davejenbarnes

We may be offline for a short or very long amount of time. It seems our iMac is having some major hard drive problems and is becoming more and more unstable. David could use your prayers right now as he tries to deal with all of the different error messages and new things that don’t work anymore… and unfortunately, we cannot afford a new computer any time soon.

It really sucks that this happened right before Dave’s birthday. If I’m unable to get online before Tuesday, happy birthday to my honey… as happy as it can be with a sad iMac.

I recently ran into some trouble with the old iTunes, so I posted this message on the CapMac forums, but I figured I would post here since I know that several mac users do visit our Weblog.

Hi, I’m a new CapMac Member, but long time Mac user. I’ve got a problem with my iTunes. I’m running iTunes 4.6 on OS 10.3.4 using an 800 Mhz iMac G4 15″ with 768 MB of Ram. When I open iTunes everything appears normal, then about fifteen seconds later, an error window pops up that says, “The iTunes Music Library File cannot be saved. An unknown error occurred (-36).”

Now, like I said in my intro, I’m a long time Mac user. I’m fairly good at trouble-shooting, especially on my own equipment. My first guess was that I just need to rebuild the library file. So, I trash (not delete, just move to the trash) all of the old iTunes library files I can find and import the data off of the iTunes Music Library.xml (this, BTW, is what apple.com reccommended to me). This rebuilds the Library File, just as I expect it to, but the problem still remains that “The iTunes Music Library File cannot be saved.”

Second guess: Yesterday, I was reading through the latest issue of MacAddict (you know, the one about BUGS (ironic, eh?)) and I saw that one of the BUGS (MacAddict defines a BUG as something that doesn’t work how you want it to) was a sluggish Mac. Well, ever since the G5’s were introduced, my happy little iMac has seemed downright sluggish. The article suggested 3 things that could increase the “speed” of my machine.

1. Repair Permissions
2. Clean Your Caches
3. Reset Your PRAM

Numbers 1 and 2 are easily accomplished using Cocktail, one of my favorite shareware apps. I chose not to reset the PRAM, because I really didn’t feel like messing with it at the time. I digress…my point is, I think that today was the first time I ran iTunes after I repaired permissions and cleaned out my caches. I somehow feel these two thing must be related, but I’m at a loss as to how or why.

If any of you have any ideas regarding my iTunes problem, please leave them below. I will also be leaving this message on several forums, and if I find anything out, I will post here again.

Thanks for your time,

Dave

David and I spent the lovely weekend together in San Antonio for the annual Texas Bandmasters Association Conference. We had a great time, although it was a lot of walking. We drove down early early early Saturday morning to get me registered. I had to register as a spouse-membership which cost us a huge $45! woah! Then we went straight into the CCC Middle School Honor Band judging room and caught up with David’s co-workers, Mr. San Luis and Ms. Allison. It was like old times (if you can call a year ago old) with the three of them together. Roma’s (our previous employer) tape was first and CPMS’s tape was second. I thought that Roma 1. played music which sounded utterly too difficult for them & 2. did not have an ensemble concept of blending tone colors. Anyhow… without dwelling on Roma too much, we waited for the results and eventually found out. Cedar Park’s band ranked eleventh; Roma placed thirteenth. I cannot lie. I was thrilled at the results as far as the two schools were concerned. Congratulations to Manuel San Luis and the entire CPMS Symphonic Band! Wa-hoo!!

In the evening, we stopped by Mr. Morrison’s SASI party for some free food (David ate a lot) and later headed over to the IMAX to see Spider Man 2. Personally, I was NOT impressed. I did NOT think it was better than the first; both movies were almost horrible. The CG stuff was pretty fake looking and Kirsten Dunst needed to keep her eyes more than half-open to make a convincing success of her character. I didn’t mind her in Mona Lisa Smile as a supporting actress, but as a lead in Spider Man 2, she could have done better. Kept her eyes a little more open. I was also pretty distracted by a little pimple on her chin. Gawsh, the IMAX screen made it HUGE! And in some scenes it wasn’t there, then in the next it would be… and back and forth. Not that having a blemish is a bad thing; my face is horrible and I would NOT want to be on the IMAX screen!!!

Sunday, I remembered I had a camera in my purse, so I started taking pictures. On our way to the Starbucks in the Rivercenter Mall, I saw a large leaf that looked like a salad. Oh yeah, and, feel free to click on the pictures to see the whole thing. These are just … snippits of the bigger pictures.

We almost made it to the Starbucks, but we stopped at CHAMPIONS to watch Lance win the Tour de France.

Somewhere along the way, we passed the Circus Museum, which had been permanently closed… we really would have liked visiting but … I got a picture of the cool sign outside instead. I think we were on our way to eat lunch at this point.

Last picture of the day… I was talking with Mr. Luckhardt (college marching band director when David and I first met in the Baylor U. Golden Wave Marching Band (BUGWB for short) but now he’s in Minnesota) and Dave was across the way taking this picture.

Last but not least, this is from tonight. I think I’m fairly safe in posting this since I don’t think Nicole will be surfing my site anytime in the next week. This is the card I made to go with the gift I made (I’d take a picture of it, but that would be too much since I haven’t given it to her yet!) for Nicole Moulton’s baby shower which I am helping organize for this coming Saturday. I saw her nursery (which has been totally set up and ready for the baby since week 28 due to a scare with false contractions she had at 26 weeks) and the flower is very much like the Pottery Barn Kids sheer curtain flower. The most impressive part about the card, I think, is that I already had all the stamps. Thanks, mom!

Nicole’s baby girl is due September 6th, but she will probably have it early!

Man, We got a BMG DVD and it ROCKS! On one side is the DVD stuff and the flip side has three of their songs in surround sound 5.1 CD format. My totally favorite song is Sing Along, in which you can hear my favorite “instrument” — a rather long whip-like stick (mic’ed of course) which sounds like scratching (as in scratching on a record) in thin air. Totally COOL! David and I are now planning a four or five day trip to Chicago next summer (or maybe spring break?) just to see the Blue Man Group once again. We saw the Chicago show back in April 2000 but they’ve added some new things to it since then.

David played and played and played his trombone this week. He also shaved his head. WITH A RAZOR. I never expected him to go through with the shaving of the head, though he had talked about it off and on for more than a year. When he mentioned how serious he was about following through with it - and that he had already told the members of the 70’s band he was playing with on Friday night that he would show up BALD - I was surprised at the different feelings I had about the whole deal. This is my very own husband - the one person I love with every cell in my body - with a RAZOR. Not that he’s not razor-worthy… but the top of his head! It was more than I could imagine. There was no blood, praise the Lord! My near-bald husband has a very round head and he is oh-so-cute with his new haircut.

SummerFest went really well. The 70’s band was really good. Here’s their playlist:

Pick Up the Pieces–Average White Band
Rosanna–Toto
Sir Duke–Stevie Wonder
Saturday in the Park–Chicago
Free–Chicago
Beginnings–Chicago
25 or 6 to 4–Chicago
Proud Mary–Tina Turner
Jesus is Just Alright–Doobie Brothers
Long Train Runnin’–Doobie Brothers
Carry On Wayward Son–Kansas

I have tried several times to get a picture of David’s now velvety-soft-almost-bald-gee-his-hair-grows-fast head but either the camera wouldn’t focus on his head or he wouldn’t hold still enough for the length of time it took the camera to focus (Yes, Jer, I was even using the flower-mode)… So pictures may be forthcoming once I get all my film (left over from DC/4th of July s-t-i-l-l not developed) processed since I took a picture of his head with the Rebel.

>We weren’t trying, but we definately weren’t preventing anything, either. In my heart of hearts, I was hoping it would happen. I was hoping we had conceived… Instead of that, I had the worst cramps I think I have ever had. They were so intense and so strong that I could not sleep through them and not even two aleve pills aleved the pain. The cramps this month were isolated to my right side. I have never before had one-sided cramping… but it was so one sided that I would imagine that that’s how I would feel if I had been shot in my uterus on the right side. Ready for the strange part? All cramps completely ceased if I remained in an upright position!!!! Laying down actually made my cramping worse… it was sooo strange.

This leads me to my next bit of news: We are now officially trying to conceive. The last week of July is our next chance. Let the race begin.

Already I have fallen behind on my watering schedule and the poor geraniums (7 of them) and petunias (10 at least) and bouganvilla (only one of those!) were all thirsty this morning. They were supposed to be watered and fed (miracle grow for blooming plants) on Saturday but David and I were far too tired to think of water… our legs were so sore from Schlitterbahn with the Woods and Woods.

Sunday was relaxing and we enjoyed a dinner at Sonic with the Collins and Schomakers. Lisa showed us the latest reason they’re having a boy: the wedding ring test. The ring swung in a straight line. She’s in week eleven, so it’s only an old wive’s tale at this point, but she said she tried it with Nicole M. who is due in eight weeks with a girl and the wedding ring test correctly identified a baby girl by swinging in a circle. I’ve got to keep Lisa from reading those silly voo-doo books!

Speaking of pregnancies, we’re excited for Kimberly with only what… four or five weeks to go! Uncle Dave and Aunt Jennifer will try to make it up there before the baby comes, or shortly after if we’re too late!

Today was lessons for me and Dave has a SummerFest rehearsal. SummerFest is a huge street festival on Little Elm, the street where Hill Country Bible Church is located. Dave is playing in a band, “That 70’s Band,” and will be playing with fellow trombonist, Matt Walker, who we went to BU with. Apparently there are some really tough songs lined up for them. Wednesday night is the Worship Band rehearsal and Thursday is another SummerFest rehearsal. Friday is SummerFest and Dave will be playing that gig while I serve as a booth captain, making sure my row of game booths has prizes at all times. Saturday, Dave is playing at HCBC SW (Hill Country Bible Church South-west) SummerFest and Sunday is a mega trombone day for him with AM and PM services. As you can see, there is a lot of trombone stuff happening with David this week. I hope his chops hold out!

Wednesday, I am meeting a bunch of girls from Bible Study for lunch. Mary is coming down from Dallas with her four-month old baby boy, Aiden, and we’re all planning a nice lunch get-together to spoil baby Aiden and hug Mary… and on Thursday, the cable guy is supposed to come by and activate the coax jack in the master bedroom for the computer so we can finally start empting out this second bedroom.

For it being the summertime, we sure have a busy week ahead of us.

Mark recently posted his pictures [password=marklio] from the fireworks extravaganza we had at my folks’ place. It was a blast!

Dave and I are hooking up with Justin & Ashley Wood and Nathan & Shannon Wood tomorrow in the AM for some Schlitterbahnage. It will be much fun and much sun. I do not know if I will take the waterproof digital camera… but if I do, I will have pics (obviously) in a few days, unlike the film pics I took of the fireworks and our trip to Washington DC which I still do not have.

Today, I spent the afternoon with Lisa Collins and Alex Darrow. Lisa’s due date is Feb. 1st and Alex is one week behind Lisa, with a due date of Feb. 8th. Both pregnant women are a lot of fun. We watched three movies and talked all the way through all of them.

David went to a CapMac meeting tonight and joined membership. I’ll let him tell you all about it. Apparently it is the perfect group for him to belong to!