. On short notice. And I’ve been recovering from a flu. And I only feel like I’ve had my faculties back since mid August.

I work on two Macbook Pros, one as a desktop setup as a studio, and the other to carry around with me everywhere. These laptops are supplanted by an iPad with attached keyboard and pen when i’m just taking notes or reading or traveling. (Ask the team, or Dr Brad how much I write down. It’s the subject of amusement.) And of course I have a pair of iPhones for different purposes. All of this equipment except for the iPhone is aging while I wait for this generation of macs (M chips) to stabilize. (And thankfully we have function keys again now, but not enough ports yet.)

Anyway. I feel under pressure because of the looming court appearance, and of course, last week I drop the portable laptop on its head busting the display. So I’ve unplugged the main (desktop-role) laptop and taken that and the iPad with me to work (I need to work amid white noise, like coffee shops resturants etc because it helps with the autistic ADHD.)

And Yesterday as I’m finally healthy enouth to write a legal document and work outside of the house, I put my laptop in the backpack only to notice that the screws along the base have popped and something is ‘in there’. So I pull off the cover to discover that the batteries have swelled – which if you don’t know, is the first thing that happens before lithium ion batteries catch on fire, and burn the laptop as well as whatever is near it in an aggressive flash fire, while spewing toxic gasses.

So in a panic I schedule a repair with Apple today (we have full Apple service nearby at the Apple store), and start searching for replacments online. I want the laptops identical. And because of the age these are pretty cheap – usually under six or seven hundred dollars. But can any of the three suppliers get one to me overnight? Nope. And how long does a battery replacement take at the Apple store? At least three days unless by some miracle they have it in stock locally. (never). More often a week.

So last night I make sure I get enough sleep to westle with this issue today, given that I’ve only got two or three hours of work capacity in me still. And I set an alarm, this morning I get up early, rummage around in the storage unit, which has a bit of tech I left here in the states when I left, and find a windows keyboard, an apple server trackpad, and old mac pro server that I havent tested in years so its no good, a windows mouse, an unpowered set of usb ports, and a Dell external monitor, and use this bit of archaic tech flotsam to convert the secondary laptop with the broken screen into a desktop with a closed lid by installing and activating an app called ‘caffeine’ that prevents it from shutting down when the lid is closed.

Now, I’ve been living a mobile life since I resigned and sold everything, limited myself to two suitcases, a duffel, and a backpack, and moved first to canada and then to Ukraine. I returned to the states raise another round of funding, but had contracted some serious pneumonia as well as a respiratory fungal infection and was running cyclic fevers. Once that was under control I decided to take a break and care for my (dying) ill mother – thinking it would take six months. We were struggling to make current tech do what we wanted so buying a bit of time was better than burning more cash. (Tech has caught up,and so has the market, so it’s worth restarting if I’m healthy enough.) But, instead of six months, with my care, mom lived another four years – and then long covid. And, you know, by December 21 I didn’t think I’d be here burning electrons for our mutual absurd amusement today. And if not for the work of Brad and the team with the work, three doctors for my health, and my autistic pain tolerance, I wouldn’t be. Which is the fourth time I’ve nearly bought the farm so to speak. (God must have some mission or other for me otherwise I dunno what’s going on.)

So I’ve not had anything I couldn’t carry with me – meaning I haven’t had a desktop since 2011. But I’ve decided to get an iMac now for the simple raeason that you can leave it plugged in and active – and when you plug in a laptop constantly, well, it helps the chemistry in the battery form nice little physical connections until they start fires. (Did you know that?)

And so hopefully, with the help of caffeine, I can get to the apple store shortly, hand it over, and by next week have a laptop to work reliably, order the iMac, and use this little bit a hacked together tech stack to finish by doc for the court, print it, drive it over there and hand deliver it, before her honor the good judge has no time to read it.

So if I’m in all this personal crisis, then why am I spending the five to ten minutes to stream-of consciousness tell this rather ridiculous bit of a diary entry?

Cause I’m a scientist. I test everything before I give it the investment and put in the risk. Because if this bit of cobbled together tech doesn’t work I”m going to have to either try to do this on an ipad (nope) or tell the Judge the equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”. Which, first of all, I personally consider distrespectful to the court, even when it’s true, but secondly because I think it wouldn’t play out in my favor. 😉

Anyway. If you were silly enough to read this, then thanks for your gift of attention, and I hope there is a lesson in here somewhere for someone other than me – that we need to not use a laptop as a desktop replacement if it’s going to be running 24 hours a day. Even if we ensure that we can always work by keeping at least two laptops at any time. (Given that my biz, such as it is, the institute, is sorta an online-thing, and that the institute is supported by donations from people like you. Which requires I try to add a bit of insight wisdome and sometimes rather pitiful wit to the social media commons every day to get y’all to pay for it.)

Love, hugs, cheers, and such. 😉
Curt

(Reproduction)
My daughter has finally married.
Before 40 (Thank god)
A fellow scientist. Cute together.
Maybe I’ll get more grandkids now.
Only two so far.
Hoping for at least four more. 😉
Lucky if I get two. 😉

(Health update).
We have run a test over the past bit and I think we’ve most of this figured out and the last bit of my faculties, evident, at least to me, in my prose, appears to continue returning, ever more so. My memory is better, my focus is better, I am still short of working memory, and my work capacity still lags. But we THINK (me, doctors) we have got most of this figured out so maybe I’ll be myself in the next six months. That’s going to take some more serious antibiotics, moving to a better region, getting more exercise, and losing a bit of weight to help further reduce the blood pressure. While I have to attribute much of m state to long term sleep deprivation taking are of my dying mother, If this lasting combination of horrors really is long covid (I didn’t get the shot) then it was nearly as devastating as what cancer did to me. Thank you all for your patience, support, kindness and affection. It meant a lot to me. Love you all. Love mankind. Let’s continue the work of trying to prevent it’s suicide by left activism and right pacifism. 😉