I’ve had a couple of people ask about the fellow that went to the emergency room. Roy is fine — a bit battered and bruised — and fortunate that he was wearing his seatbelt. He would be in much worse shape otherwise. The hill he went down was very steep and the drop was about 50 feet. His vehicle was totaled, but that is completely replaceable.
I’ve been using my iMac Mini much more often. I’m finding I really like many of the things that this computer and operating system do — except that javascript isn’t running well in the Safari web browser. That I need to fix or else get the Firefox browser and use that instead. So, what do I like about this computer?
- The user interface is very nice. It’s easy to find capability and the interface is more intuitive than most on a Windows machine. It’s been hard getting used to the window controls being on the upper left (minimize, maximize, and close) rather than on the upper right of the window
- The iLife products — in particular the photograph and dvd programs. They are very easy to use and the result looks quite professional.
- The widgets!! There are dozens of little funky widgets that can be put on the desktop. The two that I use a lot are a little window with the current weather conditions and another that has the latest news headlines. There are many, many more
- The interaction with the other servers on the network. The Mac operating system is quite similar to Linux and Unix operating systems, so getting to my other computers and administering them is actually easier on the Mac than it is using Windows.
- Its fast! I can only imagine how much faster the Macintosh computers will be on the new Intel chipset
My brother Perry had another chemo treatment yesterday afternoon in Salt Lake City. About 3 in the afternoon his icon popped up on Instant Messenger, so I pinged him. He was siting in "the chair" getting infused. Since there is WiFi in the treatment room, he had his laptop computer running and we chatted through IM for the rest of the afternoon. It’s kind of a wierd sensation chatting over the internet with someone important to me while he is getting a chemo treatment. Technology is an amazing thing.
Five years ago I was in San Jose in a meeting when my cell phone rang. Daryl called to tell me that Trevor had been killed in a car accident. The words "Dad, he didn’t make it…." are etched in my brain. A good friend and collegue left the meeting and began making arrangements for me to fly to Salt Lake City. The only flight available was about an hour later from San Francisco, meaning I had to leave immediately. That good friend also got for me the phone number of the Denver Temple. Nina was working at the temple at that time. Somehow, the receptionist at the temple was able to sense that something was terribly wrong when I called, so she arranged for Nina to be able to take the phone call in a private room. Five years later and it’s very hard to write about that evening. Trevor, I miss you and am looking forward to the day when we’ll see you once again. All of our children are wonderful, keepers, delightful people, and dear to my heart. I love them and love hearing about what they are doing and what’s happening in their lives. Trevor’s mortal clock stopped five years ago and sometimes I think about what might have been. I truly miss the association with him. And I appreciate my association with our other children even more. Thank you all, scattered across the county, for being there, for living good lives, for being part of our family. I love you all.
