v39.7: Post Earl Excitement

Howdy folks,

-slurp-

Well, we just had Tropical Storm Earl pass through today.  I must say, it wasn't much of a show other than the car parked by my balcony looking like it was going to flip over when the wind gusted.  I haven't heard much in the way of damages around the city and a drive to the store later today didn't yield much.  There were a few broken trees and a broken fence but other than that it looked like any other storm.

Yesterday I went out and picked up a new laptop.  I definitely shopped around for this one and I'm glad I got it.  It was a little more than I was initially going to spend, but it will be worth it in a few years.  It is a Dell Inspiron 1546.  It sports a nice AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core Mobile 2.2GHz CPU and has 4GB of RAM.  The hard drive is a bit on the small side at only 250Gig, but thus far I'm only using 20% of it with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, a bunch of other pre-installed applications and World of Warcraft (over 20Gig by itself).  The 15.6" display is brilliant and the back lit LEDs are gorgeous.  The video card is no slouch either (for a laptop), it has an ATI Mobile Radeon HD 530v with dedicated 2Gig of memory.  I've owned laptops before but this is the first one that had a dedicated video card; those shared ones are such a pain.  This thing has full HD capabilities yet only comes with an 8x DVD R/W drive.  Of course it has all the other bells and whistles like webcam, 3 USB ports, SVGA port, 7-in-1 media card reader and much more.  The price tag was not too bad and it was on sale for $100 off.

Of course I'm writing this musing on it right now as I sit in the comfort of my living room watching television.  Oh, and the thing is very light as well, only 5.8lbs (2.64kg).  I'm really looking forward to getting some use of it this fall, especially this November when NaNoWriMo starts.  Yes, I will be taking part again this year and I have every intention to achieve the goal this year.  I have some great story ideas floating around in my head so I'm getting a bit excited about November and being portable.

Well folks, it is getting late and for some reason I couldn't sleep last night (must have been the post celebration blues) and was up at 6:30AM completely exhausted but couldn't bring myself to sleep any more.  Don't you hate it when that happens?  To my mother, I'm really enjoying that "Snipping Tool".  It makes getting images to embed into my posts a whole lot easier.  Thanks for showing it to me!

-slurp-

If you lived in the path of Earl this week, I hope all is well.  I'll see if I can dig up some pictures tomorrow and post them so you can see some of the things that Earl did (bad boy).  Take care all and have a safe Labour Day weekend!

Cheers,

Al

v39.6: Back to School!

Howdy folks,

-slurp-

If you're a parent with children still in school, you're probably just as happy as I am that they are going back.  I'll never understand why they make the kids go back before Labour Day.  What is the sense of going back to school for a day or two only to have a long weekend?  I'm sure there are reasons behind it, but like most things, don't make a lot of sense to most of us.

I haven't had a lot of time to actually sit back and write these days.  Summer has busy for us and we've been doing quite a bit as a family.  The past couple weekends found us in the South Shore visiting family which was nice.  We don't get a lot of chances to go out of town to visit family so it was a treat to be able to do it two weekends in a row.  I'm sure my mother was thrilled to have us there.

We're being hit by some freakish heat wave here in Halifax.  Yesterday it was 32C, today was 33C and tomorrow they're calling for a booming 34C (89.6F - 93.2F for my American friends to the south).  Of course we're going to pay for it this weekend when Hurricane Earl blows through here on Saturday.  Currently a Category 4 Hurricane just off the East coast of Florida, Earl is projected to pass right through Nova Scotia and is predicted to be at least a Category 1 when it hits early Saturday morning.  A lot of people around here are reminded of Hurricane Juan which hit Nova Scotia without mercy in 2003.  The rumor is, the weather just before Juan hit was just like it is now, very hot and very humid.  Today, with the humidex, the temperature was around 43C (109.4F) and it is expected to be higher tomorrow.  I wasn't living here when Juan blew through, but from what I've heard, I'm very glad.

-slurp-

So what does this all mean for us?  Probably nothing.  I don't suspect we'll get hit with anymore more than a bit of wind and rain.  These things tend to get a lot slower as they approach the Northern Atlantic and run out of steam.

As I mentioned in my last musing, I'm anxiously awaiting my bonus which should be arriving on the 3rd of September.  I've been thinking a lot about it actually.  I'm also really looking forward to spending Friday night with some family here at our place in celebration, it's not every day the company I work for gives away free money; as you may have noticed if you're read through the last 5 years of musings.

I've also been thinking about what to do about the extra income.  I really don't have much in the way of bills right now given that I only pay for electricity and cable/phone/internet which together is less than $200/month.  I'm mostly caught up on everything so I plan on ensuring everything is topped off completely.  I've also put a lot of thought into buying a laptop.  I'm not looking to spend a lot of money on one but I'm also not looking to "cheap" out and just get one for the sake of having one.  There are a few things I absolutely must have in a laptop but I'm not willing to spend most of the bonus on one so unless there is a good sale (and there are) I won't bother wasting the money.  I've been wanting a laptop for awhile now.  There is something to be said about portable computing and being able to take it with you wherever you go.

These past couple weekends I brought the work laptop with me to my Mother's house.  It is a slow piece of crap (IBM Thinkpad T42) which is running a corporate image of Windows XP that is painful to use.  It makes a great web browser and surfs the web well (when it connects) but a lot of the "features" of the laptop are either disabled or not working properly (thanks to the afore mentioned corporate image) which only makes it more annoying.  I can't even "discover" wireless networks, I have to manually type in the SSID and keys to connect; it's a strange device for certain.

Anyway, I've decided to shop around and find the perfect laptop for me in the price range I'm looking to spend.  If I can't find one, I won't buy one but with the deals going on right now for Back to School, I'm sure I'll find what I'm looking for.  The sad part is I found the perfect laptop for the perfect price already, but the sale ends on the 2nd and I don't get my bonus until the 3rd.  Oh well.

-slurp-

Well folks, it is time to say farewell for now.  The heat is starting to drain my soul into an eternal abyss of fiery hell from which there is no escape.  It's also very hot outside.  Until next time, remember, just because ice is cold, doesn't mean it's safe to put in places that are hot.  You know what I'm talking about Juggs :)

Cheers,

Al