Monday, August 27, 2007

Ay, my sciatica!


Gentle Readers,

Sorry to have neglected you for over a week. (Pick up the shattered pieces of your lives and move on, please.)

Embarked on a wonderful vacation to Napa Valley, where I ended up flat on my back for several days. I managed to have mostly lovely time anyway. How could I not, with all that fabulous wine?

Now that I'm home in NYC my back has gone out yet again, though this time a bit worse - I am now truly flat on my back. Too bad I can't make any money like this; I've heard this position can be quite lucrative for some.

I have manged to set up a new personal laptop during all this, so the next task will be transferring over all my data. If anyone has any particular advice on moving my I-Tunes collection over from two different computers, please feel free to share.

Meanwhile, in other news, we are dog-sitting for our friends Brad and Carrie while they are out of the country. Their little dog is cute, and Poor George is in paradise having her here (he being the dog lover to counter my cat obsession.) Needless to say, the cats are less than thrilled with this arrangement, though it has been amusing to watch them work out their relationship. So far this "relationship" consists of the cats terrorizing the little dog until she fairly quakes with fear.

I do kind of enjoy limping down to the local dog run with her once or twice a day. Opens my eyes to the whole world of social connections related to dog ownership. If we had a bigger place, I wouldn't mind doing this full time.

Love and coasters,
CP

24 comments:

wonderturtle said...

When my back went out I was told NO HEAT, ice only in 10 minute increments for the first few weeks. And prescription strength amounts of painkillers. Hope you feel better soon, CP...

wonderturtle said...

PS. Dogs are way better than cats. Also I'm not allergic to them, fyi for our future Blogger Dream House.

Cup said...

Now, doll, were you flat on your back because of all that wine, um, tasting ... or did you hurt it there?

So sorry you're in pain. Does that mean, though, that you get to stay out of the office for a while?

deadspot said...

I'm on a PC at work, so I can't check the menu commands for this. You may have to hunt a bit.

If you have them both hooked up to an Airport network, it's not too terrible. Go to your system prefs and turn file sharing on for both computers. On the computer with the files, mount the destination computer as a server. (I think it's under the Go menu. It'll look at your local network and find out which computers have file sharing on. Pick the destination computer as the one to mount.) After a short wait, an icon for the public drive of the destination computer will pop up on your desktop.

Drag your iTunes library folder to the public folder icon.

Take a long nap.

(I haven't done this next step in a while, so I'm a little sketchier on the details.)

Once it is done copying files, wake up, go to the destination computer, and move the files from the public folder to the iTunes library folder on the new computer.

(If it gets done copying files, but you don't see them from the source computer, go check the destination computer before panicking. You may not be able to see the contents of the public folder from the source computer depending on the file sharing settings.)

Start up iTunes on the destination computer. I don't think the songs will show up right away, but there should be an "Add to Library" command or something like that in one of the menus. It will bring up your file browser.

I think you can specify a folder. If so, pick the iTunes library folder, and it should find and add all of the new files. If not, specify a file, and as soon as you add one, it should recognize that you have other files in the folder that are not in the library and ask if you want to add them all. If that's the case, you may have to import them one album at a time because of the way iTunes structures the directories. Sorry, I can't remember exactly which way that command works.

iTunes should have some help for that last step if I haven't remembered it correctly.

If you don't have them networked, you should be able to pick up a null cable that will let you set up a simple connection using the Ethernet ports. (Make sure you get a cable specifically for a direct computer to computer connection, a regular Ethernet cable won't work for that.)

Alternatively, you could use sneakernet and transfer them using a jump drive or by burning the contents of the iTunes library to CD or DVD, but even if you're transferring them as MP3 files instead of songs, that could take a while if you have a large collection.

Anonymous said...

Hey hurting guy. First the good news! Today is my birthday! (8/27/57/, do the math!)

My husband Don was down with sciatica earlier this summer, so I know how painful it is. Once the worst of it stops, it isn't so bad. Want some leftover Vicodin ;-)? I will send it next- day air!

Don't get me started on how wonderful our dog Ozzy is - I will go on all day! He adores the cat, and is very jealous and possessive of her. He tries to take care of us, sitting by the bed or couch when we are lying down. When I am going upstairs, he runs ahead of me to the top of the stairs and stands there ready to help in case I need to grab him for support. I do occasionally grab a leg or put my hand on his head, and he stays perfectly still. He is a Nurse Dog! And he was almost considered unadoptable. Geesh!

I see you got some good advice about I-Tunes - that is not my thing.

The pain will be over soon. You should have been drinking the good Finger Lakes wines, not that stuff from California, LOL! I guess I am a sort of wine snob, loyal only to vineyards within a mile or two of my humble abode.

Love,
Your Cousin Cathy

Dino said...

outch - grumpys back goes out every once in a while. I hope you feel better

chelene said...

Sorry your back hurts, CP. I was hoping you weren't posting because you and PG had overtaken a vineyard and barricaded yourselves in for the long haul. I would have asked you to send me the coordinates so I could parachute in.

Hope you feel better soon...

BeckEye said...

Ugh. I usually throw my back out once a year. It sucks. I remember one time I went to the store to get one of those Therma-pads and guess where the idiots at CVS put it? All the way on the bottom shelf. It's like, "hey, if you're gonna buy this you might as well bend all the way over and be a complete cripple."

Dale said...

Wishing you a big fat I.V. full of painkillers as you recover and hoping all those mp3s don't start falling out on top of you. I hope the puppy love helps too.

lulu said...

I am waiting for you and pg to get a Frenchie. They aren't any bigger than cats, really.

You know what would make you feel better? Coming to Asia to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus.

Anonymous said...

PPG

With a gimp husband, the place going to the cats and dogs, and a mama gin on my tail, need I explain the additional P?

Dale said...

Poor poor George, we are available in shifts to help out, you know, to take you out for drinks and get you away from it all.

Marni said...

i hope you get to feeling better soon! back pain is a BITCH!!!!!

Some Guy said...

Can't you ask Mama Gin to come down and give you a backrub?

Who am I kidding? She's probably down there right now as I type this.

Tenacious S said...

Ouch. Physical therapy and chiropractic care are your friends. Embrace them.

Writeprocrastinator said...

I'm glad you are getting relatively better, though I'm sure Ava isn't too thrilled about the pooch.

Joe said...

Sorry to hear about your back. I screwed mine up cleaning up after the storm this weekend.

Ice, ice baby--don't put heat on it, ice it like crazy, that'll help some. Then follow the ice session with a nice hot shower. And a stiff drink.

Coaster Punchman said...

Thanks all. Yes, physical therapy and ice are my friends. And Darvocet is my family! Too bad I'm not famous; I'd make great tabloid material in another three weeks on this stuff.

Moderator said...

You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Can't you just use your iPod as an external harddrive to transport stuff between computers?

Cup said...

Huh. Are you Owen Wilson?????

lulu said...

You don't need prescriptions for most drugs here....I'm just sayin'.....

GrizzBabe said...

So how is la la land?

Hope the back gets better. And soon!

Creepy said...

Wine usually puts me on my ass as well. Unfortunately I can't seem to earn a living from that position either. The big bucks typically require 'reverse cowgirl'.

Old Lady said...

Dogs and cats can mix well. The comedy is endless. The pairings are comical the standoffs outrageous! Take care of that back.