return of the birds

I had to slowly approach my dilemma with caution, stepping ever so quietly past the seagulls. They pecked at my feet as I crept by. I sneezed, they fluttered, I made a dash for the phone booth. Wait, I thought phone booths are extinct. It was cracked and spattered with bird gook, just my luck a used phone booth, I thought. I grabbed the creaky door, flung myself in and hit the emergency dial button and the booth sunk into the ground before the first bird thud. Let me explain......Maxwell Smart!!

Always always take time to approach a problem with a calm head. After a day of fussing I removed the offending XP VirtualBox installation and all of its supporting files. Then I slid in the XP disc again and started VirtualBox. This time I did not choose to help the process by adding my so-called tweaks until after the install. I let the program install itself, lots of deep breaths here. Then I followed the install stack exactly, first XP, then SP2, SP3, AVG anti-virus, then SketchUp. I had two SketchUp 8 programs a small one (just SketchUP 8) and a larger one that had some upgrades to version 8. I chose the smaller because it worked in the past.

Taking my time resulted in a working XP in VirtualBox and a working SketchUp 8 with bells but no whistles. My other installation of Sketch Up 8 in Wine boots but crashes. I hope the Wine community fixes that someday. Close but no bananas. Sketch Up is the most intuitive 3D drawing I ever used and as a formed AutoCad user I didn't have to learn a new language. Half the battle to learning any program is knowing where stuff is and what to expect when you click it. They say don't get it but try it and choose wisely because learning a workflow makes you ingrained. Other applications can be an annoyance if they are too different from your main tool of choice.

Done, I popped up with confidence, bopped out of the phone booth wearing a gull hat bobbing my head like gulls do. Penguins waddle, gulls bop. All is well among the birds, for now.