Shiny and fast

This afternoon I did two quite disparate tasks: I hand-glazed the Marmoleum kitchen floor and I installed 1 GB of RAM in my new 12" PowerBook.

Oddly, both tasks recalled people from my past. When I was a child, my family had a cleaning woman (in those days, called "the girl" -- yikes) who scrubbed and polished floors on her hands and knees. Now if I suggested to our current housecleaner that she deal with the floors using anything but a long-handled mop, it would be the last we'd see of her. If we want hand scrubbing, or clean baseboards, it's strictly DIY.

So, that's what I did. Marmoleum is eco-friendly, and so is the Marmoleum glaze. I just got down on my hands and knees and rubbed on the glaze with some rags. Glaze, wait 30 minutes, glaze, wait 30 minutes, etc. Now the floor really does look nice and shiny. Spills will be easier to clean up, and it will probably protect the floor from scratches -- though Marmoleum is tough enough that it's used as the flooring on the newer Metro buses.

Once I'd cleaned up from the glaze work, I set out the equipment for the RAM installation: Nice towel for the computer to rest on, a little dish for the screws I'd be taking out and would like to be able to find to put them back in, and the directions, complete with drawings, that I'd downloaded from the Apple support site. This technique I learned from my father. Though he never installed RAM in a computer, he took apart, and successfully reassembled, just about every appliance and device in our house. He always put the device on a towel or pad, and put screws and other connecting goods into little dishes. He didn't have to tell me to do this; after watching a succession of male friends go ballistic hunting for parts while attempting to assemble Dania bookcases or set up VCRs, I got the idea.

I only install memory about once a year, so I'm careful to review the directions -- and to put the cats outdoors or in the basement so they don't get involved with the bright, shiny things rolling around in the dishes.

Releasing the old 256 MB memory card was pretty easy. It's the part where you insert the new card at that 30-degree angle, get all those teeth to mesh, and then have to squash the card down so it clicks into the metal latching tabs that makes me nervous. Got the screws back in, fired up the PowerBook and, sure enough, iPhoto is noticeably faster.

Thanks, Edna! Thanks, Dad!