"The more things change, the more they remain the same" - or
not.
The past few weeks have been a period of great change, as were the
past several months. I was devastated when my wife said she no longer
loved me and considered our marriage to be dead. I was broken when she
said we would have to separate before we could work on the marriage, to
determine if it could be salvaged.
These have been stressful times, and I have not handled them very
well. We have gone back and forth on a lot of things, and we finally
agreed that I would be the one to move out. I moved into an apartment
on December 1. We had our first joint therapy session this past Monday
- and I've been in individual therapy for over a month. We've got a lot
to deal with; I've got a lot to deal with.
Under the terms of our separation, I am maintaining my office in the
family home, working on the eMac in the
basement to update Low End Mac. The 700 MHz
computer is a joy with its 1280 x 960 display and our networked cable
modem. (I have a four-mile, ten-minute commute to my home office -
kinda ironic.)
My iBook
So I could have a computer in the apartment, my business
swapped a 333 MHz iMac and an AirPort
card for a 366 MHz iBook that my wife's
business no longer used. I ordered a pair of 512 MB memory upgrades -
one for my new iBook and another for my wife's 256 MB 14" iBook 600 -
and was all ready to put OS X on the old clamshell iBook.
Alas, when I tried to install Panther on it, I discovered that not
only does the CD-ROM drive not work, but it also scratched my installer
disc. Ouch. (We're going to get one of those CD repair kits and try to
fix it.)
However, necessity is the mother of invention, and I found a way to
work around the dead CD-ROM problem. I shut down the iBook, connected
it to my eMac with a FireWire cable, and booted the iBook in FireWire
Disk Mode. That would make it possible to install Panther - except that
the install CD was scratched.
No problem. I don't use the internal hard drive on the eMac, since I
have a much faster FireWire drive, and all that's on the internal drive
is the stock software and a copy of the Mac OS. I updated that to
10.3.1 and then ran Carbon Copy
Cloner to copy almost everything from the eMac to the
iBook.
Then I deleted the stuff I didn't need on the iBook, things like
iMovie, shut it down, disconnected the FireWire cable, and booted. It
worked, and now I have Panther running on a 366 MHz iBook with 584 MB
of RAM. The 800 x 600 display is less than ideal for OS X, but
other than that it works nicely.
My TiBook
Then I remembered the old 400 MHz PowerBook G4 that I'd tried to sell last
summer. I had some solid leads, but contact with the party I had agreed
to sell it to fell through, so the TiBook just sat there. With a 1152 x
768 display, this would be a much better home computer than the
clamshell iBook.
I already had Jaguar on the TiBook, and since I couldn't install
Panther at the time, I updated to OS X 10.2.8, brought the PB G4
to the apartment, and have been using it as my home computer since my
phone line was activated last week. But I'm really looking forward to
getting Panther on the titanium 'Book - in a lot of ways, it's a real
improvement over Panther.
The biggest drawback is living with dialup access from the
apartment, but cable modems are not an option and DSL is quite
prohibitive if you don't sign a one-year contract. (I have a six month
lease and do no intend to remain in my one-bedroom apartment beyond
that point.)
Low End Mac
Because of my work schedule (I usually work three days per week at a
local camera shop, and four days during December) and because of the
separation, I'm cutting back on site updates. Now that I'm fully
settled in my apartment, the plan is to have site updates for Low End
Mac on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday are my normal workdays at Arden's
Photo, so the two schedules will dovetail nicely. With the extra
holiday hours at Arden's, not having to squeeze in an hour or two on
LEM in the morning will be a big help.
And just a reminder - Low End Mac will not be posting new content
from Christmas through New Years Day. Site updates will resume on
January 2, 2004.
Marriage and Family
The past months have been a real emotional roller coaster.
Antidepressants help. Therapy helps. Moving out is helping. I have a
lifetime of issues and 22 years of marriage to deal with, to work
through, to turn into something better. It really hurts sometimes, but
I love my wife, and I'm doing what I can to make it possible for us to
come together again.
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the separation and not
living with the kids - four boys ranging in age from 14 to 20. We're
still working on the details of visitation, nights out, and the like.
It looks promising.
I've been invited to dinner at home tonight, and after that we're
going to decorate the Christmas tree. It's good to have family at this
time of year, and I hope that next year I'll be living at home again.
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So I could have a computer in the apartment, my business
swapped a 
Then I remembered the old 