Is It So Hard to Pick Up a Phone?

I've got this friend. Let's call him Perry. He's a really good guy, one of my best friends. We've known each other for years, over a decade now, and even though we've lived hundreds of miles from each other for most of our relationship we've managed to stay in close contact via e-mail and phone calls.

During the last half of 2007, we had started collaborating on quite a few business and personal projects which required us to talk several times a week, if not several times a day. I am not anti-social by any means, but since I work from home and my work primarily entails typing on a computer, I don't exactly see a lot of people during the week. I really enjoyed the daily calls with Perry because it helped me not to feel so closed off within the confines of my home office. The calls got to be so frequent that my wife started calling us girlfriends.

Now the weird thing is that I've not heard anything from Perry in over 2 weeks. This is not without precedent. A notorious workaholic, Perry has failed to return e-mails or calls to me for brief periods of time before this, but this time seems different. We had been talking and working on projects constantly until right up to Christmas. The last time we spoke we were mapping out all the things we planned to work on in 2008. Since that call just before New Year's, I've heard nothing from him despite sending numerous e-mails and leaving quite a few voice mails.

When he's blown me off like this before, I've not worried too much about it, thinking, "That's just how Perry is." This time I'm starting to get just a little bit pissed and a little more worried. If for some reason he's just not calling me back, I want to know why. We've been friends way too long to have him drop off the face of the earth with no explanation. If something has happened and he can't call or write, I want to help. That's what friends do for each other. Unfortunately, when life and work start to overwhelm him, Perry tends to dig in and solve all his problems by himself (like any good workaholic would.)

I thought for quite awhile about whether I should write about this in a blog. Personal relationship stuff is usually better suited for a journal that no one but myself will read. Since the e-mails and calls haven't worked, I guess I'm using this blog as a final means to say, "Dude, WTF. Pick up the goddamned phone and give me a call."

Obviously, I'm concerned by the whole situation. Either Perry is choosing not to call, feels like he has to shoulder the world's burdens by himself or something has happened to prevent him from calling. Either way, I would really, really like to know what's going on with my friend now.

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That Steve Jobs Knows What He's Doing

I got some nice new toys over the holidays and few of them had anything to do with Christmas presents. I had a nice, profitable year in technical writing last year, and we also put a little cash in the bank when we closed out one of our business. Unfortunately, that means that for the first time in quite awhile the tax man is coming to the door and he's not taking no for an answer. As the year wound down, I figured the best thing I could do was create a few more business expenses and draw down the taxable profit in my writing business. But what could I buy? What did I really need?

When I heard that my sister-in-law needed a laptop to work in my wife's office, the solution was dead easy. I've wanted to buy a Mac for about a year now, but have been put off by the comparatively high price of a new MacBook compared to its commoditized PC counterparts (from Dell, HP, Compaq, etc.) The tax situation gave me a reason to look past the price and just buy the darn thing. A couple of weeks before Christmas, I ordered a refurbished (saving me $400) 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro. I may never buy myself another Windows machine.

I know it's a cliche with Macs, but the damn thing just works. Since it was refurbished it came with the older version of Mac OS X (Tiger.) I had to install Max OS X 10.5 (Leopard), but it was the easiest OS installation I've ever done. Insert the disk, answer two questions and come back 20 minutes later to a new OS.

The initial machine setup was just as easy. The Mac asked me a handful of basic setup questions and asked me to set an administrative password. After that it was all done and ready to use.

A lifelong PC user with a master's in IS (all my education was on Windows-based machines) I'm still learning my way around the Mac, but I love it. All my client work is done in Windows, so I've installed Parallels Workstation on the Mac and run Windows XP, Office 2007 and AuthorIT inside it. According to the reviews I read, QuickBooks for Mac is horrible so I'm also running QB 2007 in Parallels. Otherwise, I'm living in an Apple world and loving it.

The best piece of advice I got when starting to use it was not to try so hard. It has a very intuitive interface, but coming from a Windows world I was used to burrowing down in the guts of a machine and OS to really make it work. The only small issues I've encountered have come from making Parallels and Windows play nicely with the Mac, but thus far I've been able to resolve them without incident.

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Does a New Year Make You a More Disciplined Blogger?

I've never been one to make resolutions. It seems like every time I make a grand promise to myself about doing better or changing bad habits that I'm much more likely to abandon it when I get busy, the kids start yelling or work stacks up.

So...I know I've said this before, but I plan (he says with a wince and a slight tremble in his voice) to start blogging more regularly (or just regularly for the first time.) A lot happened (and didn't happen) over the holidays that I hope to cover in the next few days.

This could be the first of many entries...or maybe I'll abandon this goal again. I like to think positively, however. Check back tomorrow and see if I'm right.

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