Oilpressure

If you think it’s been a while since I’ve posted here, you are correct. There are a few reasons for that. Most importantly, Susan was hospitalized over the weekend. Last Thursday afternoon, I got home from work and found her on the couch. That may sound normal to some people, but she likes to be active. She was lethargic and talking a little goofy. I took her temperature and she had a fever of 104.9˚. That was not a typo.

I took her to the closest ER and they admitted her – at 4:00 am. I had a major presentation at work the next day, so you can imagine how great I felt. There is a happy ending to this story. They quickly identified the very nasty bacteria and sent her home this past Monday. She feels fine, but still a little weak from the fever. Still, that didn’t keep her from reporting to work Tuesday morning. I was hoping she would stay home for a day, but she likes proving me wrong.

Another other reason I’ve been silent is that since Will Power signed with Andretti, there have been no big surprises in the IndyCar world. Team Penske finally announced the signing of David Malukas, but that hardly caused a ripple when it comes to IndyCar news. There was the announcement yesterday that Dale Coyne Racing had signed this year’s Indy NXT champion, Dennis Hauger, in a partnership with Andretti Global. Do you think Marcus Ericsson is looking over his shoulder?

OK…there was the 2026 schedule release, but I’ll have to opine about that a little bit later. Overall, though – I didn’t hate it.

But the main reason I’ve been silent is a technology reason. My PC at home is almost nine years-old, and appears to be on its last legs. It should come as no surprise to anyone that I am old-school and still prefer working on a desktop style computer versus a laptop. My laptop is relatively new, but I only use it to take to races or whenever we travel. Otherwise I keep it zipped up.

Earlier last week, before Susan went into the hospital, I made the bold decision to not buy another PC. Instead, I decided to finally make the jump and buy a Mac – a Mac Mini to be precise. I have several friends, including my wife, that started out on Macs and they still swear by them. I already had an iPhone, an iPad and stream through an Apple TV, so it made sense to go ahead and convert over. I was able to buy MS Office 24 for way less than I was expecting, and all of my other software was compatible – except one. I’ll get to that in a minute.

I was very pleasantly surprised how easily all of my PC files converted over. I’ve always found connecting a printer to be a major chore with a PC. It was so seamless on the Mac. Right now, I’m sold and am very glad I made the switch. My friends tell me I should expect far fewer bugs than PCs have, and it should last much longer. Actually, I think getting nine years out of a PC is pretty good; but I’m told I can expect longer use with the Mac. Since I am retiring from my day job in 15 weeks, I figured I would learn a whole new way of computing to send me off into the pasture. If I have questions, Susan can help. She’s hardly used a PC, except in recent years at work.

But there is one little problem. The one software I had which is not Mac-compatible is the software I have used to load up my website for 16.5 years – Open Live Writer. I only knew about this software because the guy who originally talked me into starting this site told me I needed to download it back in 2009 and start using it. Since it worked fine and I’m very comfortable using it – I never saw the need to change. You know what I always say – Change is Bad!

How did I post this? I always write in MS Word, and then copy and paste it into Open Live Writer, before loading it up into WordPress and scheduling it to drop in early the next morning. I wrote this out on my new Mac (my first post on it), but had to email it to myself and get it on my laptop and load it up. It’s cumbersome and adds a few steps, but it works. But I really don’t want to do this indefinitely.

So I am trying out new blogging software. So far, I’ve not found anything that I like. I either don’t like how it makes the site look, or it isn’t fully compatible with WordPress. And I’m sure not going to pay for anything.

So bear with me over the next couple of weeks. There is a natural lull in the IndyCar offseason at this time of year anyway. I am trying to keep the appearance of this site as close to what it is now, as possible. I’m not in love with the looks of it. I’m not the one that set it to white type on black background. That was my friend who set it up in 2009. But I’ve gotten very accustomed to it. Given my resistance to change, I want to get it close to what it is currently, if not identical.

So if things look different here one day, you’ll know why. I may be testing things out and then put it back. Some may never notice, while others will email me and ask what’s up. That doesn’t bother me. It lets me know the readers still care.

Hopefully my next post will be more about hardcore racing, and less about hospital visits and technology. I also hope it doesn’t come from my laptop at home.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on September 24, 2025 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.