Chad Things

I’m finally getting in gear for this year’s Burningman. This will be my 9th year going. Yeah, i’m old, and nine times may seem like alot, but each year is different at burningman and for me (where i am in my life). Why do i keep going? why don’t i get burned out? Well, i see burningman as life – you get out of it what you put into it. You don’t have to party or drink or build large things that take all your time. You just have to participate. You do have to abandon some comforts of home, but you get more creativity and freedom in a larger context. I like that alot.

This year i’m going small again, minimal planning, small camp of friends tied together by the Monkey Island Art Car – brainchild of Sir Checkoway (and chef ben as the workhorse). The island is a ford taurus station wagon with the back chopped off, wood platform for the island, rocks, green plants, a generator, dj setup, and tastee beats. Right up my alley, and i’m lucky to have close friends that let me join in at the last minute. Sadly, i’m not staying with the brasstax bunnies – they’re way over at 3 o’clock and we’ll be at 9 o’clock area.

I’ve only been back in SF for about 2 weeks, so i’m still getting my feet wet in this year’s theme – the Green Man – but its right up my alley. Mainly cuz i’m looking into doing a Green MBA – environmentally and socially aware business – but i admit i’m still just looking.  But if you know me at all, you know i love nature – especially hiking in mountains.  I read that the man will be on a green mountain peak this year.  Can’t wait to climb that mtn !!

I also put together a list of DJ lineups at Burningman 2007. This will be updated till i leave on Monday. Enjoy.

I can’t tell you how excited and happy I am now that i got my laptop fixed. My macbook pro, which died in India, was resurrected by the good kids at Apple. I’ve been waiting to get this laptop fixed since i got back – and it finally arrived thursday after 11 days of separation anxiety. Hurray. Now i’m loading it up with software, mp3s, and videos.

Here’s a little more on fixing a broken macbook pro. First lemme tell you its condition – it was in my bag, well padded, but the bag fell off the roof of a SUV going 30 mph. Ouch. Surprisingly, it did boot up – the screen was mostly cracked (nice fractals) but the upper left corner of the screen i could see the mouse and the little blue apple. The harddrive worked (wow), the keyboard sorta worked, but the sides of the titanium casing had ripples in it, making the ports questionable. I took it to the apple store for an estimate – he quoted $1,000 for tier 4 damage – meaning they would replace all parts needed to get it back to normal. He said a 3rd party could fix it cheaper – maybe – and mentioned techrestore. I talked to those guys, but they wanted $500 for just a screen fix – and wouldn’t give me an upperbound – like, the most it would cost for a new screen, new case, new ports, new drive, etc. So i just decided to let apple do it. Apparently the first apple guy was incorrect on the price – Apple ended up charging me about $1,300 ($1,140 tier 4, $100 labor, $96 tax) – more than a brand new windows laptop. Of course, this IS a macbook pro. Ooooooo…. But i gotta say, i think they replaced EVERYTHING. It’s like i have a whole new computer. Feels so nice and purty. I’m soo happy. I love being a Geek.

Oh, and before i took it in, i wanted to salvage my harddrive data – mostly pics – because apple likes to erase everything. My ports wouldn’t work, so i had to remove my drive and put in a external harddrive enclosure, and mount it to another computer. Removing the drive was a bit of work, but a success, thanks to the macworld macbook pro hard drive upgrade guide (say that 10 times fast).  After doing this, i decided i could do it again, replacing the new 100GB drive with a 250GB hardrive (only $200). I also ordered another 1GB of RAM ($50), which will arrive next week. Woop!

So yeah, like i said, this stuff makes me happy, so i know i’m a geek. And i love it.