Dodging Drivers & Christmas Came Early

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After seeing how horrible traffic was tonight I’m scared to see how bad things are going to be on Black Friday.  It was a mad house out there tonight, and now I’m definitely not heading out into that madness on Friday.  I’ll stay at home and shop online!

Everything around town was madness.  We tried to do a little shopping tonight to pick up a few essential things we forgot to grab at the grocery store the other day, but it was nearly impossible to get in anywhere for all the people.  Then on the way home we were dodging crazy drivers left and right. 

Apparently a ton of people seem to be having car trouble this weekend, too, because I can’t count on one hand the number of cars I saw parked on the side of the road this evening.  Apparently no one around here seems to have roadside assistance plans. Maybe it’s because our unemployment rates are still so high no one can afford it, so they have to leave their cars parked all over the place because they can’t afford to get them home.

Anywho when we got home I did some online shopping, and I took advantage of some of the deals that are already going on online.  I finally picked up my netbook.  I got myself an Asus Eee PC 1005 Netbook.  I’ve been wanting one of these for awhile, so with Hubby’s approval I treated myself to a late birthday/early Christmas present.  I think he only agreed because I agreed to let him pick up the home theater system he’s been eyeing as long as he grabs it on Black Friday when it’s on sale.  At least both of them are items we’ll get a ton of use out of even if they are a bit of a splurge.  We figure with the baby these are some of the last big purchases we’ll be making for awhile, so we might as well enjoy it while we can!

Shopping Around

I’ve got a lot of stuff I need to do today, but the number one thing on my list is requesting new car insurance quotes. I try to stay on top of it, and sometimes I’ll even request new quotes every couple of months. Now our insurance has renewed, and all of Hubby’s tickets have cleared. Our monthly bill dropped $8 a month, but I have a feeling we might be able to do better than that. I’m going to spend some time requesting quotes and shopping around this morning.

Then I need to go deposit Hubby’s check so I can pay bills. He forgot to go by the bank yesterday, so he had it cashed at the gas station down the road. I don’t really like doing that because normally they charge $1 for every $100 to cash it, but I guess since we’ve gotten to know the owner so well he hasn’t charged us the last couple of times we needed to cash something.

With Hubby being home from work yesterday I didn’t get as much work as I would have liked to done. He kept interrupting me, and I just can’t concentrate while he’s around. Today he’s meeting up with one of his friends at the shooting range, so at least I’ll have some quiet time to hopefully finish the work I have this week.

Hopefully the new laptop charger I ordered for my sister will come in today so I can finish working on her laptop. She lost her charger, and I only got about 10 minutes of cleanup done on it before the battery died. I’ve got all kinds of extra chargers around here, but none that fit hers. Bummer. Oh well I have a ton of other stuff to do, so I better get to it!

Where’d My Card Go?

I’ve been in the mood to take lots of photos today for some reason.  I opened up the big blind behind the couch and found tons of Blue Jays hanging around the tree right in front of the porch.  I figured I’d sit on the couch snapping photos out the window for awhile, but after about 4 photos the message popped up that my internal memory was full on my camera.  No biggie, time to find my sd card.

I remembered I took it out this morning to offload the photos I took of Bubba curled up on the couch. I looked all around my pc, and I can’t find my card or my card reader. It looks like I’m going to have to drag my whole desk out to search behind and underneath it. When things fall behind this desk they drop into the dark abyss, and I can’t risk losing yet another sd card. I go through those things like hotcakes.

Simple Fix

I was in the middle of doing some scrapbooking earlier today when my sister called to tell me something was seriously wrong with her desktop computer. Funny thing is I already have her laptop here because it’s so gunked up with viruses it needs a serious cleaning. I’ll most likely end up backing up her stuff and taking the easy way out on that one with a reformat, but I’m waiting on her new power cord to come in since her old one quit working on her.

So when she called today I thought oh no here we go again.  What did she do this time?  She dropped the system off about an hour ago, and after I finished the tweaking I was doing to our own computers, I settled down to working on hers.  I was pleasantly surprised to see she hasn’t gunked this one up.  Her problem is actually a very simple one.  Somehow she’s suddenly missing two jumper caps on the motherboard.  I snitched two off one of my computer, tested it, and she was running fine again.

Now normally I keep a whole supply of extra parts around here.  I’ve got a box of random case screws, nuts, bolts, etc that I need for various repair jobs.  I was positive I had at least a handful of extra jumper caps in there as well, but apparently I was wrong.  I searched high and low on old motherboards I still haven’t parted with, and it looks like I’ve already used all the extras I had.  I called her to tell her the bad news.

I can have your computer fixed in two seconds, but I have to order the parts. 

Doesn’t that always suck?  Now I have to order an entire accessory kit for $20 just to get the 2 jumpers I need unless I can find some on Ebay.  On second thought I think I’ll swing by the computer repair shop in town tomorrow to see if they’d be willing to part with two.