New Digs

Yesterday I moved into my first real apartment in Valparaíso. And eventhough I was anticipating feeling lonely after leaving the hostel, I really have no idea what to do with so much time to myself. The apartment does not have working internet yet, so I am writing from a cafe. My room is about five feet by fourteen feet with its own tiny bathroom at one end. One of my roommates described it as "austere" (she's German...) which sort of gives you an idea. Fitting with the general level of color saturation, the walls of my bedroom are a robin's egg blue, the kitchen is yellow (the best color for kitchen, probably) and the dining room/common area is a sort of orangey-terra cotta color. Currently it is Sunday and a religious holiday so most stores aren't open. Which is sort of annoying since I am missing some key elements in my living space (a mirror of any kind, for example). The cold, grey-ish weather we've been having this weekend has been a little tough on my moods.

So this week I am going to begin the search for a job in earnest. Which will probably look something like me walking into places and stammering fragments of sentences in Spanish, smiling, leaving my resume and never hearing from anyone. I think I'll have to get a cell phone here in order to effectively find work. Especially if my lack of Internet continues. It's been sort of nice to be without one these two weeks. I also really only know about six people in this entire country, so I really don't need to call people very often. But maybe it would make me feel more connected...

This blog post has been a sort of fascinating exploration of the Chilean keyboard for me. I don't think of myself as being the greatest typist, but move things around and I am completely hopeless. Additionally there is no "undo typing" option on the edit menu, so when I accidentally erased the whole post with an unknown key command, I had to start from scratch. I wonder if there is some sort of universal keyboard that people in multi-lingual countries use (can you imagine what a South African or Indian keyboard would look like? They have so many official languages!)...

So I hope everyone had a very happy Halloween. Yesterday when I was grocery shopping I saw a couple of older ladies wearing brightly colored witch hats, but that was about the extent of the celebration here. There was also a drunk fruit vendor heckling all such women and calling them natural witches. Which was funny and sort of surreal.

Live From the Apple Store Soho, Part 2

Poor computer, hard drive fractured to nothingness, for so long repeating dreams of warm California sun streaming through the window of a computer lab as capable, screw-driver wielding fingers put its insides right. And it was not meant to be. Little Apple will remain in New York and might be ready as soon as tomorrow (or later tonight when I have no intention of going back to Manhattan). So now I wait. For those keeping track this is my second Mac to need a hard drive replaced (rewind to September of 2001, a month after receiving my first Mac laptop). I am not deterred though. I will continue my fifteen years of brand loyalty.

Look out for lots more of me using my computer in the future!

Not Dead Yet, A new Haircut

So my computer is metaphorically hanging from a cliff with all but the index, middle and ring fingers of its right hand broken, but still it's working a little bit. I have logged no fewer than 100 minutes with Apple Care (all during prime, daytime, costing me money hours because you can't even get past the muzak on nights and weekends). Still they have not told me they will take it away to be fixed. I will try once more in a few minutes and if they don't concede I am going to chain myself to the glass cube at their fifth avenue store with "Apple DOESN'T Care" written across my naked body.

In more positive and totally unrelated news, I got a haircut today. For the last several weeks a six inch by six inch dread lock formed in the back of my hair daily, so I knew it was time. I am pretty thrilled really. After explaining to my stylist that I didn't even own a blow dryer let alone a diffuser attachment for it, she showed me how to achieve this "sexy" curly/straight combo do without too much work. And also gave me some good tips on my increasingly embarrassing dry scalp. So here it is. What do you think?

Computer Hell

So maybe you remember two weeks ago when my computer was in mortal peril, threatened by some malignant and all-consuming disk error? After performing three hours of symbolic surgery I thought our problems were over. How naive! The freezing, stalling, restarting cycle has continued. Today the disk utility said:

Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid sibling link
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair

Terrible! "Invalid," "failure" and "repair" all seem like the sorts of things you don't want your disks to do or need. Greg and Brian (and Brian's girlfriend Marissa) are all very knowledgeable computer types and they saw the way my computer was working during my lunch shift at Aroma today and said it was absolutely super serious. So now I am on a fifteen minute wait line with Apple Care Support services since going to the Apple Store on a Friday during the holiday shopping season would be like entering the gates of hell. I am pretty sure this is going to end with my needing to send poor little computer to California for intensive Apple Care.

In some ways I guess this is perfect timing, the last day of my month long pledge to post everyday. I don't think such a commitment would be possible without a personal computer. But I really had planned to continue. Because eventhough no one ever really comments or particularly reads what I write, I really like it. Even though it's something so small, creating a product (a post in my case) everyday is very fulfilling. So come back, dear readers! Once this crazy computer problem is fixed it should be an awesome December on Eating Pie Elsewhere.