This coming Saturday is the first of May. So what? Well, for one thing, May 1 is a holiday in Germany: Tag der Arbeit (Labor Day, basically). In some cities you can see Labor demonstrations, but for the most part it’s pretty quiet. ESPECIALLY since it’s another one of those days when all the shops are closed.

May first is also the traditional beginning of the summer season, with Maypole celebrations, festivals, and such. The country has finally shrugged off the pallid mantle of winter and embraced the springtime! It has been quite lovely here the past week or so, sunny and warm (volcano notwithstanding), and increasingly hard to stay stuck inside a classroom teaching.

This year, May 1 also happens to be the day my sister and brother-in-law arrive in Munich for a visit! It’s a shame they’ll only be in Nbg for a couple days, but hey, when work pays for the trip you kinda have to go where work tells you. Unfortunately, the really nice weather we’ve been having for the past week or so isn’t supposed to last past tomorrow, so L&J are looking at rain and chilly temps. Sorry!

In other news, I’m looking for a new computer. My MacBook still works beautifully (after a week of tinkering, anyway), but it has two three major drawbacks:

• the HDD is only 100Gb — which limits what I can download comfortably (erm, iTunes TV series from the US is the biggest culprit)
• the battery has bit the dust — second one since I’ve had the laptop (which has been over 5 years, incidentally), and if I have to pony up the dough I’d rather buy a new laptop
• it’s really no longer a good solution for portability: it’s bulky compared to newer options, I don’t want to lose content or break the monitor, and I have to have a separate adapter to get on the internet most places (mobile broadband vs. W-LAN).

Add the fact that I have to find a power connection, and that it’s really HOT on my lap, and I’m ready for a new solution.

So I’ve just about decided to spring for a Dell Mini 10. I can get a 240Gb HDD, integrated W-LAN, mobile broadband, and Bluetooth, and pretty much everything I need, for around 450 €. And there are even folks who have been able to get OS X (mostly) working on it, so I could go Hackintosh! That’s the one thing I hate about Apple — offering the iPad in the “niche” that would want a netbook is a poor choice, in my opinion. I mean, they’re cool, but it’s not REALLY a computer, more a big toy. So I’ll have to take my business elsewhere.

Ah well. We’ll see in the next couple weeks what I decide.

Till then!