MacBook in the shop OK, I still like my new Mac but it finally had to go in for repair. It basically refused to run on battery, shutting down without warning after less than 5 minutes unplugged. From what I had read, I assumed this must be a bad battery (supposedly Apple has been issuing a "silent recall" of early MacBook Pro batteries). But the guy at the Genius Bar (man, I hate that name!) at the Apple Store said the battery looked OK, so it must be a bad logic board. So the laptop (oops, sorry, Apple doesn't like that word, something about heat ...) went away to wherever MacBooks go to heal. I'm curious to see if it runs cooler after it comes back. I didn't bring up the heat issue at the store, because it seemed hard to prove it was really a problem (it isn't really that much worse than the PowerBook it replaced). I really miss this machine -- nothing else I have is near as nice to use. But note to self in future -- don't buy any early production Mac laptops. There always seems to be something ... with the PowerBook it was the screen with odd white patterns. Unfortunately I had dropped it so they said they would not fix the screen under warranty. I can't complain too badly since these are really nice computers, when they work right.

Lots of New Jerseys A couple weeks ago we were visiting some friends in New Jersey and stayed at the Hilton at Metropark, which is a business office development with a bunch of fairly tall office towers (it's a business hotel, so has really cheap rates for weekend stays, and it also happens to be where we got married). When we left the hotel he would ask "Are we going back to New Jersey?" We told him that everythiing around was New Jersey, but I don't think he quite got it. The other day we were driving around suburban Boston and went past some Route 128 office buildings, and he said "Look, I can see two New Jerseys!".