computis interruptus

This past month my computer crashed. Twice!!
The first time it went down (and too many of us know the feeling) my stomach fell to my feet and for a moment that felt like an eternity, I dared not move for fear of tripping over my small intestine. But the moment passed and I lighted my puja candle, said a few prayers and, after a handful of attempts, got the machine to re-boot.

What followed was a frantic half day of burning every file I could find on the hard-drive to DVDs. "Frantic??", you ask. . .
Well, you see, I may be one of the best artistic end-users ever to mount a MAC but when it comes to file management. . .
I hadn't backed anything up in nearly six months but in that frantic half day I got it all off. . . photographs, illustrations, videos, client files, i-tunes, fonts and applications.

The old iMAC (only 3 years, for the love of Mary) stayed alive for another week after that but when she went down for the second time, candles and prayers not withstanding, there was no bringing her back.

Now, I know what you're thinking and you're right, I should have seen it coming. I've been working with different incarnations of MACs for a really long time and I knew the symptoms. . . super slowed file processing, applications quitting unexpectedly and enough video re-buffering to drive a crazy man to sanity. But did I put 2 + 2 together? Of course not, I've owned three of these things and sure, they get quirky at times but none of them ever went belly up on me. . . (denial ain't just a river in Egypt)

Anyway, the computer was down for the count and I was knee-deep in my deadline for all the ads and art I produce every week to help publish Key West the Newspaper. It was time to design and manage a "plan A" solution and broad stroke a "plan B".
. . ."plan A" was to get the injured iMAC over to IT-guru, Craig Buzzarté for a little I-TLC, overnight a replacement drive, re-install it and the software, then pull an all nighter to get the newpaper production work done.

Well, sometimes it's true. . . "If you want to hear God laugh, make plans." For whatever reasons, "plan A" wasn't gonna get it done so "plan B" came together on the fly (improvise and overcome) and by good karma, teamwork and a little extra effort the April 17th edition of KWTN hit the street and no one, other than my frazzled nerves, knew the difference.

At that point, with the publishing pressure off my plate, it was time to face the reality that the old iMAC was most assuredly dead and, for all to be once again well with the world, I'd have to make arrangements to replace it which, one way or the other, I was able to do.
"The iMAC is dead, long live the iMAC".