life update

Well, lots of things, some good and some not so good have happened since my last post.

On the not so good side, I lost the hard drive in my laptop. I scrounged around and found a spare hard drive, installed it, and NADA! Apparently a hard drive controller of some type on the motherboard took a dump, so I've been without a computer for about the last 8 weeks. Yeah, I know, you're thinking, "Pappy, why didn't you just get up off your wallet and go buy another computer?" Well, three reasons come to mind.
1. I try to help out the kids if and when they need it, if I can. Family counts for more than toys.
2. I'm needing to do some work on the JEEP (Just Empty Every Pocket). I needs my transportation.
3. I know, I know. Use the credit cards. BUT I only owe about $600 on the last of them, and then I get to tell the credit card companies where to stick them. I'm looking forward to that. I will then be trying to live on a cash only basis.

On the not so good side, 2 months ago I was on a DSL connection. Last month, our household went cellular only for telephones. Being the brilliant individual I am, I didn't even think about losing my DSL when we cancelled the home phone. Now it costs me an extra $10 per month for a DSL line, which was activated yesterday.

On the not so good side, Rocky the Wonder Dog (picture at the top of the page) the puppy of PappyandPuppy fame is going blind. He hasn't been acting like himself, bumping into stuff, being startled by people reaching out to him, not seeing treats offered to him, trouble finding his ball when it's quit rolling after being thrown for him, ad nauseum. I took him to the vet yesterday and was told he is developing cataracts. It won't be long and he'll be completely blind.

On the good side, I finally scraped up enough to go buy a Toshiba NB205 netbook. 1.66 ghz processor, 800 mhz front side bus, 1 gb DDR2 RAM, 160 gb SATA2 hard drive, 802.11G wifi, bluetooth 2.0, and between 7 and 9 hours battery life all in a 2.6 pound package with a 10.1 inch tft screen wrapped in a royal blue textured case. I also got a HP 550 Lightscribe DVD burner. I sincerely love it.

Yeah, you back in the back with Alienware laptop on the handtruck and the goofy ass smirk on your face? Why did I buy a low end netbook? I'm glad you asked, pimpleface.

To my way of thinking, a laptop or notebook is supposed to be portable. The less it weighs and the longer the battery life, the more portable it is. I don't need a gaming rig or anything like that, just a small portable laptop for emails, web surfing, blogging, downloading pictures to, playng mp3's, and reading ebooks. Stuff like that. I'll have a mid range desktop unit in the near future for anything more than that.

The work that needs to be done on the JEEP? Charging system failure. Grounds need to be cleaned and checked. Replace battery cables. Probably need to replace battery. I just need to get off my butt and do it.

On the good side, Rocky is just going blind, he's not terminally ill. He's a dog. He probably doesn't realize anything is going on as he's going blind gradually and has been for a little while. I'll still be here to care for him and try to provide him with a quality life. He's MY dog. I'll do for him to the best of my ability.

On the good side, on August 27, Mom, Rocky and I loaded up in Mom's Lincoln Town Car, aka the Queen Elizabeth 2, and took a trip to Indy to see my new grandson Bubba (Jonah Hill Bruce) born August 27, 2009 about 1:15 pm. He weighed 8 lbs 14 oz and was 20.5 inches long. We were lucky enough to be able to spend 5 days with them, playing with the Poot and Bubba, enjoying spending time with all of them , and cooking for them as I enjoy doing.

When we got back on August 4, Mom was on such a high it took 3 or 4 days for her to start winding down, and she still isn't rested up. Being the superior traveller I am, I'm almost rested up enough to do it again.