We almost had fresh venison the other day when these deer popped out in front of the car.

February 20, 2015 - Saturday
2 degrees ABOVE zero/clear/calm
Pentoga Road

I'm just about as happy as one boy can possibly be. My MacBook Pro was delivered yesterday. I was waiting at the end of the drive when the rural mail carrier pulled in to deliver the package and ask for my signature. 

"It must be something important," he said, "for you to be standing out here in the cold waiting."

"It is," I replied. "The class I teach, the pictures I take, the writing I do, all depend on what is in that box."



And so the computer arrived. Pictures, mostly of our LasVegas trip, have been enjoyed and honestly, the scenery was appreciated more on the computer than it was in person. Karen, my digital voice, has begun reading assignments, emails, and news, to me once again and the digital voice commands are almost in place. I'll soon be able to sit here with the machine on my lap and use the computer without having to look at the screen.

I didn't realize until a new keyboard was installed, how spongy and sloppy the old one had become. With more memory, a lightening-fast, new, solid state hard drive, and other intangible new components, including a software upgrade, the machine is like new. 

It takes around twenty seconds from the time I turn the power on until I can begin working. With the old system, it took around five to ten minutes. Downloading and working with the pictures used to be a twenty minute chore that has now been reduced to seconds. 

And so I thank my good buddy, Vince, who, when asked, personally undertook the extremely difficult task of breathing life into an old and fading digital war horse. This computer had been dropped into slush and snow multiple times from the back of a snowmobile, exposed to temperatures exceeding fifty below zero, and banged around on countless float planes and boats. That doesn't even take into consideration the several hours a day it was used while I was teaching full time. 



Other than the machine making my life much easier, why should I have such an affection for a piece of metal? The answer is easy. Besides the one class I teach online, it's my last physical link to what I used to do in Alaska when I thought I'd be ramming around the state in the name of education forever. Getting older and retiring was what everyone else did. I was completely above that.

But just like this computer, I was... as they say... rode hard and put away wet a few too many times. Problem is, I can't be rebuilt with new components. Now that I'm on this end of life, the machine still connects me to my previous Alaskan days as well as the many highs in my professional career. People in the Upper Peninsula, Sargie and her family, even my own to some extent, have little idea of my past adventures. But thanks to modern technology, it's a distant memory I often relive through mostly pictures and past writings, all brought to life once again on this computer. Thanks again, Vince. Nice job.  

I spent much of Friday morning aligning my ice fishing gear in preparation for the last part of the season. Between vacation and the frigid weather we've been experiencing, putting meat on the table has been low on my list of priorities. With spring around the corner, that's about to change. I hope to put several bags of fillets in the freezer in the next month in preparation for our first annual Mighty Milligan Fish Fry that will happen sometime this spring or summer.

After the computer arrived yesterday, I began transferring data from Sargie's old MacBook onto the new Chromebook that I've been using. I was able to set it up so that the commands are very similar to those of her old computer. In fact, Sargie was using the new one last night and it appears the transition will be almost seamless. 

At one point on Friday, all three machines were going so as to transfer information from one to the other. There was one time that I became confused over which machine I was working with and began to undo what I'd already transferred.

As mentioned previously, Sargie's on vacation this next week. I'm not sure what we'll do other than possibly take a few short day trips here and there. Now that my computer is back, I'll be uploading the hundreds of pictures taken on vacation, no doubt putting them on a photo sharing website. A few, I'll feature on this one.

I feel the lake calling me. It's later in the day than I like to go fishing, but I might as well go and see if there's a spare bluegill or crappie for the taking.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...