He: So you’re going out to the Leeward side of O‘ahu today?

She: I was. But I might have trouble getting there.

He: For why?

She: The road’s closed. There’s been an accident. A bad one. And you know what that means.

He: Yeah. Tragedies for families. And nobody else out there is moving an inch.

She: Well, maybe it’s not so bad. The crash happened near this bridge to nowhere, which they opened, so traffic is moving.

He: You mean the one they show in the news story? Using your pictures?

She: WHAT?!?

He: They used your pictures of the bridge!

She: I thought they looked familiar …

He: Well, now you’ve got a story to tell your photography class. Quill Pen Photos Make Local News. At least the TV station gave you a credit. But I’m sure your instructor will be using this little episode to tell you all about something even better.

She: What?

He: A check.

PS (11 PM HST, 24 Jan.): Quilly’s pictures were only up on the KGMB News site for a few hours. So if you haven’t gone looking yet, don’t bother. If you have and wondered what happened, well, now you know. Presumably, as soon as the TV station got their own news people on the scene, they got and used their own photos. I just hope the word check didn’t scare them away from dear Q …

O.C. asked me if I’d like to go on a field trip with his class. I said, “sure,” and tagged along. Turns out he lied to me. We didn’t go to a field at all.

While the class hunted for seaweeds they recognized,

O.C. searched for pop-quiz material ….

and I quite happily went to play in the tide pools.

I encountered alien life forms …

and met a crusty hermit who deigned to emerge from his shell and chat with me.

As the “field trip” came to a close, O.C. paused to skip a few stones and I tried to catch it on film, but wasn’t coordinated enough to snap the shutter at the correct time.

It was a lovely time complete with picnic lunch, blue skies, even bluer seas and warm sunshine.

O.C. played such beautiful music the other night, the moon came down to listen.

It wasn’t even a month ago, as those of you who read Quilly’s blog will remember, that she shelled out some of her hard-earned dinero for a new laptop computer. And you’ll remember how excited she was to have it.

Well, the machine has repaid her devotion.

With the blue screen of death.

Yeah.

The [expletive deleted] machine isn’t even 30 days old, and the hard drive is gone. Taking with it that lovely library of photographs (like those here and here and here and here) that she’s been accumulating over the last month. And Quilly knows what else.

And all this after constant battles with Windows Vista Home Premium that, after it was too late, I’ve found echoed in the weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and cries for continued support of Windows XP (or else), that are splashed like the blood of the innocents all across the Internet.

Quilly was far too polite to mention it, but we spent considerable bandwidth, in the days leading up to the purchase, debating what to get. As a confirmed Macaholic and Windowphobe, I was (to say no more) uncomfortable with the purchase of a PC-type machine – any PC-type machine – but I couldn’t argue with the fact that the PC-types are cheaper. Not to mention more abundant (and hence easier to network and get WiFi for).

Quilly was also far too polite to mention that her first attempts to buy an inexpensive laptop computer, at an electrical metropolis that shall remain nameless to spare the blushes of the offenders (I’m catching Quilly’s spirit of charity, sorta), were obvious bait-and-switch ploys.

Well, the call’s been placed (a real person actually answered the phone in real time), the problem’s been diagnosed, and the solution reached. The laptop will be repaired or replaced by the manufacturer, and delivered unto my co-blogger.

In three weeks.

Three ruddy weeks.

And my machine will be working – the class I teach starts tomorrow today (16 July 2007).

There are community computers here at the Friday Harbor Labs, which Quilly is welcome to use as a member of the FHL community. So, I trust, she won’t be completely cut off from the Internet during times when I and my laptop are away. But spare her a thought anyway … and drop her a line. I can at least read to her any comments that show up here …

Get a Mac!

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2007 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.