Category: Apple

What solstice is this?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
This year’s solstice seems to lack a certain wintry flavor.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Chri … no, no, it’s not, actually.

It’s 49° right now with a high of 58° anticipated, and we are remarkably light on snowmen in these parts.

Meet the new Mac.

The dearth of seasonal weather notwithstanding, I finally got around to unwrapping and wrestling with the solstice gift I bought for myself (with Management’s approval, of course). And this is the first blog post from my brand-new MacBook Pro, with the M4 Pro chip, 24GB of memory and 1TB of storage.

It’s hard to describe such a wonder as a midrange Mac, but that’s what it is. Anybody who’s priced the property in Cupertino lately knows how many Dead President Trading Cards you can flush down the loo if you’ve a mind to, and a life partner who’s willing to stand by and watch you do it. I tried to find the Middle Way between making do and delusions of grandeur.

And I think I succeeded.

With my old 15-inch Intel MBP sidelined by botched MacSurgery at the Apple Store, and the 13-incher hobbled by penury (8GB memory, 128GB storage), I needed something with more power, more memory, more storage, and plenty of ports for external drives, the LG display, a mic, SD cards, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.

Plus I wanted something I could snatch up and run with when the jackboots hit the front door come Jan. 21.

So, here we are.

I’ve got all the data transferred, connected everything I need to do my little bit of business to see that it all works, and downloaded fresh copies of a few third-party apps I use. Then I kicked the tires, lit the fires, and took her for a spin around the digital block.

I haven’t assembled a Radio Free Dogpatch podcast with the beast yet, and might not even publish an episode this next week. You may think of that as my solstice present to you.

Go fish

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
The latest iteration of the Pescadero from Soma Fabrications.

Ho ho ho, etc. The Santas at Soma Fabrications have a fresh catch of Pescadero road framesets for all you good girls and boys this Christmas.

The Pescadero is a “road-sport” steed, designed with 35mm rubber in mind but good to 38mm, my personal tire width of choice. And did I mention that it takes rim brakes? Your choice of centerpulls or dual pivots.

This was the frameset I wanted to review Back in the Day® for Adventure Cyclist, but it was out of stock. So I went instead for a first cousin from the Merry Sales family, the New Albion Privateer, which has become one of my favorite bikes for the mean streets of The Duck! City. (You’ll see mine, black with silver rack, in the photo carousel.)

Hm. Decisions, decisions. I need a new MacBook Pro to carry on The Work, but another resident of the San Francisco area has annoyed me by leaping clear across the country to kiss the Pestilence-Erect’s ring (hope you packed plenty mouthwash, Timmy me lad).

Maybe I need to redirect my holiday spending. Some might say I have too many two-wheelers already, but I have plenty of Macs, too. And as we all know, the proper number of bikes for a man is n+1.

Lost in time, like tears in rain

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
We got 0.38 inch of rain in about 0.38 minute last night. Unlike Apple’s customer service, it was excellent.

Time to die. For my mid-2014 MacBook Pro, anyway.

I should’ve signed a DNR instead of the usual shit-happens waiver when I dropped the 15-inch MBP off to have its swollen battery replaced and overworked fans checked out, or just pulled the SSD and recycled the remains. At some point between handing it over to the “Genius” and paying $267.99 for the battery replacement the display managed to get itself FUBARed and now I have a laptop that can’t be used as … well, as a laptop.

Looks brand-new, dunnit?

One sees little need for a $267.99 battery in a 10-year-old MacBook that requires an external display to be useful. Mobile this is not. My lap isn’t that big.

Straight answers regarding just what occurred were not forthcoming. There were only the shrugs, the averted eyes, the mumbling about the advanced age of the MacBook. And the “give us your money” part, which — unlike the MacSurgery — proved successful.

But that shit’s on me. I knew replacing the battery was a real job of work — which was why I handed it off to the “Genius” instead of tackling it myself — and I wanted to keep the old MacDawg hunting. Should’ve saved my pennies for the new smaller-and-better-than-ever M4 Mini said to be coming down the pike later this year.

At one memorable point in my inquest, the local “Geniuses” were not answering their phone and Apple’s phone-answering droid punted me to global customer service, where a human lateraled me back to the ABQ Apple Store, where after 10 minutes on hold the person who finally picked up thought I was customer service.

“I can help them with that, go ahead and put them on.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I can help them with that, put them on.”

“I am the customer.”

“Oh….”

I briefly considered going Full Mad Dog on these rotten Apples and their Samsung-level customer service. But what the hell? Even counting its two battery replacements that old Pro earned what I spent on it a hundred times over. Nothing lasts forever, though I have other MacBooks from 2014, 2012, and 2006, plus a G4 PowerBook from 2005, whose displays —¡que milagro! — still display. I can still use this one as a desktop until when — or if — I decide to modernize.

Tell you what, though. I’ll be shipping any future repair jobs to Apple’s main fix-’em-up plant, and buying any new product directly from Cupertino. I remain a firm believer in supporting local businesses, but our local “Geniuses” have seen the last of Your Humble Narrator.

Nothing but blue skies

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
The North Diversion Channel Trail, just below the Osuna-Bear Arroyo connection.

Too bloody much going on lately. Trying to corral my thoughts, if any, has been like chasing jackrabbits through a funhouse with a lacrosse stick, wearing clown shoes and oven mitts. In a word: unproductive.

I won’t bore you with the details. We’re talking First World problems here:

The Soma Double Cross at Elena Gallegos.

Buffing the rough edges out of El Rancho Pendejo in preparation for a houseguest. Stalking the elusive turnip for a promised dish (Whole Foods and Sprouts, nyet; Albertsons, da). Learning that I had failed to acquire the ingredients for another anticipated dish, the promise of which I had not been made aware, and the subsequent acquiring of same. Yet another round of flat-fixing, this time in the garage.

My favorite annoyance was an appointment at the local Apple Store’s Genius Bar, where I expected to be advised in fairly short order to hand over my elderly 15-inch MacBook Pro for a vigorous wash and brushup to resolve its “Apocalypse Now/Ride of the Valkyries” fans issue. There’s either some demonic technical haint in residence or enough hair in the case to build an entirely new cat to keep Miss Mia company. Whichever it is, I ain’t going in there looking for it. That’s what we pay Geniuses for.

But no. What I got was straight out of “Nothing but Blue Skies,” by Thomas McGuane. The scene where Frank Copenhaver and his estranged wife, Gracie, visit a Deadrock restaurant for conversation and something to eat. Conversation they get (Gracie insists). But eats, not so much, as waiters glide past without a glance in their direction, the thundering lunch herd slowly thins, and Frank comes to a rolling boil.

After the place empties out Frank finally takes the bull by the horns, flags down a table-wiping waiter, says they’d like to order.

“I’m sorry, but we’re closed,” replies the waiter.

The Apple Store wasn’t closed. But apparently upon my arrival I had not been properly logged in for my 3:30 appointment, which I did not learn until 4:15, when I was ’bout yay far from knocking over chairs and chasing a Genius through his kitchen.

And now I have another appointment on Tuesday.

So, yeah. That’s the scenic route toward explaining the lack of postage around here lately.

Speaking of scenic routes, the pix are from the rides I’ve been taking lately to keep my blood pressure on simmer as I await service.

The bike lane on Spain in High Desert.

Tech-no!-logy

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

The 2021 iPhone 13 Mini. Cute little kitty-cat not included.

Anyone queuing up for the new Apple gadgets this morning?

Me neither.

I have this fine 2021 iPhone 13 Mini here, which I had to snap with the 2016 iPad Pro, since I no longer have any actual cameras in the vicinity.

The iPad is practically useless — I was pinching pennies when I bought it and went for the 32GB of storage, which is of course full to overflowing despite my ruthless purging of apps, data, pix, music, etc.

It still works, but to no particular purpose, like the U.S. House of Reprehensibles, and I don’t expect to ever buy another.

Remember, kids: You can never be too rich or too thin, or have too much storage and memory.

Speaking of things that don’t work as they should, no further intel from WordPress. WP was good enough to send me a note proposing that I upgrade to their Business plan to “unlock a set of amazing features,” among them “live chat support for on-demand help from our global team of Happiness Engineers.”

This, like a new iPad — and commenting on the blog without having to buy a postcard, slap a stamp on it, and hand it over to the U.S. Mail — is another non-starter.