I'm going to ignore the state of the world here at the end of 2021 (or maybe it's just 2020, Part 2), and instead focus on my own personal wrap up of the year, akin to what Spotify does with their 2021 Wrapped. It's a fun, more positive way to reflect on the past 12 months, rather than rehashing the news of the past year. So if you're of mind, please feel free to read on and see what I consumed most this year.

In my last post I mentioned the need to send my 2015 MacBook Pro back to Apple to have the battery replaced. Normally this is something I think I could do myself, but I thought maybe I'd take it into Apple, see if they might cut me a break. I've had good luck with Apple repair before, both in speed and service.

Not so much, this time.

I was mentioning to the wife last week that our old pine dining room table could use a sanding, as it seemed the spot I had the MacBook Pro was a little uneven. I could rock it back and forth a tiny bit, which made typing on the thing annoying.

Turns out, it wasn't the table.

Saturday I was going to sit at the same dining table to do some freelance work, and when I sat the MacBook down, the rocking was much more noticeable. Odd, I thought. So I flipped it over, and noticed a small gap between the back cover and the body itself.

Fearing the worse, I broke out my tools and started removing the (very tiny!) screws. Once the first one was loose, it damn near popped out of there. I took off the rest, with a couple of them popping as the first did. Once all the screws were removed, I lifted the cover.

Yup. Swollen batteries. VERY swollen batteries. Yikes. I gently placed the cover back on, put only three or four of the screws back in, stuck the rest in a small baggie that I taped to the back, and setup an appointment at the Apple store.

My MacBook has since been shipped off to their repair center, and even though it's only been two days, I'm missing it. All my big programs are on there. True, my iPad Pro is a viable replacement (I pretty much update this website and the templates from it), but the music programs that I've been working with (namely Bitwig) are all on my MacBook. I have some music stuff on my iPad, but it's just not the same.

Come home soon MacBook! You're missed!

I've been wanting to write, to play music, to create, to do something that I can look at and go "Wow, I made that. Amazing".

I feel stopped up. I tried creating some music last night an managed to accomplish a bit of a tune that I didn't hate. I haven't listened to it again yet, so we'll see if I still don't hate it next time.

I've been wanting to write as well. But I sit down and just blank out.

I need a creative-inducing laxative or something.

It’s Memorial Day weekend here in the States, and though it may have been one of the coldest, dreariest Memorial Day weekends ever, it was significant in that it was the first time in forever since we’d hosted people for a BBQ and game night at our house, mask free.

It was a small-ish gathering, with ten vaccinated friends in total, and we had a marvelous time. It was amazing just being able to see everyone’s smiles, welcome people to our house with hugs instead of elbow-bumps, and just being able to feel relaxed about being around people in general. We had the grill going, and given the chill in the air, the chiminea as well. Eventually the chill and damp motivated us to move inside, but our spirits weren’t dampened in the least. We ate, played games, drank, ate some more, and laughed our asses off.

It just felt very, very welcome.