Delighted

The new machine did arrive.  The folks at the Apple Store were very helpful.  I was dragged cussing and frowning into the next milenium. 

And ... I'm delighted. 

I've set up the new 2.66GHz Dual Dual-Core Xeon powered Mac Pro, and it's amazing.  I've been blown away with the raw speed and capacity of this new machine.  It makes light work of everything that I throw at it.  And, even more surprisingly, Spotlight runs great!  Who knew??  All it needs is a server-class machine, and suddenly it's a feature and not a nuisance. 

I'm in the process of loading the heavyweight apps that caused me to want a desktop (instead of my PowerBook) in the first place.  If there's anything notable after loading 100 GB of music and photos, Photoshop, Aperture, Flash, et al ... I'll let you know. 

It was a long and frustrating few weeks, as you've read in the previous posts, but this story did have a happy ending after all.