Incase for Andy Warhol desktop images to accompany their iPhone case line. Desktops also available for iPhone and iPad.

I had a lot of apps crashing on my iPad. The biggest culprit was The Sims Freeplay. But Safari too. And my Videos app too. So I made the appointment during my lunch break to have it look at. It turns out that it had some software corruption. Which means that I would have to do a Restore that completely wipes content back to its factory settings.

Now, little things like photos, music, contacts and calendars used to be a big deal but now with iCloud I don’t have to worry about that kinda stuff. What I do have to worry about is apps that don’t back up to the cloud yet: developers that have not fully implemented such backups. I guess it wouldn’t really matter much in this case anyway, as I couldn’t restore from a backup because that would put the corrupt software right back on.

So I have to setup as a new device.

Although I’ve lost the hours already spent building my town in Sims I haven’t re-downloaded the app and started again. So daunting. Sigh.

I’m finding that owning a new iMac means a lot of time spent in front it, playing around and investigating around. I guess these are things that I hadn’t done too much of recently maybe because it was a chore or things just weren’t as zippy (read: fun) with a six-year-old computer. RIP Elroy II, you will be sorely missed. But now that things are zippier and whoosh and wow I’m spending some time here instead of pinchin’ & swipin’ & zoomin’ on my iPad. It’s all good.

Right now I’m blasting Kylie’s “Fever” album in its entirety from my iTunes. Partly because I’m sitting here (as stated earlier) and partly because I’m trying to give the inconsiderate neighbors a taste of their own medicine. As I’m listening, I’m realizing I haven’t listed to this album in a long time because of the boyfriend that I (sadly) associated this music with. All the songs had a certain meaning at that time and now it’s nice to listen to them in a new light. And Cathy Dennis’ production in this album is totally top notch. It’s nice to hear her influences in here. Maybe next on the decks will be a little Miss Dennis? I’ll have to check and see which songs of hers made it into my iTunes library, as I have yet to unpack all of my boxes which contain mostly CDs. #sigh

Update: “Why” and “Touch Me” were the only holdovers.

I’m off at 4:00 today and I walked over to Chevy’s for some of their $3.25 margaritas. LadyFabolous231 is going to join me when she gets off at 5:00.

Having such a crazy (read: abnormal) work schedule this is a little semblance of normalcy. In that manner, I mean getting off at a normal time and doing things that normal people might be doing.

She just texted me: “20 more minutes. Drink slow.” She don’t know me.

LF231 is off for the next seven days, I think. She’ll prob go see her people in NJ. (She a Jersey Girl.)

What else?

Oh, Pippin came into the store today and finally got the iPad he has been wanting. I hope he enjoys it. If I had an iPhone 4 I would FaceTime him and find out but, alas, I do not. It’s on the list though.

What else? Can I keep typing for the next fourteen minutes?

I’ve come to Chevy’s for lunch sometimes when I have an hour lunch break. The food’s not bad and it’s nice to get out of the mall and away from all the people that visit the mall. But this is the first time for an actual “after work drink” situ. It’s not bad for the price and a corporate chain restaurant. They have music playing like KQQK played: tejano mixed with Hispanic techno. Love it.

What did I do on my “Saturday”? I first woke up around 7:00 am but then was able to fall back asleep until around 11, which was really nice. I finished watching Monday’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race and then physically got out of bed.

I lumbered around until Apple’s press conference came live where they announced iPad 2. It has some really great features; you can view the keynote here.

This evening I went out with some friends to Little Miss Whiskey’s Silver Dollar for casual cocktails. Afterwards we stopped by the under construction offices of Evolve’s new space on H St. It’s going to be a really cool office space and I can’t wait until we move in there.

I’m home a little earlier than I anticipated on a night I have between two days off but that’s fine. Tomorrow I’ve got a lot of chores to do and finish everything I was too lazy to do today. Thanks for reading.

<word count: 160>

Here are some posts that, because of my mobile WordPress not working properly, I wasn’t able to upload at the time they were written. They’re from the vaults of two months ago.

Nov 28, 2010 1:50 PM

Sometimes it’s funny how much/little time & space actually change. For instance, I’m sitting here in Mr. Henry’s Victorian Pub in 2010, alone, inputing this copy on an iPad, whereas 25 years ago I was here with a table full of friends, drinking and smoking up a storm, listening to the 45s in the jukebox. Today the Internet jukebox is silent, smoking has been banned but I’m still having a cocktail. Because for me that’s what Henry’s is about: cocktails. Well, cocktails and good times with friends. I’m here at an unusual time ( 3:30 on a Wednesday) but the friends will show up later.

Fast forward four days…

Now I’m sitting in my new favorite coffee shop, First Cup Cafe. A random stop that I found here, and they just infirm me they’ll be closing in half an hour, so let’s see how much writing I can get in. First Cup is located across the street from where I looked to move (into Mira’s apt) a few years ago but didn’t make it past the screening process. So it could have been my neighborhood coffee shop but for now it’s one that I happened to drop into for coffee and a place to kill time.

Why am I killing time, you ask? For a number of reasons, actually. The first is that today is (another) Open House day at 1526 so, on my day off, I have to get out and do something. Luckily, Jim Darling was participating in an iPhone-only photography exhibit so I went and saw that since he was going to be at the gallery today. The gallery is Fathom Creative’s and there’s way too many personal references to go into right now about Fathom. Let’s just say I always wanted to work there.

After the exhibit I wandered down to the National Archives to do some genealogy research for my Dad. Since I’m seeing him in a few days I figured I should get this down since he asked me to do it several months ago. I find out they’re closed on Sundays so I will again be playing the role of FailureSon this year for Thanksgiving. Sigh.

I’m meeting with friends later and due to public transportation and needing to be out of the house, it doesn’t make sense to go home, hence the killing time wandering around, it feels like 1995 all over again, when I would wander around DC as a new transplant, maybe it’s time to listen to some Blur.

Now I’ve walked the few blocks to Logan Circle which is nothing like the Logan Circle I used to know. Boughie! And nary a homeless person in sight!

Dupont Circle. Now *this* place has definitely changed in the last 20 years.

And here’s another archive:

Dec 1, 2010 sometime in the afternoon

Today is another kicked-out-of-the-house-due-to-realtors day. Which really sucks because I’ve got an ad that’s due and I’d really like to be working on it right now. Sigh. Another hour to go.

I walked down to Jacob’s to get some coffee but they were too crowded and it was way too warm in there. So I journeyed on down to Sova, on H, and it’s pretty nice in here, sofas and chairs to lounge on but no free WiFi. But that’s fine, I’m using signal from the Biergarten next door.

I’m writing this post in Pages on my iPad, and will upload it onto my iDisk, since my WordPress app isn’t working correctly. There, enough technology references for ya?

I see that I haven’t written any in the last six weeks. Which is unusual compared to how frequently I posted when I started this thingie here. I guess time and different life circumstances make for a lot of change and will alter one’s writing/documenting habits.

Nanowrimo is coming up in a couple of weeks (they’re already ramping up their tweets on Twitter). If you”ll remember from last year, November is NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth and I took part in that and it was fun.

So in order to get back into writing maybe doing this on my iPad (which I love, btw) will make it a little more fun to write. Stay tuned to see if I tackle nanowrimo this year.

Today, in true Apple formality, I received my blue t-shirt.

The (current) blue t-shirt is the shirt worn by all Apple employees in the store. As an employee that has been shadowing for the last few weeks, this is a big deal to me. I’ve had the lanyard with my name on it for some time but the customers coming always wouldn’t recognize that because I wasn’t dressed like all the other employees. There would often be a question of “oh, do you work here?”

So tonight I was finished up with a customer setting up their iPad and Andrew, who has been so very kind and welcoming to me since day one, motioned me aside and said he needed to speak to me. We started discussing aspects of introducing our MobileMe service to customers and how I had approached the different elements this service had to offer. The conversation seemed a little strange, but I presented how I had delivered the different elements of MobileMe to different customers. Then Big Tony (who is a mentor at the store) came along up beside me, mentioned in a booming voice “Can I have everyone’s attention?” to, literally, employees and customers in the store. (So of course Andrew was the fall guy to keep me distracted while Big Tony could getting everything set up. So clever.) He then proceeded to announce to everyone that I was a new Apple employee who had just, basically, earned his stripes and that we should all give me a round of applause. And with this, he handed me the company-issued iPad-branded blue t-shirt that all the other employees were wearing. It was at this point that I’d not be wearing street clothes with the lanyard, but that I was one of them, an equal, someone who would interacted with customers solo without any kind of supervision. Needless to say, I was beaming smiles and gave a gracious bow as the claps from employees and customers alike abounded. Co-workers that either weren’t on the floor at the time or that were out-of-sight of the main room that I had shadowed with had big, beaming smiles on their faces and gave me high-fives or fistbumbs the next time they saw me.

Wow.

I felt so appreciated, so respected for the work that I had done and the interactions with customers that employees had watched me perform during the reverse-shadowing sessions. It was a strike of confidence and acceptance that I carried with me all the ride home.

I am official. Officially Apple.

How can I help you today?

Today marks the first time I will be working in an Apple Store while the WWDC keynote happens. This is where Steve usually makes new product announcements and this year’s anticipation I’d all about a new iPhone, rumored to be called “iPhone HD”.

The keynote starts at 1:00 Eastern so I’ll be on the floor helping customers while the liveblogging sites are doing their updates. I’m hoping someone will be upstairs checking these and coming down and keeping us updated.

~

All of the above was written on the way to work and I’m home now after my shift. It turned out that because we’re using iPads now at the concierge that we were able to follow the minute-by-minute on a webpage there, which was totally nice. It’s also nice to work with so many Apple geeks.

So the new iPhone 4 (as it’s being called) is out now and it’s identical to the one that Gizmodo bought a couple of months ago. And while there may not have been many surprises, it still looks pretty sweet. Although I’m not eligible for an upgrade by AT&T until February 2011 so it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting this phone anytime soon. And after February, I may as well wait the few months until June 2011 when iPhone 5 is announced.

One thing I find odd about the announcement is why weren’t the hard drives bumped up from 16-gig and 32-gig to 32-gig and 64-gig?

~

And happy 4th blog anniversary to me!