meet Whimily

One week ago I had a new addition to my life: a bright and shiny new MacBook. Geoffrey, my faithful little PowerBook was pushing 7 years old and was finally giving out. Over the course of the semester he had been gradually slowing down, but by Thanksgiving things finally came to a head and I realized I couldn't wait any longer.

I did a fair amount of research online, and first decided I would purchase a refurbished model to save a little money, but for some reason the Apple website wasn't communicating properly with my bank and wouldn't let me order it. So after getting over that frustration, I decided to just bite the bullet and buy new. For a difference of less that $100 I would get a lot more memory and get to deal with a person rather than an online ordering system.

So last Monday I left my internship a bit early and headed down to the Apple store on Boylston (which is actually the largest Mac store in the nation). It was raining, and there was an employee at the door giving customers plastic umbrella sleeves as we entered so that no one would drip all over the equipment. I thought that was classy. She also asked me what I was there for and found a specialist to answer my questions.

The only question I had left was about how to migrate my files from Geoffrey to my new machine. If I purchased the year-long $100 one-to-one program they would do the transfer in-store, but I wasn't about to pay even more. So they showed me how to use the migration assistant on the computer. The specialist could tell that I had already done my research and made up my mind about what I wanted, so he didn't try to push any accessories or add-ons, which I appreciated. He placed an order online to the basement storeroom, and in minutes I had my laptop and was on my way.

That evening my frustration returned, as I discovered that the age disparity between the two computers meant that their operating systems couldn't communicate directly through the migration assistant. But after poking around online I sorted out how to set up the two as a small network and transfer my files by hand instead. It took longer, but I still got everything I needed. I've had to redo all of my settings, iTunes playlists, iPhoto albums, and Firefox bookmarks, but that's really not so bad. It's given me a chance to weed, and only transfer what I actually want. Migrating all the photos and music files took several hours over the ethernet connection, so I set up those transfers before bed and just let it run.

And then the real hard part came. What to call my new computer? Geoffrey was named for Chaucer, the Medieval English writer, so my original plan had been to continue the trend and call the next edition William. But when I took the computer out of the box, it was clear to me that something so cute and little had to be female. So my next thought was Emily. But I couldn't let go of William. The longer I thought about it the more I realized that both names had associations I had not initially intended, which left me more confused. I went back and forth for days, not knowing what to do, and not feeling like I could really form a connection with my new little helper without knowing who she was.

Then, as so often happens, the solution came by accident. In frustration I said both names together and the answer became clear. She would be Whimily. She would be unique and whimsical, not just a namesake. Two writers in one, to inspire me to further creativity.

I think Whimily and I are going to do great work together.

-Kim