Almost there
Dec. 23rd, 2010 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoAnd a good thing too, as I'm running out of steam.
Dentist this morning. Landscape on the way into Park Ridge was beautiful, especially wherever the road crossed a river. Apparently there were large pockets of freezing fog last night, and the result is trees covered with sparkling white hoarfrost. It was clear and sunny this morning, illuminating that view like something out of Currier & Ives. Traffic only moderate, to my surprise, even around the big shopping malls and airport. I suppose the crunch will come tomorrow.
Checkup and cleaning were fine, dentist says she wants to replace an old filling but it's not an emergency so we scheduled it to go along with my next checkup in June.
Gary did my barn chores (it's my day) unexpectedly, but he wanted to hit a grocery store for some last minute things, so I took him to lunch and we stopped at a wine shop and the grocery. He's baking cookies now, I'll make dinner, then we have packages to wrap. Shopping completed.
His big gift from me won't arrive until next week. I tried last year to get him to let me buy him a laptop but he put me off. This time he was convinced that he should have one when the next school term starts. I suggested a modern but modest 15 inch screen model from Dell. He said he'd look at it. The next day, though, he showed me a fully loaded 17 inch screen model from HP for almost the same price after a rebate (Intel Core i3, 2G RAM, 500G HD, Win 7 and the usual promotional and trial software.) His two fellow musicians from The Kishwaukee Ramblers had just each bought the same model from Office Depot. I pointed out that it was on the heavy side and that larger meant more fragile, but he's sure that's what he wants. Went to order it and the website said "out of stock" but indicated a couple of stores that might still have them in inventory. Prepared to send him on a wild goose chase this morning, I tried again at 6 am and my order went through. Evidently they run some inventory updates overnight and the reconciliation found that they still had stock. So that's done. He'll want a carrying bag and a cordless mouse for it, I'm sure, but those are easy to get.
This evening, to demonstrate the differences between our approaches to computing, I went back to EBay to look once more at Linux netbooks with solid state drives. I've wanted to try one of these for a while, and new ones have pretty much disappeared from the market. (I think this is partly due to Microsoft's punitive policies toward OEMs who sell machines with no OS or Linux at a lower price than the same machine with Windoze.) Anyway, I found an ASUS eeePC 900 new in opened box, with all pieces and guaranteed. It has a 20G solid state drive, 1G RAM, Celeron-M processor and the usual features, with a 9 inch screen at about a third of the original new retail price. Ordered, should arrive next week as well. So we're having a computer Christmas here. Once I move that wireless router from under my desk and hang it on the wall outside my office door, we'll have net access everywhere in the house. (Shower possible but not recommended.)
I think the real Christmas present is the new dog, though. He still has the counter-cruising issue, which will have to be trained out and I know we can do that. Otherwise, he's really excellent and just what Gary wanted I think. The vet says his blood tests indicate the thyroid meds are the correct dosage, which is quite small and relatively cheap. He has no other health issues now. He learns new things well, and rarely complains even about being crated when we have to go out and can't leave him loose. I hope eventually he will settle down and stop prospecting for food, so we can leave him with the run of the house and access to the dog door as our other dogs have always had. He gets along well with my old dog Simon and with the cats, which is perfect.
Tomorrow we go to Gary's mom's house, bringing most of dinner for ten or so with us. At least the animal care obligations let us get away and return home by a reasonable hour. Then the rest of the weekend is ours. Well, almost. He'll have to go to be in the choir for midnight mass. After that, though, only the animals' needs will distract us from whatever we feel like doing. Yay.
Dentist this morning. Landscape on the way into Park Ridge was beautiful, especially wherever the road crossed a river. Apparently there were large pockets of freezing fog last night, and the result is trees covered with sparkling white hoarfrost. It was clear and sunny this morning, illuminating that view like something out of Currier & Ives. Traffic only moderate, to my surprise, even around the big shopping malls and airport. I suppose the crunch will come tomorrow.
Checkup and cleaning were fine, dentist says she wants to replace an old filling but it's not an emergency so we scheduled it to go along with my next checkup in June.
Gary did my barn chores (it's my day) unexpectedly, but he wanted to hit a grocery store for some last minute things, so I took him to lunch and we stopped at a wine shop and the grocery. He's baking cookies now, I'll make dinner, then we have packages to wrap. Shopping completed.
His big gift from me won't arrive until next week. I tried last year to get him to let me buy him a laptop but he put me off. This time he was convinced that he should have one when the next school term starts. I suggested a modern but modest 15 inch screen model from Dell. He said he'd look at it. The next day, though, he showed me a fully loaded 17 inch screen model from HP for almost the same price after a rebate (Intel Core i3, 2G RAM, 500G HD, Win 7 and the usual promotional and trial software.) His two fellow musicians from The Kishwaukee Ramblers had just each bought the same model from Office Depot. I pointed out that it was on the heavy side and that larger meant more fragile, but he's sure that's what he wants. Went to order it and the website said "out of stock" but indicated a couple of stores that might still have them in inventory. Prepared to send him on a wild goose chase this morning, I tried again at 6 am and my order went through. Evidently they run some inventory updates overnight and the reconciliation found that they still had stock. So that's done. He'll want a carrying bag and a cordless mouse for it, I'm sure, but those are easy to get.
This evening, to demonstrate the differences between our approaches to computing, I went back to EBay to look once more at Linux netbooks with solid state drives. I've wanted to try one of these for a while, and new ones have pretty much disappeared from the market. (I think this is partly due to Microsoft's punitive policies toward OEMs who sell machines with no OS or Linux at a lower price than the same machine with Windoze.) Anyway, I found an ASUS eeePC 900 new in opened box, with all pieces and guaranteed. It has a 20G solid state drive, 1G RAM, Celeron-M processor and the usual features, with a 9 inch screen at about a third of the original new retail price. Ordered, should arrive next week as well. So we're having a computer Christmas here. Once I move that wireless router from under my desk and hang it on the wall outside my office door, we'll have net access everywhere in the house. (Shower possible but not recommended.)
I think the real Christmas present is the new dog, though. He still has the counter-cruising issue, which will have to be trained out and I know we can do that. Otherwise, he's really excellent and just what Gary wanted I think. The vet says his blood tests indicate the thyroid meds are the correct dosage, which is quite small and relatively cheap. He has no other health issues now. He learns new things well, and rarely complains even about being crated when we have to go out and can't leave him loose. I hope eventually he will settle down and stop prospecting for food, so we can leave him with the run of the house and access to the dog door as our other dogs have always had. He gets along well with my old dog Simon and with the cats, which is perfect.
Tomorrow we go to Gary's mom's house, bringing most of dinner for ten or so with us. At least the animal care obligations let us get away and return home by a reasonable hour. Then the rest of the weekend is ours. Well, almost. He'll have to go to be in the choir for midnight mass. After that, though, only the animals' needs will distract us from whatever we feel like doing. Yay.
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