I recently ordered the items necessary to replace my MacBook Pro in my office with a Mac Mini. That computer is over five years old now and portability is no longer a requirement so the change makes a certain degree of sense. My intent is to make this a good workstation for my computer-related hobbies: blogging, fiddling a bit with coding, and a possibly a few online learning activities.
The Mac Mini will be my first ‘Apple silicon’ Mac, sporting the latest M4 processor. I anticipate that it will be a nice improvement over the older Intel CPU in my circa 2020 MacBook Pro. I’ll write a more detailed post about the computer setup later.
The new computer has not yet arrived, but getting my office ready for the upgrade has triggered a number of other changes. This mostly involves moving my desk, unpacking some long-ignored boxes from our move four years ago, and doing a bit of cleaning. Like most of the things I do, the process is very slow: I’m now entering week three of my activity on this project.
Desk moved
Moving the desk was relatively easy. It was originally situated so I faced towards the centre of the room, but now I will face a window. This makes the centre of the fairly small room a bit more open, which is good. I still have to re-do the cabling in and around the desk but I’m holding off on that until the computer arrives.
I concluded that the large whiteboard I equipped my office with when I was still working is now mostly just an obstacle. So that will be disposed of shortly- hopefully going to someone who can put it to good use. I like having a whiteboard, but a 4’x5′ glass board on rollers is a bit much for my retirement needs.
Boxes unpacked
A packed box is a clear demonstration of the old ‘out of sight, out of mind’ cliche. But I made a personal commitment to get rid of at least a few such boxes that were occupying my workspace. There were twelve of the stalwart Rubbermaid totes, including one giant double-sized one, in this area. Six of these were brazenly stacked up against the wall in one corner next to my gaming desk. I’ve managed to unpack four and a half of these repositories of ancient mysteries.
The eight remaining unpacked boxes have been squeezed into my office’s small closet. Ideally I would have more useful storage so I could completely unpack the strange and wonderful items the remaining boxes contain. I am challenged, however, by the strange geometry of the office space itself. The roofline means that about 40% of the walls are at a 45 degree angle which makes adding cabinets or similar furniture for storage difficult.
A lot of what I unpacked now resides in or on the display cabinet I’ve had for years. I added a bit of LED lighting to this cabinet a while back as part of my lengthy preparation for the actual unpacking of items to display. I still have some work to do organize my ‘treasures’ a bit less haphazardly, but at least the items are no longer languishing in plastic bins.
Cleaning started
The last thing I want to do before I set up my new computer is a bit of cleaning. My office needs a good dusting and the floors need some scrubbing. That requires removing some of the empty totes and some general tidying. I’ve started the process, but it will likely take a few more days to complete. Or a few weeks- time is relative.
