Here I am on the fast track again.  I’ve been limping along on my old PC since June 28th, having killed my MacBook with a big splash of white wine.

It was a sobering moment.  It stopped me cold.  I sat transfixed, staring at my wet keyboard.  I was not quick to the draw to shut it down, unplug it or to throw a towel over it.  Instead when I came unstuck, I turned the computer upside down to rid the wine.

That was when the lights flickered out and the rest/Mac was history.  It sat in a bag of rice in the basement for over a week.  It had to come out.  We were running out of rice.  I should/could have ran it to the Mac Store just a few blocks down the street.  I should/could have done a lot of things differently.  BUT I didn’t.  I did take it there two days ago.  Too late!  The hard drive was okay and the data was migrated into my new iMac.

Here are some lessons from the accident:

• Don’t have liquids nearby to be spilled.  Coffee, tea with cream and sugar are most damaging.  Sugar corrodes.
• Turn computer off right away. Unplug.  I would dry laptop right away before turning it upside down.  That’s when the wine dripped into it for me.
• Run it to Apple Store.
• Do not try to turn it on till cleaned/fixed.  It could cause more damage.
• Buy another better and bigger computer if can’t/cost too much to repair old one.
• Get an external hard drive to back up your stuff.
• After learning the lesson, forget the incident and enjoy the new computer.

I was a little distressed over the incident.  Who wouldn’t be – my photos/writing AND the financial expense.  But I had read a lot of self help books on attachments, etc. etc.  It was a perfect time to put all that into use.  What was done was done.  So how was I to proceed now?

You know the saying that there are no accidents.  I believe that it’s true.  The ‘accident’ is a prod to awaken me to something else.  I have been sleeping at the wheel too much.  It is time that I wake up and take direction/control of where I am going.  That is the way I looked at it.

I’ve been working on my HP PC and Windows this past week or so.  It gets frustrating learning old stuff with a slower connection and on an old PC.  I see in the moment that I need to be more- much more patient than I am.  The past week of navigating on the old PC has helped me tremendously – patience wise and stimulating new brain cells.

I had to device new and different ways of getting around the PC’s sputters and hiccoughs. The Mac had none of that and did everything for me so slick and fast.  It did put me into a trance.

Trances can be costly in many ways.  But I’m still ahead.  I’m enjoying the slick and smooth of Apple.  I’m enjoying the the pictures that I thought were lost forever.