Computer Woes, Sale Slows

My laptop began crashing before the blogging conference, so on my way in on Friday morning, I took it in to my computer repair shop. Saturday, I heard the verdict: Time to buy a new laptop.

Monday, with my three youngest kids in tow, I headed to the Apple Store in Santa Rosa. I picked out one of the smaller MacBook Pros so that it would still fit in my briefcase, along with the AC adapter and a magnetic scanner that allows me to do credit card sales. The MacBook was loaded with OSX Leopard, so I decided that I'd upgrade my iMac to the same. "MobileMe" would let me keep my iMac, the MacBook and my iPhone all in sync, so I decided to throw that in. And the Time Capsule would let me backup the two computers wirelessly and effortlessly. Before you think that I'm just an Apple geek, I'll have you know that I bought an inexpensive PC laptop for my kids to use for internet access and word processing. So I guess I'm a CHEAP Apple geek.

Anyway, to make a long story short, after upgrading my iMac, I no longer had access to my email accounts, and I still haven't been able to retrieve my data from my crashed laptop! Moral: Make one change at a time! Now three days of cussing later, I finally can use my email again and Patrick is working on extracting the data from the old hard drive from the old iBook.

In the vineyard, we're pulling leaves to better expose the fruit to sunlight. We haven't been moving fast enough for two vintners who are concerned about their three rows, so they're out there as I type, pulling leaves and dropping fruit. Okay by me; I've got enough to keep me busy.

This is a weird year, economically speaking. The grape marketplace is basically silent, with vintners waiting to see what shakes out in the high-end segment. Value wines are selling, but premium wine inventories are backing up, reducing demand for the expensive grapes that go into them. The oddball thing about the wine business is that the economic decisions we make today will "bear fruit" two to three years down the road, when the wines actually come to market. Anyone care to make a prediction as to when consumers will return to finer wines?