I'm starting to feel whole again. I got a new laptop on Monday. It's nothing fancy, basically it's just an upgrade of my 6-year-old Compaq; no new whistles and bells, nothing that I can't believe I've been living without for all these years.

The big difference is Windows 7 and getting used to the new OS, which is basically figuring out how to do exactly what I was doing on my old computer on my new computer.

The biggest bitch of a problem was getting my iTunes library information over to the new laptop. I read a bunch of articles online on how to do it, but nothing worked until I hit a breakthrough last night. Per the articles, I'd been focusing on the XML file for my iTunes library.

After I had made a complete mess of my files and where they were between my new hard drive, my old hard drive, and my external hard drive, the final fix that worked was fortunately because I had both the old library XML file and .itl file (iTunes library database file) from the last time I used iTunes on my old computer saved in a location that wasn't affected by opening and closing iTunes, which automatically updates and changes those files.

The trick that worked for me was with iTunes closed, I replaced the active XML and .itl files in my new computer's iTunes folder in the My Music folder (which is iTunes' default location to put them) with the old ones and then opened iTunes and it opened with all the old information. Rejoicing was had and we ate cake. I ate cake. There was no cake. I was relieved.

The key was not only the XML file, but also the database file, you need both. Once I opened iTunes with the old information that was pretty much success. I'd been in that position before.

The only thing left was to direct iTunes to the new location of the files. To fix that, just try to play any song whose file you know exactly where it is in the new location, and you'll get a notice that it can't find the file and would you like to locate it.

Click yes and then just direct iTunes to the new location of the actual music files, and iTunes will do the rest and eventually figure out the new pathway to at least most of the files (NB: you still need to do the consolidation step whereby all your files are in one place, which is something I do anyway :p).

The online advice said you need to mess with the XML file to tell iTunes about the new file pathway, but I don't think you need to. I think all you need is iTunes to be reading the old .itl and XML library files and once you give it a clue about the actual music files' new location, it will search the new pathway itself.

Aside from that my bike is whole again, too. After several rides where the chain didn't "feel" right, my bike computer started also having problems, so I took my bike in. Long story short, they replaced the mount for my bike computer, replaced the chain with a good quality one, and replaced the rear gear cassette because 3 gear rings had signs of wearing and it's best to replace the whole cassette at the same time.

The results were immediate. I took the long way home along the bikeways and could feel the added power and torque in having some new components (and this is an entry level road bike). The chain still slipped if I put too much torque on it, but after I got home, I wiped off the chain with degreaser and lubed it and I just need to break in the chain a little more.

It's feeling like life is a constant effort to maintain some sort of status quo. Fixing things that break or righting things that go out of balance. And that's no way to live a life. Or at least not a good way to perceive it to be.

It's interesting that my iTunes library information was so critical and that my bike computer problem was the reason to definitively visit the bike shop.

There was a point where I had given up on retaining my iTunes information (play counts, ratings, last played, and playlists), and I was at a loss at how to start listening to my 17,500+ music collection again.

Usually I just have the entire collection on shuffle play. And I reload my iPod shuffle every 3 days using a system that is just way too geeky to not be embarrassed about. Should I just re-start that process? Should I just listen to music recently added or that I'm not as familiar with compared to albums that I've had on CD for decades?

In the end, I should just not care. I shouldn't be attached to these things. But as long as these things are here, I do. Or am.

The same with the bicycle computer. It's conceivable to go on bike rides without having the ephemeral information about distance, speed and averages, but I haven't seen a single cyclist that goes on "rides" who doesn't have a computer on the handlebars.

And a ride without the information is qualitatively different from with it. Without it, you're just kinda touring and enjoying the scenery. With it, I dunno. Well, you just know. You can challenge yourself with it. You can take some pride or achievement in it.

But even as ephemeral as the information is, it's a record. As ephemeral as our lives are, what we leave behind is a record. If it's not recorded, what was there? This all ties in somehow. Really. (<-- drunken blogging/lazy/whateva).