Monday, Monday...

Coffee in the skyline Alaska mug this morning, "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" by Van Halen on iTunes... I left the Pod in the studio and am just running shuffle on the shame playlist on iTunes. It doesn't quite suck.

Dave is home from Austin and he has wireless so that means it is the internal wireless modem in my laptop that doesn't work. (A break for a rant) This is a two year-old Compaq laptop. The battery lasts 10 minutes when it is unplugged and now it is no longer wireless. To fix these two things will cost me about $250. And fix them I must as I am about to head off to Texas for a show and I will need both battery and network. This is after replacing the power cord in February in Philadelphia ($80). I am reaching critical mass on the amount I wish to spend on this machine. It is slower than dirt and manipulating any image files takes FOREVER.

On the other hand, I do not wish to buy another windows machine. I am ready to move back to Mac (my first laptop was a Mac DuoDock in 1992). But I am not financially ready for that move (machine and software), nor do I have the time right now to invest in the OS ramp-up. It is a great quandary. There is also the whole issue of what Mac to buy: After many years in winblows I know the processor speeds and types, the amount of RAM, etc. that I should get. The Mac numbers in comparison seem so... small. The processor speeds in the mid-range are 1.5-1.6 GHz. Windows machines are in the mid 2's now. Yes, I am more than willing to believe they are less efficient, but it makes comparing difficult.

Okay, I found some common numbers with the same processor (the new dual core thingie). I built a Dell system and an Apple system with *exactly* the same options wherever possible (different screen size and battery life) and the Dell came out to be $300 more! Of course either option was over $3,000. Shed, laptop, shed, laptop: Both are necessary business components and the shed is also a necessary personal component to keep my husband sane (stuff is everywhere right now--though not in the cat's bathroom closet! See Stranded in the South for details on the great electronics purge). So I will do what I always do when faced with a technology purchase choice... Help, Johnathon!

As it is Monday I am cleaning up details of work left undone on Friday: Orders to place, bills to pay, testimonials to write... and a follow-up call to the Publisher to find out if they still want me to write a book for them! I got the operations manager and she passed the contract on to the publisher (an actual person with that title, as near as I can tell) a few weeks ago and doesn't know what the status is. I said time's a wasting and Neiman Marcus waits for no man so as tempus fugit, what is going on?!? Someone will get back to me. The writing task (not to mention this blogging) has an impact on the laptop issue too. (I do not use "impact" as a verb. Alexander Haig was just flat wrong.)

I worked all weekend fusing 25 sushi plates, a 16X24" hanging panel, a sushi platter, 2-8" dishes, a 12" bowl and a 16X13 S curve platter on Sunday and slumping 10 sushi plates, the sushi platter, one dish, the bowl and the S-curve piece on Sunday. Now I need to run the hanging panel to Dixie Glasshoppers to be drilled and then I need to fill the kiln with another fuse load.

I am in a glass trunk show at Taylor Kinzel Gallery this weekend and need to get a lot more new work done--interspersed with the three gallery orders which need to go out before I leave for Texas next Wednesday. Gurk.