My New Computer

I finally have one! I finally have my own computer. My own NEW computer!

Kate wanted to surprise me. She tried, anyway. She came home one day a little giddier than usual. I had a musical show that night, and right before I left, she was jumping up and down repeating "PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!" wanting to tell me her secret. Mind you, her original plan was to keep her secret until the computer arrived a week later and just bring it home to me. She ended up only lasting a couple of hours. At any rate, she eventually told me that she had ordered me a new computer, the exact one I had been looking at! :-)

Here it is! It's a Mid 2012 11" MacBook Air. She decided to get the upgraded 2.0GHz processor, which I hadn't originally suggested to her, but she likes to spoil me! The other stats include 8GB of RAM and the 128GB solid-state hard drive.

This thing is amazing! It's so fast! The solid-state drive makes booting an application instantaneous. It's almost unreal how such a powerful and fast machine could be contained in such a small body. At 0.68" thick and only 2.65lbs, it's a very compact machine, which is perfect, because I will be traveling a fair bit for auditions and such (in the next few years) and having a powerful and portable machine is something that will suit me wonderfully.

So far I have had no issues with it (some people have been having constant crashes with this machine) and if I could say anything about it, I would just say under heavy processing, it gets very hot. I was running a program to monitor the different temps and one reading was saying the CPU was getting up to 93 degrees Celsius (200 degrees Fahrenheit)! Of course, this was during heaving video processing that I have since decided not to do on my computer anymore.

Other than that, this computer is fantastic! I have been an Apple fanboy ever since I got my Early 2008 MacBook Pro three years ago, and this new computer just further confirms that fact. I love the design, I love the utility and of course, I love the person who gave it to me! Thanks Kate! :-)

When Technology Dies

So...Robbie's computer died. More specifically, his logic board is on the fritz. That's this thing:

http://forums.macrumors.com/

We're debating whether to pay to replace it, or upgrade to a new machine. Since Robbie will likely be traveling a fair amount for auditions and such, he could greatly benefit from something more portable than a 15" MacBook Pro. We've got our eye on this guy (the 11" model on the left):

http://www.apple.com/macbookair/

Robbie is quite thrilled with the possibility of having a newer/faster/better computer than I do. And, while I'm slightly jealous of how thin and light his computer would be, I'm overjoyed by the prospect of him no longer borrowing mine. We'll keep you updated on what we decide to do!

Jemez Falls Hike

Today, after sleeping in till 10AM, we decided to go on an impromptu hike to Jemez Falls. Well, actually, a DRIVE to the trailhead and THEN a hike. And we took pictures.

Robbie offered to take a picture of some AMAZING red rocks at a gas station (a.k.a. bathroom stop) at Jemez Pueblo:

Robbie's idea of a good picture

I was determined to get a better picture on the way back.

We arrived at the trailhead and, after a minute or two of discussion as to which path was actually the trail, decided on this one (which ended up NOT being the main trail and instead being very steep at one point):

Me, equipped for a more strenuous hike than we ended up encountering

Robbie, conquering a tree

After a very short jaunt, we reached a waterfall:

Water falling

More water

Taking a picture of water

After wandering around a bit at the base of the tiny fall, among the children splashing and college-aged girls "sunbathing" in bikinis, we hiked up the river a bit, scooted down a steep embankment, and discovered a peaceful creek at the top of the falls:

No bikinis

Just water, rocks, and trees

I took off my shoes, slipped on some old ones, and walked around in the water a bit:

Action shot

And took some more pictures:

So green!

Robbie, who did not bring old shoes and was unwilling to get his hiking ones wet, stayed in the shallow water:

"Very nice. For the next one, give me a normal smile."

"I thought you said 'an enormous smile.'"

"THERE we go."

Determined to get Robbie into the water, I slipped off my old shoes and tested the creek bed to see how hostile it was to bare feet. It was mostly smooth! So we wandered barefoot up the creek for a bit:

Happy feet

More water and green stuff

Finally, we wandered back, put on our hiking shoes, and walked along the shore downstream a bit until we came to a HUGE drop with quite a view:

View

We had found another fall, and bigger ones at that:

Inches from death

I climbed down to the top of the bigger falls to get some more pictures and caught Robbie pretending to be an explorer:

Epic

Peaceful waters before the plunge

On our drive back toward Albuquerque, we came across another waterfall:

Putrid-smelling yet beautiful

You can see here where the water USED to run over (and into) the rocks, until it eventually cut a hole through and started flowing as seen in the picture above:

Water-carved caverns in the rocks

We took more pictures:

Him

Her

And then one of the caverns ate me:

AHHHH!

After noticing that there was a group of college-aged kids in swimsuits having a private pow-wow in the back corner of my cavern (awkward), we made our way around and behind the rocks and met the source of the waterfall:

Less putrid-smelling and more beautiful

Ditto

I'm running out of captions

We kept driving and stopped again at Jemez Pueblo for some better pictures of the red rocks:

Photo credit: Kate

Photo credit: Kate

Photo credit: Kate

After that, we finally went home, made some tacos, and watched Return of the Jedi.

It was a good day.