Oh boy. The last couple of days have been event-filled, to say the least. First, the important stuff, then the funny stuff.

Wednesdy night, Michelle started having some pains that she thought felt like contractions. she was in a lot of pain, and did not rest well. When she got up Thursday morning, she was still in pain, and having the contractions. So, we went to the hospital. She got poked, prodded, and looked at in almost every conceivable way, and was miserable. We were quite worried for a while that we would lose the bay right there. I was not prepared for that possibility, and tried to keep my wits about me. The only thing I could do to keep my mind off it was to inspect the hospital room's houskeeping. It sort of comes naturally, since that is what I did when I worked in Houston. Anyway, I was driving Michelle nuts, so I decided to go across the street to the Apple retail store. More on that in a minute. The verdict with Michelle is that she is now on bed rest, until at least Monday when we go back to the doctor. I am serving her every need, as best I can. Although at this instant, I am at school, supposedly writing either of two papers that I need to do. One of them is almost finished, so that's cool. The other, I have not started.

So, anyway, the funny stuff. When I got my Apple iBook a couple of years ago, one of the first things I noticed was that documents are stored in quite a different way than with Windows machines. It was some time later that I realized I had been storing my documents in two places at the same time, wasting hard drive space. I straightened out the way the iBook saves documents, and decided to clean up the multiples at a future time. Which never came, until Tuesday. As time has gone by, hard drive space has become more and more limited. In fact, my hard drive was completely full, until I pared some music off of it. That freed up a few gigs, but I figured if I cleaned up those multiple documents, I would free up another gig or so. So, Tuesday, I finally decided to do that. Except that I made one mistake. When I did deleted all of the "Documents" folder, I did not realize that ALL of my music was in there. Pictures, too. Videos, as well. The pictures and videos, and some of the music, I had backed up onto Michelle's Gateway, so that was no big deal. But the vast majority (90% or so) was lost. Except, that it was still on the iPod. Cool.

So, now all I had to do was figure out how to get the music from the iPod to the iBook. This is where the trip to the Apple store comes in. Thursday morning, before Michelle got up, I had been trying to get the two computers to see each other on our network, so that I could move the stuff that was on hers, back to mine. But, I could not get them to work together. So, I scheduled an appointment at 10:00 at the Apple store's Genius Bar for some help. Then Michelle got up complaining of pain. A little before 10, we were still waiting for the doctor to come, so that is when I decided to go across the street to the store. The guy there helped me a little, but when I got back home I could not duplicate what he had done. I spoke with my brother Steve, who is more familiar with my router than I am, but we could not figure out what the problem was. At least, we think it was in the router, because I had been able to move documents around in the past, before he broke my old router and I got a new one (different brand). So, I still had no solution.

For those who do not know, let me explain how iPods work. Each iPod can be synched to one computer, and one computer only. When an iPod is synched to a computer, anytime the two are connected, any changes or updates made on the iPod, or the computer's iTunes, is reflected on the other unit. So, at this point I had an iPod with music, and my iTunes was empty. Since the iTunes had been completely erased, it no longer saw the iPod as its mate. The iPod thought it was synched to a different computer. If I had synched the two at this point, that would have erased all the music off the iPod. That is not what I wanted.

So, I poked around online and found a third party application for doing things such as this. So, after downloading and installing the application, I decided to give it a try. So, I moved all the stuff from the iPod onto the iBook. Then, I needed to synch the two, which required that delete the entire contents of the iPod, which was a scary situation. But, I forged ahead and did that. Then, I synched the two, which took several hours. So, while I was in class that night, I tried not to think about my sick Michelle, or my sick iTunes...LOL. When I got home, Michelle was a little (just a little) better, and my iPod and iTunes had all my music. Except for my Beatles stuff. I have no idea where that went. I will just have to re-burn those CDs. No biggie. That was crazy. Anyway, deleting all those documents freed up a ton of space, and I now have just over 8 gigs of empty space. It may be time to buy some more music...LOL.

So, Michelle and I have been trying not to stress too much. Although, we would sure appreciate your prayers. I think her mom might come down next weekend to help out around the house. That will be nice.

I start preaching at Lebanon Church in Potts Camp, Mississippi this Sunday. I hope that goes well. I have most of my sermon completed, so that is a good feeling.

I also posted some of my pictures from Israel on Facebook this morning, so if you would like to see them, they are available.

I hope everyone is doing well. Peace...