I'm in a much better state of mind than in my last post. No fists of frustration. My email archives were miraculously restored when I synced to Gmail through their POP server. Every email that I have sent or received through Gmail, all 386 of them, appeared in my inbox. I waded through them as I transfered music from my ipod back to my desktop. Being able to rebuild my library that way has minimized the music loss, but there are a few things that are still MIA.
Willie called me late last night to urge me to be more assertive about my missing iLife. It came factory installed on the Mac, he said, so it should come back from the shop with it. I slept on it and realized that if it came factory installed, I must have a disc for it somewhere. I found it in less than five minutes of searching and have restored iPhoto and Garage Band.
So, all is not lost. It's a setback, but there are some perks as well. For example, I got rid of all the music that I'd bought from iTunes and didn't like. I got a free OS upgrade. I've even got a Christmas Lights widget.