The G4 is REALLY sick

Could be something as simple as the battery. Could be something as serious as the logic board. Could be something as whimsical as the Wacom tablet. But our G4 is now having program-quits and full system crashes, on average, every ten minutes.

*lays head on desk and sobs quietly*

Time to call MacHelper and see if they can get a tech out here ASAP. We've already pulled and replaced the battery, which got the machine to start up again after it stopped running power to the keyboard and monitor, but it's a Band-Aid solution. In the meantime, I've switched all Hardy Boys files to the 8600/200 -- Gods bless that little workhorse! -- and will have to work from that, slower processor speed and all.

Of G4s, shingles, and Ritalin

Good news -- a tech from MacHelper will be out to look at the G4 tomorrow. Better news: even if they have to take the G4 into the shop to replace the logic board, they can pull the secondary drive out of it (the one that has all my working files on it) and install it in the 8600/200, which will give me access to them AND give me processing room to turn around in; the 8600 has a little over 1 gig of RAM free right now, and brother, is it tight!

Saw my psych doc today, and cried in his office for a while over the fact that my initial dosage of Ritalin had only temporary success. He's raising my dose to 1 1/2 tablets a day for 1 week, then to 2 tablets a day. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I'm still off Ipsos until at least August 8th.

Also went to the CityPlace walk-in clinic regarding a pain in the neck -- literally. There's a dull, burning ache nestled in the muscles just to the left of my larynx, which started four days ago and has been getting steadily worse, accompanied by occasional flushes of metallic taste in the mouth. The doctor I saw came up with three potential diagnoses: a pulled muscle (the simplest and easiest to treat), an incipient case of shingles (if the left side of my face breaks out in a rash, I'm to come in immediately for treatment), or Bell's palsy (he thought the left side of my mouth was drooping a little, plus the metallic taste is apparently a symptom). I'm on the maximum daily dose of Advil for the next seven days, on the assumption that it's a pulled muscle and that will help keep the inflammation down.

In spite of all this AND the slower processor speed of the 8600, got 8 pages of Hardy Boys painted today. Only 33 pages to go... 3 of which still weren't on the FTP site last time I checked. Wednesday I'll have to switch off of HB to flat some Star Wars for Chris Chuckry, but overall I'm not in TOO much of a state of panic. Yet. ;-)