Journal of a Sabbatical

September 3, 1999

blue funk

Today's Starting Pitcher: Pat Rapp

Today's Reading: Up and Down the Merrimac by Pliny Steele Boyd

OK, so now my camera problems are retroactively affecting Geri? Mercury is retrograde in the twilight zone for sure.

My first stop this morning was Mailboxes Etc. where I packed up the camera and shipped it off to an authorized Pentax service center for an estimate, which turns out not to cost $90. The kid at Mailboxes Etc. wants to retract the flash before he packs it. I explain that's why I'm shipping it to the repair place.

Next stop, Starbucks, where I encounter Dan and Geri. Geri is lamenting the loss of her pictures from the France trip. Several rolls didn't come out at all, the rest are difficult to print - I didn't catch the reasons. Anyway, there was something wrong with her camera all along and she didn't know it. She has contact sheets of the ones that were somewhat salvageable. She's in a funk about the pictures.

Meanwhile, I'm in a blue funk for no reason. Or for multiple reasons. I stupidly tried to follow the directions in a popular Mac book for narrowing down which extension has the conflict with Eudora. Common sense rears its ugly head when I restart with Extensions off and realize I can't start Eudora at all. So much for that idea. Oh, and there's no Extensions Manager Control Panel. Wonder where that went?

What better way to cure the blue funk that buying stuff? I order Conflict Catcher, a 4 gig hard drive, and the Photoshop 5.5 upgrade. Then I start to obsess about money. Somehow the stock doesn't seem real to me anymore so I don't count it as money. Must be sure not to spend the Antarctica fund on more gigabytes of storage...