Arg

I got this e-mail from Apple today:

"Dear Valued Apple Customer,

We appreciate your recent Apple Store Order WXXXXXXXXXXXX.

Due to an unexpected delay, we are unable to ship the following
item(s) by the date that you were originally quoted:

Z0B7, MAC MINI 1.25 CTO
will now ship on or before 08/05/2005

Please note that product availability can change rapidly, and it is
possible that your order may ship much sooner than we anticipate. You
may even receive a shipment confirmation between the time we send this
email and the time that you read it.

If you prefer, you may change or cancel your order anytime before it
is shipped, and receive a prompt refund, by calling us at 800-676-2775
ext-56500 Mon-Fri 7am-10pm, Sat-Sun 9am-6pm (Central).

If we do not hear from you, we will continue processing your order.
You will receive an email notification once your order has been
shipped.

We encourage you to visit http://www.apple.com/orderstatus or
http://store.apple.com/ and click the "Your Account" button to view
the status of your order.

We appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience this
delay may have caused you. Thank you for shopping at the Apple Store!"

This really isn't the bad news it may appear to be. As I have begun to enter the music of Beethoven's Ninth into Encore, I have realized that I need to be way ahead in that part of the task in order to have a decent perspective for the analysis. I'm also encountering some passages that make me go "hmmmm": There are still areas where I'm afraid Beethoven's late style just leaves my powers of analysis in the dust. I'm not really putting them under the microscope at this point, but there may be a few phrases that I just have to bail out of. Perhaps some readers can chime in with some help at those points. We'll see. In any event, I'll continue to enter the music and await the Mini's arrival.

A hearty "See y'all later!" from the Texas Alps.