nlbarber

I made it to Denver yesterday with the MacBook Pro, which is operational if not fully well. Friday (recall that I don't work on Fridays....) I was in the office until 8:30 pm, mostly spent wrestling with the computer.

The saga: after the overnight effort, I had a disk image of the hard disk with the problem...and with all my data and applications. I did a system re-install but that didn't fix the problem--the startup process hung before getting to the login screen. I'd had consultations and hand-holding via IM with kd5mdk (thanks again!), but he was away at this point. I called the Apple enterprise support folks again and was told that the next thing to try was to erase the hard disk, then install a clean system. After that I could move stuff (i thought this guy told me both data and applications) from the disk image, and see what I had.

So, I erased the disk and installed a new system, then contemplated my situation. It was mid-afternoon, I had to leave for Denver Saturday, and I really needed the computer with some fairly complicated software pieces, not all of which I had to hand for new installations. I decided I really wanted to try to use Migration Assistant to move substantial parts of my old account over, and I made one more call to Apple and got a different support guy who felt I could only move documents from the damaged disk image--MA would be right out. kd5mdk (consulted for a third opinion) agreed that was the best procedure, but that if I wanted to try using Migration Assistant it *might* work, or I might go a step too far and have to repeat the disk erase and re-install.

I took a deep breath and did it--used MA to move Documents and Applications from my old account, and crossed my fingers as I re-started the computer. And it booted! Rather slowly, and shut downs are slow, so I desperately need to do a new set up properly when I'm home--clean install again, then do the software installs one at a time and discard the accumulated detritus from years of using the Powerbook G4. I still had to work on the VPN installation, and had to re-install AFS from scratch, but the rest of my critical applications are running.

I must mention the yeoman job the iPad did as my chat platform with kd5mdk. Office nannyware blocks all Web chats, the old IM installation I used to have on my Windows box got cleaned off a while back (and I wasn't using it anyway), and if there's a way to make Lotus Sametime talk to other chat systems through our firewalls I don't know about it. The iPad G3 connection avoids the nannyware nicely.

I'm in Denver for the first of the two annual database tests. I arrived on Sunday to a beautiful clear day, with temps that let me not quite abandon the jacket, but at least leave it open. Flying in there had been some snow cover left over from their blizzard last week, but pavements were mostly clear and grassy areas were getting that way.

When my carpool group emerged from the hotel yesterday, it was into cold and gray (OK, the sun wasn't up yet, but anyway), with some sort of freezing precip blowing into our faces and a couple of inches accumulated on the cars and grass. Looked like pelletized snow, in sleet-sized particles. Uncomfortable, whatever it's called. That cleared up in time for me to make a chilly hike at lunch to Subway (food + some exercise). By the evening lots of the grass was clear of snow again, aided by the drying effect of the brisk wind.

Today is supposed to be clear, high of 45 F. Tomorrow, more snow in the afternoon, maybe another couple of inches. Thursday, clear again (and I fly out that morning, so I'd like that snow cleared in time for the trip to the airport, and clear conditions to fly please....).

The weather is back to Wintry, after being sunny but cold yesterday and most of today. When we emerged from the building after work the snow was coming down at a good clip. No significant accumulation is predicted, though there may be showers all evening. We did get a very cool picture (just wish I'd had a camera, though it might just have been impossible to capture): we were headed towards the mountains, with snow coming down sideways so everything was soft gray. Put a few skeletal deciduous trees in the foreground. The sun was just setting below the first line of hills behind the trees, so that we saw a bright glow in the clouds, cut off along a sharp line underneath by the top of the flat hill, all of this well above the apparent "horizon". It was a study in grays, and beautiful.

Tonight we're having a group dinner for the class at Old Chicago, which has the great advantage of being a short walk from the hotel. Might be a little cold, but then all those who want to drink can do so without concerns about driving home.

( More on the 'new' hotel )

( The DBA class )

Time for the group dinner....must go see if the snow has stopped.

It was a smooth trip to Denver, with most middle seats on my AirTran flight (including the one next to me) empty, no screaming babies, and good weather for flying. Good weather all 'round, in fact--it was warmer in Denver than in Atlanta, hitting the upper 50's. That won't last, however.

New/old hotel for this trip. Instead of the Residence Inn we've been using for several years (and which got busy enough to not offer the low group rate any more), we're at a Hampton Inn. Which used to be the quite upscale Compri when I first started traveling to Denver for work in the late 1980's, then became a Sheraton Four Points, and now to a Hampton. It still appears to be kept up pretty well...will judge the quality of the free breakfast tomorrow. Rooms have been retro-fitted with a mini fridge and mini microwave, which I much appreciate as a diet aid. I do somewhat regret the closet space sacrificed for this.

The Hampton is a lot closer to the Federal Center (across the street, actually, though it'd be quite a hike to the USGS Training Center building with laptops and other paraphernalia), and with a number of restaurants in easy walking distance. I do like the Residence Inn's full kitchen, but this may do just fine.

The workshop ended a little early--we were scheduled to go until 11:30, but we wrapped up closer to 10. And when the big shades in the hotel meeting room were raised, outside were big white flakes drifting down from the sky. I guess I didn't hear all the weather report on the radio this morning, cause I didn't expect it at all. At the moment the roads are wet, not icy, so hopefully it won't snow much and won't affect my travel home tomorrow. This is Denver, after all--they expect snow and are prepared to deal with it.

The workshop seemed to end with most people feeling good about it. I had some nice complements on my talks, not only content, but the fact that I repeated the questions asked by the audience so everyone could hear them, etc. I'm just relieved that it all came off with no major hitches.

Oh, one incident that could have affected the workshop occurred just after it ended--a fire alarm went off on the 9th floor of the hotel, so they stopped the elevators, blocked the stairs from people going up, and checked it out. Turned out to be a false alarm on the 9th floor. And I don't think anyone who needed to get their bags and leave for the airport was prevented from getting to their room on time.