Month: March 2009

That was relatively painless

I did the taxes today. It was a lot easier than I expected. Mostly because TurboTax did a good job of importing stuff from the previous year, and I took the tack that if I didn’t get a deduction for it last year, it’s probably not worth going through the form this year. Got a nice refund coming too.

Now that the most important time-sensitive use for this laptop is done, I can contemplate sending it in to get this heat-related Airport cut-out problem fixed. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but the fix I got at the Apple Store last weekend was only a temporary fix and it’s happening still, mostly when it gets really hot.

Last night’s paddle

Last night I went out for the first time with the bulk of the team. As well as myself and Dan, we also had Ken A, Doug R, Stephen B, Paul D. Mike was missing because he’s taking some sort of training class. As well as having a big group, I also tried out the new camera mount for the first time. Except for the fact that it was pointed a little too far up, it worked out great.

The gathering storm

Here I am at the beginning, just warming up and milling around while the rest of the team gets ready. I’m really concentrating on my technique, and I think it’s paying off. (Note: this part hasn’t finished uploading while I’m posting this, so it might not be here when you look.)

The gathering storm

Here’s a bit at the beginning leading up the creek. You can see most of the team in the background – yes, I was in the lead most of the time. At first I thought we were just waiting for people to catch up, but it turns out that the team was comfortable with the pace I was setting. I got some good sustained paddling and my shoulder wasn’t bothering me at all at this point.

See if you can catch a glimpse of Ken in the bright orange top. He’s got the most amazing style – almost no movement in his shoulders at all, just totally in the torso. I asked him if next time I could put the camera on his boat so I can study it, and he said that would probably be ok.

The gathering storm

This is on the way back. We’d gotten into a really shallow bit and had a strong head wind, and I’d fallen behind, so I yelled up again that I was turning back. Rather than just letting me go, the whole team turned around and paddled part of the way back with me. This part is towards the end of that, until the camera ran out of storage. I was really tired and my shoulder was starting to hurt, but to me at least it seems like my technique isn’t falling apart that badly. I’m proud of that.

Soon after this, the rest of the team stopped to practice buoy turns or something and I continued back. I made it a goal to paddle all the way back to the dock without stopping or even pausing, and I did it.

And because I know you’re all breathlessly waiting for another update on this…

I went to the Apple store today and the guy opened the laptop and said that the Airport card was just a tiny bit out of its socket – which he didn’t believe was enough to cause a problem, but I figure that the fact that the problem mostly happened when the laptop was warmed up and moving, makes perfect sense. He also said he put some insulating tape over the card as well so it wouldn’t make contact with the frame.

It’s been several hours and it hasn’t happened since. Woo hoo!

It’s definitely the hardware!

I booted my laptop with the install DVD, started up the Airport, and fired up Network Utility. I used Network Utility to continuously ping my Linux box, and put it down. Then Vicki and I went out to dinner. When I came back, it was still happily pinging, but as soon as I picked it up it the Airport died. I guess that proves once and for all that it’s not Parallels or something else in my installation.

You know, it would be a real shame if it was so broken that they had to give me one of the new glass screen MBPs, wouldn’t it?

More fascinating facts about my Airport problems

It seems to happen more when I’m holding the laptop or moving it around, which would lead me to think that it could be flexing and dislodging something lose. It happened once today while I was at work and it was on my desk, but my home office is so cold I wouldn’t rule out thermal flexing. It failed tonight while I was standing there holding it in the Apple Store waiting for it to finish booting, it failed again while I was carrying it to the dinner table, and it failed just now when I picked up my computer from the floor.

It happened when I was logged on as Guest, which was something the Apple Store Genius suggested I try.

Whenever I reboot it because of this, Spotlight is busy indexing and can’t be used for a few minutes after it comes up. This is slightly annoying, because I use Spotlight more than the Dock to start up programs. But more than annoying, it’s worrisome because I don’t remember that happening before.

Tomorrow I’m going to try booting it from the install disk and seeing if it fails while it’s running off the DVD.