It is hard to believe that it has nearly been a month since the big accident. We are healing ever so slowly; each day we seem to be a little less frustrated with the pace. coco_b definitely had more serious injuries than myself, and so it isn't a surprise that her slow healing has cramped her style more than mine. But this week she was finally able to get back on her bicycle and ride to work, which was a huge milestone for her. I also think I noticed her sleeping on her left side last night, which as far as I know is a first since the accident. My injuries are mostly bruises, and while many of them don't show any longer, I can still feel them.

Dealing with the other driver's insurance company, which is Allstate, has been surprisingly painless and pleasant. I received the expected Blue Book value for Hawkeye, and they also reimbursed me for the damage to my computer. I decided, however, that I am not going to have the Macbook Air repaired. The estimate Apple gave me was for damage to the case and trackpad (which are apparently considered one unit on these machines). While everything else is in a reasonable state of working, I fear that the impact could have had caused hidden or yet-to-manifest damage. I don't want to lay out nearly a grand to repair the case to have something else fail in a month or two.

So with repair out of the question, my real decision is what to do next.  What I will do in the near term is to bank the money and keep using the damaged Air.  As I mentioned above, the computer still seems to work, although it does overheat and throttle itself more often now, which has tripped up my usage on several occasions...  There is clearly a fan still working inside the thing, but perhaps this computer has more than one?  Or perhaps the slight bend in the case is enough to disrupt the airflow?  Who knows...   I'm afraid to remove the bottom case:  The 'screw dents' in the top case make me worry that taking out the bottom case screws may mean never getting them put back in.  That would take a mostly-working computer and turn it into scrap.

So at some point I'll replace the Air.  When I do, I think I will probably replace it with a Macbook Pro as opposed to another Air.  The Air has been a great machine, but now that it's my only machine the lack of hard disk space has been a bit of a frustration.  Honestly it would less of an issue if iTunes could deal with my network-shared 120GB music archive, but the pain of that is non-trivial.  Also, while the Air's size and weight are great for the days which I walk to work with my laptop, those days are few and far between.  I think that for the money I would spend on another Air, this time I might trade some size for speed/space.

So Watertown has a current, massive project to resurface and reengineer Pleasant Street. We live right off of Pleasant Street, on Howard Street. Directly behind our home is a former train right-of-way which is used by the town. It is bad enough in the winter when the town uses the lot to store snowplows even though they just built a big honkin' $1m+ DPW lot a mile or so away. But since the Pleasant St. project began, they have been using the lot as a temporary store for construction equipment and dirt storage. When I say "dirt storage", I don't mean anything long term. Throughout the day, dump trucks bring many loads of dirt and rocks, loudly and messily dumping into the lot. What is strange is that OTHER trucks come throughout the day as well, taking dirt away. It seems to me they could save a step there by never unloading the dump trucks in the first place, but hey, why bring logic into this?

Anyway, I've been pretty passive on this nuisance, in fear of turning into some kind of NIMBY crazyman. But there is presently a front end loader loading up a dump truck at 11pm. Every time the loader goes back for a new scoop of dirt it's reverse beep goes off. And then there's the big crash when the dirt reaches the dump truck.   I immediately called the DPW, presumably getting their answering service, to file a complaint.  They took my information and I will be expecting a call back tomorrow.  This is unacceptable.  It's bad enough my back yard and deck are effectively unusable between 7am and 5pm on most days due to noise and dust, but now the neighborhood has to tolerate being woken up by this noise at 11 at night?