We’re way up north now further north than I originally thought… close to Lake Superior. We settled into the cabin and found that all of my phones and PC cards barely registered onto the local provider. Now I am fine without voice service, I don’t talk to people… it’s too intimate. I thought I would be happy with one bar for text messaging, but no.

Long story short I juggled my sim cards and now I’m able to connect to GPRS services by positioning a phone towards a window. Though I get 40kbps, I think I’m hogging the bandwith for the entire area. My voice phone and text messaging handset no longer register on the network, but it’s all worth it to check email accounts with now email and stare at a blank browser window.

It’s been ages since I’ve gone up to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP). The last time I went, I was still sporting a EU/AsiaPac-Triband (900/1800/1900) T68i and a PowerBook 867. Time has come and gone and with new gear, I’m trudging off into the wilderness. Though the main purpose of the trip is to reconnect with nature, I still want to remain connected.

I’m going to have a steady source of power, since we’re not roughing it at a State Park or a deer camp lodge whose means of heat and light are propane and wood. Don’t misjudge me, I can handle primitive atavistic provisions… so long as I know I can have a shower in the nearest town. We’re going to a rental cabin on a lake which affords a lot of creature comforts. Close to a general store, this cabin is the wilderness equivalent to staying at a grand hotel. No surreptitiously plugging in my laptop and phone in the nearest bar, no having to walk a 50-yards to a well to pump water, and definitely no waking up in an air-bed that has significantly deflated overnight.

As for cell signal… it’s hit or miss. I haven’t been back since the Cingular/AT&T merger and its countless roaming partnerships and agreements. From past experiences TDMA worked in many areas, so hopefully those 800-850mhz were retrofitted with GSM technology. In the times that I did have a GSM handset I was unable to receive TXT anywhere in the UP, and had a torrent of messages after crossing the Mackinac Bridge. Best case scenario, I can just dangle my antennae out the window and get EDGE. Worst case scenario… I just get voice service and I get tormented by my mother all weekend.

Hopefully, I’ll have WiFi at the hotel tonight so I can download any and all media to get me through the doldrums.
So, look for updates… if not… I’ll be back on Tuesday.

The Hitachi TravelStar hard disk in my trusty lucite swathed backup drive made some sad clanking noises when I plugged it into my PowerBook this morning. My heart skipped a few beats, a sinking feeling of dread, and I felt that queasy diarrhea mambo going on in my colon.

It was amazing to recall all the things that were quickly being taken from me, platter by patter, rendered inaccessible from the sound of the read-head. Footage shot in the Philippines on the drive was backed up to DVD, but I haven’t tested restoring from those disks. An installation of Mac OS X Panther and the last breaths of my old iBook were stored as well. Finally, a rare copy of an episode of ‘The Family Guy’ (released prior to September 2001) where a known enemy combatant of the United States gets through security by means of singing a show tune was on the drive.

-Spinning rainbow beach ball… tormenting me… spinning towards oblivion.
-option apple esc
-Relaunch Finder
-I think the drive stop choking!
-Finder isn’t responding!
-I open a terminal and issue a reboot, an init 6, and a shutdown, the GUI doesn’t relent…
-I power down
-I bring my powerbook back up. The drive is still fully powered and doesn’t need to lug its way through spinup.

The desktop started, and the drive wasn’t mounted. Disc Utility saw the drive and its mount point. The drive passed a Verify, then a Repair. I hit the expose keystroke to see the desktop, and Hallelujah. Back to procrastinating and taking the availability of my main hard disk for granted.

It’s too early in the morning for this much excitement

I’m not sure about having it in black… I’m just not a big fan of the black apple line, oh well it satisfies all those people who are impressed by A|X.
Apple MacBook