Pushing on westward, we finally stopped in Chelyabinsk, not far from the Ural mountain range -- the dividing line that separates European Russia from Asia. Looking at the map, Moscow and Petersburg now seem close at hand. I have to admit that as exciting and interesting as this trip has been, it is hard not to think about arriving in St. Petersburg, finishing up the chronicles, and getting home to see my wife and daughter. But we've got four more cities to visit and as many stories yet to tell before then.
The apartment we are staying in sits on the corner of Ploschad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square), the very center of the Chelyabinsk. Our hosts, Sergei and Lyuba, a couple in their early forties, have two daughters, Masha and Anya, and a black German shepherd named Alisa who does not seem to like us. We have been forewarned not to make any sudden movements around her.
With all of the potential technical disasters I envisioned and worried about before this trip began, it is sort of ironic that we were almost brought down tonight by a diskette that was jammed in my Powerbook. After trying every imaginable method known to man -- or at least to me -- to get the disk out of the computer, I was forced to take a less conventional approach. A paper clip, tweezers, bread knife, pair of scissors, needle-nose pliers and a compass rounded out my tool box. My first attempt to remove the diskette forcibly resulted in my obliterating the diskette and rendering it unreadable, thus totally incapacitating my computer. Now it definitely needed to be removed by any means necessary.
Of course we couldn't just open the computer to get at the disk because Apple uses these seven pronged screws that are impossible to undo without a special tool that can only be found at a certified Apple service bureau, which a hard to find in Siberia. After about an hour of jiggling, tugging and prying, frustration slowly turned to panic as I began to contemplate the reality of trying to work with only one computer between the both of us. Just when I was about ready to give up hope, with the help of Sergei and Lisa we came up with the winning formula.
While I used the bread knife to hold down the jammed tip of the diskette, Sergei
used the paper clip to release the two prongs which hold the disk in place and
Lisa provided the needed pull with the needle-nose-pliers to pop it out. I
don't recommend trying this technique at home on dad's (and anyone else's)
computer.